Bill Alves – Mystic Canyon; Music for Violin and Gamelan
Susan Jensen; HMC American Gamelan
MicroFest Records MF4
(microfestrecords.com)
East-West crossover combining gamelan and Western orchestral instruments is, of course, nothing new, and composer Bill Alves continues in the tradition established by the late American composer, Lou Harrison, who wrote more than 50 compositions in this genre. Like Harrison, Alves has composed many musical works for gamelan – specifically his “American gamelan,” the Harvey Mudd College American Gamelan (HMC), an ensemble of Javanese instruments whose tunings have been modified according to just intonation, and which is dedicated to performing new music rather than traditional gamelan repertoire. This CD showcases two such compositions for violin and gamelan: Mystic Canyon and Concerto for Violin and Gamelan.
This music is mesmerizing and quite beautiful. Susan Jensen’s superb violin playing, with its rich and languorous musical lines, overlays the soft, delicate and glimmering sounds of the bronze gamelan instruments. They provide a range of mellifluous musical patterns with their polyrhythms, sometimes static, and at other times gently shifting. The ambience of Mystic Canyon is ethereal and diaphanous, with contrasting sections where the violin is prominent, followed by occasional breaks with just gamelan, all fading away gently at the end of the piece. The six movements of the concerto display a variety of moods and techniques ranging from energetic and percussive, to changing textures and gentle interlocking rhythms, to more inert ostinati backing the violin’s soaring melodies. This is music that will appeal to gamelan and non-gamelan specialists alike.
