Modern and Contemporary

Glenn Kotche – Adventureland
Glenn Kotche; Kronos Quartet; eighth blackbird; Gamelan Galak Tika
Cantaloupe CA21098

No doubt about it, Adventureland is a product of a curious and singular musical mind. Glenn Kotche, most widely known as the drummer of the Chicago alternative rock band Wilco, is as well a percussionist and a very active composer of well-received postmodernist concert works. While on this album he wears his well-worn composer hat, his approach as a drummer and percussionist to composition and sonic textures permeates much of his Adventureland suite.

Kotche was commissioned in 2006 by the Kronos Quartet to compose the seven-section string quartet plus percussion score Anomaly. Seven additional movements were added for this album. One of the most juicy-savoury elements in this musical gumbo is experiencing the constantly shifting instrumental textures. For example Chicago’s eighth blackbird ensemble, Kronos Quartet and electronics are featured in the dreamlike Triple Fantasy. Interwoven throughout the suite are the five movements of The Haunted, scored for “two pianos vs. percussion,” which pit non- and semi-pitched percussion sounds against the pianos’ range of single and clustered tones.

A standout both in timbre and performance are the Balinese gamelan sounds performed by Boston’s skilled 18-musician Gamelan Galak Tika, directed by Evan Ziporyn in “The Traveling Turtle” movement.

In places, Kotche’s music may remind you of Steve Reich’s motivically constrained additive strategies. By way of contrast however, it also possesses more frequent and abrupt changes in melody, harmony and metre, as well as more flow, form, texture and mood than does the minimalist master’s. Kotche aptly summed up his musical rollercoaster ride: “I called this Adventureland because besides being something that’s fun, it’s also kind of weird and mysterious, and at the same time scary and intimidating.”

Stravinsky – Oedipus Rex; Apollon Musagète
Soloists; Monteverdi Choir; London Symphony Orchestra; John Eliot Gardiner
LSO Live LSO0751

John Eliot Gardiner celebrated his 70th birthday a year ago last month, and over the course of his 50- year career, he has rightfully established himself as an internationally renowned conductor and pedagogue. Although regarded primarily as an interpreter of music from the Baroque and Classical periods, Gardiner’s talents have also extended to include such composers as Beethoven, Berlioz, Mendelssohn and Massenet. Nevertheless, it’s not often he has approached 20th century repertoire, so this new CD featuring Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagète and Oedipus Rex recorded live at his birthday concert in April 2013 with the London Symphony Orchestra is something of a rarity.

The ballet Apollon Musagète for string orchestra was completed in January 1928, the result of a commission from the Library of Congress. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Gardiner would be drawn to music written by the Russian composer during his neo-classical period. So just how does the founder of the Monteverdi Choir deal with Stravinsky? In a word, admirably! Here, the listener immediately senses what great care Gardiner has taken with this performance, with no detail left untouched. The LSO strings are warmly resonant with the ensemble achieving a fine of sense of balance in the ten contrasting movements.

Oedipus Rex, completed a year earlier, is a tougher nut to crack. Part opera, part oratorio, the work was based on Sophocles with a libretto by Jean Cocteau and then translated into Latin. Its mixture of musical styles can make it a challenge to bring off convincingly, but here, Gardiner and the LSO - along with the Monteverdi Choir and soloists that include Jennifer Johnston, Stuart Skelton and Gordon Saks – achieve a wonderful sense of drama at times infused with wry humour.

Refusing to be typecast, Gardiner first gained acclaim through his performances of early music, but now succeeds at the other end of the spectrum, proving to be as adept at Stravinsky as he is with Monteverdi or Mozart.

American Grace – Piano Music from Steven Mackey and John Adams
Orli Shaham; Jon Kimura Parker; Los Angeles Philharmonic; David Robertson
Canary Classics CC11

Orli Shaham and Jon Kimura Parker brilliantly perform Hallelujah Junction, for two pianos, written in1996 by John Adams. The piece derives its title from a truck stop on Highway 49 on the California/Nevada border. It is an extremely complex piece rhythmically and harmonically. The pianists play off of one another in chunky, alternating chords and jazzy syncopations. There is a moment of impressionistic repose until the intense and ferocious boogie–woogie concludes the piece. Steven Mackey’s Stumble to Grace is a piano concerto written for Shaham in 2011 and commissioned by the Los Angeles, St. Louis and New Jersey Orchestras. Although the concerto is in one movement, it is divided into five stages, which are inspired by those that a young child goes through in developing into maturity. Mackey is a guitarist who had been thoroughly immersed in rock music until later in life. He is now a Professor at Princeton University. I was absolutely enthralled with this piece and the imaginative and unique orchestration. The interaction and play with the piano resulted in fascinating tonal colors. Both the orchestra and the pianist were superb in bringing this unusual concerto to life. China Gates by Adams, a mesmerizing and hypnotic minimal piece, was played by Shaham with sensitivity, articulation and crystalline touch.

My only suggestion in regards to this excellent CD would be to change the order of the works. I would leave out the Sneaky March by Mackey, which at a little over one minute seemed superfluous, place China Gates second and end with the remarkable concerto.

Compositeurs de la CASA DE VELÁZQUEZ: Samuel Andreyev; Kenji Sakaï
Various Artists
Académie de France à Madrid (casadevelazquez.org)

Samuel Andreyev – The Tubular West
Samuel Andreyev
Torpor Vigil Records TVR-CD006 (torporvigil.com)

We rarely hear about Canadian composers living abroad; the young Samuel Andreyev (b.1981) hails from Kincardine, Ontario but has made Paris his home since 2003. Andreyev’s music is complex, meticulously scored, and intriguingly quirky – his ensembles often include musette (a piccolo oboe) or a Casio SK-1 (a now-defunct electronic keyboard).

Andreyev is clever in establishing stasis, then disturbing it constantly: both intermittently and unexpectedly. The colours of his orchestration – imagine an ensemble of piccolo, musette, piccolo clarinet and tin cans together in Vérifications – never offend. The complexity of his textures seems organic, almost improvisatory, yet over multiple listens, I hear the careful planning and evolution of sounds – a chimerism of form.

The concertante work for piano, À propos du concert de la semaine dernière, systematically separates left and right hand, and accompanies each in a hauntingly Schnittke-esque bipolarity.

Andreyev’s music is sometimes raw – even profane – but reveals its intention profoundly. Fortunately, Canadian ensembles are taking more notice of this composer (already published by A. Leduc); the Edmonton New Music Festival featured his music this season, and Esprit Orchestra has commissioned an orchestral work (planned for 2014/15).

I would be remiss not to mention Andreyev’s venture into pop music: the composer has a full-length release on the Torpor Vigil label. Andreyev – on The Tubular West – is “geeky” (in the most positive sense): a kind of early Beck meets Sondre Lerche, but the detail of the arrangements clearly pegs him as a “real composer.” Andreyev is also a published poet.