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CONTENTSIN THIS ISSUE
..., 3 An Interview with George Walker, Duffie, 5 LEGATO
NOTES LIVE EVENTS
Scelsi:
“All of the Above” Pehrson, 15 DOTTED NOTES
from… SPEAKING OUT RECORDINGS CDS
IN BRIEF & RECENT RELEASES THE
PUZZLE CORNER: COMPOSER INDEX, 26 BULLETIN BOARD, 27 WEB SUPPLEMENTGala AnnouncementFestivalDresdener Tage des Zeitgenössisches Musik |
Setting the Themesby BLC ©2004 ‘Piping the Earth—Orchestral Music of Judith SHATIN.’ Title Work; Stringing the Bow; Ruah; The Passion of St. Cecilia. Gayle Martin Henry, piano; Renee Siebert, flute; Joel Suben/ Moravian Philharmonic; Robert Black/ Prism Chamber Orch. Capstone CPS-8727 (TT=ca 69’) Flutist and unofficial general manager Pat Spencer of the Da Capo Chamber Players introduced us to the music of Judith Shatin in New York in February of 1997. On that occasion we wrote, "... one hears nuances that are rare in today’s interactive electronics and, though Ms. Shatin’s music is highly chromatic, it has its own personality." We were speaking of her composition for solo flute and electronics, Kairos, a work inspired by Greek mythology.
We often regret things said in print but need not take that particular assessment back. Judith Shatin has a strong musical personality, an assurance made firmer by this CD; it’s a major release. We had held an incorrect notion that she was an electronics specialist. Not the case. She may head such a program at the University of Virginia, but her compositional range is hardly narrowed by that label. The opening work affirms her unique attraction for the flute and winds in general—Shatin is an accomplished flutist—for the timbres drawn from them have a visceral effect on the listener. The title, Piping the Earth, inspired by an ancient Chinese text, refers to the wind as both changing and fundamentally unchanging force. The work is highly nuanced; nary a single phrase is repeated verbatim. The whimsical wind, first heard as an ominously approaching drone in the distance, suddenly blusters into high energy and goes through a whole array of musical forms. Snatches of a winsome song can be heard, then a short scherzo, march-like meandering rhythms, all interrupted by climactic moments until the wind goes wild and performs what suggests an awesome dance of death. No, this is not program music, but music that allows the imagination to have a field day. Also inspired by the wind, but in a much more exalted sense is her three-movement opus for flute and chamber orchestra. The Hebrew word ruah (guttural aitch) is interpreted as breath, wind, air, breeze, blowing, animal life, spirit, ghost, soul, mind, intellect and passion in English. (In many languages breath and spirit have the same meaning.) The composer was moved by the Cabbalistic interpretation, which sees ruah as, roughly speaking, the force that holds body and soul together. The flutist begins a long, soaring solo passage before being confronted by the orchestra, sometimes with harsh chromatic chords, but at other times with empathy, as when other winds float in consonant harmony with it. Despite the challenges, the instrument continues its passage with head held high until, in the final movement, there is a “furious spin through space.” In the last bars the journey reaches home with the spirit surviving and coming to peace and rest. A much fiercer battle is portrayed in The Passion of St. Cecilia. This Cecilia is not in the same image celebrated by Purcell and Handel. Scholars now consider the designation, patron saint of music, as based on a false notion. She is the early Christian martyr who, according to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, was condemned by the Roman prefect in the fifth century C.E. because of her conversion of many to Christianity. She was mortally wounded by three blows of the executioner’s sword, heard unmistakably in the final chords of the work. |
