Tag: CD review

CD Review, Chamber Music, Classical Music, File Under?, Twentieth Century Composer

Euclid Quartet – Breve (Recording Review)

Breve

Euclid Quartet

Afinat

 

The Breve Quartet has been in residence at Indiana University South Bend for sixteen years. During that time they have recorded a wide range of repertoire. Like so many ensembles, their catalog was put on ice during the pandemic, and their latest since 2017 for Afinat, Breve, returns with eleven miniatures in disparate styles. Listeners are encouraged to shuffle them to hear in any order. 

 

Miniatures are often thought of as the fare of encores, but a full program of them suggests that small doesn’t mean insubstantial or merely flashy. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s C-minor Adagio and Fugue is a case in point, with rigorously constructed counterpoint that reminds us of his possession of a copy of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. 

 

Another standout is Graceful Ghost Rag, a transcription of one of William Bolcom’s well-known piano rags that the quartet plays jauntily. In a similar pocket is their graceful rendition of George Gershwin’s Lullaby. Shostakovich’s Polka, From the Golden Age is a mischievous sendup of the popular dance, with deliberate “wrong notes” and pizzicatos and glissandos lampooning the saccharine lushness of bourgeois culture. One could imagine all of them appearing as part of an updated soundtrack for a film of the silent era. 

 

Quartettsatz by Franz Schubert features an uplifting theme offset by transitions rife with portentous diminished harmonies. Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade takes an archetypal form and adorns it with his characteristic chromaticism. Although he is best known as a member of the Second Viennese School of early 12-tone composers, Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz is a reminder that he also wrote attractive tonal works. Christantemi is full of the plangent melodies one also hears in Giacomo Puccini’s operas.

 

Metro Chabacano by Javier Álvarez recreates a ride on the Mexico City train line with repeated chords for chugging and zooming melodies that depict the rush of commuter travel. Four, For Tango written by the composer and master bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi, mixes the dance’s characteristic rhythmic patterns with open-string chords and altissimo upward slides. If you are listening straight through, Hector Villa-Lobos’ La Oración del Torero closes the disc with another dose of traditional Latinx rhythms and modal tunes, interspersed with recitative-like melodic passages.

 

The Euclid Quartet performs in all of the afore-mentioned, stylisitically disparate pieces with both technical and interpretive assuredness. Sometimes less is more, as evidenced by Breve. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

Martin Arnold – Flax (CD Review)

Martin Arnold 

Flax

Kerry Yong, piano

Another Timbre

 

Martin Arnold’s solo piano work Flax has a sad backstory. It was originally commissioned by the abundantly talented new music pianist Philip Thomas, who shortly afterward became seriously ill and was unable to premiere the work. Kerry Yong performs the piece in his honor on an Another Timbre CD. The piece was already well underway when this transpired, but one cannot hear the considerable poignancy and elegant gracefulness of Flax without connecting it to Thomas’s loss of health. 

 

Arnold is a Canadian composer whose work is influenced by Morton Feldman and the Wandelweiser Collective. Feldman is a nexus between Arnold and Thomas, whose recordings of Feldman’s complete piano music are superlative. Flax, at over eighty minutes in duration and in a slow tempo throughout, is certainly reminiscent of the aforementioned influences. However, when creating Flax, Arnold also had other considerations to ponder. In the CD’s program note essay, we learn  that Thomas had mentioned to Arnold that the composer’s use of the upper register had made the pianist rethink it. Thus, Flax prioritizes the top two octaves of the piano. When writing the piece, Arnold was also considering bebop and early modern jazz, how there are dissonances added to the changes that create harmonic ambiguity. The first two thirds of Flax use extended verticals garnered from this practice. The ending section of the piece returns to modality and organum, both aspects of much of Arnold’s other music. 

Thelonious Monk’s voicings and Feldman-esque delicate slowness are an interesting mix. The placement of much of the music in the upper register also reframes the harmony. Until nearly halfway through, when a bass note appears, it feels like an event. At that point, there begins to be a duet between diminished chords and bass notes in the left hand and slow motion bop in the right. 

 

Kerry Yong is a persuasive interpreter of Flax, with a detailed approach to dynamics and phrasing that punctuates distinctive registral spaces in the music. Voicing of the harmony is a pivotal component of this piece, and it is where Yong truly excels, providing a sense of trajectory throughout.  

 

I don’t think that I have heard a Wandelweiser adjacent work that embodies anything close to this one. That said, Flax is a successful experiment from Arnold, stretching his language in surprising and appealing ways. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Jeffrey Mumford – Echoing Depths on Albany

Jeffrey Mumford

Echoing Depths

Albany Records

Jeffrey Mumford’s music channels high modernism into imaginative works that are luminously textured. His latest Albany release, Echoing Depths, features two pieces for orchestra and another for piano and ensemble. All three are concertos, a form that befits Mumford’s penchant for virtuosity. 

The cello concerto Of fields unfolding … echoing depths of resonant light is dedicated to the composer Elliott Carter, a centenarian who passed away in 2011. Carter has been a key influence on Mumford’s music and was one of his composition teachers. Christine Lamprea is the soloist with the Detroit Symphony, conducted by Kazem Abdullah. Lamprea is a skilful cellist, and her intonation is clear, even in angular motives and widely stretched multi-stops. Her performance of the piece, energetic and crystalline, is reminiscent of Fred Sherry’s rendition of Carter’s Cello Concerto. Indeed, the piece itself channels Carter’s concerto style, with disparate scorings depicting various demeanors in a complex colloquy. Of Fields unfolding…’s several cadenzas are abundantly virtuosic, and Lamprea assays them with command. Detroit has become an imposing ensemble in recent years, and they address the considerable demands of the score with aplomb, Abdullah leading them in a rousing performance.

Becoming is a chamber concerto for piano. Winston Choi is the soloist with Ensemble dal Niente, conducted by Michael Lewanski. The overlapping of pitched percussion and piano creates a super instrument redolent of fleet and punctilious articulations. Choi has made a specialty of Elliott Carter’s music, and thus has an entryway to Mumford’s style that relatively few other artists have. His tone is brilliant and incisive, which better matches the correspondence with the percussionists. Ensemble dal Niente is a go-to group for contemporary music, and Lewanski is the conducting equivalent. Becoming is elegantly shaped and a microcosm of Mumford’s music writ large.

Mumford’s second violin concerto, Verdant cycles of deepening Spring, is the final work on the disc. Soloist Christine Wu joins the Chicago Composers Orchestra, conducted by Allen Tinkham. The ensemble is well-rehearsed, with corruscating entrances and complexly balanced timbres rendered with authority. Tinkham excels at dealing with the frequent tempo shifts and, once again, it is impressive how accurate the recording is. Wu is an imposing soloist, playing the mercurial passagework, wide leaps, and frequent dynamic contrasts with attitude and accuracy. She has a supple, versatile tone and embodies the sense of conflict that typifies the piece.

Echoing Depths has the high quality of performances that most composers dream of when putting together a portrait CD. Mumford’s chamber works were previously familiar to me, but this disc of concertos shows that his music is a powerful force when writ large. Recommended.

-Christian Carey

 



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Steve Lehman and Orchestre National de Jazz (CD Review)

Steve Lehman and Orchestre National de Jazz

Ex Machina

Pi Recordings

 

Saxophonist Steve Lehman not only has chops as a jazz musician, he is a trained composer with a background in electronics. Ex Machina is his most ambitious project to date, with electronics developed at the premiere new music center IRCAM in Paris. They respond live in performance to the spectral harmonies and polyrhythms made by the orchestra. While live electronics have been emanating from IRCAM for some time, Lehman’s electronics are neatly incorporated into both composed and improvised textures.

 

The first track “39” contains a solo by Lehman that strides the boundaries of inside and outside. Indeed much of the music here refuses to be easily categorized. While there are bespoke elements and post-tonal verticals, there are also soloists that swing and passagework that couldn’t have existed without big bands past.

 

The motoric plays a role as well. In “Los Angeles Imaginary,” one can hear the fracas of the freeways in polyrhythmic ostinatos from the rhythm section, while electronics and the horn section supply car horns and bleary trumpets a sliver of noir. “Chimera” is more mysterious, with pitched percussion mixing with gong-like electronics. Morse code percussion and repeated notes from the saxophones and trumpets succeed this, once more dealing with rhythmic layering. A florid vibes solo is the tune’s centerpiece. 

 

“Jeux D’Anches” has repeated harmonic cells and furious drumming, over which a soaring trumpet solo and another vibes solo, after which the sections undertake the chordal repetitions, with a tuba alongside in off-kilter fashion. Before moving into a swelling jazz band section, “Les Treize Soleils” opens with a hat tip to Boulez, flute and electronics creating a modernist environment. Similarly, “Alchimie” juxtaposes modern classical gestures with a swinging backbeat.

 

Two long-form suites, “Speed-Freeze Parts 1 and 2” and “Le Seuil Parts 1 and 2” are Ex Machina’s culmination. The first opens with a slow repeated series of pitches in a small collection of instruments, Lehman’s saxophone among them, with vibrato prevalent. Quick-silver passages are juxtaposed with the slow material, with disjunct solos gradually accumulating, including an extended one for trombone. A Zappa-esque coda finishes the first part. The second part exudes funkiness from the band alongside another set of pitched percussion interjections. A baritone saxophone solo starts low and then uses pitch bends and squalls at its peak, joined by Lehman to trade licks. The tenor saxophonist then stretches out, playing exuberantly over off-kilter rhythms and chordal horn sections. Lehman’s solo concludes with caterwauling and nimble alternate scales. The various sections alternate quick repetitions, interrupted by the spacious pitched percussion interludes of the first part. Once again, low brass takes over the foreground, continuing to be juxtaposed with the percussion ostinato and repeated brass chords. The flutes return, descending in chromatic runs until subsumed by low brass and repeated vibraphone clangs.

 

“Le Seuil” begins with long electronic tones interrupted by splashy brass. Glissandos appear, only to have fortissimo brass provide a rejoinder. Clusters in the piano are repeated over sustained bass drones and haloed by electronics and microtonal horn lines. A loping trombone solo is swiftly interrupted by a slice of the full band. The music slides into a mystifying demeanor, one that mirrors the opening of “Speed-Freeze.” Single vibraphone notes and recessed wind chords are accompanied by extensive electronic punctuations. A trumpet call announces the end of the section. Part two begins with shimmering electronics, a thrumming bass line, a second ostinato in the piano, and an aggressive trombone solo. Chordal crescendos buoy the trombone’s closing gestures, and then angular counterpoint and a cascade of synth sounds take over, with the inexorable bass line continuing to pulsate, then sustain. Combined harmonies from electronics and the ensemble swirl into a brief denouement.

 

Lehman’s art combines the most sophisticated means, notable in terms of its harmonic construction, sophisticated rhythms, and employment of technology. In an excellent collaboration, Orchestre National de Jazz meets every challenge he poses. Ex Machina is one of my favorite releases of 2023.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Brabant Ensemble Sings Guerrero (CD Review)

Guerrero: Missa Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, Magnificat, and Motets

Brabant Ensemble, directed by Stephen Rice

Hyperion

 

The Spanish Renaissance composer Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599) does not have the profile or deep discography he deserves. Brabant Ensemble, directed by Stephen Rice, seek to raise the former and enhance the latter with Missa Ecce Sacerdos Magnus, Magnificat, and Motets, a Hyperion CD of pieces by Guerrero that have not previously been recorded. While hearing them is past due, it is welcome all the same.

 

The ensemble has an exquisite blend, doubtless helped in part by being populated by performers who also collaborate together in other ensembles, notably the Ashby sisters (Stile Antico). Rice selects tempos that are measured, never rushed, resulting in clarity of textual utterance. Contrapuntal entrances are seamlessly coordinated.

 

The motets are artfully crafted. Gaude Barbara features diverse smaller groupings of the ensemble, with lines shifting between them, creating a varied texture. It is an effusive opener for the recording. The six-part Simile Est Regnum Caelorum is similarly jubilant, juxtaposing homophonic and polyphonic entrances, with frequent cadential elisions.

 

Quomodo Cantabimus Canticum Domini, on the other hand, uses lines from Psalm 137, one of the most wrenching of those lamenting the Babylonian captivity. Here, the upper voices move through a plangent harmonic sequence, the basses held back until the words “In a strange land.” The staggering of entrances creates a feeling of isolation and confusion, which fits the words perfectly. Ductus est Jesus, a setting of the text of Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness, nearly steps out of the Renaissance frame in its theatricality of utterance, with dramatic depictions of Satan’s suggestions and resolute rejoinders from Christ. O Crux Splendidior is doleful yet dignified, with melancholy harmony supported by flowing lines.

 

Missa Ecce Sacerdos Magnus is a five-voice (the altos divisi throughout) cantus firmus mass. In addition to melodic material from the chant’s incorporation, the chant text is sung at times by some of the parts instead of the text of the Ordinary of the mass. Depicting the “great priest” in a text primarily from Ecclisiastes, the chant is a clear reference to Christ and also to its dedicatee, Pope Gregory VIII.

 

The Kyrie manages some rhythmic shaping to accommodate the entire chant melody. Free material against it includes a soaring soprano line, which then descends in a quarter note sequence imitated in the tenor and bass voices. The Gloria is one of the first sections of a piece on the recording in which homophony and paired question and answer phrases dominate, rendering the text compactly. The Credo, on the other hand, is an expansive rendering that takes its time with the various textual allusions. My favorite movement is the Sanctus – Benedictus, which contains a brilliant, canonic Osanna that is performed gloriously by the Brabant Ensemble. The luminous Agnus Dei returns to the chant text and expands to six voices. Canonic entries and rhythmic variations allow for considerable pliancy, with a vibrant soprano line leading the mass to an extended final cadence.

 

A second set of motets reveals the variety of approaches that Guerrero adopted. Peccantem Me Quotidie is even just as  emotive as Ductus est Jesus, depicting a penitent’s fear of Hell and implorations for mercy. The five-voice Beatus Es Et Bene Tibi Erit is a compact setting with an effusive closing section. Quae Es Iste Tam Formosa is an early work, with paired entrances reminiscent of earlier composers and considerable dissonance in its second part. Even though these techniques would be dispensed with in Guerrero’s later music, the motet is well-constructed and attractive. 

 

Magnificat Secundi Toni is an alternatim setting for four voices, with the sopranos dividing in the last verse to reinforce the sonority. The chant verses are used as material for the polyphonic sections, making the Magnificat an economical setting that, like the most contrapuntal sections of the mass, demonstrates Guerrero’s mastery of technique. 

 

The Brabant Ensemble are extraordinary advocates. Hopefully, the pieces programmed here will gain wider currency.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Sciarrino on Kairos (CD Review)

Salvatore Sciarrino

Paesaggi con macerie

Kairos

Monica Bacelli, mezzo-soprano

Icarus vs. Muzak, conducted by Marco Angius

 

Salvatore Sciarrino (b.1947) is one of today’s most prominent Italian composers. His work encompasses the effects and inflections of second modernity, frequently alongside transcriptions of earlier music. This combination yields singular pieces from a composer who has a distinctive and compelling voice. Icarus vs. Muzak, conducted by Marco Angius, adopts well the various facets of Sciarrino’s music, performing the quotations with clarity and the frequent contrasts energetically.

 

The influences incorporated on Paesaggi con macerie, Sciarrino’s latest portrait CD for the Kairos imprint, are a disjunct pairing, Chopin and Gesualdo. Passagi con macerie (2022) is a three movement work written in homage to Chopin. His Mazurkas are presented in various guises – snatches of quotation, full length quotes, and, in the last movement, the group plays the famous Mazurka in C-major, distressed by percussion to sound like a skipping Victrola. Surrounding the Mazurka material are the special effects that also typify Sciarrino’s work. Few composers work so well with borrowed material, incorporating into a contemporary aesthetic.

 

Mezzo-soprano Monica Bacelli joins the ensemble for Le Voci sottovetro (1999), a piece inspired by stories of genies in bottles at the bottom of the ocean and by the music of Gesualdo. Sciarrino transcribes the madrigalisms found in Gesualdo’s work, creating a vivid scoring. Bacelli is an expressive singer with a generous lower register. Her sense of phrasing is both detailed and emotive, a delicate balancing act.

 

Exporazione del bianco II (1986) is based on a poetic image, the moment of blindness after a bolt of lightning. The piece doesn’t employ quotation, instead using extended techniques in pointillistic fashion to create a fragmentary score. Icarus vs. Muzak is in their element here, performing the score’s terse, rhythmically intricate entrances and overtone-based harmonies with assuredness.

 

The recording concludes with Gesualdo senza parole (2013), a four-movement piece written to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Gesualdo’s death. Instrumental transcriptions of Gesualdo’s madrigals, scored to bring out colorful textures and dovetailing melodies, for the most part eschew extended techniques, the occasional glissando or harmonic sufficing. Antiphonal passages and dynamic echoes give the image of these pieces being sung. The transcriptions are expertly done, making their renditions seem nearly inevitable. The fourth movement, initially an addition to the piece, is described by Sciarrino as “an insolent concertino for marimba and six instruments.” Here he reincorporates effects and pointillism, frequently breaking up Gesualdo’s music into fragments. Upon the marimba’s entry, a madrigal transcription enters, returning the ambience to that of former movements. Gradually, transcription and extensions converge, finishing the piece in the distinctive polyglot ambiance that is Sciarrino’s preferred approach.

 

Paesaggi con macerie is a fascinating addition to Sciarrino’s catalog. The combination of extraordinary progenitors and Sciarrino’s expert way of handling them makes this one of my favorite recordings of 2023.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Stephen Yip – By Moonflowers (CD Review)

Stephen Yip

By Moonflowers

Kairos 

 

Composer Stephen Yip (b. 1971) was born in Hong Kong and now lives in Houston, Texas, teaching at the local community college and fulfilling a number of high-profile commissions. His debut on Kairos is a portrait CD featuring excellent ensembles that play his intricate works skilfully, with a keen sense of their fluid interpretive potentialities. 

 

The Mivos Quartet performs Luminosity Etude (2017), in which rich harmonics and high partials are distressed by glissandos. Mivos also plays the title track (2022), which is inspired by Bashõ’s five original haiku. Although the general atmosphere is subdued, the work is filled with extended techniques. Here again, Yip explores sound spectra. The quartet is also called upon to imitate Chinese musical gestures and scales. The confluence of elements of second modernity and indigenous music display a distinctive vocabulary and compositional voice.

 

inFLUX flute and harp – Izumi Miyahara and Emily Klein – perform Elegance in Emptiness (2018), a meditative piece with many moments of concord – colorful overlaps of unisons, pentatonic harp passages and arpeggiations accompanying relatively simple melodic lines in the flute. There are also metallic strums, percussive attacks, multiphonics, glissandos, harmonics, key clicks, tremolos, and breathy tones. Unless willing to consider the piece from a reflective stance, the abundance of material could easily overshadow its supple deployment. inFlux performs Elegance in Emptiness with crystalline timbres and well-coordinated rubato.

 

Renga in Kigo (2019) for viola and cello is played by William Lane and Chak-yin Pun, both members of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. Yip’s interest in overtones, tremolos, pizzicatos, et cetera, persists. Although these are lower members of the string cohort, much of their time is spent well above the staff, with only occasional punctuations in the bass register, usually to begin a particular overtone series. Bashõ’s five original haiku is also the inspiration for Renga in Kigo. The four seasons, their various atmospheres and activities, are depicted in a series of interactive duets.

 

… in a silent way (2014), performed by KLK String Orchestra, conducted by Roman Kreslenko, concludes the recording. In addition to the aforementioned string and spectral effects, the ensemble sometimes plays col legno, adding an element bordering on noise. Yip’s techniques writ large create fascinating, often thornily mixed, textures. As the piece progresses, melodies in octaves make a powerful impression. Harmonics, pizzicato, tremolando, trills, and sliding tone create a buildup that heralds the final section, in which contrapuntal entries juxtapose with swells, glissandos, and glassine upper partials. A long denouement concludes with the concertmaster playing repeated tonic notes and then vanishing. 

 

On By Moonflowers, Yip’s compositions prove to be imaginative, intricate, and eminently engaging. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey 



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

Bracing Change 2 on NMC (CD Review)

Bracing Change 2

Piatti Quartet, Heath Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini

NMC Recordings

 

The first Bracing Change recording dates from 2017, when Wigmore Hall decided to use the moniker as the title for a series of string commissions. Three string quartets play on Bracing Change 2, another collection of commissions by the organization.

 

The Piatti Quartet plays Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “Contusions.” It begins with sforzando punctuations of a modal ostinato, gradually picking up steam, accumulating material, and more dissonant harmonies along the way. An emphatic and knotty passage of counterpoint marks the end of the first large section, after which there are viola and cello solos trading angular melodies. The upper voices join, creating a duo cadenza. A new ostinato, this one more emphatic and motoric in feel, accompanies snatches from the various solos. Full-throated tremolandos lead into the final section, a suddenly subdued passage of a third type of repeated patterning. The swells from the opening, this time forte, join the rest of the material to create a sense both of return and greater intensity. A final melody in the cello is accompanied by harmonics and tremolandos, and the chords from the piece’s opening, this time subdued. A brash vertical ends the piece conclusively.

 

Quatuor Bozzini plays Paul Newland’s “Difference is Everywhere,” which combines slow-moving mixed interval chords with sustained single notes at a soft dynamic. Bozzini are some of the best exponents of the Wandelweiser Collective, so this is right in their wheelhouse. Newland’s music may adopt Wandelweiser signatures, but “Difference is Everywhere” is a distinctive and attractive piece.

 

Helen Grime’s String Quartet No. 2 is a major work in her catalogue. The Heath Quartet’s rendition is detailed in terms of articulations, special techniques, and dynamics. The first movement combines tremolandos and mixed interval chords. Gradually these build in dynamic, replaced by quick-paced lines juxtaposed with pizzicatos. A syncopated gesture asserts itself as a principal motif, which is followed by a soft interlude of trills versus sustained notes. Fleet forte scalar passages create a vigorous coda. The second movement also features pizzicatos and the syncopated gesture found in the first. The latter is played fortissimo and surrounded by glissandos. A doleful melody, sliding between pitches, begins the final section in which previous motifs are played in a long decrescendo to a hushed close. The third movement begins with a near-continuation, with intricate harmonies accompanying a brisk violin solo. Verticals continue on their own, and the sliding melody from the second movement makes an altered reappearance with pizzicato punctuations. Glissandos and trills build a hive of dissonance, its buildup then replaced by undulating arpeggios. Swelling harmonies move from mixed interval chords to ones that orient the piece closer to minor. A long decrescendo of fragments of melody and sustained chords completes the movement, and the piece. The quartet is a worthy successor to Grime’s Quartet No. 1.

 

Bracing Changes 2 lives up to its title, but there is a significant amount of variety among the pieces. It is one of my favorite releases of 2023.

 

Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical

Yotam Haber – Bloodsnow (CD Review

Yotam Haber

Bloodsnow

Sideband Records

Taylor Ward, Baritone; Don-Paul Kahl, Alto Saxophone

Talea Ensemble, James Baker, conductor

American Wild Ensemble

 

Composer Yotam Haber’s Bloodsnow is based on life events and contemporary concerns. The title work was from a harrowing experience. Haber was caring for a friend’s sled dogs during her first Iditarod, and sustained a serious injury to his finger. The blood mixing with snow, the fear of finding treatment for the wound, and the sense of dizziness from blood loss are all musically depicted with bracing verisimilitude. Talea Ensemble, conducted by James Baker, catches every nuance of its quixotic span.

 

Foreboding bass winds and dampened piano percussion open the piece. Blurry runs and woodwind multiphonics add a sense of disassociation. Harp glissandos and piano clusters further depict the ambience. A high violin, syncopated piano runs, and upper winds, imitating the previous low winds’ material, move the piece into a second section, closely followed upon by jazzy bass clarinet, thrumming piano notes in its low register, and prestissimo string runs. The eye of the hurricane features extended triadic harmonies from the piano and hushed strings. With suddenness, this moves back to the previous aggressive demeanor, with keyboard stabs and swelling string chords. The digressive nature of these sharp turns seem to embody the frantic mood of someone bleeding. Even the occasional musical oasis makes sense; the woozy figures depicting the blood loss into the snow. Ascending piano chords and darting winds suggest a denouement, but a coda of bustling energy, with cascading runs in the piano mirrored in the other instruments, then abruptly ending, concludes the piece with a satisfying surprise.

 

Baritone Taylor Ward joins the ensemble to sing They Say You Are My Disaster, a set of two songs with texts by women from different generations. “Schnitzel,” by Dorit Weisman, combines two different through lines: breast cancer surgery and meal preparation. The music veers between violence and quietude, with Ward displaying a wide range and impressive dynamic control. “Oh, My Bank” by Tahel Frosh again deals with two subject matters, both giving rise to the narrator’s anger: the repressive nature of late capitalism and the role of women in such a society. Snarling Sprechstimme and disjunct lines from Ward are accompanied by a bass clarinet solo, in similarly high dudgeon, and powerful instrumental swells. The coda initially quiets these elements, with one final vocal cry and a crescendo leaving a sense of ominousness in the song’s wake.

 

Resistance is an extensive piece for solo saxophone, played by Don-Paul Kahl. It is filled with special techniques, percussive pops, aggressive growls, microtones, and multiphonics, to name a partial list.  There is much shifting between a number of melodic cells, with mercurial changes between jazzy runs and combustible angularity. However, it is the melodies submerged beneath these playing methods, visible at the edges and seemingly trying to find their way to the surface of the texture, perhaps a titular metaphor, that allow Resistance to transcend its formidable technical demands to become a work of rich expressiveness.

 

The recording closes where it began, in the Alaskan wilderness. The ensemble work Choref is about Haber’s week spent hiking in Wrangell-St. Elias. Its two demeanors picture the stillness of the surroundings with slow, sustained harmonies, and the burbling vitality of life that persists, even in such conditions. As the piece moves through its trajectory, what began as two distinct sectional boundaries are commingled into music of varied textures, with bustling woodwind bird calls, high modal lines, sepulchral bass clarinet, string tremolos, and intricately constructed harmonies.

 

Haber’s music revels in complexity that is in service of larger narratives, never for its own sake. He is an imaginative and skillful creator, willing to look at his own terror alongside the peace of nature, managing to make them pieces of a whole.

 

-Christian Carey

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

Justin Dello Joio – Oceans Apart (CD Review)

Justin Dello Joio – Oceans Apart (Bridge Records)

 

Composer Justin Dello Joio enjoys a top flight slate of performers on Oceans Apart, his latest recording for Bridge. The title work is a piano concerto, performed live here by the Boston Symphony, conducted by Alan Gilbert, with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist. A short bit of applause is left on the tail end of the recording, otherwise one would never be the wiser. The quality of the rendition and recording are excellent.

 

Dello Joio conceived of Oceans Apart when watching surfers being challenged by massive waves. The concerto translates this image into a piece with a muscular orchestration trying to overwhelm the soloist. The scoring is vivid and varied, with imaginative use of harp, percussion, muted brass, and string effects to create the undulating feel of the surf. As the piece builds, it swells and indeed threatens to subsume the pianist. It is appreciated that Dello Joio has his own take on “water music:” no ersatz Debussy here. 

 

Ohlsson is a marvelous interpreter, undertaking the role of vying against the orchestra instead of, as is traditional, being supported by it. That said, in places where the soloist is intended to blend in with certain cohorts of the ensemble, such as pitched percussion flurries, shimmering and well-coordinated passages result. His solo turns reveal formidable virtuosity. The final cadenza finds the pianist challenged over and over again by violent interruptions, which is succeeded by a supple denouement. Not to overstress the program, but I have to wonder if the surfer went underwater. Oceans Apart is one of Dello Joio’s best orchestral pieces to date, with a versatile language and well-planned trajectory. 

 

The other two works on the CD are for chamber forces. Due per Due is played by NY Philharmonic principal cellist Carter Brey and pianist Christopher O’Riley. The first movement, “Elegie (To an old musician),” is dedicated to Dello Joio’s father, Norman Dello Joio. One can hear a clever co-opting of the elder composer’s use of pantonality and dissonant counterpoint. At the same time, Justin Dello Joio’s voice is an unmistakable part of the piece; it is far more intricately shaped and complexly hued than any piece by his father. The second movement is a moto perpetuo, but one that is far more developed and intricate than many pieces written in this style. Brey and O’Riley are an excellent pairing of performers. One could easily imagine them recording and touring a program of contemporary works.

 

Blue and Gold Music concludes the recording (the title takes the colors from Trinity School, a K-12 preparatory school that Dello Joio attended). The American Brass Quintet and organist Colin Fowler are ideal interpreters for the ebullient, fanfare-filled piece. It demonstrates how far Dello Joio can stylistically stretch while retaining his own distinctive approach. Copland-esque Americana with a twist is an ideal vehicle for the American Brass Quintet, and Fowler is a good addition to the proceedings.

 

The concerto is one of my favorite works of 2023, and the entire recording is highly recommended.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey