To the Point (Higdon, Rudin, Schuller, Cascarino, Reise)
Diane Monroe, violin (Rudin); Dorothy Freeman, English horn (Cascarino);
Maria Bachmann, violin (Reise); Orchestra 2001/James Freeman, Gunther Shuller
Innova 745
Total Time:  73:42
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Orchestra 2001 is a Phildaelphia-based ensemble that promotes contemporary music (20^th & 21^st century) often premiering new works and reintroducing older, rarely performed pieces.  The present release is a fine combination of their dedication to new music.  Most all the pieces here come from the past decade with a surprise of a 1945 work by Romeo Cascarino (1922-2002).  The music of Jennifer Higdon and Gunther Schuller is perhaps the greatest name recognition on the disc.

The disc takes its title from Higdon’s 2004 piece To the Point.  The brief piece is adapted from a string quartet written for the Cypress String Quartet.  Taking its inspiration from the quartets of Debussy and Ravel, the music features aspects of pizzicato sections which launch the work.  The music is surprisingly tonal and is a fine scherzo for orchestra that makes a fitting opening.

Canto di Ritorno (2004) is a concerto for violin and orchestra featuring soloist Dianne Monroe.  Composer Anthony Rudin built a name for himself in electronic music with his work featured in Fellini’s Satyricon.  He wrote the first large scale work for the Moog synthesizer and won accolades for his Tragoedia which appeared on an important Nonesuch record of electronic music.  The Canto began life as a violin sonata and Rudin has expanded the color palette here in what plays like a spun out ritornello (the development section is in the form of a chaconne) in a modified sonata form.  The title refers more to the “return” at the conclusion of the piece to the materials of its beginning.  The solo line is a mix of quite lyrical soaring lines and almost pointilistic angular ideas.  The orchestra responds in a mix of piled dissonances in rhythmic syncopations, but the real highlight is the longer lyric section. This rather moving, and beautiful second section is the bulk of the work and it has almost tragic quality.  Monroe gives a committed performance and the orchestra provides perfect support allowing to really shine in the heart of the piece lyrically and rhythmically in its outer segments.  Rudin’s harmonies, while not romantic in the traditional sense, are accessible enough and lend the music at times a quiet intensity cast against the solo line.  The piece ends quietly and one wonders what adding a faster concluding section would do.  Emotionally, the piece is quite intense and engrossing.

Gunther Schuller’s Concerto da Camera (2002) is a “chamber” piece with altered orchestral forces—the composer’s instrumentation removes clarinets, bassoons, and horns, and adds in paired trumpets and trombones.  The piece becomes a study in the colors that Schuller explores somewhat in the piece.  The opening slow section features a long string idea cast against a variety of interruptions or spurts of energy from the various winds and brass.  The long tense opening gives way to a quick moving final segment that features angular lines and chordal punches.  Schuller makes some use of the trombone slide ability, mimicked in the ensemble as well.  Though hard to tell without a score, the work’s construction feels serial with pitch, some gestures, and certain combinations of rhythmic sounds.  The work gains in some momentum towards the end.  Overall, an interesting piece of abstract music.

Romeon Cascarino was a self-taught composer who taught composition and theory at the Combs College of Music.  His Blades of Grass (1945) was composed after the composer’s tour of duty in the army and his hearing Carl Sandburg’s poem Grass.  Heard in the midst of these other contemporary works, the piece is a breath of fresh air and a break from what may feel like more cerebral music.  Cascarino’s piece is simply beautiful and his sound is unique.  It might be easy to lump the work in line with Copland’s mid-1940s style, but the piece’s sheer beauty and sweep comes from a Romantic tradition.  Decidedly one of the composer’s most performed pieces deserving more recorded visibility, Blades of Grass is a minor masterpiece for English horn and orchestra and Dorothy Freeman’s performance is moving.  American music loves would be advised to track down this CD for this work alone, even with the strength of the pieces that it is surrounded by here.

The final work on the disc is The River Within (2008) a concerto for violin and orchestra by Jay Reise.  Reise teaches at the University of Pennsylvannia and his music has been performed quite widely.  The work is inspired from a 19^th century novel by J.K. Huysmans.  The piece is cast in three movements, designed in more traditional form.  The primary difference here is Reise’s decision to use single (i.e., not paired) winds and brass causing more intriguing color combinations.  What is interesting is that Reise does use his winds and brass combinations in clear lines that cut through and support the soloist very well.  One of the techniques, described by the composer as “rhythmic polyphony,” takes rhythmic motives and develops them within a phrase essentially implying a cadence.  Traditional harmonic and linear writing are on display as well which aid in the accessibility of what turns out to be a rather engaging work.  The opening movement’s focus on rhythm, gives way to a slow central section whose opening measure are quite beautiful and continue to be so even as the tension builds underneath.  The harmonic language here is most interesting to hear unfold.  The final movement seems a blend of the rhythmic polyphony Reise mentions in his program note and the long linear solo writing that comments upon and essentially deconstructs and reworks these ideas.  The movement is more a conversation between ensemble and soloists at times and the energy takes off and is reigned in repeatedly with a fine dramatic sense over the 9-minute playing time. 

Orchestra 2001 is to be commended for the daring of their programming for this disc.  Each of the works here is well-composed and highlights different styles quite well.  The sense of dramatic writing in Rudin and Reise’s concertos is quite different but both works are quite good.  Their separation by a more cerebral atonal work and a more mid-century elegiac semi-Americana style give them enough distance so that they can be appreciated well.  Higdon’s piece opens the disc innocuously enough so that it draws the listener in preparing their ears for what is to come.  The Cascarino is programmed in time to give the ears a rest from the “contemporary” sounds that can be off putting to newer listeners of contemporary music.  And Reise’s piece serves to provide a fitting conclusion.  If the disc is any indication of the group’s concerts, it should make many converts. 

The sound of these live performances is very good and there is no audience noise (coughing can be a rather contagious problem especially in new music concerts!).  The pieces have been mastered to disc and equalized fairly well though the Reise has a more lively and close sound than the previous works.  This is a fine release of mostly 21^st century works that should have a little something for each musical taste.  (In the interest of full disclosure, this writer is a member of the American Composer’s Forum, the sponsoring organization behind Innova’s recordings.)