Modern and Contemporary

Sally Beamish – The Singing
James Crabb; Håkan Hardenberger; Branford Marsalis; Royal Scottish Orchestra; National Youth Orchestra of Scotland; Martyn Brabbins
BIS 2156

British composer Sally Beamish has called Scotland home since 1990, and describes her love of Scottish traditional music, landscape and history along with an interest in jazz as her inspirations. There are many, many styles and traditions that Beamish draws upon in her compositions, making this release of her works written between 2003 and 2012 intriguing, accessible and exciting listening.

Accordionist James Crabb is spectacular in the concerto The Singing. From long mournful singing lines, bagpipe imitations and breathing bellows and winds, the accordion and orchestra create lush soundscapes. Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is equally lyrical and moving in Under the Wing of the Rock, a piece originally scored for solo viola and strings and inspired by Celtic song and psalms. It’s back to downtown city living in the exciting Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra featuring soloist Håkan Hardenberger. The use of parts of scrapped cars and scaffolding pipes in the percussion section against the wailing trumpet in the third movement creates a dramatic edgy, hard sound. Reckless for chamber orchestra is witty and light while the orchestra emulates atmospheric washes of land and sea in A Cage of Doves. Conducted by Martyn Brabbins, both the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, on the trumpet concerto, play with energetic precision and flair.

Beamish’s love and respect for her inspirations resonate throughout these intelligent works. Perfect music to warm up a cold winter’s day!

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.

Just Strings – Compositions of Lou Harrison and John Luther Adams
Just Strings; Alison Bjorkedal; John Schneider; T.J. Troy; HMC American Gamelan
MicroFest Records MF7
(microfestrecords.com)

This sparkling album weaves together six works variously scored for harp, guitar and percussion by Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning American composer John Luther Adams (b.1953), and his mentor Lou Harrison (1917-2003).

The liner notes call Harrison “the Godfather of World Music,” and not without justification. His compositions from mid-career on are marked by the incorporation of elements of the musics of non-Western cultures, particularly those of South, Southeast and East Asia. For example, from the 1970s to the end of his life Harrison composed dozens of works for Sundanese, North and Southcentral Javanese types of gamelan (orchestra). Along the way he influenced several generations of musicians including Toronto’s Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan.

Calling it “American gamelan” Harrison also constructed several of his own DIY versions of gamelan prototypes with his partner William Colvig. They chose to tune each gamelan set in just intonation, eschewing both mainstream equal temperament and the Javanese/Sundanese indigenous theoretical tuning systems (of which he was also well aware). We hear a work Harrison wrote for one of his American gamelans in the finale of this album. In Honor of the Divine Mr. Handel (1991), for concert harp and small Javanese gamelan in just intonation, is stylishly directed by composer and Harrison scholar Bill Alves. It manages a difficult and deft dual musical trick: it is not only a delightfully tuneful tribute to the baroque composer but also to the music of the Javanese gamelan.

Among today’s leading composers in the Western classical lineage, John Luther Adams is represented here by two suites, Five Athabascan Dances and Five Yup’ik Dances, both from 1995. Like Harrison before him, Adams, in these works, pays respect to indigenous music-making. Commissioned for the Just Strings trio, the works drew on traditional songs of the Athabascan people for the first set and on the songs of the Yup’ik of the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta for the second. Those songs were extensively reworked and rendered in the Pythagorean tuning by the composer, who remarked that he had “extended and transformed these … melodies in many ways. In the process, they have become something else, somewhat far removed from Alaska Native music in sound and in context.”

In the skillful musical hands of the three Grammy Award-winning musicians of Just Strings, this melody-forward music of Adams and Harrison rings true clear across boundaries marked by culture, musical performance practice and genre.

Elliott Sharp – The Boreal
Various Artists
Starkland ST-222 (starkland.com)

There is a sense of beautiful, orderly turmoil on Elliott Sharp’s The Boreal. Speaking first of the piece and then the whole album, the fullest appreciation of the music is, of course, to be had by following its schematics from Sharp’s score, which is exquisite in all its minimalistic glory. This, as the composer points out, includes “hocketed grooves, difference tones and non-pitched materials generated by the use of alternate bows made from ballchain and metal springs.” The effect is quite masterful, pleasing to the ear, mostly due to the clarity of the gestures, and of course, the JACK Quartet’s brilliant interpretation of this written/improvised score. You learn immediately to appreciate, the combustible spontaneity, the treasurable fire, communicative flair and consummate craft of Sharp’s indelible inspiration.

Headlined by The Boreal, the recording also features some of Elliott Sharp’s other remarkable pieces – Oligosono from 2004, Proof Of Erdős from 2006, performed by Orchestra Carbon, with David Bloom as conductor, and On Corlear’s Hook from 2007 performed by the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra with Peter Rundel conducting. The selection provides a peep into Sharp’s polymath-like artistry. The noteworthy Oligosono is a reference to the world of “little sounds” and what is even more remarkable is its transposition from the stringed instrument for which it was written, to the piano, and performed with wit and intuition by pianist Jenny Lin. Two hands here and a new generation of rhythm and harmonic overtones make this piece quite memorable. Proof Of Erdős is an erudite homage to the mathematician Pál Erdős. The tonal colours of On Corlear’s Hook are culled from Sharp’s ethereal palette and flawless artistry.