Modern and Contemporary

Nancy Galbraith – Everything Flows
Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose
BMOP Sound 1096 (bmopsound.bandcamp.com/album/nancy-galbraith-everything-flows-concerto-for-solo-percussion-and-orchestra)

I’ve previously written reviews in The WholeNote praising five different CDs by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and conductor Gil Rose. Here’s another. These three very entertaining concertos by Nancy Galbraith, chair of composition at Carnegie Mellon University in her native Pittsburgh, were written for, premiered by and now recorded by three “friends and/or colleagues” – violinist-conductor-composer Alyssa Wang, new-music-championing flutist Lindsey Goodman and virtuoso percussionist Abby Langhorst.

Galbraith’s Violin Concerto No.1 (2016) begins with perky percussion and the violin playing buoyant Chinese-sounding melodies. In the elegiac second movement, Eggshell White Night, Galbraith’s tribute to a late friend, the violin laments amid gentle harp and piano arpeggios over solemn, sustained orchestral chords. The finale begins as a perpetuum mobile with headlong violin figurations and ends with grandiose orchestral perorations accompanying the violin’s rapid passagework.

The Flute Concerto (2019) is similarly structured. Two cheerful movements featuring percussion-enlivened Latin American dance rhythms bracket the Nocturne, in which the flute plays plaintive phrases and melodies, electronically echoed and amplified, over gloomy orchestral chords.

A wild barrage of syncopated Latin American rhythms launches the one-movement Everything Flows: Concerto for Solo Percussion and Orchestra (2019), gradually subsiding to a slower, quieter central section that evokes, for me, African drumming and the thumb-played mbira. The concerto ends with a raucous, jazzy jam session. It would be great fun to watch as the soloist becomes a one-person percussion section, playing nearly non-stop on at least 12 different instruments!

Virgil Thomson – A Gallery of Portraits for Piano and Other Piano Works
Craig Rutenberg
Everbest Music 1003 (virgilthomson.org)

Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) is chiefly remembered for his operas Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All, both set to librettos by Gertrude Stein, and the orchestral suites he derived from his film scores – the one he arranged from Louisiana Story won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949. Writers about music also continue to cite Thomson’s acerbic reviews from his tenure as music critic of New York’s Herald Tribune (1940-1954).

This two-CD set contains 81 piano miniatures, most under two minutes, including 70 of the approximately 160 Portraits Thomson composed portraying friends and acquaintances, each present during the music’s creation. There are sentimental melodies, often hinting at familiar hymns and folk tunes, military fanfares and marches, merry-go-round music and playful dances, many spiced with puckish “wrong notes.”

I recognized only seven names among those depicted: composers Paul Bowles (a quirky, mildly-dissonant waltz), Lou Harrison (melodically and rhythmically ambiguous) and Aaron Copland (emphatically folksy); Pablo Picasso (Prokofiev-like percussiveness) and Picasso’s mistress Dora Maar (restlessly meandering); actor-producer John Houseman (meditative) and this recording’s pianist, Craig Rutenberg (gently rocking). Rutenberg, a good friend of Thomson, has enjoyed a distinguished career as teacher, vocal coach and accompanist for such stars as Diana Damrau, Frederica von Stade and Ben Heppner.  

Five selections from Thomson’s ballet Filling Station evoke vigorous work-songs, while the four-piece Suite from the film The Plow that Broke the Plains features Cowboy Songs and Blues, adding to this collection’s significance.

Souvenirs
Carlos Manuel Vargas
Navona Records nv6615 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6615)

Multi-award winning, Dominican Republic-born, Boston-based pianist Carlos Manuel Vargas performs a compilation of 13 technically and stylistically wide-ranging eclectic international solo compositions chosen with “[persons of influence on] my career in mind, hence the title of “Souvenirs” … a small gesture for all the support I have received over the years.”

The opening Impressões Seresteiras by Heitor Villa-Lobos is an attention-grabbing virtuosic and dramatic piece. From soft sparkling beginning, to louder clear runs, trills and lower notes, Vargas plays with well thought-out precision. Earl Wild’s arrangements of two George Gershwin compositions for solo piano – Virtuosic Etudes after Gershwin: The man I love, and Embraceable You – are each more classical/romantic takes of the famous jazz tunes, performed here with unique colourful sounds. The highlight of the three Rafael Bullumba Landestoy compositions is the short danceable jazz/Latin sounding Estudio en Zamba which drives Vargas’ energetic performance. Vargas plays the original first two movements of Alexander Scriabin’s Sonata Fantasy:  Piano Sonata No. 2 in G Sharp Minor Op.19. A soft reflective straightforwardly intelligent rendition of I. Andante I is contrasted by the superfast II. Presto. Three famous Edith Piaf songs are included and the highlight is Varga’s interpretation of La vie en rose, arranged by Roberto Piana. Vargas’ slightly rubato emotional playing gives the sense of a sung melody as it alternates between left and right hand to a soft high-pitched closing. Inspired performances of Poulenc, Vitier and Golijov compositions complete the release.

Kinetic
Kinetic Ensemble
Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0189 (brightshiny.ninja/kinetic)

Houston-based Kinetic ensemble was formed in 2015. The 16 professional younger generation string players perform without a conductor in flexible classical chamber and orchestral formations. This debut release consists of four works Kinetic commissioned and premiered which explore the connection between musical sounds and the natural world. 

The Wilderness Anthology by Patrick Harlin is an intriguing seven-movement, beautifully scored work for string orchestra and pre-recorded audio soundscapes from remote and imperiled ecosystems on the Amazon. I. Reverence/Dusk opens with very quiet prerecorded wildlife sounds like bird whistling. Instrumentals begin with melodic, contrapuntal string parts and repeated rhythmic low strings groove. VII. Dawn/Reverence features held notes alternating with recorded wave sounds. 

Avian themes reappear in Paul Novak’s A String Quartet is like a Flock of Birds, with very tight playing of accessible contemporary music. The held notes, plucks, high pitches and melodies are played alone or all at once in fast to slow tempi. To me it sounds like a sunny day with birds in the backyard! Next is Nicky Sohn’s What Happens if Pipes Burst? The softer slower string interludes are very musical and reflective. A faster ending with virtuosic super fast playing adds excitement. Daniel Temkin’s Ocean’s Call for String Orchestra is a three-movement composition for full orchestra. The extended cello solos in I. Hanging Cliffs, Rising Mist are dramatic. III. Lullaby Waves is sparse with passionate solos and an intense closing that slows down to bring this enjoyable album to an exquisite conclusion.