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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW Varied Styles November 12, 2002
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By Jules Langert
Chinese/American composer Bright Sheng's Four Movements for Piano Trio (1990) was the highlight of a program played by the Boston-based Triple Helix ensemble as the first concert of the season for Composers Inc. The group gave an excellent performance to Sheng's piece, sensitively rendering the hybrid nature of the music, the composer's style being a calculated mixture of Eastern and Western influences. They clash interestingly as the piano sounds against the strings' pentatonically inflected intonation. Elsewhere, sliding, sighing string effects and high, crystalline piano passages with distinctive ornamental figuration seem to be imitating the sound of Chinese instruments.
Sheng's counterpoint is often heterophonic, with one voice shadowing another in a kind of approximate imitation. The second movement incorporated a Chinese folk song, and the third was an excitable, dance-like scherzo. His writing is idiomatic and colorful, and he has a flair for the deft, clean endings that mark off each of his movements.
Next of the program's five piano trios, David Rakowski's HyperBlue (1991-1993) was inspired by the flight patterns of birds, whose flocks, veering out of formation, become momentarily disoriented and then reconverge to continue on their path. The first of three interconnected movements exemplified this behavior, as piano and strings brushed against each other while sharing an angular, twisting line, in a blurred and fluid version of birds in flight. Then suddenly, the texture was buffeted by sharp rhythmic and harmonic accents, causing a complete breakdown, with the ensemble in seeming disarray, followed by a gradual and tentative return of the original material. These dramatic caesuras were exciting and effective, punctuating and giving needed contrast to the ongoing linear activity. In this movement the piano was the driving force, and Lois Shapiro was the dynamic performer who kept things going.
The first movement of Allen Shearer's Passing Through (2001) began with a swiftly descending chromatic figure whose interplay of major and minor thirds became an important feature in the overall span of this three-movement piece. Later in the movement Shearer transformed the figure into arpeggiation, modifying its linear pull and creating a quieter, harmonically-based texture. The movement ended with an intensified return to the original motive and a drive to the final cadence. Arlene Zallman's trio, Triquetra, named for a term that describes intertwining arches, was lively and engaging but ended with a scherzo that seemed inconclusive as a finale. Perhaps a postlude would help anchor this piece as surely as it did Sheng's trio. The program's last work was Paul Schoenfield's Café Music (1987). The composer credits the idea for this composition to his experience in a restaurant playing dinner music. What we heard was an extended bout of shameless kitsch masquerading as affectionate parody and good, clean fun. Imagine a tipsy imitation of Dvorák combined with some ragtime chords and syncopations. Then add a helping of zany, obsessive Klezmer music played to the hilt in an endlessly repetitive rendition, the music furiously whipping itself into a loud, campy froth. Thus endeth the concert. Triple Helix was impressive throughout. Violinist Bayla Keyes, cellist Rhonda Rider, and pianist Lois Shapiro received a deserved ovation.
(Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.)
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Triple Helix