D J Spooky, Rebirth of a Nation, Kronos Quartet

D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" is considered one of the masterpieces of early American cinema. Yet seen today it is to us repulsively racist and distorted in its depiction of the rise of the USA as a nation state. D J Spooky (aka Paul D. Miller) has composed a sort of anti-soundtrack and exorcising of the film in his long-form work Rebirth of a Nation (Cantaloupe 21110), featuring the Kronos Quartet.

This is pomo classical minimalist, prog rock, hippish hop, beats and sophistication modern music with Kronos in person, sampled, dubbed and added to a smorgasbord of sampled instruments, synths and sounds such as you might imagine might come from the extensively fertile creative mind of D J Spooky. There is a CD of the music as originally conceived, plus a DVD of Griffith's silent movie with Spooky's music edited and synched to fit the film.

There are rock-like repetitions of figures, minimalist trance repetitions along with that, and a thematic flow which has a sequential logic to it. It is music for classical listeners with something of a taste or hunger for prog with a seriously composed element, or on the other hand, classical music that prog listeners might find accessible and attractive. For those in the middle it is simply music that will seem at once familiar yet cohesively original.

I have not watched the movie synched with Spooky's music as yet, but I can well imagine it transforms the experience nicely.

Say what you will if you are a purist from the various possible camps, it is significant music, D J Spooky at his most ambitious, convincing in its flow and girth. For that it is a real contribution to the crossover hybrid sounds so much a part of the modern today. Listen!

Morton Feldman, John Cage, Erik Satie, Rothko Chapel, Kim Kashkashian, etc.

It is only lately that I realize fully via hindsight that the compositional ways of Morton Feldman, of John Cage much of the time and that of Erik Satie form a triumvirate of now-ancestral musics. What is increasingly clear is that they are the principal pioneers of postmodern ambiance and soundscaping. They have always been in retrospect not thoroughly of the time they were in, even though seen in their day as "card carrying" avant garde practitioners. They spent a good deal of creative effort towards musical sounds that were primarily coloristic and extra-spatially situated more so than melodically-harmonically based as was the case with many of their composer contemporaries. Not of course that there is no melody or harmony in such works. In fact melodically there is often enough some vivid elements there, but the emphasis changes toward atmospherics and overall trajectory. This also is where you can trace the beginnings of music in the "radical tonality" zone.

The new anthology of works by Cage, Satie and Feldman on ECM reminds us of their interrelated innovations with some of the classic ambient works of the three.

Rothko Chapel (ECM New Series 2378) gives us superior readings of selected works, featuring the Houston Chamber Choir under Robert Simpson, plus Kim Kashkashian on viola, Sarah Rothenberg on piano and celeste, Steven Schick, percussion, mezzo-soprano Sonja Bruzauskas and soprano Lauren Snouffer.

The defining thread is Feldman's masterful title work, which expresses in musical terms the effect of a series of abstract, color-soaked paintings by Mark Rothko that are housed in the special building designed for them. Feldman is after the sound impressions that Rothko's works evoke in a ravishing ethereal work for Kashkashian's viola, percussion, celeste, soprano, mezzo-soprano and choir. There is a wide and tall musical canvas on which Feldman creates haunting groupings of color as Rothko did visually with paint. This version is rather definitive. So for that alone the anthology is essential.

To surround the Feldman masterpiece of 30 minutes, the artists chose a good assortment of iconic pieces by Satie and Cage, music that sympathetically vibrates in special ways different than, but parallel to "Rothko Chapel."

And so we get Satie's solo piano "Gnossienne" Nos. 1, 2 and No. 3, and "Ogive" Nos. 1 and 2, played with special lyrical care by Ms. Rothenberg, along with Cage's related 1948 "In A Landscape."

Choral works most fitting to the mood and tenor of the anthology round out the program: Cage's later works "Four2," "Five" and "ear for EAR (Antiphonies)" the latter of which includes L. Wayne Ashley in the solo tenor role. These are not often heard, especially the numbered works as realized for choral ensemble. In fact I don't believe I have ever heard them performed in this way before. They hold their own, certainly, as primary later Cage.

Every work makes a statement and the sum of statements make for a convincing case for the interrelated ethos of Cage, Satie, and Feldman. Both the spacious audio production that one expects from ECM and the extraordinary interpretive talents of the artists pull the music together to create an aesthetic unity that is reflective, contemplative and yes, pioneeringly ambient, radically tonal.

It is in all ways a disk that excels in thoroughgoing programming brilliance, performative superiority and compositional exceptionality. This doubtless can make an excellent starting point for those who don't know much of this music and/or the composers involved. For those who have been well initiated into the respective realms, it gives you masterful readings and a special regrouping that will give much pleasure and cause you to ponder the historic uniqueness of the music.

A fabulous listen!

Peter Maxwell Davies, Symphony No. 10, Andrzej Panufnik, Symphony No. 10, London Symphony Orchestra

A welcome disk is on the docket today: The London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Antonio Pappano performs Peter Maxwell Davis' Symphony No. 10 and Andrzej Panufnik's Symphony No. 10 (LSO 0767).

Maxwell Davies' 10th, subtitled "Alla ricerca di Borromini," was written between 2013-2014 and enjoys its world premiere recording here. Panufnik's 10th lasts some 15 minutes and was written in 1988, just three years before he passed. Both are late mature works and they show the respective composers at their best.

The 10th by Maxwell Davies is a considerable, ambitious work that includes the London Symphony Chorus under Simon Halsey and baritone Markus Butter as soloist. It centers around architect Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) and his life and work. Davies was diagnosed with cancer early in 2013 and subsequently the themes of creativity and mortality that characterize the symphony took on doubly increased personal significance as he doggedly continued work on it with unrelenting determination.

The symphony is in four movements, some with chorus and soloists, some purely orchestral, all concerned with Borromini's projects and the flow of his life. The music has a deeply somber, melancholy cast, movingly dramatic in a widely expanded-tonal modern way. The work culminates in the final movement, where Borromini's last will and testament written just hours after a suicide attempt colors the music and serves as its principal text. It has a moving finality to it that leaves one with a feeling of completion but then of absence as well. This is Maxwell Davies contemplating the biggest issues of existence in ways completely personal yet thoroughly transcendent. The closing moments are haunting.

This is music of grand design, muted, reflective, ritually transformative in its singular expressivity. It requires your concentrated attention but rewards with outstanding Maxwell Davies sublimity.

The Panufnik 10th was commissioned for Sir George Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It too has a somber way about it, a succinctly dramatic presence. The orchestration at times is considerably brighter that Maxwell Davies' 10th, with an opening for amassed brass that has a severe, bracing quality. The music continues with heightened dissonances and beautifully muted contrasts with an almost chorale continuity that gets punctuated by meaningful percussion tatoos, like a funeral march perhaps. It makes beautiful use of the full resources of the orchestra with exceptional blends and urgent outbursts. It concludes in a quiet hush that is near breathtaking. For all its brevity it is nonetheless stunning Panufnik, one of his triumphs.

The performances are first-rate, the music significant and masterful, the mood sometimes stoic, resigned, somber but in the end cathartic. Very recommended!

Eighth Blackbird, Filament

You know everyone and her grandmother has reviewed a record already if you search for the cover image and the results are huge. That just happened to me with Eighth Blackbird's striking new anthology Filament (Cedille 90000 157). It is not surprising. Eighth Blackbird is one of the premiere new music ensembles out there and the album is filled with some modern postmodern and/or minimalist gems.

There are four composers and a total of five works, all in the chamber and chamber orchestral idiom. Every one of them is executed with hairpin excellence. Perhaps the most vibrant and difficult is a Philip Glass classic that I have never heard. "Two Pages" is a unison line from 1968, to be played by any number of instruments, with the proviso that they play the rapid waterfall of notes in exact unison. Eighth Blackbird get just the proper torque on this jaw buster. The results are vintage Glass, mesmerizing and riveting, classic mind-bending music that typified his work and those of the other stalwarts at the time.

That is the centerpiece, if you like, for a series of compositions that take the classical minimalist ethos and permute, distill and rethink it. "Filament," as the liner notes explains, is a strong connecting element that unites composers and performers via a strong charge. The program has that sort of connectivity to my ears.

Son Lux's two short pieces makes that filament concrete with remixes of elements contained in the works on the album and adds a part for vocalist Shara Worden. It is virtuoso re-assemblage that evokes something beyond the given in nicely turned, fascinating ways.

Bruce Dessen's "Murder Ballades" takes its cue from the old story folksong tradition that recounts the taking of a life by another, either as a newsy report of a real incident or something mythically fictional. The seven-movement work has a folksy quality and contains yet underplays repetition for a more song-like linearity. It is the reworking of how such songs might be presented in ingenious fashion, as complex multi-part contrapuntalities, alternately bracingly stomp tempoed, jaunty, or slow and musing.

Nico Muhly 's "Doublespeak" was written in honor of Philip Glass's 75th birthday, reworking the classical minimalism of the '70s, a time when, as Muhly notes, "classical music perfected obsessive repetition." Fast and slow parts intermingle with the sort of classical minimilist joie de vivre that the '70s represented, but with a kind of collage-oriented overall conflation and event-specific sectionalism that marks it as very much of our times.

In the end the music is wonderfully played, highly significant and beautifully listenable. This is Eighth Blackbird at its best, surely. We get masterful music that all with an interest in the pomo modern scene need to hear. Very recommended.

Arthur Gottschalk, Requiem for the Living, Vladimir Lande, St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir

Is there a single stylistic way for contemporary modern classical music in the present? The answer, as we see continually, is no. Arthur Gottschalk and his full-scale offering Requiem for the Living (Navona 6009) fits in with the anything goes world we are in today.

In is based on the Latin Mass for the Dead in content, but then branches out with textual commentary by Ellington, George Elliot, Mohammad, Judaic sacred text and other sources. The idea is that this is for those who are still here, in terms with dealing with their life in the face of death. How should we live?

The always partial, myriad-formed answer comes to us in this full choral-orchestral work as performed with spirit by the St. Petersburgh State Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir, with soloists, all under the direction of Vladimir Lande.

Romantic, contrapuntal, post-romantic and otherwise modern elements join together with some elements of jazz a la George Gershwin and his era and more besides. You might even detect a moment that reminds you of Carl Orff, too. The essentially eclectic approach manages to convey to us an Arthur Gottschalk of committed passion, a sense of urgency, a communicator who creates a broad swath of convincing choral-orchestral largess and dramatic flourish.

It is a work that rings with a contemporary presence yet has a timeless quality from an American composer who deserves our attention. I came to appreciate the work over time. I believe it will have much appeal for those who take the time to get into its many-faceted totalities.

Olivier Messiaen, Poemes pour Mi, Bruun Hyldig Duo

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was one of the 20th century's brightest lights, needless to say. Like Picasso or Stravinsky or Coltrane his work can be grouped into several periods. There is the opening burgeoning of his originality, which is roughly from the '30s until the beginning of the '50s, then there is the songbird period that lasts through sometime in the '70s and finally the works of his late maturity that cover the final decades.

This is only a rough gauge, the primary dates of the songbird period may need slight adjustment since I am working from memory, but it serves to place the music at hand today. It is a gathering of vocal music from his first flowering, Poemes pour Mi (Naxos 8.573247) as performed by the Bruun Hyldig Duo (Hetna Regitze Bruun, soprano, and Kristoffer Hyldig, piano).

It gives us Messiaen's masterful "Poems pour Mi" (1936) in the soprano-piano version (there was an orchestrated version also), plus the "Vocalise-Etude" (1935) and the "Chants de Terre et de Ciel" (1938).

All three works get nicely impassioned, bloomingly singing readings. Hetna Regitze Bruun has a beautiful voice that seems just right for this music; Kristoffer Hyldig gives us intelligently flowing realizations of the piano part.

This is music that bears the highly original stamp of the melodic-harmonic ways of Messiaen in the first phase of his career. They are expressive but not romantic, modally and rhythmically alive, filled with lightness and air in a post-impressionist way, with text-setting and melismatic passages of a highly effective sort, and lushly carpeted piano complexities that all serve to make this music highly original, like no other.

"Poems pour Mi" is the most well known but the "Chant de Terre et de Ciel" occupies an important place also, forming the center of the three song cycles that helped define Messiaen in those days. "Harawi" from 1945 completes the cycle of cycles, and is not a part of this collection due to space considerations. The Duo have recorded it as a separate Naxos release, but I have not heard their version.

We get an abundance of exceptional music here nonetheless, some of Messiaen's most powerful early music in performances that ring true. If you do not have these works, here is a very good way to get them! Much recommended.

Alexander Mosolov, Iron Foundry, Piano Concerto No. 1, Schleiermacher, Kalitzke, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin

The story of Russian composer Alexander Mosolov (1900-1973) is inextricable from the story of "Socialist Realism" and its ultimately iron-fisted Stalinist single- mindedness. Mosolov was a very original voice in early post-Czarist Russia, but he ran afoul of repressive apparatchiks. Out-and-out modernism in art and music circles was at first encouraged in the Soviet Union. This was after all the future and so both Constructivist visual arts and unstintingly modern music were thought of by many as a necessary part of it all. Mosolov was an important voice on an international-local scene for a time, but then he found himself on the outs with the cultural taste-makers in the Soviet Union and so his music became anathema. And so both Russia and the modernist international world heard less and less of him.

"Iron Foundry," a short descriptive piece among the notable works he wrote in the important period between 1925 and 1929, ensured that he gained some renown over the world. But then there were other worthy pieces, too. The Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Johannes Kalitzke, with piano soloist Steffen Schleiermacher, has recorded a much-needed anthology of some key pieces, Iron Foundry, Piano Concerto No. 1, etc, (Capriccio 5241), and I have been happy to immerse myself in the recording for a week or so.

It expressively resurrects six Mosolov works from the critical period discussed, with "Iron Foundry" (1926-27) opening the program, followed by the "Piano Concerto" (1927), "Tractor's Arrival at the Kolkhoz," "Legend for cello and piano" (1924) the "Piano Sonata No. 1" (1924), and "Four Newspaper Announcements."

It shows us a vibrant modernist voice, not so much Russian nationalist as international. "Iron Foundry" still sounds as exciting as it must have when first performed; the "Piano Concerto" is a forgotten masterwork with great depth of field, and the remaining works help affirm Mosolov's place in the avant garde of the period.

Was he another Stravinsky? Prokofiev? Shostakovich? No, but mostly that is because he has his own voice. He may not have shown the lyrical melodic gifts of some of his compatriots, true. But he had a dynamic and sophisticated way all his own. It fits in with the new music scene of the time but it shows less influence than it does originality.

Aside from the controversies engendered in the various Nation-States about the futurist music that was blossoming in those days, Mosolov appears before us now as a composer fully deserving our consideration. The performances are quite good and the music transcends its era to speak to us today, as it simultaneously and necessarily embodies the era in which it was born.

Kudos to the artists for making this music breathe again in full force for us. It is a must-hear for all who seek to understand the musical world we now occupy, the roots of new music, the largely forgotten output of a genuinely talented composer. Bravo!