New Music for Flute, Viola and Harp—Works by
Stephen Paulus, Andrew Boysen Jr., Libby Larsen, Donald Harris, Dale Warland,
and Stephan Main. Cosmos Trio (Katherine Borst Jones, flute; Mary E.M. Harris, viola;
Jeanne Norton, harp). MSR Classics. $12.95.
Zhen Chen: New Music for Pipa and Western
Ensembles.
Lin Ma, pipa; Zhen Chen, piano; Cho-Liang Lin and Elmira Darvarova, violins;
David Geber, cello; Liang Wang, oboe; Milan Milisavijević, viola; Howard Wall,
horn. Navona. $14.99.
Moto Bello: Contemporary Music for Violin, Cello
and Piano.
Trio Casals (Sylvia Ahramjian, violin; Ovidiu Marinescu, cello; Anna Kislitsyna,
piano). Navona. $14.99 (2 CDs).
There are some CDs that are enjoyable to
hear not because of the specific music they contain but because of the
instrumental combination used to produce that music. Unusual instrumental
mixtures, or ensemble works incorporating instruments with which many listeners
may be unfamiliar, can make for quite pleasant listening even if the specific
compositions presented are of interest more because of the way they are
tailored to the instruments than because of any inherent communicative power.
The entire MSR Classics CD featuring the Cosmos Trio is a sound-above-all
example, with lovely, sometimes exquisite blending of the unusual mixture of
flute, viola and harp throughout in an offering of six world première
recordings. The pieces heard here are uniformly well-constructed and seem to
lie ideally on and among the instruments – it is no surprise that the Cosmos
Trio commissioned and/or gave the first performances of much of this material.
All the works were written in the 21st century, and all the composers
appear quite comfortable producing tuneful, largely tonal material in which the
instruments blend to very fine effect. Petite
Suite (2007) by Stephan Paulus (1949-2014) is mostly bright and
open-sounding, the “air of melancholy” in the second movement sounding more wistful
than depressive. Beautiful, Sweet,
Delicate (2006) by Andrew Boysen Jr. (born 1968) lives up to its title, and
in particular to the delicacy of which these instruments are capable. Trio in Four Movements (2006) by Libby
Larsen (born 1950) and Columbus Triptich
(2006) by Stephen Main (born 1963) both give individual instruments multiple
opportunities to shine in solo passages – without, however, losing sight of the
effectiveness with which flute, viola and harp can be balanced in light of
their ranges and tonal qualities. Arise
My Love (2007) by Dale Warland (born 1932) is a short and affecting work
with more depth of feeling than several others here. And Letter from Home (2011/2013) by Donald Harris (1931-2016) offers an
unusual sonic combination by including the voices of not one but two sopranos
(Lucy Shelton and Christine Shumway Mortine) with the three gentle instruments
– the result being on the somewhat plaintive side, albeit without lacking
beauty. This is a disc for those interested in an unusual sonic combination as
it is handled by adept composers and first-rate performers, and although there
is nothing particularly profound in the material, there is nothing that is less
than engaging to the ear.
The sound of the pipa, a popular
four-stringed Chinese lute with 12 to 26 frets, may be less immediately
appealing to listeners on a new Navona CD featuring music written by Zhan Chen.
The pipa has been in use for thousands of years but remains infrequently heard
in Western music (although variations on the instrument are popular throughout
Asia). What Chen does here is to meld the pipa with various Western
instruments, with results that range from startling to surprisingly affecting.
The CD’s very opening, when a horn intones part of Dvořak’s Symphony “From the
New World,” falls into the “startling” category. In this piece, Arrival, the pipa and piano – the only
instruments heard in every single piece on the disc – are joined by violin,
cello and oboe as well as horn. Instrumental combinations are quite varied
here: Good Morning, the City uses
oboe and cello; Dancing in the Rain
includes string quartet; On the Roof
has a violin and cello; Lost in the
Midtown is only for pipa and piano; Lullaby
again brings in the string quartet; Encounter
has a cello; Cocktails is another
work just for pipa and piano; Walk on the
Fifth is especially interesting in its inclusion of soprano saxophone and
drums; and Harmony, the final work on
the disc, uses the string quartet plus horn. Much of the music is delicate,
wistful and meandering, but not all: Dancing
in the Rain is quite lively, Lost in
the Midtown has tango elements, and Walk
on the Fifth is jazz-inflected and bouncily involving. There is an
underlying story for all the music, having to do with the immigrant experience
in the urban United States, but, intriguingly, the music does not really need
that “framing tale” to have its effect (except, perhaps, to understand what the
touch of Dvořak is doing at the start). The issue for listeners here has to do
with the sheer amount of pipa music offered on the CD. Despite its appearance,
the pipa is not a lute in the Western
sense, and its sound is (to Western ears) somewhat harsher and more penetrating
than that of the lute of Dowland’s time. The CD is not a long one – only about
37 minutes – and the instrumental variations plus the changes of tempo and mood
help carry it along. Nevertheless, the centrality of the pipa here quickly
becomes a matter of taste, and not necessarily a taste that listeners
unfamiliar with Chinese music will have acquired. Of course, some sense of
discomfort and difficulty “fitting in” is part of the immigrant experience and
therefore melds well with the concept of this CD. But to be heard simply as
music, rather than as a soundtrack, the disc needs to stand on its own. It
does, but the effectiveness with which it does will vary quite a bit from
listener to listener.
There is even more variability of response
likely to result from listening to another Navona release, this one a two-CD
set of pieces by 10 contemporary composers. Here the instruments are
conventional – violin, cello and piano – but the composers’ use of them differs
considerably from work to work. This means that few listeners are likely to
find everything in the release congenial, although many people who enjoy
contemporary chamber music will discover at least a work or two here that they
would like to hear again and again. Woman
A/Part by Diane Jones, intended to reflect a series of photographs, is an
ostinato/crescendo mixture. Somewhere
between D and C# by Beth Mehocic tries to translate a poem by the composer
into a sort of tone poem. Habanera by
David Nisbet Stewart is a short interpretation of habanera rhythm. The
three-movement Lines, Hockets, and Riffs
by Sidney Bailin mainly has the three instruments pursuing their own lines and
only occasionally forming an ensemble, “hockets” being melodic phrases split
between instruments. Ocean Air by L.
Peter Deutsch, the last work on the first CD, seeks to portray “Afternoon,”
“Evening” and “Morning” during an ocean voyage, using contemporary musical
language rather than Impressionism. On the second CD, Ondine by Giovanni Piacentini is not about the water nymph per se but instead is intended to
represent a photo of a sculpture of Ondine, using a combination of shimmering
and dissonant sounds. Nightfall by
Adrienne Albert is dark and rather dour in effect. Palette No. 1 by Clive Muncaster is an episodic exploration of
contrasting sonorities. Solo la Sombra
by Joanne D. Carey is a song transcription with contrasting moods. And Imagined/Remembered by Bruce Babcock,
with three traditionally labeled movements (“Allegro,” “Lento,” “Presto”), uses
the cello particularly effectively both in establishing melodic lines and in
prompting, in the finale, material of considerable virtuosity. There is really
very little in common among the works here. The two CDs are in effect a sampler
of contemporary piano-trio music and are therefore discs that will be of
interest mostly to listeners who would like to experience variegated 21st-century
material whose basic sonic composition is its primary attraction.
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