Polly Butler Cornelius, Wild Songs

This is a vocal recital of songs by Steve Heitzeg and Lori Laitman. Polly Butler Cornelius fills the room with her soprano delivery. She is joined by Victoria Fischer Faw on piano and the percussion work of Heather Barringer and Patti Cudd. The recital is named after Heitzeg's three-work cycle Wild Songs (Innova 825), which through its "natural" percussion and environmental sounds, and lyrics centering around the environment and its preservation, bring the mood toward the organic, so to say.

The song program has a touch of minimalism in a kind of referencing of a tribal sound (especially the marimba in "Wild Songs") but mostly it builds around the American song heritage begun by Ives and continued by Copland, Harrison and others. It's not Americana per se but rather draws upon the long tradition of song in America.

Lyrics follow suit, with two cycles based on Emily Dickinson poems, and one, sadly, on the last words of Robert Kennedy.

Polly Butler Cornelius has a fairly wide vibrato that takes a bit of getting used to. But she is dramatic and dynamic in this recital and the song material is very much worth hearing.

American art song? Here are some good examples of the new/natural in the old and the old in the new/natural.

On Cold Mountain: Songs on Poems of Gary Snyder, by Karen Clark and Galax Quartet

Some ideas simply sound good from the beginning. An example: "Do an album of modern settings of the poems of Gary Snyder." Gary managed to evoke personal, natural and social imagery in a very Zen poetic manner, and it doesn't take a stretch to see that he would be a good choice for song treatment. But has anybody done worthwhile work in this area? The answer is yes.

On Cold Mountain (Innova 795) features settings by four (modern, obviously) composers and each piece is highly evocative. In the hands of contralto Karen Clark and the Galax string quartet, listening is a moving experience. Karen Clark has a very beautiful vocal instrument that she harnesses without undue pathos to the mystically concrete world of Snyder. The Galax Quartet evokes just the right combination of Americana-meets-Cosmicana these pieces bring to our ears and hearts. The results are magical.

And so what of the compositions? Some composers may be unfamiliar to most listeners. The music speaks to us, however, with directness and beauty. Fred Frith (usually known as an improvisational guitarist) turns in a mysterious yet homespun-sounding "For Nothing." Roy Whelden's "Cold Mountain Songs" are haunting. "The Bubble of a Heart" by Robert Morris has a little gossamer and a little modern grit. "For All" finds W. A. Mathieu with a six-song suite that is both declamatory and dramatically diverse, in a reflective and sometimes indignant mood-mode.

The total effect is considerable, lyrical yet tied to earth, filled with exquisite beauty yet also with an over-riding search for meaning in the everyday details of experience. The composers reflect the poet; the performers reflect both. The meld between poet, composers and performers is as close to ideal as you are going to find today. I'd say it's a masterpiece, but people who read blogs might suspect I am overpraising, as bloggers sometimes do. I am not. It's a masterpiece of its kind.