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Koszalian State Philharmonic Orchestra, Szymon Kawalla, conductor.
Vienna Modern Masters VMM 3022
Total Time: 75:33
by Steven Koenig
This worthy series compiles works by various composers from, as the title indicates, around the world. It is reminiscent of the Composers Recordings elpees that introduced so many wonderful works to the world. VMM, like CRI (and Jump Arts, for that matter), is a non-profit organization. The present volume is somewhat typical: three enjoyable compositions, and two excellent ones. All these works are world premiere recordings.
The rising string glissandi of Julian Yu's 'Wu-Wu,' with its mysterious background of brass, xylophone and oboe solos turns suddenly dense and busy, then a respite, a beautiful relaxation. The Australian composer states an intention to invoke ancient Chinese rainmaking; the ten-minute work seems slightly stronger after knowing the program.
Jack Fortner's five brief 'Quadri' invoke fellow Americans, the painters Johns, Rauschenberg, Pollock, de Kooning (misspelled throughout) and Rothko. Each is interesting, and vaguely reminiscent of each artist’s style(s). The Robert Rauschenberg is busy, with crashing blocks of timpanic tectonics. The Jackson Pollock is Ivesian, with elephant bellows. Don’t expect a static Feldman-like Rothko, but rather brief gestures recalling Gyorgy Kurtág.
Canadian David Scott's 'Arras: A Garden of Cinema,' sets a marvelous poem by P K Page which skirts magic realism for a mysterious semireality, in the guide (excellent unintentional slip: I meant to type “guise”) of a peacock in a mysterious orchard where Alice-like, anything can happen during its shifts of view. Mezzo Sulie Giraldi’s voice is in an echoed halo, probably unintentional, accompanied by a string orchestra, string quartet, harp and three percussionists. The piece, which I’d be loathe to be without, is not ‘a groundbreaker, but neither is it derivative. I dream of a concert bill containing this along with Ravel’s ‘Shehérézade,’ Chausson’s ‘Poème de l’Amour et de la Mar,’ or Messiaen’s ‘Harawi,’ each one different from but of a complementary soundworld and mood to the other. I’d encourage mezzos looking for moving, colorful and left-of-center works to consider this twenty-minute gem.
Hiroshi Nakamura's 1991 'Litaniae' is inspired by that first Gulf War, and reminiscent of similar litanies and threnodies; nonetheless is- enjoyable is not the right word for these wrenching events- but the eleven-minute work is touching. It makes a good home program, if one can bear much of this theme, with Penderecki’s ‘Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima’ and Nancy Van der Vate’s ‘Chernobyl’ (both on Conifer CDCF 186, also conducted by Kawalla).
Nancy Van de Vate's 'Voices of Women' cleverly selects five bittersweet texts from Whitman, Joyce, Baudelaire and a Provençal troubadour about various stages of (and attitudes about) women’s lives. Whitman: “Hear face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.../The justified mother of men.” Baudelaire: “Have you noticed how the coffins of old women/ are often as small as a child's.” The Silesian University Choir, conducted by Halina Gorniewiecz-Urbas) is enjoyable, not too homogenized and not too lumpy. The settings recall, at various times, Vaughan Williams, the Bernstein of ‘Chichester Psalms,’ Britten, and others more ascerbic. It does need, though, to be read while listening; the whole is powerful.
We’ll be covering more of Van der Vate; her opera ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ has been spinning constantly in my home, and we just received several other discs of her works, including several “jazz operas.” I’d like to point of some recent VMM purchases. VMM 2017 is a collection of violin and piano works, contains two works by early microtonalist Ivan Vyschnegradsky, as well as Schoeck, Burkhard, and R. Strauss. VMM 2024 by Ensemble MW2 containing a piece for bass and tape by Haubenstock-Ramati. Perhaps the most significant, for those familiar with Aki Takahasi’s brilliant 3 LP box of piano music by contemporary Japanese and Euro composers now imported on CD, VMM 2014 has a overlapping program by pianist Kayako Matsunaga, including works by Xenakis, Matsudaïra, Ichiyanagi and Crumb.
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