Wednesday evening, May 8th at the Christ & St. Stephens Church in New York City, the ACA presented a concert of music by composers of the American Composers Alliance. The works performed were scored for either electronic playback or solo piano.
Pianist Max Lifchitz was the highlight of the evening. Elements of his commanding technical control filtered through into his stage presence as he exuded an aura of confidence and security. His facility for creating a spellbinding mood had the members of the small audience transfixed as he interpreted Raoul Pleskow’s Quatrains for piano. The Quatrains, composed in 1993, are divided into 7 short sections. The work’s mysterious angular melodic lines are often molto cantabile as rich harmonies give textural substance to the work. The work was written for Lifchitz, who premiered it in January of 1994. Following the premiere, the New York Times described the work as "...a tersely expressive neo-Lisztian essay..."
The evening also featured another work written for and played by Lifchitz, the Fantasy Impromptu, composed by Richard Brooks. The work immediately set out to captivate interest with a long passage of mysterious trills, which built audience expectation. The work did not disappoint, as it continued with virtuosic displays and simultaneously maintained a spacious, uncluttered texture, allowing for the music to "breathe." On this meditative arabesque, Brooks states, "It will be apparent that I make gestural references to several composers whose piano music I admire." The Fantasy Impromptu holds true to the composer’s wishes and even has elements of humor as it briefly quotes the opening theme of "Frère Jacques." Recent reflections on performances of this 1982 work describe it as a work utilizing the resources of Octatonicism while at the same time being faithful to tonality.
The concert also featured a variety of electronic works for tape. Composed in February 2002 using the csound program, Hubert Howe’s Cacophony II opened by filling the high ceilings of the church with a set of sustaining drones, which often undulated slowly like the waves of a peaceful ocean. Often interjected were sounds reminiscent of rushing winds. Later in the work, a bit of intensity was lost as the texture became exaggeratingly spacious. This "openness" in the work served as an effective contrast to the continuity of the opening. Fittingly, before the work was to conclude, the intensity was once again resumed. Howe has expertly described the compositional structure of the work by stating, "In Cacophony II, ... there are two different structures of pitches and rhythms. At the low end are the source tones, which provide a continuously evolving musical passage between three and five octaves, and at the high end are filters, which operate on the overtones of the lower sounds and provide their own evolving musical passage..."
Eugene Viola’s work for tape, Your Prayer, provided a contrast to Howe’s electronic composition. Utilized in this work were actual human vocal sounds. Using a Yamaha SY77 synthesizer, peculiar lines of text such as "I love myself so much. There is no one that can love me like me" were constantly distorted in a unique variety of ways. Continuity in musical motion was achieved through the presence of peculiar sustaining tones.
Another electronic composition played earlier in the program was Joel Gressel’s 'In the Throes', composed during the winter of 2001-2002 on his Dell computer. This work differed from the other electronic works in its desire to be more organic in its sound palette. Actual string-like melodies abound in parts of the work as pitched percussion instrument sounds interject to add violent intensity. "'In the Throes' utilizes a 12-tone row." The work’s "overlapping lines often present related set forms in the same rhythm, but at different speeds."
This ACA concert was a prime event just for experiencing new music. The brevity of the works would not tax the patience of any first time listener of the modern repertoire. In addition, where are our younger listeners? Well, that’s a question for another time and another article.