(+++) OF SOUND AND NATURE

Gavin Bryars: A Native Hill. The Crossing conducted by Donald Nally. Navona. $14.99.

Carl Vollrath: Five Songs on the Text of William Blake; Love Songs; Variations in Verse–Rural Poems. Aliana de la Guardia, mezzo-soprano; Emalie Savoy, soprano; Yoko Hagino and Nathan Brandwein, piano; Timothy Phillips, clarinet; Philipp Stäudlin, saxophone. Navona. $14.99.

     There is nothing new about poets and composers exploring nature’s wonders and challenges, but many contemporary creators tend to bring a greater sense of urgency to the topic than prior ones did, given the vastly increased urbanization of humanity and the many threats to the natural world from human and other sources. Two new Navona discs feature composers tackling matters of nature in different ways and mostly from different angles. Gavin Bryars’ A Native Hill is a very extended (more than hour-long) a cappella cantata based on words by Wendell Berry (born 1934) and written specifically for The Crossing, the vocal group that performs it on this CD. Although the work is “much of a muchness” and does not really sustain at its full length – even voices as good as these tend toward a kind of aural monochromaticism after a while – it has many highly intriguing elements and will certainly interest performers and listeners seeking an experience somewhat akin to that of Henry David Thoreau, but updated for more-recent times. There are 12 sections in A Native Hill, with Berry’s words – prose, not poetry, although they are oftentimes poetic – detailing rural existence and its minutiae and also speculating on how the simplicity of nature reflects (and reflects on) the complexity of human life in general. This is thus a not-atypical philosophical study of how nature and human life intersect, interact, complement each other and are sometimes at odds. It is hard not to accept the underpinning and sought meaning of phrases such as, “when the mind wanders rather than the feet, one returns to the old route,” and “the streams are great collectors of comings and goings.” However, much of the pleasure of this recording comes from the sheer sound of The Crossing under Donald Nally, not (or not solely) from Berry’s words. Bryars (born 1943) wrote A Native Hill not only for the ensemble but also for specific voices within it, and his exquisite sensitivity to individual as well as grouped vocal performance shows through again and again. Bryars does not fear simplicity or tonality, and many sections of the work have a churchlike feeling about them – again, something not out of keeping with typical “nature’s wonders” music. But Bryars also knows when to sprinkle contemporary techniques and sounds in this music, from occasional humming and whistling to a highly chromatic opening of the final section, “At Peace,” which only gradually resolves into a feeling that matches the segment’s title. An hour-plus of unaccompanied vocal music setting words from a single essay is quite a bit by any standards, no matter how well-meaning Berry’s words and Bryars’ settings of them may be. A Native Hill is an immersive experience in many ways, not one that will fully engage many audiences – even very well-meaning ones – but one that will appeal strongly to lovers not only of the natural world but also of sensitively designed and characterized musical interpretations and explications of it.

     One of the three works by Carl Vollrath (born 1931) on a second Navona release has some parallels with A Native Hill. This is Variations in Verse–Rural Poems to words by John Gracen Brown (born 1936). This too is a lengthy series of movements – 14 of them – but most individual ones are quite short, so the whole collection lasts just a bit more than half as long as does Bryars’ work. Brown’s words are poetry rather than prose, so they come by some of their expressive effects naturally through the process of poetic creativity; and Vollrath sets them for a single voice (mezzo-soprano Aliana de la Guardia) and the interesting accompaniment of piano (Yoko Hagino) and saxophone (Philipp Stäudlin). The result is a kind of pervasive “poetic melancholy” throughout the cycle, with rather less of a philosophical overlay than in Bryars’ work and considerably greater use of modern compositional techniques, notably including dissonance (although most often resolved to consonance). The expressiveness of the music is tied, again and again, to specific sylvan scenes, from “Early Spring” to “The Coming of a Rainstorm,” from “Night Is Coming” to “Walk at Twilight.” There is certainly room here for some philosophical musings, notably in the final two settings, “On Leaving a Place in the Woods” and “Oh the Sky Is Deep Tonight.” But Vollrath’s work is more a piece of impressionism than one seeking symbolism beneath the natural scenes. The other two cycles on this CD focus, respectively, on human concerns and beyond them. Love Songs sets seven works by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), a popular choice among composers seeking the bittersweet and attracted not only by Teasdale’s words but also by her tragic life, including her suicide two years after that of former lover and fellow poet Vachel Lindsay. Vollrath has Teasdale’s poems interpreted by soprano (Emalie Savoy), clarinet (Timothy Phillips), and piano (Nathan Brandwein) – and just as the inclusion of saxophone in the Brown cycle produces a dark and introverted overall tone, so the use of clarinet lends additional expressivity and occasional plaintiveness to a collection that includes “Barter,” “Faults,” “Child, Child,” “After Love,” “Gifts,” “Dusk in War Time,” and “Joy.” The cycle is effective – but the most interesting music on this disc features only mezzo-soprano (de la Guardia) and piano (Hagino), and uses the oldest words of all. This is Five Songs on the Text of William Blake, whose title interestingly does not say “texts,” thereby pointing to the notion that all the poetry of Blake (1757-1827) was somehow part of the same overarching theme. This is not far from the truth: Blake’s religious/spiritual mysticism, and his repeated use of simple language and extremely naïve scene-setting as a gateway to deep philosophical thoughts, are characteristic of all his poetic work (and indeed of his art, which is as remarkable and affecting as his poetry). It is in Blake that the nature focus of Brown and the human focus of Teasdale are combined – or were combined, since he predated them both. Again and again Blake brings a message of disappointment that at times devolves into despair: the “scorn” in “The Wild Flowers Song,” the too-intense seeking of joy in “Eternity,” the fleeing heavenly visitor that returns too late in “The Angel,” the “blind hand” of destruction in “The Fly,” the “invisible worm” that brings death to “The Sick Rose” – these are the feelings of the five poems set by Vollrath, all of which are handled with care and sensitivity by composer and performers alike. Like the Bryars disc, this one of Vollrath’s music will most appeal to a somewhat specialized audience, but will bring considerable pleasure through its thoughtfulness to lovers of contemporary settings of a wide variety of words with considerable variations in meaning and expressiveness.