Category: Tracks

Klaus-Dieter Lerche (as Columbus); Bruckner Orchester Linz, conducted Dennis Russell Davies

Arguably one of the most anticipated premieres of the previous decade was Philip Glass’s commission from the Metropolitan Opera to write an opera marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World. After all, the staging of Einstein on the Beach at the Met, though not a Met production, put Glass on the world stage. So, at the time, everyone wondered what an actual Met production for Glass would be. Might this have been the work that would finally have made Glass’s trademark minimalist style an endorsed historical inevitability in the canon of Western classical music by the mainstream classical music establishment?

This, of course, didn’t quite happen. The Voyage received mixed reviews and soon faded in the public consciousness. I, too, remembered being disappointed, thinking the work was pretentious, bloated, and a knock-off of earlier, much more interesting music that Glass had previously written. But, after such a set up, how could anyone have heard it any other way?

Now, nearly 15 years later, as a result of this music finally being released on CD, we can hear The Voyage with fresh and hopefully untainted ears. And doing so makes for some revelatory listening. On the recording, The Voyage comes across as exciting, harmonically adventurous, and completely at home with the operatic idiom in ways that Glass’s earlier revolutionary stage works had not been since they were still the work of a maverick outsider. Glass, now the insider, here shows full mastery of orchestration and acute sensitivity to operatic voices. Listen to the gorgeous aria that Columbus sings at the opening of Act Two, Scene Two, during his historic voyage in 1492. For me, it feels like the sequel of the “Hymn to the Sun” aria in Glass’s 1983 opera Akhnaten, and which, like that earlier aria, is positioned as the centerpiece of the entire work.

So why such a different reaction? For starters, the layers of hype and inevitable critical barbs that surround such auspicious premieres are now just historical footnotes that no longer can intrude upon the listening experience. But, perhaps more importantly, Dennis Russell Davies and the soloists of the Landestheater and Bruckner Orchester, both of the Austrian city of Linz, convincingly deliver this music in a way that the Met just didn’t. Hopefully the new regime at the Met will hear this recording and gain inspiration from it. New opera deserves this kind of advocacy.

—FJO

The Gravitas Quartet is like a love match in a world of arranged marriages. Let me explain. Horvitz says that he was looking to join his interest in through-composed chamber music with small group improvisation in this particular format and with these particular individuals. The musical results of such projects can sound ill-matched under the harsh lights of the stage, but Horvitz’s gang seems to have cleared such cross-genre hurdles. Nothing forced, nothing awkward. Just that old cliché of wanting the best of both worlds and, in this case anyway, getting it.

—MS

The clang of loud dissonant piano chords got you down? Throw on the title track of Neil Rolnick’s latest CD Digits. Sure, pianist Kathleen Supové pounds out some noisy chords, but you would never find these tuneful sonorities in a Boulez sonata. With the addition of digital delay and computer processing, things get a little dizzy, but this 11-minute tour de force won’t leave you with a hangover.

—RN

Corey Dargel takes a break from his own composing duties to step up to the mic and take a turn as the vocal soloists in Beglarian’s five-minute setting of this Stanley Kunitz poem. His delivery is characteristically reserved, which assures that the sentiments are not overwhelmed by clichéd melodrama. He is joined by Margaret Lancaster, who sculpts the topic-appropriate tweets and twitters with a piccolo. (And yes, you’re right. Dargel sounds like he’s channeling Theo Bleckmann here to me, too.)

—MS

Ellen Burr, flute; Andrew Pask, clarinet

So much for music and visual art not being related. For flutist Ellen Burr’s structured improvisational duo with clarinetist Andrew Pask, she turned to a geometric abstract painting by Mary Martin in order to derive all pitches and durations. And according to her CD booklet notes, all the permutations of this minimalist process music follow the ones in the painting. Unfortunately that painting is not reproduced in the package and my synaesthetic abilities aren’t good enough to figure out what the painting looks like, but the music is nevertheless extremely captivating: I listened to all nine minutes twice, and it seemed like only a few minutes had gone by.

—FJO

Augusta Read Thomas, big in Taiwan? Well, yes. How else can one explain this Taipei Symphony Orchestra recording pairing Thomas with the Dvorak Cello Concerto? If you manage to get the CD out of the slipcase—seriously, I spent more than five minutes trying before I finally took out the scissors—expect to be rewarded. Thomas’s lyrical piece is plenty feisty, and both soloist and orchestra keep the energy high. The recording itself has a richness and depth that captures every nuance from David Finckel’s cello to the shifting timbral landscapes of the orchestra.

—RN

I’ve always admired Jacob Druckman’s knack for orchestration. He always managed to coax such vivid, colorful timbres from whatever the instrumental forces happened to be. With this evocatively titled orchestra piece, Summer Lightning, the composer not only captures an appropriately electrified atmosphere, it turns out he didn’t forget to include the thunder either. Expect the composer’s exquisite dovetailing textural shifts with a little extra chutzpah.

—RN

Imagine Baroque music prancing around inside a funhouse, admiring its own reflection in one of those weird, distorting mirrors. Fred Lerdahl exploits the premise from every possible angle in his chamber orchestra piece Waves, and the results are fascinating. I don’t remember the last time a 15-minute composition passed by so quickly. As they say, time flies when you’re having fun.

—RN

Mixing the musical sensibilities of traditional Persian music and the Western canon, Reza Vali arrives at a strange purgatory where counterpoint and spiritual chant sensuously commingle, living in sin, as it were. His rapturous Calligraphy No. 4 combines string quartet and santoor—think cimbalom with a brighter timbre—resulting in nothing less that a sonic orgy. By and large the music abandons equal temperament, and during moments of sheer rhythmic exuberance it’s not hard to imagine that Vali’s music would be a chart-topping success in places like Sodom and Gomorrah.

—RN

This haunting waltz walks a tightrope between melancholy and exuberance, which is understandable give the tune’s title, Basquiat. Like paintings by the music-obsessed artist, Don Byron’s homage is somewhat oblique, inscrutable even, until the intended vibe finally dawns on you like a ton of bricks. Joining in this random act of masonry is the Bang on a Can All-Stars, laying a solid foundation for Byron’s fancy clarinet work.

—RN