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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
One '70s Piano Classic, Two Satisfying Trios
April 10, 2001
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By Jules Langert
The Composers Inc. concert of April 10 (in the Green Room of the Veteran's Building, San Francisco) attempted a neat balance, counterpoising the sensual, incantatory piano music of George Crumb to poised, classically derived piano trios by Martin Bresnick and Jeffrey Miller. In the end, Crumb's 1972 Makrokosmos, volume 1, tipped the scales, thanks in large part to a sensitive and dramatic performance by pianist Victoria Neve.
The work consists of 12 pieces, each illustrating a sign of the Zodiac. Crumb's moody evocations explore the colors and resonance of the instrument using a range of special effects, many of which involve reaching inside the piano and playing directly on the strings. Some of the resulting sounds recall earlier experimental piano music, such as Henry Cowell's 1925 The Banshee.
But Crumb's introspective musical temperament has its own qualities. Part of the music's effect on an audience is in seeing the performer tease out the exotic timbres and noises from the piano almost magically — sometimes reaching into the instrument, sometimes hovering over it, occasionally speaking a few sharply accented words into it to set off sympathetic vibrations in the strings.
Though the music is fragmentary and insubstantial in content, its vivid dramatic contrasts allow the performer to shape and control the experience almost as much as the composer does. Pianist Neve struck a nice balance between meticulous attention to the score and a discreet touch of waywardness and abandon. Makrokosmos occupied the concert's first half. Jeffrey Miller's Meditation, which followed the intermission, is a piece in a single, lyrical, arch-shaped movement. The main musical idea, which opened the work, is played as a duet in sixths and octaves by the two strings, with the piano accompanying. A faster, descending motive enters and develops as the texture becomes increasingly complex. The music reaches a climactic point, followed by a shortened recollection of the opening that ends the piece. Meditation, a satisfying, authentically felt composition, got a sympathetic and convincing performance from the Jupiter Trio: pianist Aglika Angelova, violinist Robert Waters, and cellist Julian Hersh.
Martin Bresnick's Trio (1988) in four movements was the final work. Most remarkable was the scherzo-like second movement, titled "Cat's Cradle," in which the interplay of string pizzicati and staccato piano chords built up a tense, energetic texture of shifting accents and colors. After a middle section of fast, bowed, ostinato-filled passages for the strings, a final chain of rapid, repeated-note clusters in all three instruments brought the movement to an exhilarating close. The composition as a whole seemed to be based on the series of slow single notes in the piano that began the first movement, generating a major/minor feeling of thirds and sixths that pervaded the rest of the piece. The slow final movement, rather than attempting a fresh impetus as the scherzo had done, opted for a kind of "remembrance of things past," but Bresnick's overreliance on the unifying material gave the ending a feeling of anticlimax. The concert might arguably have been better served had Crumb's Makrokosmos been placed at the end of the program. Its directness, theatricality, and Zodiac-oriented mumbo jumbo seemed both to please and to fascinate the audience. It was unmistakably the hit of the evening. (Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.) ©2001 Jules Langert, all rights reserved |
