Attended the third and final concert in the Crossing's Month of Moderns series at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian. The choir sang works by Lansing McLoskey, Frank Havroy, Paul Fowler, Thomas Jennefelt, David Shapiro and Kile Smith. Nice stuff, all of it, but it all kind of ran together for me. Maybe the heat has been making me stupid, but I couldn't tell much differnce between one piece and the next, with the exception of Jennefelt's Villarosa Sarialdi, an exercise in Reichian minimalism for voices written in 1997. There wasn't much to it, but it stood out from the pack by virtue of a few jaunty rhythms that at least got me nodding my head.
Throughout the evening, I found myself longing for a bitonal dissonance, a clash of meters, anything to pierce the reverent, sleepy-time atmosphere. I kept thinking what a great job these singers could do with something gritty, like Ives's psalm settings or the Harvest Home Chorales. The Crossing specializes in brand-new music, and Ives would be too old for its program director, I guess, but compared to some of the young composers I've heard on Crossing programs, he's a Turk. Too much new music seems to me timid and backward-looking compared to what was being written a century go - or even two centuries ago. I got more of a charge from a performance of the B Minor Mass a couple of months ago.
As I was typiing this, I was inpired to put on the SWR Vokalensemble's CD of Ives' psalm settings. Hair-raising, fiendishly stuff that and at the same time so wonderfully alive. I do believe I'm waking up.
Showing posts with label The Crossing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Crossing. Show all posts
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Two days, two concerts
I’m getting out more these days, hearing more live music than even just a year ago. Two very different but satisfying concerts back to back this weekend. I previewed both for Ticket. (See the links to your left.) Friday night, The Crossing performed contemporary choral works at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian. Last night, at Delaware Valley College, the Lenape Chamber ensemble presented more standard fare ― Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violins, Chopin's G minor Cello Sonata, and Beethoven's first Razumovsky Quartet. The Beethoven was a fortuitous, since I've been listening to the string quartets on recordings quite a bit recently. It was wonderful to hear it live.
The concerts at Delaware Valley College take place in the school cafeteria, an unpromising location. Listeners sit in rows of plastic, molded seats set up for the occasion, and the noise of the air conditioning gets in the way during the quiet moments, but once you get over it, the acoustics are actually very good. The Beethoven, especially, was clear as a bell, and beautifully played. I was most impressed with the precision and the clean intonations in the feather-light second movement.
The Crossing concert included the world premiere of Lansing McCloskey’s “Memory of Rain,” on a Philip Levine. I was fortunate enough to sit next to the composer during the performance. He drew into himself as he listened — eyes closed, head bowed, arms folded, legs crossed. His only criticism of the performance was that the chorus was about a quartertone off from the organ, making the piece “microtonal” where it wasn’t intended to be. It didn’t matter. I liked it either way. I also liked it, I guess, because it was the one secular piece on a program swimming in Christian sadomasochism. (“I am worthless, Lord. Love me.”) Another composer, who I know is devout and whose music will be performed by the Crossing next week, told me during the reception, jocularly, that if religious isn’t annoying and offensive, then it isn’t doing its job. Well, it did its job Friday.
The other highlight of the evening, Francis Pott’s “My Song is Love Unknown” (on another religious text), stood out for its refreshing return to counterpoint. The same composer I spoke to at the reception tells me it’s a lost art among contemporary composers. Too much modern music, even the most aggressively "accessible," walks in lockstep, content to make one, single pretty sound after another. Interweaving contrapuntal lines re-introduce the element of story. They're like an argument, he said.
The concerts at Delaware Valley College take place in the school cafeteria, an unpromising location. Listeners sit in rows of plastic, molded seats set up for the occasion, and the noise of the air conditioning gets in the way during the quiet moments, but once you get over it, the acoustics are actually very good. The Beethoven, especially, was clear as a bell, and beautifully played. I was most impressed with the precision and the clean intonations in the feather-light second movement.
The Crossing concert included the world premiere of Lansing McCloskey’s “Memory of Rain,” on a Philip Levine. I was fortunate enough to sit next to the composer during the performance. He drew into himself as he listened — eyes closed, head bowed, arms folded, legs crossed. His only criticism of the performance was that the chorus was about a quartertone off from the organ, making the piece “microtonal” where it wasn’t intended to be. It didn’t matter. I liked it either way. I also liked it, I guess, because it was the one secular piece on a program swimming in Christian sadomasochism. (“I am worthless, Lord. Love me.”) Another composer, who I know is devout and whose music will be performed by the Crossing next week, told me during the reception, jocularly, that if religious isn’t annoying and offensive, then it isn’t doing its job. Well, it did its job Friday.
The other highlight of the evening, Francis Pott’s “My Song is Love Unknown” (on another religious text), stood out for its refreshing return to counterpoint. The same composer I spoke to at the reception tells me it’s a lost art among contemporary composers. Too much modern music, even the most aggressively "accessible," walks in lockstep, content to make one, single pretty sound after another. Interweaving contrapuntal lines re-introduce the element of story. They're like an argument, he said.
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Crossing
Attended the first of three scheduled concerts in the Crossing's Month of Moderns series yesterday. The Crossing is a 20-odd person contemporary music chorus, founded and conducted by Donald Nally. Programs usually take place at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, whose air conditioned sanctuary was a great draw for me yesterday. usually, the choir sings a capella or with the church organ. Yesterday, however, they were accompanied by a 12-piece string orchestra.
Program as follows:
Arvo Part: Wahlfahrtslied, 1984/2001
Benjamin CS Boyle, Cantata: To One in Paradise, 2005
Bo Holton: Tallis Variations, 1976
David Lang, Statement to the Court, 2010 (World premiere, Crossing commission)
John Tavener, The Bridegroom, 1999
Won't give a detailed review (see June 25 post about my deficiencies in that area), but I will say that I have never heard the chorus sound richer or more full. I counted 23 singers, but I thought was more than I have seen before, though I was assured afterward it was about the usual number.
Still, the concert was something a letdown. Despite my best efforts, my mind wanders during anything by Tavener or Part, which deletes two-fifths of the program from my memory right off the bat. The minimalist vocal writing in Statement to the Court line sounded like a rehash of Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Little Match Girl, which the Crossing performed last year (and which I liked), but with an insistent, regular, one-thump beat of a bass drum that raised it nearly to the level of torture. I was afraid I would be hearing that drum in my sleep. Fortunately, I haven’t. (At the post-concert reception, one of the performers suggested that perhaps the Crossing should forego singing any more of Lang’s music until he works through his current obsessions.)
Boyle's cantata, on one of Poe's lesser poems, and the Holton were more successful. I particularly liked the contrast in the Tallis Variations between the Renaissance-inspired vocalizing and the angular, modernist-sounding business in the strings. It might sound like pastiche, but the parts came together well. The string writing reminded me at different times of Ives's Tone Roads No. 1, or the climax of Carter's Variations, or William Schuman’s Third Symphony. I'd welcome hearing the piece again.
Next performances are July 9 and 17, and I plan to attend both. The programs sound more promising. There will be premieres of settings of the poetry of Philip Levine by Lansing McLoskey and Paul Fowler, and a reprise of Kile Smith’s Where Flames a Word, on poems of Paul Celan.
Program as follows:
Arvo Part: Wahlfahrtslied, 1984/2001
Benjamin CS Boyle, Cantata: To One in Paradise, 2005
Bo Holton: Tallis Variations, 1976
David Lang, Statement to the Court, 2010 (World premiere, Crossing commission)
John Tavener, The Bridegroom, 1999
Won't give a detailed review (see June 25 post about my deficiencies in that area), but I will say that I have never heard the chorus sound richer or more full. I counted 23 singers, but I thought was more than I have seen before, though I was assured afterward it was about the usual number.
Still, the concert was something a letdown. Despite my best efforts, my mind wanders during anything by Tavener or Part, which deletes two-fifths of the program from my memory right off the bat. The minimalist vocal writing in Statement to the Court line sounded like a rehash of Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Little Match Girl, which the Crossing performed last year (and which I liked), but with an insistent, regular, one-thump beat of a bass drum that raised it nearly to the level of torture. I was afraid I would be hearing that drum in my sleep. Fortunately, I haven’t. (At the post-concert reception, one of the performers suggested that perhaps the Crossing should forego singing any more of Lang’s music until he works through his current obsessions.)
Boyle's cantata, on one of Poe's lesser poems, and the Holton were more successful. I particularly liked the contrast in the Tallis Variations between the Renaissance-inspired vocalizing and the angular, modernist-sounding business in the strings. It might sound like pastiche, but the parts came together well. The string writing reminded me at different times of Ives's Tone Roads No. 1, or the climax of Carter's Variations, or William Schuman’s Third Symphony. I'd welcome hearing the piece again.
Next performances are July 9 and 17, and I plan to attend both. The programs sound more promising. There will be premieres of settings of the poetry of Philip Levine by Lansing McLoskey and Paul Fowler, and a reprise of Kile Smith’s Where Flames a Word, on poems of Paul Celan.
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