Paul Moravec: Amorisms; Tempest
Fantasy; Sacred Love Songs. Portara Ensemble and ALIAS Chamber Ensemble.
Delos. $16.99.
James Winn: Chamber Music.
Dmitri Atapine, cello; Rong-Huey Liu, oboe; Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio, violin;
James Winn, piano. MSR Classics. $12.95.
Douglas Anderson: Chamber
Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 4. Ravello. $14.99.
Rojak Rocks: Music of Jack Gale,
Steven Christopher Sacco, Brian Lynn, Walter Ross and Alan Raph. John D.
Rojak, bass trombone. Navona. $16.99.
Genre bending – not to be
confused with gender bending – is commonplace in contemporary classical music,
to such an extent that it can be quite difficult to say where “classical” music
ends and other musical styles begin. For some composers, that is exactly the
point: to demolish barriers between “higher” and “lower” music and treat all
forms of music-making as equal in scope and value. For others, classical forms
and the kind of order and orderliness they impose on sound sequences retain a
strong attraction, but there is a desire not to be bound too tightly to
structures, rhythms, harmonies and the overall sound of the past. For these
composers, who push boundaries without feeling compelled to break them for the
pleasure or sociopolitical righteousness of demolition, a specific musical
identity may be amorphous, but classical roots remain clear. Paul Moravac is a
fine example. His attractive music lies firmly in the classical tradition
without being tied completely to it. His Amorisms
ballet, which gets its world première
recording on a new Delos disc, is certainly danceable – in 2014, it was
performed by the Nashville Ballet, which co-commissioned it along with the
performers heard here. But it treats ballet quite differently from the way,
say, Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky did. The instrumental forces are deliberately
modest: clarinet and string quartet (this is the contribution of ALIAS Chamber
Ensemble). There is a crucial five-voice vocal element (the Portara Ensemble’s
portion). And the work’s title is a portmanteau word, combining “amor” with
“aphorism”: the whole piece is structured around five brief Shakespearean
comments on love. The simple and repetitive elements of the music make it
accessible and help it fit neatly into dance mode, while the cleverness (at
times a bit of over-cleverness) of the concept and structure give the work a
thoroughly modern feel. It is an effective blend of classical and what may be
called post-classical sentiments. Shakespeare is also the focus of Moravec’s Tempest Fantasy for clarinet, violin,
cello and piano. This is a five-movement exploration of the play – essentially
five character pieces, as they would generally be styled in their classical
models. There is one section focused on Ariel, one on Prospero and one on
Caliban, with the other two, more atmospheric and less character-specific,
being called Sweet Airs and Fantasia. Rather than being grand and
sweeping, as other composers’ views of The
Tempest have been, Moravec’s is almost pointillistic in its focus on detail
and its carefully worked portrayal of elements of the play. The CD concludes
with an adaptation for ALIAS Chamber Ensemble and Portara Ensemble of Moravec’s
Sacred Love Songs, here performed by
choir and string quartet rather than in its original setting for small vocal
group and recorder quartet. The new arrangement is not quite as effective as
the original, because this is a Renaissance-style work based on religious texts:
the movement called A Prayer of St.
Francis is central to the work’s overall effect. The original scoring fit
the material somewhat better than this one does, but there is no question that
these performers handle the music with delicacy and skill – and the juxtaposition
of this specifically religious music, which starts with Love Endures All Things and ends with Greater Love, works quite well after the two Shakespeare-focused
pieces. Moravec’s attractive handling of classical forms, without being
slavishly bound to them, comes through to fine effect throughout.
James Winn also hews closely
to traditional classical models in the chamber works on a new MSR Classics CD. Three Nocturnes for Piano Trio
(1986-87), the longest piece here, makes the connection with the past
particularly clear, being in effect a set of three chamber-music tone poems
(but that is a distinctly
nontraditional notion, tone poems almost inevitably being works for large orchestra).
The first piece, Invocation of Selene,
is a work of crepuscular serenity, based on the notion of invoking the moon goddess;
the second, Seannachie, draws on an
old Celtic tale about the capture of Tam Lin by the fairy folk and his rescue
through the purity and steadfastness of his true (human) love; the third and
most interesting, Louhi’s Conjuring,
draws from a rather amusing story in the Finnish Kalevala (frequent inspiration
of Sibelius) in which a witch-queen conjures salt from a magical mill she has
stolen, but cannot get the grinder to stop and finally throws it into the
ocean, which has been salty ever since. The story has parallels to that of
Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and
the music has some parallels too, starting in moody and mysterious mode and
then neatly picking up the mill’s faster and faster grinding. Winn nevertheless
manages to display a personal style that draws on established forms without
following them slavishly. He also shows himself to be a strong pianist and a
fine chamber-music collaborator, not only in the nocturnes but also in the two
other works on the disc. Variations on a
Theme of Bartók (1977/2010), for cello and piano, takes a Hungarian
folksong that the earlier composer used in For
Children and makes it the basis of rather sweepingly Romantic variations
that give the cello ample opportunity to display tonal warmth as well as
virtuosity. Masque for Oboe, Cello and
Piano (1981) also juxtaposes earlier musical eras, its title and pacing reminiscent
of an entertainment at the French court during the ancien régime but its harmonies and
overall “meta” approach rather suggesting a much later observer looking back
through time, somewhat judgmentally, on a carefully arranged and dutifully
elaborate occasion. Familiarity with the works of earlier composers who are
echoed in Winn’s chamber music, or those to whom the music offers a respectful
bow, will help listeners garner full enjoyment of these chamber pieces,
although they are well-constructed and interesting enough on their own not to
require substantial knowledge of their building blocks and homages.
Like Winn’s tone-poem-like
nocturnes, the three Douglas Anderson chamber symphonies on a new Ravello CD
take a form usually associated with a larger ensemble and employ it with a
smaller one. No. 2 is for four instruments, Nos. 3 and 4 for three. What makes
these “symphonies” rather than two trios and a quartet is a matter of opinion
and of thinking about the boundaries between the forms. Anderson says he was
influenced by Schoenberg’s chamber symphonies in composing his own, but
Schoenberg’s first is for 15 players and his second (in its 1939 revision) for
a full chamber orchestra. Clearly something else is at work in Anderson’s
pieces: he tries to use the inherent sound characteristics of the instruments
for which he is writing to develop these pieces’ thematic material. Chamber Symphony No. 2 (1989) is for
flute, clarinet, violin and cello; Chamber
Symphony No. 3 (2001) is for flute, viola and cello; and Chamber Symphony No. 4 (2011) is for
violin, cello and piano. All the works are in three movements, and listeners
coming to the pieces without considering what the composer thought he was doing
in creating them will not find anything particularly symphonic about them. It
is true that they largely lack the “conversational” elements of traditional
chamber music, but what they offer instead is not symphonic expansiveness but a
focus on the sound world within which each of the instruments exists – a world
that, in common with many other contemporary composers, Anderson often seeks to
expand beyond its traditional boundaries. Anderson gives the performers here –
members of groups called “di.vi.sion” and “Eight Strings & a Whistle” –
numerous opportunities for solo display; indeed, the cadenzas and transitions
between movements in these symphonies tend to be more interesting than the meat
of the movements themselves. From time to time, these works delve into the
usual non-classical realms favored by so many modern composers, including jazz,
film music, and music for overtly commercial purposes. Although not symphonic
in any significant discernible sense, they make skillful use of the small
instrumental groups for which they are written, and offer periodically engaging
aural material even though they do not sustain interest particularly well
throughout their lengths.
Bass trombonist John D.
Rojak is more the focus of a new Navona CD than is the music he plays – but both
the music and Rojak himself work within classical models while also striving
mightily to transcend them. Rojak’s career has him playing jazz, contemporary,
film and commercial music as well as traditional classical works, and the
pieces on this disc reflect all his areas of interest. This is particularly
true in Jack Gale’s Three Pieces,
whose title specifically states that it is for “bass trombone with jazz rhythm
section” – which includes Russ Kassoff on piano, Joe Bongiorno on bass, and Ray
Marchica on drums. The three-movement work sounds a bit like warmed-over film
music; it is certainly easy to listen to, especially in its upbeat outer
movements. Steven Christopher Sacco’s Sonata,
for bass trombone and piano, was written for Rojak and also melds classical and
jazz elements, with the jazz dominating and the focus throughout on the bass
trombone: Antoinette Perry on piano plays a decidedly secondary, supportive
role. Considerably more interesting is Ba-Dee-Doo-Dup
by Brian Lynn, which is for bass trombone and two tenor trombones (James Miller
and Andy Malloy). The five short movements include a first one (from which the
whole works gets its title) that has the rhythmic bounce of a Pink Panther cartoon accompaniment; a
second (Respite)that sounds like a
wistful folk song; a third that is a very short waltz that stops just short of
self-parody; a fourth (Smooch) that swoons appropriately; and a
final march in which the three instruments have a chance to show themselves off
effectively in a typical-for-classical-brass form. The modest ambitions of
Lynn’s work are a significant strength; the greater ones of Walter Ross’ Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra (in
which Rojak is joined by the New York Chamber Symphony under Gerard Schwarz)
are a bit of a hindrance. The piece’s dimensions are not too great for a
concerto – the three movements run 25 minutes – but this is one of those works
that seems to insist, starting with its grandiose opening, that it is serious
music and must be taken seriously; the result is that it comes across as a bit
pompous, a touch pretentious. Rojak plays it exceptionally well, and there are
some felicitous touches here and there, such as the woodwind/brass contrast at
the start of the second movement and the effective use of percussion in the
finale. But the concerto comes across as a little too long for its material and
as trying a little too hard to be meaningful. The CD ends with the short solo
work Rock by Alan Raph, which tries much too hard to be significant: it was
recorded outdoors, 150 feet above a canyon floor, so as to include the
landscape’s natural echo – a gimmick that does nothing to give the light,
almost frothy music any greater importance. Rojak is such a fine performer that
he brings forth considerable quality even in this piece: he would be good to
hear in music that is more inherently substantial than is much of the material
on this recording.
