It is a tried-and-trusted technique for critics who find themselves
out of sympathy with the contents of the work they are reviewing
to pick holes in the publisher’s blurb. In the case of this
disc it is impossible to avoid doing so. Five pages of the booklet
which comes with this issue are taken up with an article by
“award-winning writer” Andrew Druckenbrod, who writes for the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Eric Moe, the composer featured
on this disc, lives and works in Pittsburgh. Surely he must
feel a sense of due humility whenever in the course of his daily
life he meets the writer of such lines as this: “To listen to
the music of Eric Moe is to re-affirm one’s faith in the future
of art music … His musical language is informed by major compositional
trends, but he’s in no camp, not even the big ones such as post-minimalism,
neo-tonal, indie-classical, or eclectic. No, Moe sleeps in his
own tent off in the nearby woods, but the glow from his campfire
often lights up the entire valley.” It would take music of towering
and overwhelming genius to live up to this sort of vapid endorsement,
and unfortunately for us all it is not supplied here.
Once one gets away from the large claims, what we actually get
is quite enjoyable if not terrifically profound. The composer
himself contributes a note on the music of one-and-a-half pages
which is wryly humorous and attractively self-deprecating, and
makes a much better impression than the other essay here. The
disc opens with Superhero, a work the composer describes
as related to Ein Heldenleben, but “affectionate and
serious, not ironic.” The section of Strauss’s score which the
piece most invokes, however, is Strauss’s very ironic portrait
of his critics – a witty babel of conflicting woodwind voices,
mirrored here by a six-piece ensemble with prominent flute and
clarinet. The earlier score Eight Point Turn inhabits
much the same sort of world, with a rather larger number of
players. The comparison by Druckenbrod of this “brilliant” score
to “an energetic version of a rotating Morton Feldman composition”
is so totally wide of the mark as to beggar belief or comment.
The best piece here is Kick & Ride (the ampersand
is apparently obligatory), the latest, and the only one to employ
a full orchestra although a leading part is taken by a ‘drum
set’ played by Robert Schulz. This is consciously based on patterns
of rhythmic drumming – Druckenbrod informs us, breathlessly,
“a source transformed into something equally compelling” – and
the second movement Slipstream begins, so he then goes
on to tell us, with “a quote of the famed ‘Wipeout’ rhythm from
the Surfari’s iconic song.” Well, we will accept this, though
the quotation is so well camouflaged as to be unrecognisable.
He then goes on to claim: “Here again, Moe is sincere in his
fascination for how a simple accent can change everything (not
unlike Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring).” And this is palpable
nonsense. One (of many) innovations in Stravinsky’s Rite
was the composer’s ability to take constantly changing rhythms
and patterns of sound and forge them into something which not
only challenged the listener but also made the irregular accents
of the music sound totally natural. Moe’s music here has no
irregular rhythms to naturalise; it stays throughout in a totally
regular 4/4 distinguished only by a slight acceleration or deceleration
of tempo, adjusting syncopation within the unchanging bar in
a manner derived from jazz. It sounds ‘simple’ and natural,
all right; but then it has no need to ‘change’ because it has
never pretended to be anything else.
Enough of attacking Moe for not being what the booklet claims
him to be, and quite probably not what he claims to be either.
What have we left? Well, it’s fine enough in its way provided
one doesn’t have one’s anticipations set too high. The works
for chamber ensemble have plenty of life and energy, and are
superlatively well played here if set in a slightly less than
ideally resonant acoustic. The Showdown with evil twin
which concludes Superhero has the right sort of over-frenetic
quality that the title would lead one to expect, but is a bit
unrelenting in its assault on the ear. One is reminded uncomfortably
of a massively scored Hollywood blockbuster score that has been
reduced for chamber ensemble, and one also feels uncomfortably
that maybe this is not the sort of association that the composer
would welcome.
The orchestral performers under Rose’s direction in Kick
& Ride respond energetically to Schulz’s virtuoso performance
in what is effectively a percussion concerto. The rather thin
string sound - although twenty-eight string players are listed
in the booklet - is presumably what the composer wanted, and
it allows the woodwind lines to come through clearly in what
is however a slightly claustrophobic acoustic. Throughout one
has the uneasy feeling that a greater degree of distancing would
have been of benefit; the players are sometimes very close indeed.
Schulz has great fun with his cadenza towards the end of the
first movement.
Moe in his own booklet note, reproduced in larger type inside
the gatefold sleeve, describes the three works here as “cantankerous
sisters”, which is fair enough comment. The cantankerousness
conceals a rather loveable nature; this music bubbles with good
humour and joy, even if it does not live up to the grand claims
made on its behalf. The particularly revolting and poor imitation
comic-book cover does not perhaps give the right impression
of music which even when at its most rhythmically unrelenting
is always enjoyable and listenable.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Robert Schulz (drum set) [Kick & Ride]