January 31, 2018

  • Dispelling Modern Music Myths

     Eric Klein-The Myth of Tomorrow

    Paul Kerekes, piano.  Eric Klein, guitars.
    Contemporaneous/David Bloom
    Navona Records 6136
    Total Time:  70:22
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    New Jersey-based composer Eric Klein’s new release features a variety of chamber music pieces allowing an introduction to his style and expression, often these incorporate contemporary rock rhythms.  There are five contemporary chamber ensemble works and a music for solo guitar and piano with electronics.

    The brief Nettles opens the disc.  This is an interesting quartet for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano all with intricately wound lines.  The piano tends to feature some hard left hand punctuations that suggest the sort of frustrated struggle between the parts, but the music itself tends to be mostly consonant with some flashes of beautiful lyric writing.  The latter is kicked off by cello and picked up slowly by the other instruments.  The material does have a minimalist quality, but the syncopations and accents provide a far more intriguing forward motion.  There is a sense that we may not get ourselves entirely out of the brush here.

    The album takes its title from the second work on the album.  The Myth of Tomorrow incorporates a variety of percussion instruments with synth, harp and piano.  We are perhaps in the more experimental style of modern music with different sounds and techniques, particularly in the harp, serving as the backdrop to this at times amorphous soundscape.  The combination of harp and piano adds a lingering quality to the former when they are joined together in a particular line.  The result is an engrossing dramatic work.  The said can be said for the piano work, Dream Fragments.  The often angular lines are enhanced with eerie interjections by electronics.  Open harmonic language is enhanced by the rather separated lines in both hands of the piano which lend interesting counterpoint.  The composer performs his Four Journeys for solo guitar.  This is a more substantial work that explores different aspects of musical style from a more traditional style in the first movement, to an almost reflective and meandering New Age quality in the second.  From these broken up chords, the third movement shifts to exploring resolution of harmonies in a rather mesmerizing way, with the final movement serving to pull these aspects together.  This is an overall rather intriguing work for guitar and perhaps one of the highlights of the album.

    The first of the four chamber ensemble pieces is the three-movement Hoboken Suite.  Most striking here is the way Klein integrates the accordion into this energetic little work which features a moments repost at its center which still percolates with mystery and unease.    In 1899, the music takes on a more Americana-like style with an almost hymn-like thematic idea.  Striking here are these beautiful thematic lines for woodwinds mixed with vibraphone and piano.  The music sounds a bit like it could easily accompany an art film.  In the following Parallels, we are back to the more intense and dissonant angularity heard in the earlier piano work.  This piece also features interesting motivic exploration in harmonies that shift between these denser, dissonant constructions, and those which open up into more questioning cadences.  The final ensemble piece, which closes the album, is Hidden Places.  It is a more expansive work orchestrally speaking.  As he did in some of the more intimate works here, Klein uses this larger palette to incorporate his rhythmic, harmonic, and sound combinations to great effect.

    The Myth of Tomorrow is in some way a metaphoric title for this collection of modern chamber pieces that dispels the idea that such music must be overly cerebral and inaccessible.  Instead, the music here invites the listener into Klein’s unique musical explorations of sound and texture with a variety of unique pieces that are quite engaging.  Klein’s guitar piece is certainly worthy of attention for performers on that instrument.  Mixed chamber ensembles tend to be harder to pull together, but it certainly would be worth the effort for the pieces provided here.  The sound of the album is equally well done with balance equalized so that one is not forced to make adjustments as the group sizes shift.  It helps that there is an appropriate amount of ambiance in the recording lending a warm sound picture to the recordings here.  The sequencing is also helpful in moving the listener from these disparate works.