Denise Burt’s beautiful design effectively encompasses the scope and meaning of this album in arresting images
Maya Beiser, cellist, Bang on a Can member, listener, composer, innovator, interpreter, and producer. Beiser’s hats are many and each new album traces the musings of a truly interesting artist, ever evolving, revisioning, thinking, growing. She cuts a singular, intelligent, and deeply felt path that is both monolithic and definitive.
Looking back and forward
This latest release on her own Islandia label is another exposition of a powerful musical mind bringing fascinating perspectives, the artist’s singular take on music spanning some 500 years. Beiser is not about “authentic” interpretation (mostly) but rather about lucidly sharing her perspective, her musical visions.
Previous releases gave us her take on living musical icons like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. She also dares to look back upon some of the “sacred cows” of the repertoire like the Bach Cello Suites and Riley’s seminal “In C” among others. Her revisionings are respectful homages and insightful performances that challenge and inform her listeners to maybe hear in a new way. As T.S. Eliot said,
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place (or the piece) for the first time”
So it is with the carefully curated selections on this disc. Beginning with a Missy Mazzoli composition featuring vocalist and performance artist Helga Davis (featured most visibly in the most recent iteration of Glass’ “Einstein on the Beach”). Her vocal skills drive these settings of texts by Erin Cressida Wilson. And this piece sets the tone for this album which is both lament and celebration for the experiences of women in history, mythology, and memory.
The first five tracks contain the bittersweet song cycle, Salt, from which the album takes its name. Here the listener is brought into the context of the Biblical story of Lot’s wife, forever imprisoned in a pillar of salt. But, rather than a pedestrian retelling of the tale, this cycle appropriates the context of the story to establish, with painful directness, the tone and direction of what will follow.
Helga Davis (photo from WNYC)
From her mineral prison, a mineral ironically known for its preserving properties, she sings of her crime of looking and remembering. She sings of pain, anger, and sadness, but never with remorse for her “crime”. It is an image that Beiser says lives powerfully in her personal memory. Mazzoli, Davis, and Beiser recontextualize the prisoner as victim, not criminal.
The ghostly images of the women we meet on this album are lamented as well as celebrated for their stories which burn deeply into our collective mythology, into our personal memories. Beiser lovingly dedicates this release first to her daughter, Aurielle Kaminsky, then to the principals whose creativity and energy pervade this album: Missy Mazzoli, Clarice Jensen, Meredith Monk, Erin Cressida Wilson, Helga Davis, Odeya Nani, Beth Morrison, and Christina Jensen.
In Lament to Phaedra, a work by the late British composer John Tavener is heard in an arrangement by Beiser. The 1995 work is sung by Phaedra’s sister Ariadne in response to Phaedra’s suicide by hanging. But here we have a wordless arrangement for cello and electronics that focuses on Tavener’s unique harmonic style and lyrical melodic construction. The result is effectively an affirmation of the lament for her fate.
Then we are treated to yet another transcription of a curiously difficult but very effective use of the early music concept of “hocket”, an interactive counterpoint of two voices. The eponymous Hocket, though vocal in its original form is, like much of Meredith Monk’s work, without a text. Monk’s work is about the voice, or the voices. And her revisioned operatic creations are fed by the mythological streams of women’s stories. This creative arrangement by this artist is an homage to Monk and, by extension, to the women she so beautifully celebrates in her work.
Meredith Monk with Allison Sniffin after a performance of Hocket at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco (copyright Allan J. Cronin)
Another arrangement follows. It is a Melody from Orfeo ed Euridice, from the late baroque opera by Christopher Willibald Gluck. It is, of course, another ill fated relationship ended by the same infraction of looking and remembering that sealed the fate of Lot’s wife. Here Beiser chooses the gorgeous “Dance of the Blessed Spirits”, another wordless homage that imprints on the listener most effectively.
Next up is yet another wordless work, this one by fellow cellist and composer, Clarice Jensen, whose work has graced these blog pages before in reviews of her singular, drone, minimalist, meditative albums. Whether you call her work “drone” or “minimalism” or whatever you choose, your ears will bask in her meditative sonic ministrations. Jensen’s work, while related by its medium (that of cello and electronics), is a distinctly different style, immersive, meditative, evocative, a sound bath for the listener.
Clarice Jensen (from Jensen Artists page)
From the 21st century we are now transported to 17th century Venice and the work of the early baroque master Claudio Monteverdi. In the only surviving music from his second opera, we hear Ariadne, sister of Phaedra, singing the lament for the sister who had taken her life in shame and sadness.
The penultimate track brings us to this artist’s cultural roots with a song by Yedidya Admon to lyrics by Yitzchak Shenhar.
My Field (Shedemati)
My field, At dawn I sowed it in tears, Let the prayer of the farmer be heard! My field, It is saturated with dew, It is intoxicated by the light of the sun. The grain bends low in front of the reaper. The strides are long, The burnished scythe is raised high.
Odeya Nini provides the voice in this “reimagining“ of this classic song of sadness and lament by the lowly farmer imagined by the poet.
Odeya Nini (unknown copyright)
Fittingly, this last track is about death, endings. It is Beiser’s arrangement of Henry Purcell’s “When I am laid in the earth” from his opera, Dido and Aeneas. The text:
When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create No trouble, no trouble in thy breast; Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate. Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
But forgetting is not allowed here. Beiser begs us to remember. And we cannot avert our ears or eyes.
Chandos is one of my favorite classical labels with an intelligent selection of repertoire. The Neave Trio consisting of violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura is clearly a fit for Chandos. This trio’s releases have been consistently interesting and creative. This most recent release is a perfect example.
The recording includes three works by three composers (and a brilliant arranger) for piano trio. The first is by the venerable Brahmsian Charles-Camille Saint-Saens, his second Piano Trio Op. 92 (1892). I am not familiar with the chamber music portion of this prolific, virtuoso pianist/composer’s oeuvre but I’ve yet to have heard anything by him that failed to impress. Indeed, this 5 movement trio is a gloriously engaging fin de siècle salon music. Cast in 5 movements, it is a handsome piece of chamber music that deserves more hearings. And The Neave Trio clearly make a case for that in a lively execution of this virtuosic music.
The next work is a fine example of the curiosity and vision of these artists. These two movements for piano trio entitled “Soir-Matin” Op. 76 (1907) are by a composer wholly unknown, even to your eclectically curious reviewer. Mélanie Hélène“Mel” Bonis(1858-1937) is a new name to this listener and likely to most listeners. The lack of recognition of female composers is slowly being remedied by artists such as these who have here found a composer whose reputation deserves at least a little boost. I mean, she was a student of Cesar Franck and her music was lauded by no less than Saint-Saens. She was also a classmate of Debussy at the Paris Conservatoire. And this leads us to…
As if these first two entries alone weren’t enough to recommend this fine release, behold the ear opening arrangement (yes, for piano trio) of the masterful La Mer (1905) by Claude Debussy. The arrangement is by one Sally Beamish from 2013.
As a listener, I have frequently been amazed by the power of the long tradition of “arrangements” of music generally better known in a different form. Some use reduced forces to allow music to be performed more affordably (chamber ensemble vs. orchestra). Take Maurice Ravel’s brilliant orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, or the two piano arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s seminal “Rite of Spring” ballet (1913) as examples. Comparatively few people even know that Pictures at an Exhibition was originally a solo piano piece. But both versions each have their charms, and each communicate the musical message differently. And though audiences are doubtless more familiar with the colorful orchestral original, The Rite of Spring, reduced to the work of four busy hands on two keyboards is a more portable experience. Especially before the flourishing of the recording industry, it made this music accessible to more listeners at less cost (2 musicians instead of a whole orchestra).
In both cases, the one vastly and gloriously expanding the evoked pictures described in sound, the other compacting a big orchestral tapestry into a more intimate “salon” experience. Each carries its own message and provides its own insights.
And it is here in the last three tracks of this fine album that we hear the ultimate glory, the real reason you want to add this disc to your collection. I have not heard any but the original orchestration (requiring an orchestra of some 60 musicians) of this French impressionist masterpiece. I could not imagine how one could squeeze these fully orchestrated harmonies and have that make sense to a listener using but three instruments. But the Neaves (if I may mint a friendly collective noun), with this arrangement by Beamish, provided this listener with a revelatory experience comparable to Joshua Rifkin’s brilliant arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s “Clouds” sung by the equally brilliant Judy Collins. Or, even more eclectic, the Anton Webern orchestration of the J.S. Bach Ricercar from his Musical Offering. The point here is that great performances of great arrangements have the effect of opening your ears and mind.
So let the “The Neaves” open your ears and mind with this delightfully unusual and very effective recording.
This listener hears the influence, or at least some common elements of Morton Feldman, La Monte Young, and a too little known David Toub. What are those common elements? The long, frequently slow development of Feldman and Toub along with long held tones of La Monte Young.
Emilie Cecilia Lebel (photo from composer’s website)
What we have here are two solo piano pieces by Canadian composer Emilie Cecilia Lebel (1983- ). After reviewing her nicely organized website I came to the conclusion that this composer works in drones, long held tones, and long form works that not infrequently bleed into sound installation and ambient musics categories. She writes for piano and other instruments including works that are suitable for traditional concert stages as well as works that function in a more ambient mode like gallery installations or site specific sound design.
These two works are best heard in an environment that allows the listener to focus on the slow development of ideas that both these works share. That environment can be a recital hall or, as in this listener’s case, a CD player attached to some good headphones, reclining with eyes closed. Despite said slow development, these pieces compelled this listener to stay put and really enjoy the way this music unfolds as the initially perceived sparseness gives way to allow the structure and logic to emerge.
Despite the perceived similarities to the sound world of other composers as mentioned above, these pieces have a unique and developed voice. In a sense they are the next generation containing the musical DNA of their predecessors.
One of the things I had to look up was the “e bow drone”. This little electromagnetic device is more commonly found in jazz and fusion, perhaps rock bands as well. Primarily used with electric guitars and basses, this device excites a targeted string on a given instrument to produce long held tones. Exactly how it is used by the performers is doubtless indicated in the score but, suffice it to say that it works well here. These held tone fades from foreground to background and back again as the music relates always to the anchor of the drone.
Both pieces utilize this drone apparently as both a structural and sonic tool. By that I mean that the music unfolds partly via its relationship to the drone tone. Within that framework the pianist plays a variety of chords, arpeggios and near melodic lines that produce cadences which delineate the structure. And here I’m only relating this listener’s experience. I do not have the knowledge to attempt a more sophisticated analysis but I guess the point is that such analysis, while doubtless interesting, is not essential to the appreciation of this music and I respectfully leave this to those with more sophisticated training than I.
The two works presented are here performed by the artists who commissioned them. Technical concerns aside, these works are satisfying to the listener able to focus on the flow of the music. These are well developed, engaging pieces that conceivably could be successful as a concert performance or an ambient sound installation.
This release is another valuable feather in the cap of the Vancouver based Redshift Records. This label celebrates Canadian Composers new and old (mostly new). Interested listeners would do well also to check out Riparian Acoustics, a marketing organization with some fascinating curatorial radar. (N.B. This reviewer has published at least two other Redshift productions reviews here and here).
This is a composer I’m delighted to have made it onto my personal radar. She deserves to be a person of interest for successful artistic transgressions, so to speak. Enjoy!
After agonizing about writing a “best of” blog and publishing it before January 1, I decided to take a pause and enjoy the holidays. So here I look back on my 2023 in the rear view mirror but with memories still pretty fresh.
Regular readers of this blog likely already know of my oft shared opinion of the superfluous nature of “best of” lists and of my acquiescence in producing such on an annual basis. I certainly don’t think of this as a meaningless exercise and I think the process has grown on me. It is a chance to achieve a perspective which would be missed by simply plowing on ahead with the usual flow of reviews and articles. But drawing down that 12 month perspective is an opportunity to evaluate those months, to see where we’ve been and to hopefully get a smidgen of insight into where I/we are likely headed.
My Facebook friends will recognize the representative meme at the head of this article which is one of the more cloying aspects of “AI”, whatever that is. So indulge me for a moment to look at this seemingly new intrusion into the reality we thought we knew. So, what is “AI” and what will it do to us? Ultimately I’m not the one to answer that question but I’d like to throw some ideas to add to the speculation.
First, the choices a composer makes, like the choices of a painter, a writer, etc. are the stuff of the mystery of creation itself. Why “A major”, or why that tuning, or scale, or rhythm, or orchestration, etc? So along comes the notion of removing, or at least distancing, the artist from their creative product. That notion started not with famed proponent John Cage but rather with Johannes Chrysostymous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in his K. 516f musical dice game. Voila! Algorithmic composition (actually fairly common practice in the classical era). An early manifestation of “AI”? Perhaps.
Lejaren Hiller (1924-1994) was the first composer to employ electronic data processing in a musical work in his Fourth String Quartet subtitled “Iliac Suite” in 1957. There followed similar experiments with various iterations of electronic creations at music centers worldwide including The University of Illinois at Champaign, Columbia-Princeton, Stanford, The University of California Berkeley and San Diego, The San Francisco Tape Music Center (later subsumed into the Mills College Center for Contemporary Music, IRCAM in Paris, Israel Electronic Music Studio, and counterparts in the Nordic countries, Germany, Belgium, etc. Proto “AI”?
While historically interesting I raise this issue to say that, as far as I can tell, “AI” has not made this writer’s greatest hits list but it is interesting and maybe even useful. With that, my concern for the subject officially goes to the back burner for a later time.
2023 has been a year of great personal changes for the writer of this blog. A job change, a geographical relocation, and many things unrelated to this blog characterized a busy year for New Music Buff. So here in a sort of holiday tradition I present my “Best of 2023” from my little listener’s corner of the world. For the sake of simplicity I present a more or less chronological exposition of my sonic adventures. (N.B. Not one portion of this article made use of “AI”).
I begin with not with my 20 most read posts, a practice that characterized previous iterations of this annual exercise. Instead I am providing my top 20 favorite releases that were reviewed in 2023. Please note a couple of caveats. First, I receive a lot of review requests, more than I can even listen to, much less give a reasonably intelligent review. Albums that I’ve not reviewed should not be assumed to be bad or insignificant and my reviews are personal observations. I really only review albums that interest me anyway. Second, this article is only one reviewer’s opinion and not intended to be definitive or to supersede anyone else’s opinions. Third, this is not the end of my attention to music that was released in 2023. Some releases require more time to give a fair listen and a respectful review. There are more to come in 2024.
First a few stats: 2023 saw the publication of some 45 blog posts on New Music Buff, earning me 9693 views for the year. I rarely get comments on my posts (though I welcome and invite comments both positive and negative). Not bad, I think, for the overall less appreciated musical styles that fuel my desire to write about.
Now, in chronological order (of publication) are my personal favorites as a listener:
Neuma 158
Binaural Beats in the Tudor Rainforeststarted my new year with a bang. Reviewing this disc required me to take a closer look at the astounding work of David Tudor and his unique contributions to new music. This important release is a recording of a work which, by its own concept cannot receive a “definitive” performance. But this recording comes mighty close, involving “binaural” recording utilizing a mobile set of binaural microphones which are worn by the recordist. In addition this recording involved a collaboration with Pauline Oliveros and a group called, “Composers Inside Electronics”. The recording was done during Oliveros’ tenure at UCSD. Rainforest IV is so called because it is the fourth iteration of the instructions that form the original concepts of Tudor’s composition, “Rainforest”. It is an immersive sonic experience heard on headphones but actually not bad even heard on stereo speakers. A rich and wonderful release.
Starkland S-236
From a 1960s electroacoustic to a budding 21st Century composer Kotoka Suzuki released on the reliably interesting and even visionary Starkland label. Next Gen Electroacoustic: Kotoka Suzukiwill introduce the listener to this rising star who doubtless will produce more of her compelling compositions.
Sony 194399434826
Igor Levit is a fine concert pianist whose albums are effectively redefining the way we, as listeners, perceive the western classical oeuvre. Igor Levit: Defining Tristandoes for the various musical pieces inspired by the Tristan legend what Levit did for the concept of the great keyboard variations in which he selected Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations” and Frederic Rzewski’s “El Pueblo Unido Variations” to join his recording of the Bach “Goldberg Variations” in a 3 disc package placing these three large sets of variations as emblematic of the genre in three different centuries (18th, 19th, and 20th). Levit, by his recorded output, is providing a valuable perspective which may influence repertory choices for years to come.
Levit’s traversal of the Tristan legend here ranges from the second recording of Hans Werner Henze’s too seldom heard “Tristan Preludes” back to works by Wagner (of course) and Liszt. He even slips in his wonderful solo piano transcription of the Adagio of Mahler’s unfinished 10th Symphony into the mix. This is a very compelling Tristan anthology by a deservedly still rising star.
Cantaloupe
This Cantaloupe release by Bang on a Can composer and master clarinetist Evan Ziporyn is both masterful and great fun. Evan Ziporyn: Bang on a Popconsists of transcriptions of “pop” songs for multiple clarinets all played by Ziporyn via his very effective multi-track recordings. The album is very personal and pretty much cliche free with these engaging and insightful transcriptions. It is an homage to the songwriters as well as a showcase for Ziporyn both as composer and as performer.
Microfest MF 23
The Young Person’s Guide to Ben Johnston is an ideal way to introduce listeners to the wonderful world of the late Ben Johnston’s music. Johnston, a student and colleague of Harry Partch shows his compositional skills utilizing non-traditional western tunings in these representative works. Johnston here does for some quasi pop tunes what Evan Ziporyn did with his clarinetist perspective for the tunes on Pop Matters. But Johnston’s pretty, accessible work belies fascinating complexities that don’t actually sound complex to the listener. This disc contains Johnston’s last completed work, “Ashokan Farewell” (which Johnston took to be a public domain folk tune but is in fact a piece written by Jay Ungar). It is paired with the 4th String Quartet (a set of ingenious variations on “Amazing Grace”) from 1982 and the 9th String Quartet of 1997. Profound, lovely to listen to, and a great homage.
DVD OM 4001
This DVD is a major addition to the discography of Charles Amirkhanian’s sound poetry as fine sampling of one aspect of Carol Law’s (Amirkhanian’s life partner) complementary visual art. These collaborations are also important contributions to the visual and performative aspect of these collaborative works. Amirkhanian has been a fine curator and promoter of the work of others but he has rather seldom stepped into the spotlight himself. This quirky genre got some fabulous exposure at the 7 day Other Minds 23 festival in 2018 in which Amirkhanian’s work was presented in the (surprisingly varied) context of sound poetry of the amazing international collection of artists who were hosted at those events. This DVD should be in the collection of anyone interested in new music sound poetry and performance art. It is both entertaining and mind bending featuring a juxtaposition of images and sound reviewed in greater detail in the post “Dyadic Dreams”. But words cannot do justice to these works. You really have to see them.
Cedille CDR 90000 210
Readers of this blog know my fondness for the Chicago based label Cedille and their promotion of Chicago based musicians. This disc stands out in this group’s embrace of non-traditional composers alongside more traditional works. The inclusion of works by DJ composer Jlin and the academy based genre defying duo Flutronics alongside composers like Danny Elfman and Philip Glass demonstrate the wide ranging repertoire of Third Coast Percussion. Much more information can be found in Perspectives: Spectacular World Premiere Recordings from Third Coast Percussionon my blog. This one reimagines the percussion ensemble.
Neuma 176
This disc is a good example of why listeners and collectors should pay attention to the Neuma record label. Philip Blackburn, who had been the very successful curator of Innova records, took over the defunct Neuma label which was founded with the intention of promoting largely electroacoustic music though not exclusively.
Agnese Toniutti‘s New Music Visionis actually a review of two discs by this rising star, a dedicated new music pianist that needs to be on your radar. The other Neuma disc contains Toniutti’s traversal of John Cage’s reluctant masterpiece, “Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano”.
The disc pictured here is Toniutti’s vision beyond the Cage work. This one focuses on mostly living composers Lucia Dlugoszewski, Tan Dun, Philip Corner, and Toniutti’s herself. Basically, if Toniutti plays it, you should probably at least give a listen.
2023 saw the completion of Bay Area pianist Sarah Cahill’s epic survey of piano music by female composers. Cahill is another (predominantly) new music focused pianist about whom I would also assert that, if she plays it, you should probably give at least one listen.
The End of the Beginning: Sarah Cahill’s “The Future is Female” Trilogy Completedwill tell you all you need to know about this trilogy which encompasses about 300 years of music history and sheds light on some fascinating and substantial music written by women. Most of the works on this trilogy of albums are, in fact, world premieres but, fear not, even the pieces which are not premieres are likely not in your collection. This is a brilliant selection of music that effectively throws down the gauntlet to challenge other artists to explore this repertory. This trilogy is a true landmark and a joy to the ears.
This third volume in the wonderful Catalyst Quartet’s survey of another unjustly neglected group of composers focuses on the music of three black Americans of the twentieth century. Catalyzing Blackness, Volume Three: The Catalyst Quartet plays 20th Century music by Black Americans was nominated (but didn’t win) for a Grammy Award and, happily, I’m told that more volumes are in preparation. Again, this music is a pleasant revelation that does for black composers what Sarah Cahill has done for women composers (N.B. The first volume by the Catalyst Quartet focused on the black female composer Florence Price). And here’s hoping that Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, George Walker and William Grant Still will become household names in the concert hall.
Microfest MF 21
Son of Partch, Carrying on a Traditionis a really wonderful disc which, though I reviewed it in exceedingly positive terms, provoked a strongly negative reaction from the artist. The reaction apparently also provoked enough interest to have made this review one of my most read of 2023.
But, aside from the unfortunate negative reaction, I still maintain that this is a fine release worthy of attention from anyone who likes new music, microtonality, and the music of Harry Partch. Cris Forster is a composer, theoretician, and instrument builder clearly descended from the Partch tradition. His work deserves attention and this disc is a very satisfying experience.
Islandia IMR 011
Steven Schick is a master percussionist and conductor. This release is the first volume of his personal choices of solo percussion repertoire. Solo Percussion Manifesto Volume I: Steven Schick’s “A Hard Rain” is a manifesto of sorts and does for solo percussion music what Sarah Cahill has done for women composers and the Catalyst Quartet is doing for black composers. There are not many recordings of solo percussion music and Maestro Schick essentially presents his favorite works in definitive performances on a label produced by Bang on a Can cellist Maya Beiser. The second volume is in my review queue and, if this first volume is any indication, it will be a landmark survey.
Cedille
Rising Star Seth Parker Woods’ “Difficult Grace” is a Classic in the Making. Here’sanother Grammy nominee that did not win but, this second album by this fine American new music cellist is a winner in my book (er, blog). This is actually the audio of what was developed as a staged performance but the music speaks for itself. Keep an eye/ear out for this rising star who, even now, is storming the new music cello scene in invigorating ways.
Neuma 128
A Reason to Listen: Roger Reynolds’ Latest, “For a Reason”,new recordings on Neuma Records. Here we see Neuma following its original electroacoustic mission with this remarkable set in celebration of Roger Reynolds’s 90th year. This is a lavish 2 CD box set with a beautiful booklet and lucid liner notes. It is a worthy production which showcases recent works by this prolific and important American composer.
Readers of this blog likely are aware of my interest in music that is suppressed and/or neglected so this disc grabbed my attention immediately. Israel does a great job of funding the arts and this can be seen in the proliferation of truly fine performers nurtured by that funding. Less well known are the composers who have flourished in the art healthy politics of this country. Some 50 years of history are represented here. This is but a sampling, albeit finely curated, of several generations of composers displaying a plurality of styles with substantial results. This entertaining disc will whet the appetites of intelligent and curious listeners and, hopefully, bring about more recognition of the world class composers who deserve an audience.
Though this was ostensibly Randall Goosby ’s show, the music making was a wonderfully integrated duo with pianist Zhu Wang, These two fine young musicians shared the virtuosic duties that the music in this concert demands. Both are clearly hard working and dedicated artists. Both have technical and interpretive prowess. And they clearly embody a mutual respect for each other.
Pianist Zhu Wang
The music on the program served to demonstrate the duo’s creative selection of music:
Coleridge-Taylor: Suite for Violin and Piano, op. 3 Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, op. 100 (“Thun”) Still: Suite for Violin and Piano Price:Two Fantasies Strauss: Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 18
Curiously, due to this reviewer’s lack of familiarity with the violin and piano repertoire and having written some recent reviews of black composers’ music, the only familiar pieces were two of the three pieces by black composers. Now, overall, this is a marvelously chosen set of pieces that reflect the eclecticism and technical skill of both of these musicians.
The classic Paul Freeman conducted set of music by black composers.
The Brahms was perhaps the most familiar to audiences but the other works were equally substantive and worthy of being heard. It is these rather visionary choices that characterizes this duo as fresh and innovative. In addition their obvious knowledge of the music along with their enthusiasm and affection for it conspired to make for a delightful evening and even nudged this reviewer to try to become more familiar with the violin and piano repertory in general.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was a black British composer who has of late had a much needed revival of his music. He was named in honor of the celebrated British poet Samuel Taylor-Coleridge (1772-1834). During his rather brief lifetime, Samuel had been hailed as “the British Mahler but, after his death, his music lay largely fallow until revived by the late, great American black conductor, Paul Freeman (1935-2015). His revelatory series for Columbia records (now Sony) opened listeners’ ears to a fascinating selection of music by black composers internationally.
The Coleridge-Taylor opus 3 Suite for violin and piano (1893) is an early work cast in the high romantic late 19th century style of broad melodies and virtuosic demands. It served as the introduction to an intoxicating evening of (partly) seldom performed works alongside some fairly established works in the repertoire.
The Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) second violin sonata (of three) was written in 1879 and was named “Thun” after the Swiss city where he composed it. The three movements follow the classical fast, slow, fast structure common to this genre.
It is a product of high romanticism and it remains a staple of the repertoire. It, as with most of this composer’s music, is technically challenging for both instrumentalists. It was a fine vehicle to confirm the incredible technical skills of these young artists.
William Grant Still (1895-1978) was one of the finest composers of the early to mid twentieth century. Like Coleridge-Taylor and Florence Price (1887-1953), his music was lauded during his lifetime but was neglected until fairly recently in the aforementioned Black Composers set. These musical choices revealed another aspect of this delightful pair of musicians, that of being essentially musical archeologists uncovering forgotten gems much as Lord Carnarvan’s work availed the world to the marvelous Egyptian art of King Tut’s tomb.
Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano was inspired by three sculptures–Richmond Barthé’s African Dancer, Sargent Johnson’s Mother and Child, and Augusta Savage’s Gamin. Written in 1943, it synthesizes elements of blues, pop, and classical music to create musical description of this ethnically inflected visual art.
Richmond Barthé’s African Dancer
Sargent Claude Johnson’s Mother and Child (ca. 1932)
Augusta Savage’s Gamin
The three movements comprise essentially tone poems based on the visual artwork. It was after the second piece, depicting the Mother and Child sculpture that the spell cast by the duo’s that revealed the “Thrall” of this blog’s title.
Goosby embodies a calm and casual confidence and he let the audience know early on that it is OK to applaud after a single movement if you are so inclined. He has a warmth that put the audience at ease, embracing us in a most genial manner. There is, of course, nothing wrong with musicians who might seem more aloof but Goosby’s warmth was both generous and welcome. However, it became clear that this audience, after hearing that gorgeous second movement so beautifully played, paused in a seemingly hypnotic response to the impassioned performance that captured the beauty of the music. It felt as though we had become collectively and deeply engaged. That is the meaning of “thrall” and that was a beautiful experience that spoke of connections between composer, performers, and audience that represent the pinnacle of the art of chamber music performance. All three movements were wonderfully executed but that moment and the collective reaction was a truly moving experience.
Following a brief intermission we got to hear both of Florence Price’s two Fantasies for Violin and Piano (1933, 1940). Though I’ve become familiar with much of Price’s work (her three surviving symphonies and Goosby’s own reading of her two violin concerti have been released in the last couple of years) I had not heard these fantasies before.
Though written only seven years apart, the works embody distinctively different qualities. Both are certainly “capricious”, embodying a variety of moods, but the second is a bit longer and seemed to reflect the composer’s maturing style. Both works were enjoyable and seemed to please the audience.
This led us to the final work on the program, the Violin and Piano Sonata (1888) by Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Best known for his big orchestral tone poems and his grand operas, this was an early work which has found an audience due to its lyrical and friendly character.
It is cast in three movements, and it was at the end of the slow movement that we again saw/heard a sort of “agreed upon” silence in which the audience seemed to have shared a deep impact from that lovely movement played so passionately. No one applauded as a reverent silence came upon us.
The much busier third movement again presented the virtuosity and broad melodies of high romanticism. And there was applause and, much deserved standing ovations. It was a joy to have heard these talented and hard working musicians in an ecstatic night of chamber music.
There are many ways to debut on the world stage and there are many ways to represent political activism. Violist Noémie Chemali has chosen, as her important first impression in her recorded debut, a selection of music from young composers whose heritage includes political oppression. The albums profits are promised to MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders. These works are not directly political, rather they are a carefully curated selection of new works produced by composers who, in varying degrees, have experiences of dealing with or having friends and family whose lives are negatively impacted by political conflicts and oppression. This is gorgeous music by emerging talents.
The good news is that these wonderfully creative artists persevere in creating great art and it is the celebration of that creative drive that lies at the heart of this fine release. While the pieces here variously reference tunings, rhythms, and melodies representative of their individual ethnic heritages, they are not confrontational. Rather the music here stands as evidence of the beauty of artistic invention which stands defiantly in contrast to the cruelty of oppression and warfare. That gentle activism casts a kinder and gentler image of people more commonly represented in the media as terrorists (actually a numerical minority) in a culture with ancient roots and a powerful artistic soul (the better descriptor of the actual majority).
Links to the composers’ web sites can be accessed by clicking the names of said composers.
This, the composer’s Opus 13C, is based on an Arabic rhythm called “Al Mouraba”. It is for solo viola and is cast in the unusual meter of 13/4, using an Arabic scale. The music imitates traditional music which ostensibly enticed horses to dance in times past.
This musical impression of a poem of the same name by Mahmoud Darwish. It is, in the composer’s description, a meditation on the random elements that affect our lives. It is scored for viola, cello, and double bass.
3. Cadenza from “The Brown Texts”; movement one (2017-2020)
4. Cadenza from “The Brown Texts”;movement two
The term “cadenza” derives from the word “cadence” and it generally refers to the improvisations (by the soloist) in a concerto. The notion of a solo cadenza does not appear, as far as this listener’s encounters, until the mid to late twentieth century. Penderecki’s Cadenza for Viola is the only example that immediately comes to mind. Though that work is sometimes performed separate from the viola concerto from which it derives, its origin is in the classical/romantic tradition of a virtuoso work that displays the skills of the soloist. As with the previous work, this one is a musical rendition of originally poetic ideas, those of the late Nadia Tueni. And, unlike any other cadenza I’ve known, it is cast in two separate movements. The piece is a fine showcase for Ms. Chemali’s technical and interpretive skills.
Noemie Chemali:
5. “Kadishat” (2021)
Delightfully, Ms. Chemali has chosen to include one of her own compositions. She describes this as a set of variations on the ancient Aramaic Trisagion “Qadishat aloho”, a tune which has been firmly ensconced in the composer/performer’s consciousness from having heard it since her childhood. One could characterize it as one of the greatest hits of the Eastern Orthodox Church and one of its most deeply felt pieces. Chemali casts this work for violin, viola, and cello. This writer is reminded of another fine example of the incorporation of sacred hymns into the classical music tradition, that of Carolyn Shaw’s fine “In Manus Tuas” which mines that composer’s memory of hearing a sacred chant. Both works reflect the composer’s internal process of hearing and attempt to convey that spiritual experience to the listener.
This piece, another musical expression of a literary work, namely, the Armenian fable that provides the title for this work which is cast for cello, voice, and electronics. It is presented here in a transcription for viola by the soloist. The fable deals with the strength in numbers that rise up against those in positions of power. It is a delightful work with dark implications.
This work, scored for viola, harp, and flute is cleverly written in three movements which, in turn, each give a solo to each of the musicians who are, in turn, accompanied by the others in the group. “Dohree” is an Arabic word which translates as “my turn”.
Six pieces over eight tracks with chamber groups ranging from solo viola to viola with electronics (in the Kouyoumdjian work) and small chamber groupings in the others. All in all a fine and engaging selection of music that bear witness to the beauty and creativity of people living with oppression. This music reflects the human experience that can get erased by merely identifying ethnicity.
In addition to Ms. Chemali this recording includes the following musicians: Shaleah Feinstein, violin; Raffi Boden, violoncello; Kebra-Seyoun Charles, double bass; Lauren Scanio, flute; Deanna Cirielli, harp. They really do honor to the spirit of this music and this album is beautifully recorded as well.
Kouyoumdjian was the only composer known to this reviewer prior to hearing this album but she is apparently in very good company here and listeners would do well to make note of these rising stars. We will doubtless hear from them again. Here’s hoping.
Noemi Chemali (from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s web page)
This is the artist’s biography as it appears on her website (linked above):
French-Lebanese-American violist Noémie Chemali received her Bachelor’s degree from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, her Artist Diploma from the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University, and her Master’s Degree from The Juilliard School. Her principal teachers include Becca Albers, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Carol Rodland.
During her time at Juilliard, she made her Carnegie Weill Hall solo debut in the UN Chamber Music Society’s Arabic Language Day concert and collaborated with dancers of the New York City Ballet. During her time at the McDuffie Center for Strings, she performed alongside faculty members of the Cavani and Ehnes String Quartets. In 2019, she also performed in “A Night of Georgia Music,” a tour the American South with violinist Robert McDuffie, guitarist Mike Mills of the band R.E.M., and pianist Chuck Leavell of the Allman Brothers Band/Rolling Stones. Some performance highlights from McGill include playing a concert with clarinetist David Krakauer in a program of Klezmer music, being selected to perform a chamber work by John Rea in a concert presented by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) alongside Schulich faculty and students, and participating in the 2018 Musical Chairs Chamber Music Festival, where she collaborated with students from the Mozarteum (Austria) and the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (Singapore).
Noemie has spent her summers at music festivals such as The Music Academy of the West, Sarasota Music Festival, Orford Musique, The Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (LAMP), Scotia Festival of Music, Manhattan in the Mountains, and Green Mountain music festivals. While Ms. Chemali was a fellow at the Music Academy of the West, she played under the baton of esteemed conductors Larry Rachleff, Stéphane Denève, Gustavo Dudamel, and James Conlon. While at Sarasota Music Festival, she served as principal violist of the festival orchestra under the baton of Jeffrey Kahane and performed in a faculty concert as a member of a quintet with bassoonist Frank Morelli. She has, throughout the years, participated in various masterclasses with artists such as Joseph Silverstein, Ida Kavafian, Cynthia Phelps, Karen Dreyfus, Richard O’Neill, James Dunham, Jutta Puchhammer and the Pacifica String Quartet.
Passionate about diversifying musical audiences, she co-founded the Hildegard Project, which aims to bring music written by women composers to women’s shelters in the greater Montreal area and was invited to speak about her work at the Classical Evolution/Revolution Conference in Santa Barbara, CA. Most recently, she founded Music@Daybreak, an interdisciplinary performance and research project which features performances at homeless shelters in collaboration with the Sociology department at Mercer University.
Noémie is the recipient of a Juilliard Career Grant, George J. Jakob Global Enrichment Grant, Gluck Community Engagement Fellowship, Juilliard Entrepreneurship Grant, Barenboim-Said Foundation (USA) Grant, and a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement Grant. In January 2024, she will be releasing Opus 961, her debut album of music written by contemporary Lebanese composers.
Her website includes some YouTube videos reflecting the artist’s fascinating choices of repertory. Along with fervent activism, she demonstrates a pretty unique take on what she chooses to play. Her biography evidences an eclectic group of collaborators and influences that will likely characterize her career.
This is quite an impressive first impression from an artist who greets us at the beginnings of what this reviewer believes will be a long and interesting career representing a new generation of musicians with a unique and (hopefully more effective) approach to the ills of our age. Great art inspires, if not action, at least hope. And we desperately need hope. Thanks for that Ms. Chemali.
There are, by my count, at least 8 discs on this fine audiophile label dedicated to music by composers from Iceland. That country’s musical prowess deserves to be better known as does their world class orchestra. I’m reviewing these back to back releases together because they are both Iceland Symphony recordings presenting new music by (mostly) Icelandic composers. And they have a secret connection.
This first disc is a nice mix of music by five different composers in works that really give the orchestra an opportunity to shine. Under the direction of composer/conductor Daniel Bjarnason we are availed of the sound of now, or at least Bjarnason’s “now”.
Track list
This disc, which seems to have a “outer space”theme in large part, opens with a large orchestral work from the most deservedly best known Icelandic classical composer, Anna Thorvaldsdottir. “Catamorphosis” is a 20+ minute work for full orchestra and then some. Her style initially reminded this listener of the sound mass of music like Ligeti and Penderecki. But her harmonic language is more lush and romantic. She has an astounding skill in writing for large orchestra, producing at times the modern equivalent of Impressionism. Her use of motives suggest she has digested ideas from minimalist/pattern composers. And at the end of the day (or the review), one realizes that she has developed her own voice.
The subtle colors of this work are well defined by the orchestra under Bjarnason’s truly expert guidance but also via the sonics that the Sono Luminus engineers are able to capture. This sounds like a difficult work to perform but Bjarnason manages to create a definitive performance and Sono Luminus’ sonics are, as always first rate.
Catamorphosis (2022) is typical of Thorvaldsdottir’s writing for large orchestra reflecting her skills as an orchestrator as well as her imagination, her ability to create a wide palette of subtle sound forms that suggest a sort of post impressionist style. The poetic and metaphorical titles tell little about the musical content (or structure for that matter). But her ability to create cohesive and compelling compositions such as this provide an experience that will likely evoke images for the listener, a sort of movie for the mind. So feel free to conjure your own images in this 7 part (played without pause) work and/or listen and watch a recent Elephilharmonie performance on YouTube here.
Missy Mazzoli’s comparatively brief “Symphony for Orbiting Spheres” (2014 rev 2016) taps into a vein of inspiration seemingly related to the cosmic images of Thorvaldsdottir. Mazzoli incorporates an electronic keyboard and harmonicas, among several less common instruments used in symphony orchestras, to create her own sonic cosmic fantasy. Please click the link on her name above to learn more about this rising star from her nicely designed website.
Daniel Bjarnason demonstrates his own formidable compositional chops with “From Space I Saw Earth” (2019). And this track also provides a link of sorts to the other album reviewed in this blog entry. This work, written on commission for the 100th anniversary of the LA Philarmonic, is a work that requires three conductors. The premiere was led by Zubin Mehta, Gustavo Dudamel, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, all of whom have significant connections to the orchestra (Mehta as conductor Emeritus, Dudamel as present chief conductor, and Salonen as conductor laureate). That was the premiere but this recording is conducted by Bjarnason along with Kornilios Michalaidis, and the then incoming chief conductor of the Iceland Symphony, Eva Ollikainen. Therein lies the “secret connection” to which I referred earlier.
María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (1980- ) is a violinist and composer. Her orchestral work, “Clockworking” is a sort of post minimalist work with a gently driving Ostinato in the percussion. It reminds this reviewer variously of Birtwistle’s “Chronometer”, Ligeti’s “Poeme Symphonique”, to name a few but it is not derivative of these in any way. It is a very listenable and enjoyable orchestral work.
Bára Gísladóttir (1989- ) is a composer, vocalist, and double bass player based in Copenhagen.This, the briefest work on the album is at times the quietest and at others the loudest work here. I would add that it is also the most avant garde. Relying on a battery of percussion and what appears to be some extended instrumental techniques the composer creates a world that to this reviewer’s ears sound a bit like Gyorgy Ligeti’s work “Atmospheres” (1968). That’s not meant to say it’s derivative, just that it could conceivably be used for that famous psychedelic sequence from Stanley Kubrick’s masterful “2001, A Space Odyssey” where my own young ears first heard the Ligeti work.
DSL- 92268
As fabulous as that first disc is, this release, dedicated entirely to the work of Anna Thorvaldsdottir, is a worthy endeavor. In addition to that we are treated to the sublime and insightful artistry of the first female principal conductor of the Iceland Symphony, Eva Ollikainen who leads the Iceland Symphony on this disc.
Like the above release, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra demonstrates their world class artistry. This is not easy music to play but, under Ollikainen, as they have under her predecessor, they are able to articulate the intricately orchestrated sounds by this really astounding composer.
Just two works here. “Archora” (2022) and “Aion” (2018). Both are works of grand concept and could easily be called symphonies but the composer seems fond of metaphoric poetic titles. Regardless of the names given these works they demonstrate the composer’s grand sonic visions and her mastery of the orchestra, a mastery grasped very clearly by the Iceland Symphony’s new artistic director and conductor, Eva Ollikainen (1982- ). She holds the distinction of being the first woman to hold the post to which she was appointed in 2019.
Track list
There are only two works presented but both are stunning examples of some of the finest new music being produced today. Yes, it’s great to see women having a greater presence (both as composers and conductors) but, truly, Thorvaldsdottir is “the bomb”, so to speak. Her creativity, her mastery of the orchestra are simply a revelatory as well as entertaining listening experience.
Eva Ollikainen
This release is also a landmark which showcases the formidable talent of the Icelandic Symphony’s new conductor. In addition to breaking gender barriers she is quite simply a rising star and one of the finest interpreters of new music today.
“Archora” (2022) is the most recent work here and it’s another of Thorvaldsdottir’s sprawling cinematic tone poems. No specific story here but the composer’s mastery of orchestral color will doubtless evoke images and feelings in the listener. Thorvaldsdottir is creating a sort of sonic (as opposed to literal) mythology. Her reference points seem to be largely in Greek and Roman mythology but also in Nordic and Northern European myths. Eva Ollikainen conducted the world premiere at the 2022 BBC Proms. You can hear that performance on YouTube here. But the Sono Luminus recording captures more of the subtle sound colors of this engaging work.
The composer’s three movement, “Aion” (2018) concludes this recording. Aion is a Greek God of time. The composer is concerned with various aspects of time in her work. This large three movement work is virtually a symphony with an augmented orchestra, extended instrumental techniques, and an optional choreographic accompaniment. (Tell me that’s not cinematic). There is an example of the optional choreography here.
This recording is also a fine introduction to conductor Eva Ollikainen who clearly has a grasp of this music. Various examples of her interpretive genius can be found on YouTube ranging from Beethoven to new contemporary masters.
These are two truly fine discs both musically and for sheer sonic detail. They’re available in streaming and hard copy CD as well as Blue Ray Audio. These are a fabulous listening experience. Enjoy!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge begat Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who begat Coleridge Taylor Perkinson… Wait, that’s not right. But these three men, listed in chronological order, became intertwined, much as they were admired, by their names. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1792-1834) is the great (white) British poet. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), named in honor of that poet (and the subject of this review) was a much lauded, though subsequently neglected British composer, as it happens a black British composer. Taylor Coleridge Perkinson (1932-2004), a much lauded and subsequently neglected black American composer named in honor of those predecessors. Stick with me, this comes together (for the purposes of this review) with the name of the orchestra on this recording, “Chineke”, a word taken from the African Igbo religion, meaning, “God”. Add an exclamation point and you get “Chineke!”, the orchestra which was founded in 2015 by the double bass player, Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE, to provide career opportunities for Black and ethnically diverse classical musicians in the UK and Europe.
All that to introduce listeners to this landmark of the recording industry, fulfilling in part the mission of this fine orchestra. This two CD set provides an intelligent selection of the music of Samuel Taylor-Coleridge which is nothing short of revelatory. Knowledge (at least outside of Britain) of his music, up until this release pretty much limited to his fine choral work “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast” and perhaps a short orchestra movement. The late great Paul Freeman included an aria from that choral work and one movement (Danse Negre) from his African Suite in his defining set of recordings on Columbia/Sony, “Black Composers”. These brief pieces were the introduction for many people, this writer included, to this composer’s work.
The last family Christmas card, 1912
Chineke! now presents a far more representative selection of this man’s work with a truly nice touch of alreleasing the first recording of music by Coleridge-Taylor’s daughter Gwendolyn Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998) who wrote under the pen name Peter Riley (it is hardly a secret that both black people and women suffer from lack of recognition in the world of classical music).
Coleridge-Taylor’s output was large, comprising some 82 pieces with opus numbers and unpublished works as well. That’s a lot of music from a man who died at age 37 from pneumonia. This two disc set does a very nice job of presenting music from all eras of his brief career. From the Opus 2 Nonet (1894) to the Opus 80 Violin Concerto (1912) this release provides a larger perspective on this artist (dubbed by white musicians in New York, in what today would be judged a pejorative appellation, “The Black Mahler”). My guess is that the same people who would speak condescendingly about Coleridge-Taylor were also not appreciative of that Jewish Austrian conductor/composer.
Though it appears that all these works have appeared previously in recordings (appropriately on mostly British labels) this collection does a great service in demonstrating the arc of his truncated life’s work. Only the Avril Coleridge-Taylor work, “Sussex Landscape” (1940), is a world premiere recording.
Track list
For the purposes of this review I will be discussing these works in chronological order rather than the order on the recordings. Even a short career demonstrably goes through changes over time, led by social, political, historical, and musical experiences. A photo (above) shows the order on the discs.
The Nonet Op. 2 (1894) for strings, winds, and piano was written by the 19 year old (still a student at the Royal College of Music). This unusual combination, nearly a chamber orchestra in dimension as is the grand, late romantic, Brahmsian dimension. His skill in orchestration is evident here and serves to clarify the musical lines in these four large movements. It is virtually a symphony with a virtuoso piano obbligato.
Here, emissaries of the nascent Harlem Renaissance came to England in the the form of a 1896 concert by the Fisk Jubilee Singers who presented a program of “Negro Spirituals” (Fisk is one of the so called “Historically Black Colleges and Universities” which were formed to provide educational opportunities for Black Americans who were barred from admittance to other colleges). The following year Coleridge-Taylor met the Black American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), who had come to England on a literary tour. His parents were freed slaves in Kentucky. Both of these experiences had a profound effect on Coleridge-Taylor and his music. Coleridge-Taylor would attend the first Pan-African Conference in London in July 1900. There he would explore the ideas and philosophies of Pan-Africanism which emphasised the importance of a shared African heritage. The orchestral works “Ballade in A minor” Op. 33 and the “African Suite” Op. 35, (both 1898) reflect those influences.
The two movement Ballade is a grand romantic work with no particular program but one that demonstrates the composer’s amazing command of the orchestra. The African Suite, one of his more popular works, was directly influenced by the work of Dunbar (whose career, like Coleridge-Taylor’s, also ended prematurely).
The two movement “Romance” Op. 39 (1899) for violin and orchestra is a foreshadowing of the later Violin Concerto. It is a heavily late romantic work with a beautiful and substantial violin part.
His “Petite Suite” Op. 77 (1911) is among his most popular works and arguably served as a precursor to what would later be termed, “Light Music”. The second movement strikes deep into this writer’s memory as one of those pieces whose charm prompted me to find out what it was so I might hear it again. Very charming and immediately listener friendly music.
The first work on this set, The five movement, “Othello” Orchestral Suite Op. 79 was published in 1909 and first performed in 1911. It was conceived and written as an orchestral suite, not a suite of music drawn from another work and is complete as performed here. It is a stunning example of the composer’s skills with orchestration and with dramatic writing.
Maud Powell (1867-1920)
Now we come to the Op. 80 Violin Concerto of 1911-2 which is dedicated to American violinist Maud Powell, a staunch advocate for female musicians, black composers, and new music in general (an early model for the likes of Rachel Barton Pine). This work of high late romanticism echoes Brahms and Bruch in its Melodie’s, it’s harmonies, and the grand sweep of its gorgeously orchestrated three movements. It is easy to imagine this as a regular repertoire piece.
Avril Coleridge Taylor (1903-1998)
Last and most certainly not least is the world premiere recording by Coleridge-Taylor’s daughter, Gwendoline Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998), her “Sussex Landscape” Op. 27 (1940). This is just a taste of her 60+ compositions but it is compelling enough to prompt listeners (and hopefully progressive organizations such as “Chineke!”) to pursue more exploration of her oeuvre.
Chineke! Truly achieves their goal in producing this wonderful portrait of a composer whose work has, until very recently languished in relative obscurity. Even this writer, whose obsessive interest in the new and interesting, has been seriously transformed by this release. You really have to hear this release. My thanks and congratulations to everyone involved in this fine Chineke! release.
Utter the name “Israel” and probably only a handful of people will think, “classical music”. As a lifelong new music fan I’ve made many wonderful discoveries by looking at work done by composers in countries that aren’t part of the typical America, Germany, Italy, France, Russia nexus. Throw in the Nordic countries, Canada, and Australia more recently and you have perhaps 90% of what is marketed (even if not efficiently distributed) as new classical music. Israel, at 75, remains a young country but its participation with world class classical composers and musicians is among their proudest contributions to the world at large and those contributions are both extensive and interesting.
Neuma 177
This fine release gives only the briefest taste with a curious selection of pieces that will likely lead listeners to the “more where that came from” path to discover a huge trove of music that really needs to be heard. The only problem with this release is that it’s not a 20 or 30 CD box set of representative western classical music from a comparatively new country in a very old artistic/cultural hotbed.
This fine Neuma release is actually a very nice taste whetting collection of three generations of Israeli composers. I wish I could call it “representative” but that would be a tall order. It is an intelligent selection that will hopefully inspire further exploration of Israel’s classical music artistic legacy. Israel is, in many ways, a country of challenges and this release is, similarly, an extension of this country’s challenges to the canon of western art music in its way and a gentle nudge to curious listeners.
Professor Robert Fleisher (photo: Darsha Primich, courtesy Navona Records)
This project began with a 1986 Israel residency by American composer/musicologist (now Professor Emeritus at NIU) Robert Fleisher. The culmination of this residency resulted in his marvelous book, “Twenty Israeli Composers” (1997) and all but one track on this disc from an earlier concert at NIU in 1987. which was fortunately recorded rather nicely. You can download the book for free by clicking on the title above. Fleisher wrote the very useful liner notes which are also available as a free download. Those two sources can help guide the avid listener to a wider range of music from Israel’s first 75 years.
Track list
German refugee Paul Frankenburger (1897-1984), better known as Paul Ben-Haim is doubtless the one name in this collection that listeners may have heard. He emigrated to the (then British Mandate of Palestine) in 1933 just ahead of the onslaught of the Third Reich in Germany. He Hebraicized his name when he became an Israeli citizen at that country’s inception in 1948. Truly, he was there at the beginning.
His pupils Tvi Avni, Eliahu Inbal, Henri Lazarof, Ami Maayani, Ben-Zion Orgad, and Shulamit Ran (to name just a few) all went on to make significant impacts on the musical world. Some made their careers in Israel, others established the Israeli artistic diaspora but that is another story.
The disc opens with one of Ben-Haim’s finest and best known compositions, his 1943 protominimal “Toccata” for piano. This brief piece is a virtuoso showpiece that this listener found immediately appealing having heard it played as an encore after a concerto performance. Here, a wonderful rendition by Liora Ziv-Li makes a strong case for this piece to be heard more often. This first release of this live performance is, happily, not the only recording of the work. Ben-Haim whose style is of a post romantic/nationalistic style somewhat like an Israeli Aaron Copland, creative and nationalist with just a dash of liturgical. His work is fairly well represented on recordings and on YouTube but he is far less known outside his adopted country where his pedagogy also sowed further seeds.
This second track is one of two (with Tsippi Fleischer’s “The Gown of Night”) that did not appear on the 1987 concert referenced in the intro. Bashrav (2004) by Betty Olivero (the first Israeli born composer represented on this recording) was recorded in Tel Aviv in 2020. The inclusion of this work can stand as a challenge to get listeners to hear one of the finest living composers from Israel. Olivero (1954- ) is very well known in Israel but less so elsewhere despite the fact that some major American orchestras have embraced her work. She is a lyrical and substantive composer whose work is quite appealing. Bashrav is an instrumental chamber orchestra piece based on a Turkish/Iranian musical form from which the work’s title is drawn. It was commissioned and first performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players. This is the first commercial recording.
Now we come to another name changer. Tzvi Avni (1927- ) was born Hermann Jakob Steinke in Saarbrucken, Germany. He, like Ben-Haim (with whom he later studied) fled Germany (in 1935) for the safety of the British Mandate of Palestine and took a name reflecting his adopted national alliance. Avni is probably the second best known Israeli composer outside of Israel. His somewhat Stravinskian (to this listener’s ears) neoclassicism is another voice seriously in need of a wider hearing. His brief Capriccio (1955/1975) for piano has had several recordings and performances and the release of this live recording provides an opportunity to hear the work as well as the opportunity to hear another artist’s interpretation of the work. Avni had the foresight to tap into the emerging world of electronic and computer music and added a stint at the justly famed Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Studio to his musical training. Sadly, though he may have name recognition, his representation in recordings is nothing short of abysmal.
Ami Maayani (1936-2019) is, in this writer’s opinion, the third best known composer of those represented here outside of Israel. He was the founder of several fine Israeli music ensembles including the Israel Youth Orchestra. Like Avni, he chose to supplement his traditional music studies at the fledgling Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center. He also counts Paul Ben-Haim among his teachers. His musical style derives from Arabic traditional music (one of the few folk musics routinely incorporating the microtonal quarter tone) as well as Ashkenazi and Sephardic folk music. In addition to training in music, he studied architecture and has written several books.
While he has written more experimental work, the majority of his available music sounds basically tonal with folk and sometimes electronic elements. Maayani was a prolific composer who, like his “best known” colleagues, suffers from a distribution problem. His architectural work is represented in several portions of Israel’s infrastructure. His three volume study in Hebrew of Richard Wagner challenged Israel’s (understandable) dislike of Wagner’s music. And now time is nigh for a fair reckoning of Maayani’s own music. This is not the first recording of his Arabesque No. 2 (1973) scored for flute and harp. His sister Ruth Maayani (1948-1921), herself an accomplished musician plays the harp in this 1987 performance. His orchestral work, “Qumran” (1970) was the first Israeli composition to be performed in Germany after World War II (even that took nearly thirty years to achieve).
Now we come to another refugee from early to mid century European fascism. Abel Ehrlich (1915-2003) was born in east Prussia and took a more circuitous route to Israel, arriving in the Palestine Mandate in 1939. Unlike some of his predecessors he made no changes to his name. He did study at the Eretz-Israel Conservatory in Jerusalem and went on to write music and teach at Israel Conservatory, the Rubin Academy of Music, Jerusalem; the Rubin Academy of Music, Tel Aviv; Bar-Ilan University and Oranim Academic College. He was of an age that didn’t create a web page but even Wikipedia has very little to say about him except that he was recognized during his lifetime with various prizes and I was able to find this laudatory 2004 concert review in Ha’aretz which reports a count of some 3500 compositions (sic)! It also makes mention of one of his best known compositions, his 1953 “Bashrav” for solo violin. This is a piece based on the Arabic musical form for which it is named. Astute listeners/readers will recognize the name from the earlier Betty Olivero work with which it shares both its name and structure. Would that a performance could have been included here but listeners can easily find several recordings of that other Bashrav on YouTube.
Abel is represented on this recording by two works, both from 1986 and both world premiere recordings from the 1987 concert that forms the core of this album. Track five documents a piano work called, “The Death of Dan Pagis”. It is a sort of lament for Pagis (1930-1986) some of whose poetry Abel set musically but was sadly never heard by the poet. Track eight gives us a hearing of Ehrlich’s “The Dream About Strange Terrors” for two flutes. Both are brief but effective works and, like much of the music here (and a lot of art) seem to be a form of sublimation, a Freudian derived term which refers to an adaptive psychological mechanism, a transformation of pain, anxiety, anger, etc. into something positive. The otherwise informative liner notes say little about these two works but given the composer’s history, both works would seem to fall into that category. Both are in a sort of mid century post romantic style that challenge the performers but speak pretty directly, in a musical sense, to the listener.
Track six introduces us to another native born Israeli composer, Tsippi Fleischer (1948- ). This one is a graphic score which is realized electronically. “The Gown of Night” (1988) is a setting of a poem. It is performed in the original Arabic. The English translation is below.
THE GOWN OF NIGHT Muhammad Ghana’im
The gown of night Envelops the desert Engulfing tent and well From the boundaries of night The howling of jackals descends To raise the dawn Engulfing tent and well Then came the dawn …
A portion of the graphic score is reproduced in both physical and digital formats of the album. It is one of the pieces that has actually been released before but those releases on small limited distribution independent labels has likely remained obscure to all but the most tenacious listeners and collectors. It is a fine example of purely electronic music and was composed using recordings of Bedouin children reciting the poem.
I was astounded and oh so pleased to learn that all of Fleischer’s recorded output (including liner notes) is available for free downloads via her website the link for which can be accessed by clicking on the composer’s name in this review. Well, brava Maestra Fleischer for striking a blow against obscurity.
Arie Shapira (1915-2013) is another substantial and prolific composer with no personal website, no government generated website, no publisher generated website, and a way too brief Wikipedia page. In fact Professor Fleisher’s book remains the “go to” resource for this man’s work. A quick look on the discogs site, not surprisingly, list only two CD releases.
He is represented in this collection by “Off Piano” (1984) written for the Michal Tal who performs it here. The 1984 premiere was broadcast by Israeli media. This all too brief work immediately suggested the pianistic fireworks of Frederic Rzewski.
Tracks nine, ten, and eleven comprise the second largest offering by time of all the composers on this album. The “Three Romances” (1986) for piano by Ari Ben-Shabetai (1954- )The works, premiered in 1986 and were written for Liora Ziv-Li whose 1987 performance are on the present disc. Ostensibly an homage to Robert Schumann’s similarly titled work are a modernist and highly virtuosic set of pieces.
Lastly we have by far the longest offering of music of all the represented composers with Oded Zehavi’s “Wire” (1986) for chamber orchestra and soprano (Zehavi plays the piano part in the ensemble). Born in 1961, he is by far the youngest composer this collection. Wire is a setting of a poem in Hebrew by Chaya Shenhav, English text given below.
In those awful shadowless minutes before sunset when greenish lights rise from the valley When the trees on the slopes glow with a sudden great light but beingless, perhaps, And the children slowly climb the path, their faces shining with a strange brightness . . . Call out to them quickly, “speak,” “shout,” like the partridges screaming in the valley scream, You see, you know, don’t you? that they are moving away
This release is a testament to Professor Fleisher’s musicological efforts that help raise awareness that Israel has some truly world class composers of new classical music. It is also a fine place for listeners to begin their explorations of this repertoire.
Every solo artist, regardless of what instrument they play seeks to define themselves. Generally that means setting limits. Some set limits by specializing in an era (baroque, classical, etc.). Some specialize in working with electronics, some with jazz, some with experimental music, some with standard recital repertoire, etc. Seth Parker Woods (1984- ) seems almost unaware of such limits. He plays what he chooses. And, oh, what choices. From standard classics to the leading edge of musical creativity woods is poised at the beginning of a very promising career.
Seth Parker Woods (photo from his faculty page at USC Thornton School of Music)
This album is in fact the musical portions of what was produced as a staged presentation with Woods playing, singing, talking. No doubt something is lost without the staging but Woods’ asserts himself with great clarity on the sonic aspect alone. Think of this as a sort of cast album, though it is more than just a souvenir. It is Woods’ second album and it has this writer enthralled at where he may go next. You will be too.
Parker’s first solo release “asinglewordisnotenough” available on bandcamp reveals his dedication to new and recent music.
I feel privileged to have known this artist via digital media and to have watched with increasing interest his development as a true rising star in the new music world. I only recently acquired his first album via bandcamp. It was released “across the pond” when he was completing his Ph.D. at the University of Huddersfield.
Born in Houston, his father, a jazz and gospel singer, Woods was exposed to a great deal of music. He rehearsed in a home studio and somehow came to a fascination and deep appreciation for a wide variety of repertory.
His affiliations continue to be wide ranging from Peter Gabriel to George Lewis. He has appeared on many recordings but this is only the second disc dedicated entirely to Woods as performer and the first such solo efforts on a US label. Woods is apparently able and willing to tackle music of all eras and genres including the wildly experimental, like his “Ice Cello” homage to Charlotte Moorman and the theatrical, which brings to the the album at hand.
Track listing.
Four of the seven works presented are world premieres. And, despite this being a sort of “cast album” which lacks the visuals, this is a major release that presents a characteristic variety of musical choices and is a fine calling card for the artist. This is one classy production.
Frederic Gifford (photo from composer’s website)
He begins with the title track, “Difficult Grace” by Chicago based composer Frederic Gifford (1972- ). It is a setting of poetry by Dudley Randall subjected to some Cageian mesostic like manipulation. This first track tells us we are dealing with modern music and sort of sets the tone of this project. This is a complex work in concept (lucidly described in the composer’s notes) and involves projections of the texts onto the performer as well as electronics which, by careful use of both the sounds and the spoken text (spoken by the cellist) which then contributes to the musical structure. Photographs in the booklet show some of the striking visual design for this project.
Coleridge Taylor Perkinson (photo from Wikipedia)
Woods follows with what is to this listener a stunningly beautiful piece, “Calvary Ostinato” (1973) by the late, sadly neglected Coleridge Taylor Perkinson (1932-2004), a black American composer (actually represented admirably in a fine earlier Cedille release CDR 90000 087). The Ostinato is one movement from Perkinson’s “Lamentations: Black/Folk Song Suite For Solo Cello” (1973). Woods’ performance is available on YouTube. It’s truly enthralling. One gets the feeling that Woods really gets inside the music he performs and that deep feel for the music is delightfully obvious in this track, the second oldest work on the disc and one that is for the solo cello sans electronics or vocals but using a dazzling variety of extended instrumental techniques, none involving a bow.
Monty Adkins (photo from electro cd website)
Then we hear Monty Adkins’ (y. 1972- ) “Winter Tendrils” (2019) written for cellist who, in addition to playing his instrument, is asked to use his voice and work with electronics, albeit in a different manner than the title track. Adkins worked closely with Woods on the creation of this work. The work essentially an impressionistic piece with clever use of counterpoint to depict fresh fallen snow on the branches of a tree.
Nathalie Joachim (1983- ), a Haitian-American vocalist, flautist, and composer, is represented by two works. The first, “The Race 1915” (2019), a work that contributes to the Chicago centered Cedille label by its use of historical quotations from The Defender, a major and influential black newspaper in Chicago. Woods is again asked to use his vocal skills in this work which celebrates efforts to undo social inequalities.
The multitalented Joachim lends her vocal skills to Woods’ performance in Joachim’s second piece on the album, “Dam Men Yo” (2017). The title is Haitian Creole for “they are my ladies”. It is a sort of black feminist peaen celebrating the strength of the women with whom the composer was raised in her native Haiti. (NB: Haiti is the site of the only successful slave revolt in history, a fact that continues to be reflected in their turbulent politics).
Alvin Singleton (photo from Schott website)
In between those two pieces we get to hear perhaps the best known composer in this mix, Alvin Singleton (1940- ). Singleton is represented by “Argoru II” (1970) for solo cello (the Argoru series is a set of pieces for solo instruments akin to Luciano Berio’s “Sequenza” series). The title is from the Twi language (spoken in Ghana) and translates as “to play”. It is a virtuosic piece employing extended instrumental techniques which Woods accomplishes with almost supernatural ease. He does honor to this living elder statesman of American music.
Ted Hearne (photo by Jen Rosenstein from composer’s website)
And here we are back in Chicago now with Maestro Woods’ performance of a work by Chicago born composer Ted Hearne (1982- ), a name which did make it to this writer’s musical radar but one whose work I have just begun to explore. But this is a fine example of one of the reasons for my admiration for Woods’ scope of musical interest. I think he is one of those artists to whom I will turn to look for good new music. His instincts for repertory choices are amazing.
This is perhaps the most unusual entry on this disc as well as one that, if any controversy is forthcoming, it will likely originate with this set of songs to poetry by Keri Alabi. A casual listen to some of Hearne’s music on YouTube suggests a sort of post minimalist ethic but this last work is not discernibly minimal. Like the music that preceded it, this cycle is overtly about politics and equality.
Hearne’s little 6 movement song cycle is a combination of poetry, electronics, cello (of course), and the voice of said cellist. Hearne’s expletive title, “free fucked”, is apparently very much in line with the composer’s assertive and playfully humorous style.
We return in these tracks to the avant garde and complex with which the album opened. Again we have a multitasking role for the cellist demanding his vocal participation and working in a distinctly electroacoustic genre. Hearne lends his voice to the final track of this unusual work.
While political themes and references abound in this release it is as much about black politics and civil rights as well as feminist, gender, and global equality issues. But ultimately this recording is a landmark in the career of this fine young musician who works fearlessly with a variety of composers, poets, designers, political activists, progressive ideas, and new music in general.
Cedille is one of my top favorite new music record labels and has been since they first started in 1987. Their releases (not limited to new music) are consistently well recorded and produced but producer James Ginsburg really pulls out all the stops on this one. From concept to recording, from lucid liner notes to gorgeous package design this has all the marks of a classic and collectible release. I mean, the music is great, but the whole package is something you’ll want to own. That’s right, I’m calling for “collector’s item” status here. Now is the time to get your copy.
Being asked to review this retrospective of the work of this virtually uncategorizable dancer, singer, composer, dramatist is the telling of my personal experience of growing up nurtured by this artist. Monk is not, of course the only artist whose presence has nurtured me and so many friends but her work is a case where I learned how to tune my curious radar to find more of the music that touched me deeply.
I first discovered her work when I purchased her album, “Key” (1971), self released and marketed via the late lamented New Music Distribution Center in New York. That album, later released on the Lovely Music label along with two releases on the great German avant garde label Wergo (Our Lady of Late, 1973 and Songs from the Hill/Tablet, 1979), constitute the minimalist, SOHO loft music which characterizes her style even now. But with her first ECM release she clearly hit her stride. Those early albums are definitely worth hearing but her mature style blossomed on ECM. It was, in retrospect, a sort of quantum leap, if you will.
LP album cover of “Key”“Our Lady of Late”“Songs from The Hill”
In that first album one can find Dick Higgins among the singers and Colin Walcott producing and playing percussion (as well as singing). Walcott, along with the yet to be known Julius Eastman would later participate in the Dolmen Music release. Monk, who studied dance at Sarah Lawrence College along with fellow student Alwyn Nikolais established “The House”, her flexible performing group in 1968 at a time which saw a great deal of artistic energy in and around Manhattan’s SOHO district where she encountered musicians like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and performers sympathetic to new innovations and ideas. She also taught and continues to teach her characteristic extended vocal techniques. Monk, along with John Cage, Philip Glass, and Robert Ashley was featured in Peter Greenaway’s “Four American Composers (1983).
The release of her first ECM disc, “Dolmen Music” (1981) can now be seen as a sort of watershed event. It was followed by “Turtle Dreams” (1983) a work which was prominently featured at New Music America 1982 in Chicago along with Robert Ashley’s “Perfect Lives”. Monk’s appearance on ECM occurred at about the same time as Steve Reich’s masterful “Music for 18 Musicians”. Monk found her mature voice more or less at the same time that Steve Reich and Philip Glass had found theirs. And anyone following new music in those years will recall the flow of new musical ideas that established many now acknowledged masters as legitimate artists.
While the major masterpiece, “Dolmen Music” dominates the album, Monk’s quirky mix of humor and pathos in pieces like “Gotham Lullaby” and “Biography” remain signature pieces in her oeuvre. And Turtle Dreams was made into a performance film for public television by visual artist Ping Chong in 1983, now available on YouTube.
She followed with “Do You Be” (1987) and “Book of Days” (1990) which also exists in at least two film versions and the CD itself which has been described as a “film for the ears”.
Following “Facing North” (1992) Monk released her only opera (though she refers to much of her works as “operas” this is the only one that comes close to the more generic concept of western music operas) to date, “Atlas” (1993) which was commissioned and subsequently performed at the Houston Opera. This represented another phase in her artistic development as she utilized her structured improvisation techniques along with her now familiar extended vocal techniques with an expanded set of performers both vocal and instrumental. Atlas is arguably similarly creative (and transgressive) as Philip Glass’ 1976 “Einstein on the Beach”. Both were developed in an unconventional manner and uses a similar harmonic language with really none of the standard conventions of western music in opera. Would that we can some day see a filming of this work.
I was privileged to see Monk in person for the first time when she performed excerpts from “Volcano Songs” (1997) in Chicago. Those images involving, among other things, light sensitive areas where Monk lay down and left a ghostly shadow upon arising. In addition to her engaging minimalist inflected music, Monk is a master at creating compelling images.
“Mercy” (2002) was followed by “Impermanence” (2008) which I was thrilled to see at Stanford. “Songs of Ascension” (2011) was another landmark in this piece conceived and performed in conjunction with installation artist Ann Hamilton in her tower in Northern California. Attendees to this event were brought in by bus due to the lack of actual parking facilities in that tower. I wish I could have experienced this but hopefully a cohesive video release will be forthcoming. Excerpts are available for viewing on YouTube and on Monk’s website.
“Piano Songs” (2014) by the wonderful new music championing pianists Bruce Brubaker and Ursula Oppens filled an inexcusable gap in the documentation of Monk’s piano music. And following her receiving the National Medal for the Arts in 2015 she released “On Behalf of Nature”(2016).
Monk is a well documented artist largely due to her productive affiliation with Manfred Eicher and ECM and, while gaps remain these recordings represent a major artistic accomplishment and an enduring legacy for new music, for women composers, for western art music. This lovely box set is truly a joy to behold.
Meredith Monk performing an encore at the final concert of OM 21 (2016) in San Francisco
Though I have enjoyed Downes’ albums since I first heard “America Again” (2016) I found myself approaching this new release with some trepidation. 24 tracks by multiple composers, most of their names unfamiliar to me left me with few clues as to the character of this album. So I decided to take Lara on a trip with me. I had a few hours of errands to do which required a bit of driving, a fine opportunity to hear this music while strapped into the driver’s seat. This sort of passive listening would give me a first impression and I wouldn’t be tempted to any distractions (other than driving).
After the first two or three tracks I found myself inextricably drawn into Downes’ obviously very personal choices. As with all her albums (this one is her tenth by my count), she shares a diverse cornucopia of music featuring music from Bach to young contemporary composers (women and men) and styles from classical to jazz, gospel, blues, and pop. On all tracks she has ample opportunity to exert her interpretive skills and her virtuosity. These are a quirky but ultimately eye opening (or ear opening?) pieces that draw the listener in. Her choice in repertoire has always been both creative and, some might say, “transgressive” because of her lack of respect for boundaries like “classical”, “jazz”, “pop”, “folk”, “male composers”, “female composers”, etc. whereby Benny Golson stands beside Aaron Copland or Rhiannon Giddens and Judy Collins alongside Bernstein, etc. But I prefer to think of her work as “inclusive”. Music is best appreciated not by racial, political, or gender issues but on its own merits. Here she sets her sights on the elusive concept of “love”, another concept that does best when it transgresses boundaries and embraces inclusion.
Downes’ keyboard mastery and her ability to clearly articulate the inner details of this music succeeded very well in engaging this listener from the very start. After about 12 tracks I had to stop, pull over, and look at the track listings. This far ranging but ultimately cohesive selection sounding at times like a fin de siecle drawing room recital of unabashedly romantic music. Of course many of these pieces are of more recent vintage but Downes succeeds in making her choices sound inevitably related to each other. There is much to explore here and the pieces seem to fit together like a sonic jigsaw puzzle into a cohesive whole while retaining their individual detail and beauty, indeed “love at last.”
Rather than attempting to delve into the individual composers here I am choosing to review this in the context of its presentation. It is a characteristic of Ms. Downes’ releases to identify some sort of context, sometimes fairly specific, sometimes cleverly vague in which to present a carefully chosen portion of her repertoire. Here Ms. Downes gives a loving and personal gift to her fans.
Of course I will look into all the composers and music presented here over time but, for now I just want to listen and savor these gifts. You will too.
Professor Yeh has been assistant principal clarinet with the Chicago Symphony since 1977 when he was just 19. As a former Chicagoan I can recall that Yeh’s hiring seems to have marked a change in the more traditional image of an orchestral musician. In addition to being an inspiration to aspiring musicians of Asian heritage his media presence also drew interest from both listeners of Asian Heritage but also young listeners (I turned 21 when he was hired and was pleased to find an artist who communicated to me and my age group).
In addition to his duties with the CSO, he has actively supported music and music making in his adopted home town. It is his support for local composers that he showcases here. This disc features music by Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977), Stacy Garrop (1969- ), Leo Sowerby (1895-1968), Shulamit Ran (1949- ), Teresa Reilly (1976- ), and Robert Muczinski (1929-2010).
Alexander Tcherepnin, whose father Nikolai was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov, and whose sons, Serge and Ivan, along with grandsons Sergei and Stephan are all highly accomplished composers comprise a multigenerational artistic dynasty of sorts. Russian born Alexander taught in Chicago thus qualifying him for inclusion in Cedille recordings’ mission to promote artists with a “second city” connection. He is well represented in recordings but is less present in the concert hall these days. His brief Sonata in one movement for clarinet and piano (1939) takes the first track on this fine chamber music release. It is a deservedly popular recital piece with a style that sounds a bit like Shostakovich, one of his contemporaries.
Stacy Garrop is a favorite of this reviewer. Her work has been reviewed elsewhere in this blog. She is a freelance composer of immense talent and skill. Her work is featured on at least 12 Cedille albums as well as other labels. Phoenix Rising (2016-18) was originally for alto saxophone (subsequent versions were made for flute and for violin) is presented here in a world premiere transcription for clarinet. As with all her music, Garrop shows herself to be a master of color and texture. She uses both traditional and extended techniques to achieve her compositional visions. These can be challenging for performers but the end result is always worth the effort. Garrop derives inspiration, as she frequently does, from world mythology. Here, of course, the familiar Phoenix bird that lives some 500 years and rises again from the ashes of its funeral pyre.
Leo Sowerby, long associated with Chicago as an organist, composer, and teacher, is represented here by his 1944 clarinet sonata (here in its world premiere recording). Written in the year which saw him win the Pulitzer Prize for music (for Canticle of the Sun), this sonata takes on near symphonic dimensions in its four movements. Sowerby is generally well represented on recordings (8 discs on Cedille alone). His lyrical writing is expressive and accessible and it is perhaps just a matter of time before someone orchestrates this work to present it as a concerto. At just a bit under 30 minutes, it is the largest work on this release.
Shulamit Ran, Israeli/American composer and pianist, student of the great Ralph Shapey, 1991 Pulitzer Prize winner (for her 1989-90 Symphony), Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago is represented on this recording by her Spirit for solo clarinet (2017). The work is dedicated to the composer’s friend, clarinetist Laura Flax (1952-2017). This is its world premiere recording. Ran’s music has gotten some recordings but her large and substantial orchestral works like the Symphony and a fine Concerto for Orchestra remain unavailable on recordings (even more egregious is the general lack of representation of her mentor, Ralph Shapey’s music). This solo clarinet work is a testament to her compositional talents. Here’s hoping we get to hear more.
Teresa Reilly is a clarinetist, composer, and life partner of Mr. Yeh. The Forgiveness Train (2020) is described as, in part, a response to the COVID epidemic (Yeh notes that much of this album is similarly inspired). The three movement work is essentially a sonata with a loosely poetical program. It is a lyrical work with nods to minimalism and jazz. This is the world premiere recording.
The disc concludes with the four movement Time Pieces for clarinet and piano (1983). This work (the second longest on the disc) is, like the Sowerby piece, substantially a concerto that waits an orchestrator for the piano part. Robert Muczinski, Chicago born composer studied under Alexander Tcherepnin whose music opens this release. The Opus 43 work was commissioned and premiered by former CSO principal clarinet Mitchell Lurie with Muczinski at the piano.
Mr. Yeh is, as always, a joy to hear. He is most ably supported by pianist Patrick Godon on piano (tracks 1, 4-7, and 12-15) and, of course by (more properly with) Teresa Reilly (tracks 9-11). This release, from the Art Institute depicted in (Chicago artist) Steve Shanabruch’s distinctive cover art to the composers represented, is pure Chicago in the best ways.
This album, largely a re-release of Barton’s groundbreaking recording of 1987 without the Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major by CHEVALIER J.J.O. DE MEUDE-MONPAS (FL. C. 1786) but with the wonderful addition of Florence Price’s Second Violin Concerto of 1952. That alone is worth the price of this disc.
Rachel Barton
Rachel Barton Pine who made her debut at age 10 with the Chicago Symphony is a world renowned violinist and activist. With this, her 22nd release for Cedille she is clearly a darling of that fabulous hometown label. Her wide range of repertoire reflect a unique sensibility and a revelatory exploration of the work of black composers.
Cedille records has a pretty amazing history of paying attention to black composers. Four of their releases featured the late great black conductor Paul Freeman (1936-2015) whose groundbreaking survey of black composers for Columbia records remain indisputable evidence of their inexcusable neglect as artists. The Cedille recordings mentioned are an extension of Freeman’s original survey.
So let’s take a look at this new release.
JOSEPH BOLOGNE, CHEVALIER DE SAINT-GEORGES (1745-1799) Violin Concerto in A major, Op. 5, No. 2 (1775) (23:44) 1 Allegro moderato (10:22) 2 Largo (8:35) 3 Rondeau (4:35)
The new lavish biopic will happily reignite interest in this composer. The late conductor Paul Freeman (1936-2015) is the person who really first rescued this man’s work from oblivion. In the first volume of his landmark Black Composers series released March 8th, 1974. He devoted an entire disc to four works by this composer, a contemporary of Mozart and every bit the Austrian’s equal both as composer and performer. Freeman released recordings of his first (of two) symphonies, the first (of some 18) string quartets, one of the few surviving arias from his first opera, “Ernestine”, and the last of his eight symphonies concertante. Barton’s beautiful reading of the A major violin concerto of 1775 (he wrote 14) is her entry into this much needed and ongoing revival. Her reading is warm and very much up to the challenge of the virtuosity of the writing.
JOSÉ WHITE LAFITTE (1835–1918) Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor (21:32) 4 Allegro (11:39) 5 Adagio ma non troppo (4:50) 6 Allegro moderato (4:58)
This composer, also first brought to light by Maestro Freeman in its premiere recording in volume 7 of the Black Composers series released in June, 1975. The wonderful Aaron Rosand played the violin. Barton’s, released in 1997 is only the second recording of this little known Afro-Cuban composer. The concerto fits with her passion for the high romantic era where virtuosity was (nearly) all.
SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR (1875–1912) Romance in G major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 39 (12:32) Encore Chamber Orchestra Daniel Hege, conductor
This brief Romance for violin and orchestra mirrors similar works by Beethoven and Dvorak. Again her facility with high romanticism serves her well in one of this black English composer’s best known works.
FLORENCE PRICE (1887-1953) Violin Concerto No. 2 (1952) (14:42) Royal Scottish National Orchestra Jonathon Heyward, conductor
This, along with Price’s first concerto, fourth symphony we’re found in 2009 in a now abandoned house that once belonged to Price. The second concerto is presented in its second recording (both concerti were released on Albany Records in 2018. I haven’t heard that one but after hearing this performance from 2022 it’s hard to imagine it being done better.
This release completes Sarah Cahill’s monumental survey of piano music written by women which saw its first two CD volumes last year.last year. This, the third volume titled “At Play”, follows the first two as seen below. This trilogy is not, of course, the last word, the end on the subject of piano works by women. There can be no last word but these selections are a reflection of Cahill’s perspective as a performer but also a producer/programmer whose scholarship and advocacy are well known and respected worldwide. These releases speak to women, certainly. But they also speak to audiences in general, producers, and fellow musicians. They comprise a careful sampling of some three hundred years of music which effectively demonstrates that “there’s gold in them thar hills” (after all Cahill is a Californian). Here’s hoping that this survey will help start a metaphorical gold rush to unearth the gold that can be found in this neglected music.
The first two volumes (both previously reviewed in this blog).
Other Minds OM 1022-2
I recall my fascination with Cahill’s earlier commissioning project which resulted in her CD “A Sweeter Music” (2013). I recall attending a very preliminary recital at Mills College where she did brief run through of some of the compositions and spoke about the project. She later toured the music (sometimes with John Sanborn’s wonderful accompanying visuals, sometimes without). Little did Cahill know that she hit upon a genre of classical music dear to this listener’s heart, that of politically inflected classical music. As a result, my interest in her artistry and choices of repertoire escalated tremendously (I heard two of her Bay Area recitals of this music and reviewed the recording in the early incarnation of this very blog). So another project, this time supporting female composers, with even greater dimension than that earlier project has similarly grabbed my attention in this landmark collection of music by women composers which has largely been neglected by mainstream artists, producers, and programmers.
This trilogy of recordings hardly solves the egregious neglect of this music but it does contribute rather authoritatively to the canon (there is one now) of music by non-male composers. Cahill is not the first artist to do this, and there are multiple ongoing projects exploring the work of female composers, but this project deserves top billing as it casts a mighty wide net with its three volumes covering about 300 years (of neglect). These recordings of some 30 pieces are but a fraction of music by women composers in this pianist’s repertoire. But, more than simply righting wrongs, this is about celebrating a legacy of artists getting their due recognition. (The “bad idea” Biblical metaphor of hiding a lamp beneath a basket comes to mind). Just look, er, listen at/to what’s been under that basket!
Cahill playing at the Chapel of the Chimes Solstice Concerts in 2013, a major annual Bay Area event created and managed by her. (Photo by Allan Cronin Creative Commons License)
This now completed trilogy doubtless will not mark the end of Cahill’s advocacy but it will stand as a major manifesto of sorts and will hopefully bring more performers and producers to be open to performing and recording them. Simply hearing these recordings exposes the listener to music of stunning substance selected by an artist whose curatorial radar is finely tuned and whose choices will speak definitively to listeners (and likely fellow performing artists) for years to come. (N.B. Listeners would do well to check out Cahill’s YouTube channel where one can find a gold mine of music which reflects the scope of her performances and advocacy, not just for women composers, but for an amazing range of artists.)
This third volume is entitled, “At Play”. Like the previously released volumes, this collection gets a collective title that vaguely hints at the character of the music herein. The sequencing of the music is, like the previous two volumes, pretty much chronological. The essential program notes by Ms. Cahill (in all three volumes) provide just enough background to provide useful contexts for the listener. And you have to love the “Cahill and friends” photo galleries (on each volume) reflecting the deeply personal nature of this undertaking. That may sound hyperbolic but just listen to this music and feel the love, the passion, the connections, the sincerity, and the incisive playing. (Should I throw in a “Pied Piper” metaphor?) Listen and you’ll likely get hooked.
Track listings
There are 16 tracks comprising nine works by nine female composers over nearly three centuries. Four of the nine works receive here receive their first (or first commercial) recordings. As noted earlier, the track sequence is chronological. (N.B. That makes 30 + works over the 3 CDs), a little less than half of the total commissions.
We begin with the last of 9 sonatas by Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836). Her lifespan covers the classical to the early romantic eras in western musical history but recordings of her music didn’t begin to appear until about 2006 when Jérôme Dorival published a biography of her. Listeners will likely find this music similar to that of Mozart, Haydn, and early Beethoven but with a level of virtuosic writing that anticipates Chopin and Liszt. This three movement sonata was published in 1811. This is apparently the second recording of this work as another new music champion, Nicolas Horvath, released a recording of all nine of these in 2021, further testament that time has come for this composer (and perhaps women composers in general).
Next is the Thème varié, Op. 98 (1895) by Cécile CHAMINADE (1857–1944). This late romantic composer is probably the only name with which most listeners may be acquainted. A recording of her Concertino for flute and orchestra (1902) continues to receive attention by classical broadcasters but most of her work remains very little known. Cahill makes a strong case for this music with her interpretation of this virtuosic early romantic styled work. She is far better known in her native France. It is time we see what the French have been hiding.
Grażyna BACEWICZ (1909–1969), represented here by her Scherzo (1934), has gotten recognition in her native Poland but has only fairly recently become known internationally. This early work, less modernist than her later work, has apparently been recorded before but is new to this reviewer’s ears. Bacewicz was a prolific composer and this fine piece, a virtuosic showpiece, is likely to encourage listeners to further explore her extensive catalog which includes Symphonies, Concertos for violin, viola, cello, and for piano, 7 string quartets, symphonies, operas, songs, and much more.
Now Cahill brings us into present time, featuring living composers, beginning with the music of Chinese-American composer Chen YI (b. 1953). Guessing (1989) is a small piano piece which incorporates a Chinese folk song in a set of variations.
This is the first commercial recording of this music. To be honest, I am not familiar with much of this composer’s work (nor most of them here) save for Oliveros and Wong) but this piece as with all the selections here are sufficiently intriguing to prompt listeners to explore further. That is the point of an anthology such as this, to spark curiosity, suggest another path for the journey. Mission accomplished.
Franghiz ALI-ZADEH (b. 1947), born in Azerbaijan, incorporates elements from her ethnic heritage into modern classical idioms. Music for Piano (1989/1997) utilizes Cagean-like preparations, in this case a glass beaded necklace laid across the strings. The resulting sound, evoking Alan Hovhaness and/or Henry Cowell at times, is intended to evoke that of the traditional Azerbaijani string instrument called “tar” (not a reference to the recent film). The composers use of different scales also seems to derive from folk models. The piece is in several sections delineated by dynamics and by register in which is, I believe, an ingenious use of register used to control when to allow for those prepared strings to sound. The piece is by a composer with a wide expressive pallete and the ability to use those methods judiciously toward her unique creative ends.
Next, in the briefest entry at just over 4 minutes, we get one piece from a set of commissions (all by women composers) Cahill made to honor the 100th birthday of American composer Ruth Crawford (1901-1953). Pauline OLIVEROS (1932–2016) submitted this work (her first notated composition since the 60s) which uses her own unique approach to indeterminate composition in Quintuplets Play Pen: Homage to Ruth Crawford (2001), here in its world premiere recording. Oliveros, who exerted a profound influence on a generation of composers, performers, and listeners via her work in electronic music and improvisation, but most powerfully via her “Deep Listening” concepts which effectively define the role of the listener as being a part of the compositional process.
A clearly happy Pauline Oliveros acknowledges the warm applause of the Other Minds 20 audience after her performance at the SF Jazz Center in 2015. Her gentle spirit and powerful intellect preside over this trilogy and continue to influence all who knew her and her work. She would have loved these recordings. (Photo by Allan Cronin Creative Commons license)
I’m claiming fair use in publishing this lovely photo ad for an expensive perfume inspired by the same poem. Kinda Freudian, no?
Hannah KENDALL (b. 1984) is a black British composer whose three movement “On the Chequer’d Field Array’d” (2013) is based on the 1763 poem Caissa by Sir William Jones and depicts the three sections of a game of chess. The lengthy Elizabethan styled poem can easily be read as protofeminist given that the female chess piece heroically wins. Read it if you don’t believe me. And there are musical metaphors as well. It is these: mindplay, middlegame, and coda into which the work is divided. The music, like the poem is an intimate perspective which invites the reader (or hearer of the music) to create their own meanings here.
Aida SHIRAZI (b. 1987), an Iranian born composer, takes the performer inside the piano. Her blandly titled, “Albumblatt” (2017) belies her deep understanding of the piano and its possibilities. This is arguably the most avant garde (or modernist if you prefer) composition of the trilogy. Cahill’s choices reflect her eclectic approach to music programming.
In addition to a chronological approach, this trilogy is stylistically diverse. This music borrows from forbears such as John Cage and Morton Feldman as well as Henry Cowell. This meditative music only reveals itself fully to the focused listener. This is like an etude comprised of sounds you rarely hear (intentionally) from a piano. Played much of the time inside the piano but also at the keyboard more conventionally, the piece also demands close attention to dynamics (down to silence). Here is where the recordist’s art shines through. The subtleties of dynamics and the ability to capture the variety of harmonics evoked. Of course said performer had to accomplish rather large postural changes and do so silently if the performance adheres to the score, lol. And both are accomplished here in what sounds like a single take. This is a pretty great listen.
Regina HARRIS BAIOCCHI (b. 1956), a native Chicagoan poet and composer is given the last word with her, “Piano Poems” (2020). Last but not least by any means is a testament to Cahill’s singular but relevant choices as well as her advocacy of young composers as their stars begin to rise. This artist is new on my radar but one that will remain there. As both poet and composer, this young artist, commissioned by Cahill with a request that the music be about poetry, specifically by fellow (adopted) Chicagoans Gwendoline Brooks (one of this formerly Chicagoan reviewer’s personal faves) and Richard Wright.
The response was these 4 meditations on Brooks, Wright, and on the composer’s own poetical musings. The language here seemingly derives, appropriately, from 30s to 40s jazz of Ellington and Basie and a seemingly latter day version of that in the last two pieces describing the composer’s own literary utterances. Both virtuosic and apparently written by a composer very familiar with the instrument, a fitting and hopeful glimpse to the future.
Each of these discs contains at least one piece that reflects a deeper than average commitment by the performer. Cahill’s collaborative wok (with Dr. John DesMarteau) in the Agi Jambor sonata in volume I, her advocacy of Teresa Wong premiering the first performance of (She dances Naked…),the justly celebrated bay area artist’s selection on volume II. And her reaching out to Regina HARRIS BAIOCCHI for a commission (in volume III) all reflect another valued aspect of this performer.
The recording by Matt Carr is very listener friendly demonstrating serious skills at times in dealing with the many sonic challenges. This album and its two predecessors belong in any serious collector’s library. If the future is indeed female, then this is a fine soundtrack. Listeners, performers, Brava!!
This is the most recent recording by Italian pianist Agnese Toniutti. (her third release by my research). It is also the most recent recording of John Cage’s masterful Sonatas and Interludes (1946-8) for prepared piano, a defining work for that unusual instrument. It has been recorded at least 30 times but is rather rarely heard in live performance.
John Cage is perhaps best known for his challenges to the philosophy and the very definition of music itself epitomized in his infamous silent piece titled 4’33” premiered in 1952. The composer eschewed the notion of a “masterpiece” but irony loving “fate” would hand him that title at least for this set of pieces.
Toniutti, a graduate of The Conservatory of Venice, seems to be as much a researcher and activist as she is a widely skilled pianist. While doubtless schooled in the commonly played repertoire for her instrument, she favors new music and music undeservedly neglected in her performances and recordings as well as the commissioning of new works and finding yet unplayed that strike her fancy.
The Sonatas and Interludes, now some 80 years old doesn’t really qualify as “new music” per se nor can it really be called neglected having been recorded 30+ times. In the context of this release this cycle of pieces seems to function much as a new recording of the Goldberg Variations or the late Beethoven Sonatas might function to introduce the skills of a musician whose trajectory was aimed at the conventional recital hall circuit. Toniutti clearly has other plans.
I won’t attempt to compare this most recent interpretation to the other available recordings. I believe this recording does much to validate the music as an essential work in the western canon of art music and to display the estimable understanding and widely skilled competence of the performer whose work is and will continue to embrace new music and advocate for that music to earn an esteemed place in the minds and hearts of listeners and other performers.
This is a very enjoyable recording whether it is to be a collector’s only recording of this music or one that stands most favorably in comparison to previous recordings. If this is to be your first recording of this work or if you simply want to hear another interpretation, you will not be disappointed. This is a wonderful performance.
Pianist Agnese Toniutti previously released a very forward looking recording on Neuma Records. The 2021 release pictured below is a collection of much more recent music. I listened numerous times and didn’t feel I “got it” well enough to say something reasonably intelligent (if not insightful) until this second release. And while I may not fully understand these “subtle matters” I now have a better context.
Neuma 138
This collection which I had yet to review represents Toniutti’s understanding and appreciation as well as her apparent mission to expand the experimental repertoire for piano. Here is a fascinating set of composers, each with a unique view of her instrument. Just listen, trust this artist. You’ll be glad you did.
Track listing
Keep your eyes and ears open for Agnese Toniutti, an advocate for and a master of the avant garde. And to Ms. Toniutti, I greet you at the beginning of a great career.
There were no percussion ensembles in Western music until the early twentieth century, at least not anything close to the size and instrumental diversity we see now, but since then there have been a variety of percussion ensembles which have popped up. some touring, some recording, but all investigating the possibilities of this collection of pitched and unpitched instruments. Notable examples from this writer’s memory include the Paul Price Percussion Ensemble, the Donald Knaack Percussion Ensemble, Amadinda, and the Canadian group, “Nexus”. Each of these ensembles (the list is not comprehensive) has put their own stamp on the flexibly nebulous group subsumed under the title, “Percussion Ensemble”.
All of these groups have chosen which instruments to include in their group, which to exclude, and they have done their own curation of music to expand their respective repertoires and the percussion group repertoire as a whole. And the present recording presents yet another Third Coast Percussion CD on Cedille Records for this busy Chicago based group. The relationship between this energetic ensemble and the equally energetic Cedille Records has been a mutually beneficial one artistically. this release is the fifth release for that label. They have at least nine other albums as a group and have collaborated on many more recordings.
As noted on the album this disc contains all world premiere recordings that reflect varying degrees of collaboration. One of the unifying threads of this CD is the variety of compositional approaches. The Elfman piece being perhaps the most traditionally notated and structured. The others involve different compositional methods which are not exactly traditional in classical music. It is the exploration of such non-traditional methods and the expansion of the definition of composition that is a characteristic of this always interesting classically trained group of musicians.
Let me just start by saying WOW!!!
The first work on the album is by Danny Elfman (1953- ) is best known for his work in movies and television as the composer of “The Simpsons” theme and similarly energetic scores for Tim Burton’s films among others. His roots were in his work with the unusual pop band “Oingo Boingo” whose manic style is still present in much of Elfman’s work. And this is not his first appearance in this new music blog either. His Violin Concerto was reviewed here. He manages to succeed in pop, film, and the concert hall, a feat that few can match.
Elfman’s rather blandly named, Percussion Quartet (2019) is appropriately described in the liner notes as the most conventional work here in terms of how it was written. It is fully notated in in traditional notation and consists of four movements ranging in length from about 4 minutes to about 6 and a half. The work resembles traditional sonata forms with Elfman’s energetic and sometimes quirky melodies that successfully draw the listener through the composer’s journey. That bland title is almost ironic as it belies the really entertaining qualities of this piece. Third Coast’s realization is definitive as one would hope for a world premiere recording.
The second composition is a transcription by Third Coast of a popular Philip Glass piano work, “Metamorphosis No. 1.” But this is a transcription influenced by another transcription, that of the Brazilian group, “Uakti”. So this can be said to be tantamount to a collaboration with another performing ensemble. Clocking in at nearly ten minutes this track is a familiar interlude that cleanses the aural pallet for what is to come.
Photo by Cary Huws
And what does come next is a collaboratively composed seven movement work entitled, “Perspective”. This more poetic title is the source of the album’s title. This work by Jlin (Jerrilynn Patton 1987- ) was originally written by first recording multiple tracks or layers and then working with the musicians of Third Coast to transcribe these ideas into traditional notation and into a form playable by the quartet of percussionists. This, of course, resembles the methodology that brought forth the wonderful Devonte Hynes album (also on Cedille) reviewed here.
The music is arguably entirely composed by Jlin with the orchestration creatively realized by Third Coast Percussion (doubtless in direct discussion with Jlin). What results is a dizzying and energetic set of movements whose styles derive in part from minimalism and from the rhythmic complexities of African drumming and contemporary dance music. Jlin, who hails from Gary, Indiana, works from a perspective of a DJ spinning dance music. But this is hardly your typical DJ. This is a fascinating musical mind who just happened to have started with DJ equipment.
Flutronix (photo from their website)
Another example of Third Coast Percussion’s creative collaborations has resulted in “Rubix”, a three movement work written (mostly) by Flutronix, a genre busting duo. Flutronix is Nathalie Joachim and Allison Loggins-Hull, both classically trained flautists who aren’t afraid to cross dated boundaries to create music that speaks their minds.
This is some high energy music which reflects a variety of styles but always demands much from all players involved. The duo, whose rendition of Steve Reich’s “Vermont Counterpoint” demonstrates their virtuosity and interpretive rigor. Rubix is essentially a chamber work for flutes and percussion but their defiance of categories seems to be as much a critical element of their music as is their virtuosity. Bottom line is that this is engaging, creative work that leaves the listener wanting more even as they may be unsure what they just heard. Kudos, all!
This release appears to be as much about the musician as it is about the music. Ives’ second piano sonata has had numerous recordings since John Kirkpatrick’s landmark recording of 1948. It is a gargantuan work that requires formidable technical skills simply to play it and interpretive skills at a very high level. Here is a recording by an artist who certainly possesses the skill sets required.
Philip Bush
Pianist Philip Bush has spent over twenty years playing, teaching and recording. He is well known in new music circles as a versatile and committed artist very familiar with Charles Ives’ music. Doubtless many have heard his work but his name is far better known among his peers than his listeners. Why? Well despite at least 24 releases his role as accompanist or ensemble member leaves his name recognition to his fellow artists and to fans who read credit listings on those recordings. This writer is reminded of another artist of a previous generation whose skills were unquestioned but his name less known. I’m talking about the wonderful Gerald Moore whose work as an accompanist graced many recordings of the 50s, 60s, and 70s where he worked alongside many different instrumentalists and singers. Moore’s charming album, “The Unashamed Accompanist” (1955) is a good humored tour of the hard work of the accompanist, the unsung hero. I don’t mean to suggest that Mr. Bush is an exact match for this analogy, but this album certainly puts him more in that soloist spotlight than any other he has done.
Despite many recordings of this masterpiece, ostensibly a landmark of American modernist composition, this work has yet to achieve the prominence it deserves in the recital hall. Bush’s performance along with his very clever inclusion of lesser known Ives contemporary, Marion Bauer’s Six Preludes for Piano, Op. 15 (1922) helps to provide context for the listener. Bauer was later the first American to study with Nadia Boulanger whose pedagogy would shape the careers of many of the great composers of the 20th century in many countries. The preludes are apparently included here as representing American music played more commonly in recitals of that time.
Kyle Gann’s perspectives on the Concord
For a thorough summary and perspective on the Concord Sonata I have found Kyle Gann’s recent book on the subject to be illuminating. Ives himself felt the need to “explain himself” when he wrote a little book to be published concurrently with the sonata. Ives’ title for his book “Essays Before a Sonata” provide the inspiration for Gann’s subtitle (Essays After a Sonata). Ives’ near constant revisions add to the difficulties in even determining a final version of the score itself. The composer’s revisions and the partial recordings he did of the work add to the performer’s burden in the performance of the work. There’s even optional parts for flute (included in Bush’s recording played by Jennifer Parker-Harley) and for viola (not in Bush’s recording).
Track listing.
The Bauer preludes are far more conservative musically than the Ives of course but one could argue that nearly everything contemporary with the Concord Sonata sounds conservative by contrast. Bauer’s Op, 15 are relatively early works in her output. She lived and worked another 33 years after these little works which were apparently influenced by French Impressionism. There is no indication that Bauer and Ives ever met or discussed music but her work was the new music more commonly heard than that of the roughly concurrent work of Ives. The use of the stereopticon style slide on the album cover, a current technology of the time, also serves to provide a charming nostalgic reference to an era about to experience many rapid changes historically, technically, and conceptually in which the Concord becomes an American work analogous to The Rite of Spring (1913) as a signpost of the beginning of another era.
Despite the complexities, Bush’s reading of the Concord and the Bauer preludes are eminently listenable. That clarity is ultimately the value of this release. This recording is a wonderful opportunity to hear the artistry of a dedicated artist and academic. It helps make a case for the Concord to be recognized as an important work whose complexities are made clearer with each interpretation. Bravo, Professor Bush!
The fanciful subtitle of this release, “The Dance” is a follow up to the first volume titled, “In Nature” (a third volume titled, “At Play” is due out in March, 2023). These vague titles are fanciful and more connotative than specific. They seem to reflect the nature of the project and the nature of Sarah Cahill‘s style of conceptualizing what must be an overwhelming undertaking, Beginning with the simple concept of female composers (the term “neglected” would be redundant here) Cahill has produced a sweeping survey ranging from the baroque era (the earliest piece so far in this anthology is from 1687) to the present and her survey seems to know few geographical boundaries in this representative survey of keyboard music. Of course we are talking about basically the paradigm of western classical music but non-western influences are of course included via the composers’ individual talents. Many of these works were presented in Cahill’s fine YouTube series which can give listeners further clues to the pianist’s varied interests.
The cover art (which I had described as “drab” in the first review) now seems to aptly reflect the struggle for equality and now nicely represents this project in an iconic way with the same monochrome cover photo on each of the three volumes and a primary color panel with the disc title. Green for Volume I, Yellow for Volume II (I’m guessing “red” for Vol III?). This survey is shaping up to be an influential as well as hugely entertaining anthology.
What struck this listener is Cahill’s facility with both technique and interpretation of a mighty diverse set of pieces. Known primarily for her work with music written after 1950, she demonstrates in these recordings an impressive command of baroque, classical, romantic, and modern idioms. I have never heard her play Bach but I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to hear her do the Goldberg Variations.
This was particularly striking in her reading of the keyboard suite that opens this release. This is apparently not the first recording of Elisabeth JACQUET DE LA GUERRE‘s (1665-1729) Suite no. 1 in d minor (the complete suites for harpsichord were recorded by harpsichordist Carol Cerasi in 1998) but Cahill seems to channel the spirits of the pioneering efforts of Wanda Landowska and Rosalyn Tureck whose abilities to play harpsichord music effectively on the modern piano helped set the standard for this practice in the twentieth century and beyond. This late French baroque suite is a thoroughly engaging way to draw the listener in. With echoes of Bach and Couperin this virtually unknown composer is seriously engaging and substantive. This recording includes five (of nine) movements of the suite. One hopes to hear more of this woman’s music and Cahill is very much up to the task of providing a definitive performance.
With the next track we hear the music of Clara SCHUMANN (1819-1896), better known as the wife of Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Clara was in fact a highly accomplished virtuoso and composer whose works are only now getting the recognition they deserve. The piece chosen here is her Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann Op. 20. These seven variations were a gift for her husband on his 43rd birthday in 1853. Sadly it was to be the last birthday he would celebrate with his family. Robert Schumann was infamously institutionalized in 1854 and died in 1856. The work has all the splendor of high romanticism with the virtuosity associated with the great composer/pianists (Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Rubinstein, et al). And, as with the previous piece, Cahill seems very at home in her reading of this wonderful set of variations.
Germaine TAILLEFERE (1892-1983) is next up with her three movement partita of 1957. The title “Partita” suggests a connection with the baroque suite which opens this collection. The connection is one of form, not harmony or melody. The three movements here are “Perpetuum Mobile”, “Notturno”, and “Allegramente”. Taillefere, who is perhaps best known for her lively Harp Concertino of 1927, was the only female member of France’s celebrated “Les Six” (the other members were, Louis Durey, Georges Auric, Arthur Honneger, Darius Milhaud, and Francis Poulenc). This largely neoclassical group of composers developed their styles in the shadow of Debussy and Ravel. Cahill’s first album was a fine reading of Ravel’s piano music and she is very much in her element with this delightful three movement work which echoes Ravel to some degree,
Zenobia POWELL PERRY (1908-2004) is the first composer in this collection to be born in the twentieth century. She was a black composer/conductor/pianist and teacher. Her work appeared before in this blog in coverage of her opera “Tarawa House” which was given a revival in Modesto, CA in 2014. Her “Rhapsody” (1960) is in a sort of Neo-romantic style with some challenging virtuosity required. This is a fine introduction to her work which deserves serious reassessment and more performances. Musicologist Jeannie Gayle Pool continues to publish, preserve, and advocate for this neglected American artist. Pool maintains the website for this composer and is a useful, informative site,
Madeleine DRING (1923-1977), a British composer/pianist, a new name to this writer, is characterized by her use of popular and jazz idioms. Cahill here plays two (of five) movements of her “Color Suite” (1963). This whets the listener’s appetite for more of this interesting composer whose work was well known during her career but whose star has dimmed since her passing. Dring is one of many women composers of that era whose work, though influential, has not been incorporated into the repertory of contemporary classical musicians.
Betsy JOLAS (1926- ), a French born American composer whose career has included work as a composer, pianist, and teacher. No stranger to the Bay Area, Jolas taught at UC Berkeley and Mills College as well as Harvard and Yale. The listener accessible nature of her music belies the innovation and complexities it contains. Though she has been recognized throughout her career her work is due for a new reckoning. Her brief “Tango Si” (1984) is entertaining and sufficiently compelling to spark interest in her work going forward.
Elena KATS-CHERNIN (1957- ) hails from Uzbekistan and migrated to Australia where she studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium and subsequently with Helmut Lachenmann in Germany. Kats-Chernin has been a prolific composer and is now perhaps mid-career and, happily, pretty well known. “Peggy’s Rag” (1996) is one of a set of several rags written between 1995 and 1999. This work is dedicated to Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990), another artist, another female composer deserving of a revival.
Meredith MONK (1942- ) has long been one of this reviewer’s favorite “downtown” composers whose initial musical ventures were first heard in her New York SOHO loft. She, along with other rising stars, including Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Phill Klein, Rhys Chatham, etc., are now the historically recognized mavericks who’s creative ideas formed in contrast to the power elite of the “uptown” composers heard commonly at Lincoln Center.
Monk was initially trained as a dancer and that has been evident in most of her output. But she is perhaps best known for her exploration of extended vocal techniques (which she also teaches). It is fitting that her “St. Petersburg Waltz” (1997) is included in this dance themed installment of music by women composers. Despite being an “east coast” composer initially, Monk has achieved international recognition and has a particularly large following in the Bay Area. No surprise then that our pianist guide in this journey has a long standing familiarity with Monk’s work. Cahill demonstrates her grasp of Monk’s minimalist inflected style most admirably and, as in the preceding tracks, leaves the listener wanting more.
Gabriela ORTIZ (1964) is a Mexican composer. Born in Mexico, trained in England, and now teaching in Mexico. Her light shines brightly even in the glare of the heavily politicized immigration issues that dominate the media and is another in a long line of world class composers from that underrated country. Ortiz, in addition to her academic appointments, has produced a large number of works in multiple formats from piano and chamber music, to orchestral, dance, and opera. Her work draws in part on the folk music traditions she absorbed in her childhood and she has amassed a significant number of international commissions and recordings.
Ortiz is also an accomplished pianist and the work chosen here is “Preludio y Estudio No. 3″(2011), one of four two part compositions. Cahill’s brief but useful notes provide the listener with her personal insights to the underlying complexities that drive this music. The incorporation of folk and non-classical elements has been embraced by composers for hundreds of years and Ortiz succeeds in incorporating such elements into her personal style,. As with all of these works, Cahill produces interpretations that, if not absolutely definitive (there are always detractors) stand as a challenge to subsequent interpreters, a necessary element in such a grand project.
This volume ends with the most recently composed work by the youngest composer of the lot, Theresa WONG (1976- ). Wong, a graduate of Mills College, is cherished performer in the Bay Area and beyond, As both composer and performer she has maintained an active schedule and has produced a great deal of music documented in a large and growing discography. Her collaborations have included many of the established Bay Area artistic royalty (including Ms. Cahill, of course).
“She Dances Naked Under the Palm Trees” (2019) is a composition for which the backstory (provided in Cahill’s notes) is particularly useful for the listener. It is the incorporation of extramusical ideas and musical. quotation that drive the drama here to some extent.. The music certainly stands on its own but the addition of the technical insights will send the listener back for repeated hearings and the music will guide the listener to seek more of the work of this wonderful artist whose star continues to rise.
The last disc in this landmark anthology (due next year) will ultimately contain only a portion of the approximately 70 pieces which Cahill has chosen. Like her previous anthology (of politically influenced music) “A Sweeter Music” released in 2013, the limitations of time and money prevent a more complete vision of said anthologist but there is more than enough to provoke further interest by listeners and artists and isn’t that the point?
William Robin is a musicologist whose credentials (nicely enumerated on his web site) are more than adequate to the task at hand. This is a socioeconomic and political perspective on the seminal Bang on a Can organization. At its core, Bang on a Can is the foundational work of three people now recognized as major American composers: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon, all of whom met as students at Yale University.
Julia Wolfe, image from composer’s web site
This is the (much needed) first book on the history of the collaboration of these composers and how their work helped transform and move ahead the new music scene. First in New York, then nationally, and now internationally these individuals experimented and embraced innovative ideas while navigating the labyrinth of of social, political and economic hurdles involved in the production and promotion of non-pop new music. Therein lies the “agony” referenced in my title. This essential background information makes for some slow going reading but also serves to demonstrate how daunting their task has been.
David Lang, image from composer’s web site
The book documents the early efforts both to define their concepts and to learn the politics of the new music economy. But, painful as they are, these efforts are ultimately instructive for anyone involved in the production of new music. This reader comes away with a new found respect for those who wrangle with the varied and complex elements behind the production of concerts in general, and new music in particular. It is “how the sausage is made” so to speak. And it is a useful perspective for the average listener to better understand the incredible complexity of new music production and promotion.
Michael Gordon, image from the composer’s web site
The book is divided into 7 chapters and an epilogue which focuses not just on the trials and tribulations of the gestation of Bang on a Can but also its context among several other new music initiatives that preceded BOC. Meet the Composer, New Music America, and the New York Philharmonic’s New Horizons Festival loomed large in their time and the “downtown” loft scene which nurtured the likes of Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Rhys Chatham, etc. contributed to the promotion of new music during their respective eras.
Robin identifies the innovative efforts by BOC in their use of marathon open air concerts to showcase their innovative programming which effectively blurred the lines of genres like jazz, free jazz, classical, pop, rock, etc. But their challenges were essentially the some, the politics of concert production, funding, advertising, etc. They characterized their efforts in contrast to the economically dominant Lincoln Center. The evolution of BOC from its beginnings through the establishment of the Bang on a Can All Stars touring ensemble, the establishment of a record label (Cantaloupe) and their later performances at Lincoln Center, the stodgy institution against which they railed dubbing their music as “downtown” as an alternative to the “uptown” mainstream. There is the beginnings of a history of new music in recordings that remains to be written but the point here is context and the socioeconomic and political motivations involved.
Author William Robin does his work well in this academic tome which is richly annotated and referenced with a bibliography to take the interested reader to a wealth of information on new music and its production. And while this is more about “how the sausage is made” so to speak, it is a necessary exposition which provides both history and context, something to think about the next time you buy a ticket to hear new music. Admittedly its not a pretty picture but it certainly illuminates the side of new music virtually unknown to the average listener.
While this reader had hoped for more information on the music performed (which deserves a book unto itself) this book takes its place alongside Tom Johnson”s “The Voice of New Music”, Kyle Gann’s “Downtown Music”, Renee Levine Packer’s wonderful history of the Buffalo New Music scene, “This Life of Sounds”, Benjamin Piekut’s “Experimentalism Otherwise”, George Lewis’ “A Power Stronger than Itself”, Luciano Chessa’s “Luigi Russolo, Futurist”, and David Bernstein’s “The San Francisco Tape Music Center” (to name a few) as an essential history of new music.
This is another entry in an ongoing series of music for piano trio by the tried and true Lincoln Trio. In this fine release they play a delightful collection of five works (three are world premiere recordings) by living composers. This is their eighth Cedille release by my count. It is the second recording of piano trios from Chicago based composers, a follow up to their previous survey of early to mid-twentieth century piano trios, Trios from the City of Big Shoulders.
The five works presented here are but a sampling of the available repertoire from Chicago based composers. That said it is a fine sampling of the current state of the art and one would do well to explore more of the music of all these composers.
The first selection is the three movement, “city beautiful” (2021) by the American composer of Nigerian/American Heritage, Shawn E. Okpebholo (1981- ), a world premiere recording. The title is taken from that of the 19th century initiative that helped build the now familiar skyline which had been ravaged by the 1871 Chicago Fire.
Okpebholo is no stranger to this blog. His fine album of spiritual arrangements Steal Away (2016), and his contributions to Will Liverman’s album, “Dreams of a New Day” (2021) revealed his interest in and expertise with spirituals and art song. “city beautiful” by contrast is essentially three tone poems inspired by Chicago architecture, perhaps one of the city’s finest distinctions. The three movements, aqua, prairie, and burnham are effectively homages to architects Jeanne Gang (whose Aqua Tower is a most recent major addition to the famous skyline), Frank Lloyd Wright (whose Robie House is a classic example of the “prairie school” design), and Daniel Burnham (whose 19th century designs define the famously beautiful lakefront and the iconic Union Station).
Opkebholo’s idiom is basically tonal and could be characterized as post romantic. But regardless of how you categorize it the music is eminently listener friendly and a fine vehicle for the estimable Lincoln Trio. This is the work of a rapidly emerging composer with both substance and style. Keep his name on your radar. I expect to hear much more from this talented and prolific composer who currently holds a professorship at Wheaton College in that western suburb of Chicago.
Next is a two movement work by Augusta Read Thomas (1964- ) entitled, “…a circle around the sun” (2021). This work was a commission by the Children’s Memorial Foundation for the Amelia Piano Trio in honor of George D. Kennedy. Thomas has long been a fixture in Chicago’s music life where she was a composer in residence with the Chicago Symphony from 1997-2006. She is currently professor of music at the University of Chicago and a former professor at Northwestern University. Her work also tends toward the tonal idiom and this rather brief two movement work is a fine example of her writing for chamber ensemble.
“Soliloquy” (2003) by the truly fine, if still too little known, Shulamit Ran (1949- ), an Israeli born American composer. She was a student of the esteemed Ralph Shapey (1921-2002) to whom she dedicated her Pulitzer Prize winning Symphony (1990). The composer states in her liner notes that the origins of this work come from her opera “Dybbuk”. It is a pleasant piece perhaps less complex and more lyrical in sound than some of her larger works. Ran was professor of music at the University of Chicago from 1973 to her retirement in 2015.
Mischa Zupko (1971- ) contributes the briefest work to this collection. Clocking in at just under three minutes, “Fanfare 80” (2010) was written in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Music Institute of Chicago. The brevity here belies the complexities within this ear catching piece.
The album concludes with a substantial two movement work (just over 23 minutes), “Sanctuary” by Stacy Garrop (1969- ) is the work of another prolific composer whose work is, happily, getting much deserved recognition. The 2016 recording of her wonderful orchestral work was reviewed in these pages. Garrop’s work is invariably kinetic and deeply felt with a dramatic flair. Garrop was on the composition faculty of Roosevelt University in Chicago from 2000 to 2016 and is now a freelance composer.
The usual audiophile production (Bill Maylone, engineer) which characterizes Cedille releases is evident here. This is a fine sampling of music which is roughly representative of the musical riches producer James Ginsburg has mined from the “city beautiful”.
Jacob Greenberg will be a name familiar to many primarily for his essential role as the keyboard artist in ICE, one of those fine New York based new music ensembles that can play just about anything. At one time composers were forming their own ensembles to play the strange and difficult music they were writing (Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, Steve Martland to name a few). Now ensembles like ICE are ready made, able to provide a flexible instrumentation and, with each musician, a stunning level of technical competence and a true affinity for the music of now.
Mr. Greenberg here is one of those multitasking, technically refined artists whose curatorial ear makes him an artist you need to have on your radar. In an earlier blog post I reviewed his solo (mostly) piano release Hanging Gardens in which he created an insightful contextualization by the choices of repertoire he made for the album. In response to this review he sent me a copy of this, the latest of his solo piano (mostly) projects.
The context of this album is of compositions all commissioned by Greenberg and written for him over the span of 2013-2019. It is a marvelously diverse collection which speaks to the wide scope of his interests and skills as well as the range of personal relationships he cultivates with other musicians.
The disc begins with music by probably the best known composer on this release, Japanese composer Dai Fujikura (1977- ). White Rainbow (2016) is a sort of tone poem for harmonium evoking the visual atmospheric phenomenon of a “fogbow” or “white rainbow”. It has an impressionistic feel much like Debussy. This is followed by the more experimental “Bright Codes” (2015-2018) for piano, four pieces which can be played in any order, but with the caveat that they be played without pause.
The next 5 tracks are dedicated to the 2018 “Funf Worte” (Five Words) by Amy Williams, five miniatures, each exploring a single German word. The piece is for harmonium and voice and the voice is the wonderful new music soprano, Tony Arnold. This is followed by a much larger piece for solo piano, “Cineshape 4” (2016) developed after the structure of the film “Run, Lola, Run” (1998). this virtuosic piece starts three times, each time developing differently analogously to said film.
“The Memory of Now” (2021) by IONE. This is a work for harmonium and voice. This time the voice is of the composer IONE, poet, dramatist, musician, playwright, and life partner of the late, great Pauline Oliveros. The piece has improvisational, indeterminate elements which require the performer(s) to listen to internal and external sounds.
The album ends with two large and powerful pieces by Nathan Davis. “Ghostlight” (2013) and “Seedling” (2019). Ghostlight is for “lightly prepared piano” and evokes the ambiance of those small single lights that shines on a darkened stage when the theater is closed. The preparations hep produce the ghostly microtones and gong-like sounds.
Seedling for harmonium and electronics brings us back to the sounds again of a harmonium. This is the only track which has appeared before and it was on the wonderful ICE release on Starkland Records (On the Nature of Thingness).
This sampling of some of the latest in contemporary composition reflects the use of extended instrumental and vocal techniques. It also makes use of experimental compositional techniques that demand deep involvement of the musicians in the execution of the music in ways that diverge from the conventional classical music paradigm. And it is the expansion of old paradigms that are ultimately what makes Greenberg and his ICE colleagues so compelling.
OK, I admit that using the term “rogue” is a stretch. But titles of reviews should help draw the reader to it. And “clickbait” is the new “catchy”. But, in another sense one doesn’t generally think of the bass clarinet as a standalone recital instrument, even with electronics. Increasingly, it seems, new music purveyors are liberating instruments once unthinkable outside an orchestra or chamber ensemble. Jazz players have long used the bass clarinet as a solo instrument alongside the ubiquitous family of saxophones and the flute as the woodwinds that comprise most jazz ensembles,
Classical music has been slow to accept the bass clarinet until relatively recently. I don’t know when the first use of a bass clarinet either as a standalone solo or as part of a chamber ensemble occurred but certainly post 1950. Without getting in to the “whys” of this one can simply embrace the increasing presence of this instrument and its fascinating players.
Here, we get another of the subgenre of “COVID Isolation music”, itself a category worth further exploration.
There are five selections with composition dates ranging from 1983 to 2020 and composers from the still underappreciated Isang Yun to a new name, Hidiaki Aomori, a composer and friend of the soloist. And the remainder are risen and rising stars including the late conductor/composer Pierre Boulez, Grawmeyer Award winner Unsuk Chin, and the prolific Japanese composer Dai Fujikura.
The Fujikura work opens this isolated recital with a melancholy piece which appears to be a set of variations and has the character of a cadenza calling upon both technical and interpretive skills of the performer. And do I hear a nod to minimalism at the end? “Contour” (2020) is a fine opener where Lee displays her technical skills and insight to the composer’s vision.
Then its back to 1985 with one of the technical peaks of Boulez’ work at IRCAM, “Dialogue de L’Ombre Double” for bass clarinet with inscrutably complex electronics. This once leading edge example of the avant garde in its day actually sounds a bit dated but the soloist here seems to humanize the piece with her warm interpretation. And, despite what you may hear in the other tracks here, it is the only one using electronics on this disc.
Isang Yun (1917-1995), the late prolific Korean master is beginning to get more of a reckoning, and this 1983 piece, “Monolog for Bass Clarinet” is a fine entry to the expanding recorded oeuvre of this mid/late-twentieth century embattled and neglected genius. This piece speaks deeply of alone-ness.
Unsuk Chin (1961- ), a rising star and Grawmeyer Award winner is represented by a bass clarinet solo from her much lauded opera “Alice in Wonderland”. This stand alone solo, titled “Advice from a Caterpillar” is a maze of hallucinatory nods to Gershwin, Carl Stalling, and perhaps Prokofiev (in a “Peter and the Wolf” sense) using multiphonics and seems to expand the possibilities of this instrument to limits which might only be transcended with electronic assistance.
Hideaki Aomori‘s “Split” is a rather personal addition, a submission from one friend to another, a gift from one alone to another alone. It is another fine solo work which sits stylistically somewhere between the technical extremes of Boulez and Unsuk Chin and the more melodic work of Fujikura and Yun.
This is a very personal disc on many levels and it is a fine calling card by which to introduce listeners to this fine musician.
Strictly speaking all women composers are neglected. Despite significant efforts in recent years there remain significant disparities in the representation of women composers in the concert and recital halls. Realistically it will take years just to catch up on those composers whose music has languished in unfair obscurity. Now in this International Women’s Month we are seeing the release of a great deal of music by various artists attempting to correct this neglect each with their own lens. Here we have the first installment of three planned CDs by the Berkeley based pianist, Sarah Cahill. This volume, titled “In Nature” is to be followed by one called “At Play” in November, 2022 and “The Dance” in March, 2023.
Photo by Christine Alicino from Cahill’s web site
Cahill is as much curator as artist, a skill evident in her weekly radio program “Revolutions Per Minute” on Bay Area radio station KALW and any number of creative concerts and musical projects in the San Francisco area. She is an internationally acclaimed recitalist and soloist and her You Tube Channel is one I frequently visit just to see what she’s up to. It is where I first heard many of the women composers featured on the present CD and a place where one can get a sense of her unique choices of repertory that characterize her career. Her husband, acclaimed videographer and video artist John Sanborn does the camera work and I must say that these videos were a welcome respite during the COVID lockdown and an opportunity to experience her musicianship up close and personal (only a page turner at a recital gets a better seat).
The first release in this series contains music spanning some 250+ years. The first selection is by Anna Bon (1739/40-ca.1767) which puts her in the late baroque/early classical era. This is the 5th (of 6) in her Opus 2 sonatas for keyboard. This is the first recording on a piano of this entertaining work by this Venetian composer who died in her 20s. Listeners will discern echoes of Mozart (1756-1791) and Haydn (1732-1809) for whom she sang in the choir at Prince Esterhazy’s, Haydn’s celebrated patron and employer. But the sound of the mature J.S. Bach (1685-1750) certainly dominates this very accomplished sonata. This writer hears it almost as a not too distant relative of the Goldberg Variations.
Next we come to 1846 with the music of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (1805-1847), sister of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). Though Fanny composed some 450 pieces in her short life most remained unknown and some were falsely attributed to her more famous younger brother, Felix. In fact he published some of her work under his name (in his Opus 8 and 9 collections) as women rarely got published at the time and Felix recognized his older sister’s talent.
Cahill has chosen numbers one and three of Fanny’s Opus 8 “Four Lieder for Piano” (a form which her younger brother would later embrace in his “Songs Without Words”). These accomplished early romantic works will leave the listener wanting more of this woman’s music which remains still largely unrecorded. They are a testament to her inventiveness as a composer as well as her virtuosity as a pianist and one hopes for a reassessment of her work.
The next selection comes from a Venezuelan composer, soprano, pianist Teresa Carreño (1853-1917). Sometimes referred to as the “Valkyrie of the Piano”, she had a 54 year career championing the work of luminaries such as Edward MacDowell and Edvard Grieg. Her 1848 etude-meditation, “A Dream at Sea” is a romantic virtuosic work that sounds like a challenge to play but a joy for the listener. This deserves to be in the recitalist’s repertory.
The next unknown gem in this fine collection comes from the pen of Leokadiya Aleksandrovna Kashperova (1872-1940) who was one of Igor Stravinsky’s piano teachers. In a sad echo of present day events Kashperova’s works, though published, were suppressed from performance due to her Bolshevik in exile husband whose politics were, to say the least, unpopular. Cahill here plays her Murmur of the Wheat from the piano suite, “In the Midst of Nature” (1910). Cahill handles the finger busting, Lisztian virtuosity with seeming ease and makes a case both for the further exploration of this woman’s music and the inclusion of it in the performing repertoire. This recording is the commercial recording premiere of the work.
We move now from one of Stravinsky’s piano teachers to one of John Cage’s. American composer, pianist, educator Fannie Charles Dillon (1881-1947) studied composition with Rubin Goldmark (one of Aaron Copland’s teachers) and piano with the great virtuoso Leopold Godowsky.
Years before Olivier Messiaen took up the practice, Dillon, was known for the inclusion of birdsong in her works. One of her 8 Descriptive Pieces, “Birds at Dawn Op. 20 No. 2” (1917) was performed and recorded by early 20th century virtuoso Josef Hoffman. Cahill comments in her fine liner notes, “Dillon’s score is remarkable in its specific notation of bird songs: the Chickadee, Wren-tit, Thrush, Canyon Wren, Vireo, and Warbling Vireo…”. It is indeed a sonic painting of the birds at dawn.
The Czech composer, conductor, pianist Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915-1940) was the daughter of composer, pianist Václav Kaprál (1889-1947). She composed some 50 works in her short life and died at the age of 25 in Montpelier, France two days after France surrendered to the Nazis. Her four “April Preludes Op. 13” were written for the Moravian-American pianist Rudolf Firkušný and are her best known piano works. Cahill has chosen the first and third for this recording. The music is notable for its exploration of extended harmonic language and made this listener curious about her other compositions.
This next work is a classic Cahill achievement. As a pianist known for working with living composers as well as being a producer who knows good music when she hears it this is a bit of musical archeology that brings to life in this world premiere recording a work from 1949 by Hungarian pianist Agi Jambor (1909-1997). Jambor studied with the legendary Edwin Fischer and had a career as a pianist and teacher very tragically interrupted by the events of World War II. She came to the United States in 1947 where her husband passed away two years later. She taught at Bryn Mawr College and was granted Emeritus status in 1974.
Her three movement Piano Sonata “To the Victims of Auschwitz” was brought into a legible and performable score with the assistance of Dr. John DesMarteau who befriended Jambor late in her life and to whom the piece is dedicated. And it was in consultation with Dr. DesMarteau, Cahill writes, that she was assisted in the interpretation of this music. According to Cahill’s liner notes this work attempts to represent sonically some of Jambor’s war time memories. It is a substantial work, a lost and lonely artifact of history given a definitive performance and recording.
The amazing composer Eve Beglarian (1958- ), the only of these composers known to this reviewer prior to receiving this album, provides the next offering, “Fireside” (2001). It is in fact a Cahill commission for a project commemorating the centennial of another neglected female composer, Ruth Crawford (Seeger) (1901-1953). Beglarian takes a poem written by the 13 year old Ruth Crawford hopefully describing her fantasy of what she would be in future years and, utilizing some chords from one of Crawford’s piano pieces, constructs a powerful meditation on the subject at hand. As it turned out Crawford wound up giving up her composing career to work with musicologist Charles Seeger, not exactly tragic, but hardly what her 13 year old self had imagined. Beglarian writes that “Fireside is dedicated to women composers of the future, who will undoubtedly be making devils bargains of their own.”, a cynicism which is hard to deny.
This piece, in its world premiere commercial recording, is one of a genre unique to the 20th and 21st centuries, that of the speaking pianist. This puts in in a category shared by works like Frederic Rzewski’s classic “De Profundis” (1994) and Kyle Gann’s “War is Just a Racket” (2008), a Cahill commission for yet another of her fascinating themed projects and recorded on her CD, “A Sweeter Music” released in 2013.
The penultimate track on this journey is provided by Belfast born (now in London) Irish composer Deirdre Gribbin (1967- ). “Unseen” (2017), in its commercial recording premiere, is described by the composer as a sort of meditation on the innocent victims of violence she has seen in her now home city of London whose presence is frequently unseen by many and, in the composer’s words, “reflects my desire to embrace an awareness more fully of my immediate surroundings in all their beauty and cruel pain”.
Mary D. Watkins (1939- ) is an American pianist and composer, a graduate of Howard University who has penned three operas as we as music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, jazz ensembles, and solo piano. She is a fine pianist, an advocate for Black
At first glance I was struck by Shane Keaney’s dark, drab art work of this album’s cover. It echoes the photographic work of Declan Haun and his contemporaries who documented the harrowing events of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. But after reading the harrowing stories behind this music I find it entirely apt. There is certainly beauty here but also pain and sadness. The monochrome portraits that make up the inside of this gatefold album charmingly includes Sarah Cahill’s face alongside portraits of the composers within, a reflection of the pianist’s solidarity with them. And the other photos in the booklet by Cahill’s daughter Miranda Sanborn add to the sense of connectedness that seems to characterize her projects. This is a wonderful start to a promising project.
Having chosen a debut album featuring solo cello without electronics or accompaniment the Sono Luminus label virtually guarantees that every one of the subtleties of the performer’s skills will be heard in all their glory. And so we have an auspicious solo debut album by a skilled and talented artist with a unique and intelligent vision in her choice of repertoire for her instrument. Hannah Collins has a beautifully designed web page describing her background so I will focus only on the music on this release.
Even a brief glance makes it obvious that Collins’ radar captures a wide range of music which encompasses five centuries of compositional efforts by both a consciously curated selection of composers that reflect both racial and gender diversity and who themselves represent a substantive variety of styles and visions. She begins with a rather obscure baroque composer (I had never heard of him), Giuseppe Colombi (1635-1694). His Chiacona (1670) is apparently the first identified composition for solo cello (the famous solo cello suites by J.S. Bach wouldn’t come along until 1717-1723).
This arguably foundational work of the solo cello genre is then followed by the very fine Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952- ) whose Dreaming Chaconne (2010) is in fact a variation on the Colombi piece.
The third track, “In manus tuas” (Into your hands) by the equally fine American composer, Carolyn Shaw (1982- ) was written for Ms. Collins, and is an aural peek inside the mind of the composer as she recalls a performance of a motet by 16th century English composer Thomas Tallis (1505-1585). Shaw evokes a sonic memory moment of hearing a performance of “In manus tuas Domine” in Christ Church in New Haven, Connecticut which made a strong impression on her. It is a work that appears to be destined to become a modern classic. It creates spectral harmonics that engulf the listener inside Shaw’s memory of the event. The composition’s title also function metaphorically as she offers her music into the hands of the artist and the minds of the listeners. It is a challenge both technically and interpretively and Collins rises to those challenges with seeming ease.
The next seven tracks are given to another Saariaho composition, “Sept Papillons” (2000). This earlier work from her extensive catalog is also given to extended instrumental techniques as she evokes the seven butterflies of the title. This set of pieces was written for the fine Finnish cellist, Anssi Karttunen. It was at the 2008 Creative Dialogue Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico (run by Karttunen) that Collins encountered this music and the extended techniques required for its performance. Saariaho’s sound world is like that of an incarnation of Debussy and his impressionist aesthetic. There is apparently no visual program here but the music recalls, in this listener’s mind, Saariaho’s earlier “Nymphea” (1987) for string quartet and electronics which was inspired by Monet’s famed “Water Lilies” of 1906.
This fine disc includes the first (of three) suites for solo cello by Benjamin Britten. All three of these (1964, 1967, 1971) had all been composed for the Russian virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich. Like the the Saariaho and Shaw pieces these suites are inspired by earlier works, in this case the Bach suites of the early 18th century. Collins plays the first (Opus 72) of these and her performance makes this listener hope that she will later record the other two.
While modeled on earlier music, the Britten work utilizes techniques that would likely be unfamiliar to cellists before the 20th century. It is homage both to Bach and to Maestro Rostropovich. And Collins’ playing furthers this homage to both of these past masters.
The final track is a work by one Thomas Kotcheff (1988- ). Like the first track, this young composer is unfamiliar to this writer. His work, “Cadenza (with or without Haydn)” of 2020” carries on the theme of homage. In a nod to the late great Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021) whose “Cadenza with or without Beethoven” (2003) is an extended cadenza which can be played on its own or as part of the Beethoven 4th piano concerto.
Kotcheff’s work is a cadenza for Haydn’s C major cello concerto. Like the Rzewski, it can be performed with the concerto or as a solo work on its own. Also like the Rzewski, the more modern aspects of this “cadenza” might confuse audiences anticipating more conventional music that fits with the context of the concerto for which it was written and the music stands very strongly on its own.
Like a lot of solo artists are doing these days, Collins’ debut solo album is like her personal manifesto of music for her chosen instrument. It is a fine foundation anticipating what will likely be an enlightening as well as entertaining career.
New Music Buff 