SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

 

Amanda Harberg: Subway (2005)

John Adams: Hallelujah Junction (1996)

Robert Paterson: Deep Blue Ocean, Movement I (2010, world premiere)

Doug Opel: Dilukkenjon (1996)

Mary Ellen Childs: Kilter (1992)

Frederic Rzewski: Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1980)

John Corigliano: Chiaroscuro (1997)

 

In 2008, the American Modern Ensemble released its first recording, Powerhouse Pianists, featuring the commanding talents of Stephen Gosling and Blair McMillen. This success generated the idea to have the duo return, but this time in a program of works for two pianos. The result, called Powerhouse Pianists II, was held at Faust-Harrison Pianos, a showroom near Carnegie Hall known for presenting recitals on site. The space is intimate; about 80 lucky souls packed the room for a program of American composers—all of them still living and writing music.

 

One of the veterans included John Adams, whose Hallelujah Junction has probably become one of the staples of the two-piano repertory. Ecstatic minimalism kicks off the first of its three sections, followed by a middle movement as serene as a rippling pond. The finale uses a Broadway-style vamp as its energetic core. (For those interested, the title comes from a small truck stop near the California-Nevada border.) Later, the duo tackled Frederic Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, a hammering evocation of factory noise, with a dramatic detour into ragtime. In each of these scores, it would be tempting to offer nothing more than fierce banging, yet Gosling and McMillen found the nostalgia in both.

 

Rounding out the program were works by younger composers, starting with Amanda Harberg’s Subway, inspired by the sounds of New York City’s Union Square. The result is a sort of heavily accented, clamorous waltz—highly appropriate for the subject matter. Robert Paterson, the AME’s artistic director, was represented by the beautiful first movement of Deep Blue Ocean, in which subtle, dense groups of chords gradually ascend to the upper regions of the keyboard. In sad irony, the work was inspired by the composer’s trip to the Gulf Coast, now dominating the news as the site of the worst oil spill in United States history. Doug Opel’s Dilukkenjon combines stuttering, erratic rhythms with bits of a Bach chorale, “Erscheinen is der herrlich Tag” from Cantata BWV 67, Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ. And Mary Ellen Childs muted one piano to create a simple, intriguing drone on a single note to begin Kilter, which flowers into graceful patterns, eventually returning to that opening motif. Each of these deserved, and received, tight focus from the two pianists.

 

I first heard the final showstopper on a concert by AME called “1938,” which included only works by composers born that year. John Corigliano’s Chiaroscuro is scored for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart which, needless to say, makes for infrequent performances. The flood of microtones makes a powerful impression; one of the most intriguing sequences is one of the simplest: early in the piece, the two pianists alternate, note by note, in descending quarter tone scales. Elsewhere the composer uses the dichotomy to create powerful clouds of sound, and writes that he hopes to evoke the expressivity of a blues singer. As Gosling and McMillen so scintillatingly demonstrated, he succeeded.

 

Bruce Hodges