Zhou Long: Bamboo Grove for Unaccompanied Violin; Tales from the Nine Bells for Clarinet, Violin, Viola & Piano; Chen Yi: Xian Shi for Viola, Percussion, and Piano; Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds. Patrick Yim, violin & viola; chamber ensemble conducted by Paul Hostetter. Pentatone. $17.99.
Ramin Heydarbeygi: Rok-ku no Haiku; Negah; Setayesh az Anahid; Muye baraye Farzin; String Quartet No. 2; Gefangene, Musik hörend (after Käthe Kollwitz); Gusan. Pauline Kim Harris, violin, and Stephen Gosling, piano; Sara Paar, soprano, and FLUX Quartet; Tom Chiu, violin, Max Mandel, viola, and Felix Fan, cello; String Noise; Conrad Harris, violin. New Focus Recordings. $20.99.
It is scarcely news that many contemporary composers are less interested in traditional forms and instruments than in combining material from disparate musical areas in new ways. And it is no surprise that some performers join in this endeavor to mingle differing sounds and musical styles in an attempt to offer audiences something new and unfamiliar. What remains problematic is the expectation of the audience: to what extent are composers and performers requiring listeners to do research prior to hearing new works in order to appreciate what the composers and performers are trying to accomplish? After all, when Tchaikovsky discovered the celesta in Paris in 1891 – five years after the instrument was invented – he embarked on a campaign of secrecy to prevent other composers from using it before he brought it to The Nutcracker. And he used it in the ballet in self-evident ways to enhance the story; it was not a matter of exoticism for its own sake. Nor did Tchaikovsky require audiences to learn how and why Auguste Mustel created the instrument and what previously unheard effects it was supposed to evoke. But composers Zhou Long and Chen Yi (both born in 1953), and performer Patrick Yim – like many other contemporary musical artists – do expect the audience to study, learn and absorb before hearing the music on a new Pentatone CD if they are to appreciate what is being attempted here. Thus, Zhou’s 2024 Bamboo Grove, for unaccompanied violin, is inspired by a specific figure from Chinese history and is designed to have the violin emulate sounds of Chinese plucked zithers, the bowed erhu, and other instruments to which the Western one is only distantly related. And Tales from the Nine Bells (2013) draws on an old Chinese legend about bells on a mountain, with Western instruments again evoking the sounds of Chinese ones, such as the double-reed guanzi that is used in temples and known for its loud, buzzing sound. Both these works require considerable stylistic attentiveness from Yim, as well as virtuosity, and he holds forth well in both – with Tales from the Nine Bells being of greater interest because the additional instruments produce a soundscape that sustains better than does the solo-instrument one of Bamboo Grove. Both pieces can certainly be listened to simply for their musical sounds, but on that basis they are somewhat disappointing, since neither has a readily graspable form to which the audience can respond: the scaffolding of the underlying stories and the imitative nature of the instrumental material are the elements that hold the pieces together. And much the same is true of Chen’s works here. Xian Shi (1982) was created as a concerto for viola and orchestra and is a world première recording in this version for viola, percussion and piano. The work not only evokes the sounds of several Chinese instruments but also incorporates approaches of Chinese folk music. However, to a greater extent than Zhou’s pieces on this CD, Xian Shi stands on its own if simply listened to for its musical content: the many touches of exotic-by-Western-standards sounds exist within a discernible framework and are incorporated into some genuinely lovely lyrical material that allows the viola to hold forth within the range and sonic palette for which it was designed. Because this piece does not expect the instruments to sound like things that they are not from start to finish, it allows listeners to enter and explore a sonic environment that goes beyond normal Western boundaries but functions well as a guide to sounds they may not have previously experienced or expected to hear. Chen’s Suite for Viola and Chamber Winds (2012) – here heard as adapted from its original version for cello and string quartet – yet again explores Chinese instruments in a folk-music context, notably the sounds of a mouth organ, bamboo flute, and bells. There is pleasant flow to the musical lines in this work, especially in the gentle second movement, and the energetic finale is effective despite a degree of repetitiveness that goes beyond traditional Western notions of ostinato and spreads from instrument to instrument. Less compelling than Xian Shi, this suite is nevertheless more readily listenable as a totality than either of the works by Zhou, which require greater audience understanding and acceptance of their intent and reasons for being in order to be fully effective. As a whole, this CD will be attractive to listeners looking for something new in the way of sound and exploratory in terms of source material. Whether the music stands on its own as music – and, indeed, whether it is intended to – is the question. Chen’s pieces, especially Xian Shi, do seem to reach for acceptance on their own terms; the expectations for effective engagement with Zhou’s are more extensive.
Some contemporary composers seem to want to create a self-generated mystique so as to, in their view, increase a sense of mystery that presumably will make their music more attractive to audiences. Thus, while basic biographies of living composers give their birth years and cities of birth (Zhou in Beijing and Chen in Guangzhou, for example), Ramin Heydarbeygi resolutely refuses to divulge either his age or his city of origin. The idea, presumably, is to draw more attention to his music by diverting it from himself; but this is a false modesty that serves more as self-aggrandizement than as self-effacement. In any event, Heydarbeygi makes it clear that his music is inspired by Persian poetry and painting, and he is resolute in expecting familiarity with his sources if audiences are to engage with his music as he wants them to. Interestingly, despite their exotic titles, Heydarbeygi’s works on a short (43-minute) New Focus Recordings CD almost all have movements labeled with traditional Western tempo and performance indications: the six in Rok-ku no Haiku, for example, are Poco adagio, Allegro ritmico, Calmo, Adagio e con devozione, Sostenuto, and Allegro giocoso. The music itself tends to sound like a great deal of other contemporary music: there is no imitating of non-Western instruments here, but simply a rather standardized use of modern techniques that engage with atonality, constant rhythmic shifts, extended performance methods, and instrumental combinations that are as often competitive as they are cooperative. The brevity of the movements of Rok-ku no Haiku keeps them from overstaying their welcome, and the work does stand on its own musically. But not so everything here. Negah sets six Persian texts, some dating to the 10th century, with typical vocal lines whose accompaniments tend to be more interesting than the singing, as in the pizzicati of the second setting (Allegro giocoso is its tempo marking). Setayesh az Anahid has eight very short movements – the whole work lasts seven-and-a-half minutes – that are supposed to reflect Zoroastrian and Iranian notions of the divine; this is a good example of the need to know the foundations of the work in order to understand what it tries to do, since any musical connection to the underlying concept is absent. Muye baraye Farzin is an interesting six-movement viola solo focused, in intent if not through any musically apparent connection, on the idea of cutting one’s hair as an expression of grief. Its exploration of the viola’s range – without requiring the instrument to sound like something other than itself – keeps the music engaging, even though, yet again, it does not aurally connect to its underlying topicality. Heydarbeygi’s String Quartet No. 2 further explores the composer’s handling of string instruments through short movements, in this case seven of them; indeed, regarding Heydarbeygi as a miniaturist who creates extended sequences of far-from-extended movements is a more-useful way to listen to his music than attempting to research and thoroughly study his stated reasons for creating it. The quartet actually does not have nonmusical referents, which is interesting in light of the reality that it sounds no different from all the other pieces on this disc, which are based on extramusical matters. Heydarbeygi encapsulates neatly in some movements of the quartet, notably the third (Allegro molto) and fifth (Allegro), each of which lasts less than a minute. Then there is the oddly titled Gefangene, Musik hörend (after Käthe Kollwitz), which starts with movement “No. 0,” a direct quotation from Bach, before delivering two movements intended both as musical responses to Bach and as representations of visual art. That is a lot of freight for this slight piece for two violins to carry, and yet again, the underlying intent is less than clear from the music itself – which is more of an emotional response to Bach than a musical one. The CD concludes with Gusan, which – like Negah – uses a soprano voice to sing and declaim Persian poetry, in this case dating to the ninth century. Notably, one of the seven movements here dominates the other six by far, lasting more than five minutes; nothing else is longer than two-and-a-half. There is solemnity in the more-extended movement, which is marked Sostenuto, and the extended instrumental introduction sets a suitably somber mood. But here as elsewhere, Heydarbeygi comes across to better effect in shorter and usually brighter material, such as the Scherzo that precedes the longest movement in this work. It is never really clear why Heydarbeygi thinks concealing his biographical information somehow enhances understanding and acceptance of his music, but it is clear that the music itself, especially when heard as collections of brief encapsulations of mood, is at least intermittently effective – even for listeners who have not thoroughly studied its inspirational underpinnings.
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