Category: Listen

Revolutions

After the one-two punch of his 2003 releases Blood Sutra and In What Language?, Vijay Iyer continues to push his own playing and his collaborators in compelling ways. Recently signed to Savoy Jazz, the label drops the first in a multi-album deal today. Iyer has a fresh set of original tunes on offer here, opening with dizzying speed and gymnastic aplomb on the aptly christened “Revolutions.”

—MS

Valen Lagoon

I have come to trust discs put out on the Pogus label as if they arrive bearing a Good Housekeeping seal of approval, and their latest release, a collaboration between Ellen Band and David Lee Myers, is no let down. Myer’s synthetic sound world meets the more organic sonic stylings (was that a kettle whistle mixed in there?) that fascinates Band, and together the two have come up with some striking ambient soundscapes. Valen Lagoon, a glassy, tinkling, Pied-Piper of a piece, is a disc highlight, leading the listener down into a hypnotic netherworld.

—MS

Impression of the St. Gaudens in Boston Common

Donald Berman, piano

Who can say how many little gems of works (and many probably not so little, too) penned by composers famous and unknown alike are hidden away in boxes, libraries, and attics, left undiscovered, unplayed? Charles Ives’s Impression of the “St. Gaudens” in Boston Common (1915), which would later evolve into the first movement of Three Places in New England, is one of many fragments and experiments being brought to the attention of the general public via pianist Donald Berman’s ongoing Unknown series. It’s surprisingly compelling listening—as revealing as examining an artist’s sketches in light of a completed painting, though such a parallel opportunity as this is rare in musical life.

—MS

Elegy for Anne Frank

Kevin McCutcheon (piano), Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Christopher Wilkins, conductor

The horrors of World War II created so much great music both then and now, everything from Reich’s Different Trains and Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima back to Strauss’s Metamorphosen (written to mourn the wrong side) and Yizkor {In Memoriam} by Odeon Partos, who fled Nazi-ravaged Hungary to become one of the first major Israeli composers. Now, thanks to the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music on Naxos American Classics, add to that list two more great works I hadn’t encountered until now by Lukas Foss: one from then and one from recent times. Song of Anguish for baritone and orchestra, composed in 1945 (at which point Foss was 23 years old), takes as its point of departure Isaiah’s prophesies about “cities being wasted without inhabitant.” The more personal Elegy for Anne Frank for piano and orchestra from 1989 which can be performed with or without a narrator reciting from Anne Frank’s famous Diary is even more poignant in the wordless version recorded here. Foss was just honored with our Letter of Distinction last week. Here are two more reasons why this refugee from Nazi Germany (another one of their losses) is one of our greatest composers!

—FJO

Factotum Pole

The New Haven-based Persinger defines his solo guitar music as “Modern/Primitive”; his is an outsider music that is equal parts folk, classical, DIY rock, jazz, and in this case, bossa nova.

—FJO

Q S R L

Though truly a man-meets-machine piece of music—a sensor “listens” to the solo performer and relays information to a computer which has been programmed to respond—the result feels as organic and inspired as any human duet. Here, Jon Gibson takes part in the moody, subtle meditation in sax, guitar, and electronic sounds.

—MS

Six Pianos

For some reason hearing this less-than-perfect-sounding archival recording of Steve Reich’s 1973 Six Pianos from a live performance at The Kitchen makes the piece even more tactile than the original Deutsche Grammophone studio recording; it’s like learning secrets about an old friend many years later. And, if that’s not enough, this CD—released on a label run by Philip Glass!?!—also includes the bizarre Reich-goes-Lucier Pendulum Music which sounds less ferocious than Sonic Youth’s version on Goodbye 20th Century. Perhaps there’s room for interpretation in this music after all.

—FJO

Angels in Golden Mud

In the brief artist comments that accompany this disc—recorded live at the Prism in Charlottesville, Virginia—William Parker shares his philosophy that if “every human being in the world played one hour of music at the beginning of each day there would be no world turmoil.” The opening track, “Angels in Golden Mud,” gives the listener a window into just how Parker and Bill Cole might start their days. The two players reach out to connect with the wide world via instrument, the didgeridoo of Australia and the doson ngoni from Mali, and then intimately chatter with one another, as if alone in deep confidence.

MS

Descansos, past

Easily the most beautiful thing I heard all week, Fox’s haunting memorial for his friend, composer/performer John Kuhlman (1954-1996), scored for four cellos and double bass is deep on so many levels. It’s featured on a CD-single offering only 15 minutes of music, but you won’t want to listen to something for a while after you’ve heard this.

—FJO

Yi Feng for amplified solo cello

Madeleine Shapiro, cello



Though composer Ge Gan-ru, considered by many to be China’s first avant-garde composer, crossed the Pacific before the Tan Dun-Bright Sheng-Chen Yi cavalcade, Madeleine Shapiro’s aggressive performance of his Yi Feng for amplified solo cello is the first recording of his music ever made publicly available. The piece is not only an intellectual, but physical workout for the soloist. Shapiro must employ unusual styles of bowing, plucking, and pounding on the body of her instrument to simulate the character of an Eastern timbral landscape. (A new recording devoted exclusively to Ge’s orchestral work has also just been released on BIS).


—MS


Ed. Note: I have to personally apologize for the misinformation above. I’ve been a huge fan of Ge Gan-ru’s music for years and was so excited to see his name on a commercially-released CD when I read Molly’s commentary. Her original comment did not include a reference to this recording being a first. That was my over-zealous interjection.

Mr. Ge has rightly pointed out to me that not only is this not the first commercially-released recording of his music, it is also not the first commercially-released recording of the composition Yi Feng, which previously appeared in a performance by Frank Su Huang on the CRI CD, eXchange China. Strange, I even own a copy of this CD and have listened to it several times. (Perhaps this adds further fodder to folks who say I’ve got too many recordings!) Unfortunately, eXchange China, which also features otherwise unavilable works by eight other Chinese-American composers, is now out of print although it seems that several copies can still be snatched up for a pittance on Amazon. The lack of availability of the CRI back catalog has definitely left major chasms in the discography of contemporary American music. Luckily, Madeleine Shapiro’s excellent recording makes this important work available once again. At any rate, what remains true is that all too little of Ge Gan-ru’s music is commercially available on recordings and that recognition for this important pioneer in the synthesis of Chinese and Euro-American musical traditions is long overdue.

—FJO