Music in the Listening Place: Contemporary Choral
Works.
Vanderbilt Chorale conducted by Tucker Biddlecombe. Navona. $14.99.
Lionel Sainsbury: Time of the Comet; Clive
Muncaster: Reflective Thought Patterns; Patricia Julien: Among the Hidden; J.A.
Kawarsky: Fastidious Notes. Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Petr Vronský (Sainsbury,
Julien); Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Ian Winstin
(Muncaster); Jonathan Helton, alto saxophone; Chicago Arts Orchestra conducted
by Javier Mendoza (Kawarsky). Navona. $14.99.
Anthology discs have an inherent weakness
for listeners primarily interested in what music is being performed on a CD:
even when the recordings are carefully curated and assembled with an eye (or an
ear) toward an integrated presentation, the differences among the compositions
increase the likelihood that the audience will enjoy some of the material but
not all of it. This reality can be turned to advantage when introducing
unfamiliar music, by coupling something well-known and likely to be attractive
to listeners with something unknown but complementary. In fact, this is a
frequent approach for introducing contemporary music into recitals and concert
programs. However, when an entire anthology release consists of contemporary
works, matters become more problematic. So one way to handle things is to make
the focus not on the music but on the performers – and that is what Music in the Listening Place, a new
Navona release, does. The CD is really a showcase for the Vanderbilt Chorale,
some individual singers within it, and the ensemble’s conductor, Tucker
Biddlecombe, rather than a recording designed for listeners primarily
interested in composers Daniel Read, Eric Whitacre, Michael Slayton, Maurice
Ravel, Alf Houkum, Eliza Gilkyson, Jonathan Dove and David Dickau, or in the
traditional African song Indodana. The
music of Ravel, far and away the best-known composer here, takes up only six of
the disc’s 66 minutes for a nicely harmonized Trois Chansons. Far more extensive is Dove’s The Passing of the Year, and this is an exceptionally interesting
work: its seven songs are in three sections rather than the expected four that
would correspond to seasons, and the seasonal focus itself is interesting, with
the first section looking forward to summer, the second looking back at its
departure and the coming of autumn, and the third focusing on winter. Dove’s
choice of poets is intriguing as well: he combines William Blake, Emily
Dickinson, George Peele, Thomas Nashe and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The music is
heartfelt if somewhat less compelling than the words and the overall
arrangement of the work – but this is nevertheless a high point of the CD.
Whitacre’s Three Songs of Faith, to
words by e.e. cummings, is also intriguing, with music that effectively expands
upon the poet’s texts. The other pieces on the disc are of less interest:
Read’s Windham, Slayton’s Three Settings of Ezra Pound, Gilkyson’s
Requiem, and Dickau’s If Music Be the Food of Love. But all
the pieces are well-crafted, including the Indodana
arrangement by Michael Barrett and Ralf Schmitt (which includes the African
goblet drum called the djembe). Nevertheless, the primary attraction here is
not so much the music or the poetry, some of it very fine, that underlies it –
the main reason listeners will be attracted to this CD is the quality of the
performances, and the chance to hear some very fine vocalists, as soloists and
in chorus, offering well-constructed, mostly contemporary music.
Another approach to the limitations integral
to anthology discs is, in effect, to ignore them and hope that the selected
works will have enough in common – and in contrast – to intrigue a potential
audience. This is what happens on a Navona recording of music by Lionel Sainsbury, Clive Muncaster, Patricia Julien,
and J. A. Kawarsky. In truth, there is more contrast than commonality among the
four works here, and while it would not be surprising if a listener new to
these composers found something or several somethings to enjoy, it is unlikely
that he or she would find all four pieces on the recording equally worthy. Sainsbury’s
Time of the Comet, despite a title
that could be portentous, is essentially celebratory, having been composed in
1987 in connection with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet. Its essentially
bright and optimistic sound partakes of some of the feelings of old-fashioned
science-fictional predictions of a grand future in space. Muncaster’s Reflective Thought Patterns is, again,
not exactly what one might expect from its title: it refers not to inward contemplation
and reflection, but to a literal reflection in the music – the opening
progresses toward a central section and then reverses so that the conclusion repeats
the start. Effective enough as an intellectual exercise, and featuring some
nice writing for brass and percussion instruments, the work is nevertheless
emotionally rather vapid. Julien’s Among
the Hidden is a quieter, darker piece with some of the repetitiveness of
minimalist music, relieved in the middle by lighter material that soon subsides
back into a kind of crepuscular mood. Kawarsky’s Fastidious Notes, unlike the other music here, is a set of
variations – on a folk song called “Goodbye Old Paint.” There is considerable
cleverness here in the instrumentation, and the grounding in folk music,
although it perhaps inevitably recalls Copland, has a style of its own,
especially in the jazzlike alto saxophone riffs with which some of the material
is decorated. Each of these four works is, of course, a matter of taste, and
the taste required for each of them is quite different. Many listeners who
enjoy the sound of contemporary music will find parts of the disc quite
pleasurable, but as in so many other anthology releases with little genuine connection
among the pieces offered, the whole ends up being somewhat less than the sum of
its parts.
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