Wow, this really
is something different.
We always find ourselves returning to the piano, string quartet or symphony
orchestra because, well, they’re the best aren’t they? These
more conventional settings have certainly bagged some of the best music
ever written, but in seeking to break beyond the boundaries set by previous
traditions you can go in any number of directions. These include fusing
pop, jazz or other styles with your classical basis, exploring the world
of nature or sounds from other nations, adapting or creating new noises
with electronics, making your own instruments …
Elizabeth Brown is known for her multi-instrumental talents and unique
compositional voice. You can hear her on this CD playing flute, theremin,
shakuhachi and ‘Partch instruments’, those from the stable
of Harry Partch, another remarkable American musician whose creations
deserve exploration. Another distinctive element in this recording is
the use of recorded sounds and electronics, aspects of the sonic landscape
which more commonly enhance and extend the possibilities of the live
instruments rather than contrasting in non-organic avant-garde shafts
of extreme contrast.
Brown’s world is difficult to describe at times. The theremin,
like the ondes Martenot, can become a touch ubiquitous if the truth
be told, though the composer’s use of it is often subtle and usually
lyrical or suitably dramatic. It tends to give a cinematic feel to these
pieces, as evidenced by the somewhat Gothic atmosphere of
Seahorse.
This opener has a remarkable, chattering percussive texture which is
fascinating, though the high pitched whistling further on gained me
some dirty looks from the cat.
Arcana already has some of the
Eastern flavour to be encountered further on in the programme, with
the modern flute being played with some stunning
Japonaiserie
techniques, which float effectively over a warmly mellifluous and sometimes
dark and moody soundtrack, inviting the imagination to visualise vast
and enigmatic chambers.
Theremin and string quartet meet in
Piranesi, a work originally
conceived to work as part of a multi-media collaboration with Brown’s
artist husband Lothar Osterburg. Slow vibrato and other microtonal effects
can disturb your orientation, but there is a tonal/harmonic core to
this music against which this strangeness maintains an almost playful
or folk-music like quality. The low register of the theremin further
along has a quasi-vocal character which is also unusual.
Three Arias
from “A Bookmobile for Dreamers” is the closest we get
to sentimentality on this CD, with Brown’s “uncanny knack
of writing memorable, expressively deformed tunes” placed in a
changing visual landscape, another collaboration in which the animated
toy truck of the title moves through a variety of settings, from pastoral
countryside to what sounds like a Brooklyn inhabited by a chorus of
vocally trained felines.
The corrugated tonalities of this music invite the instrumental combination
for
Atlantis, a theremin and a slide guitar. Watery movement
is suggested by the distortions and ‘deformation’ which
these instruments are combined to create, at times emerging as a submerged
Segovia or under-water Albéniz, but always with Brown’s
intriguing individual touch.
Both of the last two pieces are strongly Japanese in flavour, the shakuhachi
or bamboo flute defining the character of the largely reflective
Mirage,
and
Shinshōfūkei, or An Imagined Landscape written
for ‘an orchestra of traditional Japanese instruments’.
This setting differentiates itself from a traditional Japanese orchestra,
Brown creating her own vision with a unique combination of instruments.
Perhaps the best piece in this programme, these four meditative evocations
are by no means static, and each movement is packed with remarkable
colours and harmonic and melodic shapes which, alien to Japanese tradition,
create their own atmosphere and heightened sense of interest.
The booklet notes for this release sum up its contents well: “The
music is blessed with an old-fashioned gift for clear and singable melody
. . . except for the fact that the tune keeps bending and melting …
Brown’s musical world is one of dreamlike sounds, images, textures,
colors, and harmonies ... the work of an unpretentious, deep, and questing
spirit.”
Fairly well recorded, the sonic picture of the string quartet, particularly
in
Mirage does have a boxy, narrow character, though with the
unusual nature of the programme and the pieces themselves it is hard
to tell if this is intentional or not. If you want to find out what
one of the most interesting creative musical voices in the US has been
up to for the last ten years and fancy escaping convention and seeking
out new sounds, then this always intriguing and at times stunningly
beautiful set of pieces demands your attention.
Dominy Clements
Performer details
Seahorse
Newband (Elizabeth Brown (theremin); Dean Drummond (guitar 1); Jared
Soldiviero (harmonic canon 1); Dave Broom (chromolodeon); Bill Ruyle
(diamond marimba); Joe Bergen (bass marimba); Joe Fee (zoomoozophone
and juststrokerods))
Arcana
Elizabeth Brown (flute)
Piranesi
Elizabeth Brown (theremin); Momenta Quartet (Annaliesa Place and Sharon
Roffman (violins); Stephanie Griffin (viola); Joanne Lin (cello))
Three Arias from “A Bookmobile for Dreamers”
Elizabeth Brown (theremin)
Atlantis
Elizabeth Brown (theremin); Ben Verdery (amplified classical
guitar played with slide bar)
Mirage
Elizabeth Brown (shakuhachi); Momenta Quartet
Shinshōfūkei
Pro Musica Nipponia (Makoto Takei and Takashi Harago (1.8 shakuhachi);
Hiromu Motonaga (2.1 shakuhachi); Kohei Nishikawa (nohkan); Yuji Nishihara
(shou); Chizuko Yamazaki (shamisen); Chie Sakurai and Keiko Hisamoto
(koto); Noriko Tamura (21-string koto); No Kyeong Soon (kotsuzumi
and binzasara); Yasushi Inada (conductor))
