Tag: @cbcarey

CD Review, early music, File Under?

Mother, Sister, Daughter: Musica Secreta Sings the Stories of Women (CD Review)

Mother, Sister, Daughter

Musica Secreta, directed by Laurie Stras

Lucky Music

 

Over a career that spans thirty years, Musica Secreta has established themselves as one of the premiere all-female vocal ensembles. They have recorded a number of pieces by women, expanding the repertoire of Renaissance music and our understanding of the social, liturgical,  and artistic circles in which it was disseminated. The theme of this recording is “storytelling:” how stories, poems, and music were crafted to connect generations of women, hence Mother, Sister, Daughter as its title. While many of the pieces are anonymous, the circumstances in which they were copied and performed give clues as to their provenance. The recording isn’t strictly of works attributed to women – there are pieces by Antoine Brumel and Jean Mouton – but these also extol the relationships between women, particularly those who have entered a convent.

 

Missa de Beata Virgine is a partial setting of the Ordinary, containing a Kyrie and troped Gloria with extra texts that extol the Virgin Mary. Here as elsewhere, instruments are used to accompany and to flesh out the texture; organ in particular, but also harp (including bray harp and double harp), and treble and bass viols. This is consistent with the practice of music-making in convents. Musica Secreta has a well-blended sound with  just enough brightness in the sopranos and a warm timbre in the mezzo/alto cohort. The solo chants are prepared with the character of the individual voices in mind. One of the main selections, The Vespers of St. Lucy was likely composed in a convent devoted to St. Lucia in Verona. The notes, by ensemble director Laurie Stras, are fastidiously annotated: I would recommend reading them before diving in to listening. The Vespers include five brief movements that tell the story of St. Lucy. The full group’s singing is fetchingly contrasted with smaller subsections.  

 

Ave mater matris Dei, attributed to Jean Mouton, consists of vocal canons accompanied by the organ, the refrains opening up to sumptuous tutti. Virgo Maria speciosissima, attributed to Leonora d’Este, of that most famous of families, consists of overlapping waves in the voices performed with artful coordination by Musica Secreta. It is one of the standouts on the recording. 

 

The other prominent collections on the recording are two sets of Vespers from San Matteo in Florence, dedicated to Saint Clare. After a plainchant opening is the beautiful Mundi totius gloriam, with high-lying dovetailing lines alternating once again with chant. The group chants are paced with a welcome sense of forward momentum. The hymn En praeclara virgo Clara and a Salve sponsa Dei setting conclude the second set of Vespers with radiant polyphonic singing. 

 

A contemporary piece, commissioned by the ensemble from Joanna Marsh, completes the CD program (two additional pieces are available on the digital recording). The Veiled Sisters explores the entire compass of the group, beginning with a low-lying melody in the altos that is succeeded by upper register divisi. The two then meld into a formidable tutti. Marsh deftly incorporates contemporary harmonies and expanded ranges while using the resources of Musica Secreta is a way consistent with their approach on the rest of the recording; organ accompanies them and the alternation of textures creates a connection between old and new. 

 

In recent years, research and performance of women’s music from the Renaissance has come a long way, in no small part to Musica Secreta and Laurie Stras. It is heartening to learn that, even five hundred years ago, the stories women told to one another provided strength, agency, and, in the case of song, great beauty. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

Clarinets and More Clarinets: Alder plays Chrysakis (CD Review)

Milieu Interieur

Jason Alder, clarinets

Clarinet music by Thanos Chrysakis

 

Thanos Chrysakis is a prominent composer from Greece who works in electroacoustic music, as a performer and creating sound environments, as well as writing contemporary concert music. He relishes small combinations; solo and duet writing feature prominently in his output. Milieu Interieur is a full length recording of music for clarinets, performed by Jason Alder. Chrysakis has composed five pieces for Bb, bass, and contrabass clarinet of significant duration for solo works. The versatility with which he approaches these pieces, as well as his detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the clarinet, make this a diverting listen. 

 

Fáessa is for solo Bb clarinet and it passes eleven minutes in duration. Here as elsewhere, extended techniques abound: microtones, multiphonics, glissandos, and the like. Fáessa is a showcase of fluidity, with smooth movement between pitches and micro-intervals, interrupted intermittently by passages of multiphonics. It moves through the entire range of the instrument. Alder’s altissimo playing is seemingly effortless. 

 

There are two versions of the title piece, one for bass and another for contrabass clarinet. The first begins in the lowest register, sustained, then trilling. An angular melody punctuated by glissandos becomes the principal linear element. Luster-toned overblown notes create an interlude, then trilling and bass growls return. Another passage features a conjunct passage of multiphonics. The melody returns in a baritone register. Fluttering notes conjoined with multiphonics create a singular timbral passage. Despite the variety of these modes of playing, Chrysakis uses repetition and registral development to create a coherent, albeit labyrinthine, formal design. The second half features long, sustained notes, a slowed down version of the material from earlier. Seamless shifting between registers is another calling card for Alder’s playing. A rapturous section of repeated notes throughout the compass is juxtaposed with disjunct arpeggiations in a coda that concludes with a clangorous bass note. Millieu Interieur 2 is half the length of the first piece and revises its form to reposition material in different places. The sound of the altissimo register of this instrument is extraordinary, perhaps equaling its tremendous, sonorous bass notes.

 

Noctilucent Clouds is for two overdubbed bass clarinets. Slow-paced trilling and oscillations of micro-intervals are set against repeated notes in the upper register. When the two instruments reach detuned unisons, blurred repeated notes, and sustained multiphonics in coordination, there is a shivery effect. Fleet melodic passages alternate with these passages of slowly evolving textures. In addition to these sections of close-spaced duets, there are also registrally distinct colloquies, where bass notes provide a pedal over which the second instrument deals with spectral overtones. Dovetailing howls then pursue one another, only to be succeeded by a low register duet. Detuned intervals, mostly in rhythmic unison, bring the piece to an evocative close.

 

Thunderous repetition of bass notes, followed by upper register multiphonics, provides a dramatic opening for the album closer, Μαύρο Φως/Dark Light for contrabass clarinet. Repeated notes in the bass become one of the principal gestures, as do trills, bent small intervals, and the aforementioned multiphonics. The sound of the contrabass clarinet is extraordinary: vivid and powerful. A brief disjunct gesture is interpolated with the aforementioned materials. This signature device of Chrysakis provides a post-tonal melodic foil to the effects-based writing. There’s even a brief jazzy variant on the gesture. Sustained multiphonics return, crescendo and diminuendo shaping them to conclude the piece.

 

Milieu Interieur is a masterclass in clarinet writing and playing. I am eager to hear Alder play more. Performers, composers, and listeners should take note of it.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Benjamin Lackner – The Last Decade (CD Review)

Benjamin Lackner

Last Decade

Benjamin Lackner, piano; Mathias Eick, trumpet; Jérôme Regard, bass; Manu Katche, drums

ECM Records

 

Pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his ECM debut with Last Decade. Joined by a stalwart group of collaborators, many of them ECM alumni who have appeared on many of the label’s releases, Lackner is in an ideal situation to present his compositions, as well as one by bassist Jérôme Regard. A few of the constraints the pianist placed on himself, no electronics, a staple of his previous recordings, and the addition of trumpeter Mathias Eick to his usual piano trio format, have afforded him the chance to stretch. Lackner has described rethinking harmonic voicings and allowing space for a melodic voice as aspects that were spurred on by Eick’s presence.

 

Lackner’s originals move away from his prior post-jazz leanings back toward the modern jazz tradition. The recording’s opener, the smoky “Where Do We Go from Here,” begins with a slow tempo trumpet solo with a memorable melody that is then deconstructed by Lackner, with the two exchanging mid-tempo lines.Katche and Eick are well known to each other, having played on many ECM albums together, some as leaders and others as collaborators. Regard has been the bassist in Lackner’s groups since 2006. The two duos combine as an acoustic quartet that is distinctive and well-attuned. Lackner’s flourish-filled solo on “Circular Confidence,” followed by the slow build solo that follows from Eick, who emulates the climax of the piano material, is an engrossing piece. “Hung up on that Ghost” includes prominent bass pedals and a slow intro from Lackner, followed by a mid-tempo main section in which Katche provides variety from the kit. Gerard and Lackner continue their colloquy with burnished melodic play from the bassist. Eick’s belated arrival is no less welcome, his solo here angular, adding motives for the others to explore only scarcely outlined in the changes. The group ends up playing their material in counterpoint, creating a quilt of amalgamated textures.

 

The title track begins with a chordal presentation of the melody, with Gerard and Katche creating an undulating rhythmic canvas. Lackner’s solo gradually moves through 3:2 passage work to fleetly rendered arpeggiations. As it builds, the pianist burrows into the middle of the piano, ferreting out chromatic seconds. Eick’s solo instead begins with a light touch, gradually moving into the upper register but maintaining a piano dynamic. The piece ends with his solo, Katche providing a snatch of sizzle as punctuation.

 

Gerard’s composition “Émile” finds the bassist playing a funky solo reminiscent of his work with Lackner on previous outings. It is succeeded by the album closer, “My People.” Initially tried out in rehearsal in the polyrhythmic meter 11/4, the recording’s introduction instead shows a free rhythmic context in which Katche guides them without a strict time. Eick’s solo responds to this wayward context with free jazz lines that eventually are coaxed by the drums into a swinging post-bop essay. Lackner interposes lines with Eick, the two here playing some of the most creative music on the album. The tempo and demeanor shifts to a mournful minor-key ballad, sending the conclusion satisfyingly sideways.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Whit Dickey Quartet – Root Perspectives (CD Review)

Whit Dickey Quartet

Root Perspectives

Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano; Brandon Lopez, bass; Whit Dickey, drums

TAO Forms CD

 

Drummer Whit Dickey has put together a formidable quartet for Root Perspectives, a release on his TAO Forms label. Joining Dickey are tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, pianist Matthew Shipp, and bassist Brandon Lopez, all stalwart players of ecstatic jazz. While the musicians have worked with each other in various contexts, this particular configuration is new. They find their footing fast. 

 

Malaby is versatile in his approaches to playing. Howling high notes, skronk squalls, and chromatic scalar work are the stock in trade of free jazz, and he excels in this area. But there are also places where he allows the plummy mid-register of his saxophone to bloom, creating lyrical melodies as interludes between more assertive soloing. Tiis is particularly evident in the coda of the first track, “Supernova,’ where Malaby conjures a beautiful melody out of the ether and Shipp follows suite with diaphanous accompaniment. Shipp too uses an array of approaches, from stentorian rearticulated verticals to fleet-fingered soloing and dazzling arpeggiations. He and Lopez frequently make a play for the lower register, each incorporating gestures from the other to develop. Lopez also frequently directs the harmony to surprising places, bitonal, extended thirds, and mixed interval chords. Dickey is a powerful drummer, but a sensitive one too. He listens carefully to the gestures played by the rest of the quartet, sometimes incorporating them, at others prodding the quartet to take up one of his own rhythmic motives. 

 

The recording consists of four pieces. You don’t have to get too far into the opening piece, “Supernova,’ to realize the specialness of this session. It is never about showing off, but instead about listening to one another and creating dialogue. The next piece, “Doomsday Equation,” plays with punctuated lines from Malaby and Shipp alongside an inexorable funeral march from Dickey, Lopez, and Shipp’s left hand. “Swamp Petals” provides a suave demeanor with polyrhythmic playing from Dickey and a solo from Malaby that takes from the tradition of modern, rather than experimental jazz, to build a formidable solo. As the piece reaches its midpoint, Malaby plays with overtones, restoring a sense of the experimental. Dickey takes a solo, a gradual build with subtle high harmonics from Lopez alongside. The focus gradually moves to the bassist, who creates a swath of overtones  before ceding territory to a storming section led by Malaby and Shipp. Altissimo howls take Malaby things as far away from the opening tune as possible. “Swamp Petals” closes as a complete transformation. 

 

The final piece, “Starship Lotus” begins with a cool effect: bass harmonics are combined with saxophone overtones. Meanwhile, Shipp keeps a steady pulse with chords while Dickey provides fills that offset it. Malaby offers an ascending melody and Shipp moves his chord scheme upward to accommodate. The two then create swaths of melodic exchanges while Lopez and Dickey swing with abandon. The quartet then coordinates interlocked ostinatos followed by a limpid solo from Shipp. When Malaby returns, he repeats a melodic cell at various pitch levels to develop a solo which then tapers off into sustained notes. It builds to a fierce crescendo, with overblowing creating vibrant multiphonics. The rhythm section takes the foreground, with a nimble solo from Lopez that includes double stops, and multiple tempo streams from Dickey. Malaby and Shipp return with material similar to the opening, with the addition of thunderous hammer blows from Shipp, that presents the quartet at its most powerful. A brief denouement for drums brings “Starship Lotus” to its conclusion. Root Perspectives is excellent in its variety of interactions and superlative in the quality of its music-making. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey 



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

Favorites of 2022: Heiner Goebbels and Ensemble Modern – A House of Call

A House of Call. My Imaginary Notebook.

Heiner Goebbels

Ensemble Modern, Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor

ECM Records

Heiner Goebbels’ A House of Call is an evening length collaboration with Ensemble Modern, an group with which he has collaborated on a number of projects over a thirty-five year period; this is their fourth CD for ECM. Subtitled “My Imaginary Notebook,” a reference to John Cage’s roaratorio via Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, the piece brings together several stylistically distinct sections, notably troping pieces associated with the ensemble. Sound recordings that Goebbels has collected over the years, many of folk music-making, are a significant part of the House of Call’s source material. They range from Kazakh, Iranian, Georgian, and Armenian folk songs to poetry and texts by Heiner Müller, Samuel Beckett, and Jalaluddin Rumi. 

 

These recordings are accompanied by vivid orchestrations, amplifying their intensity without diminishing their distinct flavor. Perhaps in part because of the collaborative nature he adopts with the ensemble, Goebbels is the master of this type of amalgam.  The piece is cast in four large sections: Steiner, Scherer, Papier; Grain de la Voix; Wax and Violence; When Words Gone. Each contains three to four movements that survey a kaleidoscopic array of material. The first movement “Introit: A Response to Répons” combines tropes on Pierre Boulez’s totemic piece with recordings of Cassiber, Goebbels’s rock band from the 1980s. Répons is central to the repertoire and aesthetic of Ensemble Modern, and they incorporate the additions and variations fluidly. In Immer den Gleichen Stein, Müller’s deadpan recitations are juxtaposed with boisterous instrumental attacks. The section’s third movement, “Under Construction,” subtitled “Berlin 2017,” is the 21st century version of Copland’s cityscapes, with the ensemble creating a riot of urban noises; clearly in the midst of a traffic jam. In the coda, we get a small taste of respite.

 

Grain de la Voix (a reference to Roland Barthes) has four sections featuring vocal recordings. It begins with a 1916 recording in Mannheim of Giorgi Nareklishvilli, a prisoner of war, singing a keening melody often accompanied by dulcimer and accordion but periodically interrupted by abrupt and explosive outbursts. Next is a 1925 recording of Amrey Kashaubayez, a Kazahk singer. After an extended introduction, the singer enters with haunting, high-lying melismas, to which for a moment the ensemble cedes terrain. An imitative instrumental interlude builds to a fortissimo climax, upon which the voice returns, forward in the mix and ardently intoning. Led by brass swells, the coda descends into a maelstrom, capped off by a final vocal phrase that sounds choked with laughter. “1346” is a performance of Rumi by Iranian musician Hamidreza Nourbakhsh. His incantatory chanting, rife with runs, is shadowed and imitated in an imaginative piece of scoring. The final movement, Krunk, is less tempestuous, featuring harp and dulcimer gently accompanying a recording from 1914 of the great Armenian musician Komitas alongside one from 1917 of Zabelle Panosian. This synthetic duet is most fetching.

 

Part three, Wax and Violence, brings together a mashup of vocalists, including German recordings from the turn of the twentieth century in “”Toccata – Vowels/Woven,” and Namibian vocalists in “Achtung Aufnahme”  and “Nun Danket Allen Gott.” To to transform the composition, Goebbels begins to treat the source materials with greater liberty, recalling the techniques of musique concréte. The final movement of the section, Tí gu go Inîga Mî, explores a grainy recording from Farm Lichtenstein bei Windhoek in 1931 of the singer Haneb alongside percussion and a tangy chord progression. The Ensemble retorts with a howling mix of free jazz and cabaret. 

 

Named after a Samuel Beckett poem later recited, the final section, When Words Gone begins with Bakaki – Diálogo, recorded in 1931 in Quebrada Isue by Victor and Luciano Martinez. It contains murmured hocketing between two voices accompanied by an ambling ostinato. “Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen” features texts by Joseph von Eichendorff recited by Margaret Goebbels, accompanied by particularly spooky music. “Kalimerisma,” recorded in 1930 in Kalymnos, Eskaterina Mangouli performs a passionate and oftentimes chromatic song that is given restrained accompaniment, light percussion and pizzicato cello. The piece’s conclusion, “What When Words Gone,” gives the entire ensemble, apart from the brass, the vocal role, with slowly repeating pitches in each phrase in an intricate pattern. Much of it recalls Feldman, a frequent Beckett collaborator. It finally settles into a two–chord repetition that ends hanging on an extended harmony. 

 

Goebbels outdoes himself here, with perhaps the most far flung references and imaginative scoring he has found to date. Collaborating with Ensemble Modern for over thirty-five years has yielded fresh sounds and scoring approaches, not an easily comfortable working relationship. A House of Call is one of our Favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Improv

Favorites 2022: Barre Phillips and ​​György Kurtág Jr. (Review)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barre Phillips and ​​György Kurtág Jr.

Face á Face 

ECM Records

 

Luminary avant-jazz bassist Barre Phillips and György Kurtág Jr., son of the well-known Hungarian composer and an electronic musician, join together on Face á Face. Kurtág uses a variety of synths, providing both pitched material and percussion to complement Phillips’ bass-playing. It might not be a pairing one would have readily thought of, even with Phillips’ long pedigree of collaborations, but Face á Face is a compelling recording. 

 

The album opener, “Beyond,” finds the two in a cat-and-mouse game, Kurtág beginning with oscillating seconds and then repeated pitches. Phillips responds initially with a melodic duet and then bends double stops. Chiming notes in the synths contrast Phillips’ low register melody on “The Under Zone.” “Two by Two” features sci-fi synths and combative percussion. Partway through, this gives way to Phillips, who plays repeated oscillations and harmonics in a hat tip to Kurtág’s textures. Low register double stops and minor seconds create a cavernous close. On “Across the Aisle,” both musicians play with material that combines non-pitched and pitched sounds, Phillips attacking various portions of his bass while Kurtág provides plinking gestures to offset bass harmonics. The piece begins and ends furiously with a more reserved development in between.

 

Every piece has a different sonic pedigree. Glissando bass lines and modular synth punctuations create intriguing blurring on the miniature “Algobench.” Double stopped bass notes and then repeated single tones are haloed by high register synth on “Chosen Spindle.” The synth part becomes more melodic and Phillips responds by taking on a grounding role with repeated octaves. Rather than concluding, the music seems to disappear. Arco playing and vibrating electronics, complete with cricket noises, are juxtaposed in the aptly named “Extended Circumstances.” “Bunch” has the players change roles, with Phillips making percussive sounds and Kurtág string-like glissandos. Phillips returns to harmonics, which are countered by a long, slow synthetic slide. On “Sharpen Your Eyes,” Phillips uses his bass as a drum and Kurtág engages in whistling noises. “Stand Alone” is a percussion duel with some bleeping to boot. The denouement is like a clock unwinding. 

 

Phillips moves closer to jazz with a swinging line on “Ruptured Air.” Not taking the bait, Kurtág supplies angular, sustained single notes as an avant rejoinder. This blending of styles provides one of the more fascinating colloquies on Face á Face. The recording closes with “Forest Shouts,” a miniature in which Phillips plays double stops and repeated dissonant intervals. Kurtág responds with a droid-like flute tune to bring the proceedings to an enigmatic close. Ingenious music-making: Face á Face is one of our favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

File Under Favorites 2022 – Matthew Shipp Trio

Matthew Shipp Trio

World Construct

ESP Disk’

Matthew Shipp, piano; Michael Bisio, bass; Newman Taylor Baker, drums

On World Construct, pianist Matthew Shipp is joined by bassist Michel Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. Shipp has recorded with a plethora of current jazz performers. Each collaboration brings about different aspects of his playing and the ensemble vibe. 

 

A short prelude, “Tangible,” establishes the vibe here, with melodic interplay between piano and bass, and drums punctuating the action. “Sustained Contrast” demonstrates Shipp’s connection to the jazz tradition, with plaintive descending arpeggiations in a ballad context. This is counterweighted with low register chords, enigmatic in their tonality. 

 

“Spine” begins with fleet soloing from Bisio and angular voicings from Shipp. Baker joins with fills that complement Bisio. A repeated bass note and spiderweb melody signal a transitional moment, after which all three take a more forward-pressing demeanor. 

 

“Jazz Posture” is the first tune on which the trio stretches out. Clocking in at eight and a half minutes, it begins with the rhythm section setting down a furious groove. Shipp enters, playing runs throughout the piano’s range. Rhythm section alone and piano cadenzas alternate. Each time, Shipp consolidates his playing to a particular type of voicing, while still retaining florid runs. Finally, a drum solo breaks the pattern, and Baker lets loose a volley that rivals Shipp’s exertions earlier. At the very last Bisio joins, and they conclude quickly. 

 

“Beyond Understanding” takes on a mysterious cast, with shimmering cymbals, bass glissandos, and dissonant piano verticals. Shipp and company channel Crumb and Webern here. “Talk Power” is distinctive in the way that each instrument’s part goes its own way, yet the trio manages to lock these constituent fragments together. 

 

“Abandoned” arrives thunderously, all three explosively attacking their instruments. The piece is a chance for them to play with abandon throughout, recalling hard-blowing free jazz by progenitors such as David S. Ware and Cecil Taylor. There is an eye of the hurricane moment, with repeated passages played by both Shipp and Bisio. A shimmering coda lands as an utter, compelling surprise.

 

“A Mysterious State” moves the trio back into a swinging groove, with Bisio walking and swinging roulades from Shipp. Baker’s playing is interesting here. He often takes things double time and then slides back into the primary groove with syncopated fills. An insistent two-note melody ushers in a middle section, followed by more intricate chordal repetitions. Chords build thicker and thicker, until released into a post-bop inflected piano melody that once again morphs into a series of repetitions. Diminuendo of piano and drums leaves Bisio’s bass forefront at the close. Bisio reappears shortly, his showcased soloing on“Stop the World” haloed by sustained chords from Shipp. The bassist moves from glissandos to short melodic bursts to walking lines. “Sly Glance” features a suave post-bop tune, accompanied by splashy runs, vibrant drumming, and a bass ostinato. 

 

The title track closes the album with a ten-minute piece that is distinctive, even in comparison to Shipp’s many other large-form improvisations.  It begins with a solo in the pianist’s patented disjunct harmonic style, Bisio and Baker providing syncopated counterweights to Shipp’s emphatic accentuations. Like a wheel losing its tread, the groove periodically sheds its impetus and then leaps back upright. Locking together in a two-against-three pattern, followed by a Rite of Spring type bitonal ostinato, the piece erupts in a vibrant panoply of interlocking rhythms. With the rhythm section continuing apace, Shipp adds narrow-ranged melodies and an upper register repetition that again recalls Stravinsky, this time Petroushka. I’m sure these aren’t deliberate hat-tips, merely shared fluency. Heated piano soloing is added to the polymetric grid and Bisio lets loose as well, while Baker coordinates with the various layers, quite a feat in itself. A lovely denouement finds the group arriving at a new melody, and Bisio taking things out with a thrumming low E. 

 

World Construct demonstrates that Matthew Shipp is still full of surprises and as versatile as ever. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

File Under Favorites 2022 – Olivia de Prato (CD Review

File Under Favorites 2022

Olivia de Prato

I.AM.

New World Records

Violinist Oliva de Prato is one of the stalwarts of the New York new music community, performing premieres with a plethora of organizations and in demand as a solo artist. Her latest recording for New World, I.AM. is a celebration of “Artistry and Motherhood.” De Prato, a mother herself, commissioned composers who are navigating motherhood and their careers. The project provides a nurturing, welcome perspective.

 

“Automatic Writing Mumbles of the Late Hours,” is by Natacha Diels, a composer and sound artist. The piece requires de Prato to trigger various electronics. The resultant sounds create shimmering textures in the upper register, while angular melodies accrete in the middle register. “Mycorrhiza I,” by Katherine Young, employs bow pressure and altissimo glissandos in alternation and accreting in intensity. Partway through, the music stops and resumes with transparency and sparer bow pressure A swath of pizzicatos, including pizzicato glissandos, are offset by bell-like repeated notes. Electronics adds a tolling drumbeat while the upper register materials are combined to create off-kilter swaths of detailed harmony.

 

Hang-Yang Kim’s “May You Dream of Rainbows in Magical Lands” is written in a just-intonation system called “Centaur.” Demonstrating the interval qualities, the piece focuses on sustained notes from electronics and violin. These stack up, creating held sonorities in which notes move in and out of the verticals. It is a beguiling, gradually transforming sound world and the blend of electronics and violin is beautifully presented. Little traces of found percussion, played by de Prato’s son, nibble at the edges of the pitch scape. 

 

Pamela Stickney is a composer and theremin player. She joins de Prato on “Noch Unbennant,” a piece developed by the duo from initial improvisations. Theremin and violin are a felicitous pairing, and alongside electronics, the duo explores a panoply of sounds in a labyrinthine formal design. “Fire in the Dark” began from vocal improvisations by its composer, Jen Baker, who then collaborated with de Prato to translate these into harmonics, bow pressure, and altissimo melodic patterns. This is succeeded by purely tuned sustained multi-stops, which gradually devolve, sliding away from the initial interval. After a pause, pianissimo skittering gestures provide an interruption before once again de Prato plays sustained glissandos. A brief coda of the same intervals articulated in short values closes the piece.

 

Zosha di Casti’s “The Dream Feed” opens with glassy electronics, percussive punctuations, and a duo between violin and piano. Thrumming bass notes and breathy sustained ones build alongside repeated passages from the violin, overdubbed with soprano register solos. These are offset by electronic percussion and glissandos. A high double stop, pressed even higher as it sustains, is accompanied by an aggressive bass register and percussion electronic passage. The electronics drop out and de Prato plays a mid-register modal melody, swathed in a piano ostinato. Sustained harmonics and repeated notes populate the upper register while the piano’s part becomes increasingly disjunct. A piano ostinato and blurring glissandos create a hazy atmosphere. Percussion, gruff electronics and another ostinato, this time ascending microtonally in the violin, bring the music out of its reverie and intensify the piece’s conclusion. A treble splash from the piano serves as a punctuation. 

 

A half dozen pieces, all in an experimental vein and hypervirtuosic in terms of demands, yet each distinct and compelling in their own right. De Prato remains an extraordinary advocate and here presents an imaginatively conceived and superlatively performed recording. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

Choral Arts Initiative – Jeffrey Derus – From Wilderness (CD Review)

Jeffrey Derus

From Wilderness – A Meditation on the Pacific Coast Trail

Choral Arts Initiative, Brandon Elliott, conductor; Kevin Mills, cello

Navona CD/DL

 

With From Wilderness, Jeffrey Derus has written a soaring and eclectic full length work for Choral Arts Initiative, an ensemble committed to new music with nearly twenty commissions and seventy premieres under their belts. Their previous recording, music of Dale Trumbore, supplied significant exposure for her laudable choral works. One imagines that From the Wilderness will do the same for Derus.

 

Derus has an intimate connection with the environs of the Pacific Coast Trail. He takes the listener on a musical journey that includes choral movements with cluster chord modal harmonies, meditative crystal singing bowl interludes associated with the chakras, solo turns as spirit animals by soprano Anna Kietzman, alto Genie Hossain, tenor Taylor Jacobs, baritone Kirk Averitt, and bass Timothy Cervenka, and powerful cello solos from Kevin Mills. Many composers juggling this many elements might make a less than compelling mashup of them. Derus instead highlights the pathway along his spiritual journey in a keen synthesis of these various elements. 

 

The composer doesn’t try to programmatically depict nature along the trail. His impressions and, more importantly, the cathartic response Derus has to journeying are the main topics of From Wilderness. The use of singing bowls is quite beautiful, creating clusters of harmony that presage the use of similar harmony in the voices. “Cajon Pass” is a case in point, with rich verticals and cascades of vocal overlap. Choral Arts Initiative performs with a powerful sound, strongly resonant from top to bottom. Mills plays a poignantly lyrical solo on “Sierras 1,” soon augmented by upper voices creating glinting shards of sound. There is then much interplay between cello and the upper and lower voices ricocheting back and forth. When all come together, with the cello playing in the altissimo register, it is a glorious sound. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CDs, File Under?

“Everything Collides” – Bruno Bavota and Chantal Acda

Duo Bruno Bavota and Chantal Acda have released a teaser track from their forthcoming album, “A Closer Distance” (Temporary Residence). The recording is out on October 7th. In the meantime, one can revel in Acda’s gentle singing of short phrases and keening overdubs alongside Bavota’s post-minimal arpeggiations. They are a well-suited musical pair.

by Christian Carey