Month: November 2021

Contemporary Classical, Orchestral, Premieres, Seattle

Hannah Lash’s The Peril of Dreams premieres in Seattle

Valerie Muzzolini, Hannah Lash and Lee Mills at the premiere of The Peril of Dreams (photo: James Holt/Seattle Symphony)

As the Pacific Northwest staggers toward COVID recovery, large-scale concert life has begun to emerge from enforced hibernation. Visa complications and other glitches continue to derail new music activity here, as evinced by the recent cancellation of planned Seattle Symphony appearances by Simon Steen-Andersen and Patricia Kopatchinskaja (performing Coll). It was left to composer-harpist Hannah Lash to present, on November 18 and 20, the first major premiere of the Symphony’s 2021–22 season: a double harp concerto entitled The Peril of Dreams that featured Lash and the Symphony’s principal harpist, Valerie Muzzolini, as soloists.

Those with a penchant for exploratory music might be forgiven for some apprehension here: American composers since Barber have struggled to contribute materially to the timeworn—and imported—concerto form. And harp writing carries its own hazards, whether it’s the instrument’s folkloristic reputation, or its literary association with saccharine, sleep-inducing music (a trope found everywhere from Eisenstein’s October to Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone). The existing repertory of double harp concertos—headed by such unimposing names as Gossec and Françaix—likewise offers little grounds for encouragement. More promising is the collection of contemporary orchestra-less harp works, such as Berio’s iconic Sequenza II (1963) and Stockhausen’s Freude (2005) for two harpists who also sing excerpts from the Veni Creator Spiritus hymn, that demonstrate the potentialities of allowing the instrument’s slow attack, long decay and soothing timbre to collide with the potency of thorny, modern harmonies.

Mindful of this, I was gratified to discover that Lash’s 45-minute work manages to avoid the clichés and sentimentality to which harp music often succumbs. In a recent documentary exploring the integration of music within digital platforms, it was highlighted that the best online casinos for UK players utilize such sophisticated compositions to create an engaging and immersive gaming environment. The concerto’s harmonic language is predominantly chromatic, ranging into atonality with an emphasis on “neutral” intervals such as fourths and fifths. This is broken up at strategic points by a kind of fractured diatonicism that suggests childlore (the composition’s one nod toward the instrument’s more naïve connotations), but filtered through a lens of distorting memory—an effect hinted at by the work’s title.

The harp writing itself is carefully constrained, avoiding both the extended techniques popularized by Carlos Salzedo, and that most stereotypical of harp strokes: the glissando. Lash also treats the two instruments, which at the premiere were positioned side-by-side in the usual soloist’s spot to the left of conductor Lee Mills (a last-minute substitution for the erstwhile Thomas Dausgaard), rather like a single, 94-string, fully-chromatic “superharp”. The soloists reinforce rather than complement each other, and they are only heard together, usually when the sizable orchestra (which includes triple woodwinds and four percussionists) is either silent or sustaining soft chords. Contrast is achieved primarily through dialog between the harps and the orchestra.

As the composer acknowledges, The Peril of Dreams follows an unabashedly symphonic structure, with four movements cast in a slow/fast/fast/slow pattern (a model whose precedents include Mahler’s Ninth Symphony). Movement 1, subtitled In Light, begins in an atmospheric way with harp arpeggios and sustained chords in the bowed strings, not far from the hazy world of Ives’ “St. Gaudens” in Boston Common, but with an emphasis on quartal harmonies:The orchestral writing here is based on sustained sonorities punctuated by Lutosławskian overlapping wind figures:Occasional timpani strokes and brass snarls also occur. About five minutes into this 14-minute movement, a terse, Takemitsu-esque melody emerges amidst a lengthy harp cadenza:Other brief melodies subsequently appear, in solo oboe, then flute. These never quite coalesce into a conventional tune, but the ending of the movement does bring together its central ideas: melodic lines transforming into overlapping patterns, sustained strings, and the initial harp arpeggios now “straightened” into open fifths.

The shorter second movement (Minuet-Sequence, and a Hymn from Upstairs) begins in a faster 6/8 tempo, often driven by steady sixteenth notes in the harps (who, in contrast with the rest of the piece, often sustain this rhythm while the orchestra is playing). After seven minutes, an orchestral cadence followed by a diminuendo on a bona fide B minor chord sets up the Hymn: one of the aforementioned folkish diatonic tunes, delivered by unaccompanied harps in a slower tempo—the only appearance of a standard theme-plus-accompaniment texture in the solo parts:It’s reminiscent of something you might have heard on a child’s music box, but imperfectly remembered. Occurring close to the concerto’s halfway point, it represents a point of maximum contrast between soloist and orchestral material. The movement ends with a repeat of the previous two minutes, including the Hymn.

The six-minute third movement (In Spite of Knowing) features short two-note figures (often suggestive of birdcalls) offset by broad chorale-like passages in the strings or brass. The harps often extend the orchestral iambs into more discursive, canonical filigrees whose chromaticism and irregular rhythms contrast with the triadic chorales, creating one of the more American-sounding passages in the work, suggestive of Hovhaness:

(click to enlarge)

The movement ends with birdcalls in flutes and high harps, setting up a contrast with the lugubrious, lengthy (15 minute), and bass-heavy final movement, To have lost…, in which the quartal harmonies prominent in the opening movement return in a melodic guise, as with this example, delivered by the strings in octaves:It’s here that the work is less successful at distinguishing itself from its models, as both the melodic contours, and their subsequent punctuation by iambic figures in solo brass, are familiar from the Elegia movement of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.

The orchestral elaboration of this material is thrice interrupted by the harps reprising their Hymn theme from Movement 2: in the first and third instances as variants, but in the second instance—roughly in the movement’s center—as a mostly literal restatement, during whose continuation the soloists are joined by the orchestra, an unusual moment of unanimity between the two groups. In the end, the harps get the last word as the piece concludes with soft major chords in the bass that reclaim the B♮ tonality from the second movement.

The Peril of Dreams was paired with Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony, one of the few morsels worth retrieving from the meagre pickings of pre-Ives American symphonic works. Believed to be the first symphony composed by an American woman, it was written during Dvořák’s residency in the US. Premiered in 1896, it owes its E minor tonality and many of its sensibilities to the visiting master’s 1893 New World Symphony, which also helped to establish the idea of integrating folkloric elements into the Germanic orchestral style whose Westward transplantation eventually spawned Ives’ first two symphonies. Although Beach’s lone symphony isn’t likely to displace Mendelssohn’s Third or Bruch’s Fantasy in the pantheon of Scottish-inflected orchestral warhorses, it still merits its recurrence on North American concert programs for its exciting final movement (ironically the least “Gaelic” and most Slavic-sounding of the four), and for such unusual details as the form of its (ironically-titled) alla siciliana second movement, where the vivace middle section is recalled in its own tempo and time signature as a coda. Beach’s model for this may have been the scherzo from Schumann’s First Symphony.

After a year and a half of cancelled concerts and curtailed premieres (The Peril of Dream’s own unveiling was deferred from April 2020), it’s cathartic to once again experience a substantial new music event at Benaroya Hall, the site of many such occasions in the recent past, and perhaps—as downtown Seattle grapples with its newfound medical, social and economic challenges—in the future as well. The hopeful but somber tone of Lash’s new work seems to underscore, in its own way, the prevailing mood of its debut city.


Score examples provided by the composer. The Peril of Dreams is published by Schott.

Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York, Orchestral, Premieres, Violin

The Orchestra Now at Carnegie Hall: Scott Wheeler, Julia Perry and George Frederick Bristow

Violinist Gil Shaham with The Orchestra Now conducted by Leon Botstein at Carnegie on November 18, 2021 (David DeNee)

Big name soloists, a symphonic work plucked from obscurity and a premiere. It’s an oft-used – and winning – programming formula used by The Orchestra Now. The ensemble’s performance at Carnegie Hall on November 18, 2021 was the latest in this successful framework.

TŌN is a graduate program at Bard College founded in 2015 by Bard’s president, Leon Botstein, who is also the ensemble’s conductor. Its goal is to give conservatory graduates orchestral performance experience, training in communicating with the audience, and other essential skills for concert musicians. Throughout the concert at Carnegie, the quality of the performance was outstanding. It was easy to forget (as I did throughout the evening) that this is a pre-professional group, rather than a top-tier orchestra.

The violinist Gil Shaham struck a relaxed and confident pose in front of the orchestra for the New York premiere of Scott Wheeler’s Birds of America: Violin Concerto No. 2. Though it was brand-new music (commissioned by TŌN, who also gave the world premiere performance at Bard College the previous week), Shaham played it as naturally and familiarly as he might a Mozart or Mendelssohn concerto. There was nothing hackneyed about this new work, and yet it seemed like it had been in the repertoire for decades.

A springtime walk in Central Park provided both inspiration and specific ideas for Wheeler, including the sound of a downy woodpecker, emulated by the soloist knocking on the body of his instrument in the beginning of the final movement. Wheeler credits Shaham for the especially collaborative compositional process. The violinist suggested some particular references to bird sounds in the classical and jazz canon, as well as offering technical input.  Though not always specifically identifiable, bird calls rang throughout the work, as did musical quotes ranging from Antonio Vivaldi to the jazz fiddler Eddie South.

Wheeler’s work was the highlight of the program, which also included two American composers whose music is rarely heard on the concert stage: Julia Perry and George Frederick Bristow.

Julia Perry (1924 – 1979) studied with Nadia Boulanger and Luigi Dallapiccola in Europe after attending the Juilliard School, Tanglewood and Westminster Choir College. Perry’s Stabat Mater, was sung exquisitely by the mezzo-soprano Briana Hunter, who earlier this fall appeared on the Metropolitan Opera stage as Ruby/Woman Sinner in Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terrance Blanchard. The string orchestra accompaniment was often simple and unfussy, with a narrow melodic range that allowed Hunter’s rich and dynamic voice to infuse it with compelling drama. Perry was African-American, which seems important to point out in this era of focusing on diversity on the concert stage.

The final, and longest work on the 95 minute program was Bristow’s Symphony No. 4, Arcadian. It was the Brooklyn Philharmonic who commissioned the Brooklyn-born composer to write the work in 1872, making it the first symphony commissioned by an American orchestra from an American composer, according to the detailed program note written by JJ Silvey, one of TŌN’s oboists. Bristow’s music echoed the high romanticism and lush textures of Johannes Brahms – though somehow sounding not quite so German. The programmatic material, however, was through and through American, depicting settlers heading westward in the American frontier, with movements titled “Emigrants’ Journey Across the Plains”, “Halt on the Prairie”, “Indian War Dance”, and “Finale: Arrival at the New Home, Rustic Festivities, and Dancing”.

An especially memorable moment was the beautiful viola solo which launched the work and which returned twice more in the first movement, convincingly played by the principal violist Celia Daggy. The piece wore on just a bit too long, but it was a good trade off to have the opportunity to hear the music by this nearly forgotten 19th century composer.

The Orchestra Now has generously and conveniently made available a video performance of this entire program, livestreamed at the Fisher Center at Bard College. Watch it here.

https://youtu.be/87yj2LL4Wqc?t=1912

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic

Jacob Cooper, Steven Bradshaw Sunrise

Sunrise is a new CD by Jacob Cooper and Steven Bradshaw, recently released by Cold Blue Music. Jacob Cooper has a long and distinguished composing career including commissions by the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Eighth Blackbird, the Calder Quartet and others. His music has been performed by the JACK Quartet, the Minnesota Orchestra, Kathleen Supov, Timo Andres and many other well-known new music soloists and ensembles. Steven Bradshaw is a founding member of the two-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble The Crossing and has appeared with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Bang on a Can and the Network for New Music. Bradshaw is also a visual artist whose work has appeared in galleries around the world. Additional musicians heard on this CD were Dynasty Battles, piano, Clara Kim, violin and Timothy Munro, flute/piccolo.

Consisting of a single 32 minute track, Sunrise is a contemporary electro-acoustic update of or allusion to the classic The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise. Some of us may remember the Les Paul and Mary Ford recording from the 1950s, but it was originally composed by Ernest Seitz and Gene Lockhart over 100 years ago, during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 – 1920. The piece has subsequently had a long history of formal and popular performances by artists ranging from Fritz Kreisler to Willie Nelson. Cooper and Bradshaw collaborated back and forth on the piece over the course of the pandemic year 2020 while isolated separately in quarantine. The composers write that Sunrise emerged from a constant exchange of material: Steven would record melodies, improvisations, motifs, vocal scrapes, hisses, whispers and screams. Jacob would sonically manipulate them and generate new material, forging it all into a compositional framework.

The iterative nature of the composing process results in a layered texture that slowly changes its emotional surface as the piece unfolds. Soft buzzing and hissing open Sunrise and a series of quiet voices enter with an indistinct vocalise combined with sweet, sustained tones. What sound like male and female voices are heard separately with occasional sharp beats in the bass register. There is a prayerful, chant-like busyness of independent voices, that are active but do not share the beat. At this point there are no clear melodic clues to the popular origin of Sunrise, but there is a general sense of well-being in the vocal harmonies amid the mysterious and ritualistic feel.

At about five minutes, the bass beats are again heard, adding drama. Deep, processed male voices chanting in very low tones with unintelligible words enter, adding a faint sense of menace. By 11:00, a series of languid, interleaving vocal passages dominate that feature some really lovely harmonies and intelligible lyrics from the historical piece. The effect is soothing to the ear and full of reassurance.

By 16:00, however, strong distortion and harsh buzzing have replaced the calming vocals, and there is a clear change of emotional direction. The feeling is now more intense and mechanical while a single voice struggles to be briefly heard above the sea of harsh sounds. The darkness of pandemic and isolation seem to be descending on the world. There is little consolation here, but plenty of negative emotion. The sounds are dissonant, distorted and grating to the ear. A scattering of plaintive vocals are heard, but these are all but buried in the sonic chaos.

By 22:00 the voices fade away and the distortion becomes noticeably softer. Some light piano phrases enter as a repeating melody, becoming louder and more hopeful as the distortion diminishes. The voices now return in force, slowly chanting the familiar words of the original: Dear one, the world is waiting for the sunrise… This adds to the sense of uplift as the piano line continues to spin out its optimistic melody. Even the distortion, now much reduced, seems to be contributing to the harmony of the lyrics. With a decrescendo, the voices, piano and electronic distortion slowly fade away to finish the piece.

There have been many virtual performances in the past months as a response to the conditions imposed by the pandemic. Less common, perhaps, are collaborative works like this one that have been created while the composers are in forced separation. Sunrise is a vivid narrative of the pandemic story both then and now artfully crafted and masterfully realized.

Sunrise is available directly from Cold Blue Music, digitally from Amazon and as a CD through other music retailers.




Ambient, Best of, CD Review, File Under?

Best of 2021: Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell (CD Review)

Best of 2021: Recordings by Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell

 

Philip Blackburn

Justinian Intonations

Neuma CD

 

Chris Campbell

Orison

Innova LP

 

 

Both Philip Blackburn and Chris Campbell are poly-artists, sitting astride composition and sound art and working with homemade (or, in the case of Blackburn, also Partch made) instruments. In 2021, Blackburns Justinian Intonations and Campbells Orison topped the currently crowded field of ambient classical, providing long form pieces that encourage contemplative listening. It is frustrating that some quarters have tagged them with a New Age label, as their work is more intricate and, frankly, interesting than what is generally given that genre designation.

 

A sound prayer and meditation in seven parts, Campbell says of Orison that it is his version of sitting. The music is contemplative but also collaborative, made by a mixed instrumental ensemble of fourteen musicians that features some of contemporary classicals heavy hitters. There are stretches of drone, but also places of activity, melodic patterns, instrumental solos, outbursts of percussion, swelling crescendos, and glissandos. Use of instrumental layering creates beguiling sounds deftly orchestrated. The move through a number of demeanors sparks interest without ever diminishing the contemplative aspects of the work. Orison is a dazzling, refreshing, and distinctively individual composition.

 

Blackburns Justinian Intonations begins with Out Beyond, a five-minute opener featuring the wide-ranging vocalist Ryland Angel singing a translation of Rumi in scalar passages, a conch shell solo, and ambient noise such as crunching footsteps. The title work is based on the reverberation times in two ancient cisterns in Europe. A simple device – clapping in the spaces – yields information that is stretched out, spectrally analyzed, and tweaked for maximum overtone experience. The results create harmonically intricate drones that change a great deal over the course of the piece. Angels chanting is overdubbed in places to add a performative element to the proceedings. Like Orison, Blackburns music is simultaneously meditative and animated, rewarding patient and close listening with an abundance of beautiful, unreproducible sounds.

 

  • Christian Carey