"New" Music Log
Posted by: Todd A on 17 November 2007
Here’s the original thread.
I figured it was time for another “exotic” import from the East, because such imports are always exotic to Western ears. Or perhaps not. The nice little Naxos disc of three works by Korean composer Isang Yun can expose one to something new, but not too un-Western.
The disc opens with Chamber Symphony I from 1987, and it’s a fine chamber symphony. I came to the piece expecting, well, I don’t know what, but I got something that’s decidedly “modern” and familiar. The winds add the strongest hints of “Eastern” sound, and some occasional string passages do too, but I hear what sounds to be the influence of DSCH, perhaps some modern Germans, and a Western-trained sensibility. The piece seems to be a chamber orchestra fantasy, meandering through a maze of most appealing music, with taut writing and delivery, and bright, blaring brass to perk up one’s ears. Monumental? Nah. Quite good.
Next up is Tapis pour cordes, also from 1987, and here in its string orchestra guise rather than its string quintet guise. It’s compact, tense, and terse, with more obvious Eastern influences thrown together with a Bartok-cum-Lutoslawski sound that is searingly intense at times. The blend works very well.
The disc closes with Gong-Hu for harp and strings, which sounds similar aurally to Tapis (ie, more Eastern), but is broader and more leisurely. There’s still some bite at times, and here it is the harp that adds the most non-Western sound to the music. Of course, the harp isn’t the most enthralling instrument, so this may never make it into either the core repertoire or even my collection of frequently spun works, but it’s nice to hear.
Yun’s music offers some fine listening – enough, perhaps, for me to consider his symphonies next. Conductor, band, and sound are all up to snuff.
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I figured it was time for another “exotic” import from the East, because such imports are always exotic to Western ears. Or perhaps not. The nice little Naxos disc of three works by Korean composer Isang Yun can expose one to something new, but not too un-Western.
The disc opens with Chamber Symphony I from 1987, and it’s a fine chamber symphony. I came to the piece expecting, well, I don’t know what, but I got something that’s decidedly “modern” and familiar. The winds add the strongest hints of “Eastern” sound, and some occasional string passages do too, but I hear what sounds to be the influence of DSCH, perhaps some modern Germans, and a Western-trained sensibility. The piece seems to be a chamber orchestra fantasy, meandering through a maze of most appealing music, with taut writing and delivery, and bright, blaring brass to perk up one’s ears. Monumental? Nah. Quite good.
Next up is Tapis pour cordes, also from 1987, and here in its string orchestra guise rather than its string quintet guise. It’s compact, tense, and terse, with more obvious Eastern influences thrown together with a Bartok-cum-Lutoslawski sound that is searingly intense at times. The blend works very well.
The disc closes with Gong-Hu for harp and strings, which sounds similar aurally to Tapis (ie, more Eastern), but is broader and more leisurely. There’s still some bite at times, and here it is the harp that adds the most non-Western sound to the music. Of course, the harp isn’t the most enthralling instrument, so this may never make it into either the core repertoire or even my collection of frequently spun works, but it’s nice to hear.
Yun’s music offers some fine listening – enough, perhaps, for me to consider his symphonies next. Conductor, band, and sound are all up to snuff.
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After three successful discs in a row, I figured I should go with a proven winner and try another disc of music by Leonardo Balada. How about a nice, big choral work? I asked myself. So I went with his “agnostic” requiem, No Res, written in memory of his mother, along with Ebony Fantasies.
The disc opens with No Res from 1974. I’ll get right to the point: I don’t like this work. It’s not terrible, mind you, and it’s expertly crafted, but I just don’t like it. Balada, per his notes (it’s always helpful to have notes written by the composer), was angered as well as saddened by his mother’s death, and this work is a protest against death itself. An interesting, potentially powerful conceit, but the specific devices here don’t work for me. The piece is augmented by taped sounds throughout; indeed, it opens with the sounds of howling dogs. The rest of the first part of this two-part work includes excellent choral singing that alternates between haunting and eerie, and is delivered in a smooth or blocky style, as the text and music requires. Random, bizarre sounds appear and disappear throughout, and then there’s a narration that uses multiple languages. Anger, confusion, bitterness, sorrow: all shine through at times, and at times the piece is effective. But at other times it is not. The disjointed feel just doesn’t jell, though clearly it is intentional – this is an angry, very personal requiem, after all. The text ain’t the hottest, either. The second part of the work is slightly better. Informed mostly by rage, and displaying greater drama and vigor, it sounds more compelling, though the tape sounds detract from the piece, at least for me. There are many fine moments and devices in the work, and some may very well like it much more than I do, and I can understand why, but this just won’t get too many spins around these parts.
The second work, Ebony Fantasies from 2003, is much more to my liking. Balada resets four well known black spirituals to superb effect. The set opens with Nobody knows the trouble I seen in a setting that doesn’t resemble the original at all. It’s snappy, boisterous, and curiously uplifting and upbeat, with copious hints of jazz sprinkled throughout. I got a crown follows, in a decidedly modern setting, with quasi-aleatoric “form” and an almost chant-like quality. Were you there? opens with dark, elongated playing by the low strings, and the chorus sings in a very slow, somber, but ultimately touching manner. It is haunting and beautiful. The piece closes with War no mo’, which sounds vibrant and rhythmically alert and decidedly “modern,” though its message is timeless (and timely, I suppose). Balada has written several times of his respect for spirituals and jazz, and his respectful, brilliant treatment of such music backs up his words. A fine work indeed. I hope to hear it in concert someday.
So, a mixed bag, with a hit and a miss. Fine sound, fine conducting, and fine playing throughout.
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I’ve always had a weak spot for 20th Century string quartets. Bartok’s supreme masterpieces were among the works that got me seriously interested in classical music to begin with, and since then I’ve acquired a reasonable collection of recordings spanning the whole of the century. So why not try someone new? So I settled on Marek Stachowski, a composer new to me, and the Dux recording of all of his works written for string quartet through 1995.
The disc opens with his first string quartet from 1963, and the piece sounds of its time. It’s very avant-garde. The opening Animato is comprised mostly of flitting figures and not-too-harsh dissonance delivered in a lively, um, animated fashion. The Tranquillo opens with the cello laying on some thick glissando (though not Gloria Coates thick) before the other instruments fade in and out. It’s tranquil, yes, but also a bit eerie at times, with controlled outbursts to pierce the nearly pervasive tranquility. The Scherzando is brief and puckish, yet serious, or at least seriously constructed. It’s tight and dense and gnarly. The concluding Risoluto is likewise tightly structured, and some music literally scraped out. It’s a nice, vibrant, somewhat inaccessible work.
The second string quartet from 1972 is, if anything, even harder to get into. The single movement, amorphous, mostly quiet blob of sound of a quartet is interrupted at times by ruder, rougher outbursts to add contrast. It sounds quasi-aleatoric, and it seems that Mr Stachowski was impressed and influenced by Ligeti’s second quartet. Simply reinforcing this is the round-robin pizzicato playing, which sounds new yet familiar. For the rest of the work, the piece develops along similar lines. It’s not bad, but it’s not as compelling as, say, Ligeti’s second quartet.
The next work is Quartetto da ingress from 1980. Again, Stachowski favors a quiet overall sound – all the better to emphasize dynamic contrasts. This piece is also a single movement work, and it too unfolds continuously, with fine unison writing and appealing tremolos and glissandi and even hints of tonality thrown in. It lacks traditional melody, of course, so it might be very rough to get into; indeed, this isn’t going to be plopped in my CD player for any easy listening sessions.
The next work is the third string quartet from 1988. Again, the music starts off slow and quiet, and very slowly develops with terse outbursts piercing the somewhat static soundworld. But here the style is more accessible, closer to tonal. The second movement has tons of fun pizzicati before moving on to the third movement which sounds quite a bit like the first.
The disc ends with Musica festeggiante per quartetto d’archi from 1995. Another single movement work, it unfolds in a fast-slow-fast fashion, with the same basic approach and devices mentioned previously.
While this disc is a success overall, I have to admit that there is a certain sameness to the music. Stachowski uses the same devices over and over, and while his music does demonstrate progress, I was hoping for greater stylistic diversity. Still, I’ll keep the disc and spin it on occasion. The Jagiellonian Quartet is more than up to the challenge of the music, and the sound is spacious and metallic, though I wouldn’t doubt if that merely reflects on the music itself.