March 27, 2014

  • Orli Shaham Premieres New Mackey Concerto

     

    American Grace: Piano Music by Steven Mackey & John Adams
    Orli Shaham and Jon Kimura Parker, piano.  Los Angeles Philharmonic/David Robertson
    Canary Classics CC 11
    Total Time:  49:48
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Canary Classics new release, American Grace, pulls together music by two contemporary composers whose music has never been paired on disc before: Steven Mackey and John Adams.  Adams is perhaps the better known of the two with his post-minimalist approaches to composition extending the boundaries of the movement defined by Steve Reich and Philip Glass.  The disc focuses on works for piano in various combinations from duo pianos, to a premiere concert with orchestra.  At the center of the attention though is Orli Shaham’s (sister to violinist Gil Shaham) amazing performances of this contemporary works.

    Adams’ 1996 work, Hallelujah Junction, is a rather fascinating work that pulls the syllables of “Hallelujah” into a rhythmic combination that then begins a rather brilliant series of pirouettes between both pianos (Shaham is joined here by Parker) creating an often fascinating blend of harmonic ideas.  As the piece progresses, metric modulations begin to occur and these are also accentuated by interested chordal punctuations between the instruments.  The piece itself feels as if it has further developed approaches from Adams’ more familiar Grand Pianola Music.  The second movement is particularly mesmerizing with its beautiful harmonic realms at the start eventually becoming cloudier as darker hints and even a bit of jazz-like dissonance begins to appear.  The final movement features an almost angular harmonic approach with interesting dissonances and a sort of wild conclusion.

    The center piece of this release though is really Steven Mackey’s Stumble to Grace, a work for piano and orchestra set in “a single movement divided into five stages”.  The piece was a co-commission between the Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.  The idea behind the work is that each stage represents those early years of childhood and their development.  The music grows in a series of fits and starts in stage one repeating a particular series and set of sounds between orchestra and piano before the orchestra more fully begins to enter and eventually present a longer lyrical line.  The music flirts here a bit with romanticism and jazz.  Stage two features more dense harmony and a fuller orchestral backdrop as the piano begins to take center stage more forcefully.  Rhythmic syncopations and even some of the style of the orchestral accompaniment have a jazz-like feel at times.  The third stage allows the piano to be the center of the attention until interrupted by horns.  The fourth stage focuses on more struggle between the orchestra and soloist until the latter emerges the victor in the final stage.  Conceptually, the work is quite interesting and its engaging harmony and rhythmic vitality make it a rather exciting work that has somewhat post-romantic gestures at times.

    A couple of smaller “encore” pieces help close off this disc.  They include Mackey’s very brief “Sneaky March” which was developed for Shaham’s “Baby Got Bach” preschooler series.  Some of this music from 2011 found its way into the concerto as well.  The disc concludes with one of Adams’ important first piano compositions, “China Gates”.  It is in this 1977 work that he began to expand upon the minimalist aesthetic and it remains an important showpiece for piano.

    While the rapid virtuoso sections of these pieces can be a taxing experience, it is in the slower touching moments like the center of the Mackey concerto, where Shaham’s sense of shaping longer lines and creating a sense of give and take can come more to the forefront.  Here ability to work through some of these difficult passages is equally exemplary.  Overall, this is an important release of contemporary piano music!