November 9, 2018

  • Exploring the Music of John A. Carollo

     

    Music from the Ethereal Side of Paradise
    Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra/Stanislave Vavrinek
    Duo 46: Matt Gould, guitar. Beth Schneider, violin.
    Darel Stark, violin.; Christian Saggese, guitar.
    Composer’s Choir/Daniel Shaw
    Lisa Cella, flute.
    Navona Records 6148
    Total Time: 57:36
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    John A. Carollo (b. 1954) has spent a majority of his life working in Hawaii as a mental health professional.  He had taken piano lessons throughout his life and decided to begin composition studies in the 1990s.  Since he has moved fully into composition and this new release provides a broad spectrum of his work from orchestral pieces to a collection of choral pieces and a variety of works for solo instruments.  The twelve pieces here have all appeared on earlier collections of Carollo’s music.  The earliest recordings here are from 2006 with the orchestral tracks being supervised in 2016.

    The album is bookended by two works for string orchestra.  Awakenings opens the album.  It, like the final track Bright Stillness, are variations, or re-workings of a movement from the composer’s The Rhethoric and Mythos of Belief.  A falling motif opens Awakenings with a sort of tentativeness and dark, almost Gothic horror orchestral writing that might have come from the pen of film composer John Barry.  It is the stronger of the two versions.  Bright Stillness is a briefer version with the same sort of intensity, though more dominance given to solo violin.

    Music for guitar figures prominently on the collection.  First is a suite, Romantica Passione for guitar and violin composed for Duo 46, who perform four of the nine movements here.  This is a little more modernistic in style from the “Romanzo!” movement that begins the exploration of this work.  The violin weaves about the guitar accompaniment here with some interesting transference between the two.  Additional percussive sounds and vocalizations are also included.  The guitar takes on a more melodic role in “Splendido Affare” as the violin doubles and expands slightly on this idea.  The music has moments where the ideas get twisted about as they become more passionate.  The dissonance is equally intense as this unfolds dramatically.  It continues in “La Tortura dell’ Amore”.

    Carollo has composed a number of Metamorphosis for solo instruments.  One for violin (no. 3) and one for flute (no. 13) are included on this album.  The former continues this exploration of long, tortuous lines, and dramatic unfolding of abstract musical ideas.  The violinist must work across all registers to land on rich tonal pauses while interspersed are rapid passage ideas that might require some fast shifts across strings as the music gets more manic.  Daniel Stark manages all of this quite well.  The flute one features Lisa Cella who creates a warm tone here that explores the reaches of the instrument.  Her lower range is quite gorgeous and full here.  After a slow introduction, the music begins its journey of transformation and increased virtuoso turns amidst longer phrasing.  All done excellently here.

    Guitarist Christian Saggese is featured on three solo pieces at the center of the album.  These all fall well within modern guitar writing with modernist tinges.  The Guitar Prelude No. 3-The Tai Chi Set features a fine reflective quality with subtle nods to Asian music references through the way the instrument is played and ideas are articulated.  Two brief etudes follow that are in line for interesting exercises for the instrument.

    The four choral pieces here are the first explorations of choral writing by Carollo.  They are based on his own texts.  The style favors open and pure musical styles often in blocks with clean declaration in this performance.  It is almost like four-part homophonic chant writing with more mystical, but non-religious texts.  Each tend to be rather similar in their approach.

    Carollo’s music is often quite compelling to listen to regardless of the forces.  There is an inner emotional quality that manages to come through in these performances quite well.  The orchestral works are the real highlights here with the performances of the solo works helping those shine.  Thus we have an excellent survey of Carollo’s music whose orchestral pieces linger in the mind far after they conclude.