Sequenza21

Courtesy of The Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York, I was able to hear last Wednesday three compositions by the Chinese-American composer Zhou Long (b. 1953). Long’s music had been recommended to me by composer Jeff Nichols, and the Lyric found room for it on an attractive program that opened with Debussy’s Cello Sonata and closed with Mendelssohn’s D minor piano trio. The players were the fearsomely solid Cho-Liang Lin (violin), Hai-Ye Ni (cello), and Helen Huang (piano).Two of Long’s compositions were “early” works from the 1980s: Taiping Drum (for violin and piano) and Wu Kui (for solo piano); the other was a piano trio from 2000 called Spirit of the Chimes. Like most Chinese-American composers, Long is clearly interested in developing a musical language that blends sounds from East and West: Taiping Drum, for instance, appropriates musical material from the “Er Ren Tai” – a song and dance practice from northeast China for two performers. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, to learn that Long’s music – at least from the evidence of the selections on the Lyric’s concert – is marked by frequent and stark contrasts: the very high rubs shoulder with the very low, the very dissonant with the very consonant, the static with the mercurial.Walking home from the concert, it occurred to me that Chinese-American composers – of whom there’s a bevy right now it seems – haven’t turned up much in discussion on Sequenza21. What do people out there think of Tan Dun, Bright Sheng, Chen Yi (Mrs. Zhou Long, by the way), and Huang Ruo? Any others out there who deserve a higher profile? Naturally they’re composers first and Chinese second, but can their cross-cultural music be said to be initiating a style that can be appropriated by non-Chinese composers?

Gian Carlo Menotti died today at a hospital in Monaco. He was 95.  In the days before television became a total waste of time, NBC commissioned him to write the first opera specifically for the new medium.  For many years, Amahl and the Night Visitors was played every year at Christmas and it introduced millions of people, including me, to the idea of opera.  I haven’t heard it for years and thus have no adult opinion of whether it is good or not but it was a very good thing for NBC and Menotti to have done. 

The County Museum of Art didn’t cancel all serious music:  just the Monday Evening Concerts.  Under new management, the music program now offers occasional concerts on any night but Monday.  They try to relate the bookings and programming to the art.  Thanks to one other difference — being willing to do some PR — a good crowd came to LACMA to see eighth blackbird.  The ostensible tie-in to the art was with the smashing special exhibition on Magritte and art he influenced.  (Unfortunately the museum is closed on Wednesdays so that for the attendees the art was limited to a distracting slide show behind the musicians.) 

The six musicians of eighth blackbird gave us a well-chosen program in which some of the works did resonate with the attitudes and approaches of the exhibit.  My favorite was by Stephen Hartke, USC professor and composer of this summer’s The Greater Good at Glimmerglass.  The program opened with his The Horse with the Lavender Eye (1997).  This is a work of four disparate movements for violin, clarinet, and piano.  Magritte might well have appreciated the music inspired by history and art images.  The first movement, “Music of the Left” has all three played only by the left hands.  (The clarinetist was allowed to use his right hand to support the instrument, but the violinist had to perform his pizzicati on the neck of the violin.)  The finale, “Cancel My Rhumba Lesson” was inspired by an R. Crumb comic.

Ending the program was Joseph Schwantner’s Rhiannon’s Blackbirds (2006), written for the group and receiving its West Coast premiere.  In justaposition of title and performer this was another nice gesture to the exhibition.  It’s a very good work.  On first listening, this work seemed a story of constant evolution, with shifts of color, rhythm, harmony, volume, texture.  The program notes describe use of a palindrome as a key element, but I was too occupied in the moment to get any sense of shape.

The three works in between were by Gordon Fitzell, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, and Gordon Beeferman.  Fitzell’s Violence (2001) was, to me, a non-violent meditation.  (A sample is available here.)  The Sanchez-Gutierrez Luciernagas [Fireflies] (1998) was a mood portrait of flickering lights exemplifying souls of the murdered residents from a now-deserted Salvadorian village.  Beeferman’s Reliquary (2005) was inspired by the composer’s going through his grandmother’s attic.  This was another work written for eighth blackbird and being given its West Coast premiere.

The group has been selected to serve as music director of the Ojai Festival in two years, and I’m looking forward to hearing their influence on the programs.  They have taste as well as talent.