Mark Vigil, The Palest Rose

Surprises come in all sorts of ways. Today's came in the mail. The cover makes it seem like a new age album. It isn't. I am speaking of Oregon composer Mark Vigil's The Palest Rose (Ravello 7847). It's a compendium of his music for chamber aggregates and a couple for Gamelan orchestra.

I suppose you could say there's some of the impressionist in his music. There's a brightness, a lyricism, a refracted quality. It's mostly diatonic-modal, a music of tranquility yet not without vigor, quite accessible. There are three works for solo piano, the two "Fantasies for Solo Piano" have more adventurous harmonic-melodic content, a sort of modernism, than much of the other music on this disk. There are two "Trios for Flute, Viola and Harp," and a "Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Harp," all quite ravishing in a straightforward way.

The two Gamelan pieces have a Javanese sound to them. "Elizabeth" adds a woman's chorus that gives the work a more "east meets west" quality.

It's all very fetching music, skillfully crafted with an ear toward expressive simplicity, yet artful, like a Whitman's Sampler box. There are many that will find in this music a consolation for some rough days, with the touch of a genuinely talented composer. Relax and listen.

Tan Dun, Concerto for Orchestra

There is something about the work of Chinese-American composer Tan Dun. If you become familiar with one or more of his works, then hear a new one, you tend to recognize the style, and it's not that of anybody else. There is gift for orchestration. Brilliant. And sound color. There is often a traditional Chinese influence, yes, but also of the world, India, Asia in general, but truly the world. There is almost a ritual quality to his music. The listening to it a kind of rite. It's his use of space, almost ceremonial. The horizontal quality of the development. Like a turtle? Yes, except no, not that the music is especially slow to get someplace. It is the way he gets there, deliberate, movements, stops, a side turn, a pause, then movement forward again, like a turtle. And the music is always about something--about the sound, about the imagery it may evoke.

These are the thoughts I have listening to his new Naxos disk, Tan Dun conducting his Concerto for Orchestra (2012) (Naxos 8.570608) along with his "Symphonic Poem on Three Notes" (2012) and "Orchestral Theatre" (1990). The Hong Kong Philharmonic is well rehearsed and extremely sympatico with this music. These are state-of-the-art performances, certainly. And the music?

All of it stands out. There is excellent use of percussion color and a masterfully original brilliance to the orchestral presence. The music embraces often some non-Western, non-classical phrasings and tonal modes, along with a very original take on modernity. The sonic and harmonic-melodic advances in music syntax made in the past 100 years are not abandoned, nor are they simply aped. Instead they are transformed according to the inner voices of the muses that Tan Dun undoubtedly hears.

So on the "Symphonic Poems on Three Notes" we get all kinds of inventive twists and turns on a very simple three note motif. "Orchestral Theatre" is very dramatic and ritual-like, yet quite exceptional in its use of the orchestral palette.

The "Concerto for Orchestra" is in four movements, and in virtuostic fashion creates four vivid sound paintings, in Tan Duns words, a creation of his own personal "orchestra of the future" which directly engages roots as it expands outward into future horizons. The music is based in part on Tan Dun's opera Marco Polo, and manages to evoke skillfully and engagingly a journey to hitherto unknown lands in geographical and personal-experiential terms. . . the timeless markets of the East, desert India, China's Forbidden City.

In the end we have some exceptional orchestral music, brilliantly performed. Tan Dun is a marvel. He shows himself, his music well to us on this enchanted disk. Hear this one, by all means!

Paul Juon, Piano Quintet, Piano Sextet

Take a very competent composer who is also very eclectic, change one of his music parameters, and the results can be disarmingly original. That is the case with Paul Juon (1872-1940), at least with his Piano Sextet/Piano Quintet (CPO 777 507-2) in a recent recording by the Carmina Quartet and guests.

Born of German extraction, Juon grew up in Russia, showed early-on a talent for music, attended in due course the conservatory in Moscow, studying with among others Arensky, became a full professor at the Berlin College of Music some time after 1905, spent some time in prison camps during the first world war, and died in 1940 after an early retirement. Those are the biographical basics. During much of this time he composed, of course, and it is with that we are concerned today.

To return to the initial thought, Paul Juan's Piano Sextet, op. 22 and his Quintet, op. 44 are in many ways quite reminiscent of Brahm's chamber works: lushly harmonized, richly thematic, thickly scored, romantically impassioned. There is a touch now and then of a Russian flavor, especially in the themes that have a dance-like quality and are in a minor mode. If that's all there was to his music, he would be a competent, solidly craftsman-like romantic of his era, and that would be that.

But there is that important parameter alluded to above. In both these works Juon uses meter in unconventional ways. Odd meters and shifting meters are used a good deal in these works. When coupled with the sometimes stately, sometimes dance-like nature of his themes, the results are quite interesting.

The use of meters makes for a decisively novel effect upon the listener. This may be highly eclectic music in many ways, but it comes across as a music of difference.

Does that mean that Paul Juon is a forgotten master, worthy of placement on a pedestal, destined to be enshrined with the past great maters of music composition? No. Not on the basis of these compositions anyway. But with the energetic, enthusiastic treatment of the Carmina Quartet and guests Thomas Grossenbacher (cello) and Oliver Triendl (piano), we can while away 71 minutes now and then, listening to two works that manage to give pleasure and fill ones ears with music of an unusual, worthwhile sort.

John Cage, Journeys in Sound, A Film By Allan Miller and Paul Smaczny, DVD

No artist is comprehensible in one dimension. In the case of composer John Cage this is especially so. Composer, musician, wordsmith, poet, musical philosopher, Zen Buddhist, collector of mushrooms. He has had an enormous impact on the concert music scene both during his lifetime and in the years following his death.

In celebration of Cage's 100th birthday year Accentus Music has released on DVD John Cage: Journeys in Sound (Accentus 20246), a film by Allan Miller and Paul Smaczny. It runs about an hour and is well supplemented by another 40 minutes of concert footage of 4'33'', Water Music, a Constructions percussion work, and a Sonata for Prepared Piano.

The film wisely does not attempt to be comprehensive but instead covers illustrative vignettes on his life experience, philosophy and music through interviews with Cage, his friends and associates, musicologists, fellow composers, musicians, along with excerpts from musical performances and miscellaneous archive footage.

A true-to-life picture emerges of the man and his music, the importance of chance and sheer sound to his compositions, his openess to the unexplored and his brilliant creativity, his huge impact on contemporary aesthetics and his controversial status even today.

It does all this with artistry and grace. It is a most fitting and sympathetic tribute to the man who changed the face of music in the last century.

John Cage, Indeterminacy, Susanne Kessel

The original recording of John Cage's Indeterminacy came out as a two LP set on Folkways some time, I believe, in the late '50s. The piece, then and now, centers around a series of short, mostly autobiographical texts penned by Cage (and for that recording recited by him) describing his music, incidents in everyday life and Zen moments of one kind or another. It was performed simultaneously with "Solo for Piano" (1958), the solo part from his "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" and his electronic work "Fontana Mix" (1958). David Tudor played the piano part for the recording.

Pianist Susanne Kessel and recitator Joachim Krol have created a new version of the work (Oehm Classics OC 855) as part of the celebration of John Cage's 100th birth year. The individual text vignettes have been translated into German by Martin Erdmann and Krol reads from them in an order dictated by chance.

Susanne Kessel realizes the piano part with imagination and sensitivity. The part itself calls for a good bit of musical decision-making on the part of the performer and Kessel creates a version that is stylistically exploratory and timbrally diverse, via playing conventionally and inside the piano in various ways. Both the piano part and the electronic score are present in the audio mix at various times according to a chance operation set in motion by Susanne Kessel.

In the end there are various moments in the performance where the recitation (in German) proceeds by itself, where it is joined by parts from either "Solo for Piano" or "Fontana Mix," or in some cases both.

The piano part is angular and abstract as is the electro-acoustical sound piece. They weave in and out of the recording against a constant wave of recitation.

I have become quite familiar with the original recording. This version rivals the original in every way. The piano realization is different enough, and entrance and exits of both it and "Fontana Mix" vary with the recitation as to make it a new variant of the work, and of course the text, well-performed in German by actor Joachim Krol, gives the aural experience a different dimension.

Those familiar with German will get all the gentle humor and irony contained in Cage's text. Those who are not will experience it as a third part of the abstract sound event.

In the end Indeterminacy well represents Cage's middle period, where he first confronts composing and performing according to the dictates of chance operations. It is not perhaps in the ranks of Cage's most essential works. The performance at hand has the advantage of a state-of-the-art digital sonic staging over the original recording. Susan Kessel's realization of the piano part is excellent, and certainly rivals that of David Tudor's.

After all these years, this is a work that is still as avant garde as it is stubbornly wayward. It still no doubt may perplex, frustrate, even anger unprepared listeners. But for those initiated into the Cagean philosophy and manner of presentation, it remains a piece to fascinate and intrigue.

Leo Ornstein, Piano Music Volume One

There were a handful of composers who at the turn of the century or so pushed late romantic piano music off the deep end through an extreme, edgy chromaticism, augmented-diminished intervals, fourths, and a music that touched the limits of tonality and went beyond. There was Scriabin, the Ives of the "Concord Sonata," Sorabji, Prokofiev, and there was Leo Ornstein. Funny thing about the latter though, is that he managed to live 109 years, passing away only in 2002, and was actively composing up until 1980! He lived to see modernism triumphant, and an era that followed where the time was ripe for his revival.

There were his years as the avant composer in the limelight, mostly the '20s, then the many years of relative obscurity, through to the day before yesterday. And here we are today of course, in a good position to hear his music again, to appreciate it anew.

Pianist Arsentiy Kharitonov and Toccata Classics look as if they are going to redress the years of relative neglect in a series of recordings dedicated to his work. We have the first installment, Piano Music, Volume One (Toccata Classics 0141).

Three of the works presented here are first recordings: the "Four Impromptus," s300A (1950s-76), "In the Country" s63 (1924) and "Cossack Impressions" s55 (c. 1912). There is also his "Piano Sonata No. 4," s360 (c.1918).

Not all of this is the "bad boy" modernism for which he became most known. All of it has an impressive pianism, a tempestuous quality, a conception of the piano as an orchestra unto itself and a heroic virtuosity. His Russian roots show through brightly as well.

There are some breathtaking moments and a consistently high level of musicianship on the first volume, thanks to Ornstein's brilliance and the very appropriate pianistic fireworks of Arsentiy Kharitonov. A great start! Bravo!

Harvey Sollberger, Spillville & Gilead, Red Cedar Chamber Music

Harvey Sollberger came out of Columbia with an MA in the heady days when New Music was as au courant as the space race. He co-founded the acclaimed Group for Contemporary Music with Charles Wuorinen and recorded prolifically with them. He went on to direct the La Jolla Symphony for many years. His time spent as conductor, flautist and teacher left a little room for work as a composer. His earlier works came out on CRI and I remember liking them, but I have not heard anything of his recent music. That is until now.

There's a new release by Red Cedar Chamber Music (58016) of two of Sollberger's recent works that's getting my attention. Spillville & Gilead present two somewhat lengthy chamber compositions that celebrate his love of the Midwest, "Spillville" (2006) for flute, viola and guitar, and "Perhaps Gilead" (2010) for flute, guitar, and string quartet.

The two pieces relate well to each other, both in subject matter and sonance, and are well played by the Red Cedar musicians. Both present a kind of Americana pastoralism, with reworkings of folk dance and traditional fiddle tune sounds coming into the musical picture at important points.

It's music that addresses elemental intervalic relationships, modalities and homespun melodic material in very effective ways. This Sollberger manages to do without sounding like Aaron Copland, which of course is who one first thinks of with music of this sort.

More modern tonalities weave their way in and out of "Perhaps Gilead," less so for "Spillville," but most importantly all elements come together in these compositions as an organic whole, in ways that leave a distinct impression.

This is music of high local color with a singleness of intent that shows originality and great evocative power. The two works stand together as very agreeable examples of a thoroughgoing post-modernism that Charles Ives would certainly recognize and appreciate. I think you will too.