David Cleary, a full-time employee in Harvard University's Biology Department, is also the restless observer of the new music scene in Boston and other parts of New England. He has been a regular contributor to New Music Connoisseur and to 21st Century Music, as well as other publications, and is a composer with both live performances and CDs to his credit. In order to do his work justice, NMC often slices up the copy he sends us and feeds it equally to both the printed version and our website.
The following group of reviews is somewhat timely, as there is a review of a classic work by the ageless Elliott Carter and the just deceased Ralph Shapey. Be sure to see the print version of the magazine for excellent reviews of works by Tod Machover, Christopher Theofanidis and the aforementioned Mr. Carter plus performances by Ursula Oppens and Rolf Schulte.
Individual movements of Elliott Carter's Symphonia (sum fluxae pretium spei) (1993-96) have been commissioned by the Chicago and Cleveland orchestras and the complete work has received a performance in Britain (and was also recorded)-but tonight's Cambridge-based event was its U.S. premiere. It was without doubt the highlight of this year's local new music scene so far.
Simply put, Symphonia is a masterpiece, one of the major orchestral works of our era, and a brilliant crowning jewel in a career brimming with essential listens. As the title suggests, its layout approximates that of the classic symphony with a few important modifications, most notably an attempt to fuse elements of scherzo and finale into a single closer. The first movement, subtitled "Partita," even contains two contrasting ideas, one dramatic and intense, the other a bit more restrained (if not quite lyric) and punctuated with staccato events. Both ideas are presented in close proximity to each other, though not as traditional sonata-like theme areas. Imbuing the closing movement with buoyant, fleecy material may seem an odd choice to counterbalance the weighty preceding movements, but Carter makes it work well by gradually intertwining heavier, more assertive music as the piece goes along. There is much to admire about the work, including a manner of speech both outgoing and eloquent, formats that are imaginative and well balanced, and scoring both kaleidoscopic and clean. And despite a duration that nears Eroica Symphony dimensions, there's not a dull moment to be encountered.
Conductor James Bolle led the Monadnock Music Festival Orchestra (an entity consisting of this organization's regular performers augmented by Boston and New York freelance stalwarts) in a presentation perfectly combining intelligence, precision, and heart. Lengthy exposed solos were few and far between here, but Heather Taylor (oboe), Nicholas Hart (English horn), Krysia Tripp (piccolo), Richard A. Kelley (trumpet), Ole Bohn (violin), and Robert Black (contrabass) made the most of the opportunities presented.
At performance's end, the audience stood and applauded Carter as he came on stage to take a bow. It was a fitting tribute to a special piece and a masterful composer.
Florestan: I tell you, it's a piano recital.
Eusebius: No, you're quite mistaken -- it's an opera workshop.
Master Raro: Sorry, neither of you are correct. It's both!
Well, so much for speculating on the kind of verbal banter Robert Schumann's famous alter egos might indulge in during this age of television commercials. But there's actually a point to the foregoing, as this unlikely schismatic program pairing was encountered at the most recent concert given by the Collage New Music group. Happily, the two halves complemented each other effectively.
The concert's first part basked in Christopher Oldfather's top-flight keyboard playing. His energetic pianism, marked by a lively tone quality, clean finger work, and sensitive linear differentiation, stood music by Elena Ruehr, Peter Child, and William Albright in good stead. Ruehr's charmingly cheeky Swing Set (2001) employs serial control of pitch while indulging in a tonal ethos that embraces elements of Debussy, Gershwin, boogie-woogie, 1940s swing, and Manuel de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance. If anything, the excerpted selections from Doubles (1999) show Child to be even more eclectic, filching from nearly every composer imaginable; snatches of distorted Messiaen, Ives, Joplin, Chopin, Scarlatti, Ravel, and Mussorgsky (among others) are heard in the work's gestural and harmonic language. But Schumann's influence looms largest, pervading the overall structural organization--in essence, this piece updates the masked-ball-miniature collection idea of Papillions and Carnaval. By themselves, the movements purvey an easy warmth and friendly manner of discourse. And Oldfather's selection of movements resulted in a well-balanced large-scale entity. Albright's Queen of Sheba (1968) is a remarkably eccentric reworking of ragtime's stock in trade, packed with sudden silences, odd modulations, 180 degree shifts in texture and dynamics, curious rhythmic hitches, and audible foot tapping. Oldfather described it as "one of the silliest pieces ever written," and while most listeners will likely agree, it's important to further qualify this by noting that the work is gleefully audacious and great fun to hear.
Edward Cohen's one act opera The Bridal Night (2001) occupied the evening's back half. Based on a Frank O'Connor short story and set in a small Irish coastal village, this is a bleak and tragic slice-of-life tale concerning a disturbed youth's unhealthy obsession with the local schoolteacher. The overall sound world, atmospherically gloomy yet never oppressive, ultimately descends from that of Berg and Schoenberg. An intimate feel pervades the general proceedings, helping keep things on a tellingly personal level. Vocal writing is both declamatory in style and idiomatic in nature. As is typically the case with Cohen's work, this is earnest, sturdy, well crafted stuff - very much enjoyed from this quarter. The performance was excellent; Janet Brown, Janice Felty, David Kravitz, and David Ripley sang with a substantial though never overbearing sound quality and solid diction. Lynn Torgove's stage direction was both economical and effective, making good use of minimalist props and the C. Walsh Theatre's modest stage space. David Hoose adroitly led the vocalists and small accompanying chamber group (a Pierrot configuration with strings expanded to a quartet with percussion added) in a warm, sensitive presentation.
Congratulations to Collage for a fine evening of music-making, one that ranged from operatic breadth to solo keyboard conciseness with ease. On that, everyone can agree.
Composers seem to be living longer these days; Elliott Carter became a nonagenarian a few years ago and Leo Ornstein is fast closing in on 110. Boston's best example of tonmeister longevity would appear to be Arthur Berger, who will turn 90 in 2002. Over the past four years, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) has devoted itself to performing this ageless composer's complete orchestral oeuvre Ð the last installment of which occurred this evening. It proved to be one of many highlights in an excellent concert mostly devoted to music with a New England Conservatory connection.
Serenade Concertante (1944, rev. 1951) and Prelude, Aria, and Waltz for string orchestra (1982, a reworking of the mid-1940s selection Three Pieces for String Orchestra) are rarely heard gems from Berger's neoclassic period. Both are brisk, charming, tautly motivic, Stravinsky-like entries that deserve wider exposure. The former is a concerto grosso cast in an imaginative reworking of sonata form and exhibiting its share of warm depth, while the latter is a set of character pieces that convincingly mixes perkiness and brains.
Of the rest, the most impressive was Lee Hyla's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2001). This splendid piece, while containing stylistic elements typical of its composer, presents them in a new light. Such things as clangorous harmonies, solo lines underscored with drum figures, and music that is by terms placidly hushed and drivingly energetic can be found. But, the presence of triadic verticals, stacked fifth figures (snitched from Berg's violin concerto), and use of full, rather than chamber orchestra backing for a concerto are new elements to Hyla's style. Laura Frautschi performed the challenging virtuoso part wonderfully. One of Hyla's pupils, Curtis Hughes, was the winner of this year's BMOP/NEC student composition contest; his Gestations (1999, rev. 2001) is a most worthy offering. Expressionist in sound and colorful, if not flashy, in scoring, this selection utilizes ostinato fragments and rhythmic verve without overtly evoking Stravinsky. Structurally, it exhibits an intriguing variant on the narrative curve idea, placing its climax early on without seeming premature.
Flyin' Home (1997) by William Thomas McKinley is a fiery toccata that wears a love of Stravinsky, John Adams, and film music nakedly on its sleeve. Sporting a functionally scalar manner of organizing pitches, it's a rousing closer in the same vein as Frank Zappa's G-Spot Tornado and similar pieces. What it lacks in structural tidiness is more than made up for in sheer bubbly elan. In brief, it's irrepressible and irresistible. Ironically, the composer whose name would likely be the most familiar to the average concertgoer produced the night's weakest entry. The Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (1951) by Heitor Villa-Lobos, while a charming showpiece for its soloist, is a sloppy, episodic mess that lacks shape, proportion, and clear relationships between themes. Guitarist Luiz Mantovani, winner of the orchestra's annual concerto competition, overcame an unsteady opening to give an accomplished presentation; his interpretation of the warm slow movement was especially sensitive.
Conductor Gil Rose led the orchestra in a set of fine performances that ranged from introspective sympathy to feisty verve. And thanks go to Rose and his group for championing a fine, infrequently-encountered body of symphonic music written by a composer both aged and accomplished.
The only new music group that can be considered to have attained anything analogous to rock star status is the Kronos Quartet. Their most recent Boston appearance showed them taking this crossover notion very seriously, extending far beyond such obvious trappings as amplification, intricate lighting, and first violinist David Harrington's between-selections patter to color much of the music presented this evening. The program was dominated by brief, punchy arrangements of items that frequently exuded an aroma of ethnic or popular origins.
The best of these bonbons were four transcriptions prepared by Osvaldo Golijov. His versions of Aaj Ki Raat by Rahul Dev Burman (a work from India), Responso by Anibal Troilo (from Argentina), and two Mexican selections, El Sinaloense by Severiano Briseno and Nacho Verduzco by Chalino Sanchez were extremely colorful and imaginative, laden with subtle touches and never settling for easy solutions. Alfred Schnittke's Collected Songs Where Every Verse Is Filled with Grief, arranged by the quartet, proved to be another winner - fully imbued with bleak nobility. While a tad more pedestrian, Sy Johnson's version of Myself when I Am Real (a Charles Mingus improvisation) certainly works well enough. Sensemaya, Silvestre Revueltas's landmark orchestral piece, was played in an unusual arrangement prepared by Stephen Prutsman for string foursome and taped percussion; if anything, it imparted an even heavier dose of grit to this feral work. Requiem for a Dream Suite (transcribed by David Lang), from a film score by Clint Mansell, was the weakest of the lot, a bland, static entity that put an unappealing new age spin on process related idioms. Those audience members who had come hoping to hear one of Kronos's signature Jimi Hendrix encores had to content themselves with a spiffy version of Dick Dale's Miserlou Twist. Pannonia Boundless by Yugoslav composer Aleksandra Vrebalov proved closely related to these items, being essentially a fluffy 20th-century update of Brahms's gypsy-like Hungarian Dances.
In such company, the two substantial selections on the evening's program stood out prominently. Triple Quartet by Steve Reich (scored for three string quartets and presented here in a version for single quartet and tape) is a splendid listen, imparting wonderful variety to its busy process-music-oriented outer movements and exhibiting masterful use of canonic writing in its weighty center section. It stands proudly alongside this composer's finest work.
Sofia Gubaidulina's Quartet No. 4 is a remarkably original composition, unlike anything else your reviewer can ever recall hearing for such an ensemble. Its live players are underscored by prerecorded material consisting largely of strings being rapidly tapped with large rubber mallets, sounding for all the world like whispering balalaikas. The four performers' parts are shot through with col legno, pizzicato, and tremolo figures that echo the taped accompaniment to varying degrees, ultimately foreshadowing real-time re-employment of rubber on string near the end of the work. And this general approach, nicely grounded by said recapitulatory use of material, serves to impart a unique slant on variation technique. It is truly first rate stuff.
Violinists Harrington and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and cellist Jennifer Culp were in fine form, performing with rock-sure left hands and bow arms and putting forth a solidly focused sound quality. The aforementioned pop-derived trappings did not always prove successful, however. The sound system employed produced tinny or raw sonics, curious ensemble balances, and undercurrents of feedback on various occasions, while Larry Neff's intricate and imaginative lighting often proved a distraction from the music rather than an enhancement. Playing great music without frills shows this group to be the stars they are.
This performance occurred on Super Bowl Sunday, and despite the fact that the local pro football team was one of the participating teams, the audience proved sizable.
The best piece on this evening's concert was not even originally scheduled to appear. A Packet for Susan (2000) by Martin Boykan, canceled from this group's November concert because of vocalist illness, received its premiere. It is yet another splendid entity from this composer's late period oeuvre, full of twilight warmth and goodwill. Serial though not astringent in sound (featuring a strong preponderance of perfect fourths in its textures), the work brims with figuration both supple and well crafted and shows off its mezzo-soprano/piano duo to optimal advantage. Singer Pamela Dellal's excellent voice featured burnished low- and mid-range notes, full-throated high pitches, and excellent control in navigating tessituras. Her diction was also very good. Donald Berman provided sensitive support on the piano.
Eric Chasalow's piano trio Yes, I Really Did (1998) is both an eccentric and effective selection. Its use of tonality is striking, surrounding functional triadic progressions with more clangorous items in such a way that the two incongruities melt into each other harmoniously. Chasalow states in the program notes that the material employed is Beethoven-like, and the work for the most part exhibits the older master's intensity and gruffness. It is likely no accident that much of the music here concerns itself with Grosse Fugue style dotted rhythms. Echoes of the piece's fragmented slow introduction recur throughout the prevailing fast tempo material, helping to ground the work structurally. Cyrus Stevens (violin) and Michael Curry (cello) joined Berman to give a fine presentation that stressed this trio's mercurial capriciousness.
The provocatively titled Curriculum Vitae with Time Bomb (1980), a duo for accordion and percussion, shows its composer Lukas Foss in a tail tweaking mood. Much of this odd work suggests parallel universe versions of polka music and rock drummer solo breaks. Fortunately, a rondo-style underpinningÑbizarrely expressed, to be sureÑlends a bit of depth to Foss' merry pranks. Katherine V. Matasy, trading in her trusty clarinet for a squeezebox, teamed with percussionist James Russell Smith to give an agreeably outlandish performance.
In his Requiem, ver.2.001 (2000), Lansing D. McLoskey demonstrates a well-developed ability to push notes around. The work's odd numbered movements are fast in tempo and energetic in feel, echoing Messiaen's jagged octaves from Quartet for the End of Time in the curtain raiser. But movements two and four are extremely still and hushed, consisting primarily of colorless, static chords possessing minimal direction; sorry to say, it's a good example of this piece's shortness of depth and overall slickness. The ensemble's Pierrot plus percussion core, nimbly led by Michael Adelson, gave it well.
Scored for flute and string trio, Tientos (1991) by Ian Krouse pleased least. In its use of ostinati and pandiatonic tonality, kinship to Stravinsky can be noted - but this selection's Spanish style gestures (derived from flamenco models) and prevalent use of aleatoric techniques help minimize any feelings of style study. But regrettably, the work is too long, lacks an overarching structure, and is shot through with melodic ideas and harmonic unfolding that are flat and shapeless. It did prove to be an able vehicle for Sue-Ellen Herschman-Tcherepnin's fine flute playing, though. Violist Anne Black joined Stevens and Curry in support.
While not all the composers heard this evening acquitted themselves as well as the New England Patriots (who won the Super Bowl), the best of them produced music worth tearing oneself away from the television.
The featured composer at this concert was longtime Chicago iconoclast Ralph Shapey. Nearly all the music programmed here was composed during the early 1960s, a particularly fertile period for him. The level of listening pleasure encountered varied widely, with strong selections regrettably being outnumbered by less successful ones.
Of the four pieces performed this evening the best by far was Discourse for Four Instruments (1961). Unlike the other entries heard, one encountered a certain amount of open space and audible differentiation of voice (and therefore a lucid feel for medium-range contour) in the unfolding. Rather than coming off as elements of a barnyard free-for-all, the intense gestures find room for confident self-assertion. And the internal workings that make things tick, such as the staggered ostinato overlay in the piece's middle movement, are given a chance to exert their magic. Excellent stuff indeed.
Songs of Life (1988), only the first two of which were presented, exhibits certain problems: texts are not often set in an intelligible, syntactical way and accompaniments tend to be opaque and overwritten, sometimes swamping the singer. The coda section to these two songs also comes across as harmonically inconsistent, its sudden employment of planed parallel fifths seeming to have little to do with the work's densely dissonant main body. However, the brawny music heard here does help mirror Shapey's conception of the text's vitality. String Quartet No. 6 (1963) and Piece for Violin and Eight Instruments (1962), while possessing certain attributes, come across as knotted thickets of thorny East-coast counterpoint separated by sections of static, suspended music. True enough, the quartet exhibits integrity in its building materials by assigning (in Carter-like fashion) discrete motifs to each of its players, and both pieces show careful attention to long-range architecture, in both cases setting up balanced arch formats. But it's just not enough to tempt this listener back for a second hearing.
No hedging needs to be made with regard to the performances, however: all were first-rate. From the large contingent of players heard, one should cite the hearty-sounding Discourse foursome of John Holland (violin), Alicia DiDonato (flute), Michael Norsworthy (clarinet), and Stephen Drury (piano), as well as soprano Monica Garcia-Albea's excellent singing in Songs; and David Fulmer's inspired solo violin playing in Piece (backed commandingly by Orlando Cela's group, the Soria Chamber Players). A series of taped interviews with the plain speaking composer (unable to attend for health reasons), which were scattered among the selections, was a further asset.