Donnacha Dennehy, Lisa Moore, Stainless Staining

The pulsation, the beat if you will, of some of the early minimalists was one of the things that attracted me to their music. Riley and Reich did landmark works in a gradualist realm, but they also "rocked out" in their own way. Some composers got away from the pulse in years following, for better or lesser results, but I still find In C and Reich's instrumental/vocal pieces of his early-mid post-electronic period to be works I continue to turn to with pleasure. And they all pulsate like the Dickens.

The EP Stainless Staining (Cantaloupe) brings back the pulsation in ways that appeal to me. Lisa Moore is the pianist here, playing the music of Donnacha Dennehy. There are two pieces on the 24 minute disk. "RESERVOIR for Piano" forms a rather attractive postlude to the main event, which is the title track.

"Stainless Staining" uses a "soundtrack" of samples of low G# retuned to accentuate 100 overtones derived from that fundamental. The samples involve playing inside and outside the piano. The result is a pulsating mass of piano sound, atop which Lisa Moore plays her "live" part.

In the end it is 15 minutes of very rhythmic, patterned, richly overtoned music. Lisa Moore plays her role perfectly and the music buzzes and swings its way through your head with irresistible drive and elan.

It's a disk that will be finding its way onto my player many times in the future I am sure. In its own way it has a perfection. It is a kind of heaven! Would you require more than that?

Alan Hovhaness, Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 50, Seattle Symphony, Schwarz

When the history of music comes to mind, especially I suppose in the classical realm, it's something like how we ordinarily think of the history of anything. It's like a giant roll of wallpaper, wide enough to accommodate what's going on that's considered important at any time, and then it's thick enough so we can start unrolling at some sort of beginning (Ancient Greece? Gregorian? What?) and keep unrolling to find a succession of styles through to today. It has in part to do with our conception of time "flying from A to B like an arrow to its target."

And there is much to be gained thinking of the history that way. Somewhere in the early '70s of last century, however, a strictly linear view of the world started to break down, if just a little bit. The idea of progress and evolution to ever greater heights became a little problematic. After Modernism, what? Well, Minimalism, for one. Then all kinds of Neo-this and Neo-that, a few that have not been formally named, even. But no clear A to B movement, as far as I can tell.

If the linear progress of composers' tackling ever more daunting complexities has broken down, we have people like Alan Hovhaness in part to thank. Of course it's never been that simple anyway. J. S. Bach was still working in an earlier style when Rococo Classicism was first stirring. Charles Ives was in some ways a father of Modernism, but he had Romantic aspects and he also created deliberate clashes between simple pop ditties or hymn tunes in multiple conflicting performance with perhaps some strident dissonances as well, and in that way looked forward to a post- situation. Lou Harrison was attracted to the musics of the East and made that a huge part of his music. John Cage in his prepared piano pieces was often something other than "Modern" as such.

Nonetheless composer Alan Hovhaness stands out as one of the prophetic figures. He turned to the music of his Armenian heritage, and later classical music of Japan and other influences, to hammer out a music that was not Modern in the sense of what was going on around him. And yet his music was decidedly not eclectic either. Every Hovhaness opus bears his unique stylistic stamp.

And so we come finally to today's CD, a recording of two Hovhaness symphonies by the fine Seattle Symphony under Gerard Schwarz, Symphony No. 1 'Exile' and Symphony No. 50 'Mount Saint Helens' (Naxos 8.559717).

The Symphony No. 1 is an important one for understanding Hovhaness the composer. It is dedicated to those Armenians who were forced to leave Turkey during a pogram situation in the early 20th Century. It's pure Hovhaness. All the things Alan was as a composer were more or less in that symphony, albeit in a less developed state. It was in melodic form, in melodic contour that Hovhaness showed his traditional Armenian influence. What he did with it was (and is) what Hovhaness is about. It's a mature work and a crucial reference point to where he began. Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony give a most sympathetic reading, as they do all the music on this disk.

In between the 1st and the 50th Schwarz interjects an excellent and representative work from Hovhaness's middle period, the "Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints" from 1965. Again, there is a melodic arch that clearly comes out of Japanese classical music. What is done with the theme is Hovhaness in pure form.

The final work comes from 1982, moving towards the end of his life. The "Mount St. Helens" Symphony No. 50 gives us very magestic music that becomes quite turbulent, then triumphantly chorale-like in the last movement--depicting the mountain in repose, then in irruption.

Like all Hovhaness, there is an archaic quality (as the liner notes point out), sometimes evoking Eastern Orthodox chant, sometimes other older forms, but here, as often elsewhere in his music there is Modernism to be heard in non-harmonic tones and pieces of dissonance, a bit of orchestral chaos. So it is never so simple.

Hovhaness does not fit into the endless scroll idea of music history, except that he was a pioneer in his use of non-contemporary and non-Western elements in forging his music. Nowadays we have Arvo Part to appreciate doing this sort of thing in his very own way. But Hovhaness was there when it was a little bit of a daring thing to do. In the end what counts of course is the music. The three Hovhaness works presented on the Naxos release at hand are very representative, very moving and enjoyable, and very well performed.

Rob Mosher, 31 Chorales

Composer-soprano saxophonist Rob Mosher commemorated his 31st birthday by writing 31 chorales in 31 days. They are loosely in the Bach mould. They have been recorded and released as, not surprisingly, 31 Chorales (self-released).

First, the instrumentation: it's unusual. It's Rob on soprano plus trumpet, bass clarinet and tuba. So you get the ranges you would expect from a four-part chorale, but the sound colors of the ensemble put it in an unusual aural context that is quite pleasant and interesting to the ears.

Second, the music: it's not rote Bach-a-naila. It's a little quirky. There are the 31 miniature chorales and five short chamber compositions. There is the healthy presence of the modern harmonic palette, enough that you know what year this is, plus a good bit of humor and lots of verve.

It's just different enough to be a very pleasant surprise. In the day-in, day-out reviewing of as many as 800 CDs every year, I need that. And if you are a dedicated listener to "serious" music, I would bet you need that too!

Recommended.

Composer Jeremy Beck Performed By IonSound Project Ensemble

There are more and more composers today that have embraced tonality and earlier styles with a vengeance. At first it seemed that most of those were retreating to a neo-romantic zone. Then there was minimalist linear tonality. Others combined tonality with its opposite. Jeremy Beck favors lyrical excursions into music inspired by Stravinsky's neo-classical period and perhaps a taste of Hindemith. But of course that's not all, there's a little of the S. Barber of Knoxsville and a general rhapsodic approach the puts Beck in his own niche.

The CD at hand IonSound Project (Innova 797) features seven mostly rather brief compositions scored for various instrumental and vocal combinations, as played (well) by the Pittsburgh based sextet IonSound Project.

It is very finely crafted music that leaves an impression in the end. There are glimpses of originality and very sensitive scoring for the various instrumental combinations. Now I do wonder what his orchestral works sound like. As it is, this is lovely music in a chamber mode.

Grazyna Bacewicz's Violin Concertos Nos. 2, 4, 5: Premier Recordings of Substantial Works, Well Played

If you aren't all that familiar with the music of Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) you are not alone. I have only come to her music recently. She left behind a body of works that may be more well-known in her native Poland than they are in the States, but that may be ending as her work becomes heard increasingly.

For instance we have the second volume of her violin concertos (Chandos), played with brilliance and sensitivity by Joanna Kurkowicz, with the Polish Radio Symphony under Lukasz Borowicz.

Bacewicz wrote extensively for the violin, and the concertos certainly show that she was well in command of expressive idiomatic writing for the instrument. The works cover a nine year span from the end of World War II through to 1954. The three works at hand (Concertos 2, 4, & 5) show originality within an overall Eastern European stylistic continuity. They have a moderately modernistic tone with a good deal of deftly handled, continually shifting chromaticisms and some melodic passages that echo Polish folks strains without exactly engaging them. The violin parts are virtuostic and expressive and her handling of the orchestra is sure.

The Chandos recording has good presence; the orchestra is in excellent form. It is a very good introduction to a composer that deserves more recognition in North America.

The Crossing: A Marvelous Choral Group and Their Release "It is Time"

Romanian poet Paul Celan may not get a great deal of attention here in the States. In the cultural dark ages of the present that is perhaps to be expected. NO modern poetry gets much in the way of attention. Though we lament the dearth of poetry dissemination as a whole we must give recognition (when it is due) to those artists and composers who creatively adapt important modern poetic texts to musical settings.

The Crossing, an exceptionally well-poised chamber choral group, have done something of this nature for Paul Celan's poetry with It is Time (Navona 5845). We get the chance to hear some very beautiful, very post-modern/modern settings of Celan by six less-than-well-known composers: David Shapiro, Kile Smith, Paul Fowler, Frank Havroy, Erhard Karkoschka and Kirsten Broberg.

It was said of some actor or other (I forget who) that he could recite from the phone book and move people to tears; he was that good. In many ways The Crossing under conductor Donald Nally have similar gifts. They sound incredibly beautiful no matter what they are doing. But the compositions themselves on It is Time are by no means lightweight fare. This is the music of today, beyond formula and dogma, richly expressive and unmistakably of our own time.

The results are breathtaking. I do not jest.

John Carollo's Starry Night for String Orchestra: Beautiful Post-Ivesian Work

John A. Carollo is an American composer whose music has not reached my ears until now. After hearing his Starry Night For String Orchestra (Navona 5844) several times for this review, I am glad to be catching up with him. The CD features six of his works. All have something to recommend them to our ears. The first and last compositions, two pieces for string orchestra, "Starry Night" and "Nothing Shall Come of This" form a kind of musical set of bookends to the pieces in between. The orchestral piece "Anguish in Every Household" fits in with these two in that all three have something of the crusty pioneers of American modernism--Ives, Ruggles and perhaps Henry Brant--embedded in them. (And others, too.) The thought is that he roots himself in the past in order to create another possible future for American classical music.

There is mystery and wonder painted with memorable tonal expressionism. Sometimes one is reminded of the Ives of "Central Park in the Dark" and "The Unanswered Question," not in terms of imitation but a kind of building upon the legacy of those masterworks. And there is the lushly full but cragged harmonies of the early masters too.

The middle pieces, Quartet No. 1 and "Moravian Sax in the Afternoon" have some of the rustic plainess of shape-note hymns, some of the rooted qualities of the American landscape (and in this case, since Mr. Carollo is Hawaii based, a hint of tropical island open spaces), and at times a sort of puckish good humor.

The piece for concert band, "Transcendence" has some restlessly modern modulating flourishes with latent power and forward thrust.

In the end I must say that the CD has made me into a John Carollo enthusiast. He builds bridges back to what is best in the pionering avant garde of 100 years ago, incorporates what is conducive to his creative and melodic-harmonic spirit, and makes of it all something new, and very American.

This is spirited, creative new American music, well performed and well worth a listen.

Alfred Schnittke's Complete Violin Sonatas in a New Naxos Recording

Of all the recognized Russian composers of the 20th century, Alfred Schnittke (d. 1998) often sounds the least Russian. He ordinarily avoids nationalist melodic, harmonic or rhythmic tendencies, preferring instead to carve out his own version of the expressive modernist international style in its later developments. This is especially true of his chamber music. Schnittke's four sonatas for violin and piano were composed over most of his active career, the first stemming from 1955, the last, 1994. It turns out they all fit nicely on a single 70-minute CD. Violinist Carolyn Huebl and pianist Mark Wait set out to do just that, and they have succeeded in giving us thoroughgoing, expressive and exacting performances of same on a new Naxos release (9.570978).

Other than the first (unnumbered) sonata from 1955, these are certainly on the surface of things firmly in a modernist tradition. They nevertheless bear the individual Schnittke watermark: often utilizing twelve-tone-serial-and-beyond techniques but in a very personal way, freely bending them toward his own harmonic and rhythmically lively ends while culling and synthesizing the full spectrum of concert music styles from the Baroque to the present, all in ways that are distinctly Schnittkian in their strikingly inventive thematic idiosyncrasies.

The violin sonatas are excellently representative Schnittke. The 1955 work a fascinating look at his early beginnings, the first through third sonatas masterpieces of 20th century chamber arts. Ms. Huebl and Mr. Wait do an excellent job bringing out the nuances of these very complex and vital works. The sound is very good as well. It's a treasure trove for an Schnittke enthusiast; it also serves as a good introduction to his music for anyone unfamiliar with it. At the Naxos price the disk is especially attractive!

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's New Label Off to Good Start: the Music of Theofanidis and Lieberson

Robert Spano and the Atlantic Symphony are doing excellent work. The orchestra's new label ASO Media is not only a good idea in a current climate where self-determination is often the best option; it is also providing in its first two releases some important interpretations of works by composers who deserve attention. The second release (CD-1002) is a good example. Christopher Theofanidis's "Symphony No. 1" and Peter Lieberson's "Neruda Songs" contrast nicely and make a fine listening experience individually as well.

Gongs, mallet instruments, chimes and winds set against translucent string writing on the ecstatic Theofanidis symphony. It has the multifold, lyrical sunlight-and-air feeling of the best Sibelius works, yet it manages to sound more contemporary by extending its musical syntax into long interwoven strands of motives and sound color with episodic linearity. Theofanidis's poetic command of the orchestral sounds available to him and the way he corrals then to his expressive ends impress and excite. This is ravishing music to chase away your dark moments.

Lieberson's "Neruda Songs" on the other hand is moodier, a little heavier, like a set of plush velvet curtains. Mezzo-soprano Kelly O'Connor seems a very proper instrument for this music, declamatory and full-bodied. Post-Wagnerian-Mahlerian-Bergian heft in the orchestra give gravitas to the poem settings. It's a satisfying listen.

Mediterranian sunlit dazzle versus Teutonic ponderousness. Theofanidis versus Lieberson. Fine performances, well-recorded. Everything seems right about this one. Highly recommended.

Joseph Schwantner's Later Period Wonderfully Represented in "Chasing Light"

Joseph Schwantner has gone from the status of a very promising young modernist American composer in the late '60s to one of our very best today. The new Nashville Symphony recording of three of Maestro Schwantner's major later period works, Chasing Light (Naxos 8.559678), makes it clear why. He has developed a vividly colorful orchestral palette which he uses to cover musical canvases in ways that strike the ear and remain memorable long after they have been heard.

The CD gives listeners a generous 68 minutes of his music. The 1994 "Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra" brings together some very difficult and exciting percussion soloing (performed here by Christopher Lamb, for whom the work was originally intended) with orchestral brilliance. The National Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin (with Evelyn Glennie as soloist) did a version for RCA in the later '90s. That version was excellent, but Giancarlo Guerrero and the Nashville Symphony hold their own on the Naxos disk with a reading that is every bit as luminous, though I might give a slight edge to Glennie for her impassioned performance.

"Morning's Embrace," the second work on the program, is a 2005 work with some prominent percussion and even more brilliant orchestral light. It depicts a sunrise in rural New Hampshire and it does so with all the resources the orchestra can muster.

The final work (from 2008) shows that Schwantner does not stand still. His orchestral writing is confident, lucid and original. You can hear the development in his musical vocabulary in the 14 years represented on the disk, culminating in a rather thrilling dynamism and muscular energy that eschews trendiness and opts instead for a form of personal expression that cuts across catagorical niceties to go straight into a realm one can best call Schwantner music.

He is a gem, a blazing sun of orchestral music today. Chasing Light gives you three exemplary works, played with conviction. It should not be ignored.

Frederik Magle's Tradition in Modernity: the Classic Art of Organ Improvisation on "Like A Flame"

Improvisation of course did not originate with the coming of jazz. In the realm of classical organ music, for example, there is a tradition of improvisation that has Johann Sebastian Bach as its most illustrious practitioner. In more recent times the school that includes Franck, Vierne, Widor, Tournemire, Dupre and the Alains made good use of the sonic possibilities of the modern cathedral organ and conceived of the results symphonically.

The young Frederik Magle has absorbed the tradition and in the persuasively rich 2-CD recital Like A Flame (Proprius 2061) gives us back his modern version of it. I will deflate any rhetorical suspense I might build up and say here that the results are something any aficionado of organ music will find delightful. His improvisations are varied, inventive and sonically powerful. The recording has excellent sound qualities as well.

It makes me want to hear his compositional work. Highly recommended!