October 7, 2019

  • Dreaming with Jeffrey Jacob

     

    Dreamers:  The Music of Jeffrey Jacob
    Jeffrey Jacob, piano; oboe; electronics
    Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra/Jiri Petrdlik
    Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra/Daniel Spalding
    Moscow Symphony Orchestra/Joel Spiegleman
    Hradec Kralove Philharmonic Orchestra/Jon Mitchell
    Cleveland Chamber Orchestra/Edwin London
    Navona 6248
    Total Time:  62:38
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

     

    A couple years ago, Navona released an album featuring music by Jeffrey Jacob.  Jacob is perhaps best known as a pianist with hundreds of recordings (with highlights being his performances of Barber, Crumb, and major works of Bartok).  The current album features him as soloist as well this time in his own works for piano and orchestra.

    The album takes its title from the opening work, the Symphony No. 5.  The work gradually adds in orchestral sections with the first movement scored for piano, strings, and percussion; the second adding in beautiful wind writing, and the final movement featuring brass.  There is a somewhat mystical feel with the restrained bell tones against a repeated piano figure in a sparkling upper end of the instrument as the work opens.  Against this is a rather melancholy lyrical theme connecting with the opening movement’s subtitle, “Rain, Lagrimas (Tears)”.  Violin and cello float above the slowly-moving harmonic shifts.  It is a fascinating spiritual minimalist sensibility cast in traditional harmony.  Repeated motives also become a unifying factor in this work.  In the second movement, shorter cells of material are repeated in the piano against a more unsettled orchestral backdrop.  This gives way to a more gentle second section which thus delineates the two aspects of the movement, “Fear, Grace”.  The final movement is a bit more tortuous and slowly builds as brass begin to assert themselves over the texture.  It is all quite gorgeous music, though one does want the finale to perhapas move a bit more.

    At the center of the album are three single movement works.  Sanctuary I is for strings and solo piccolo.  Jacobs intent with the piece is to reference the sense of sanctuary that cities and churches have come to embrace in our current immigrant crisis.  The piccolo takes on a role relative to a pan pipe, representing traditional Peruvian music and Latin America.  It is really a heart-achingly beautiful theme that really makes this piece stand out.  In the Adagieto, which feels like it could be part of a larger work, the piano returns along with moments highlighting oboe.  It is piece with slightly more dissonance (expressed in more angular ideas and clusters) often played against consonant lines of arpeggios or thematic threads.  The Epitaph is a more evocative, and somewhat somber, work that has a bit more interplay and counterpoint that is a nice miniature of Jacob’s compositional approaches.

    In The Persistence of Memory, Jacobs takes a nostalgic look at some of the music that he has performed over the years.  There are hints at the Romanticism of Brahms, Schumann, and Schubert, and eventually a bit more energetic burst of Bartok tempered by a somewhat Impressionistic element.  The two movements are somewhat episodic with three segments in each that move effortlessly from one conceptual connection to the next.  The music takes on a bit more dissonance in an almost Messiaen-like finale with its rather sudden ending.

    The odder piece is sort of an “extra” that closes off the album.  Final Sanctuary features Jacobs as oboist and features some electronic exploration.  It fits musically with the other pieces here with a slightly more ambient quality against a very-forward oboe line.

    In this particular collection of orchestral work, we get a larger sense of Jacob’s blend of romanticism and minimalism.  The deeper, spiritual concepts often attached provide an additional component to hang one’s imagination on as the music plays out.  The music has a sort of languid and restrained quality to it that demands little from the listener in these very accessible, and often deeply-moving works.  It is certainly a perfect way to explore some of Jacob’s music.

    The various venues and orchestras are equalized well here.  Performances with the American orchestras seem to be slightly better which may be due to more familiarity with the pieces, at least in the case of the exemplary performance from the Philadelphia ensemble.  The symphony feels just a little too careful at times in the performance but manages to still communicate Jacob’s intentions well.  Any of these works would stand out on their own and one cannot help but be moved by what is included in this release.