Tag: @cbcarey

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Dance, File Under?

Thomas Adés – Dante (CD/DVD review)

Thomas Adés 

Dante

Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Symphony, Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Nonesuch CD

 

Thomas Adés

The Dante Project

London Symphony Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Koen Kessels, conductor

Opus Arte Bluray DVD

 

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to use Dante as the centerpiece of one’s own creative work. Thomas Adés has courage in spades, as he has created an ambitious  ballet based on the Divine Comedy, for dancers, chorus, and orchestra, commemorating the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death. Two documents of the piece are currently available, a Nonesuch recording of the Los Angeles Symphony, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and an Opus Arte Bluray DVD.

 

Dudamel is firmly in command of the concert version of Dante, balancing its powerful, often intricate, orchestration. The vivid imagery of the poem is ideal material for Adés to use the leitmotifs that so often appear in his theatrical work. In The Inferno section, the “Abandon All Hope” motif, which opens the ballet, is memorable in its angst-filled stridency, “The Ferryman” contains a recurring melody with exquisite writing in the winds, and the Dies Irae is given a set of suitably diabolical variations. “Paolo and Francesca – the endless whirlwind,” is dervish like in its peregrinations. “The Pope’s Adagio – Head First,” contains a soaring, neo-romantic melody. Immediately followed by “The Hypocrites – coated in lead,” which nicely juxtaposes the Pope’s music with slowly moving, low register chromaticism and an inexorable drumbeat. “The Thieves – devoured by reptiles” depicts the chase between condemned and tormentors in a quick dance that, more than anything else in the ballet, channels Tchaikovsky.

 

Some truly terrifying music ensues: the timpani and howling lower brass for “The suicides,” followed by cymbals and upward wind glissandos, has echoes of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. “Satan – in the lake of ice” closes the Inferno section with a harrowing slow movement with dissonant brass chorales juxtaposed with shimmering high winds and strings. It is among the most moving sections of the work.

 

Recorded voices of an ancient Syrian Jewish prayer are intoned at the beginning of Purgatorio, its accompanying music depicting “Dawn on the Sea of Purgatory,” with the sound of recorded waves and modal interludes that resemble the scales being chanted. Voices reappear in “Valley of Flowers” alongside a Middle Eastern dance with ebullient percussion in whirling patterns that gradually speed up, only to be replaced by a slow cadenza. Recorded voices continue their singing and the strings take a long-threaded melody on “The Healing Fire.” Purgatorio in its final three movements begins to depict the uplift of souls to heaven. “The Earthly Paradise” uses a melody from the recorded voices in a brass-forward quick section that ends with a flourish. “The Heavenly Procession” slows the tempo back to that of the initial chanting of the prayer, which is accompanied by chiming punctuations, haloing strings, and an eloquent horn solo. “The Ascent” is triumphant, filled with ringing changes and ascending scales imitated in all the sections of the orchestra.

 

What follows is a compositional tour-de-force.  Paradisum is cast in a single, 27-minute long movement, with the following subsections, “Awakening – Moon – Mercury – Venus – Sun – Mars – Jupiter.” A slow build begins with “Awakening” that continues throughout, with a registral ascent and marshaling of forces culminating in the addition of chorus. Dudamel paces the piece with an exquisite sense of its long architecture, making sure that there is intensity left by the time the music reaches “Jupiter.” Adés’s incorporation of transformed versions of previous leitmotifs provides Paradisum with a sense of closure.  

The Opus Arte Bluray DVD features the Royal Ballet’s Edward Watson in his last performance after twenty-seven years as a principal dancer. Directed by Kevin O’Hare and choreographed by Wayne McGregor, it is a beautifully danced and visually arresting production. Watson, as Dante, and Gary Avis as Virgil, wear tunics, Avis’s gold and Watson’s moving from aqua to half-red/half aqua in Purgatorio, and entirely red in Paradisum. Likewise, the dancers in Inferno wear charcoal body suits and those in Purgatorio and Paradisum are, respectively, light tan and then white. The symbolism of color is complemented by solo and group dancing that varies from undulating modernism to, by the score’s conclusion, more traditional ballet. Sarah Lamb dances the part of Beatrice with graceful versatility, and Dante’s love for her is depicted in affecting choreography. Throughout, McGregor, with a keen ear for its orchestration, captures the essence of Adés’s score.

 

Do I prefer the audio recording or the film? Glad to not have to choose, as they are both excellent documents. Dante is a major work by Adés, and one of his best to date. Highly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Pop, Rock

Dear Tick – Emotional Contracts (CD Review)

Deer Tick

Emotional Contracts

ATO Records

 

Deer Tick’s first post-pandemic recording, Emotional Contracts (ATO), is produced by veteran Dave Fridmann, who has manned the console for the likes of Sleater-Kinney, The Flaming Lips, and Spoon. It retains many aspects of the sound Deer Tick has developed over the past two decades. A number of the songs are rousing rock anthems with a tinge of alt-country. “If I Try to Leave” falls into this category, but its lyrics chaff against the music’s uplifting demeanor, with the narrator asking how they would cope if they left their life, family and all, behind. The lyrics of “If She Could Only See Me Now” are those of a traditional rock breakup ballad, but the music and vocal provide an indignant sneer, suggesting this relationship is truly in the rearview mirror. 

 

The lineup for Deer Tick has been steady. The band’s founder singer/guitarist John McCauley is joined here by guitarist Ian O’Neil, drummer Dennis Ryan, and bassist Christopher Ryan. The group also enlists guest artists, Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), who adds keyboards and saxophone to some of the tracks, and background vocalists Courtney Marie Andrews, Kam Franklin, Angela Miller, Sheree Smith, and Vanessa Carlton.

 

Deer Tick has a reputation for creating music that is a bit scruff, rough around the edges even after it is recorded. One would imagine that their previous recordings involved tightening things up a bit during their sessions. In something of a role reversal, the band rehearsed (by their own admission, over rehearsed) the ten songs on Emotional Contracts for months in their slapdash rehearsal space in Providence, Rhode Island. When Deer Tick arrived in the studio to record, Fridmann had to encourage them to let go of the process, to allow the songs to redevelop into finished projects. The addition of the aforementioned guests opens up the sound. For instance, “Running from Love” has multiple vocalists and a chorus cooing in the background, and takes on a soul vibe.  The first single from Emotional Contracts was co-written by McCauley and O’Neil, with the latter taking lead vocals. A heavy rock beat on the verse is disrupted on the chorus by a Latin rhythm on the keyboard. The rhythmic juxtaposition is in part because the lyric sends us “South of the border,” but it also demonstrates the narrator’s fraught emotional state while dealing with trauma from earlier in life. “Grey Matter” leans into Deer Tick’s abiding affection for country.

 

“Once in a Lifetime” isn’t a cover. This original by McCauley features a jaunty bassline, tightly interlocked guitar parts, accordion, and dulcet vocal harmonies on the chorus. “My Ship” is a brief, doleful mid-tempo ballad with McCauley’s voice placed lower than usual. It includes varied harmonies that allow the band to delve into classic pop territory. 

 

“The Real Thing, “ the final track on Emotional Contracts, is a nine-minute opus addressing depression, from which McCauley has long suffered. He adds an edge to his voice, while the drums and bass hold down an inexorable groove, and guitars overlap and punctuate the proceedings with clarion chords. The middle section amplifies McCauley’s voice into a distorted mic, which is then responded to by his regular voice in a pain-filled hook. Guitars crest and then are abruptly cut off, only to have the hook return in full throttle. A nettled version of the melody appears in a guitar solo offset by a new keyboard riff, creating a long, instrumental coda. The song denies easy solutions, instead using the sharing of pain as catharsis. 

 

On Emotional Contracts, Deer Tick creates a melange of exuberance and pathos. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Timothy Schwarz – The Living American (CD Review)

 

Timothy Schwarz

The Living American

Albany Records

 

Violinist Timothy Schwarz has commissioned, performed, and recorded a number of pieces by contemporary composers. His latest release on Albany, The Living American, is a collection of recent pieces by American composers. 

 

Schwarz takes a “melting pot” approach to his program. It opens with the solo Fantasy on Lama Badaa yatsana,  written by Stephen Sametz, which explores alternate scales with frequent double-stops and harmonics alongside virtuosic melodic writing. Pianist Charles Abramovic joins Schwarz on a set of pieces by musical theater composer Joseph Goodrich. Indeed, C-minor Jam leans much closer to a theatrical version of jazz than one by legit jazzers, but it is an entertaining romp nonetheless. Goodrich’s Lacrimosa is a touching, lyrical work with, as one would suspect, a mournful cast. Schwarz plays emotively, phrasing the music expansively with a variety of  textures. The Machine is a syncopated moto perpetuo, with the piano playing a punctilious ostinato in the bass that is countered by one in the violin with equal verve. 

 

Jennifer Higdon’s String Poetic: Blue Hills of Mist, opens with inside-the-piano work alongside chords to create a swath of overtones. The violin joins with a soaring line that encompasses some of the notes from the piano, adding weight to the overtones. The piano then plays a brooding, mournful accompaniment and the violin counters with a tender, modal melody. Schwarz and Abramovic make an excellent performing pair on this sumptuous work. A warmly hued cadenza accompanied by percussive dampened piano strings follows. The piano plays color chords and the violin once again begins a cadenza, taking stops along the way for sustained notes. The coda ensues, with percussive piano mirroring notes in the violin. A pizzicato note provides a final pitch that is quite a surprise. 

The beginning of Jessie Montgomery’s Rhapsody No. 2 is filled with challenging scalar runs that traverse the entire compass of the instrument. A slow section of harmonics adds a more dissonant harmonic palette. Gradually, a slowed down version of the opening scalar passages, with yearning high notes, takes over. Double stops appear in a speeding up crescendo. The opening gesture returns in a valedictory flourish. 

Reena Esmail’s musical approach combines Eastern and Western elements. This synthesis is abundantly apparent in the solo piece Darshan: Raag charukeshi. Once again, Schwarz is adept at dealing with the requirements of multiple technical approaches. His playing carefully negotiates the microtones and sliding techniques of Esmail’s piece. 

Avner Dorman’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano begins with a slow boil of angular violin gestures. This is joined by the piano, which plays clouds of harmonies against dissonant leaps in the violin. Multi-stopped passages and yearning melodies are accompanied by enigmatic arpeggiations in the piano. A second section begins with strident harmonics and bass-register piano punctuations. The piano quickens into a brusk ostinato, over which the violin performs aggressive turns through glissandos and slashed multi-stops. The duo build to a ferocious climax, dizzying in intensity. A gradual slowdown concludes with a brief violin solo. Soft, pointillist piano lines abets a low register violin melody that gradually slides up its compass, adding double-stops. A glissando buzzes down to scordatura bass notes, then makes wave shaped lines that continue in a slippery path to silence.

The final work on the recording is a five-movement piece called Australian Sketches. I am puzzled as to why this is included on The Living American. True, the composer Denis Deblasio, is a jazz composer from the US, but why have the longest programmed work be an homage to Australia? If one sets aside this programmatic puzzlement, the music is a real treat. Schwarz and Abramovic are joined by bassist Douglas Mapp, and drummer Doug Hirlinger in a cabaret combo. Like C-minor Jam, this is jazz in a pop context. I am reminded of Stefan Grappelli’s film work (such as his featured role on the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels soundtrack) in Schwarz’s approach to Deblasio’s effervescent creations. The performances are playfully rendered, but artful as well. Given the melting pot approach already in evidence, on second thought, why not invite our friends from Australia to join in the fun?

-Christian Carey


by Christian Carey
CD Review, Chamber Music, File Under?, Strings

Danish String Quartet – Prism V (CD Review)

Danish String Quartet

Prism V

ECM Records

 

This is the last outing in Danish String Quartet’s Prism series. Each of the five recordings has included a late Beethoven string quartet, a related Bach fugue, and a later work influenced by Beethoven. Prism V’s program begins with “Vor deinen Thron tret’ich,” Bach’s chorale prelude BWV 668, arranged for string quartet. It also includes “Contrapunctus 14” from Bach’s Art of Fugue, Anton Webern’s String Quartet (1905), and Beethoven’s String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135.

 

The performance of the chorale prelude is beautiful, played with expressive tone and ardent phrasing, with the Danish Quartet not pretending to be playing on period instruments. It is followed by the Beethoven quartet, the last piece he wrote in this genre and, indeed, one of the last he completed. Unlike the intensity found in some of the other late quartets, such as Op. 131, Op. 135 has a bright, often jocular, demeanor. The first movement, marked Allegretto, is full of puckish feints and gestures from classicism. The Vivace is a roller coaster of syncopations. Movement three, marked Lento assai e cantante tranquillo, is performed with luminous beauty, lyrical phrasing and timbral shadings underscoring its valedictory nature. The final movement incorporates the famous “Es muss sein” motive. The Danish quartet punctuates its appearances, underscoring the intensity of the sentiment to Beethoven. Despite the aging composer’s struggles, there is a triumphant feeling that pervades the last movement, a valediction underscoring Beethoven’s indomitability of spirit.

 

Webern’s String Quartet (1905) is influenced by Beethoven to be sure, but there also is a palpable connection to Webern’s mentor Arnold Schoenberg, particularly his groundbreaking work Verklärkte Nacht. Some of the harmonies and textures adopted by Webern also seem prescient to atonality, a musical scheme that would be explored in the next decade.

 

Contrapunctus 14 has three “soggetti,” or fugal themes. The quartet takes it at a relatively slow tempo. Their blend as a group is well-known, and here it imparts tremendous clarity to the contrapuntal lines. This is the last section of the Art of Fugue, and Bach left it unfinished. The quartet doesn’t adopt any conjectural completion, instead allowing the ending to break off abruptly. In addition to acknowledging Bach’s mortality, perhaps on a personal level, this gesture signifies the Danish quartet’s conclusion of the Prism project. It is an enormously fruitful collection of pieces. One waits with anticipation to see what the Danish String Quartet will next commit to disc. It will surely be as elegantly curated as the Prism series.

 

Christian Carey

 

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

Annika Socolofsky on New Amsterdam (CD Review)

Annika Socolofsky

Don’t Say a Word

Latitude 49

New Amsterdam Records

 

“This unapologetic profession of love and vulnerability is something I have felt denied all my life. And it’s time to reclaim it. These are love songs for the self. These are my feminist rager-lullabies for the new queer era.” – Annika Socolofsky

 

Composer/vocalist Annika Socolofsky works out a great deal of anger on her New Amsterdam recording Don’t Say a Word. She has described herself growing up as a “queer kid” being ostracized. That treatment has subsequently inspired her to examine all sorts of othering in society, from overt discrimination to the subtle indoctrination of lullabies. She is joined by longtime collaborators Latitude 49, a mixed chamber ensemble.

 

“Don’t you cry” begins with ascending echoing chants, each ending with a vibrating sob, subsequently explored in Socolofsky’s alto register. The title track opens with ominous instrumental pulsations. Socolofsky continues to examine vibrating tones, to which are added sneers and moans. These are then accompanied by glissandos, repeated string ostinatos, and reverberant sustained tones from the ensemble. Vocal sounds come to encompass fry and abstract use of language, with a broadening range. Indeed, Socolofsky’s voice encompasses everything from the chest voice chanting of the recording’s opening to high soprano lines controlled with the technique of a concert singer. The piece ends unaccompanied, with pensive reiterations of previous components of the vocal.

 

“Tinker, Tailor” and “Little Boy Blue” both interrogate nursery rhymes, with the aforementioned singing techniques and textual responses to the complex nature of childhood tales. My favorite of the songs is “Like a Diamond,” in which the singer intones warm phrases in one of the “love songs to herself” she has mentioned as a concomitant goal to the expression of her anger at the challenges for her younger self. Socolofsky’s anger is an identifiable and understandable emotion, but her love songs to herself can resonate with others too, and this is a generous gift. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Rock

Deerhoof – Miracle-Level (CD Review)

Deerhoof

Miracle-Level

Joyful Noise Recordings

 

At a certain point in their career, many rock bands dread the audience reaction to saying “we’re going to play the new single” from onstage. It suggests that their days of vital music-making have devolved into being among the ranks of nostalgia artists. Deerhoof’s experience is quite different. They keep changing and developing as a band, and their successive releases are acclaimed and eagerly listened to by longtime fans and new listeners alike.

 

Several things distinguish Deerhoof’s latest Joyful Noise release, Miracle-Level, their nineteenth recording, the first released back in 1997. Improbably, this is Deerhoof’s first one recorded in a formal studio setting, with producer Mike Bridavsky, who has worked with Ezra Donner, Greg Warren, and Durand Jones, among others. Vocalist/bassist Satomi Matsuzaki sings entirely in her native language, Japanese, which hasn’t happened before on a Deerhoof album. Drummer Greg Saunier adds piano to some songs. Guitarists John Dietrich and Eddie Rodriguez fill out the quartet.

 

One might think that, having a studio and an experienced producer at their disposal, Deerhoof would indulge in a bit of experimentation with electronics. Instead, the band still prefers live takes to overdubs and the white-hot inspiration of immediacy to laboring overmuch over songs. Miracle-Level sounds cleaner than previous efforts. Bridavsky captures the band’s signature sound with impressive care and accuracy. In that sense, studio work is a step forward.

 

The band often rocks with abandon. “Sit Down, Let Me Tell You a Story” has powerful drumming and scurrying guitar riffs that accompany Matsuzaki’s singing, distressed with sliding tones and buoyed by high soprano lines. “My Lovely Cat” features an urgent lead riff, double time ostinato bass guitar, and energetic drums, with twin bass drum quick time punctuations. The mid-range phrases from Matsuzaki seem to render the vocal unflappable in the midst of the maelstrom. The aphoristic instrumental “Jet-Black Double-Shield” builds to an eruption partway through, only to dial back to overlapping ostinatos, followed by corresponding fortissimo passages to close. “Phase-Out All Remaining Non-Miracles by 2028” is the most musically intricate of the songs. A soaring vocal from Matsuzaki is accompanied by corruscating layers of guitars and the bassist’s own syncopated line. Apart from laying out on the bridge, Saunier provides thunderous drumming; his return during double guitar solos gives the conclusion of the song a propulsive energy. “And the Moon Laughs”manages to fit enough material for a prog epic into less than three minutes.

 

There are ballads too, which are some of the most memorable songs on Miracle-Level. The title song has arcing guitar solos offsetting, and in some cases, shadowing, one of the most well wrought melodies Matsuzaki sings. The album’s final song, “Wedding, March, Flower,” has a delicate, lyrical vocal. The accompaniment is similarly gentle in demeanor, with an elaborate, winsome chord progression played on the piano by Saunier. The title track is an intricate song, with harmony vocals, changes in tempo, and the development of multiple instrumental motifs.

 

Miracle-Level demonstrates that a band can still make changes – big ones – even after twenty-five years. It is seldom that a late career recording is so compelling. Miracle-Level is one of my favorites thus far in 2023.

 

-Christian Carey

 

Deerhoof Touring

 

07/07/23 – Des Moines, IA @ 80/35 Music Festival

07/08/23 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club

07/11/23 – Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar

07/12/23 – Grand Rapids, MI @ The Pyramid Scheme

07/14/23 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall

08/21/23 – London, UK @ Lafayette

08/22/23 – Bristol, UK @ The Lanes

08/23/23 – Liverpool, UK @ Invisible Wind Factory

08/24/23 – Sunderland, UK @ Pop Recs LTD

08/25/23 – Cumbria, UK @ Krankenhaus Festival

08/27/23 – Bethesda, UK @ Ara Drag

08/28/23 – Oxford, UK @ The Bullingdon

08/29/23 – Margate, UK @ The Lido

08/30/23 – Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2

08/31/23 August – Wiltshire, UK @ End of the Road Festival

09/01/23 – Birmingham, UK @ Supersonic Festival

09/07/23 – Saugerties, NY @ Opus 40

09/08/23 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theater

09/09/23 – Pontiac, MI @ Pike Room at the Crofoot

09/10/23 – Bloomington, IN @ Russian Recording 20 Year Anniversary

09/12/23 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East

09/13/23 – Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle Music Hall

09/14/23 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle

09/15/23 – Norfolk, VA @ TBA

09/16/23 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar

11/05/23 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli Vredenburg – Cloud 9

11/07/23 – Paris, FR @ La Maroquinerie

11/08/23 – Rennes, FR @ Salle De La Cite

11/09/23 – Orleans, FR @ L’astrolabe

11/10/23 – Kortrijk, BE @ Sonic City Festival

11/12/23 – Lyon, FR @ Les Subsistance

11/14/23 – Braga, PT @ Gnation

11/15/23 – Lisbon, PT @ ZDB

11/17/23 – Alicante, ES @ Primavera Weekender

02/12/24 – Milan, IT @ ARCI Bellezza

02/13/24 – Bologna, IT @ Locomotiv

02/15/24 – Rome, IT @ Monk

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Guitar, jazz

Dominic Miller – Vagabond on ECM Records (CD Review)

Dominic Miller

Vagabond

Dominic Miller, guitar; Jacob Karlzon, piano, keyboard; Nicolas Fiszman, bass; Ziv Ravitz, drums

ECM Records

 

Vagabond is guitarist Dominic Miller’s third recording for ECM Records. Apart from bassist Nicolas Fiszman, Miller has assembled a new group of collaborators: keyboardist Jacob Karlzon and drummer Ziv Ravitz join him in a quartet setting. Miller composed most of Vagabond’s eight originals while living in the South of France. He has suggested that nature and the small towns and buildings he passes on long walks supply him with inspiration. The guitarist’s Argentinian roots may be a bit further out of the limelight, but they too are an abiding part of his composing and playing technique. 

 

The track “Vagines,” named after a small French town, epitomizes this. Miller plays delicate melodies, sometimes doubled in octaves, that contain a hint of Francophone aesthetic. Here as elsewhere, he plays a classical guitar that is judiciously amplified. Fiszman and Ravitz deftly punctuate his phrasing. Karlzon joins with a scalar solo that embellishes the tune. On “All Change,” the band is more assertive, creating a buoyant backdrop to Miller’s single line solos.

 

Miller has likened himself to an “instrumental songwriter,”  and on “Cruel but Fair,” one can readily hear the ballad’s song-like construction. Chord-melody and single guitar lines are accompanied by economic comping from Karlzon. Add lyrics to this, and several others on Vagabond, and one could readily imagine them ready to sing. 

 

“Open Heart” is one of the highlights of Vagabond. It features a syncopated ostinato underneath a minor-key tune. The longest composition on the album, it introduces the material slowly, with Miller playing  in a solo context. The other musicians enter and develop the material in rebuttal. Karlzon’s fetching solo retains the tune’s diaphanous contours while extrapolating from its changes. The piece’s denouement features splash cymbals that announce Miller’s return and the reprise of the tune’s head, with a decrescendo to close. 

 

“Altea” begins with sumptuous chord voicings that quickly adopt the Latin rhythms of Miller’s Argentianian roots. His colleagues revel in this context,  both Fitzman and Ravitz providing syncopations in ebullient fashion. There is a tangy solo by Karlzon, and all of a sudden the tune ends with rolled chords by Miller. “Lone Waltz” closes the album with Miller playing a jazz tune in triple time to an arpeggiated accompaniment. Karlzon is at his most virtuosic here, and the rhythm section allows room for the Miller-dominated arpeggiated sections while playing with zest during the piano solos. Once again, the group performs a gradual denouement, with brief melodies from Miller, performed over the piano’s arpeggios, sending the record to a quiet conclusion.

 

Vagabond is Miller’s most versatile project yet, and has several memorable compositions. Miller gels well with this band. Although he tends to change collaborators between projects, one could readily see these musicians sticking around for a while.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
Composers, Contemporary Classical, Deaths, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?, Metropolitan Opera, New York

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

Kaija Saariaho
(1952-2023)
© Maarit Kytöharju

Sequenza 21 is saddened to learn of Kaija Saariaho’s passing at the age of 70. The cause was cancer. Despite the toll taken by the disease, she continued to compose nearly to the end of her life. Hush (2023) for Finnish jazz trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, was her last piece.

 

Saariaho was one of the greatest composers of her generation, and a pathbreaker who encouraged composers in the next. She composed for nearly every genre of concert music and made electronic music at top flight studios, including IRCAM. 

 

The composer had an international career with champions throughout the world. A signature example is her opera Innocence (2018), a group commission by Finnish National Opera, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Dutch National Opera and San Francisco Opera. Saariaho has had a significant presence in the United States as well. Oltra mar was premiered by the New York Philharmonic to celebrate the Millenium. Her opera L’Amour de loin (2000) was the first by a female composer to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera in over a century. 

 

Generous tributes from all corners of the musical community, ranging from prominent composers, conductors, and performers, to admiring students and listeners, have been pouring out since this sad news was announced. Saariaho was not only a respected creator, by all accounts she was a keen collaborator and kind person. She will be missed by many, and her music will live on.

 

-Christian Carey

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

Rochford and Downes on ECM (CD Review)

Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes

A Short Diary

ECM Records 

 

“This short diary (of loss), offered as a sonic memory,

  created with love, out of need for comfort.”

-Sebastian Rochford

 

When Sebastian Rochford’s father, the Aberdeen poet Gerard Rochford (1932-2019) passed away, the drummer decided to create a recording in his memory. He composed most of the music after his father’s death, and enlisted pianist Kit Downes as a collaborator. Downes is actually a musical switch-hitter; he is also an accomplished organist. “This Tune Your Ears Will Never Hear” opens the album mid-tempo with thick chords and snare in rhythmic unison, only to give way to a slower rendering of the tune, juxtaposed with enigmatic harmonies. “Communal Decisions” has a wayward, modal melody that becomes an overlapping duo, finally filled out with Debussyian harmonies. “Night of Quiet”  consists of slow-paced chords in intricate changes, parallel planing, and filigree phrase endings. “Ten of Us” has an ambling melody and chromatic chord progressions that recall Rimsky-Korsakov. Considerable development follows, with a floating texture that arpeggiates some of the preceding material and shares new melodic variations. The last section includes a chordal ostinato reinforced by Rochford that slows into an emphatic minor key cadence.

 

“Love You Grampa” is one of the most fetching of the collaborations here, with Rochford creating a lullaby rhythm behind the drum kit and Downes playing the composition’s winsome melody with delicacy and poignant phrasing. In a shuffling rhythm and with a pentatonic melody, “Silver Light” recalls folk music. “Rochford’s playing is often economical, even restrained. Yet the textures and punctuations he provides always enhance the proceedings. 

 

The last piece on the recording, “Even Now I Think of Her,” is in a sense co-composed by Sebastian and his father, who sang the melody to his son, suggesting it for a piece. The drummer in turn shared the melody with Downes via cell phone. It is quite an intricate tune, rendered as a folk-like ballad with warmly voiced harmonies and gentle drum fills. Bringing the project full circle to Gerard Rochford is a fitting and touching conclusion to a compelling and inspired project.

 

-Christian Carey 


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

Sufjan Stevens – Reflections (CD Review)

Sufjan Stevens – Reflections 

Timo Andres, Conor Hanick, piano

Asthmatic Kitty

 

Reflections is a studio version of Sufjan Steven’s sixth collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck. Over the course of his career, Stevens has explored a number of genres: indie rock, electronica, and folk music. His work as a concert music composer shows considerable facility, with idiomatic, indeed virtuosic, writing for piano duo. 

 

The opening track, “Ekstasis” begins the ballet with emphatic, thickly voiced chords and glissandos, followed by brilliant passagework and a briefly inserted swinging melody. Pianists Timo Andres and Conor Hanick are perfect for the challenges posed here and perform all of the twists and turns of “Ekstasis” completely in sync. “Revanche” plays with color chords in chromatic formations: a bit of a hat tip to Messiaen. “Euphoros,” as one might expect, is ebullient, with repeated neo-classical motives, a lá Stravinsky, that are again periodically interrupted by glissandos. 

 

“Mnemosyne” begins in hushed dynamics. Here, instead of neo-classical tropes, Stevens explores impressionism through a post-minimal lens, with limpid filigrees and modal tunes. The control exerted by the pianists here is quite affecting. “Rodinia” lives in a similar pocket, with the balletic feeling of the Debussy Arabesques. “Reflexion” concludes the ballet with triple time sequences that swirl upward and then reenter until we are left with an abrupt, unresolved close. 

 

The piece “And I Shall Come to You Like a Stormtrooper Dressed in Drag Serving Imperial Realness” provides a swath of good-humored writing. It tasks the pianists with following one another in post-minimal riffs, a little bit of Cantina Bar swagger, and  building mountain tall chords. Puckish arpeggiations that hint at an undercurrent of John Williams provide a jocular juxtaposition to the grandeur of the piece’s bravura postures. Partway through, a whole-tone, gamelan-like interlude briefly interrupts, only to be replaced by fortissimo rolled chords in scalar patterns. A thinned out version of this upward sequence sends the piece into a misty, quiet close. Great fun.

 

-Christian Carey 



by Christian Carey