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.

Rihm: Music for Violin & Orchestra, Volume 1
Tianwa Yang, violin. Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz/Christoph-Mathias Mueller
Naxos 8.573812
Total Time:  52:05
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Tianwa Yang is exploring the music of composer Wolfgang Rihm (b. 1952) and begins here with three works taken from three different periods of his life.  The first volume of works for violin and orchestra provide a chance to hear Rihm’s compositional process evolve.  His music is still slowly trickling out with these being the second recordings of these pieces, the 2014 work being apparently a premiere recording.

Dritte Musik (1993) opens the album.  It was the third concertante work for violin and is a reworking of an early piece for chamber orchestra.  The music is fairly episodic as it explores a variety of rhythmic motifs and musical lines.  The piece has a variety of percussion elements that add a somewhat jazz-like feel at times. Also unique is the addition of an accordion which is among the sounds explored in the piece as well.  The violin tends to flit across these soundscapes with jabbing energy that on occasion is almost viciously attacked by orchestral bursts.  This striving against the world is very much a part of this intense piece.  The music moves from nothingness to these large blocks of sound and then back again.  Dramatic bursts while the violin explores the extreme registers of the instrument add to this sort of visceral edge to the music.

At the center of the album is Rihm’s first violin concerto, Lichtzwang (1975-76).  It was premiered, and subsequently recorded, by Janos Negyesy with the South West German Radio Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bour.  A variety of cymbal and tam-tam bursts announce the work’s beginning.  Sliding ideas begin to appear creating slightly dissonant harmonies before the soloist slowly emerges into a host of denser orchestral chords.  Though piled dissonances and seemingly random interjections occur, there is a gradual sense of tonality as the piece progresses.  The piece incorporates a chorale-like moment, with organ pitted against the opening percussion, as well.  Most fascinating is the way the soloist insists on being in its upper register while the orchestra tries to grab it and pull it down.  It is interesting to see how this antagonistic style of musical argument appears already in this early work.  There is no denying though that it is a powerful piece with some of the lyrical moments recalling Berg’s own concerto, though we are in fare more dissonant realms here.

The final work on the disc is the most recent.  Gedicht des Malers (2014) was composed for Renaud Capucon.  The title is a fantasy built on a portrait of Max Reger by the German artist Max Beckman, but here Rihm imagines the portrait is of the great violinist Eugene Ysaye.  Rihm’s conception is of the orchestra being the canvas and the soloist the brush that interacts with its own exploration of motifs and colors.  Romantic gestures hint at the edges of the piece along with Berg, a common connection in Rihm’s work.

Rihm’s music is by no means an easy listen.  It demands intent focus on one level, but succeeds because it has a great dramatic sense and in the midst of this one can forgo the often stark, close clusters of sounds and almost random solo lines.  The music in each case here is all of this type with subtle orchestral shifts and assertive writing across all three pieces.  As difficult as these may be to pull off, Tianwa Yang proves to be perfectly adept at finding the lyrical qualities of this music while also avoiding pathos.  She creates strong emotional, and deeply-felt segments that are heard in some of the more tonal moments best.  Her intonation is striking given how high she is required to play and it all seems so effortless.  That said, in the more intense moments, her attacks and articulation are equally invigorating.  One might only wish for a few more access tracks to be able to explore sections of these pieces in more detail.  Timing is a little short for this volume but do not let that detract from what may be some of the finest performances of these works to come for a very long while.