Harriet Steinke: Strange Lights; Mark Engebretson: Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano; Dorothy Chang: New Stories. Susan Fancher, saxophones; Ināra Zandmane, piano. Neuma Records. $15.
Richard Festinger: String Quartets Nos. 2, 4 and 5. Verona Quartet; Telegraph Quartet; Jasper String Quartet. New Focus Recordings. $20.99.
Stories inspire music – which, in its turn, tells stories. A frequent question is how literally this back-and-forth works outside the realms of song, opera and ballet: to what extent are audiences expected to imbibe verbiage directly and clearly from musical notes? Contemporary composers seem especially attuned (so to speak) to the notion of requiring listeners to know the inspiration underlying music and only then to listen – making it difficult for audiences not familiar with the foundational material to respond “appropriately” to performances. But whether it is in fact “appropriate” to expect listeners to pre-study the motivation and purpose of music is as open a question now as it was when Liszt created his 13 symphonic poems – most of which, however, drew on stories and literary works with which his audiences would have been familiar, not the much more obscure ones that inspire many composers now. And even though today’s audiences are likely not familiar with Liszt’s inspirations, his works resonate with those who hear them simply because the music itself is so effective as music. Nowadays, it is modern composers who seem focused on music that can be enjoyed for its own sake as well as for its underlying illustrative purpose who communicate most effectively. Dorothy Chang (born 1970), for example, does so in New Stories (2013) for alto saxophone and piano. The four movements’ titles are generic enough to guide audiences in listening without requiring them to know the specific Chinese folk-song roots that, among other things, inspired the music. The titles are floating worlds (no capital letters), A Tall Tale Told, Reflection, and Folksong, and the aural connections between the titular elements and the music are comprehensible and enjoyable without greater specificity. The jaunty second movement, for example, has a stop-and-go pace and is filled with irregular rhythms that Susan Fancher and Ināra Zandmane handle adeptly, carrying the audience along skillfully and without the requirement of knowing which specific “tall tale,” if any, is being illustrated. The other works on this Neuma Records CD are equally well played if not quite as immediately appealing. Strange Lights (2019) by Harriet Steinke (born 1994), also for alto saxophone and piano, is in two movements marked, in a traditional way, for interpretation purposes rather than audience guidance: Freely and With movement – Slow, relaxed. Fancher and Zandmane, who play with a very strong sense of unity and interconnection, certainly pay attention to the designations, and what is especially impressive here is Fancher’s exploration of the timbral expressiveness of the saxophone: whatever “lights” may be referenced in Steinke’s title are not as important for audience connection as are the flow of the saxophone lines and their interplay with the keyboard. Somewhat less appealing than the Chang and Steinke works is Sonata for Soprano Saxophone and Piano (2024) by Mark Engebretson (born 1964). Although written for Fancher and played by her as expressively as anyone could wish, this work falls into the trap of overly elevated audience expectations in its attempt to reflect and reflect on three poems by Brian Lampkin: Wind in Pocket, The Wind, and The Directions. The third movement’s title is the same as the poem’s, but the first two movements’ differ, being called In the Pocket and I look out on the day. What the differentiation reflects in the composer’s thinking may not be clear, but the issue here is the expectation of audience familiarity with some scarcely-well-known poetry for the music to have its intended impact. The bursts of speed, sense of anxiety, openness of sound, and eventual serious and rather dour conclusion do come through clearly, but the work is insistently referential to material that potential listeners are simply not likely to know. Whether or not they choose to study Lampkin so they can better appreciate Engebretson is, of course, a matter of personal choice, but it is because the Chang and Steinke works do not expect such pre-reading as a matter of course that they come through as music to better effect.
The more intricately a composer works nonmusical inspirational material into a piece of music, the greater the need for audiences to understand where the music comes from and what it is supposed to put on display – and the less effective the music as music tends to be. A New Focus Recordings release featuring three string quartets by Richard Festinger (born 1948) is a case in point. The longest and most elaborate of the three works, No. 4 – almost as lengthy as the other two quartets put together – is called “Icarus in Flight,” although it has nothing apparent to do with Icarus or flying. The Telegraph Quartet, which gave the 2018 work its world première performance, plays it with strength and dedication, but the piece goes on and on and on without any real sense of where it is going musically or any particular feeling of arrival when it gets there (eventually, after nearly half an hour, it simply stops). Its effectiveness, or lack thereof, ties directly to its status as a “cause” piece, with the “cause” elements even more pervasive than usual in such works: data on the Earth’s climate underpin everything, with 200 years of such data being used to determine everything from pitch range to string techniques to melody and rhythm. The intellectual cleverness of the design, and the skill with which Festinger fulfilled his commission (from a group called “ClimateMusic Project”), do not obscure the reality that heard simply as a string quartet, the piece is lacking emotionally, structurally and in terms of engagement. It can certainly be admired for what it is, but what it is not is music that will capture an audience through its sound and emotive nature – which, one would think, would be the objective of the commissioning organization if it were trying to attract converts to its cause instead of apparently attempting to preach to the proverbial choir. Festinger’s shorter and earlier String Quartet No. 2 (2005) comes across to better effect, although the relationship between the music and its title, “From the Beginning,” is less than obvious. This work, written in two connected movements, clearly shows Festinger’s abilities at string-quartet writing, and is moderately effective at creating a sense of motion and destination: it begins with a sense of spare and uneasy quiet and eventually works its way toward liveliness, if not quite exhilaration. The Verona Quartet does a fine job both with the broad spectrum of the work and with its nuances, and if the themes and their working-out are not especially memorable, the piece does underline Festinger’s skill in chamber-music composition. So does String Quartet No. 5 (2021), which proves to be the most attractive work on this (+++) release. The Jasper String Quartet goes after this piece’s material with real commitment and enthusiasm, and there is quite a bit to be enthusiastic about: a recurring first-movement theme that provides a sense of structure as well as scale, a second movement that actually takes the time and space to breathe with something approaching lyricism, and a concluding movement that is both upbeat and highly virtuosic – giving the performers plenty of chances to show their skill in ensemble playing. The three movements proceed without pause, so the overall effect is of an arc of experience that is not tied to any specific program or set of requirements or impositions on the audience: indeed, this is the only work here that has no title. The story this quartet tells is thus an entirely personal one upon which all listeners can decide for themselves. Festinger surely had his own reasons for writing the piece this way, but those who hear it need not know those reasons in order to absorb and experience the quartet’s effects and appreciate them on their own purely auditory terms.
No comments:
Post a Comment