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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
Sounds New, Sounded Good
March 4, 2001
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By Jules Langert
Three out of seven at a new-music concert isn't bad. Those highlights at the Sounds New Ensemble performance at the First Unitarian Church in Kensington on Monday of last week were trios by Elinor Armer, Andrew Imbrie, and Allen Shearer.
Armer's Fantasy (1997), for violin, cello, and piano, started the program strongly, with an agitated, dissonant interchange for all three instruments. This dramatic opening led gradually to a calmer, consonant section and a lyrical duet for the strings. The piece ended effectively on a poised, expectant sorority. Brooke Aird, violin, Catherine Allen, cello, and Eric Howe, piano, were the eloquent performers.
Imbrie's To a Traveler (1972), for clarinet, violin, and piano, dedicated to the memory of Norman Fromm, began and ended in a reflectively lyrical mood, with the clarinet predominant. The tranquil opening led to an intensifying three-way collaboration, until a climactic point was reached and the music subsided. This was an absorbing and satisfying performance of a beautiful composition. The players were Richard Mathias, clarinet, Brooke Aird, violin, and Herb Bielawa, piano.
Allen Shearer's We Three (1989), for flute, cello, and piano, was nimble and engaging. In its first movement, the instruments' relationship to one another "is cordial at the beginning, but midway . . . an argument breaks out". This dispute — short motivic confrontations between the flute and cello — was resolved by the onset of a quieter, static passage "for piccolo (marked 'ghostly') and cello, playing harmonics." The second movement was more homophonic and dancelike, with choppy syncopated accents for the piano. Lenora Warkentin was the flutist in this lively performance. Two other instrumental works were less satisfying. Brian Fennelly's trio, Three's Company, for flute, saxophone, and piano, kept a linear texture in the first movement ("Cantilena") for too long without a change. The second movement, "Swingtime," had an infectiously jazzy rhythmic feeling but did not develop and transform its material sufficiently. Richard Cleary's Pocket Divertimento (1998), for flute and clarinet, was more like a series of studies than a fully realized composition. Greater imaginative leeway was needed in the rhythm and texture to make this an interesting concert piece. Two vocal works made up the rest of the program. Jason Bahr's Moppet Songs, for baritone (Eric Howe) and piano, set to children's poems, were predictably coy and self-mocking but still composed with wit and considerable skill. Herb Bielawa's Earth (2000), for baritone and five instruments, set to the poem "Earthshine" by Diane Ackerman, ended the concert. Ackerman's piece is a whimsically extravagant meditation on the solar system, with planet Earth as its chief wonder. The ensemble provided a solid cushion of sound for the singer to declaim the text's overactive imagery. The effect was sumptuous, but could not make much communicative sense of a poem all too clearly in love with its own verbal excesses. (Jules Langert is a composer and teacher who resides in the East Bay.) ©2001 Jules Langert, all rights reserved |
