Stephen Barber, "Astral Vinyl," A Special Sort of Eclecticism

As time moves on, the idea of "something different" changes. The avant garde of today might be something considered conservative 30 years ago. Time changes things, perspectives shift and we find different aspects of music to gauge so-called progress. Sometimes, that is. Someone like Edgar Varese may be ahead of his time for a long time, perhaps for all the time our civilization has. Who can say? The chances are slim that "Arcana" will be the background music for a coffee commercial any time in the future, at any rate. And should that matter to us, really? I don't think so. You don't find microbiologists lamenting how little their work has entered the pop mainstream. Why is modern classical any different?

The music of composer Stephen Barber, on the other hand, is advanced in its eclecticism. Astral Vinyl (Navona 5850), a recent compilation of his compositions, bears this out. He has big ears. He has been absorbing the music around him. He casts a wide net. The compilation showcases 12 of his works, all for diverse combinations. There are string quartets, vocal music with piano and steel drums, chamber ensembles that let in rock elements a la Zappa, brass choirs, some electronic filtering here and there, an occasional harmonically expanded tang to the sound.

In all of these works there is eclecticism, yes, but there is a tonal Americana lurking in the wings. Maestro Barber is the son of Ives, Copland and the other Barber, spiritually. Oh, also a little Schoenberg, Webern, Berg and Stravinsky, at least to my ears. Yes, also Frank Zappa. And he brings a musical personality into the mix that pleases as it hones a lyrical craftsmanship and artistry of which, for his most characteristic works, perhaps we will say someday, "oh yes, that's Stephen Barber's music. I can tell."

Be that as it may, right now I find the music very pleasing. Posterity will do what it will, willy nilly.

John Carollo, Transcendence in the Age of War

John A. Carollo is an American composer that minds (and mines) modernist roots to forge an expressive personal style. I reviewed his Starry Nights on this blog last July 16, 2011. Now for a look at an earlier release, Transcendence in the Age of War (Navona 5817).

This one covers a wide spectrum of chamber and orchestral forms.

Carollo has a real knack for constructing melody/ensemble lines that have a modern ring to them and tend to soar expressively. This is quite true of the two short pieces for string orchestra, Desiderio and Let Thy Mind Be Still, which like Starry Night from the second album have a kind of Ivesian rootedness combined with a Carollian uniqueness. There is a denser, more active texture to String Quintet No. 1 for 10-String Guitar and String Quartet, but the inventive line knack is again at the forefront.

Fear of Angst for Flute, Cello and Piano has more chromatic expansiveness and a more expanded harmonic range for the first movement. It is also very well conceived. Movement two is quite beautiful, with striking pitch-timbre contrasts between flute and cello, the piano mediating somewhere at the center of the sound. The final movement has a more desolate quality, then some turbulent final bars.

The title piece, Transcendence in the Age of War for two pianos has a dense, restless, endlessly modulating quality appropriate to the subject matter.

So there we are. A very well played set of interesting compositions, some rather sublime, some rather edgy, all showing the inventive talents of John Carollo. If you can only get one of his two CDs, Starry Night would get my vote for its beautiful string pieces. Transcendence in the Age of War comes in a close second. Here is a composer of today that deserves your attention.

Jim Connolly, "It is Only Gravity that Makes Wearing A Crown Painful"

Judging from his new release It's Only Gravity that Makes Wearing A Crown Painful (pfMENTUM 061), composer Jim Connolly writes modern music for chamber ensemble that has a distinct Americana feel to it. The Gove County String Quartet along with Anna Abbey on piano and toy piano, and the composer on contrabass present a program of 20 miniatures that have a kind of naive diatonic quality. There is much charm. It isn't quite the sort of naive diatonicism that Erik Satie or John Cage sometimes put forward. It is closer in spirit to Aaron Copland in his more rustic moments, though not precisely. And of course Copland always had a kind of sophisticated way of going about things no matter what he did. Jim Connolly hews more to a folk lifeways in body as well as spirit, albeit transformed to a concert medium.

The music has more charm than it does rigorous form in the more academic sense. For the open listener I suppose this is neither here nor there in the end. The music beguiles and clears the air of any stuffy particulates. I find with successive listens that Connolly's chamber music is only facile on the surface. There is the feeling of an intimate evening of "plain" music in a rural homestead sometime in the unspecific past, but something original and involved going on underneath it as well.

The sound is as plainly presented as the music. It is not something to show off your system to visitors, if anybody does that any more, but it more than adequately conveys the spirit and nuance of the music at hand.

Very interesting, Give it a few hearings and decide for yourself.