Review of Concert

Row Twelve presents Putting Back the Rain:
A Concert for Spring

Saturday, April 23, 2005, 7:30 PM
Harvard-Epworth Methodist Church, Cambridge, MA

Sunday, April 24, 2005, 7:30 PM
Harvard Unitarian Church, Harvard, MA

Established in 1988, the Row Twelve group has been quietly giving concerts and commissioning pieces along the fringes of Boston's new music scene for several years. Most of their concerts mix new entries with older items or jazz. Saturday's event paired two recent commissions with jazz fare by Thelonious Monk and Walter Gross.

Asian verse has inspired some of Richard St. Clair's most ambitious efforts. Thus it's no surprise that his Songs from the Chinese, a setting of ten Yuan Dynasty poems scored for voice, flute, contrabass, and piano, is satisfying to hear. One encounters pentatonic touches sprinkled throughout its mildly spiced tonal language, but never to the point of parody. And the wide-ranging textual tone elicits comparably varied approaches to vocal and instrumental writing. Yet there's a charming and heartfelt overall ethos to the cycle that ably binds disparate moods.

If anything, Cross Currents by Greg Steinke exhibits an even more pronounced eclecticism. Third-world timbres, aleatoric passages, jazzy material, microtonal embellishments, harmonies running the gamut from triads to discords, and quoted snatches ranging from Arnold Schoenberg to Carl Stalling are encountered here. But these disparate tendrils are surprisingly well incorporated, not at all seeming a jagged grab-bag of shards; further, they effectively mirror the neo-beat writing of Lawson Fusao Inada recited over the music. It's engaging stuff glowing with profile and personality. And the unusual ensemble (violin, piano, trombone, contrabass, percussion—much of it played by non-percussionists—and flutes both European and Native American) is craftily handled.

Performances varied, but were generally agreeable. Cross Currents was presented with confidence, though the St. Clair seemed under-rehearsed. Of the instrumentalists, flautist Katherine Kleitz and trombonist Seth Hamlin should be singled out for particularly notable efforts. Singer Anne Dixon's smoky voice proved a good fit for the intimate scope of Songs from the Chinese; her intonation was fine and her diction capable. The texts for Steinke's composition were projected with allure and enthusiasm by reciter Karen Henry.

--David Cleary