Daniel Strong Godfrey – Toward Light
Cassatt String Quartet; Ursula Oppens; Eliot Fisk; Nicole Johnson
New Focus Recordings FRC467 (newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/daniel-strong-godfrey-toward-light-three-quintets)
Pianist Ursula Oppens, cellist Nicole Johnson and guitarist Elliott Fisk join the New York-based Cassatt String Quartet in three quintets by American Daniel Strong Godfrey (b.1949).
Godfrey says his piano quintet from 2006, Ricordanza-Speranza (Recollection-Hope) “is shaped by a sense that both memory and hope remain elusive and at odds.” Adagio poco rubato begins tentatively, builds to an intense climax, then subsides, returning to the opening uncertainty. Con fuoco’s swirling strings and Oppens’ percussive outbursts are followed by lyrical calm. The brief Interlude, a cadenza for solo piano, leads to the finale, Adagio poco rubato; con anima, a celebratory dance gradually fading to silence.
The title of the string quintet. To Mourn, To Dance (2013), is taken from Ecclesiastes’ list of opposites, each thing having its own “season.” The grim Prelude is an adagio filled with dense, chromatic textures. Danza is transparent, graceful and wistful. Interlude, another adagio, spotlights the “extra” cello’s extended lament. The vigorous Fugue-Tarantella, with violins cheering over grinding cello strokes, ends the work in thrilling fashion.
Godfrey’s dark-hued guitar quintet, Toward Light (2023), was composed, he writes, amid widespread “fear, exasperation and tenuous optimism.” Constantly shifting in tonality, meter and string sonorities, it describes, says Godfrey, “a journey from faltering light and prayerful expression” (Dusk: Prayer) “to a somewhat macabre minuet-like dream music” (Midnight: Dance), the Cadenza for solo guitar leading to the finale (Dawn: Escape) “that runs desperately toward the light – one hopes – of a better day.”
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