(+++) CHAMBER VERSIONS

Robert Mueller: Chamber Music. Theresa Delaplain, oboe; Ronda Mains, flute; Suzanne McGowen, English horn; Leigh Muñoz and Lia Uribe, bassoon; Eric Troiano, alto saxophone; Er-Gene Kahng and Tara Mueller, violin; Timothy MacDuff, viola; Dominic Na, violoncello; Tomoko Kashiwagi and Robert Mueller, piano. MSR Classics. $19.95 (2 CDs).

Julia Werntz: Chamber Music. Gabriela Diaz, violin; David Russell, cello; John McDonald, piano; Stephanie Lamprea and Rose Hegele, sopranos; Katherine Growdon, mezzo-soprano; Kevin Price, bass clarinet and clarinet; Anna Griffis, viola; Ludovico Ensemble with John McDonald, piano, conducted by Jeffrey Means. New Focus Recordings. $16.99.

John Liberatore: Chamber Music. Zohn Collective conducted by Tim Weiss. New Focus Recordings. $16.99.

     The number of instruments used in chamber music may be small, but the expressive possibilities are large. And new ones are constantly being developed (or perhaps it is better to say “discovered”) by some contemporary composers, even as others continue to produce chamber music in more tried-and-true ways. A generous helping of world première recordings of works by Robert Mueller (born 1958), on a two-disc MSR Classics release, shows Mueller looking for a blend of modern techniques and sound with long-established forms of emotional communication. The first CD opens with Emblems (2008), for oboe, violin, viola and cello, which has both pointillist and lyrical elements. La Pointe au Portail (2002), for oboe, cello and piano, effectively builds piano and woodwind elements on the cello’s lower range. The three movements of Deserted Paths (2014), for flute, oboe and piano, are interesting delineations of imagined excursions to a hayfield (with the flute in focus), mountains (the oboe), and an old cemetery (the piano in emphatic/dissonant mode). Fields on the Edge of Forever (2002), for violin, alto saxophone and piano, is an extended, atmospheric single-movement piece that does not really sustain for its full 15-minute length but that contains absorbing elements here and there. Dream Gardens (2011), which concludes this disc, is for oboe, English horn and two bassoons, and offers a particularly pleasant combination of instruments – one not often heard – in a piece that mixes bubbly elements with more-thoughtful ones. The second CD opens with a string quartet that Mueller calls “From the Other Side” (1990/2018), whose four movements are intended as a tribute to and commentary on Shostakovich. The specific date associated with each movement will have meaning only to listeners familiar with Shostakovich’s life, and the work as a whole benefits enormously from knowing the earlier composer’s style as well. The first movement focuses on 1936, when Pravda printed an article referring to Shostakovich’s work as “chaos instead of music.” The second movement relates to 1948, when Shostakovich was formally declared an “enemy of the people.” The third movement, a pizzicato-permeated scherzo ironically called “Sweet Dreams,” focuses on 1917 and the Communist revolution. And the finale relates to 1975, the year Shostakovich died. The quartet is thus rich in historical resonance and “tribute” elements, but it is so focused on extramusical material that it is difficult to get its true effect without knowing everything on which it is commenting. This is well-crafted music that expects a bit too much from listeners who are not fully familiar with its reasons for being. Next on this CD is Mantra (1999), for oboe and piano, whose primary impression is one of contemplative delicacy. This is followed by Rhapsodies and Interludes (2012), for flute, oboe and bassoon, whose combination of winds is done with the same skill that Mueller shows in Dream Gardens, although here in a darker and more-serious vein. The disc concludes with Echo Fantasy (1989/2018) for violin, cello and piano, which turns the intensity a notch or two higher but could use a bit more lyrical leavening to sustain its 11 minutes effectively. This release shows throughout that Mueller is highly skilled at composing for various chamber-size combinations and using them for a wide variety of expressive purposes. If not all the works come across equally well, all of them do contain elements that are very well thought through and mixed with considerable skill.

     The time period of the compositions is the same, and there is plenty of overlap in instrumentation, but the sounds of the works are very different on a New Focus Recordings release of five pieces by Julia Werntz. This is because Werntz’ compositional style relies on the use of microtones, and listeners not already attuned (so to speak) to microtonal compositions will need to expand their auditory perception in order to absorb what Werntz is trying to communicate. The titles of Werntz’ pieces, and of their individual movements, are also part of the overall perceptual experience. Thus, Five Vignettes from the Garden by the Sea (2009), for violin and cello, is an exercise in Impressionism from a microtonal perspective. And Werntz’ use of string techniques, such as pizzicato in the movement called “We Eat Figs,” is quite different from Mueller’s in his string quartet. Listeners who are able to relate the sounds to movement titles such as “The Sea Changes in the Afternoon” and “A Shield Bug Clings to the Tree for Hours” will get the most from this piece. Next on the CD is the brief piano solo Tantrum (2001), which – again – needs listeners to understand its underlying structural premise in order to get the most of it: instead of microtones, this work is based on twelvetone techniques, but using a 13-note row. Next is Songs of Thumbelina (2014), one of those reinterpretation-of-a-classic concepts whose two movements – for soprano with bass clarinet/clarinet and viola – use Hans Christian Andersen’s tale as a jumping-off point for consideration of much more modern and troubling concepts than Andersen ever intended, through poetry by Dana Dalton. This is followed by Flying, Nesting, Calling (2016), whose overall title includes the one-word titles of each of its three movements. Birds are the stated inspiration for this work, but there is little that takes flight or builds nests in it – although the short third movement does contain elements of some very strange sort-of bird calls. Even shorter than this are most of the movements of Kaspoleo Melea (2018), in which two sopranos and a mezzo-soprano whisper, yell and speak ancient Greek fragments by Sappho and Plato. Werntz combines the women’s voices skillfully and more interestingly than she mixes the sounds of instruments in the other works here. Language issues aside, this is an interesting-sounding piece, helped by its brevity: three movements are under two minutes each and the fourth lasts two-and-a-half. The entire disc is only 45 minutes long, more than enough time for listeners to decide whether Werntz’ approach to chamber composition is one they find congenial enough to re-experience.

     The four pieces on another New Focus Recordings CD, this one featuring music of John Liberatore (born 1984), are not microtonal, but they share some sensibilities with Werntz’ work. Just as one Werntz piece is built on words, so is one by Liberatore: Hold Back Thy Hours, which features tenor Zach Finkelstein and a 14-player version of the nine-member Zohn Collective, conducted by Tim Weiss. The four fragments here do not reach as far back in time as the fragments used by Werntz: Liberatore’s are drawn from the 17^th century. What is interesting in this work is the way Liberatore seems to echo musical forms of the time period of the words without ever creating those forms explicitly. In fact, the sound of all four pieces is distinctly modern, but still reflective of (and commenting upon) earlier approaches to vocal music. For example, the words “gentle river” are sung and then echoed in the same rhythmic pattern by instruments – then they are sung again and followed by clamorous commentary that is anything but gentle. Liberatore is willing to allow some emotional material to creep in at times, notably in the third and longest of the four movements, “violets pluck’d.” However, the overall sound, especially in its intensely percussive elements, is definitely contemporary. This CD opens with A Very Star-Like Start, also presented by the Zohn Collective under Weiss. The work is a pleasant-enough mixture of mostly percussive effects with some woodwind touches dancing among them (or it may be the other way around). This is followed by Gilded Tree, a four-movement suite for solo flute (played by Molly Barth) that has one of those complicated-genesis origins that it is unreasonable to expect audiences to know but that is necessary for full understanding and appreciation of the work. In this case, the piece was inspired by poetry by Randall Potts, who in turn was inspired by multimedia sculptures created by Esther Traugot, who (for good measure) created the cover image for this CD. All these self-referential self-references will be unknown to most audiences, for which the question will be whether a 15-minute piece for solo flute sustains enough interest to be worth hearing and, more important, hearing more than once. Liberatore certainly deserves credit for the quality of his flute writing: he puts the instrument and Barth through their paces attentively, without trying to transform the flute into something significantly different from what it inherently is. A wide range of technique is needed for this piece, which Barth handles admirably, and if the work as a whole does not quite preserve a high level of interest throughout, it is more than intermittently involving and will be of particular interest to flautists. The other piece on this disc is the eight-movement Catch Somewhere for guitar (Dieter Hennings), prepared piano (Daniel Pesca), and percussion (Paul Vaillancourt). Poetry inspires this work as well – in this case, the Walt Whitman “A Noiseless Patient Spider.” The movements have titles taken from Whitman’s poem, and those words will somewhat help listeners follow what Liberatore is trying to communicate; nevertheless, without solid knowledge of the underlying poetry, the piece is less than fully comprehensible. Whitman created a parallel between the spider’s web-weaving and the human creative process; Liberatore tries to weave a musical web encompassing both human creativity and the spider’s constructive instincts. Again, without familiarity with the basis of Catch Somewhere, the message is less than clear. Structurally, the percussive elements of all the instruments are brought to the fore again and again; and there are some eerie portions (in “surrounded, detached”) and some unexpectedly rhythmic ones (in “little promontory”). The longest movement, and the only one whose title starts with a capital letter, is “O my soul,” and here the guitar is in the forefront, delivering a level of emotional connection that the other instruments never do. But this movement is less aurally intriguing than the penultimate one, “filament, filament, filament,” and the final “catch somewhere,” both of which bury expressiveness within virtuosic displays. Like the other pieces on this disc, this one is well-constructed and creates a sound world that is often intriguing to visit, if not one in which listeners will necessarily want to dwell for an extended time period. Liberatore’s approach to chamber music shows a strong predisposition to shorter forms – the 65-minute disc includes 17 tracks – and a willingness to look for the sorts of emotional connections that many contemporary composers seem to view with disdain. However, Liberatore’s pieces tend to require listeners to know and understand their genesis for full appreciation to be possible. Listening to this music without knowledge of its underlying reasons for being is much less rewarding than hearing it with a thorough comprehension of Liberatore’s rationale for creating it.