Pieces of Mind and Matter
Megan Holland, violin. Kimberly Fredenburgh, viola.
Roberta Arruda, violin. Joel Becktell, cello.
Lisa Collins and Joel Becktell, cellos.
David Schepps, cello. Mark Tatum, double bass.
David Felberg and Megan Holland, violin.
Ravello Records 8002
Total Time:  48:02
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

This new release explores a variety of string duets by Paul Lombardi allows listeners to hear the composer’s development exploring this combination of instruments.  Lombardi teaches theory and composition at the University of South Dakota.  His music is conceived within a more highly-conceived mathematical breakdown related to fractals—a complex pattern of sounds and structures often involving loops.  Lombardi breaks down rhythms in music that can shift with or without  barlines.  Sometimes this transitions within a piece and can result in a large variety of time signatures.  It is no surprise that the opening work which began this process was composed in honor of George Crumb’s 75^th Birthday commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival in 2004.

Holocene, for violin and viola, features the gradual exploration of semitones moving from the restrictive close intervals to eventually extend a total of 11 semitones from its beginning.  The pitches are shifted between the two instruments sometimes blending in unisons and then diverging in their own opposite and apposite directions as certain rhythmic ideas recur.  A later lyrical section adds some variety against the repeated rhythmic idea that serves as a unifying factor in the piece.  The music grows toward this center and then begins to back away into more calm, and almost plaintive fragments.  While the concept is on the cerebral side, the music itself features good shifts between dissonance and consonance that draw the listener into the musical discussion.

In Aquiesce (2006), Lombardi expands his material to a 3-note motive that is used to further expand the intervallic relationships of the music.  The structure here though is a canon that moves between the two instruments not so much as dialogue, but as lines that shift from one to the other instrument.  There is a bit more expansion of technical requirements here adding some color with pizzicato and exploration of harmonics.  The duet for violin and cello explores the registral distances here as well with low tones in the latter moving upward to match pitch levels in the lower register of the violin.  The music here has a more intense quality overall with the lyrical segments creating emotional moments in the music.

The poetry of Pablo Neruda is recessed into the inspiration of a duet for two cellos, Persiguiendose (2007).  This is an interesting exploration of register between the two instruments here as first one, and then the other, receives musical information that weaves back and forth between them.  Here too one hears how Lombardi uses closer intervallic relationships to increase tension and add drama with the lyrical center providing contrasts.  Micro-canons are the overarching structural basis for the concepts explored in the work.  On another level, the music moves toward a centerpoint and then is flipped into a retrograde presentation where gestures are in reverse order from their opening occurrences.

Phosphorescent (2008) may seem like an odd name for a work composed for cello and double bass.  For this work, Lombardi uses a scale based on the overtones of the open strings of the two instruments.  The partials and harmonics of the resulting scales are then explored in the work.  Shifts between bowed and pizzicato sections add some additional variety to this intriguing brief work.

The final piece on the album, Fractures (2017) is in a sense a summation of the musical concepts that Lombardi has been returning to over the course of the past decade or so.  Here he further explores the concepts of fractals as applied to music in ways that also link to 12-tone equal temperament.  Rhythmic ideas are also further divided and compacted with an approach that recalls that used in the opening work.  Here the music has a more diffuse edge at times, reaching toward the experimental end.

Though the theory behind the works here is on the more complex end of mathematical thinking, one need not worry about the resulting music which can be discerned as works of highly-intricate explorations of rhythm and sound.  The lyrical moments of the music help provide a central focus that each piece lands on with its exploration of intensity through dissonance creating contrast.  Overall, an interesting collection of works that is a good introduction to this particular approach to creation.

When You Are Reminded By The Instruments
Desiree Glazier-Nazro, percussion. Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra/Petr Vronsky;
Elizabeth England, oboe/English horn. Rane Moore, clarinet/bass clarinet. Kevin Owen, horn. Julia Okrusko, violin. Peter Sulski, viola. Minghui Lin, cello. Tony D’Amico, contrabass/James Blachly;
Curtis Macomber, violin. Christopher Oldfather, piano.;
Andrew Steinberg, tenor saxophone.
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Joel Eric Suben;
Eric Moe, piano.;
C4: Choral Composer/Conductor Collective/Ben Arendsen;
Florilegium Chamber Choir/JoAnn Rice
Navona Records 6191
Total Time:  60:52
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

The music of American composer Hayes Biggs is featured in this new Navona release.  Biggs teaches at the Manhattan School of Music where he has been since 1992.  His work covers a wide variety of orchestral and chamber combinations.  The pieces on this release explore these different combinations and music for choir across a 28-year span.

The opening Pan-Fare (2007) is for orchestra and a series of percussion (steel pan, pedal bass drum, and tambourine).  With its somewhat jazzy syncopations and harmonies, the piece explodes with energy that has an almost improvisational quality.  The unique sounds and rhythmic complexity propel this brief work forward.  At times it feels like a mashup of Antheil and Stravinsky.

Some of this can be heard in the earlier work, When You Are Reminded by the Instruments (1997).  This is work for contemporary chamber orchestra.  Here you can discover some of the seeds that would appear in the first work on the album.  The sort of angular, visceral rhythmic accents, intriguing timbral explorations of the instruments, and sense of drama all work to create a piece that feels like an extension of modernism.  The overall emotional flow of the piece is what is most striking as the motivic ideas are shifted across the piece.  Sometimes a longer lyrical line may add a little something to help move the listener along (a la Ives, perhaps).  It is a rather fascinating work that allows for exploration by each of the lines.

There are three solo works on the album beginning with the most recent, Inquieto (2015).  This longer work for violin and piano is in two joined movements.  Here too are the angular and jazz-referenced lines and harmonies in the breezier opening which also has some blues-like turns in a more lyrical second section.  Clusters also appear more in this piece.  The violin is given a variety of technical responsibilities from double stops to altissimo harmonic playing.  More interesting is the way aspects of the piano’s arpeggiated chords and violin pizzicato create a rather fascinating sound.  It moves us into a more reflective section with ethereal writing.  Block chords move us back to the opening section with a more intense, almost angry insistence.  Yet, a sense of uneasy peace and tranquility does return suggesting the agitation has passed, for now.  This is followed by the amusingly-titled The Trill is Gone (2013) for tenor sax.  Here we get a chance to experience some of the wittiness of Biggs’ music with a piece that has a similar angular style that comes back to a trill as a unifying factor until that little wave is soon dispersed.  The exploration of the instrument’s register is one of the standout aspects of this brief work that features some tonguing percussive sounds and moments for lyrical as well as growling low register commentary.    A brief Fanfare for Brass and Percussion (1989) illustrates an early connection in Biggs’ music to Stravinsky and blends of polytonal modernism with touches of Hindemith.  The exploration of pianist Eric Moe is followed through a series of quotation, or suggestive musical ideas, of chant and hymnody.  Expressive writing and attention to performance details of articulation and phrasing abound in E.M. am Flugel (1992).

The album concludes with two works for voices.  First is the Wedding Motet (1998) which continues this exploration of earlier musics in this work that blends Latin and English texts.  The phrasing cadences feel like modern expansions of Medieval/Renaissance style.  Then comes the more substantial Ochila Laeil (1999) which was one of his first setting in Hebrew.  The blend of horn and organ add an interesting supportive sound with the former leading and the choral harmonies emerging from the keyboard chords.  Again, the exploration of color here coupled with a dramatic narrative in the music keeps the listener rapt.

Biggs’ music draws the listener in with its harmonic accessibility and streamlined voice writing that helps create clear textures.  There is always a great dramatic sense, often supported by a narrative r programmatic inspiration that adds some additional context.  Overall, there is good variety here to introduce his work to a broader audience.