Mason Bates, Mothership, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose

Youngish composer Mason Bates (b. 1977) has a directly visceral approach to composing for orchestra that makes his music in-demand on concert stages throughout the world. The Boston Modern Orchestral Project under Gil Rose has recorded an anthology of Bates' works on the recent album Mothership (BMOP/sound 1045).

There are five works in all, written between 2006 and 2013, and all have something worthwhile to offer. They have not been previously recorded. The works have enjoyed a good number of performances and/or are breakthrough pieces for Bates. Either way they make for lively listening.

The title work was written (2010) as an opening kind of blockbuster that has a vibrantly fanfarish flourish, an electronica element in the sophisticated beats employed and solo parts for jazz luminary Jason Moran on electric piano and guzheng virtuoso Su Chang. There is a deft handling of orchestral forces in a kind of Quasi-Americana manner, a lyrical brightness that owes something to the lineage of Aaron Copland (at least as struck my ears) but made personal and present-day.

We get an electronica beat aspect and some reworked field recordings of katydids and locusts on the descriptively evocative "Rusty Air in Carolina" (2006) where the bright lyricism is even more pronounced.

Those two especially stay in my memory but there are treasures too in the other works to be heard in the collection: "Sea-Blue Circuity" (2010), "Attack Decay Sustain Release" (2013), and "Desert Transport" (2010), the latter of which combines a wonderful pastoral grandeur and depictiveness with a bit of Pima Indian song.

You can see how contemporary audiences respond readily to his music. It is tonal and very well put-together, it adds some ultra-contemporary popular elements in the beats to be heard, but most importantly the music breathes with a rather extraordinary earthiness and elan.

It is music to be experienced TODAY. It pleasures without pandering. It is accessible but filled with plenty of musical content. It is wonderfully orchestrated and it speaks a universal modern mainstream language. Like Copland perhaps, he has his ear to the popular world and can allude to it without directly taking it on, mostly. The anthology gives us another excellent example of what is going on out there. You could play it for your kids and they might take to it right away. But then grandma might find it interesting, too.

Recommended!

Rain Worthington, Dream Vapors, Selected Works for Orchestra

The blog has covered the music of composer Rain Worthington in a number of anthologies, but for the first time we encounter a full CD of her orchestral works, her inaugural offering, in Dream Vapors (Navona 6025), featuring variously the Czech Philharmonic under Robert Ian Winstin, the Moravian Philharmonic under Petr Vronsky, and the Russian Philharmonic under Ovidiu Marinescu. The orchestras all come to the music well prepared and give us fine readings.

Rain Worthington's music here makes characteristic use of chromaticism in a tonally rooted, expressively heightened modern mode. There are seven fairly short works represented, written between 2001 and 2013. There is a remarkable, inimitable stylistic unity to be heard throughout, filled with expressive feeling but not typically romantic, sprawling tonal landscapes that have a mysterious, searching quality.

For the record the works are as follows: "Shredding Glass" (2004), "Reversing Mirrors in the Quiet" (2012), "Tracing A Dream" (2009), "Fast Through Dark Winds" (2013), "Within A Dance" (2012), "Yet Still Night" (2001), and "Of Time Remembered" (2011). Each somehow captures an inner journey through a twilight world of moody sound colors, lingering on chromatic tonal sequences that expand linearly into dramatic fields of tonal encounters.

They are slightly akin to Swedish composer Alan Pettersson in their chromatic expressivity, yet not quite so dark, less bleak, and ultimately distinct. Both are prime examples of an expressively tonal edgy modernism, with Ms. Worthington working here in more compact structures that have their say and leave us, to make room for yet another tone poem.

She has the ability to state her compositional case to us directly, as it were, in absolutely concrete if mystical terms. She somehow makes clear to us how we experience the transitional, impermanent and ever shifting quality of a later modernist world. Perhaps I am reading into the music, but a sort of chromatic instability within a rooted quality most certainly comes at us as listeners and we respond.

The size of the orchestra ranges between smaller to more full, yet it is the impact of the composing in every case that stands out as full of dark, burnished color. She is a master of her own orchestral palette. Each work seems just right for the forces at hand.

To honor both her grandmother and her mother, Rain has directed that all her artist’s proceeds from the purchase of the Dream Vapors album be donated through PARMA Recordings to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund (a research 501(c)(3) public charity registered under the name, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Foundation).

Rain Worthington is a contemporary voice that demands to be heard. The present first collection establishes her as a unique orchestral exponent, an inspired artist saying something definite and compelling today.

Chinary Ung, Singing Inside Aura, Boston Modern Orchestral Project, Gil Rose

Cambodian-born composer Chinary Ung shows us in his latest collection of orchestral works, Singing Inside Aura (BMOP/sound 1044), that he is a major figure on the modern music scene. His childhood was spent absorbing the traditional music of his homeland, including the extensive vocalizations found in a small village setting of his original home. By the time he came to the United States to study under Chou Wen-chung, he had also thoroughly immersed himself in the study of western music.

The title composition "Singing Inside Aura" was composed in 2013. It features Susan Ung on viola and vocals, in a vocalization style Chinary Ung developed for her to in this case express the dual aspects of traditional Buddhism, the enlightenment that is heard and the enlightenment that is felt inside. It is a beautifully conceived and executed work that brilliantly combines the traditional and the modern orchestral in thoroughly integrated and personal ways.

It is one of five works presented by the acclaimed Boston Modern Orchestra Project under Gil Rose for this album. The works cover a vast space in time from Ung's 1970 "Anicca," the 1991 "Grand Spiral: Desert Flowers Bloom," the 1993 "Water Rings Overture," and finally the 1995 "Antiphonal Spirals." There are Cambodian scalular aspects that intertwine with modern classical expanded tonality in ways that work brilliantly well. Throughout Maestro Ung demonstrates vividly his strong sense of orchestral color.

The album in fact gives us a kind of mini-retrospective on the composer's development over time, with works that show on occasion traces of a Varese influence but most importantly a keen sense of how the dramatics of the spatial-tonal Cambodian sound worlds can fit together with a personal modernism in contemporary orchestral composing practice.

He manages via his gifted poetic talent to so thoroughly incorporate both strains into his own special musical inner sense as to be an absolute original. The meticulous sound staging of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under Gil Rose's conductorship and Susan Ung's very effective dual soundings of voice and viola make of this album something very special. It is a remarkable introduction to the music of a contemporary master, a one-of-a-kind creative force at his very best.

Anyone with an interest in modern orchestral music will find this album endlessly intriguing, I would think, as I most certainly have. Get a copy of this without fail if you can.

Jennifer Koh, Bach & Beyond, Part 2

The art of unaccompanied solo violin is very much one of the pinnacles of chamber achievements in the classical realm. Virtuoso Jennifer Koh gives us four such masterworks for the violinist on her own Bach and Beyond, Part 2 (Cedille 90000 154 2-CDs). It is listed at two-CDs for the price of one, so it's a good value as well as a fine listen. I have not heard Volume 1 as yet, but if it is like this one, it is very good, I would think.

We get for this volume J. S. Bach's Sonata No. 1 and Partita No. 1, done with expressive zest and detailed care. The "and Beyond" is Bela Bartok's "Sonata for Solo Violin" Sz. 117 and Kaija Saariaho's "Frises" for solo violin and violin-based electronics that are produced in the live playing.

All four works are first efforts for the solo violin from the composers involved. Koh intends the program to affirm the past-in-the-present and the present-in-the-past, how Bach's compositions are assumed and incorporated into the thinking of the 20th and 21st century composers working with the form, and in turn how timeless, even modern the Bach works sound to us, in their own way. And it is no mistake--Saariaho for example starts her work with the final D from the Chaconne of Bach's "Partita No. 2" and the music follows logically out of it, originally but intentionally so.

Jennifer helps all this along with readings and interpretations that are totally fresh and current, as much periodless Bach as not, readings that stress the universality of the music beyond the time he wrote in.

The Bartok and Saariaho are themselves "beyond," too. They are much more than simply "modern" in their inherent idiomatic writing for the violin, in their commonality of language in key ways to the Bach works. I would not want to put too fine a point on that, though, because of course there are distinguishing elements for each work, period, composer. You never really completely feel free of time and place, and that is all for the best.

Jennifer Koh has a stirring way about her. There is perfect technical prowess, but there is also an intimate understanding of the music and a personal approach that marks this Volume 2 as a significant statement, an artistic triumph.

J. S. Bach, Organ Works Vol. III, Robert Quinney

Not to be tasteless, but J. S. Bach and the expression "over my dead body" go well together, if not in the strict sense of the phrase. Bach is played and listened to in the age of mechanical reproduction, today, far more than he was in his lifetime. And of course that is not just because of modern media. His reputation has grown steadily from the time of his death until now, when we see him as a composer of incredible genius--not only the Baroque Era's leading light, but a composer for all times, all seasons.

We all know that, presumably. All who read here also no doubt know that some of his greatest works were for the solo organ, an instrument for which he was a renowned exponent even in his lifetime.

Robert Quinney, organist with the Sixteen, an early music group I have covered extensively on these pages, and also the Director of the choir of New College, Oxford, is a marvelous organist who happily for us all, is recording much of Bach's output. I have been listening to his Organ Works Vol. III (CORO Connections 16132).

Quinney gives us these works on the Metzler Organ at Trinity College, Cambridge, a superior instrument that sounds every bit as one might wish in the hands of Maestro Quinney. The sound is ravishing as is the recording quality.

Volume Three presents a beautiful mix of music associated with the Advent and Christmas seasons and some that are not. They flow together well no matter what time of year.

The works are as follows: the "Fantasia and Fugue in G minor" BWV 542, "Three preludes on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" BWV 659-661, the "Pastorella" BWV 590, the "Prelude and Fugue in C" BWV 547, the "Canonic Variations on Von Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" BWV 769a, and the "Prelude and Fugue in G" BWV 541.

Some of these are masterpieces, none are in any sense minor, and Robert Quinney gives them all a crisply clear, detailed, spirited and supremely triumphant reading. I would say he is without doubt one of the great Bach organ exponents of our time, on the basis of this very worthy volume. The music speaks volumes to us in this modern era, if we only stop our infernal everyday fidgeting and listen.

And so I recommend this one to you very highly.

Patrick Castillo, The Quality of Mercy

Patrick Castillo, a New Yorker, a new compositional voice of note, gives us his debut recording in The Quality of Mercy (Innova 926). The album showcases two works for chamber group and mezzo-soprano (Abigail Fischer, a fine exponent here): "This is the hour of lead" and "The Quality of Mercy," with "Cirque," a short contrasting work for solo violin (Karen Kim) in between.

The moody works take advantage of the colors inherent in the ensemble--flute, string quartet or trio, percussion (including marimba), piano, plus clarinet and electronics on the title work.

"This is the hour of lead" comes to grips with death and loss and consequent feelings of anger, grief and acceptance. "The Quality of Mercy" deals with reconciliation.

Both are expressive, evocative and sometimes rather stoically restrained. The music is advanced tonal with stylistic variability in the musical events and their nature. There are occasional ostinatos at work but for the most part this music encompasses both high and post-modern tendencies in an original language that constitutes a very personal hybrid.

The five movement "lead" centers around an elaborate vocalise with surrounding interludes bringing out contrasting emotional states.

The title work makes use of elements of plainchant, "The Merchant of Venice," urban sound environments and birdsong for a full interaction of processed sounds with chamber ensemble colors. To make that connection more palpable the electronics principally arise in a live setting in response to the instruments.

"Cirque" is high-modernist abstract and breaks up the longer works well.

Castillo has a vibrant feel for complexes of sound that have a narrative quality, a poetic demeanor, a superior sense of dramatic color weaving that makes for some very moving chamber music.

It is a fine introduction to Patrick Castillo the composer. One only hopes we can be exposed to more of his work soon. In the meantime this is a ravishing performance of some very interesting and moody poetics. Bravo!

Mahler, Symphony No. 4, Debussy, Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun, Martingale Ensemble, Ken Selden, Chamber Versions

Mahler's 4th Symphony is not exactly like any other, though there are movements in his other early symphonies that have an Austrian and or Jewish folk flavor. Mahler wrote most of his music in his summer period, in between the demanding and often enough bitter climate of opera directorship. The idyllic environs that he and Alma occupied and the break from factional music strife seem no more telling that with his nostalgic, extraordinarily tuneful and bitter-sweet 4th. Like the other early symphonies, the music relates to the folk poetry of "Das Knaben Wunderhorn," which was also set to music by Mahler as a marvelous song cycle. The Martingale Ensemble under Ken Selden gives us a wondrous chamber version of the work, along with a similarly paired-down Debussy "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun," all in a fetching 2011 release (MSR 1373) that I am just catching up with--and very appreciatively so.

As the liners remind us, the 4th is built around a single "Wunderhorn" poem about a child's vision of heaven. Mahler makes of it a magic carpet, weaving folk-like themes and other very Mahleresque passages into a totality that may well make for his most accessible large-scale work, but for reasons that have more to do with its singing melodic strains than any attempt to pander to regular folks. The orchestration of strings, wind, brass and such shows Mahler's total mastery of the modern orchestra and must be heard in a carefully impassioned reading to be fully appreciated. So then why a chamber version? If you remind yourself that such a version does not replace the original, but brings you a new appreciation on more intimate terms, something that can stand proudly alongside the full orchestra version, you are prepared for the Erwin Stein arrangement heard here.

The Martingale Ensemble flowers luxuriously under Ken Selden for the Mahler, the arrangement of which apparently was a part of Arnold Schoenberg's Viennese Society for Private Musical Performance. Began in 1917, the Society was a subscription only gathering of music lovers (critics excluded!) to expose to them the best of modern music. The music of the late romantics was performed by scaled-down chamber ensembles so that the audience could better grasp the structural affiliations such music had with the later modernists.

And so this lovely arrangement. The final movement puts a fitting capstone on it all, with the soprano part (here performed very nicely by Deanna Breiwick) telling us that "no music on earth can compare to ours (in heaven)". Well, you believe it after hearing Mahler's extra-earthly sounds. The single Wunderhorn poem on which the symphony is based, "Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life)" inspired Mahler to some of his earthiest yet also naively otherworldly music.

There may be no experience quite as telling as the full symphonic score played by a requisite number of musicians Mahler envisioned. But the chamber version, played marvelously well, has its own charms. Paired down to the bone, often without doubling of parts (statistically or otherwise) except understandably at times in the strings, you hear the music with a new clarity. It is an uncanny experience. This is "ethnic" music! Folk music! Yet it most certainly has that great developmental brilliance and grand sweep that Mahler is always all about too, and so it never really loses that connectedness of the full orchestra version.

The Debussy "Faun" does not quite provide you with the shock of recognition that Mahler's 4th does, but it is nicely revelatory nonetheless.

Ken Selden and the Martingale Ensemble outdo themselves with a very warm and vivid reading of the scores. It is a fabulous album! Those who know the originals like the back of their hands will be delighted and surprised with how well the music sounds, and how different, advanced, modern yet timeless those lines seem when expressed more as a series of nudes, as it were. Anyone who for whatever reason does not know the music will also respond to it I am sure. Beautiful!