Karen Gottlieb, Music for Harp, By Bay Area Composers

We owe the prominence of the harp in chamber music these days to various factors. The romantic era featured it often enough as an integral part of orchestral works and modern composers have turned to it more frequently for its special color and capabilities.

World-class virtuoso harpist Karen Gottlieb treats us to a program of modern-era music for harp and various chamber combinations. She has spent a good deal of time in the San Francisco Bay Area playing the local modern's music, and consequently she falls naturally into this recital of mid-to-late 20th century Frisco-associated composers. Her father was a prominent ethnomusicologist and her mother an architect. As she grew up there was a continual flow through her home of visiting artists and musicians--from Hindemith to Ravi Shankar. The adventurous music of modern and world scope was something she learned about and embraced early-on, apparently. The repertoire she so aptly addresses on Music for Harp (Innova 927) reflects her roots and makes the music she plays a part of her personal heritage. Hence there is a conviction to what she does, a depth.

There are to be heard five tonal-domain compositions by four modern composers associated with the Bay Area. The album is bookended by two Lou Harrison works, the most iconoclastic, world-oriented composer of his time and place. The first, the 1940 Suite for Cello and Harp finds us in a sound world not yet fully matured but nonetheless filled with the lyrical, folk-inflected genius in a five-part suite idiomatically suited for the two instruments. Dan Reiter aptly seconds Ms. Gottlieb on cello for a performance of sensitive warmth.

Harrison's later (1967-77) period masterpiece "Music for Harp and Percussion" gives us the fully bloomed composer in one of his most productive periods. The combination of Karen's harp and the twin percussion voices of William Winant and Daniel Kennedy triumph with a fully alive version of the seven-part suite. It shows off Ms. Gottlieb as an expressive and fully resonant proponent of harp finesse and dynamics. And the quasi-ethnic, quasi-archaic uniqueness of mature Harrison never sounded better.

Dan Reiter's Sonata for Flute and Harp (1982) has a kind of neo-impressionist lyricism that is brought out beautifully by Tod Brody and Ms. Gottlieb. And Wayne Peterson's "Colloquy for Flute and Harp" (1999) has that resonance as well, with a slightly more expanded melodic modernism. Both works are quite engaging.

Karen's harp version of John Cage's mysterious "In A Landscape" (1949) brings out its wonderful vibrancy at the hands of a master.

So all told we have a rather wonderful set of music on this album. Karen Gottlieb has a sure and deft sense of her instrument and brings out its many timbral and spatial wonders with these heartening set of works. Anyone who loves the harp and/or lyrical modernism will not fail to appreciate this one!

Very recommended for its angelic presence!

McCormick Percussion Group, Between Rock & A Hard Place, Scotto, Cage, Senn

The cauldron of stylistic amalgams continues to boil steadily, giving us various blends of new music and other once very disparate styles, now combining in nearly endless possibilities. Today we have an album that features a heady mix of new music and heavy metal rock, as played by the McCormick Percussion Group on Between Rock & A Hard Place (Ravello 7898).

The centerpiece of the program is the Ciro Scotto work that furnishes the title to the album. It is a rather striking combination of heavy metal guitar (Corey Harvin as soloist), electric bass, drums and the percussion group. The music gives place to the rock ensemble and the many varied percussion instruments in equal measure. Riding the metal riffs in four movements is the electric portion of the ensemble, yet the percussion extends the music and gives it color and character it would not have otherwise. It works because Scotto finds a common ground where the music comes together. There is a second, unplugged version where guitar and bass play their parts acoustically and that too has much interest as a contrast and a very different outcome.

With the advent of the percussion group new music was dramatically liberated from conventional classical timbres. The joining of the percussion sounds with heavy metal goes to show you how liberation makes it possible to go virtually anywhere given a cohesive conception, which is certainly the case with this work. Plus metal is about striking forward, hitting notes and chords percussively, and that makes it ripe for this synthesis.

The rest of the album features works that have resonance in new music projection, but no rock elements, and that works fine as change of pace and contrast. John Cage's "Five" gets an unusual and interesting version for five players on a bowed vibraphone. Dan Senn's "Rivus" chimes in with a complementary work for celeste, glockenspiel and vibes that is about struck color, movement and tonality, and has trajectory that sets it apart as similar but different.

After the unplugged version of the Scotto work we get John Cage again with his "Composition for 3 Voices," an early work (1934), here realized for two vibes and marimba.

This in all is music that engrosses as it transcends boundaries. The McCormick group is first-rate in every way and they shine forth brightly here in a program that will appeal to anyone with an open mind. Kudos!

John Cage, As It Is, Alexei Lubimov, Natalia Pschenitschnikova

This month John Cage would have been 100 years old. There are celebrations of his music going on all over the world and new release are burgeoning in commemoration of the anniversary.

One of the more interesting is the release As It Is (ECM New Series B0017198-02) which will be out in the states this September 25th. It's Alexei Lubimov on piano and prepared piano, Natalia Pschenitschnikova on vocals for a program of some of the more intimate gems in Cage's oeuvre.

The artists have selected judiciously from Cage's body of music to come up with some of the more tonal, quasi-ethnic-folk-like ambient music for voice, prepared piano and piano, alone and in combination. It's Cage at his more directly accessible, much of it early, all of it pioneering.

Lubimov, Pschenitschnikova, and producer Manfred Eichner bring out the resonance of these miniatures in ways that stand out. Some have the quirky simplicity of Satie, the prepared piano pieces have a gamelan-like quality often remarked upon but brought to the fore in the ECM production style. Natalia's vocals emphasize the direct simplicity of the vocal lines. Alexei (who championed Cage's music as early as the '60s in his native Russia) brings out the exotic and enchanted qualities of the keyboard parts.

This is a great collection of Cage as a model of post-modern sensibility. It is not as concerned with the high modern works of his middle period. As a result it should form a wonderful introduction to Cage for those who have not yet accustomed themselves to the more abstract Cage.

It is a very well-performed collection of some of his most directly engaging music. And so it is very much recommended. You can pre-order the CD at Amazon for delivery later in the month.