Ten Holt, Incantatie IV, for Three Pianos, Jeroen and Sandra van Veen, Tamara Rumiantsev

Minimalist repetition (or what Gertrude Stein called "insistence") was hardly a new thing in essence when works started appearing under that rubric. African and Balinese music, for example, had made it a part of the music for many centuries, blues and rock had it as an important part of the music, and of course one might look elsewhere as well. But for a combination of insistence and a more or less classical framework, Satie may have been the principal progenitor but it was something new nonetheless.

By now there have been a good number of works to experience, some better, some less better, but by all means Simeon ten Holt (1923-2012) can be considered one of the major exponents. I say that after I have listened in depth to the 4-CD performance of Canto Ostinato XXL by Jeroen Van Veen and company (see my November 17, 2014 review) and now Incantatie IV (Brilliant 24918, 2CDs) for three pianos, performed by Jeroen and Sandra van Veen and Tamara Rumiantsev.

Like the Canto Ostinato XXL it contains choice on the part of performers as to what to include and what to leave out, along with choices in timbre and pitch, style and tempo, instrumentation and length of repetitions. Van Veen and company choose a moderately fast tempo and put the music in a minor mode. The score has complexities in its 15 layers. The three pianists negotiate them deftly, coming up with material from the score that would sound well even if not repeated, in a way that in the end is very pianistic. And perhaps that is one of the keys to what makes Simeon ten Holt so intriguing, that the compositional materials are composed of thematic elements that hold interest both in their repetition and in their transformation. Not all minimalist exponents are melodists of this caliber. Riley and Reich, surely, but some others less so.

And even then Simeon ten Holt's transformation options are sequentially dramatic but interrelated in fine ways, perhaps more classical ways than with some composers. That and the van Veen ensemble's very skilful and music interpretations make this music come alive beautifully. In the end Canto Ostinato XXL may have a slight edge in my mind over Incantatie IV, but one should ideally revel in both.

Ten Holt is up there with the very finest minimalists; Van Veen's ensemble is the one to give the music its just due. The music both sings and swings admirably. Fabulous!

Kyle Gann, Long Night, For Three Pianos

The Cold Blue series of CDs gives us access to many interesting works in an ambient, "radical tonality" soundscape zone. Today, one in their singles series, a 25-minute piece for three pianos by Kyle Gann. Long Night (Cold Blue 0019) features the totally appropriate playing of Sarah Cahill, who overdubs all three parts.

The music is a slowly unfolding, minor diatonic sonic map. It is as if you are traversing a landscape dotted with multiple features, each feature a note series. The three piano interplay has a post Satie-esque gentleness. At first a very slow ostinato pattern underpins the diatonic melodic simultaneity and it reminds in some ways like the slowly random dripping of rain from a roof after a storm. The ostinato has slow tempo regularity and the melodic figures occurring on top are nicely random in terms of periodicity. The ostinato and its recurrence has a quasi-drone way about it that gives this music an almost Indian classical quality, like the slow alap section of a raga only less purposive. From the initial ostinato comes new figures that play against the raindrop melodics. But it all flows together as a processual experience with a singleness of musical personality.

The sound is somehow like something out of nature, random seeming yet staying in the realm of the minor diatonic tonality consistently. Then, towards the middle, the key shifts and with it the melodic figures become more dense. It changes the music up nicely and allows our ears a refreshment that moves things forward.

There may be others in the Cold Blue series that I would get first if I hadn't heard any of them yet. But in the end Kyle Gann's Long Night opens up an ambient world that one can inhabit frequently as a place to repose, perhaps meditate on life. Well done.