(+++) DOUBLE ABSTRACTIONS

Eric Nathan: Missing Words. Boston Modern Orchestra Project conducted by Gil Rose (I); American Brass Quintet (II); Parry Karp, cello, and Christopher Karp, piano (III); International Contemporary Ensemble conducted by Nicholas DeMaison (IV); Neave Trio (V); Hub New Music (VI). New Focus Recordings. $19.99 (2 CDs).

George Perle: Solos and Duos. Bridge Records. $33.99 (2 CDs).

     Aficionados of modern classical music – whatever the phrase “classical music” means nowadays – need an extra level of commitment to their preferences if they are to enjoy two-CD releases that extend the usual hour-or-so of single-disc offerings to two hours or even more. That is particularly true when all the material on a double-CD release is written by a single composer: anyone who is not strongly interested in that specific person is highly unlikely to find extended release of his or her music enjoyable or engaging. This is even truer than usual in regard to a New Focus Recordings release of the six Missing Words works by Eric Nathan – because to appreciate this recording, it is not only necessary to be interested in Nathan’s music but also crucial to find the thinking of Ben Schott appealing. This is because the entire project is based on a Schott book called Schottenfreude, its title a pun on the famous/notorious German word schadenfreude, meaning the finding of pleasure in another’s misfortune. Even before the music starts, this whole project has become abstruse. Schott’s book is a kind of dictionary of 120 nonexistent German words that, according to Schott (who is British), express the trials, tribulations and oddities of life more effectively than words that do exist. The terms are rendered in quasi-German because of the German language’s penchant for creating compound words to describe much of life (schadenfreude, for example, combines schaden, damage, with freude, joy). So the interested listener – and he or she had better be very interested – starts by understanding the underlying concept of what Nathan is doing with what Schott has done, and then moves into a musical world where Schott’s words are absent (hence the overall title Missing Words, which could also refer to the notion that these words are missing from “real” language despite their supposed descriptive aptness). Nathan’s six works, which contain three to seven movements, are intended as illustrations of specific Schott-created verbiage, so a listener must understand Schott’s intent, learn the title of each movement of each Nathan work, and then listen with an ear toward how effectively the music illustrates the word that does not exist except in Schottenfreude. Anyone who finds this set of mental contortions rather a lot to ask will certainly not want to sit through an hour and a half of Missing Words. For those who do find the whole project congenial, though, there is a lot to enjoy here, although there are also many movements that are merely self-consciously modernistic – or would be if there were any evidence of Nathan being self-conscious about them. For example, the first movement of Missing Words I, titled Eisenbahnscheinbewegung (Railway-Illusion-Motion), sounds like nothing in particular; but the third and last movement of the work, Fingerspitzentanz (Fingertips-Dance), has a pleasantly illustrative and almost elfin quality. The third and last movement of Missing Words II, with the somewhat overdone faux-German title word Brillenbrillanz (Spectacles-Luminosity), has a sonically attractive quality, while the third (and penultimate) movement of Missing Words III, titled Straußmanöver (Ostrich-Maneuver), is amusing in what is almost a Saint-Saëns sense. Missing Words IV, the longest of the six pieces despite being in only three movements, is somewhat on the typical-contemporary-sounds side of things, despite the initial attraction of its first movement, Erkenntnisspaziergang (Cognition-Stroll). In Missing Words V, two of the three movement titles take abstruseness to a new level, one translating as Ludwig’s-Syndrome and one as Watzmann-Delusion. The middle movement, Kissenkühlelabsal (Pillow-Chill-Refreshment), has a more-promising title but no genuine illustrative proclivities. Missing Words VI has the largest number of movements and the three shortest in the whole cycle (each lasting less than 90 seconds). Those three movements are called Witzbeharrsamkeit (Joke-Insistence) and contain deliberately unsubtle references to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, which becomes a kind of leitmotif for the work as a whole. The various performers of all the Missing Words creations seem thoroughly committed to their roles and play with suitable enthusiasm. And there is a kind of earnestness to the whole project even though it is hard to escape the conclusion that it is, seriously, not to be taken too seriously.

     The musical language is more nuanced, and it is applied in somewhat less slapdash fashion, on a two-CD Bridge Records release showcasing solo and two-instrument works by George Perle (1915-2009). The Perle pieces heard here span more than 60 years, from 1943 to 2004, and they are, rather disappointingly, not arranged chronologically, so any sense of stylistic development and of changes in Perle’s approach to solo works and duets is less than apparent. In Perle’s work more than that of many other 20^th-century and 21^st-century composers, a timeline of music is significant for a listener not already familiar with the material, because Perle created his own compositional technique combining twelve-tone approaches with tonality – but did not follow his own precepts constantly or consistently. The result is that some of his music, especially from the 1940s through the 1960s, is more tonal and consonant in sound than his other works, especially the later ones. Structurally, too, Perle worked in varied forms, from comparatively traditional ones that he interpreted to his own liking (sonata form, for example), to descriptive if not quite Impressionistic material, to works whose structure is not readily identifiable. There are mixtures of all these elements on the almost-two-hour-long recording, and it is safe to say that the release, if not really comprehensive, provides such a good cross-section of Perle’s work that anyone unfamiliar with the composer will get a strong sense of his oeuvre here, while anyone already enamored of Perle’s approach will find his or her existing enjoyment reinforced. The sequencing of the music does at least give listeners a chance to hear Perle’s skillful handling of differing instruments. Sonata No. 1 for Solo Violin (1953), played by Alexi Kenney, is in the traditional three movements, but with a third that is almost evanescent at its one-minute duration. The Three Sonatas for Solo Clarinet (1943), played by Charles Neidich, offer contrasting moods: the first inward-looking, the next outgoing, the last essentially lyrical. Sonata for Cello and Piano (1985), performed by Jay Campbell and Conor Hanick, is fairly traditionally structured except insofar as it starts with a cadenza; it is one of Perle’s more-extended pieces and one that, somewhat unusually for this time in his life, treats the instruments in basically conventional (non-extended) ways. Monody II for Double Bass (1962) and Bassoon Music (2004), played respectively by Edwin Barker and Steven Dibner, showcase Perle’s understanding – throughout a four-decade span – of the capabilities of two very different instruments. Nine Bagatelles (1999), performed by pianist Horacio Gutiérrez (for whom the work was written), offers a neatly contrasted set of moods and concludes the first CD. The second disc opens with Hebrew Melodies (1945), its two movements (Psalm 93 and Cantillation) performed with feeling by cellist Jay Campbell. Musical Offerings (1998), played by Leon Fleisher, is a work for left hand alone (Fleisher was unable to use his right hand for many years). This is an occasional work, written in connection with a major dust-up at Tanglewood Music Center that most listeners today will find wholly irrelevant if they know about it at all. As music, these “offerings” combine elements of tone-painting with occasional lyricism and periodic tonal harshness. Sonata quasi una fantasia (1972), with Neidich on clarinet and Michael Brown as pianist, is a single-movement work that contrasts interestingly with Sonata for Solo Cello (1947), played by Campbell: the earlier piece is much more varied and expressive, even though it is the later one that includes special techniques and pushes the instruments to extremes. Lyric Piece for Cello and Piano (1946), played by Campbell with pianist Shirley Perle, is a short and mostly graceful work, while the Three Inventions for Solo Bassoon (1962), performed by Steven Dibner, are highly variegated and skillfully show the wide range of an instrument that is all too often considered limited in scope. The final two works offered on this recording are Sarabande from Solo Partita (1965), played by violinist Curtis Macomber, and Ballade (1981), performed by pianist Richard Goode (for whom this piece was written). The violin work is the fourth movement of a five-movement suite and is notable for its use of ornamentation; the piano piece comes across as a fantasia, packing a great deal of sense and sensibility into nine minutes. The mystery of the arrangement of music on the two CDs is deepened by the fact that the included booklet notes, by Christopher Hailey, discuss all the works chronologically and provide useful perspective on them and on the changes of Perle’s style over time – changes that are frustratingly difficult to absorb by listening to these recordings in the order in which they are presented. The performances themselves, recorded in various venues between 1984 and 2017, are all sensitive to the nuances of Perle’s music and are presented with un-fussy clarity. Perle’s compositions and compositional techniques are certainly not to all tastes, but they are, in the main, effective explorations of the directions in which abstract classical music was going during the latter half of the 20^th century – filtered through the aural thinking of a skilled creator who thoroughly understood the standard ranges and tonal qualities of individual and paired instruments, and who chose sometimes to push beyond the usual while, at other times, showcasing the instruments’ traditional capabilities to good effect.