Contemporary Classical

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?

Ming Tsao – Triode Variations (CD Review)

Ming Tsao

Triode Variations

Ensemble Musikfabrik, conducted by Emilio Pomárico

Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart

Ensemble KNM Berlin, Stefan Schreiber, conductor

Kairos Music

 

Triode Variations is composer Ming Tsao’s third recording for Kairos, with another portrait CD on the way in 2024. It is a showcase of a relatively small timeframe, with pieces on it composed from 2016-2020. In his formative years Tsao trained widely, studying violin and viola with Ron Erikson, Guqin (Chinese zither) with Wu Zhao-ji, composition with Chaya Czernowin and Brian Ferneyhough, and electronic music with Mario Davidovsky. He ended up at University of California San Diego, where he received the Ph.D. in Music Composition. Subsequent to this, his music has been commissioned by prominent ensembles and featured at a number of festivals. Much of Ming Tsao’s work has premiered in Europe, and three German ensembles record it here. 

 

The composer uses highly intricate procedures, which are copiously described in the release’s liner notes. It involves using preexisting music, reversing and then modifying it to create something nearly unrecognizable to the original. Ming Tsao likens it to multiple palimpsests. Triode Variations (2019-2020) takes as its starting point Arnold Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra. Over the course of three movements, two interludes, and a postlude, Ming Tsao explores a complex web of angular lines. The Schoenberg layer occasionally is asserted, but only for brief fleeting moments. Triode Variations is played with fine detail and bold assurance under Emilio Pomárico’s direction of Ensemble Musikfabrik. 

 

The composer is fascinated with canonic procedures from the Medieval and Renaissance era, which is displayed in Das Wassergewordene Kanonbuch (2016-2017), in which intricate counterpoint is brought to play in each of the twenty puzzle canons. Once again, a reversal procedure is employed to further complicate the proceedings. The canons reference texts of Paul Celan, a twentieth century poet whose own cryptic procedures are an apt inclusion. Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart are required to perform extended techniques alongside complex linear interactions. Once again, the use of palimpsests successively glimpsed in the music is a fascinating technique that creates kaleidoscopic effects. 

 

Refuse Collection (2017), performed by the Ensemble KNM Berlin, conducted by Stefan Schreiber, is given an incisive, rhythmically taut performance. It is another reverse transcription of Schoenberg, this time his Begleitungsmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene, Schoenberg’s only film music. The music is refracted through a metric grid based on the poem Refuse Collection (2004) by J.H. Prynne. 

 

For those interested in the construction of music by Ming Tsao, consult the detailed liner notes essay on his compositional language. For those who prefer to listen without preconceptions, Ming Tsao’s music speaks for itself. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 



by Christian Carey
Chamber Music, Commissions, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Lincoln Center, Strings, Women composers

An Ayre Apparent: Emerson String Quartet / Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Emerson SQ w Sarah K Snider-2.
Emerson String Quartet with Sarah Kirkland Snider (credit Gail Wein)

Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Drink the Wild Ayre for String Quartet is the last work commissioned by the venerable Emerson String Quartet. The group – who plans to disband after 47 years of recitals and recordings – gave the New York premiere at one of their last concerts in New York City. It was a tidy closing of a loop. Early in Snider’s compositional career, two decades ago, performances by the Emerson String Quartet inspired her to write her own first quartet.

The ten minute work led the second half of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center program at Alice Tully Hall on Sunday. It instantly brought to mind a bucolic scene of nature and forest, evoking sounds of birds. The title of the work refers to a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, / Drink the wild air’s salubrity.” Snider’s “Ayre” embraces the clear melodic lines of instrumental airs from the 17th century. In the program note, she wrote, “The title seemed to be an apt reference not only to the lilting asymmetrical rhythms of the music’s melodic narrative but also to the questioning spirit sense of adventure and full hearted passion with which the Emerson has thrown itself into everything it has done for the past 47 years.” Compositionally, the work was the simplest on this program of 20th century classics – but concert music does not need to be complicated or thorny to be a success, which this clearly was.

The Emerson String Quartet opened the program with what I consider to be one of the best works in the repertoire, Maurice Ravel’s Quartet in F major for Strings. (In fact, the melancholy theme is still running through my head). Ravel’s composition is about as perfect a string quartet as one can get – but maybe it’s that the Emersons make everything they play seem so. At the work’s conclusion, wildly enthusiastic cheers abounded from the audience.

The sleeper hit of the afternoon was Anton Webern’s Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9. ESQ gave an exceptionally musical reading of this set, infusing the long phrases of these short works with dramatic nuance and contrast. The quartet’s interpretation gave the music such purpose that it came off almost as a miniature opera, highlighting different characters and moods. A wonderful example: The fifth bagatelle clearly ended in a question, and was followed by a resolute response in the final bagatelle.

Quartet No. 2 for Strings, BB75, Op. 17 by Bela Bartok was written in the 1910s, about 15 years after Ravel’s, and the group played it with the same lush romantic flair. The final work on the printed program was Dmitri Shostakovich’s rousing Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major for Strings, Op. 133, composed in 1968. After a number of ovations, the Emersons offered a generous encore: A luxurious reading of the slow movement of the String Quartet No. 1, Lyric, by George Walker. The beautiful chorale-like music was a rich and sweet dessert.

by Gail Wein
Bang on a Can, Brooklyn, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, Music Events, New York

Long Play Festival 2023

Bang on a Can founders David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon (photo: George Etheredge)

In a culture in which we are constantly reinventing ourselves, any event can be the first annual anything. And so it is with Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, whose inaugural edition was launched in Spring 2022.

The organizers clearly found Long Play to be a success: The 2023 edition is May 5, 6 and 7 with events spread over ten venues in downtown Brooklyn: Pioneer Works, Roulette, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Public Records, Littlefield, BRIC, Mark Morris Dance Center, The Center for Fiction, and Fort Greene Park. Over 50 performances are scheduled; most are accessed via a one-day or two-day pass ($89 and $150, respectively). Scores of performing artists include the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Philip Glass Ensemble performing the iconic Glassworks in its entirety for the first time; a reunion concert of Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus, the musical collective Harriet Tubman, Alarm Will Sound, JACK Quartet, Momenta Quartet, Sō Percussion, Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars (of course!), and more. The complete list is here; tickets are here.

The composer David Lang, one of the three founders of Bang on a Can, told me, “Last year we had theorized this would work. We thought it would be good and we thought we would enjoy it – and we did it and it was a blast. Everyone in the organization got fired up by the fact that there was so much music and so many musicians and the audience was so varied and so interested.”

Lang along with the composers Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon launched Bang on a Can in New York City in 1987 with a 12-hour concert in a downtown art gallery. The organization became known for its annual marathon concerts in New York, and later expanded to include a performance group (the Bang on a Can All-Stars), a commissioning program, education programs and festivals at MASS MoCA in the Berkshires, and a record label (Cantaloupe).

Why after 30-plus years of successful marathon concerts did Bang on a Can decide to stray from its tried and true formula? Lang said, “After a while, we felt like we were inviting people on to the marathon for slots of 15 or 20 minutes that we wished were an hour or two hours. I remember thinking – this is at the last marathon – people would come in and they would go, “That was incredible. Why am I only wanting that for fifteen minutes?”

The aesthetic of the performers, programs and repertoire at Long Play doesn’t really differ from that of the marathons, said Lang. It’s still about performing artists who consider themselves innovators. “They say, ‘there’s a kind of traditional music that’s involved in my world and I’m not doing that.’ That’s always been the way we’ve judged people to come on to the marathon.” Lang continued, “What I’m really hoping will happen is that people will think that the world is full of creativity and wildness and inspiration and that the world is very large.”

“To me, one of the really exciting things about this festival is it shows you people who are taking lots of different attitudes equally seriously. They believe that their music has power. They believe that they’re part of a community which is coming together to do something important and that we as listeners are in fact an essential part of that community. And that music has a lot of powers to heal the problems of the world.”

As music lovers tromp around Brooklyn seeking aural pleasure and revelations from Long Play Festival events, some might need nourishment in a more literal sense. Barry Michael Okun has made it his lifetime passion and now fulltime job to curate a website and weekly newsletter pairing outstanding performing arts experiences with recommendations for culinary delights. I asked him to suggest a few spots from his curated Go Out! The List to re-fuel between performances. Here are his thoughts:

near Public Records: Mediterraneanish New American (or New Americanish Mediterranean) out of the big oven at Victor, 285 Nevins Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn.

near Pioneer Works: Piemontese-leaning Italian pastas and antis at Bar Mario, 365 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn.

near BAM/Mark Morris/BRIC: Exciting pizza at Oma Grassa, 753 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

near Roulette: Superb Palestinian at Al Badawi, 151 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn

Bang on a Can All Stars (photo: Peter Serling)
by Gail Wein
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Nic Gerpe – The Makrokosmos 50 Project

A new recording of the March 2022 performance by pianist Nic Gerpe of Makrokosmos Volume I, by George Crumb is now available for digital download. In 1972 George Crumb composed his Makrokosmos Volume I, a major 20th Century work for solo piano. To mark the 50th anniversary of this innovative piece, Nic Gerpe performed all twelve sections in concert on March 15, 2022. As Gerpe states on the website: “To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of its composition, I have commissioned twelve composers to each write a response to one movement of Crumb’s original epic piece, to create a brand new celestial cycle.” These new pieces are also available for download. The composers selected for this project were: Juhi Bansal, Viet Cuong, Eric Guinivan, Julie Herndon, Vera Ivanova, Gilda Lyons, Alex Miller, Fernanda Aoki Navarro, Thomas Osborne, Timothy Peterson, and Gernot Wolfgang.

George Crumb was an influential composer of piano music of the 20th century, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968. Makrokosmos Volume I is one of his most popular pieces. The use of amplification and a variety of extended techniques puts this work at the cutting edge of contemporary piano performance. Nic Gerpe has been a leading proponent in Los Angeles of the music of George Crumb for some time. In November 2019, Crumb’s 90 birthday was observed by a concert by Gerpe that included A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979 as well as Makrokosmos Volume I. The March 2022 concert was intended to mark the 50th anniversary of Makrokosmos, but also became a commemoration of the composer, who had died just a few weeks earlier.

Even a casual hearing of the Makrokosmos suite is immediately understood by the listener to be breaking new ground. Crumb once explained that with Makrokosmos he intended to write “an all-inclusive technical work for piano [using] all conceivable techniques.” The result is music that thoroughly defies conventional expectations for solo piano while remaining both accessible and compelling.

Makrokosmos, Volume I is subtitled Twelve Fantasy-Pieces after the Zodiac for Amplified Piano. This is organized in three sections of four short pieces, comprising about a half hour of music. Each piece is roughly based on the constellations of the zodiac but include evocative subtitles such as “Spiral Galaxy”, “Music of Shadows” or “The Abyss of Time”. The music is generally dark and other-worldly, employing such techniques as strumming the piano strings in the lower registers, plucking single strings or knocking on the piano case. All of this requires much adroit movement by the performer in and around the piano. Gerpe was equal to the challenge – there are no awkward pauses or hesitations in the flow of the sound. When notes were played conventionally from the keyboard, solitary phrases and quiet, slender melodies were heard. Although far removed from the familiar, Makrokosmos is powerfully expressive.

The companion pieces by twelve contemporary composers are fine examples of just how influential Mikrokosmos and the music George Crumb has become in the last 50 years. These new works are all similar in length and style to the Crumb originals and express a wide variety of feelings from engaging and bright to somber and frightening. The extended piano techniques were also used to full advantage in many of the new pieces, validating the distinctive expressive potential realized by Crumb. Perhaps the closest approach to the original Makrokosmos was Karkata, by Vera Ivanova, who employed the same radical imbalance between the keyboard and extended techniques. The result was a complex blend of plucked strings and keyboard notes that compared favorably with Crumb’s more intense pieces.

Other pieces, like Alexander Elliott Miller’s The Celestial Crown consisted of more conventional gestures with quiet, solitary keyboard notes. Miller’s beautifully introspective melody line evoked a distant and lonely feel. Crumbling, by Fernanda Aoki Navarro incorporated lots of movement and crossing phrases in the keyboard that were filled with energy and abstraction. Aries, by Timothy Peterson began with a quiet tinkle of high notes from the keyboard followed by solemn chords and soft phrases in the middle register that invoked a mysterious and magical feeling. Deep chords then increased the tension and gave way to a turbulent finish. The innovative Crumb vocabulary for the amplified piano is highly original, yet was easily absorbed by each of the contributing contemporary composers.

Overall, this new Makrokosmos 50 recording combines the brilliant performances by Nic Gerpe of the piano music of George Crumb together with powerful examples of the influence this piece has had on contemporary composers. The Makrokosmos 50 project stands as a serious exploration of one of the landmark innovations in solo piano music.

Makrokosmos 50 is available at Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music.





by Paul Muller
CDs, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Piano

When Sufjan met Timo and Conor

 

Sufjan Stevens is an indie rock luminary who, throughout his career, has explored a number of styles. His first contemporary classical release, Reflections will be released on Asthmatic Kitty on May 19th. The music is for piano duo and performed by Time Andres and Conor Hanick. 

This meeting of stalwart musicians crosses the boundaries of pop and post-minimalism to create music that is carefully crafted, well-paced, and has a strong sense of drama. Below is the recording’s lead off single, “Ekstasis,” both in a visualizer and a live performance.

 

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

love & light – iSing Silicon Valley (CD Review)

love & light

iSing Silicon Valley, conducted by Jennah Delp Somers

Esteli Gomez, soprano; Cheryl Ann Fulton, harp

Avie Records

 

On love & light, the girl’s choir iSing Silicon Valley performs a program of ancient liturgical chants and Latin motets by contemporary composers. Many include the dulcet accompaniment of harpist Cheryl Ann Fulton, who arranges early music for the harp. Os Mutorum by James Macmillan opens the recording with a gentle spirit, introducing the listener to a program emphasizing healing and uplift. Star power and fetching lyrical singing is provided by soprano Esteli Gomez. Her performance on Kile Smith’s Psalm 113 is a particular standout. 

 

Jennah Delp Somers has fashioned an impressive program with iSing. Consisting of three hundred girl singers, it emphasizes recruiting from different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds to bring communities together. Not only is this worthy advocacy, but iSing performs beautifully under Delp Somers’s direction. Performing challenging yet abundantly appealing works  such as Kenyon Duncan’s hocket filled chorea lucis, Gabriel Jackson’s ebullient Ubi Flumen Praesulis, and the luscious, harmonically intricate Lux Aeterna by Sunji Hong, the group displays a commanding presence that belies their ages. The latter piece was new to me, and has become a particular favorite.

 

Like much of Hildegard’s music, O Virtus Sapientiae has a wide ranging melody. Gomez sings it with command and  rhythmic fluidity, accompanied by recessed voices carrying a sustained chord for accompaniment. Anonymous early music is arranged for the ensemble and harp. O Maris, Stella Maris, on which Gomez sings the chant, is memorable among these. Also affecting is a harp solo based on O Columba. The group performs Salve Virgo Virginum with immaculate diction and pacing. 

 

Monstra Te Esse Matrem, by Kile Smith features polychords interspersed with solo sections by Fulton. Soft dynamics are performed with exquisite control. Three pieces by Andrew Smith (no relation), Ave Regina Caelorum, Ave Maria, and Regina Caeli, round out the program. Ave Regina Caelorum combines chant with chordal stacked seconds that in places sounds like the tintinnabuli style of Arvo Pärt. Ave Maria once again harmonizes chant with lush chords. The high-lying soprano line is impressively performed. Regina Caeli begins with the chorus singing chant that is succeeded by overlapping lines and bright harmonies. 

 

If more communities had this kind of program for young people, that fosters connections but cedes nothing of musical excellence, think of what America’s support for the arts would look like. Recommended

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Isaac Schankler – Because/Patterns

Aerocade Music’s Because/Patterns is an album of experimental music by composer Isaac Schankler. Three new works are featured and performed by top Los Angeles-area musicians. Each piece is the product of the relationship that develops between the acoustic instruments and accompanying electronic constructions. Schankler is perhaps best known as the artistic director of People Inside Electronics, an organization dedicated to ambitious and innovative uses of electronics in new concert music. This album marks the high level of his efforts in this area.

The first piece is Because Patterns/Deep State, with Aron Kallay on piano, Vicki Ray on prepared piano and Scott Worthington playing bass. This begins with an electronic track full of sharp rattling rhythmic sounds that alternate on both channels. Deep, booming bass sounds from Worthington occur at regular intervals, followed by a whirring sound that increases in loudness and finally dominates. Some quietly repeating piano notes slowly push their way into the texture, gaining quickly in volume and creating a nice rhythmic groove in the process. The whirring returns, accompanied by drumming and a variety of industrial sounds – humming, buzzing, clicking and rumbling – these are imposing, although not quite menacing. A siren is heard in the foreground, sustained and urgent, building a sense of anxiety.

Synthesized string sounds appear like the sunrise on a cool morning invoking a more hopeful and optimistic feeling. As the whirring and drumming recede, a light rain of appealing piano notes is heard and soon dominates to bring a welcome sense of cheer. The ominous electronic sounds, however, return to continue the pattern of alternating layers that rise and recede as the piece moves forward. The piano playing by Kallay and Ray is warm and lyrical – immediately recognizable as inspired by human creativity. The deep electronics are never menacing, but always stand apart from the music.

As the dark mechanical sounds recur, they evoke the regimented constraints of a modern existence. When the lighter piano notes appear with their optimistic tones and agreeable rhythms, we are reminded of those times when our humanity is allowed to prevail. These two states struggle for control, but neither seems able to completely displace the other. The persistence of optimism is the message here; life is never so grim that all possibility of hope is extinguished. Because Patterns/Deep State is an artful exploration of the contending forces present in our culture, and offers a powerful assurance of human resilience.

The second work, Mobile I, features violinist Sakura Tsai along with electronic accompaniment enhanced by spectral analysis. This opens with sustained notes in the violin followed by a pause and then some light skittering with pizzicato that builds tension. The sustained tones return, but are now accompanied by a pure electronic tone that shines like a cool beacon through the increasingly complex flow of phrases issuing from the violin. The electronic tones vary in pitch but never overwhelm, acting like a calm backdrop to the now frenzied passages expertly played by Sakura Tsai. The tension ratchets higher as rough, scratchy sounds evoke a convincing sense of suffering and agony. The electronics now become more animated and percussive, adding to the level of anxiety. The violin finally breaks out in a series of fast, nicely articulated phrases, as if sprinting towards freedom before fading at the finish. Mobile I artfully contrasts the vividly expressive sounds of the violin with more reserved tones from the electronics, a combination that, surprisingly. works to magnify the emotional response of the listener.

The final track is Future Feelings and features pianist Nadia Shpachenko. This opens with a lightly metallic wash in the electronics and swirls of strong piano notes. As the piece moves forward, the piano dominates, unreeling clouds of lovely phrases played with that characteristically sensitive Shpachenko touch. Although for the most part quietly atmospheric, some drama is occasionally added when the piano dips into the lower registers in a series of rapid, descending scales. Soft beeping tones – clearly electronic – enter from underneath, yet these seem perfectly at home embedded within the lush melodies and warm textures of the piano line. The extravagantly beautiful playing of Ms. Shpachenko almost steals the show, but the subdued electronic presence is memorable precisely for how much it contributes to the warm sensibility of this piece. Future Feelings is exquisitely expressive music, with just the right balance of masterful playing and superbly complimentary electronics.

Because/Patterns is remarkable listening and a new benchmark of just how highly evolved the combination of acoustic instruments and electronics has become in the service of musical expression.

Because/Patterns is available now via digital download from Bandcamp, Amazon, Spotify, and other retailers. A 12” vinyl record with a unique color or pattern combination and can also be ordered via Bandcamp.






by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?, Violin

Olivia de Prato – Panorama (CD Review)

 

Panorama – Olivia de Prato (New Focus)

 

Violinist Olivia de Prato has established herself as a staunch advocate of new music. In addition to her work with Mivos Quartet, she is a talented soloist. On her second solo release for New Focus Recordings, Panorama, she undertakes a recital disc of female composers. A number of the pieces include electronics, fleshing out the solo texture in diverting fashion.

 

The album opens with Missy Mazzoli’s violin plus electronics piece Tooth and Nail (2010). The original version was written for violist Nadia Sirota; this is a transcription for violin. The piece begins with string sounds in the electronics accompanying the live violin. De Prato digs into the vigorous passagework, executing arpeggiations and glissandos with incisiveness. As the piece progresses the electronics add a lower register to the piece, ending the piece. This is probably my favorite of Mazzoli’s instrumental works.

 

Jeom Jaeng Yi (Fortune Teller) by Jen Shyu is inspired by American polyartist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, including some of her poetry as a spoken word component. The gestures in the solo part are based on speech rhythms. Speaking isn’t constant but de Prato makes clear the connections between violin and voice. There is a mournful cast to the piece: someone’s fortune was disappointing.

 

The title track, for violin and electronics by Angelic Negrón, employs a bath of ambient synths and supple legato phrasing from de Prato, often with glissandos, that employs sumptuous high notes. Mallet samples and piano press the music forward, with repeating passages and pizzicato in the violin responding to the post-minimal electronics. Gradually the music picks up speed, with regularly articulated synth chords and oscillations in the violin. The texture becomes fuller, with a return of synth ostinatos, and once again upper register violin glissandos soar over the top of the varied palette of electronic sounds. The coda features a two note oscillation and clouds of chords accompanying the violin’s final melodic strands.

 

Mapping a Joyful Path, by Miya Masaoka, employs pitch bends in places in the synth parts. Mostly, however, the electronics part consists of sustained sine tones that are varied in register, with overtones skirting in and out of the texture. De Prato plays with varying bow pressure, aggressive repeated notes, microtones in double stops, and Eastern sliding tone to interpret a multifaceted and fetching piece. It finishes with a held altissimo note in the violin and the drones receding.

 

The recording concludes with Balconies by British composer Samantha Fernando. The piece can be played by five live violinists or one with a pre-recorded part. It begins with an arpeggiated flourish and overlapping ostinatos. After another iteration of the opening arpeggio, the texture thickens in the second section, moving from the triadic opening to secundal chords articulated with repeating notes. Soft pizzicatos interrupt the chordal texture, and the arpeggio announces a third section, this one supplying more spacing, but no less complicated harmonies. Melodic fragments are taken up, breaking up the verticals for a time. Melody and richly constructed chords then interact. The original gesture is reconfigured as chords in the alto register, followed by a coda of pizzicatos. Balconies is an arresting piece on recording. I would love to hear de Prato and four friends playing it live.

 

Once again, Olivia de Prato has presented a program of fascinating musical discoveries. Panorama supports female composers with advocacy and skill. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

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

Hearing Landscapes Hearing Icescapes – Lei Lang (CD Review)

Hearing Landscapes Hearing Icescapes

Lei Liang

New Focus Recordings

 

From 2012-2022, composer Lei Liang did a residency at the Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego, where he is a full professor. At Qualcomm, Liang worked with scientists in a variety of disciplines –  software developers, robotic engineers, material scientists, cultural heritage engineers, and oceanographers – to infuse his music with ecological and ethnographic elements. The result, Hearing Landscapes Hearing Icescapes, are two electronic works that incorporate samples, folk songs,  and a few live musicians. 

Hearing Landscapes is an homage to Huang Binhong (1865-1955), a gifted landscape painter. The audio components of this electronic score were in part realized by analyzing the types of brushstrokes used by Binbong, and translating them into sound. Visual artists did further analysis of the painting using their own methodologies. There are three samples from 1950s China used successively in each of the piece’s movements: a hu-aer folk song performed by Zhu Zonglu, a renowned singer from northwest Qinghai Province, xingsheng (crosstalk) in the Beijing dialect by comedians Hou Baolin and Guo Qiru, and guqin performer Wu Jin-lüe playing “Water and Mist over Xiaoxiang.” Other sonic devices used by Lei Liang include a “rainstorm” made by dropping styrofoam peanuts in an open piano, and the distorting of spoken voices to create indecipherable “tea house chatter.”

 

It is fascinating to  learn of the roles of many integrated disciplines used to fashion Hear Landscapes. The musical results are compelling. In “High Mountain,” the “strokes” found in the melodic lines, passages of upper partial drones, and the piano storm, ebb and flow and set the stage for Zhu Zonglu’s singing. Movement 2, “Mother Tongue,” a reference to Lei Liang’s own preferred dialect, creates swaths of distressed, unintelligible speech alongside the banter of the two comedians. “Water and Mist” returns to the clarion harmonics and brushed melodies. Dripping water appears alongside Wu Jin-lüe’s elegant playing of the guqin. A passage that incorporates sustained strings follows, succeeded by a lengthy passage of  solo guqin and water sound receding until the piece’s conclusion.

 

Hearing Icescapes uses different source material, including recordings of contemporary performers: David Aguila, trumpet, flutist Teresa Diaz de Cossio, and violinist Myra Hinrichs. Oceanographers provide sounds they had recorded in the nearly inaccessible Chuckchi Sea, north of Alaska. It takes echolocation as a formal design, with one part of the piece indicating the “Call” and the other the “Response” of this phenomenon. Ice, wind, bearded seals, belugas, and bowhead whales create an extraordinary variety of sounds that, without this project, would be available to be heard by few humans. At over twice the duration of Hearing Landscapes, Hearing Icescapes is expansive, the first movement gradually unfolding from the cracking of thin ice to flowing water to an effusive whales’ chorus at its close. Throughout, crescendos and diminuendos of water sounds are accompanied by short whistles from whales. The live instruments are fairly subdued, playing sustained tones underneath the surface of the soundscape. 

 

The second movement begins with snatches of the main source material, a combination of the ice noises and whale song. The live instruments are then foregrounded, imitating the whale sounds in a response to the first movement’s mammalian outcrying. Hinrich uses bow pressure to create an imitation of the ice noises. Aguila is an imaginative interpreter of the more boisterous sounds from “Call,” and de Cossio mimics the whale whistling with considerable fervor. A pause, followed by falling ice, demarcates the movement’s structure. Once again, the whales take up their echolocation, this time in a virtual colloquy with the live instruments. The combined forces end the piece in thrilling fashion.

 

Artists are often, by necessity, so focused on short term deadlines for projects, that they don’t get to innovate. Lie Liang’s decade spent with his colleagues at Qualcomm Institute has resulted in considerable innovation and two significant works that resonate with cultural studies and ecology, while at the same time providing diverting music. Recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey 

 

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Brightwork Newmusic Trio

A Brightwork Newmusic concert was staged at Boston Court Pasadena on Saturday, March 18, 2023. A program of intensely complex music was performed, including pieces by Khachaturian and Bartok from the 1930s and three works by contemporary composers. Aron Kallay, pianist, Shalini Vijayan, violin and Brian Walsh on clarinet comprised the highly talented Brightwork trio of Los Angeles area musicians. The intimate Marjorie Branson Performance Space at Boston Court, which underwent some upgrades during the pandemic, was perfectly suited to the ensemble, the music and the audience.

The concert opened with Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (1932) by Aram Khachaturian, consisting of three movements. Khachaturian was born in Tiblisi, Georgia in 1903 and was strongly influenced by the traditional folk music and dominant Armenian culture of this remote Russian province. The 1917 Russian revolution, civil war and subsequent incorporation of Georgia into the Soviet Union were significant events in his early adulthood. Khachaturian moved to Moscow to study music and eventually enrolled as a composition student at the Moscow Conservatory. Growing up in remote Armenia, enduring great political turmoil in his formative years and then submitting to the rigors of the Moscow Conservatory resulted in music of powerful expressive intensity combined with an affable exotic charm.

These attributes are on full display in Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Piano. The first movement “Andante con dolore, con molto espressione” opened with a series of pensive piano chords that became stronger on each repeat. The violin and clarinet soon entered, each with independent lines, weaving in and around each other. Aron Kallay’s piano contributed a swirl of notes, increasing the density of the texture dramatically. With the andante tempo, the feeling is solemn, yet very expressive, especially when the violin line soars in sustained tones over the moving lines below. A mix of slow phrases were followed by more rapid passages and the precision of the three players working through these complex interactions was impressive.

The second movement, “Allegro”, increases the pace significantly and independent lines pour rapidly out from each instrument. The phrasing, although complex and driven by a faster tempo, was maintained in superb cohesion – a further testament to the technical skill of the ensemble. The feeling was wide, expansive and grand. “Moderato”, the final movement, opens with a lovely clarinet solo from Brian Walsh that is answered by the piano. Fast passages follow, the clarinet doubling the violin, with both remaining solidly on pitch. As the movement proceeds, the interplay between the three instruments evolves beautifully. Echoes of folk music are heard amid powerful conventional 20th century gestures. Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Piano is a masterful mix of Khachaturian’s musical influences, skillfully performed by the Brightwork ensemble.

Jasper Drag (2000) by Alvin Singleton followed. The title refers to the horrific 1998 murder of James Byrd, Jr., a black man, who was beaten by three white men and then dragged behind a pickup truck for three miles near Jasper, Texas. This piece was originally commissioned by Michigan State University for the Verdehr Trio. The opening is a series of solemn, two-note piano chords, separated by brief silences. The clarinet enters first with low, then very high pitches that establish an unsettling atmosphere. The violin and piano enter in their turns with solo passages that add to a rising sense of distress. A long sustained clarinet tone is heard against an agitated violin, effectively increasing the tension. The ensemble occasionally plays together, but usually proceeds with independent lines. Overall, there is a certain austerity present, even in the more active sections. There are stretches of churning tutti, but the instruments mostly take their turns playing singly, sustaining the general feeling of anxiety.

This music is not a metaphor for the barbarity of the crime; there are no long wailing passages or over-the-top pyrotechnics. The feeling is rather one of deep shame for an unspeakable act of violence that has escaped from a dark past into our presumably enlightened present. Jasper Drag eloquently articulates the condemnation of a society where such an atrocity is still possible.

Dash (2001), by Jennifer Higdon was next and this began with a crash of sound from the entire ensemble. Every instrument boldly proclaimed each note, and the dynamic never diminished throughout the entire piece. The tempo was fast and the complexity of the independent lines compared favorably with the earlier Khachaturian piece. The attention to technical detail by the Brightwork trio was remarkable; it seemed as if every instrument was furiously playing all the time. Throughout, there was a joyful and rowdy feeling as the piece charged along with a seemingly endless supply of high energy. Dash might have been inspired by the relentless ride that is our daily life.

Sea Change (2009), by Pamela Madsen was next and this was something completely different. Madsen, who has created large scale works, chose the trio for this piece as a more direct way to focus her composition with its sympathetic view to ecology and the environment. The piece was preceded by a short poetic narration that ended with “You are most loved, most lost, most beautiful.” Simple and direct, the opening passages consisted of lovely repeating lines with gently moving parts in the violin and piano, sustained supporting tones from the clarinet. This was in a mild dynamic and moderate tempo, creating a stately and organic feel. The ensemble nicely evoked an aqueous sense of flow and movement, always shifting and on the move, but static in form. All of this made for a contrast to the charged and often furious music heard in the first half of the concert. As Sea Change continued it slowly gathered momentum, getting louder, faster and more syncopated. By the finish, however, the sea had changed again, dropping back into the easy restraint of the opening. Sea Change was astutely programmed for this point in the concert program and gave the Brightwork ensemble a chance to present a more intimate sound.

The final work on the concert program was Contrasts (1938) by Bela Bartok. Built around a series of dance forms, Contrasts was in keeping with the energy and vigor of the opening trio by Khachaturian, and made a fine bookend to the concert. The first movement, “Verbunkos (Recruiting Dance)”, began with a strong staccato melody in the clarinet, a pizzicato line in the violin and robust rhythms in the piano. A portentous, late 1930’s atmosphere was immediately established in the mind of the listener. There was a slightly out-of-control feel to this that never let up, perhaps evoking the inept dancing of enthusiastic soldiers. Overall it was strident, powerful and loud with an ominous undertone. The clarinet playing was particularly expressive with a number of complex and over-the-top passages.

“Pihenő (Relaxation)”, the second movement, was slow, quiet and full of sustained notes from the clarinet and violin. A low rumbling in the piano carried forward the sinister undertone that was present in the first movement. “Pihenő” provided a tense quiet after the spirited “Verbunkos” the but the disconcerting line in the piano added further gloom. The tension was nicely sustained by the ensemble as the piece continued along until it faded away in a mysterious finish.

The final movement was “”Sebes (Fast Dance)” and this marked the return to a lively tempo and strong dynamics. The resolute tutti phrasing included a roiling texture in both the piano and clarinet that built into a series of shouts. The rapid rhythms and complex surfaces were nevertheless artfully negotiated by the players. After a brief pause, the tempo slowed and the sounds became more sustained and languid. Only the piano persisted with its darker line underneath. A dark descent followed before a sudden jump back into the rush of technically difficult passages and labyrinthine lines. A very rapid violin solo was expertly performed by Ms. Vijayan and the rest of the ensemble then joined in for a furious tutti finish.

Bartok is perhaps most familiar to us through his well-known Concerto for Orchestra, a restrained and atmospheric work written during World War II. Contrasts is a much more animated and provocative piece that brings to life all of the anxieties present prior to the outbreak of the war. In the same way, the Khatchaturian piece, Jasper Drag and Jennifer Higdon’s Dash also reflected their own contemporary apprehensions. Pamela Madsen’s Sea Change gave us the space and contrast necessary for an appreciative comparison. We are fortunate in Los Angeles to have musicians capable of performing this important music at such a high level.

by Paul Muller