Tag: @cbcarey

CDs, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Metropolitan Opera

Best Recordings of 2019

Recording of the Year: Terry Riley, Sun Rings, Kronos Quartet, Volti (Nonesuch)

            Terry Riley’s 2002 work Sun Rings simultaneously celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Voyager exploration and soberly reflects on September 11, 2001. Kronos Quartet, longtime collaborators with Riley, the ethereal voices of Volti, and a collection of space sounds are combined to create a fascinating and engaging amalgam. An exhilarating ride through the various styles that Riley has at his disposal.

Best Recordings of 2019 (in no particular order)

  • Terry Riley, Sun Rings, Kronos Quartet, Volti (Nonesuch)
  • Matana Roberts, COIN COIN Chapter Four: Memphis (Constellation)
  • Heinz Holliger and György Kurtág, Zwiegespräche (ECM)
  • Andrew Norman, Sustain, Los Angeles Philharmonic – Gustavo Dudamel (Deutsche Grammophon)
  • Bonnie Prince Billy, I Made a Place (Drag City)
  • Igor Levit, Beethoven Piano Sonatas (Sony Classical)
  • Thomas Zehetmair, Sei Solo – The Sonatas and Partitas (ECM)
  • John Luther Adams, Become Desert, Seattle Symphony – Ludovic Morlot (Cantaloupe)
  • Philip Glass, Symphony 5, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Downtown Voices, Trinity Youth Chorus, Novus NY – Julian Wachner (Orange Mountain)
  • Cipriano de Rore, I madrigali a cinque voci, Blue Heron – Scott Metcalfe (Blue Heron)
  • Johannes Ockeghem, Complete Songs, Volume 1, Blue Heron – Scott Metcalfe (Blue Heron)
  • Six Organs of Admittance, Companion Rises (Drag City)
  • Dominique Schafer, Vers une présence réelle (Kairos)
  • Leo Svirsky, River Without Banks (Unseen Worlds)
  • Christian Wolff, Preludes, Studies, Variations, and Incidental Music, Philip Thomas (Sub Rosa)
  • Caroline Shaw, Orange (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)
  • andPlay, Playlist (New Focus)
  • Jan Garbarek and Hilliard Ensemble, Remember Me, My Dear (ECM)
  • Lucas Debargue, Scarlatti: 52 Sonatas (Sony Classical)
  • Cassandra Miller, Songs About Singing, Plus-Minus Ensemble (All That Dust)
  • Sarah Hennies, Reservoir 1 (Black Truffle)
  • Jenny Hval, The Practice of Love (Sacred Bones)
  • Sergei Rachmaninov, Arrival, Daniil Trifonov, Philadelphia Orchestra – Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Deutsche Grammophon)
  • Kali Malone, The Sacrificial Code (iDeal)
  • Stile Antico, A Spanish Nativity (Harmonia Mundi)
  • David Torn, Tim Berne, Ches Smith, Sun of Goldfinger (ECM)
  • Ka Baird, Respires (RVNG)
  • David Byrne, American Utopia (Nonesuch)
  • Þuríður Jónsdóttir, Halldór Smárason, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, and Hafliði Hallgrímsson, Vernacular, Sæun Thorsteinsdóttir (Sono Luminus)
  • Matt Mitchell, Phalanx Ambassadors (Pi)
  • Julian Anderson, Poetry Nearing Silence (NMC)
  • Jaimie Branch, FLY or DIE II: Bird Dogs of Paradise (International Anthem)
  • FKA Twigs, Magdalene (Young Turks)
  • Kris Davis, Diatom Ribbons (Pyroclastic)
  • Angel Olsen, All Mirrors (Jagjaguwar)
  • Guided by Voices, Sweating the Plague (GBV)
  • Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Haukur Tómasson, Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, and Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Concurrence, Víkingur Ólafsson, Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, Iceland Symphony Orchestra – Daniel Bjarnason (Sono Luminus)
  • Michael Finnissy, Vocal Works 1974-2015, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, James Weeks (Winter and Winter)
  • Emmanuel Nunes, Eivend Buene, Andreas Dohmen, Márton Illés, Chaya Czernowin, Donaueschinger Musiktage 2017 (Neos)
  • Minor Pieces, The Heavy Steps of Dreaming (Fat Cat)
  • Zosha di Castri, Tachitipo (New Focus)
  • Morton Feldman, Piano, Philip Thomas (Another Timbre)
  • Aaron Copland, Billy the Kid and Grohg, Detroit Symphony – Leonard Slatkin (Naxos)
  • Ivo Perelman, Matt Maneri, Nate Wooley, Matthew Shipp, Strings 4 (Leo)
  • Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders, Chaya Czernowin,  Mirela Ivičević, and Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Speak Be Silent, Riot Ensemble – Aaron Holloway-Nahum (Huddersfield-NMC)
  • Saariaho, Schleirmacher, Werthmüller, Sturm, Ensemble Musikfabrik (Wergo)
  • Josquin and Bauldeweyn, Missa Mater Patris, Missa Da Pacem, Tallis Scholars (Gimell)
  • Antoine Beuger, Traces of Eternity: Of What is Yet to Be (Editions Wandelweiser)
  • Richard Barrett, Timothy McCormack, Liza Lim, World-line, ELISION (Huddersfield NMC)
  • George Perle, Serenades (BMOP)
  • György Kurtág, The Edge of Silence, Susan Narucki (Avie)
  • American Football, American Football LP3 (Polyvinyl)
  • Julia Kent, Temporal (Leaf)
  • The Comet is Coming, Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery (Impulse)
  • Pan American, A Son (Kranky)
  • William Basinski, On Time Out of Time (Temporary Residence)
  • Shasta Cults, S/T (Important)
  • Harry Partch, Sonata Dementia, PARTCH (Bridge)
  • Robert Erickson, Duos, Fives, Quintet, Trio, Camera Lucida (New World)
  • James Tenney, Changes 64 Studies for 6 Harps (New World)

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Stile Antico – A Spanish Nativity (CD Review)

A Spanish Nativity

Stile Antico

Harmonia Mundi 902312

The “Golden Age” of Spanish polyphony (during the sixteenth century) yielded a number of pieces suitable for Christmastime by some of the finest composers of the Renaissance: Tomás Luis de Victoria, Franciso Guerrero, and Cristóbal de Morales. On the a cappella vocal group Stile Antico’s latest disc, A Spanish Nativity, these leading lights are set alongside Alonso Lobo, Mateo Flecha el Viejo, and Pedro Rimonte; all three’s music is worthy of revival.

The dozen singers of Stile Antico create an extraordinarily well-blended sound on Victoria’s great motet “O Magnum Mysterium,” Guerrero’s “Beata Dei genitrix Maria,” and the Lobo mass based upon it. The contrapuntal sections are clearly delineated and the chordal passages are resonant and beautifully tuned. Lobo adeptly parodied the textures of Guerrero’s motet while significantly embellishing the source material. It makes the case for Lobo’s music to be far better known. This appears at least somewhat likely; of late ensembles are making the case both for him and for Mateo Flecha – one is glad to see them having a moment.

Stile Antico is equally adept at the syncopated dance rhythms of Guerrero’s “A un niño llorando,” Rimonte’s “De la piel de sus ovejas,” and Flecha’s “El jubilate” and “Ríu ríu chíu.” The juxtaposition of motet and villancico (a ‘peasant song’) shows the range that Guerrero was able to employ in his work. Flecha was the premiere purveyor of “Ensaladas,” (yes, salads), quodlibets of secular songs that are nearly always about the nativity. Those programmed here are among his most famous Ensaladas.

The recording closes with a beautiful selection, Morale’s motet “Cum natus esset Jesus.” Built around a canon between the alto and soprano, its technical rigor is no impediment to beautifully flowing lines and deftly crafted cadences.

A Spanish Nativity is highly recommended, as is Stile Antico’s other 2019 release, In A Strange Land – Elizabethan Composers in Exile, which features music by recusant Catholic composers during the time of Elizabeth I. The ensemble has had quite a year and one waits expectantly for their next project in the studio – as well as their next concert tour of the United States.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Choral Music, Concert review, File Under?

Vienna Boys Choir at Carnegie Hall

Photo: Lukas Beck.

Vienna Boys Choir

Carnegie Hall

December 8, 2019

By Christian Carey

NEW YORK – On Sunday, the Vienna Boys Choir performed a Christmas program at Carnegie Hall. It included much standard Christmas fare, both carols and pops selections. However, there were also a number of more substantial pieces, both Renaissance polyphony and 20/21st century music. The superlative musicianship of both the choir and its director/pianist Manuel Huber were impressive throughout, and the flexibility in navigating the various styles of the programmed music seamlessly was noteworthy. 

Although the membership rotates through some hundred members at a given time, with various touring groups and educational activities, the sound of the choir remains distinctive. Unlike English boys choirs, the sound up top is narrower yet retains a bell-like consistency. Several members of the group are in the midst of their voices changing, which allowed for tenor and baritone registers to be accessed in select places. The retention of adolescents not only allows for the group’s larger compass, it is also a compassionate way to treat young people, flouting the long tradition of dismissing choristers whose voices have “broken.” 

The choir entered from offstage singing plainchant. This was followed by a selection of Latin church music by Palestrina, Duruflé, Salazar, and Verdi. The latter piece was the most taxing on the program and the singers navigated it with aplomb. Gerald Wirth has long been the music director for Vienna Boys Choir, arranging and composing pieces for the group. The Sanctus-Benedictus from his Missa-apostolica showed the choir’s voices to best advantage. Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s pentatonic vocalization of Gamelan sounds was another winning selection. A nod to America included “I Bought Me a Cat” from Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs, “Somewhere” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, and Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.” On the pops selections, choirmaster Manuel Huber provided jaunty accompaniments at the piano with cocktail jazz embellishments.

The second half of the program was divided between carols and pops selections. Es ist ein Rose entsprungen, Adeste Fideles, O Holy Night, and others were performed with gossamer tone and considerable musicianship, putting paid the many stolid renditions one must endure during the holiday shopping season. A new carol to me, Es Wird sho glei dumpa, from Upper Austria, will certainly feature in my own Christmas performances in the future. 

The closing set of pops numbers included “White Christmas” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” – it was once again impressive to hear the change in tone the choir was able to adopt between stylistic margins of the program. The inclusion of “Let it Snow,” which is more suggestive than the other pops tunes, marked a questionable choice. Ending with “Stille Nacht” made far more sense for this fine group of young singers.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Tallis Scholars: New CD, Concerts in Princeton and New York this Weekend

Now in their forty-sixth year of singing, the Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, have long made an annual December concert at Church of St. Mary the Virgin in midtown Manhattan a stop on their winter tour. Part of Miller Theatre’s Early Music Series, these concerts have focused on Renaissance polyphony, but there have also been some noteworthy new works on the programs. They frequently program the music of Arvo Pärt. Last year’s concert featured the premiere of a piece for the Tallis Scholars written by Nico Muhly.

However, this year an imaginative program, titled “Reflections” is on offer that interweaves selections based on different liturgical sections, bringing together composers from England and on the Continent active throughout the Renaissance as well as twentieth century French composers Francis Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen.

The group is nearing the completion of its edition of Josquin’s Masses. Their latest recording of Missa Mater Patris and Missa Da Pacem (Gimell CD, 2019), presents pieces whose attribution has been the matter of some controversy. The former mass is based on music by Brumel, which would be the only such borrowing by Josquin, contains some uncharacteristic blocks of homophony at strategic places and fewer of the composer’s signature imitative duos. So, is it a misattribution? Without stating anything categorically, in his characteristically erudite liner notes Phillips suggests the Brumel connection might place the mass in 1512 or 1513, shortly after Brumel’s death as an homage to a composer friend; this would make it one of the last two mass settings we have by Josquin. The source material might help to account for the different approach.

Whether Josquin wrote it or someone else, Missa Mater Patris contains some much fine music that is superlatively sung on the Gimmell CD. The Hosanna sections of the Sanctus and Benedictus, borrowing cascades in thirds from the Brumel motet, is both fleet and exuberant. The Agnus Dei III is another section where the contributions of Brumel are expertly integrated.

Phillips relates that, from the nineteenth century to relatively recently, Missa Da Pacem was held up as an example of the Josquinian style. Recent discoveries have suggested another author, Noel Bauldeweyn (Beauty Farm recently released a fine disc of this lesser known composer’s masses). Phillips is not entirely willing to concede that Da Pacem isn’t Josquin’s, he instead mentions passages that seem to point to one and then the other author and leaves the listener a chance to judge – and savor – for themselves.

CONCERT DETAILS

PROGRAM

Salve Regina

Chant: Salve Regina

Padilla: Salve Regina

Poulenc: Salve Regina

Cornysh: Salve Regina

Ave Maria

Chant: Ave Maria

Cornysh: Ave Maria

Poulenc: Ave Maria a10 (arr. Jeremy White)

Miserere

Allegri: Miserere

Croce: Miserere Mei

O sacrum convivium

Tallis: O sacrum convivium

Messiaen: O sacrum convivium

Magnificat

Byrd: Magnificat from Short Service

Victoria: Magnificat Primi Toni 

Princeton, New Jersey, USA

McCarter Theatre

December 13, 2019, 8 PM

Church of St. Mary the Virgin, New York, USA

December 14, 2019, 8 PM

by Christian Carey
BMOP, CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

BMOP Plays Perle (CD Review)

George Perle

Serenades

Boston Modern Orchestra Project

Gil Rose, conductor

BMOP Sound

Composer George Perle passed away a decade ago, but his music has remained part of the repertory. This is noteworthy in that, upon their deaths, many composers are eclipsed for a time. An excellent example of the resilience of Perle’s work is a new recording on BMOP Sound. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project, conducted by Gil Rose, presents a disc of Perle’s Serenades: one featuring viola soloist Wenting Kang, another featuring piano soloist Donald Berman, and another for a chamber orchestra of eleven players.

Serenade No. 1, which features Kang, is deftly scored to accommodate the tenor/alto register of the viola, allowing the other members of the ensemble to move astride the soloist in the soprano and bass registers. The violist is supplied a fair amount of virtuosity to navigate, as well as the lyricism to which the instrument frequently adheres. The piece is cast in five movements, beginning with a Rondo and traversing through Ostinato, Recitative, Scherzo, and Coda. As is customary in Perle’s “12-tone tonality approach,” Bergian row-types, that allow for triads to appear in the midst of post-tonal harmony, make for varied and attractive pitch structures. Kang plays with considerable fluidity and appealing tone.

Serenade for Eleven Players is like a concerto for orchestra in miniature, also configured in five movements. The first movement begins with stentorian brass pitted against staccato piano shuffles and string solos. The timpani thwacks tritones instead of fifths, and wind chords provide a piquant underpinning. Later, sinuous saxophone lines are offset by angular piano arpeggiations and countered by string solos and trills from the remaining winds. The third movement has a mournful cello solo set against pensive lines in the winds. Bustling counterpoint fills the fourth movement with a number of jump cuts between textural blocks. The finale begins stealthily with chordal stabs juxtaposed against melodies in multiple tempi that build in intensity. There is a pullback before the finish that telegraphs a gentle coda. The piece as a whole is reminiscent of Schoenberg’s early post-tonal music.

Donald Berman is the piano soloist in Serenade No. 3, again a five-movement work consisting of pithy sections. Here, however, instead of Schoenberg or Berg, Perle explores a sound world akin to that of Stravinsky’s 12-tone concerto Movements. Twelve-tone tonality can be deployed in a manner similar to Stravinsky’s own idiosyncratic approach to serialism, rotational arrays. Both these details of pitch and the general muscularity of the gestural palette, again made up of blocks of material, allow us to hear Perle through a different lens of influence. Berman does a marvelous job with the solo part, playing incisively with rhythmic precision and precise coordination with the ensemble.

Rose leads BMOP through all three serenades with characteristic attention to detail and balance. The players prepared well for this challenging program. Better advocates would not have been the wish of the composer. Kudos to BMOP for keeping Perle’s memory and music alive. This disc handily makes my Best of 2019 list.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?

Become Desert

Become Desert

John Luther Adams

Seattle Symphony, Seattle Symphony Chorale, Ludovic Morlot, conductor

Cantaloupe Music

“Become Desert is both a celebration of the deserts we are given, and a lamentation of the deserts we create.” – John Luther Adams

Born in Mississippi, John Luther Adams first came to the attention of listeners as a composer and author based in Alaska, where he lived and worked for some forty years. Pieces such as Inuksuit, The Place Where You Go to Listen, and Dream in White on White are eloquent expressions of Adams’ time there and how it impacted him both as a creator and as a person. His book, Winter Music, is a required text for composers, as well as an accessible read of significant appeal to non-musicians. In a remarkable change of pace, Adams has recently moved to the desert, staying in Mexico and Chile.

In 2013, Adams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for Become Ocean, a work for the Seattle Symphony that mourned the rising seas caused by climate change, posing a timely questions: would land-roaming creatures, humans among them, be subsumed and return to the waters from whence they came. Since then, the piece has become a trilogy, followed by Become River and now Become Desert. The latest piece deals with climate change’s impact on water supply and the effects of warming in dry climates.

Like its performance and recording of Become Ocean, the Seattle Symphony, conducted by Ludovic Morlot, creates beguiling sounds eloquently shaped in their rendition of Become Desert. Whereas the former piece had an apocalyptic cast, moving from low to high and then cascading, the latter is filled with bells and chimes and sustained chords, creating the aura of aridity and hazy lights so appropriate to its subject matter. Partway through, rolling drums give us the only hit of respite from dryness, thundering against reiterated brass chords. Harps and plenty of sixth chords recall Impressionism, while the insistent repetition of overtone chords provides a spectral cast. Its end is a deliciously long denouement leaving us with faint chimes that evoke the piece’s opening.

Become Desert is one of the best recordings of contemporary music of 2019. Recommended.

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Dominique Schafer on Kairos (CD Review)

Dominique Schafer

Vers une présence réelle

Ensemble Proton Bern, Matthias Kuhn, conducter

Kairos CD 0015036KAI

Born in 1967, Swiss composer Dominique Schafer spent time in Paris and Boston before taking up his present academic position at Chapman University in California. This is his first monograph CD. Ensemble Proto Bern supplies the recording’s eloquent performances, illuminating intricate timbres and revelling in the rhythmic intricacies of Schafer’s music. 

While musical style and geography of scenes aren’t always complimentary, Schafer’s time in Paris is a clear point of departure for post-spectralist works Cendre, for bass flute and 8-channel electronics, and Ringwood, for clarinet and live electronics. Both flutist Bettina Berger and clarinetist Richard Haynes are estimable advocates who take extended techniques in stride. Microtones and colorful alternate fingerings are haloed by electronically deployed harmonic series.The varied, muscular gestural palette that ensemble works such as the title composition, Anima, and INFR-A-KTION possess suggests that Schafer’s time at Harvard may have imbued his work with more than a hint of East coast modernism. Whatever the source of his inspiration, Schafer’s is an attractive, polyglot musical language.  

Vers une présence réelle  demonstrates the variety Schafer seamlessly brings to bear. Verticals are frequently treated to intervals that fall outside of the equal temperament spectrum, coloring chords with tart microtones and overblown howls. Piano and harp, both playing in equal temperament, supply a contrasting harmonic spectrum. These are offset by half-step oscillations and repeated notes in the strings and dissonant trumpet fanfares. Surging wind harmonics, contrasted by wide-ranging piano arpeggiations and flurries of violin, populate the coda with echoes of the main body of the piece.   

The instrumentation of most of the pieces can be accommodated by standard instrumentation. However, INFR-A-KTION features lupophone, an extremely low oboe, played by Martin Bligginstorfer, and contraforte, a contrabassoon on steroids played by Elise Jacoberger.  The overall registral deployment of the piece sits low, providing a sepulchral environment in which to hear these portentous low winds to good effect. Strings arc overhead, playing angular filigrees in contrast to the bass register utterances.  

Vers une présence réelle provides an excellent introduction to the breadth of expression in Dominique Schafer’s music. One eagerly awaits future recorded documentation, perhaps of some of his orchestra music.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Erika Fox – Paths (CD Review)

Erika Fox

Paths

Goldsfield Ensemble, Richard Baker, conductor

NMC Recordings

Once one hears Paths, the octogenarian Erika Fox’s first CD, their first reaction may mirror mine: one of incredulity. How is it possible that a composer this talented with such a distinctive and assured musical voice had to wait so long for a monograph recording? To their credit, NMC has been a strong advocate of female composers for a number of years; I’ve recently been enjoying their recordings of Elizabeth Lutyens’s music. Thank goodness they have partnered with the Goldfield Ensemble to present Fox’s work while she is still alive to hear the results.

Born in Vienna in 1936, Fox was a war refugee who moved as a child to England. Her music is strongly infused with cultural heritage; Chasidic chant plays a large role in its conceptual framework. A strong sense of linearity is offset by a piquant harmonic palette and lively rhythms. In addition to a deft hand with pitched instruments, the works on Paths display Fox’s imaginative sense of timbre in her use of percussion. Goldfield had to retain a large battery of instruments to realize the CD’s program. Ensemble member Kate Romano points out in personable and informative liner notes that traditional development isn’t deployed. Instead a single line will weave discontinuous musical arguments that don’t return for a recapitulatory visit. 

The CD begins withPaths Where the Mourners Tread,a substantial work in which the aforementioned linear narrative is passed from instrument to instrument. One gets the sense of wending through a labyrinth of contrasting textures, holding on to the aforementioned linear thread like breadcrumbs through the forest. Fox’s provides a delightful, mysterious sound world in which to get lost. This is equally true of Quasi una Cadenza, which contains beguiling writing for winds. A downloadable bonus track, Kaleidoscope, is equally varied and compelling.

Pianist Richard Uttley supplies an incisive and persuasive performance of the solo work On Visiting Stravinsky’s Grave at San Michele, where Fox embraces the influence of other composers. Blocks of material and incisive rhythms evoke Stravinsky, particularly his late dodecaphonic pieces. There is also a hint of Messiaen in the bird call-like cries of the upper line. Another piece indebted to a twentieth century composer is Malinconia Militaire, which is based on a poem that references Anton Webern’s Opus 4 songs. 

Café Warsaw 1944 closes the CD. It is a piece inspired by the Czeslaw Milosz poem “Café. All four, relatively brief, movements, are led by the percussion section. The poem’s discussion of “the quick and the dead” and the small distance between them once again inspires Fox to inhabit the work of the Second Viennese School, but pointillism and chromaticism are contrasted with repeated chords and arpeggiations from the piano and taut percussion lines. 

Fox’s music often seeks rapprochement with the past, addressing the experiences of her refugee childhood and Jewish background as well as the ghosts of midcentury concert music. Still, the manner in which the composer synthesizes these elements supplies vividness and urgency very much in keeping with present day concerns. The Goldfield Ensemble plays assuredly throughout, giving these underserved works excellent documentation. Now it is up to the rest of the musical world to take up Fox’s compelling music and make it much more widely known. One hopes this will happen forthwith. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

CD Review: Riot Ensemble

Speak, Be Silent

Riot Ensemble, Aaron Holloway-Nahum, conductor

Works by Chaya Czernowin, Anna Thorvaldsdóttor, Mirela Ivičević, Liza Lim, and Rebecca Saunders

Huddersfield Contemporary Records HCR20CD

2019


Riot Ensemble’s latest CD features five works by female composers who hail from a diverse group of countries: Israel, Iceland, Croatia, Australia, and the UK. Speak, Be Silentcomes at a time when, coinciding with overdue shifts in the broader culture, raising awareness of the abundant diversity of contemporary composers making vital music has taken on especial urgency. All of the pieces on Speak, Be Silent are recent; the earliest is from 2008. Thus, the CD also serves as a catalog of what vanguard composers are doing today.

Ayre: Towed through plumes, thicket, asphalt, sawdust and hazardous air I shall not forget the sound of, by Chaya Czernowin, incorporates all manner of noises alongside microtonal verticals and just a taste of the melodic line, often glissando, that its title suggests. It is a powerful piece in which Czernowin deploys a wide-ranging sonic palette with sure-footed trajectory. Ayre’s close sounds like the slamming of a plethora of recalcitrant, squeaky doors: a strongly articulated gesture of finality. 

Ró, by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, employs a more delicate palette, with sustained pitches building shimmering overtone chords that are punctuated by gentle solos and occasional articulations from the harp and the percussion section. Ró features sumptuous wind and string writing, with duets succeeding the aforementioned solos in sinuous counterpoint. Pacing is slow, deliciously so, and the final cadence serves as both harmonic and gestural closure.

Mirela Ivicevic’sBaby Magnify/Lilith’s New Toy is an acerbic piece with clangor at key points interspersed with uneasily spacious phrases. Ivicevic’s use of percussion as both a motor and for accentuation is effective. The piece builds to a plethora of sliding tones and wind multiphonics, serving as a convincing counterweight to a battery of chiming pitches and stalwart drums. 

The title work, by Liza Lim, is the most substantial on the CD. Cast in three movements, it is a chamber concerto for violin. Soloist Sarah Saviet plays impressively with nimble musicality and a silvery tone. Lim creates a shimmering, sinuous harmonic fabric. The orchestration is vivid. Lim provides each section of the ensemble a chance to interact with the soloist, who withstands brash brass interpolations and chattering percussion but firmly stands her ground, each interruption giving rise to an ever more virtuosic solo response. Finally, pitched percussion, winds and strings get their spotlight turns, nearly upending the soloist’s ever more vigorous cadenza. Just when you think that there will never be accord between ensemble and soloist, a heterophonic line develops between them, followed by a richly scored climax and a cadenza that serves as a scalar denouement.  

The recording concludes with Rebecca Saunders’ Stirrings Still III. Vertiginous harmonics are haloed by piano chords and icy woodwind countermelodies. Like Thorvaldsdottir, Saunders adopts a slow gait, but Stirrings takes on a pervasively pensive, rather than spacious, ambiance. About two thirds of the way through, sustained lines, rumbling brass, and timpani impart a degree of urgency, but this is soon banished to return to more or less the original unsettled demeanor, which gradually vanishes. 

The Riot Ensemble, conducted by Aaron Holloway-Nahum, plays skillfully throughout, attending to each score’s myriad details. it is worth noting that the disc’s aesthetic touches, from appealing artwork and riveting sound to an engaging liner notes essay by Tim Rutherford-Johnson, are potent reminders that a physical artifact trumps the current craze for booklet-less (information-less) and sonically compromised streaming. Speak, Be Silent is one of 2019’s best recordings and certainly one of its most culturally relevant ones as well. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, New York, Orchestras

Saturday: League of Composers Season Finale

On Saturday June 1st at Miller Theatre at 7:30 PM, Louis Karchin and David Fulmer will lead the Orchestra of the League of Composers in a program of contemporary works, including two premieres. 

Karchin’s premiered work is Four Songs on Poems by Seamus Heaney, performed by soprano Heather Buck. Since I heard her in the title role of Charles Wuorinen’s opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories, I have been a great admirer of Buck’s singing . Heaney’s poetry is another touchstone, making this work one I am particularly keen to hear.

Friedrich Heinrich Kern will perform his commissioned piece for glass harmonica and orchestra with the ensemble. Kern is a virtuoso glass harmonica player, and the choreographic component of pieces for this instrument, in addition to the attractive language in which Kern composes, promises something very different from the usual fare at League concerts. 

Curtis Macomber, a mainstay on the New York new music scene, will be the soloist in Martin Boykan’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. To celebrate Thea Musgrave’s ninetieth birthday, the strings of the orchestra will perform the composer’s Aurora. 

Event Details

Orchestra of the League of Composers
 
Saturday, June 1, 2019, 7:30 PM
Miller Theatre at Columbia University
 
Louis Karchin, Music Director and Conductor
David Fulmer, Conductor
Heather Buck, Soprano
Curtis Macomber, Violin soloist
 
Martin Boykan: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Louis Karchin: Four Songs on Poems on Seamus Heaney
Friedrich Heinrich Kern: Von Taufedern und Sternen (Of Dew Feathers and Stars)
Thea Musgrave: Aurora, for string orchestra
General Admission $30, Students/Seniors $15
Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at http://bit.ly/league2019

by Christian Carey