June 13, 2016

  • New Music for Chamber Orchestra

     

    Infinite Landscapes
    SOLI Chamber Ensemble; Martinu Quartet
    Navona Records 6040
    Total Time:  72:59
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Two contemporary chamber works are the focus of Infinite Landscapes featuring music by Elliott Miles McKinley, one of the founders of the group earWORM and currently a professor of music at Roger Williams University.  He has studied with, among others, William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, and David Gompper.  The pieces on the present release invite the listener to contemplate musical vistas and moods.  In some respect, it is reminiscent of Luigi Dallapiccola’s Sicut Umbra which invites the listener to contemplate the stars with actual constellations written into the score.  McKinley’s music combines elements of popular music and styles within his own musical language and this can be heard in the first piece on the album.

    Three Portraits (2012) is cast in three movements (in a somewhat concerto-like model of fast, slow, fast) each depicting “watercolors” of the months of July, August, and September.  It is set for clarinet (Stephanie Krey), David Mollenauer (cello), violin, (Ertan Torgul), and piano (Carolyn True)—the same forces used in Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.  Bird-like trills are perhaps one of the suggestions of the Messiaen inherent in the opening movement that also features interesting cluster harmony and looping ideas.  There is some additional dialogue work between violin and clarinet.  Reggae is an undercurrent in the central movement.  Utilizing a pop ballad form as an underlying structure to the movement, McKinley then also explores the lower registers of the clarinet while providing interesting lyrical lines to the strings.  The traditional harmonic and melodic ideas introduced by the piano are so very different from the opening that it catches one off guard.  This is somewhat interrupted by more dissonant musical segments competing with this laid back music often featuring bluesy inflections.  Finally, we head into a set of variations heightened by the use of an electronic track providing a more urban beat.  While an interesting idea, it will certainly be an acquired taste and does start to wear out its welcome after the first couple of minutes.  It tends to feel more like we are suddenly transported to a filmic narrative sequence.  The electronic sound though tends to overwhelm the instruments—this may be intentional as it can represent the way modern art music is being covered up by our modern world.  Fortunately, after about three minutes the groove stops and its rhythmic ideas begin to be unpacked by the ensemble.  It returns briefly though at the end to provide the proper arc.  It feels like the ghosts of Lalo Schifrin, or a funky David Shire 1970s crime drama, are somehow coming to the forefront at times.

    The SOLI Chamber ensemble does a great job giving this work a very committed performance.  The piece is certainly going to provide something that one will need to return to a few times to absorb the way it is constructed which is what good chamber music does.  The performance was recorded in 2012 in Kentucky.

    It is hard to believe that McKinley has managed to compose seven string quartets already.  This very intimate chamber music is often a way for composers to really explore their own musical language and style.  The prestigious Martinu Quartet commissioned this String Quartet No. 7 (2013) and premiered the work in Prague in May, 2014.  The piece is in memory of the quartet’s founding violinist Jan Jisa (1957-2013).  This is a monumental work cast in six movements and with a playing time nearing 45 minutes!  That might make most fans balk, but this is a work that pulls you in and maintains your attention throughout.  We are gradually entered into this sound world in the opening movement, “Cathedrals of Light and Shadow” which explore the use of fifths slowly over the different voices and across the quartet.  It does seem like this is something that would be far more engaging when one can see how the instruments are interacting though because it seems overlong—not something one can say really anywhere else in the piece.  This time helps slowly engage the listener with an often mesmerizing exploration of sound to prepare us for what is to come.  A waltz-like idea is the basis of the “Scherzo and Fugue”.  The academic musical form of a fugue is a further exploration of 12-tone writing and references the opening movement’s interest in the interval of a fifth in the way the fugue’s answer enters.  That said, the music certainly does not veer terribly into atonal harmonies, but the drama of the music is truly a highlight of this movement.  After this somewhat more cerebral compositional approach, we move into a more recitative meditation for cello which is supported with ever intriguing harmonic ideas.  “A Little Dance” adds some relaxation of sorts with the use of a lot of string pizzicato and multiple meters and syncopations.  Here the fifth interval provides a jagged backdrop to a more lyrical line as the movement begins.  Rhythmic Jazz influences inform “Riding Into The Sky” which continues to also remind us of the work’s underlying exploration of fifths.  Finally, “Toward An Endless Sunset” brings us back to the opening of the quartet and this brief “coda” pulls us musically off into the distance as music dissolves.  But, this helps us reflect on what we have been hearing and to gradually bring us out of this sometimes intense experience.

    There is a lot to take in in the quartet.  Hopefully the group will post a live performance of the work on YouTube so we can see how even more clearly how things all work together here.  That said, this is a quartet that you will need, and want, to explore more to begin to hear all the nuances of the work.  Particularly interesting is how McKinley draws us into these soundscapes with often traditional harmony and then takes us off into interesting colors and combinations.  The music is also quite dramatic providing, and demanding, the listener’s full attention.  In this way, you can begin to pick up some of the structural aspects of the work in upon first hearing, but which will further reveal themselves to you as you explore the work.

    One could not hope for a better exploration of a modern work than that provided here by the Martinu Quartet in this performance recorded in 2014 shortly after the work’s premiere.  The sound here is excellent providing just the right amount of imaging in the sound picture.  The studio seems to also have enough ambience to keep the work from being to dry.  The ensemble has recorded some of the composer’s earlier quartets and might be said to be somewhat intimately acquainted with the demands and musical language of the composer.  Packaging is barebones but a booklet is provided to help with links to online information if desired.  Worth seeking out along with Navona’s earlier release of three other McKinley quartets.