Bela Bartok, Piano Music, Terry Eder

The influence and importance of Bela Bartok (1881-1945) is still being felt and experienced in the contemporary music world. As if to remind us of music sometimes a bit overlooked, pianist Terry Eder gives us a volume of select Piano Music (MSR 1410).

The album makes an intelligent presentation of works that exemplify Bartok's extensive involvement with and modern transformations of the folk music of Eastern Europe--here Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

The music opens with the landmark early expression of his folk-inflected modernism, the op. 6 "14 Bagatelles" of 1908.

It continues with the folk-modern nexus so critical to an understanding of the master--with "Two Romanian Dances" (1910), "15 Hungarian Peasant Songs" (1914-1918), "Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs" (1920), and "6 Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm" from his "Mikrokosmos, Volume VI."

This is music of great verve, ingenuity, originality and a rooted contemporarity that continues to communicate to us.

Pianist Terry Eder gives us a sparkling interpretation of these pieces, with an open rubato that expresses the free invention of the Bartokian musical mind more than sentiment, and an irrepressible rhythmic verve on the folk dance liveliness of the peasant-rooted material.

In the end we have a Terry Eder who revels in this music, getting inside it and affirming how it speaks very much to us in the new century. It is a beautiful panorama of the playful pianism of one of the shining stars of the twentieth century and forefathers of the present day. Terry Eder shines too in her interpretations. This is a treat for the ears! Hear it and open up to the fun and adventure of Bela at his most earthy. Recommended.

Frances White, She Lost Her Voice That's How We Knew

When life events become traumatic, awe-ful, ineffable, we are often at a loss for words or cannot speak them. That is the idea behind the opera for a single soprano and electronics by Frances White, She Lost Her Voice, That's How We Knew (Ravello 7915). The libretto is by Valeria Vasilevski, who also created and directed the staging. Kristin Norderval performs the solo soprano role with dedication, drama and tonal differentiation. Elizabeth Brown performs the shakuhachi part. The electronic score is based on and built out of the timbral qualities of Ms. Norderval's voice.

I've covered and very much appreciated an earlier work of Frances White--In the Library of Dreams (see index search box for that review).

There is a zen abstract suchness to the libretto and the music. Use of space, color and pinpointed affect-event structures have a mystical, almost traditional Asian cast. There is a poetic quality to it all, which the libretto concretizes in words about being unable to speak.

The music is rich and creatively archaic-modern in its play on tones, their stasis and their transformation in envelopes and blocks of shifting color-texture. The mystical, eerie drone and soundscaping of vocals and electronics and the poignancy of the libretto leave one transfixed, contemplative, and filled with a kind of wonder at the transient nature of life and its experience.

It is the music of a going beyond, a 21st century analogue of Berio's iconic Visage, only fully today, post-experimental, primal in creately effective ways but also filled perhaps with our present-day zeitgeist, where events can leave us speechless, forever changed yet fully conscious of the impact.

There is magic in this work. It is singularly transformative in dramatic ways. It has its say and is gone, and what is left is the you to reflect on its meaning.

A new modern statement of importance. That is what it seems to be to me. It definitely will appeal to and intrigue those open to exploratory soundscapes and contemporary electronics-opera-sonic theater. There is a naturalness to it that stands alongside of our experience of "nature" yet remains apart from it. Highly recommended.

Carson Cooman, Liminal

Carson Cooman is a composer of great output and special sensibilities. There is so much of his music I have not yet heard, yet what I have heard and reviewed on these pages is significantly worthwhile. One of the very best of the recent recordings is Liminal (Diversions 24161).

It is a 36-minute mini-album with three works represented. There is the brief but primal "Shoreline Rune" (2014) for string orchestra and harp, the Symphony No. 4 (Liminal), and a brief work for organ, "Prism" (2003). The Slovak National Orchestra under Kirk Trevor does the honors for the orchestral works; Erik Simmons appears on organ for "Prism." The performances are very good, as is the sound.

These three pieces work together to create a mood of mystery. "Shoreline Rune" begins the album with a slow and reflectively archaic feeling to it. As the composer states in the liners, it is as if one were standing on the shoreline experiencing an entire tide cycle but within a space of five minutes.

The centerpiece of the album is Cooman's "Symphony No. 4," which deals with climate change and the idea of liminality, being neither in a beginning state nor in a state of transformation, but in a state of ambiguity, something that our present experience of the climate may be said to occupy. The music reflects the diverse climatic regions on earth and their slow transformation. The piece hopes we may find the courage and fortitude to get through and if possible ameliorate the unfolding processes.

Musically the work has an expanded tonality and a dramatic dynamic that is eloquent and moving. The mood is both foreboding and hopeful, expressive in a masterful use of orchestral forces and modern in outlook. It is a work of great strength, deserving a hearing as a pinpoint symphonic work of our time.

The conclusion, "Prism," forms a postlude to the symphony with mystically contemplative and ultimately heroically optimistic open voicings. It is perhaps a sound image of the universe set right, in a steady state, transcendent.

The music is most definitely an experience not to miss. Cooman establishes his voice, or one of his voices, in no uncertain terms and gives us a sonic journey both subtle and of great evocative power.

Highly recommended.

Broer, Coble, Yip, Turbulent Sky, Contemporary Works for Orchestra

If you crave something from the ever-evolving, new modern-high modern repertoire of the present, you might consider the recent anthology Turbulent Sky: Contemporary Works for Orchestra (Navona 6012).

On it we are treated to three worthwhile compositions by composers not yet household names: "Symphony for String Orchestra" by Fred Broer, "Zephyr" by William Coble, and "The Luminous Mystery" by Stephen Yip. The Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra under Petr Vronsky give us the premiere recorded performances here, and they do the music justice.

The Broer work is the longest of the three with a tripartite movement sequence that fills out the work with over 30 minutes of expressionist modernism of an often intricate and tempestuous sort. It most exemplifies the turbulence of the album's title. The strings express the inventively lucid tone painting of a Broer with a clear idea of what he envisions from the strings and beautifully realizes.

William Coble's somewhat brief "Zephyr" has a sort of post-Stravinsky orchestrational brilliance with great movement and a vocalise part well realized by soprano Hailey Fuqua. The music is rather wondrously mobile, multi-layered and colorful, meant to suggest clouds rolling together to create a sudden storm.

Stephen Yip's "The Luminous Mystery" amasses full orchestral forces and the solo violin of Vit Muzik to express Catholic mysticism. The violin part is vibrantly present to put the work into a concerted mode. It is a finely crafted, brilliantly contemporary outing that punctuates the anthology most fittingly.

Turbulent Sky demonstrates three contrasting approaches to the orchestra, All three revel in the advanced idiom of high modernism and show us three important voices in the new music today. I found it all most exhilarating. Highly recommended.

Blue Heron, Christmas in Medieval England

One more for the last-minute folks out there. It is the early music vocal ensemble Blue Heron and their Christmas Music in Medieval England (Blue Heron 1006), a collection of carols, music for Mass, plainchant and motets one might likely have heard in one way or another at this time of year in England circa 1440, when the last of this music was composed. We get modern early music performance practice in the ten member choral group divided into the cantus, the contratenor, tenor and bassus parts. The album sequence was as heard live in concert on various nights in December, 2013, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The group sounds excellent under the directorship of Scott Metcalfe. Some of the music is accompanied by medieval harp, as would have been appropriate. The texts are in Latin and English in the style of pronunciation in use at that time. So the "Hayl Mary, ful of Grace" pronounces Grace as "Grahse."

It is music that is very beautiful and performed with spirit by the ensemble. If you tend to early Christmas music or even grew up with some of it, you will doubtless recognize "Veni, veni Emanuel," "Ther is no rose of swych vertu" and "Nova, nova! Ave fit ex Eva" among others. Yet there is much that may not be familiar.

It is all fitting and rather haunting. You listen and you feel time passing. Some may have had ancestors who heard or even performed this music, but no matter if not, because this is not music of exclusion. In the same way as most in the United States greet one another with the phrase "Happy Holidays" this time of year, so this is music about the joy of the season, no matter what you subscribe to in sectarian terms. Freedom of religion is the freedom to honor the creation in the manner of your choosing, without punishment or recrimination. And so you are free to listen to this music on whatever level you choose, with the idea that the music reflects an important period in the history of Western music, as so in the world at large with musical traditions centered around religion in so many various ways.

Perhaps more to the point at hand, this is a beautiful selection of music that does not even begin to exhaust what has survived of the period, yet it provides an excellent sampling of the various genres in play during the times.

Blue Heron is a fine group and they sound quite inspired on this album. Highly recommended! Happy holidays!

Tenebrae, A Very English Christmas

For those with a last-minute need for something nice for the Christmas season, this is just in: the choral ensemble Tenebrae and their latest, A Very English Christmas (Bene Arte 902). It is a collection of compositions and re-arrangements of Christmas Carols by 20th century English composers.

First off, Tenebrae sound glorious. They as amassed choir (sometimes with organ accompaniment) and as soloists are nothing short of angelic, and they go a long way in establishing a beautiful sonance that make the new material come alive in the best holiday tradition.

The music provides the listener with some exceptional alternatives to the usual fare, with a few rearrangements-reharmonizations like "I Saw Three Ships," but mostly altogether original carols, many in settings with traditional texts.

So we get five beauties by Peter Warlock (someone I've been appreciating more and more lately), plus gems by Simon Preston (you probably know him as organist), Arnold Bax, John Gardner, Philip Radcliff, Paul Edwards (no relation, that I know of), Philip Ledger, and others. Many of these names may not be well-known to you, or known as conductors or organists, but all come through with movingly nice modern carols, some with a bit of the spice of modern harmonies, but all in the choral carol tradition.

If you are like me, if you seek far and wide to expand your knowledge of carols through extensive spatial and temporal realms, wherever you can go for good and great examples, this will be a boon. Even if not the music will captivate and beguile you.

This one is a knockout on all counts. Grab a copy!

Ann Southam, Glass Houses Revisited, Christina Petrowska Quilico

The late Ann Southam produced some of the most original and distinctive minimalist music to be heard. On May 22, 2014 here I covered Glass Houses Volume 2, a significant collection of some of her solo piano works performed beautifully by Christina Petrowska Quilico.

Thanks to Centrediscs, we can explore the first volume of this collection (Centrediscs 16511) today. It is every bit as worthwhile as the second volume, maybe even more so.

Southam's solo piano works are like tongue twisters, or learning to rub your stomach and jump up and down at the same time, only a great deal more rewarding in result. That has to do with the rhythmically distinctive contrasts between the left-hand ostinatos and the melodic figurations of the right hand. They mesh in tempo but have often enough the feel of contrasting meters.

Add to that the primal diatonic irresistibility of the right-handed melodic figures, which are rhythmically vibrant and far from banal, but instead memorable in the best ways. When meshed with the swirling ostinato figures the music has the trance magic of the very best minimalist works, yet utterly original, utterly Southam-esque.

This is by no means easy music to play properly, in spite of the diatonics. Christina Petrowska Quilico gives them a combination of legato lyricism and a rhythmic swing that make of the music all it should be.

Volume one covers nine of the "Glass Houses" movements, each one a miniature of happy complexities and lyrical drive. Here is a wonderful place to start if you don't know Ann Southam's music. If you already do it is more for you, most dedicatedly performed and exciting as well as reassuring. RIP, Ann Southam. May your music delight our ears in the centuries ahead!