Chris BRUBECK (b.1952)
Danza del Soul, for clarinet, violin, cello, bass, piano and percussion [30:09]
Michael GANDOLFI (b.1956)
Line Drawings, for clarinet, violin and piano [22:51]
Lukas FOSS (1922-2009)
Central Park Reel, for violin and piano [10:28]
Concord Chamber Music Society (Wendy Putnam (violin); Vytas Baksys (piano);
Thomas Martin (clarinet); Owen Young (cello); Lawrence Wolfe (bass); Daniel
Bauch (percussion))
rec. Mechanics Hall, Worcester, Massachusetts, 3-5 September 2010. DDD
REFERENCE RECORDINGS RR-122 [63:30] 
This latest release by the cannily named American label Reference Recordings
features an easy-going trio of chamber works: two longer 21st-century items
by living American composers, and one shorter late 20th-century piece by a
Berlin-born adoptive American.
Given his own parentage, Chris Brubeck's Danza del Soul is not as out-and-out
jazzy as it might be, at least not in the entertaining thirteen-minute first
movement, which is strongly reminiscent of Milhaud - mentor to Brubeck's famous
father Dave, who is, incidentally, still playing jazz and composing classical
music in his 91st year. The ethereal sound of the violin at the beginning
is a special effect achieved through having the violinist off-stage (or off-microphone)
whilst the clarinettist is 'warming up' mellifluously. In performance the
other players are supposed to enter in a similar fashion - piano excepted,
presumably. According to the notes, this "staged mischief helps to tickle
the classical veneer and allows the musicians to establish a more personal
rapport with the audience"; at the premier performance in 2010, apparently,
"the crowd was amused and engaged by these proceedings which opened them
up to enjoy the music from a fresher perspective."
In fact, after the promise of the jaunty, tuneful first movement, Brubeck's
music proves itself artless enough - literally - to satisfy those ingenuous
audiences without added theatricality. The second movement is slow and bluesy
and rather slushy, leaving the work clinging for dear life to its dignity.
But the final 'Celebraçion de Vida', linguistically misbegotten cedilla and
all, is yet jazzier, meretriciously so, with the clichés coming thick and
fast: not so much a celebration of life as a celebration of superficiality.
As with Piazzolla at his crassest though, some people will like it.
Gandolfi's Line Drawings - the title inspired by Picasso's pictures - begins,
thankfully, with more pizzazz than jazz. By the second of its five movements
it is fully transformed into a delightful, often wistful clarinet trio in
the best 20th century tradition. Gandolfi writes: "None of my pieces
is tethered to a precise Picasso drawing but they are written in the spirit
of the Picasso works: concise, clear, written with a sense of immediacy and
sureness of stroke, light and airy." Whether or not that description
fits Picasso, it certainly applies to Line Drawings, easily the most musically
interesting work on the CD.
Lukas Foss's Central Park Reel is likely to have the widest immediate appeal,
however. Commissioned by the somewhat shady-sounding US Information Agency
for performance abroad by musical ambassadors, it is a lively, playful reel
for violin in Irish-cum-bluegrass style which, after an opening in which the
pianist apes the violinist by strumming the piano strings, jigs along blithely
to an athletic piano accompaniment until finally turning deliciously dissonant
in a noisy, concertinaing Ivesian ending, further spiced up by Foss's "optional
electronic addition [...] via a tape delay offset by two beats."
The six soloists from the Concord Chamber Music Society give good solid performances
throughout. Though the three works in the recital rarely require performers
to scale any heights, honourable mentions for feats of eloquence, legerdemain
and sensibility are due for Society founder and Boston Symphony violinist
Wendy Putnam, clarinettist Thomas Martin and pianist Vytas Baksys.
Sound and general technical quality is very high, though there is a slight
deterioration for Line Drawings, which shows signs of having been part-recorded
on two different occasions - though the difference is only really audible
through headphones. The booklet is stylish and informative, if hardly objective,
with several colour photos, including a full-page one of the opulent interior
of the Mechanics Hall in Worcester.
Three-quarters of an hour of pleasing music, one quarter for easy-listeners
only, all of it played and recorded very commendably: on balance, certainly
worth further investigation by the general listener.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk