Modern and Contemporary

American Chamber Music
James Ehnes; Seattle Chamber Music Society
Onyx 4129

In addition to the great European tradition of chamber music, American composers have also made significant contributions to the genre, beginning with the works of Arthur Foote in the 19th century. American chamber music is alive and well 150 years later, and this recording is a fine representation of repertoire from the 1930s and 40s with music by Copland, Ives, Bernstein, Carter and Barber performed by Canadian violinist James Ehnes and musicians of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

While some of the music on this CD might not be all that well known, it’s all worth investigating. Copland’s Violin Sonata from 1943 is a study in contrasts, with its buoyant opening movement, a restrained march and the rhythmical finale performed here with much panache by Ehnes and pianist Orion Weiss. Leonard Bernstein was still a student at Harvard when he composed his Piano Trio in 1937, its exuberance very much the music of a 19-year-old prodigy. The most familiar piece on this recording is surely Barber’s String Quartet, if only because of the famous Adagio, most often heard arranged for string orchestra. Here, the warmly resonant strings further heighten the movement’s elegiac mood. Equally elegiac is the brief Largo for violin, clarinet and piano by Charles Ives. Insurance broker by day and composer on the weekend, Ives was very much an individualist. His approach to music was distinctly American, and I liken the introspective mood of this piece from 1901 to those stark urban landscapes by Edward Hopper created 30 years later. Elliott Carter’s Elegy for viola and piano from 1943 is marked by a romantic conservatism not seen in his later style.

So it would seem that during the 1930s and 40s, there was more going on musically in America than the jitterbug and big bands and this CD proves it admirably. Kudos to James Ehnes and his group from Seattle for bringing to light some treasures that most certainly deserve greater exposure.

The Transcendentalist
Ivan IlicHeresy Records 015 (heresyrecords.com)

When it comes to new music the average music lover, including myself, is in an unknown territory (or downright ignorant) and that can provoke hostility and aversion at times. This new disc by Ivan Ilic, a distinguished American pianist of Serbian descent, does an immeasurable service to smoothen the road to acceptance by the back door, so to speak.

It’s a masterstroke to devise a program with the likes of Cage, Feldman or Wollschleger by tracing them backwards to “fall on branches descending from Frédéric Chopin.” It’s also all the more surprising – says Mr. Ilic – that Scriabin, one of the greatest innovators in the early 20th century, took Chopin as a point of departure. And this is the point at which this remarkable journey begins.

Scriabin’s Prelude Op.16, No.1 indeed sounds a bit like a Chopin Nocturne with a charming little melody developed nicely and it’s over in two minutes. Fine… everyone is happy about that, but our pianist now presents an early piece by John Cage, Dream (1948), and we immediately sense the relationship to Scriabin. The hesitant fragments moving at an even pace like moving in and out of our subconscious, laying out slowly a wonderful oriental landscape, sometimes interrupted by deep and disturbing chords… yes, indeed, we feel the connection, but also experience the departure into a new world with a mesmerizing, hypnotic effect.

“Transcendental meditation?” The phrase here takes on a new meaning under the magic hands of Ilic who is guaranteed to hypnotize you like no other into the mysteries of another universe, but at the same time plays Scriabin’s gorgeous D-flat major Prelude Op.31, No.1 so beautifully that you can perhaps endure the vicissitudes of this here universe.

Hosokawa – Orchestral Works 2
Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Orchestre National de Lyon; Jun Märkl
Naxos 8.573276

Toshio Hosokawa is in some way a visual artist disguised as a composer. The three pieces on this collection of orchestral music bear a striking similarity of form; they remind me of St. Exupéry’s descriptions of his childish drawings of boa constrictors who swallowed elephants. The author never succeeded in conveying how fearsome these images were to him; Hosokawa’s music, on the other hand, delivers moments of awe and terror, bordered by serenity and contemplation.

Each work opens with a sustained unison B flat, shimmering and pulsing; eventually each arrives at a final unison elsewhere. Hosokawa rejects artifice and architecture, preferring the organic. He depicts development, origins, growth. The first piece, Woven Dreams, traces an imaginary passage from the womb. Blossoming II and Circulating Ocean are reflections on the natural world. In the liner notes he describes the signature unison openings as fluid, amniotic or aquatic. One hears birdsong and water droplets, earthquakes and storms.

Though Hosokawa’s forms have curved edges, his orchestral effects often jar. He discovers new dissonances through note bends and microtonal juxtaposition. Deep booming percussion nearly overwhelms. At times his orchestration reminds me of Schnittke, at others of Mahler. He will use the orchestra as a huge macabre organ and then exploit individual instruments for passagework.

Unlike his senior compatriot, Toru Takemitsu, Hosokawa chose to embrace rather than distance himself from his own culture. He often uses canonic melodic entries, often cascades in the treble winds. He refers to this technique as Oibuki, featured in a style of Japanese court music called Gagaku. Where Takemitsu was repelled by the militarism he witnessed as boy, Hosokawa worries his culture is too ready to adopt external models rather than grow from its own roots.

Two different orchestras supply the music, under the able direction of Jun Märkl, whose parents bridge the east-west musical divide, a German violinist for a father, his mother a Japanese pianist.

Gabriel Prokofiev – Selected Classical Works 2003-2012
Various Artists
Nonclassical NONCLSS017

In this release by composer Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of Sergei Prokofiev) we get a clear sense of the composer’s predilection for displacing his various musical influences (electronica for example) into traditional classical contexts. This disc, released on Prokofiev’s own label, is a collection of works ranging from 2003-2012 that signal Prokofiev’s return to notated compositions.

In his first and second string quartets, a series of dance grooves constantly devolve into mysterious textures. Punchy double-stops and gritty gestures remind one of Bartók or Janáček.  Rhythmic plucks and scratches lie below lyrical folk inspired melodic elements. In the second quartet, Prokofiev does away with any lyrical commitment and relies on clear rhythmic processes akin to dissonant minimalism. Both quartets possess a satisfying yet frigid mood, much like the dreariness of the CD cover image.

Next, in the Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra the turntablist creates various electronic sounds cleverly blended with the orchestra with confident rhythmic inventiveness. Imagine Stravinsky’s Rite fused with the pounding rhythms of a nightclub beneath a haunting lyricism. The second movement evokes a deranged carnival as the turntable sounds mesh with the orchestra in a bizarre and warped sound environment.

Piano Book No. 1 provides an array of moods for the performer to explore without relying on unnecessary virtuosity. Next, the Cello Multitracks for solo cello allows the performer to stack dense layers of recorded cello sounds through electronic manipulation. The result is a rich sound world moving to and from ethereal and light moments, to thick and intense passages.

The disc is an impressive culmination of confident works that span a decade of the composer’s output. Each piece shows Prokofiev’s ability to create a successful reaction to the influences of pop and electronica through a traditional application.

Editor’s Note: Gabriel Prokofiev was the Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitor in Composition and composer-in-residence at the University of Toronto’s New Music Festival in January 2014. There were a number of performances of his works including the Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra (with DJ Madhatter and the U of T Symphony) and Cello Multitracks and Remixes performed by Shauna Rolston.