Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXIII, no. 1 (Spring 1997)
Reviews of Recordings
Edited by Ann Sears, Wheaton College
Viva La Difference: String Quartets by 5 Women From 3 Continents (Lucie
Vellere, Sarah Aderholdt, Ruth Schonthal, Amy Beach, Prialx Ranier)
Crescent String Quartet; Alard String Quartet. Leonardo Productions, Inc., LE 336, 1994.
One compact disc.
When it comes to the medium of the string quartet, the average listener tends to
overlook the efforts of lesser known composers and revel in the abundance of great works
by acknowledged masters. Vive la Difference, five string quartets in a
variety of twentieth-century styles by composers who happen to be women, makes a
strong argument for looking further.
Sarah Aderholdt (b. 1955), a native of North Carolina, has pursued her career in
Minnesota and currently in Washington, D.C. Her one-movement String Quartet,
an early work composed in 1978, has elements of minimalism and chance composition
which the material, suffused with richness and imagination, builds throughout
its nine minutes. The composition is at once complex, accessible, and hypnotic.
Aderholdt is primarily a composer of chamber music, and the string quartet makes one
whish to hear more of her work.
Ruth Schonthal (b. 1924) has had a distinguished career as a composer, teacher, and
concert pianist. Born in Hamburg, she studied in Berlin, Stockholm, Mexico City, and
Yale University. She currently resides in New York and is on the faculty of
New York University. Her String Quartet, in her onw words, "consists of many
brief, contrasting movements." The style is deeply rooted in European tradition
with an especially strong affinity to Bartokian harmony and syntax, but is by no means
derivative. Rather, the composition is an almost stream-of-conciousness succession of musical
invention, colors, and harmonies.
The venerable Amy Beach, by now almost a household name, still suffers from a
dearth of recordings of her works. This recording is therefore especially
welcome. Completed in 1929, the one-movement composition is based on three Eskimo
or Innuit tunes whcih have been completely integrated into the work's form and texture.
It is one of Beach's finest works and is further illuminated by the especially
informative notes by the noted Beach scholar, Adrienne Fried Block.
All of the above works and the impresstionistic String Quartet (1951) by Lucie Vellere
(1896-1966) of Belgium have been well-served by the sensitive, fine performances of the
Crescent String Quartet, originally recording in 1981, as is the fascinating Quartet
by Priaulx Rainier (1903-1986) of South Africa and London peformed by the Alard
String Quartet.
The "great men" of the past were surely onto something when they made the
string quartet the medium for their finest efforts, and the tradition continues
with composers of both sexes who still await discovery. VIve la Difference
is a delight and a revelation.
--Amy E. Camus
Whitestone, New York
David and Ginger Hildebrand. Over the Hills and Far Away Being a Collection
of Music from 18th-Century Annapolis
1990. Albany Records H103. One compact disk.
Music of the Charles Caroll Family from 1785 to 1832
1991. Albany Records TROY056. One compact disk.
These recordings will never go out of date. They are unique documents of early
American musical practices that will not only give pleasure for listening but also
are useful for classroom instruction. The Hildebrands bring together a variety of
authentic instruments and fully documented repertory to open a new window on the
everyday music of the people living in the Chesapeake region between about 1730 and
1830.
The term "gentlemen amateur" is often applied to those who performed music during the
colonial times. Recent research have shown that this condescending term is really not
appropriate. Music was performed by all levels of society according to their own
needs and pleasures. Since on-demand pre-recorded msuic was available only on expensive
barrel organs and musical clocks, many gifted musicians found ready employment in
theaters, churches, ballrooms, in military service and in taverns and private homes.
In a society that placed high value on the acquisition and appreciation of the arts,
many of those who had musical skills chose to perform as a stepping stone to
personal advancement. Many more undoubtedly played simply for their own enjoyment.
In their assigned role as givers of pleasure, women were particularly pressured to learn to
play and sing music in semi-public domestic settings; gentlemen wer expected to be able
to take a part in a catch and sing a song on demand. Those who mastered instruments and the
art of composition were valued as colleagues, friends or employees. It is the repertory of all
of these people that is heard on these recordings.
The places on the first document the kinds of music heard in different venues: in priate
parties, taverns, theaters, churches, and informal settings. For example, when
the members of the Tuesday Club gathered for dinner in Annapolis in the 1750s, they brought
their instruments and new compositions written for that week's party. John Barry
Talley, who has documented the Tuesday Club music in detail, joins the Hildebrands
to perform two of the earliest surviving pieces written in Britain's American colonies, a
march and a spirited catch by Thomas Bacon. Theater music is represented by colonial
favorites from the Poor Soldier and the Beggar's Opera; Scottish and Irish
songs reflect the settlers who populated the upper South, and a remarkably modern song
called "Tobacco," the "Annapolis March," and two psalm tunes round out the collection.
The second disk continues the high level of documentation and performance, conentrating on
the music played by members of the Carroll family in the Federal period. Again the instruments
selected are authentic: violin, English and baroque guitars, harpsichord, pianoforte,
organ, recorder, and ahmmered dulcimer. Again, the documentation is detailed and complete.
The music in Carrolls' library included comic opera scores, variations and voluntaries for
keyboard, and Scottish songs; thus the disk includes arias from Rosina, Artaxerxes,
and the Poor Soldier as well as the old favorites "Katherine Ogie" adn "Maggie
Lauder." A highlight is Philip Anthony Corri's march written for the occaion
when Charles Carroll laid the first mile marker of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1828.
The Carrollton March is vigorously performed on a Broadwood pianoforte made in 1806.
The Hildebrands have created convincing arrangements and they and guest performers
play with grace and polish. Although the selectins reflect all levels of society,
from the folk tune "Corn Riggs" to "Stanley's Voluntary III," the music heard on these disks
most accurately depicts performances for and by upper-middle-class American families.
--Kate Van Winkle Keller
Darnestown, Maryland
John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes; Dreams
Louis Goldstein, piano. Greensye Music, Greensye 4794, 1996. One
compact disc.
Cage described an early period of his creative life as being "intentially expressive."
The two piano compositions from 1948 on this disc are representative of this expressive,
intimate style. Pianist Louis Goldstein makes the most of these qualities with his
highly sensitive and refined performances.
The major work, Sonatas and Interludes, is a palindrome consisting of four sonatas,
interlude 1, sonatas 5-8, interlude II, interlude III, sonatas 9-12, interlude IV, and the
final four sonatas. Although binary formal structures are evident, particularly at the
beginning and there are clear breaks between movements, the overall response of the
listener soon moves from thoughtful analysis to a realm of tranquil receptivity. The
interesting program notes quote Cage as stating that this work is "an attempt to expresss
in music the 'permanent emotions' of (East) Indian tradition: the heroic, the erotic,
the wondrous, the mirthful, sorrow, fear, anger, the odious, and their common tendency
toward tranquility." While individual movements may indeed depict power, calm, or
playfulness and utlize pedal points, augmentation or gamelan effects, the overal intent is
to produce a trance-like state in the listener. The length of the work (over sixty-three
minutes) and the use of the muted, prepared piano contribute to the meditative quality
of the composition. Although there are dynamic contrasts, they are within a narrow range, muted by
the materials placed upon the strings of the instrument. The intention of the composer is
quite obviously to invoke a quiet and tranquil listening environment.
Dream, the opening work on this disc, also evokes a trance-like state.
Surprising to those familiar only with the later iconoclastic works of Cage, this work
proclaims its links to romanticism and impressionism. A clearly tonal structure
supports a lyrical melodic line based largely upon the whole tone scale. The eight-minute
length adds to the accessibility of this work, so aptly titled.
As a counterbalacne to Dream and to ensure that we do not forget the
revolutionary and humorous Cage, the disc ends with five distinct bands of Silence
(3, 4, 5, 6, and 20 seconds respectively).
--Eleanor Carlson
University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth
Veronica Kadlubkiewwicz, violinst. Salvatore Macchia: Chamber Concerto no.
3 (1991); Donald Wheelock: Partita (1989); Lewis Spratlan: Night
Music (1990); Robert Stern: Fanasy Etude (1984).
Gasparo, GSCD-226, 1993. One compact disc.
Each of the four works featured on this recording of new music for violin was written
by a composer who currently lives and works in central Massachusetts. The relationshiop
between performer and composer is especially close in this collection, for three of the
four works were written for the recording's soloist, Polish-American violinist
Veronica Kadlubkiewicz.
The album opens with Salvatore Macchia's Chamber Concerto no. 3. Macchia, who studied at
Yale University, is currently on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The work was written for and dedicated to Veronica Kadlubkiewicz. A strong sense of lyricism
pervades the three-movement concerto, particularly in the first two movements but also in the
percussive final movement.
Donald Weelock wrote his Partita for solo violin for Ms. Kadlubkiewicz after he heard her play
one of Bach's solo violin sonatas. The five-movement work offers the soloist ample opportunity
to display the timbral, technical, and melodic possibilities of the violin. Wheelock, who also
conducted Macchia's Concerto on this recording, is professor music at Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts.
The third selection on the disc is the atmospheric Night Music by
Lewis Spratian. Scored for violin, clarinet and percussion, this work
is again dedicated to Kadlubkiewicz. The trio is constructed in three main sections,
each more intense than the last. There is a great deal of interplay between the three
performers, and, as with the previous two compostions on the disc, timbre is at the fore
of the composer's mind. Spratian, who studied with Mel Powell and Gunther Schuller at Yale,
has taught and conducted at Tanglewood and is on the faculty of Amherst College.
Concluding the CD is Fantasy Etude by Robert Stern, who currently teaches at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The work is for solo violin, and reflects both the composer's
son's interest in The Who and Stern's own interest in Baroque muic for solo violin. The
rhapsodic etude, which lasts just under six minutes, exhibits common ground
between rock and Baroque idioms in terms of harmony, rhythm, and repetition of
motivic material.
This collection provides a solid addition to the recorded repertory of new music for violin.
Performances are all solid and convincing, and Ms. Kadlubkiewicz's championing
of new compositions for violin is to be highly commended.
--William A. Everett
Washburn University
New Calliope Singers: New Cantatas and Madrigals by Druckman, Babbitt, Gerber,
Gideon, Monod, Wright
New Callipe Singers; Peter Schubert, conductor. Composers Recordings, Inc., CRI CD
638, 192. One compact disc.
As noted in the title, this 1992 release contains a collection of "new" cantatas and
madrigals (the cmpositions span the years 1958 to 1987). The extensive linear
notes that accompany the CRI Recording define the madrigals as "short a capella pieces
on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts in groups of three or four" while the cantatas
are "larger-scale pieces involving instrument sand soloists" (p. 4). The New Calliope
Singers was founded in 1969 by Peter Schubert and specialized in presenting premieres,
having done so more than fifty times. In fact, the group sang the premier of the Babbitt
composition included herein, Three Cultivated Choruses, in 1990, and Gerber's Une
Saison en Enfer was written for the group in 1985. The collection is representative of the
second half of the twentieth century in exhibiting a variety of techniques and styles:
The Gerber, Druckman, and Wright works are diatonic; Gideon's contribution is atonal; and
the Monod and Babbitt pieces are serial. According to Peter Schubert, the works emply a
range of textures and vocal spacings, and the composers' approach to rhythm
runs the gamut from non-metrical to "rhythmically forthright, driven largely
by text declamation" (p. 4). English, Italian, German and French texts exploring different
moods and expressions have been used by the composers in very short settings (Babbitt -- 1:03)
and in lengthy works (Gerber -- 19:11).
Of special interest to Sonneck readers, the Babbitt Choruses were composed in 1987
in celebration of Wiley Hitchcock's sixty-fifth birthday the following year. The score of
that work is presented in its entirety in A Celebration of American Music edited by
Crawford, Lott, and Oja from the University of Michigan Press.
While is quality of the recorded sound is quite pleasing, the overall English diction
of hte group was unsatisfactory in many places, both in a capella and in
accompanied selections. Featured soloists also were mixed in their ability to bring the
text across clearly, and bass Wilber Pauley seems to stretch his lower range uncomfortably
in the Monod. However, the ensemble is to be commended for its ability to
interpret a diversity of texts and to handle difficult angular melodies. The group
exhibits an interesting palette of tone color from a clear, "white" sound in the
Druckman to a robust sound in the opening and closing Wright movements.
--Linda Pohly
Ball State University
Leslie Bassett: Echoes From an Invisible World; Variations for Orchestra; Sextet
for Piano and Strings
Composers Recordings, Inc., CRI CD 677, 1994. One compact disc.
This disc is one of the CRI series called "American Masters," honoring the work of major
composers of an older generation (decidedly past mid-career) who more often than not work
in mainstream styles. Recordings are frequently re-processed form CRI's archives of
materials formerly issued in long-play format -- an incomparable collection of
twentieth-century American concert music, by the way. One CD in this sereis is devoted
to the music of Leslie Bassett, and it offers an especially rewarding view of a
highly accomplished composer's work. Bassett is known as an important teacher of younger
composers, as a distinguished figure at the University of Michigan, and as a Pulitzer
Prize winner, but (like so many other "American Masters") he is heard less
frequently in concert halls than he deserves to be.
Certainly the three pieces here testify to Bassett's eloquent handling of long-range
narrative form, and his imaginative use of instrumental color for expressive
affect. Variations for orchestra was composed in 1963 and premiered that year in
Rome; as a result of the 1965 American premiere, Bassett was awarded the Pulitzer Prize one
year later. The single-movement work abounds in angularly rising and falling lines,
often surrounded by swirls of color, diaphanous "clouds" and trills of varying speeds.
The eight individual variations, on a grouping of high-profile phrase gestures, are not clearly
delineated; rather, they tend to run into one another, so that the listener
perceives the entire work as a through-composed, continuous narrative (although one
with a central section of more deliberate tempo and expressive lyricism).
The language is basically non-tonal, relatively astringent and dissonant in a manner
typical of its decade. (The composer has acknowledged the use of a twelve-tone
row, but only in certain variations). What sets the Variations apart, however, is
its inventive, even brilliant, use of timbre. The work's opening gesture, a
very quiet passage for divided contrabasses, harp, and tam-tam, is coloristically
stunning. It's also a difficult act to follow, but in fact it sets the level for the
rest of the piece, as Bassett continues to create sonorities that are inventive,
refreshing, and a delight to the ear. His handling of form is no less admirable;
the rise and fall of tempo, activity and energy levels, and the subtle interplay
of mood, help create a cogent, convincing argument which holds up over the work's
relatively lengthy duration of twenty-five minutes. (It's also nice to recall an era,
not so long ago, when American composers were actually encouraged to write major
works that long and had the opportunity to get them played!)
Echoes from an Invisible World, a three-movement work of symphonic proportions,
was commissioneed for the Bicentennial celebrations of 1976, more than a decade after
the Variations. Although it is equally coloristic and commanding in the logic of its
argument, there are important differences between the two works. With regard to the
handling of time and timbral continuity, the solidity of the earlier work seems to have
been replaced by a more fragmented, Webernesque approach. (In his liner notes for
Echoes Bassett remarks on the influence of electronic studio technique, and,
one that association has been made, one can easily hear gestures reminiscent of tape
splicing, filter controls, reverberation sppeds and the like). In addition, the music
seems metrically free, more flexible in its articulation of time-passing. Timbrally,
the work is more soloistic than its predecessor. Colors of intrumental sub-groups,
chamber-like in their clarity, are tossed back and forth; these have the effect
of bringing massvie tutti passages into sharper relief. Silences, sustained drones,
and "grounds," and a fondness for static gestures (such as ostinati and repeated-note
patters) which are overlaid against each other, often creat the illusion of two
different time worlds (one very rapid, the other very slow-moving)
coexisting simultaneously.
The third composition on this CD is scored for chamber ensemble -- piano, string
quartet and added viola -- rather than orchestar. Bassett is inclined to treat
the forces of his Sexted in an "orchestral" manner, however, delighting in fused
timbres and rapidly shifting articulations -- flurries, cascades, whispers -- rather
than the traditional counterpoint of lines and individual personalities. On another
level, the six performers seem engaged in an ever-changing balance of weights and masses
reminiscent of the concerto grosso. (A two-tiered approach, with the piano
balancing the rest of the ensemble, is often favored, although the piece is by no means
a piano concerto). The Sextet performance, by the Concord Quartet, pianist
Gilbert Kalish and violist John Graham, is delightful.
How can we characterize this music? Perhaps a misprint on the CRI jewel box for the
disc might provie a clue. In what may be a uniquely Freudian typo, the record
company's New York address is given not as Spring Street but as Sprint Street. What
a serendipitous error! Bassett's music does indeed "sprint." In fact, it leaps,
gambols, and even vaults, with dynamism and athletic grace and a palpably physical
quality. If one wanted another (equally subjective ) clue, one might examine
Bassett's ties to the University of Michigan. Although there is no "Michigan
sound," there is certainly a grand tradition of composition teaching, within which
Leslie Bassett stands as an important figure -- both a former student and a
distinguised professor. If one can perceive a mid-twentieth century Michigan
"family tree," or a line from the spiky, neo-classic pitch rigor of Ross Lee
Finney to the evocative sound-sculptures of George Crumb, Leslie Bassett and
his work might fall directly on the mid-point of that line, partaking of the
virtues of both. This disc of Bassett's music is well worth hearing.
--Elliott Schwartz
Bowdoin College
Updated 4/20/98