Christopher Campbell, Sound the All-Clear

Composer Christopher Campbell and six other musicians do something on Sound the All Clear (Innova 750) that, while not being brand-spanking-new in concept, is done very musically and convincingly. They create 12 vignettes, some short, some in the ten-minute range, that use a variety of instruments to create a sound that incorporates world and home-made elements into an aesthetically vibrant whole. Alan Sondheim did something like this on several albums in the sixties and the DIY tradition continued with such outfits as Iowa Ear Music in the seventies and some other ensembles up through to today as well.

What matters is that Campbell and company do it very well. There are brilliant, ever-shifting sonorities on this set that put the music very much above the pale. A plethora of traditionally nontraditional playing techniques and the guiding conceptual hand of Maestro Campbell make for a most lively program.

This is my kind of music: world-encompassing, transcendent, free yet structured, dynamically varied and, well, post-pre-post in outlook. It looks ahead by going back to a stubborn American outsider tradition spanning Ives' experiments, Partch's exotically alien universe, Lou Harrison, Henry Brant, Sondheim and the rest. Campbell goes back in order to go forward. His music doesn't really sound like any of those forebears. It IS a very interesting example that carries on the neo-non-traditional-tradition of those fore-fathers (and some fore-mothers too).

Viva Christopher Campbell and this music!

Markus Reuter's "Todmorden 513:" Algorithmic Poetics

Markus Reuter has created an hour-long piece for ten players based on the algorithmic trans- formation, extension and reordering of musical material. He calls the work Todmorden 513. That the work is the product of some sophisticated methodological approaches is not uninteresting. But I've stayed away from that at this point to concentrate on a deep listening of the work.

And having done this I come up for air to write up what I am feeling as I hear it. First off I must say that this is a continuously flowing sound world of great beauty and great mystery. It has the long formed horizontal quality of the best ambient works of our age. And at the same time it has a logically unfolding quality and structure that brings it into the "serious work" category. I am tempted to add "whatever that means," but I think those who devote any time to the new music world we live in will understand. This is music of substance, not just mood.

It is music that has a four-dimensional feel to it. There are varying degrees of density and depth, transparency and opacity. It is lyrical without being directly manipulative of the melodic cells usually associated with such lyricism. Long tones and shorter bursts work together to create a universe of sound that has real poignancy. It is music of a different sort of consonance, a long float in an anechoic chamber of tones, added tones, and sound colors of enduring sprawl.

I would venture to say that this is an important work. How important I will leave to others to decide.

Go to http://www.todmorden513.com to find out how to get access to this music.

The Concorde Music Ensemble's "Reflections:" Music of the Past Decade

The music of the last ten years illustrates even more vividly the trend of the past 20 years. In the area of contemporary classical music, multi-stylistic expression and a creative eclecticism prevail. No one school of composition dominates. The musical signposts of classical composition from around 1900 through to 2011 are all present on the map of what's being written today. And certain inclusions of folk and vernacular influences are present that perhaps have not heretofore been a part of the various approaches of the recent past as well.

That is clear and also very well illustrated by Ireland's Concorde Contemporary Music Ensemble and their new CD Reflections (Navona 5835). The album features five composers and works from the past decade that call upon anything from a mid-sized chamber ensemble to a duet. The composers are from a wide variety of backgrounds, but all share a commitment to making a music that is embedded in the world we live in today. The five composers, Alejandro Castanos, Jane O'Leary, Stephen Gardner, Judith Ring and Si-Hyun Yi each weigh in with a distinctive work. Highlights include Castanos' "Angulos" which has a lively rhythmic thrust and some of the best writing for temple blocks I have heard! Gardner's "Klezmeria" uses Klezmer related themes for a thoroughly charming clarinet-violin duet.

Through the various compositions a near-constant is the very formidable bass clarinet of Harry Sparnaay. He sounds beautiful.

If you want some very new music that is advanced without necessarily jarring loose the fillings in your teeth, seek no further.

It is a definite feather in the cap of the Concorde Ensemble, who plays these pieces beautifully, as it is a fascinating introduction to some very new music and new composers. Recommended.

Michael Daugherty's Latest Collection of Brightly Colored Orchestral Music

American orchestral composer Michael Daugherty writes melodic motifs that are neither cliche nor are they exceptionally original. What they are is distinctly American. They often draw on the music in the air out there, in the vernacular, in rock, pop, mainstream jazz, musicals, in the lounges and on people's i-pods, the sort of thing the mailman might whistle while making his rounds or the guy who is stacking cans at the local Shoprite. It is what Mr, Daugherty does with these motifs that constitutes his great appeal, his natural feel for orchestration and the flow of his musical syntax. As you listen to his new CD Route 66-Ghost Ranch-Time Machine (Naxos 8.559613) his brilliance at musical bricolage is apparent and palpable.

The new one consists of four evocative tone poems for orchestra, all written between 1998-2006, some in several movements, each lasting a relatively short time (between seven and 20 minutes), each tied into an implied descriptive verbal-visual program. So we have "Route 66," "Ghost Ranch," "Sunset Strip," and "Time Machine." Like Copland's "Appalachian Spring" or Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite," Daugherty's music is geared toward a musical depiction of an aspect of Americana (except perhaps "Time Machine"). As you listen you know that this music should be accessible to a wide group of listeners. And why not?

Marin Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra do a smashing job realizing the music, as they have done on past releases (see this blog for an earlier review). The sound stage captures the detailed, brightly impastoed glow of Daugherty's orchestrations.

In short this is a release that should have great appeal. I found it delightful.

Nathaniel Stookey's Junkestra

Cage-Harrison's "Double Music" for percussion ensemble; the music of Harry Partch; Cage's Prepared Piano Sonatas and Interludes; Lou Harrison's home-made gamelan music; the sound-sculpture music of Lasry-Baschet. . . there are some precursors to Nathaniel Stookey's Junkestra (Innova 773). However that just gives you the idea that new percussion sounds are not as new as one might think. It does not take away from the sonorously exciting appeal of Stookey's music.

Junkestra (2007) is a three-movement suite of sorts. A "Dance Mix" concludes the CD. All told, you get 15 minutes of music. Fifteen minutes of music well worth hearing, though.

There are seven percussionists involved, plus some beautiful playing from David Weiss on the musical saw. The instruments involved give out a sound halfway between a gamelan orchestra and some of the impromptu sounds I would get in my youth when I dragged my mother's pots and pans out of the kitchen and went to work.

The sound is exotic, yet familiar in that way. And the music is very well crafted and very well performed. It's modern music that is actually fun! I love it. And it's an important addition to the percussion repertory. A great listen!