(+++) SOUNDS OF NOW

Russell Platt: Songs and Chamber Music. Paul Appleby, tenor; Myra Huang, piano; Peter Kolkay, bassoon; DuoKrom (Molly Barth, alto flute; Inés Voglar Belgique, violin); Amy Dorfman, piano; Borromeo String Quartet. Bridge Records. $16.99. 

Wang Lu: Surge; Voices of the Orchard; Joseph Butch Rovan: Scattering; Anthony Cheung: Volta; Eric Nathan: In Between II. Boston Modern Orchestra Project conducted by Gil Rose. New Focus Recordings. $18.99. 

Sebastian Zhang: White Socks?!; Stuart Beatch: on queer survival; Aaryn S. Ricucci-Hill: Queer Turquoise; Darius D. Edwards: Where Will My Flowers Go?; Jennifer Higdon: Echo Dash; Xenia St. Charles Iris Llyllyth: Close your eyes, if you can; Spencer Arias: You, Me, Us. Nick May, soprano and alto saxophones; Alex Siu Lun Li, piano. Neuma Records. $15. 

     Given the fact that we are now one-quarter of the way through the 21^st century, it is no surprise that recordings featuring recently composed works are becoming increasingly common. But there remains an element of discovery for most such releases, given the comparative unfamiliarity of audiences with the proliferation of contemporary composers and their many and varied approaches to musical creativity. Some modern creators retain a strong sense of history and a well-formed ability to work within established forms while putting their own stamp on their material. One such is Russell Platt (born 1965), some of whose 21^st-century vocal and instrumental music is now available from Bridge Records. The songs here – two individual ones and one four-song cycle – were composed for tenor Paul Appleby, who performs them with style and a clear awareness of the way in which Platt combines respect for traditional forms with a harmonic language mixing post-Romantic and minimalist elements. Ably accompanied by pianist Myra Huang, Appleby brings sensitivity and a fine ability to keep the words  understandable to After Apple-Picking (2021; words by Robert Frost), Sonnet (2014; words by Elizabeth Bishop), and the four Paul Muldoon Songs. The Muldoon cycle dates to 2002 in the form heard here, but was originally written in 1992 – one of only two works on this disc with origins before the current century. The other such piece is the short Madrigal for alto flute and violin, which dates to 2022 in this form but originated in 1991. A quiet, atmospheric work in which the flute (played by Molly Barth) floats above a soundscape delineated by the violin (Inés Voglar Belgique), this piece contrasts interestingly with Sunday Variations (2022) for solo bassoon (Peter Kolkay), an equally short offering that mixes aural pointillism with more-fluid material. Of greater extent and depth is Memoir for flute and piano (2010), performed by Barth with pianist Amy Dorfman, which has more of the dissonant sound and disconnectedness of structure that audiences have come to expect in recent music – although there is room here for some lyricism as well. The most extended work on the CD is the seven-movement string quartet called Mountain Interval (2014-2016) – whose opening Introduzione immediately announces its contemporary bona fides through dissonant sound, disconnected melodic fragments, and wide-ranging thematic material. But warmth is never distant in Platt’s chamber works on this release: the second movement, The Pasture, is lyrical (if scarcely sweet) in its deliberate pace and Copland-like scene painting, and other movements pay direct tribute to Frost poems even without those works’ actual words. The brightly propulsive Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, with its occasional exclamatory dissonances, is a highlight, while …It Runs Unbridled Off Its Course (with the ellipsis in the movement’s title) certainly puts the Borromeo String Quartet through its paces before the concluding Under the Sunset Far into Vermont – the longest movement – reestablishes a sense of dissonant modernism to round off the entire work. Platt’s pieces here, both vocal and instrumental, are all well-made and respectful of tradition. Although not highly innovative, they are crafted in such a way as to give familiar forms some up-to-date window dressing that gives them impact and will make them attractive to listeners with an interest in smaller-scale works of the current century. 

     Like many of today’s composers, Platt is an academic: he is on the faculty of the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music. Four other university-affiliated composers – all at Brown University – showcase some contemporary works for larger forces on a New Focus Recordings release. Two of the pieces on the disc are by Wang Lu (born 1982). The opening Surge brings up-to-date sensibilities to the concept of an orchestral curtain-raiser. There is plenty of sound and fury throughout, with emphatic full-orchestra swells contrasted with more-modest material. The work is performative and not wholly convincing, but showcases Lu’s ability to handle large instrumental forces. Voices of the Orchard, a brief suite adapted by Lu form his chamber opera The Beekeeper, has greater feeling and subtlety, with well-made contrasts between brighter rhythmic material and a contrasting darker undercurrent. Scattering by Joseph Butch Rovan (born 1959) is a rather peculiar experimental work that functions by having the conductor, Gil Rose, wear a wrist controller that calls up electronic sounds based on his hand movements. Technology aside, the piece has unsurprising (if intermittently effective) contrasts between sectional outbursts (the brass is prominent) and quieter material (often from its electronic elements). It is more intriguing as an intellectual exercise than as a musical exploration. Volta by Anthony Cheung (born 1982) is equally full of contrasts, indeed seeming to be all contrast, with instrumental groupings piling on each other, thematic elements (rather than actual themes) starting and then breaking off, energetic material starting and then stopping to make way for more-settled elements, and so forth. It is rather exhausting to hear and at 15½ minutes is considerably longer than it needs to be. But if it is also exhausting to play, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project gives no indication of finding it problematic: the orchestra handles this and everything else on the CD with appropriate intensity, skill and sure-handed balance. The concluding work on the disc, In Between II by Eric Nathan (born 1983), spends its first four minutes – a time that seems much longer – attempting to establish a forest milieu before the orchestra actually plays as an orchestra. Thereafter the ensemble goes through an unsurprising series of expansions and contractions, swells and diminuendos, forward-driving elements and quiescent ones. Another work that outstays its welcome, it would have been better at half its 15-minute length, but it does show – as, indeed, do all the pieces here – that today’s university-based composers continue to explore orchestral possibilities within a contemporary context, not always effectively in terms of audience connection but often interestingly from an intellectual standpoint. 

     The Brown University works are largely free of the sociopolitical gloss that is now so common in classical (or more-or-less-classical) music, but the seven pieces on a Neuma Records release featuring saxophonist Nick May and pianist Alex Siu Lun Li are exactly the opposite. The works are by queer artists and are intended to reflect and assert their life experiences through the music – making the material appealing to others in the LGBTQ+ community and its supporters but of little interest to others except insofar as the music works as music rather than as advocacy. Understandably, as with other material for “in” groups, the appeal here comes primarily from the nonmusical gloss, but it is only to the extent that the music works on its own terms that it can reach out to an audience beyond the one within which it was created. Thus, there is a pleasant bounciness to Sebastian Zhang’s White Socks?! The piece is fun to hear without knowing or needing to know that it, like the other works here, is rooted in the “I Exist Project” promoting art that promulgates queer narratives. Stuart Beatch’s on queer survival  (one of those pieces lacking capital letters in its title) is as quiet and laid-back as Zhang’s work is forthright and ebullient. Beatch’s offering is somewhat too earnest in expression and somewhat over-long despite lasting just seven minutes, but its expressive elements are intermittently engaging. Queer Turquoise by Aaryn S. Ricucci-Hill is even longer than Beatch’s work and more static, its saxophone elements more varied than its rather monochromatic piano part. The instrumental interplay is better balanced in Darius D. Edwards’ Where Will My Flowers Go? This work ties not only to the “I Exist Project” but also to the singing of Whitney Houston – but it stands well on its own, even for those without knowledge of its sources of inspiration, although it is less than original in its pop-music flavor. Echo Dash by Jennifer Higdon is the shortest work on the CD, its breathless two-and-half minutes whirling by in a flash and featuring impressively idiomatic writing for both instruments that gives May and Li quite a workout. In contrast, Close your eyes, if you can, by Xenia St. Charles Iris Llyllyth, features gently rocking motion within an essentially repetitive approach that smacks of minimalism and seems intended to lull listeners into a dreamlike state. The CD closes with the longest work on the disc, the four-movement, 17-minute You, Me, Us by Spencer Arias. A concatenation of sounds within which Arias deliberately juxtaposes strong contrasts of timbre, pacing, harmony and emotional affect, the piece feels as if it is trying to encompass a very wide variety of emotional experiences as well as some extremes of performance capability. It takes on far more than it can process effectively, being most effective when at its quietest and most laid-back, as in the second movement, You Set Me Free, and parts of the third, You Taught Me How to Fly. The opening You Broke My Heart and overreaching and somewhat too placid finale, You + Me = Us, are, on the whole, less compelling. The pieces on this CD are of interest primarily to the extent that they supersede the circumstances of their creation: although the appeal of the disc will be primarily to people who are tuned into the societal concerns that the composers seek to explore, there are at least some elements of the music that successfully reach out beyond the works’ limited target audience to provide meaning and enjoyment to a potentially wider group of listeners.