Attempts to meld pop, jazz, and classical music are abundant but many, like some of the poorly done string quartet transcriptions (there are a few good ones but most are guaranteed to offend pop and classical audiences alike). But this set of chamber group incorporations of essentially “pop” music is among the most engaging and convincing.
Here the truly fabulous Reed player, composer, conductor, and Bang on a Can member Evan Ziporyn takes listeners on a journey which, to this listener, are a modern equivalent of Aaron Copland’s “Old American Songs” and, for that matter, Luciano Berio’s “Folksongs”. It is a personal selection with (sometimes) quirky but ultimately convincing transcriptions which rise to the level of full blown compositions that function as an homage to the chosen songs.
Actually these “chamber transcriptions” are for multiple clarinets, all played by Maestro Ziporyn. Doubtless many will hear echoes of Steve Reich’s multitracked instrument pieces in his “counterpoint” series. In that sense this is also a set of pieces that does homage to Reich’s work as well.
Tracks 01 UNCLE ALBERT/ADMIRAL HALSEY (5:05) (Wings) Paul & Linda McCartney 02 RIDE CAPTAIN RIDE (5:07) (Blues Image) Mike Pinera, Frank Konte 03 WOODSTOCK (5:32) (Joni Mitchell) Joni Mitchell 04 ALONG COMES MARY (3:00) (The Association) Tandyn Almer 05 WOODSTOCK IMPROVISATION/VILLANOVA JUNCTION (6:42) 06 SHINING STAR (2:17) (Earth Wind & Fire) P. Bailey, L. Dunn, V. White, M. White, S. Burke 07 THAT’S THE WAY OF THE WORLD (5:56) (Earth Wind & Fire) C.Stepney, V. White, M. White 08 PORTRAIT OF TRACY (2:23) (Jaco Pastorius) Jaco Pastorius 09 I LIVE ABOVE THE HOBBY SHOP (3:43) (McFabulous) Benjamin McFadden 10 DEADBEAT CLUB (4:12) (B-52s) C. Wilson, F. Schneider, K. Strickland, K. Pierson 11 STRAWBERRY LETTER #23 (5:24) (Brothers Johnson) Shuggie Otis 12 YOUR GOLD TEETH II (4:03) (Steely Dan) Walter Becker & Donald Fagen
Ziporyn, born in 1959, played in Reich’s ensemble and that sound world is a surprisingly effective one for Ziporyn to share the pop music of his era. Certainly this music can benefit from musicological analysis but it speaks clearly and entertainingly as well to the casual listener. It is helpful but not absolutely necessary that listeners know the music upon which these pieces are based but this may have significant nostalgia for those who do.
Mr. Ziporyn’s familiarity with a wide variety of music ranging from avant garde classical to jazz and pop along with his composer’s acumen of form combine to make this one of, at least for this writer, most convincing and satisfying efforts to appropriate (or perhaps more like simply incorporate) some familiar pop standards. This is a marvelously entertaining album.
I recall reading a comment from Aaron Copland to the effect that he believed that there was undiscovered gems written in those years between the world wars 1 and 2 (roughly 1918 to 1939). And this release certainly confirms that assertion. The 7 pieces here (of which three are receiving their world premiere recordings) represent the years 1926 to 1939, the end of the period following the “War to End All Wars”. The French term “Avant L’Orage” is generally translated as “The Calm Before the Storm”. It is an apt metaphor for the time.
The string trio form, though common, does not seem to have produced the grand stature of some of the music for the more commonly heard ensemble, the string quartet. The trio of Violin, Viola, Cello can arguably be said to not have truly com of age until the twentieth century which would see major works by Schoenberg (1946), Krenek (1949), Wourinen (1968), and Schnittke (1985) to name a few highlights. But these charming little works on this 2 CD set can be thought of as stepping stones in the evolution of the form.
Now I know a lot of pretty obscure repertoire so I was a tad surprised to find that I had only heard of four of the composers represented here: Henri Tomasi (1901-1971), Jean Francaix (1912-1997), Robert Casadesus (1899-1972), and Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937). The other three: Jean Cras (1879-1932), Émile Goué (1904-1946), and Gustave Samazeuilh (1877-1967) were new to me.
Henri Tomasi
Tomasi’s “Trio en forme de divertissement” (1938) is a four movement work with a lighthearted feel. It is structured in classical form. Largely neoclassical in sound. It opens with a Prelude followed by a gentle Nocturne, a pithy Scherzo, and a playful Final. This, surprisingly, is one of the world premieres on this collection. It reveals a composer who deserves a new reckoning and hopefully this recording will help launch it. It is the first of the three world premiere recordings in this set.
Jean Cras
The Jean Cras trio of 1926 also follows the four movement format. Cras is one of the names heretofore unknown to this writer.
This work, also in four movements as the previous piece, reveals a more deeply contemplative work Its harmonies are certainly post classical era but essentially familiar. The first movement strikes a serious tone and is followed by a beautiful and contemplative slow movement. The third movement is a playful scherzo like movement followed by a riotously playful and virtuosic finale. It is virtually a symphony for three instruments.
Émile Goué
Émile Goué is represented by a three movement work. This is also an unfamiliar name to this reviewer. Again we hear familiar romantic harmonies in a relatively brief (about 15 minutes) piece.
The classical forms of the first tow movements are followed by a scherzo like playful finale. Surprisingly this work as been recorded before.
Jean René Désiré Françaix
Jean René Désiré Françaix will be a familiar name to many. His four movement string trio which concludes the first disc is pretty characteristic of his style. He is the youngest of the composers featured here but he crossed paths with most of the prominent French composers of the twentieth century. Harmonically and melodically his work embodies much of the same sound as his older contemporaries. With the exception of the beautiful slow movement these rather hyperactive episodes hold much in common with his previous and subsequent work. Coming in at about 13 minutes this satisfying work whose complexities are subsumed into a friendly, appealing work.
Robert Casadesus
Robert Casadesus was the patriarch of one of the great piano dynasties of the twentieth century. along with his wife Gaby (1901–1999) and son Jean (1927–1972). Robert was also a prolific composer whose output includes seven symphonies and multiple works for piano and orchestra. His trio is a three movement work which opens the second disc on this epic anthology.
This work is among the world premiere recordings on this set. Its brevity relative to the composer’s larger works suggest that this might be a minor occasional piece but this is in fact a compact and deeply serious work. From the opening Allegro con brio we hear a substantive composition. The slow movement contains a playful scherzo like section in the middle before it returns to the more somber tone of its opening. The finale marked “allegro aperto” is, at first a playful finale as one would expect from a classical era symphony but it goes through various moods before it returns to reassert that playful opening. This one makes a case for the further exploration of this composer’s work.
Gustave Samazeuilh
The “Suite en Trio” (1937) is the outlier here, cast in no fewer than 6 movements. The composer, better known as a music critic, was admittedly heavily influenced by one of his mentors, Claude Debussy.
Gabriel Pierné
“Trois pieces en trio” (1937 ) concludes this fascinating survey of the string trio format as composed during the interwar period. This three movement work certainly reflects that influence but this is not mere imitation. This is a truly substantive work, the third of the three world premiere recordings here. Each of the relatively brief movements demonstrate a truly gifted composer. Once again the listener will be curious to hear more from this man’s work. We can only hope.
Last and certainly not least is the trio by Gabriel Pierne. He studied with Jules Massenet and was a contemporary of Claude Debussy. As both composer and conductor his profile loomed large on the French music scene. He is the oldest composer represented here and this is among the last of his works.
This trio is in three movements and, like the Casadeseus trio which opens the second disc of this fine collection, it is a weighty, slow moving, serious work. Once again the listener is given to wonder what other treasures ay undiscovered from this curious era of history when the world was awaiting the growing conflicts that resulted in the second world war.
The truly excellent liner notes are contributed by Dr. Elinor Olin, professor of music at Northern Illinois University. The recording by Bill Maylone is up to the usual high standards we have come to expect from producer James Ginsburg’s wonderful Cedille label. And the graphic design by Madeleine Richter echoes the era that gave birth to this great music. This is an epic anthology which fills a great gap in the history of recorded sound. I suppose one must acknowledge the irony of our present moment in history, hoping against hope that history will not repeat itself. Meanwhile much solace can be taken from this lovely collection. This one is a must have.
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.
Gail Thompson Kubik (1914-1984) was born in Oklahoma, educated at the Eastman School of Music, Chicago’s American Conservatory (where he studied with Leo Sowerby), and Harvard (where he studied with Walter Piston). He is also among the long list of composers who studied with Nadia Boulanger.
Gail Kubik
Kubik joined NBC radio in 1940 and was music director for the Office of War Information where he composed and conducted music for their Motion Picture Bureau. He taught at Monmouth College, Columbia Teacher’s College (now Columbia University), and Scripps College.
To this writer’s ears his style is similar to that of Aaron Copland (14 years his senior) and contemporaries who included jazz influences in a mid-century post romantic tonal fabric. The pieces recorded here are roughly contemporary with Stravinsky’s neoclassical era and similar gestures can be heard in them. Carl Stalling’s music is also a likely influence.
Doubtless Kubik’s film work for the war department helped contribute to his success in a basically populist style which served him well. And also like Copland, he wrote for the concert hall producing 3 Symphonies, Violin Concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Ruggiero Ricci along with other orchestral works, chamber music, and two operas.
The present recording is focused on his post war concert music. Four works are presented here, from his Dr. Seuss collaboration of 1950 for narrator, orchestra, and percussion, “Gerald Mc Boing Boing” (possibly the only example from this era in which the music preceded the cartoon film), his two Divertimenti for diverse chamber groups (1958 and 1959), to his best known work, the Symphony Concertante for Piano, Trumpet, and Viola which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1952. (Without doing any research I would venture to say that this is a unique combination of solo instruments). Soloists Vivian Choi (piano), Terry Everson (trumpet), and Jing Peng (viola) handle the challenging solo parts with confidence and skill. This new realization alone is a reason to purchase this disc.
Like Copland and other film composers Kubik repurposed some of his film music as a source for his concert music. Without getting too much into the musicological analysis, the composer himself has related that the Symphony Concertante was repurposing of the music he wrote for the low budget noir film, “C-Man” (1949) which starred Dean Jagger and John Carradine, among others.
The two divertimenti for diverse chamber ensembles are like baroque suites consisting of brief pithy movements. They are analogous to works like Copland’s too seldom heard Music for the Theater (1925) with jazzy rhythms and harmonies throughout. Their unusual groupings of instruments likely limit the occasions on which they might be performed live so these recordings are very welcome.
The “Gerald Mc Boing Boing” cartoon took on a life of its own following its concert presentation, spawning a series of shorts furthering the myth of the title character. And during the research for this review I was fascinated to learn that the famed film sound designer, Walter Murch, once revealed that he was sometimes known by the nickname of that character due to an analogous childhood affectation. In addition, many actors voiced the narrator in the the many recordings that have been made of the purely audio recording as heard here. The demands of the narration are similar to those of the soloists in the concertante work. Narrator Frank Kelley delivers a performance that makes this very much his own, using it as a springboard to which he applies his skills as a voice actor. He really seems to enjoy himself here.
Much of Kubik’s music has been recorded before but not for some time, so this release by masterful curator and conductor Gil Rose and his incredibly talented ensemble, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project is a very welcome revival of this very talented and technically skilled composer. The four works on this recording may be a reasonable sampling of some of Kubik’s best work but it would be hard to say that it is a complete portrait without hearing some of the composer’s other large concert works. Mr. Rose and his musicians have shown a tendency to release more than one disc of one of these nearly forgotten composers so listeners charmed by these may anticipate more such gems in, the future, that is, if other ensembles don’t beat them to the punch. Either way this is a very welcome installment in BMOP’s ongoing survey of music that simply deserves to be heard because it’s good.
I don’t recall when I first heard Guy Klucevsek but I think it was the early 90s. I grew up hearing a great deal of accordions in polka bands at weddings throughout my childhood. This instrument had, pretty much since its beginnings in the early 19th century, been associated primarily with folk bands and not at all with classical music. I don’t think one can find an accordion used in a classical orchestra before Tchaikovsky’s 1822 Second Orchestral Suite and only sparingly after that. So when I discovered this New York musician via his releases on the Starkland label, Transylvanian Software (1999) and Free Range Accordion (2000) and the CRI disc Manhattan Cascade (1992). I was curious to see what this musician would do with this traditionally “low brow” folk instrument.
Free Range Accordion Starkland ST-209
Transylvanian Software Starkland ST-207
I had come to trust the Starkland label (which began in 1991) as one whose releases were usually very much to my taste and I was not disappointed to hear Klucevsek’s playing of pieces written by him and other composers for this instrument. Unlike Pauline Oliveros who did much to expand the very nature of the instrument itself, Klucevsek retained, and sometimes parodied, the humble folk/pop origins and reputation of the instrument while still pursuing its possibilities in the New York downtown experimental music scene where he worked with people like Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn among many others. Klucevsek expanded the role of the accordion in his own way.
Klucevsek later put together a commissioning project called, “Polka from the Fringe” (1992), a project which echoes the 1981 “Waltz Project” by Robert Moran and presages another accordionist William Schimmel’s “The Tango Project” of 2006. All of these commissioning projects utilized dance forms common in the 20th century as a “stepping off” place for a new musical piece. And it was Starkland which rescued the fascinating two disc release of Polka from the Fringe (2013) from over two decades languishing in “out of print” status. These projects are significant in that they invite composers to get out of their comfort zone and demonstrate their take on the given dance form. Like Klucevsek’s earlier releases this Polka collection is a veritable Who’s Who of working composers of the era much as the Variations (1819) project of Anton Diabelli collected some 51 composers’ works based on Diabelli’s waltz-like theme (Beethoven’s gargantuan set of variations was published as volume 1 and the other 50 variations in volume 2 which included composers like Schubert and Liszt).
Polka from the Fringe Starkland ST-218
So here comes Starkland to the rescue again in this (languished for some 25 years after only having been available for two years) very personal recording which displays Klucevsek’s substantial compositional chops as well as his knowledge and use of extended instrumental techniques for his instrument. It presents pieces written for a dance performances and shows a very different side of Klucevsek, one which shows more of his substance as a composer alongside his virtuosic skills on his instrument. In this digital only release there is an option to include (for a mere $3.00 more on the Bandcamp site) a series of 13 videos featuring Guy Klucevsek talking about the music on this album and his various musical interests. A gorgeous 10 page booklet providing further detail including the original liner notes with updates is included in all purchases. The album will also be available on Spotify, You Tube, and other streaming services but the videos are only available on Bandcamp.
Teetering on the Verge of Normalcy Starkland ST-225
Listeners may find this new release has some in common with Starkland’s previous Klucevsek release from Starkland, “Teetering on the Verge of Normalcy” (2016) which features some similar compositional diversity in a disc entirely of Klucevsek’s works. The line from Citrus, My Love to Teetering on the Edge of Normalcy seems to be a logical succession in Klucevsek’s compositional development. In addition to his accordion studies Klucevsek studied composition in Pittsburgh but it was the influence of Morton Subotnick with whom he studied in his independent post graduate work at the California Institute of the Arts that exposed this east coast artist to some of the splendors of the west coast encountering artists like Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros. Indeed Klucevsek can be said to be “bi-coastal” in his compositional endeavors. And though this is a “tongue in cheek” characterization it does speak to the roots of Klucevsek’s diversity in style.
There are 12 tracks on “Citrus, My Love” representing 3 separate works: the three movement, “Passage North” (1990), the single movement, “Patience and Thyme” (1991), and the eponymous, “Citrus, My Love” (1990) in 8 movements. The production of this album is by none other than Bobby Previte, another valued east coast musician and colleague. The notes have been updated under the guidance of Tom Steenland with input from Klucevsek who, understandably, expresses great joy in having this album available again.
The first three tracks are dedicated to a single work, “Passage North” (1990) written for accordion and string trio consisting of Mary Rowell, violin/viola, Erik Friedlander, cello, and Jonathan Storck, double bass. They are dubbed “The Bantam Orchestra”. This Copland-esque work was commissioned by Angela Caponigro Dance Ensemble. The second movement is for string trio alone and is dedicated to the memory of Aaron Copland who died in 1990.
Patience and Thyme (1991) according to the composer “is a love note to my wife, Jan.” He composed the work while in residence at the Yellow Springs Institute in Pennsylvania, which coincided with his 22nd wedding anniversary. It is scored for piano and string trio, no accordion. Compositionally it seems at home between the larger pieces.
Citrus, My Love was commissioned by Stuart Pimsler for the dance of the same name. It is in 8 scenes and is scored for Klucevsek’s accordion accompanied by his personally chosen Bantam Orchestra. Klucevsek describes the music on this album as representing his transition from hard core minimalism to a more melody driven style and this is the missing link, the “hole” to which I referred in the Beatles metaphor in the title of this review.
For those who already appreciate Klucevsek’s work this album is a must have. To those who have not gotten to know this unique talent this is a good place to start.
For those seeking to get more deeply into Klucevsek’s work (a worthwhile endeavor) and to provide a perspective on the range of this artist’s work I’m appending a discography (shamelessly lifted and updated from the Free Reed Journal) :
SOLOIST/LEADER
Scenes from a Mirage (Review) Who Stole the Polka? (out-of-print) Flying Vegetables of the Apocalypse (Experimental Intermedia) Polka Dots & Laser Beams (out-of-print) Manhattan Cascade (CRI) Transylvanian Softwear (Starkland) Citrus, My Love (Starkland) Stolen Memories (Tzadik) Altered Landscapes (out-of-print) Accordance with Alan Bern (Winter & Winter) Free Range Accordion (Starkland) The Heart of the Andes (Winter & Winter) Tales from the Cryptic with Phillip Johnston (Winter & Winter) Notefalls with Alan Bern (Winter & Winter) Song of Remembrance (Tzadik) Dancing On the Volcano (Tzadik) The Multiple Personality Reunion Tour (Innova) Polka From The Fringe (Starkland) Teetering On the Verge of Normalcy (Starkland)
COMPILATIONS
Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach, Who Gets the Guy?, This Guy’s in Love With You (Tzadik) Planet Squeezebox, The Grass, It Is Blue, Ellipsis Arts Legends of Accordion, Awakening (Rhino) The Composer-Performer, Samba D Hiccup (CRI) Koroshi No Blues, Sukiyaki Etoufee, Maki Gami Koechi (Toshiba EMI) Norwegian Wood, Monk’s Intermezzo, Aki Takahashi (Toshiba EMI) Music by Lukas Foss, Curriculum Vitae (CRI) Here and Now, Oscillation No. 2, Relache (Callisto) A Haymish Groove, Transylvanian Softwear (Extraplatte) A Confederacy of Dances, Vol. I. Sylvan Steps (Einstein) A Classic Guide to No Man’s Land, Samba D Hiccup (No Man’s Land)
WITH JOHN ZORN
The Big Gundown (Nonesuch Icon) Cobra (Hat Art) Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill, Der Kleine Leutnant Des Lieben Gottes (A&M)
WITH RELACHE
On Edge (Mode) Open Boundaries, Parterre (Minnesota Composers Forum McKnight Recording) Pauline Oliveros: The Well and The Gentle (Hat Art)
WITH OTHERS
Laurie Anderson: Bright Red (Warner Bros) Anthony Braxton: Four Ensemble Compositions, 1992(Black Saint) Mary Ellen Childs: Kilter (XI) Anthony Coleman: Disco by Night (Avante) Nicolas Collins: It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (Trace Elements) Fast Forward: Same Same (XI) Bill Frisell: Have A Little Faith (Elektra Musician) David Garland: Control Songs (Review) Robin Holcomb: Rockabye (Elektra Musician) Guy Klucevsek/Pauline Oliveros: Sounding/Way, private cassette release (out-of-print) Orchestra of Our Time: Virgil Thomson, Four Saints in Three Acts (Nonesuch) Bobby Previte: Claude’s Late Morning (Gramavision)
Kinga Augustyn is a new musician to these ears. She kindly sent me this wonderful very recent release for review. And she certainly found a reviewer sympathetic to new music here. A quick review of her releases reveals that she has been releasing recordings since at least 2010 and, in addition to many of the “usual suspects” or “warhorses” of the repertoire, she has demonstrated a keen interest in lesser known works as well as recently minted works hoping for a place in the repertoire.
Her album count by my reckoning is up to 13 now and her musical interests appear to range from the baroque with Telemann’s 12 violin fantasies (no, not a transcription of the better known solo flute works) to the very recent works presented on the present disc. Her choices of repertoire for recording are delightfully unusual as she ventures into the work of neglected composers such as Astor Piazolla (1921-1992) and Romuald Twardowski (1930- ). And she has chosen to release an album of Paganini’s 24 Caprices rather than the Bach solo violin works (though these may come later). The point is that she seems interested in bringing out performances of music which gets less attention than the standard repertoire. Indeed she appears to be attempting to influence and add to the canon of solo violin performance repertoire.
How often can one expect to find a solo violin disc where the only familiar piece is one of Luciano Berio’s Sequenzas? Well this is that disc. The earliest work here is Grazyna Bacewicz’s (1909-1969) Sonata No. 2 (1958). Berio’s Sequenza VIII (1976). Along with Isang Yun’s (1917-1995) Koenigliches Thema (1976) are also 20th century pieces. And though the four movements of Elliot Carter’s (1908-2012) Four Lauds begin in the late 20th century (Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi, 1984 and Remembering Aaron, 1999) they end in the 21st century with Remembering Roger, 2000 and Rhapsodic Musings, 2001.
The brief, almost “Webernian” miniatures that comprise Carter’s “Four Lauds” each have an individual character, the first an homage to Aaron Copland (1900-1990) which doubtless represents the composer via a quotation or perhaps some more personal inside reference. The Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi is the longest and seemingly most complex of the group (I don’t know Petrassi’s music as well as I would like so I’m not sure about the references here). The Rhapsodic Musings are not apparently directed to any musician or composer in particular and The Fantasy-Remembering Roger does seem to embody the sound of Roger Sessions’ style.
The Berio is one of a set of 14 pieces for solo instruments (depending on how you count them) and they are a sort of compositional manifesto utilizing extended techniques. Augustyn delivers a very convincing reading of this intentionally challenging work. It is the longest single work on this recording.
This Polish born, New York based violinist has done homage to the music of her homeland before with her Naxos album of miniatures that I doubt you will find elsewhere. On this album she does homage to Polish musical culture by her inclusion of the inexplicably too little known Grazyna Bacewicz and a world premiere of a solo violin work by the well documented Krzysztof Penderecki in his 2008 Capriccio. As one who fell in love with the avant-garde Penderecki of say 1958-1972 I have not paid as much attention to Penderecki’s later works. In a pleasant surprise these ears heard this very late Penderecki piece as almost a summation including tasty bits of avant-gardist techniques along with nicely lyrical passages. I am now convinced I need to do a reappraisal of my knowledge of this composer’s later work.
She follows this with a very significant work by a criminally neglected composer, Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969). Her Second Sonata for Solo Violin (1958) is an adventuresome work which challenges the violinist while holding the listener’s attention. It is definitely time for a major reassessment of this woman’s work and one hopes that Augustyn’s reading will help encourage more interest in Bacewicz’s work.
Augustyn next chooses another unjustly neglected composer, Isang Yun (1917-1995) whose biography including kidnapping by the South Korean intelligence officers and subsequent sequestration in a South Korean jail stirred artistic outrage which eventually resulted in his release. The piece played here, “Koniglisches Thema”(1976) brings us back to the beginning of solo violin composition by its quotation of a Bach theme. Not a theme from any of the solo violin music but rather the theme given to Bach by Frederick II of Prussia. The origin of the theme is not by Bach and its compositional origins are much debated but what is not debated is that fanciers of Bach know this theme instantly. Isang Yun writes, apparently, a set of variations on the theme, an offering of his own to the master.
This is a dream of an album for people who appreciate modernism, new music, and undiscovered gems but Augustyn’s readings of the unfamiliar Carter “Four Lauds” and, the most recent work on the disc, Debra Kaye‘s (1956- ) “Turning in Time” (2018) are, for this listener, worth the price of the disc by themselves. Carter is no easy task for listeners and certainly for performers but she manages to find the late post-romantic/post-modern lyricism in these pithy little works. And the Debra Kaye work is “hot off the presses” so to speak, having been written just before the second of the two recording sessions that produced this album. The Kaye work is the second longest on this recording and fits well as a concluding work on this ambitious and engaging program.
New music is in need of talented musicians willing to search for and learn their work and Augustyn happily seems to be willing to fill that bill. Her acumen in being able to know music of substance when she sees it and the ability to bring those scores to life bodes well for listeners interested in this repertoire. After all it’s hard not to notice that the Bacewicz Sonata is her second and completists will want to hear that first one. But, more seriously, I look forward to the upcoming releases by this artist who, when sighted on my radar again, will not be let go without a serious listen.
I have always made my admiration clear regarding Chicago based Cedille Records. They release quality recordings of unusual but intelligent choices of repertoire. This recording continues that formula but here achieves what is likely to be seen as a landmark anthology (or at least sampling) of Art Song by Black Composers. It speaks on many levels, as poetry, as music, as a collaboration between an incredible baritone, an amazing pianist, in a beautifully recorded and produced album. I was left throughout with the feeling that this is a loving collaboration. It is an integrated collaboration between many people who worked well together. It is a beautiful document and a timely one.
Baritone Will Liverman, the young rising star baritone who is slated to perform at The Met in the world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” scheduled for fall of 2021 is clearly at the heart of this production. His intelligent choice of repertoire is both pleasing and revelatory. (the poetry of the song texts are published in one of two booklets that come with this CD). And Liverman’s voice is an admirable instrument that he wields with power and nuance. His commission of fellow rising musical star, composer Shawn Okpebholo whose “Two Black Churches” receives its world premiere recording. The pianist who manages to navigate significant demands with confidence and artistry, is Paul Sanchez, an excellent pianist, composer, and a fine collaborator.
The beautifully packaged CD (you gotta buy the CD) consists of 19 tracks representing 8 composers. The recording is billed as “Songs by Black Composers” but one can hardly miss the justly sad or angry tone of the texts and this was recorded July 22-24 of 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and amidst social unrest over the epidemic of modern day lynchings. (2020 was also the year that Anthony Davis won the Pulitzer Prize for his protest opera, “The Central Park Five”) The moving rendition (“put together”, as Liverman quips in the liner notes) of Richard Farina’s 1964 song is played and sung by Liverman connecting this release with the tradition of protest music of another era. The struggle continues.
Before discussing the music I must supply a disclaimer of sorts. My working knowledge of art song in general is fairly limited and my knowledge of black art songs even more so. I know none of this music and have only in the last year or so came to know of the work of Shawn Okpebholo. I had read about the historical significance of Henry “Harry” Thacker Burleigh and Margaret Bonds but have heard little of their music.
In about 61 minutes listeners are given a survey, a sampling of art song by black composers ranging from Burleigh (who studied with Antonin Dvorak) to Okpebholo whose compositional talents continue to get much deserved recognition. It is a learned sampling of a huge repertory that deserves attention.
The opening song is I Dream a World (2017) by Damien Sneed (1979- ). This setting of the Langston Hughes (1901-1967) poem strikes a somber but cautiously optimistic note. It is followed by “Five Songs of Laurence Hope” (1915) by Henry “Harry” Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949). The name Laurence Hope is the pseudonym of Adela Florence Nicolson (1865-1904), a British poet who spent much of her life in British India where she developed an interest in the culture of the land. Fascination with the literature and culture of India was strongly in evidence in the early twentieth century. These five songs are reminiscent of Debussy and the impressionists and is but a small sampling of Burleigh’s art song output.
Harrison Leslie Adams’ (1932- ) setting of his own lyrics in “Amazing Grace” is yet another iteration of the abolitionist song. Margaret Allison Bonds (1913-1972) is represented by her “Three Dream Portraits” (1959), a song cycle on Langston Hughes poems. Bonds’ style put this listener in the mind of Copland’s Dickinson Songs though notably darker. This cycle is contemporary with the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
Next is “Riding to Town” (1943) by Thomas Kerr (1915-1988) who chose to reach back to the late nineteenth/early twentieth century poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) for his text. Dunbar was for the 19th century what Langston Hughes would be for the early to mid twentieth century.
“Two Black Churches” (2017) is the work commissioned by Liverman for this recording. It is a setting of two poems and one of the musical highlights here. The first, “Ballad of Birmingham” to a text by Dudley Randall (1914-2000) is a contemporary reaction to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham which killed four little girls. The second song, “The Rain” to a text by the Poet laureate of Charleston, poet and musician Marcus Amaker (1976- ). It is about the Charleston Church shooting of 2015 at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal in which a lone gunman killed nine people. Okpebholo is modernist but accessible and these settings are among the most devastating and powerful statements on this recording.
“Mortal Storm” Op. 29 (1969) is a song cycle by one Robert Owens (1925-2017). It is a powerful cycle set to Langston Hughes poems. Owens left the United States in 1968-9 in response to the racial violence and moved to Europe where he had studied music under the GI Bill from 1946-1957. Owens died in Munich having never returned to the land of his birth. This work deserves to be better known and thanks is due to Liverman and his associates for bringing this sad masterpiece to contemporary listeners.
The album concludes with Mr. Liverman’s arrangement of “Birmingham Sunday”, a 1964 song by writer and composer Richard Farina (1937-1966). Liverman plays and sings on this final track which is an homage to a previous generation of song writers and protestors as well as a reminder that that generation’s work in Civil Rights is hardly complete. The song was notably used by Spike Lee in his elegiac film, “Four Little Girls” (1997).
The lucid and detailed program notes by Dr. Louise Toppin are a welcome addition to this production and help to provide a context. The design by Bark Design ties this little gem together. This one has Grammy and “collector’s item” written all over it.
The displacements of war, genocide, and oppressive politics has condemned legions of composers and their music to languish in obscurity until resurrected by later generations. I recall Aaron Copland opining in an interview that there are likely more than a few masterpieces to be found from the years between the great wars (about 1918 to 1945). This album is a shining example which seems to validate Copland’s assertion.
Karl Rathaus (1895-1954) was born in the eastern Austro-Hungarian Empire. Like many (primarily) Jewish composers. He emigrated to the United States to avoid the rising fascist regime. Not all such emigres were able to make a living in the Hollywood film industry and Rathaus labored in relative obscurity in the academy, namely Queens College.
Along comes the enterprising Polish-Canadian pianist Daniel Wnukowski whose knowledge of and affinity for Rathaus’ music brings us the present disc. This is virtuosic music that he seems born to play. The music seems to embody elements of Impressionism, Expressionism, Modernism (of the Rudhyar and Cowell variety), and doubtless others not immediately apparent to your humble reviewer.Wnukowski breathes life into these heretofore forgotten works.
Certainly this is a genre disc that takes its place alongside Decca/London’s “Entartete Musik” and their ilk but it also stands out with a distinctive, powerful, and entertaining voice which serves to illuminate the folly and destructiveness of fascist politics.This is music that deserves serious attention and would likely enthralling a recital audience.
This is a loving set of interpretations that will probably have listeners anxiously awaiting the next volume in this important series.That is definitely true for this reviewer.
Danny Elfman (1953-) has had a varied and successful musical career working in diverse areas. From his days as lead singer and songwriter for Oingo Boingo, he has cultivated his love of film music into a successful career having scored numerous films and television shows.
Now a great divide seems to exist between composers who score films and composers who compose for the concert hall. Few have demonstrated the ability to be successful in both arenas. Erich Wolfgang Korngold is a notable exception as is Aaron Copland. Both men have succeeded rather famously in both film and classical concert hall music. In fact John Williams, though known primarily as a film and television composer has written quite a bit for the concert hall as well.
Now here comes Danny Elfman, known best perhaps as the composer of the Simpsons them for the long running animated series. He has gotten the bug to write for the concert hall and this recording presents two major works. The first is his violin concerto “11/11)(2017) with soloist Sandy Cameron. You can read the liner notes about the composer’s obsession with the number 11 or you can relax and enjoy a genuine violin concerto, not a reworking of themes as one might expect from a lesser composer. The second is a nice addition to the chamber music repertoire, a piano quartet (2017).
The concerto is played by the wonderful Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the direction of the esteemed John Mauceri. Sandy Cameron is the soloist who handles the concertos four movements flawlessly and does justice to Elfman’s work. It’s really a beautiful piece. Only time will tell the work’s eventual place in history but we can certainly enjoy it for what it is, a good and entertaining violin concerto.
The Piano Quartet is played by the Philharmonic Piano Quartet Berlin which consists of Andreas Buschatz, violin ; Matthew Hunter, viola; Knut Weber, cello; and Marcus Groh, piano. This five movement work would happily grace any chamber music recital. It is in turn pithy, melodic, humorous, and serious.
This is stronger music than this reviewer had imagined would come from this composer’s pen. I can’t say, “If you like his film scores you’ll like his music” but there are, perhaps inevitably, snippets of his film music style which work actually quite well.
The attention paid to women composers remains much less than it should be but releases like this latest on Cedille features the Chicago Sinfonietta (Chicago’s second professional orchestra established in 1987 and sporting programs distinctly different from that of the Chicago Symphony) are incrementally correcting that error. Here for your listening pleasure is a disc with five world premieres, all by female composers, and a world class orchestra conducted by a female conductor, Mei-Ann Chen. (They also boast that on average the Sinfonietta is 47% women. Is there an orchestra that can match that?).
Florence Price
With the exception of Florence Price (1887-1953) all are living composers on this release. The others (who were commissioned by the Sinfonietta to write these pieces) include Clarice Assad (1978- ), Jessie Montgomery (1981- ), Reena Esmail (1983- ), and Jennifer Higdon (1962- ). Montgomery and Esmail are new names to this reviewer. Assad and Higdon are generally well known and very accomplished. Higdon is the second woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize in music (the first was Ellen Taafe Zwilich) and Florence Price is enjoying something of a posthumous revival with recent recordings of several of her larger works and the recent discovery of some of her scores long thought lost.
This disc is pretty much representative of Cedille’s mission to record new music and a selection of older music featuring largely Chicago musicians. This label has done great service in promoting the music of women and other minority groups and has exposed the record buying/listening public to musical gems that otherwise would languish in that minority wasteland of music which remains unperformed due to sociopolitical rather than aesthetic reasons.
Mei-Ann Chen
This is one of their finest releases. It is a nice survey of 20/21st century women composers (just a small sampling but an intelligent one) from the early twentieth century to the present. The works are given definitive readings by a fine ensemble and a clearly accomplished insightful conductor.
The late great Paul Freeman (from Chicago Symphony web site)
The disc opens with music which serves both the theme of presenting women composers and the desire to do honor to the Chicago Sinfonietta’s founding conductor, the late Dr. Paul Freeman. His advocacy of the music of black composers began with the groundbreaking Columbia release (now Sony) of music by black composers and continued the series on Cedille (African Heritage Symphonic Series: CDR 90000 055, CDR 90000 061, CDR 90000 066 followed by the Coleridge Taylor-Perkinson disc CDR 90000 087). The disc opens with a set of piano pieces by Ms. Price (Dances in the Canebreaks, 1952) which were orchestrated by no less than the dean of Black American composers, William Grant Still. These three friendly, light hearted dances will remind listeners of the sort of fare that characterized the jazz inflected classical idioms of the time, a tradition which also gave birth to Rhapsody in Blue.
Clarice Assad (from composer’s web site)
Next up is Sin Fronteras (2017) by the Brazilian-American composer Clarice Assad. She comes from the well known musical family which includes her father, guitarist and composer Sergio Assad. Her work has a tinge of Aaron Copland and works well as a follow up to the opening track. She, like Still, seems to have an impressive command of the orchestra which she handles with tremendous skill in this overall light hearted piece.
Jessie Montgomery (from the composer’s web site)
Jessie Montgomery (1981- ) is a new name to this reviewer but a look at her well organized web page reveals an astoundingly accomplished young musician. Her Coincident Dreams (2017) follows in the American traditions of including folk music in her compositions. Here her material includes non-American folk musics blended into a lucid listenable score that marks her as a musician worth watching.
As with Assad we hear a composer who is comfortable with the sprawling pallet of the modern orchestra where she manages to make the best use of her materials in an entertaining orchestral work.
Reena Esmail (from composer’s web site)
Reena Esmail (1983- ) is another name new to this reviewer. She is the only artist here to have two works on this CD. The first is a traditional Hindustani piece called Charukeshi Bandish in which she sings the vocal part. Like many of the composers here she draws on her own cultural heritage and has managed to incorporate these traditions into her more (western) classically oriented works. In fact she does so in the next track with #metoo (2017), a piece in which she expresses both solidarity and rage at the mistreatment of women worldwide. Here’s some uncomfortable activism for the concert hall whose time is certainly due.
Jennifer Higdon (NYT photo)
The disc concludes with perhaps the best known living American woman composer, Jennifer Higdon. In addition to being a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in music, Higdon is a prolific composer whose work has been heard in concert and opera houses world wide. Her post-romantic style has made her work popular in concert halls and the depth of her musical invention continues to amaze. Her five movement “Dance Card” (2017) harkens back to the lighthearted dance music which opened this recording. But it is tinged with a depth of emotion which reflects not only her personal vision but her solidarity with women world wide, people who would not need a special feature release but for their gender and racial differences which have marginalized them historically. This release goes a long way to shifting that trend. It’s a gorgeous record.
Israeli composers are too little known so this album of the music of Paul Ben-Haim is particularly welcome. BIS records is known for its quality recordings and its attention to neglected repertoire. Hopefully this is only the first release and BIS will go on to record more of this man’s work as they have with so many other neglected masters.
Paul Ben-Haim (1897-1984) was born Paul Frankenburger in Munich. He moved to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1933 as the Nazis took power. He has become known, for better or worse, as the Israeli Aaron Copland. Indeed there are parallels between the two composers in terms of their embrace of mid-twentieth century romanticism and, to some degree, nationalism. He worked as an assistant to Bruno Walter at one point.
Portrait of Paul Ben-Haim from Wikipedia
A quick glance at Wikipedia will reveal that he mentored many composers including Ben Zion-Orgad, Zvi Avni, Eliahu Inbal, Henri Lazarof, Shulamit Ran, and Ami Maayani among many others. Leonard Bernstein recorded Ben-Haim’s “Sweet Psalmist of Israel” and was supportive of the composer’s work. He was very influential during his lifetime and the neglect of his work is hard to fathom.
Much of Ben-Haim’s work has been recorded to be sure but it tends to get little airplay and few concert performances. As is true for many countries it is difficult to get music by Israeli composers in the United States (Is this true in other countries?). This release from the Swedish based BIS records with its distribution network may be a partial remedy to that problem.
The Violin Concerto of 1960 is the big work here. It has been recorded previously, most notably by the wonderful Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman. It is filled out with his 1942 Evocation “Yizkor” for violin and orchestra and some chamber pieces, the Three Songs Without Words (1951) and Berceuse Sfaradite (1945) both for violin and piano. In addition there is an arrangement for violin and piano of the composer’s well known Toccata (1943) for piano. And in keeping with the violin theme the world premiere recording of his Three Studies (1981) for solo violin rounds out this wonderful survey of the composer’s work.
Itamar Zorman is the soloist and this, not his first release, is a major statement in his career. Zorman previously released a violin and piano album with more conventional repertoire but this is his first release playing with an orchestra. Having demonstrated his facility with the conventional repertoire he seems to be blazing a path beyond.
Portrait of the Artist from his website
The album opens with the highly romantic Evocation “Yizkor” (1942) reflecting the composer’s style as developed in his native Germany. The disc basically follows the order of composition except for the last two tracks. This gives some sense of the composer’s evolution over his substantial career and the album includes the composer’s last work.
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is ably conducted by Philippe Bach in the Evocation and the Concerto and Amy Yang is the very busy accompanist in the violin and piano pieces. Mr. Zorman himself contributed the lucid liner notes.
Having just reviewed another fine album which included a Ben-Haim piece it was particularly delightful to receive this recording. It brings this important music to a new generation of listeners. Also toward that goal the following link will take the interested reader to a comprehensive list of the the recordings of this composer’s work. The link is here.
Auréole consists of Laura Gilbert, flute; Mary Hammann, viola; and Stacy Shames, harp. It is an ensemble seemingly based on the instrumentation of Debussy’s justly famed sonata (1916) for that combination of instruments. It is like the instrumentation of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1912) whose instrumentation (flute, clarinet, violin, piano, and voice and/or percussion) has become a sort of standard grouping and has had much written for it (much more than the flute, viola, and harp combo).
Nevertheless this ia a charming chamber ensemble and they’ve chosen their repertoire well for this recording. Here are four works which share the instrumentation of the aforementioned Debussy sonata. They also share a similar musical aesthetic in their basically tonal and romantic style. This ensemble has chosen works dating from therapy twentieth century to the early twenty first. Two are by Israeli composers and two by Americans.
The album opens with a trio simply entitled, “Chamber Music” (1978) by the late Paul Ben-Haim (1897-1984). He was born Paul Frankenberger and was born in Germany. He, like many Jewish refugees from the horrors of WWII, settled in what was then Palestine where he became known (for better or worse) as the Israeli Aaron Copland. His music is overdue for a new reckoning and this is a fine example of his work. This lovely trio is cast in three movements and is bound to please and entertain.
Next up is Robert Paterson’s (1970- ) “Embracing the Wind” (1999). Cast in one movement it has a touch of modernism but remains a predominantly post-romantic work which takes its inspiration from the wind and the way it moves objects. It traverses several moods as it spins its tale but remains compelling throughout, a very strong piece of music which fits the general sound and ethic of this program. And it leaves this listener wanting more.
“Veiled Echoes”(2000) is the second work by an Israeli composer on this disc. Lior Novak (1971- ) would seem to be a worthy successor to Mr. Ben-Haim. This three movement trio is a meditation on the composer’s perception of links between mountains, sky, and other nature phenomena. Very enjoyable music.
The album concludes with what is described as a tone poem. It is based on one of Frederico Garcia Lorca’s (1898-1936) stories, “Thamar y Amnon”. The composer is Ian Krouse (1956- ). This rather harrowing romance is in a single movement with many moods which evoke the tale. In a nice touch the story is reproduced in its entirety in both Spanish and English.
This is a beautifully conceptualized and performed disc which introduces music which would compliment the Debussy sonata in spirit as well as instrumentation. Brava and now tell us of your next project.
I was delighted to receive this disc directly from the composer. I had not been familiar with Harold Meltzer‘s (1966- ) work so this would be my introduction. The disc contains two works, a Piano Quartet (2016) and a song cycle, Variations on a Summer Day (2012-2016). Both are functional titles which tell the listener little about what to expect in terms of style. I was even more delighted when he kindly sent me some PDF scores of these pieces.
The Piano Quartet might be described as post minimal I suppose but the salient characteristic of this piece is that it is exciting and quite listenable. It is also quite a workout for the musicians. In fact this piece seems to embody a variety of styles which give it a friendly romantic gloss at times. This is a fine addition to the Piano Quartet repertoire.
The musicians that do such justice to this composition are: Boston Chamber Music Society: Harumi Rhodes, violin, Dimitri Murrath, viola, Ramen Ramakrishnan, violoncello, and Max Levinson, piano. All are kept quite busy and seems to be enjoying themselves. I can’t imagine this not playing well to the average chamber music audience.
The song cycle, “Variations on a Summer Day” sets poetry by Wallace Stevens and Meltzer’s compositional style seems to be a good fit for Stevens’ poetic style. This work is stylistically very similar to the Piano Quartet with hints of minimalism within a larger somewhat romantic style. It is scored for chamber orchestra with soprano solo. Actually the orchestra is Ensemble Sequitur, a group founded in part by the composer and clearly dedicated to the performance of new music. The members of this group include: Abigail Fischer, soprano, Jayce Ogren, conductor, Tara O’Connor and Barry Crawford, flutes, Alan Kay and Vicente Alexim, clarinets, Margaret Kampmeier, piano, Miranda Cuckson and Andrea Schultz, violins, Daniel Panner, viola, Greg Hesselink, violoncello.
The poem is by the sometimes obtuse American poet Wallace Stevens. Maybe “obtuse” is the wrong word but Stevens is not the easiest read. What is interesting is how well this composer’s style fits this poetic utterance. This is a lovely song cycle that puts this writer in the mind of Copland’s Dickinson Songs and Barber’s Hermit Songs and perhaps his Knoxville Summer of 1915. There is an air of romantic nostalgia in this tonal and passionate setting.
Stevens’ poetry has been inspiring American composers for some years. Works like Roger Reynolds’ “The Emperor of Ice CreamThe Emperor of Ice Cream“(1961-2) demonstrate an effective avant garde setting of another of his works. It is fascinating to hear how different composers utilize the poet’s work. The present cycle is a beautiful setting which presents a challenge to the musicians which is met quite successfully here.
The Whole Earth Catalog turned 50 this year. It was in the 1980 edition of this classic publication that this writer stumbled across and embraced a small article which listed, “A Basic 10 Records of American Composers”. It was written by one Peter Garland and forever influenced most of my subsequent listening choices and purchases. For the record they are:
The Complete Music of Carl Ruggles (recently released on CD Other Minds OM 1020-21-2)
Piano Music of Henry Cowell (Folkways FM 3349)
Ameriques, Arcana, Ionisation by Edgar Varese (Columbia M 34552)
Peaens, Stars, Granites: Music by Dane Rudhyar and Ruth Crawford Seeger (CRI S 247)
Ives: Three Places in New England, Copland: Appalachian Spring (Sound 80 DLR 101)
Music of Silvestre Revueltas (RCA)
Conlon Nancarrow: Complete Studies for Player Piano (Other Minds CD 1012-1015-2)
Lou Harrison: Pacifika Rondo and other works (Desto DC 6478)
Harry Partch: Delusion of the Fury (Columbia M2 30576)
John Cage: Three Dances for Two Pianos, Steve Reich: Four Organs (Angel S 36059)
And I start here to illustrate the range of this still too little known composer, musicologist, writer, musician. Peter Garland (1952- ) doesn’t even have a dedicated website as of this writing and this list helps to put him in a context. But a quick look at Google, Wikipedia, and Baker’s Biographical Dictionary will confirm that Garland is indeed a prolific composer as well as an accomplished and dedicated musicologist. The list of albums reflect far ranging tastes and interests. That 1980 article serves to reflect how his scholarship reached effectively beyond academia and reached a much wider audience and the same wide embrace is slowly being realized about his musical output.
Peter Garland
He studied at Cal Arts with James Tenney and Harold Budd. He started Soundings Press after attending a workshop with Dick Higgins. Soundings press published articles by Garland and other musicologists. Garland has focused on Native American and Latin American indigenous musics and is regarded as an expert in these areas. Hie own music employs a variety of styles including minimalism and some use of folk melodies but he doesn’t really sound like anyone else.
His compositions almost seem secondary to his academic pursuits and, despite tantalizing descriptions of Garland’s performances in places like EAR magazine his music was hard to come by for some time. There have been a few recordings and, for those who don’t know his work, here is a little discography:
1992 Border Music (¿What Next?, reissued on OO Disc, 2002)
1992 Walk in Beauty (New Albion)
1993 Nana + Victorio (Avant)
2000 The Days Run Away (Tzadik)
2002 Another Sunrise (Mode)
2005 Love Songs (Tzadik)
2008 Three Strange Angels (Tzadik) reissue of Border Music expanded with live recordings
2009 String Quartets (Cold Blue)
2011 Waves Breaking on Rocks (New World)
2015 After the Wars (Cold Blue) EP with Sarah Cahill
2017 The Birthday Party (New World)
Fortunately there are a few record producers who have recognized Garland’s talents. And it should come as no surprise that these producers are of the independent label variety. Starkland Records is indeed one of those independents with a reliable nose/ear for good new music and have chosen to record a major opus, The Landscape Scrolls.
This choice embodies much of what is great about Peter Garland. In this work we get exposed to his scholarship of the stories and symbols of the scrolls as well as some insight to his interest in experimental and unusual instruments. This is in fact a percussion piece but not the percussion music of your mother’s generation.
Commissioned by and dedicated to percussionist John Lane, The Landscape Scrolls (2010-2011) depicts the 24-hour day cycle in five movements. Garland remarks the work was influenced by Indian ragas, Japanese haiku poetry, and, especially, the famous Landscape Scroll of the Four Seasons by Japan’s 15th century painter Sesshu.
Each of the five movements is a metaphorical monochromatic study, more about resonance and space than melody or harmony: mid-day (Chinese drums); afternoon (rice bowls); after dark (triangles); late (glockenspiel); early morning (tubular bells). Garland notes that, after the fact, he was likely influenced by his fascination with the single-tonal color paintings of Barnett Newman.
John Luther Adams, himself a composer of some significant percussion music lately, provides most of the lucid liner notes. Clearly Garland is respected by his fellow artists. This release provides a fine opportunity to get to know this American master through this major opus. As usual the Starkland production is very well recorded and sounds great. This one was really done right.
The Louisville Orchestra was established in 1937 and its history has been wonderfully told in a 2010 documentary entitled, Music Makes a City. Since their founding they released about 150 LPs containing new and interesting music not available anywhere else. Many of those recordings have become available on the Albany CD label but the orchestra hasn’t released a new recording in about 30 years.
Teddy Abrams
Along comes new music director, composer, clarinetist Teddy Abrams and now we are graced with a new recording on the Decca Gold label. Now for a reboot this release is somewhat conservative in it’s musical choices but that’s not to say it isn’t interesing. This recording, released also in commemoration of the orchestra’s 80th season, reflects a sincere effort to draw younger audiences to the concert hall.
This auspicious release contains as its opening Abrams’ Unified Field, a finely crafted four movement work that channels the late Aaron Copland and his ilk. It’s style is inflected with elements of jazz and other so called “vernacular” music but it incorporates those styles in much the way that Copland and his contmporaries incorporated folk song as well as jazz/pop rhythms. It is virtually a symphony in its dimensions and is highly entertaining while remaining seriously classical and very finely crafted. The year of it’s composition is not specified in the notes this writer received but best guess is that it is of recent vintage in this talented composer’s oeuvre.
This is followed, curiously, by three torch songs, one by the able soloist Storm Large, one by Cole Porter, and one by Teddy Abrams. The stylistic unity of these three songs is striking and Storm Large (who is known for her work with Pink Martini) is a convincing chanteuse.
These are followed by another American masterpiece, the Clarinet Concerto (1948) by Aaron Copland. Originally written (and subsequently recorded by) Benny Goodman, the concerto is definitely in the repertoire but receives far too few hearings in concert. This writer had not heard the concerto in many years and was struck both by its quality and by the convincing performance recorded here. Abrams takes the solo role and the orchestra is conducted with assurance by one Jason Seber.
Abrams’ reading is as convincing and authentic as any and this is a delightful way to close this wonderful recording. Here’s hoping that this release will be the restart of Louisvilled great recorded legacy and that Abrams tenure as conductor will breath new life into an orchestra which has become a venerable part of America’s cultural history.
Let me start by saying that the only thing wrong with this album is that it is only one CD. Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) is without doubt one of the finest composers of the twentieth century. Stylistically he holds much in common with composers like his contemporaries Aaron Copland (with whom he studied), Carlos Chavez, Leonard Bernstein and others who incorporated the spirit if not always the literal music of his homeland’s folk culture into his music. In additional to these nationalist works he wrote a substantial amount of traditional concert music which touched on the edges of modernistic trends.
He wrote three operas, two ballets. two piano concertos, two cello concertos, a harp concerto, three string quartets, a bevy of piano music and sundry other items. It is simply not possible to contain a fair representation of his work on a single CD. Despite that this disc is not a bad retrospective. It is lovingly played and recorded and if it does not represent the whole of Ginastera’s oeuvre it is a nice sampling.
The disc begins with the wonderful Harp Concerto Op. 25 (1956, rev. 1968). Though originally commissioned by Edna Phillips (principal harp of the Philadelphia Orchestra) she had retired before she could perform it and it was premiered in 1965 by the amazing Spanish harpist Nicanor Zabaleta. This three movement work is certainly one of the composer’s finest works and is beautifully played by Yolanda Kondonassis with the Oberlin Orchestra under Raphael Jiménez. This piece is one of the finest modern harp concertos and is representative of the composer’s international style with perhaps just a taste of modernism.
Next up is the single movement Pampeana Op. 16 (1947) with the great Gil Shaham on violin and his sister Orli Shaham on piano. This is a sort of window on Ginastera’s earliest nationalist style full of melody and virtuosity.
The next work is the Sonata for Guitar Op. 47 (1976) played by Grammy winning virtuoso Jason Vieaux. I had not heard this work and my first hearing was indeed a revelation. This is a major work for guitar and a wonderful sonata in the classical form. I gave these four tracks a few listens in an attempt to digest some of their beauty and complexity and I will doubtless give them many more listens. This is a major piece that belongs in the repertory.
And, finally, we move to the earliest utterance here with the Danzas Argentinas Op. 2 (1937) in an exciting and dedicated performance from Orli Shaham.
The sound is wonderful and there are a geekily satisfying set of liner notes which include a useful analysis by James O’Leary, Frederick B. Selch Assistant Professor of Musicology, Oberlin Conservatory of Music. All in all a beautiful production and a great introduction to Ginastera’s work but please, don’t stop here. Make sure you get to hear his other work and perhaps the wonderful folks at Oberlin will consider a volume two?
In an earlier post (Political Classical Music in the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries, posted on March 20, 2013) I discussed a project in which I would identify what I have deemed significant works in this genre. I have decided to narrow the topic to those works which are inspired by or are intended to express dissatisfaction with given sociopolitical issues. This will then leave out works which are friendly to the political situation such as Aaron Copland‘s ‘Lincoln Portrait’ and ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’. These are both great pieces of music but their presentation is more celebratory than critical.
Dag in de Branding 11 – Frederic Rzewski (Photo credit: Haags Uitburo)
So without further discussion (a proposed taxonomy of classical political music will be discussed in a future blog post) I wish to present another blog in that series. The work up for discussion is the large set of piano variations composed in 1976 for the pianist Ursula Oppens. Rzewski is well known for his virtuosity and for his support of and definitive performances of new music. He is also known for quite a bit of music with political themes. Some of those other works will likely be the subjects of future posts in this series.
Logo de la banda Category:Quilapayún (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Rzewski took as his starting point a popular song by Sergio Ortega (1938-2003), a Chilean composer and pianist. He wrote the song in 1973 with lyrics written by members of the musical group Quilapayún who subsequently recorded it. Quilapayún recorded no less than 26 studio albums from 1966-2009 along with several live albums. They are a part of the Nueva Canción Chilena which sought political change through new songs defining those changes. The Nueva Canción movement became a subset of Latin American and Iberian folk-inspired protest music which saw groups form worldwide producing songs which became part of the soundtrack of political protests in those various countries.
English: The Inti-Illimani logo Español: Logo Inti-Illimani (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
After the 1973 coup which deposed and likely assassinated Salvador Allende the song was popularized also by another Chilean group, Inti-Illimani. Both groups along with many political dissidents sought and found asylum in other countries. Inti-Illimani found refuge in Italy, Ortega and Quilapayún settled in France.
This major opus was written on commission for Ursula Oppens who asked for a companion to the Beethoven Diabelli Variations, certainly a tall order. Rzewski wrote the piece in 1975 no doubt inspired at least in part by the 1973 coup which deposed Salvador Allende and installed the dictator Augusto Pinochet. The piece consists of 36 variations grouped in 6 sets of 6 variations each. In a nod to Bach’s Goldberg Variations the final variation is a restatement of the theme. In addition to the main theme there are quotations from an Italian socialist song, “Bandiera Rossa” and “Solidarity Song” with words by Bertold Brecht and music by Rzewski’s former teacher, Hanns Eisler.
Oppens premiered the piece on February 7, 1976 at the Bicentennial Piano Series at the John F. Kennedy Center for the performing arts in Washington, D.C. She made a grammy nominated recording of the work in 1979 and the piece has enjoyed numerous subsequent performances and recordings.
The piece is structured symmetrically in six sets of six variations each. It also allows for a bit of improvisation. But this is an eminently listeninable piece which seems rightfully to be gaining its place in the repertoire. This is evidenced most recently in Sony’s decision to include this set of variations along with those of Bach (Goldberg Variations) and Beethoven (Diabelli Variations) in a boxed set which I reviewed here.
Rzewski himself has recorded the piece four times (1977, 1990, 1999 and 2007). The last recording is a video of the performance. Having seen Rzewski perform this piece live in 1989 I can tell you that his performance is a pleasure to behold.
Several other pianists have released recordings (not counting several good ones on You Tube) including Marc-Andre Hamelin, Stephen Drury, Kai Schumacher, I look forward to other recordings hoping to hear interpretations from Sarah Cahill, Bruce Brubaker, Lisa Moore, R. Andrew Lee and Nicolas Horvath to name a few.
Whether this work had any impact on the atrocities of the repressive Pinochet regime is certainly doubtful but the fact that this piece has essentially entered the repertoire for virtuoso pianists and stands as a monumental achievement in the variation form will pretty much guarantee that the atrocities and their perpetrators will be recalled and hopefully reviled at each and every performance.
The only name that might not be familiar to fans of early to mid-twentieth century American music feature in this recording is that of Marion Bauer (1882-1955). The rest of these composers are clearly established in both recordings and the performing repertoire. One of the great things about this recording is that the collector runs practically no risk of duplication. While the Rorem, Barber and Bowles have been recorded before I am not aware of any currently available recordings of the Thomson, Copland and Bauer pieces.
I don’t know how profoundly significant all these works are, only time (and more performances/recordings) will tell. But these are attractive pieces that fill historical gaps and that is apparently the goal of this clever ensemble. Even if these are not first order masterpieces they do speak to the historical evolution of the American sound in the twentieth century.
Marion Bauer is herself in need of a reassessment. This woman, 20 years older than Aaron Copland was essential in the establishment of the foundational institutions of American music. Few of her works have been recorded and even fewer given good or great recordings. So this 1944 Trio Sonata No. 1 recording is a very good start. This, like the other works on the album do not stray far from basic romantic tonality but were the “modern” idiom for the works of their day. The sound of mid-century neo-romanticism is clearly in evidence in this lovely and lyrical three movement sonata.
Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) is now better known for his excellent music criticism but he was also one of the finest examples of the American neo-romantic tradition (and the only composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for a film score) and his work is sadly under-appreciated. The five brief movements are infused with the composer’s folk and hymn references like much of his work. I do not think this lovely little Serenade for Flute and Violin (1941) has been recorded before and, hearing it now, I can’t imagine why not.
Aaron Copland (1900-1990) is represented here by two late works from 1971 and 1973, both entitled Threnody. The first is dedicated to Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and the second to Copland’s friend Beatrice Cunningham.
As far as I know this is the first recording of these two works. They are short and intense pieces whose apparent simplicity most likely belies some complexity but these are very approachable works. It is a great service to have them available for listening.
Samuel Barber (1910-1981) is probably the foremost representative of American romanticism. The brief Canzone for Flute and Piano (1961) was originally written for a friend. The melody made its way into Barber’s Piano Concerto Op. 38 (1962) and has been given the opus number 38a.
Ned Rorem (1923- ), composer and diarist is also a strong contender for the romantic crown in American music. He is the youngest of the composers represented on this recording (though this reviewer would like to make the case to perhaps include David Del Tredici 1937- for inclusion in this survey of mid-century American romantics). Best known for his songs, Rorem’s orchestral and chamber music have only recently begun to get the attention they deserve.
His Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano (1960) is very strong example of the quality of his chamber music. The four movement trio has been recorded before but this performance is about as fine and definitive as one could imagine.
Paul Bowles (1910-1999) is far better known for his literary endeavors and is connected to the beat writers. His novel, The Sheltering Sky (1949) secured his literary fame. Bowles spent much less time on composition after 1956 but his music has (though painfully slowly) been going through some reckoning in recent years. And so it should. This contemporary of Aaron Copland has written a fair amount of music, much of that in the form of incidental music for various plays. This Sonata for Flute and Piano (1932) has been recorded before but it is good to see it made available in a competent recent version.
Ned Rorem, the only composer here still living, gets the final word in The Unquestioned Answer (2002). It is essentially a reflection on Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question (1908, rev. 1930-5) and provides a fitting conclusion to this wonderful survey.
I very favorably reviewed a previous release by the Walden Chamber Players (Marianne Gedigian, flute; Curtis Macomber, violin; Tatiana Dimitraes, violin; Christof Huebner, viola; Ashima Scripp, cello and Jonathan Bass, piano). And they continue their intelligent and very personal survey of chamber music.
This is a very satisfying album which achieves its goal of displaying music which clearly contributes to the collective voice of American music as it developed in the early to mid- twentieth century. This intelligent selection of music, well-performed, fills gaps in the recorded repertoire and, one hope, will encourage others to bring more of this work to recordings and performances.
Abraham Lincoln’s speeches and writings are well liked and frequently quoted in many contexts. Perhaps their most famous use in music is that of Copland’s ‘Lincoln Portrait’ for narrator and orchestra. And without doubt his most famous words are those of the ‘Gettysburg Address’ first read on Thursday November 19th, 1863 at the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. That’s 150 years ago.
Those words were brought to the service of the avant garde in 1967 when Salvatore Martirano employed them in his overtly political ‘L’s GA’ for “gassed masked politico”, “helium bomb”, three 16mm movie projectors and two channel tape recorder. The piece was updated to a version for three video tapes played simultaneously on three monitors sometime in the 1980s.
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Salvatore Martirano (1925-1999) was a major pioneer in electronic music. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1951 where he studied composition with Herbert Ellwell. In 1952 he completed a masters degree at the Eastman-Rochester School having studied with Bernard Rogers. He studied with Luigi Dallapicola in Italy from 1952 to 1954 on a Fulbright Fellowship.
While his early work is influenced by the twelve tone traditions which also characterize Dallapicola’s music nothing in his various teachers’ work could possibly prepare one for the music he would produce in his mature works. His long association with the University of Illinois afforded him access to technology and developers with cutting edge ideas that he absorbed and mastered. Until a fair assessment is made of the work and achievements of the computer labs there it is difficult to say if they exceeded that of the Columbia Princeton lab (with the brilliant Milton Babbitt at the punchcards).
The piece at hand in this essay defies verbal description and is not easy listening. It utilizes the text of the Gettysburg Address read by a man in a gas mask breathing helium (which raises the pitch of his voice in a cartoon-like way), 3 sixteen millimeter film projectors and electronic score on tape. The original recording lasts some 25 minutes. I recall that the version for three videotapes on simultaneously running monitors lasted about the same time. But the experience is one of a complex wall of sound and images that is unrelenting until it actually ends. It was embraced as a sort of “cri de coeur” in sympathy with the escalating anti-war protests of the time.
Unfortunately the posts on you tube do not contain the video footage which definitely enhances the experience of this true multimedia masterpiece. And it is a prime example of classical political protest music. It is and should be disturbing.
But even in retrospect I doubt that the passing of time can be seen to have diminished the importance of this composition both as music and of sociopolitical protest (that never seems to become irrelevant actually). This work certainly deserves to be heard and experienced much more widely and studied along with Martirano’s other mature works and the body of work which has come out of the hybridization of music and technology of that era.
Yesterday the music world lost one of it’s longest lived citizens. Elliott Carter died aged 103.
Many obituaries and appreciations are being written at this moment for this man whose creative career spanned some 80+ years and includes two Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other awards as well as influence on a great deal of students. Admittedly he is hardly easy listening and a book length conversation with Carter written by one Allen Edwards was appropriately titled, “Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds”. Outside of musicians and the limited audience of fans of new classical music such as myself are likely to be familiar with this man. And a moments reflection told me that I cannot make him more familiar by citing any one of his musical works.
But his lack of familiarity is a product of his style and vision, not a commentary on his value as an artist. That said I know of only a handful of friends and acquaintances who would be willing to sit through any performances of his music. Like his contemporary Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) he pursued his own vision and succeeded very well in establishing himself as a major, if underappreciated, composer.
Carter whose early interest in music was encouraged by Charles Ives was present at the American premiere of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’. Along with a great deal of 20th century composers he studied with the venerable Nadia Boulanger in Paris of the 1930s. Boulanger’s circle included the likes of Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Igor Stravinsky and numerous others of that fascinating period.
Curiously there is yet to be a comprehensive biography of this man and I look forward to reading one when it becomes available. Anybody know of anyone working on this?
Born into a wealthy family Carter had little reason to be concerned about things financial. Carter focused on the composing of music. He was not a performer. His style initially owed a great deal to Stravinsky and had a neo-romantic sound not unlike that of fellow Boulanger student Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber.
In the 1950s his style began to take on what would become his mature style. It was characterized by methods related to Schoenberg’s twelve tone system and an idiosyncratic approach to tempo which he called “metric modulation”. His style was challenging for both performers and listeners but this did not prevent him from twice winning the Pulitzer Prize (for the 2nd String Quartet in 1960 and the 3rd String Quartet in 1973). His work has been embraced by many of the major performers and orchestras of our time and he was a fixture among the musical cognoscenti of New England. He was appointed to the American Institute of Arts and Letters in 1981.
His 5 String Quartets (1951, 1959, 1971, 1984, 1995) are likely the most significant development in that genre since Bartok. Those along with his Variations for Orchestra (1954-55), Concerto for Orchestra (1969), Piano Concerto (1964), Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976), Violin Concerto (1989), Piano Sonata (1945-6), Symphonia (1993-96) and Double Concerto (1959-61) all make my shortlist of his best work.
And there are a great deal more pieces with which I am less familiar which Carter wrote in his remarkably prolific later years. He added about 54 new works to his catalog from age 90 until his death just short of his 104th birthday. No doubt many of these will also claim a regular place in the repertoire.
Sometimes characterized as one of the “three C’s” of American music (Copland, Cage, Carter) he influenced many composers, performers and, in my case, listeners. Though difficult at times I find his work ultimately rewarding. His passing is truly the end of an era and his legacy is rich.
New Music Buff 