April 16, 2018

  • New Music for Flute

    Returning to Heights Unseen
    Lindsey Goodman, flute.
    Navona Records 6160
    Total Time:  60:05
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Flautist Lindsey Goodman is based in Southern Ohio perfectly set to be part of performance opportunities with the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the West Virginia Symphony, and teaching opportunities.  She is quite the advocate for new music and especially electroacoustic works.  To date, she has commissioned some 100+ premieres, several of which are part of this release.

    With a flurry of sound, we move into the rather fascinating Separation Logic (2013) by Roger Dannenberg.  The idea here is a blend of live performance and computer programming that further expands the color and sound palette of the instrument.  Thus we get pure acoustic tone and then processed sounds that lend a more computer-like playback.  This is in addition to the way pitches can be bent and altered as the piece unfolds.  It is at times a rather haunting work with some fascinating rhythmic ideas created by the sound made by fingering itself and other articulation.

    David Stock’s A Wedding Prayer (2004) was composed on the occasion of Goodman’s own wedding.  The piece was lost, but rediscovered after the composer’s death.  The music is for two flutes (both played by Goodman here).  The sound is somewhat more modern, with intricate dialogue between the two flute lines.  Often the one begins while the other completes the “sentence” in a rather telling way.  The lines tend to shift through occasional moments of harmonic arrival with a brief motif that recurs to provide unity to this rather striking work.

    Fixed media and electroacoustic elements are part of the following two works.  First is Tony Zilincik’s I Asked You (2016) which utilizes a variety of rhythmic ideas, including a more incessant pattern in the opening movement, coupled with other percussive sounds and excerpts of Goodman’s own commentary manipulated and scattered as well through the work.  The flute line itself sort of wends its way down the middle of these sounds, perfectly imaged on this release.  The second movement incorporates some ambient elements, similar to the breathier flute qualities but electronically altered, in a rather ethereal, and perhaps even astral, exploration.  It also has some quite beautiful flute lines that bring us to the final shore line with gentle waves.  In Elaine Lillios’ Sleeps Undulating Tide, this idea of a dreamlike state is inspired by Margaret Atwood’s poem, “Variations on the Word Sleep”.  As in the opening work, Lillios incorporates a blend of interactive electronics that further enhance and alter the sound of the flute overall.  These are placed against other intriguing sounds that serve as audio pedal points, or rhythmic additions to the flute line itself.  Vocalizations add an additional intimate and equally haunting touch to this rather lengthy, dramatic work.

    The second half of the program features an alternation of works for solo flute and those that add additional electronics.  Of the former, there is first Demon/Daemon (2016) by Linda Kernahan, a piece in which the soloist may seem to be possessed herself in a work that falls into the performance art category.  The idea here is a sort of polar opposite of sounds.  The line sounds a bit like a quote of Debussy’s famous flute line from the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, but this is more a possessed faun of sorts complete with gasps and breathing requirements of the performer.  Roger Zahab’s suspicion of nakedness (2012) has a more “traditional” modern return to exploring the range and quality of tone of the flute.  There is some interesting shift between fast passages and more shy pauses that alternate in this brief work.

    The Line of Purples (2015) flirts with prerecorded electronic rock-influenced components in Randall Woolf’s work.  There are some rather beautiful lyric lines here as well, almost in a trippy 1960s vibe at times.  Finally, we move into a more intense For the Fallen (2017).  Judith Shatin’s work which uses amplified flute and electronics opens with these rather solemn chime-like sounds.  A variety of cymbal effects, pipe sounds, and other unusual percussive-like suggestions provide the unsettling backdrop to the intricate and often sinuous flute line that plays about them.

    Lindsey Goodman’s performances here are all a composer of new work would hope.  She has a rich tone and breath control that allows for these often interesting bends in sound as required by this music.  But further, her own dedication to the music itself ends up adding a compelling quality to the different works here.  Each tend to explore similar qualities in her playing, but the end results are quite different.  The general sequencing of selections aids this somewhat as well.  For fans of new music for flute, this is a must to pick up and explore as one awaits Goodman’s next release.