Peter GARLAND (b. 1952)
After the Wars
1. Spring View: “The nation is ruined, but mountains and rivers remain.”
(after Tu Fu) [4.53]
2. “Summer grass / all that remains / of young warriors' dreams”
(after Basho) [5.06]
3. Occasional Poem on an Autumn Day: “When I'm at peace I let
everything go” (after Ch'eng Hao) [5.30]
4. “A snowy morning / and smoke from the kitchen roof / it is good.”
(after Buson) [4.50]
Sarah Cahill (piano)
rec. 2014, location not specified
COLD BLUE MUSIC CB0044 [20:19]
Peter Garland is a composer I was unfamiliar with, but who
has been working for some forty years, and notably studied with James Tenny
and Harold Budd. His recordings have been issued on labels such as Cold Blue,
New Albion, Tzadik, Mode and New World, all of which give an idea of the type
of music he writes. Assuming you’re familiar with them; they are all
avant-garde/experimental/minimalist labels.
This disc is one of Cold Blue’s EPs, containing a single work that clocks
in at just over twenty minutes. Commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill, who
performs the work, as part of her 'A Sweeter Music' project,
each of the movements of After the Wars “takes as inspiration
a Chinese poem or Japanese haiku”. The movements are arranged in the
order of the seasons, and, as the notes to this recording say (available
online; no notes included with the
disc): “More than in most piano pieces of mine, I explore the quality
of resonance in the piano: not just the notes played on the keyboard, but
the sense of echo and fade produced by a very deliberate use of pedaling,
and the sustaining and release of piano keys after notes and chords are sounded.”
A single, 20-minute work on a CD is an interesting idea and it allows the
work to stand on its own but it’s not an ideal way to discover a composer.
I find After the Wars to be interesting, and I appreciate what Garland
says about the resonance of the piano. This work is quite simple, melodically,
and after listening to it several times, one begins to notice that much of
the music is in the long, decaying notes, rather than in the melody.
When the work begins, it’s anything but peaceful. Spring, in this work,
is a combination of turbulence and growth. Loud bass notes begin, alternating
with soft chords. Structurally, this music is not minimalist in the sense
of repetition, but it’s minimal in approach. There are simple lines,
simple chords and there’s a lot of space around this music, allowing
the resonance to come forth as a voice of its own. Time is used here as a
musical element. With Summer, the melodies expand from the simply notes and
chords of spring, still leaving plenty of space in between the phrases. As
Autumn arrives, the tone changes to a series of brief, soft chords, and the
movement is a series of chords as pulses a few seconds apart. The final movement,
Winter, is more melodic, almost pentatonic, with slow, haunting melodies.
Overall, the work has a melancholic tone, as it changes from the strong bass
notes at the beginning to the gradually decaying melodies at the end, bringing
back the soft chords of Spring.
There is an interesting use of space and time in this work. On the surface,
it’s quite simple, but the sounds develop over the span of the four
movements as you slowly grow accustomed to the underlying structure. Again,
a twenty-minute work is not enough to discover an unknown composer, and after
listening to this disc several times, I wanted to hear more. I guess that,
in itself, is a recommendation.
Kirk McElhearn
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