Max Raimi is a member
of the viola section of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra, having studied with
Lilian Fuchs, and he’s also a composer
of standing. If anyone is going to interpret
Eyn Mol, a klezmer melody on which he
has based a series of variations, it
will be his cellist brother Fred and
so it proves. Max Raimi states that
it’s the "earthiness" of the
ritual celebrated in the song that he
wants to catch, as opposed to any spiritual
side and to this end his Theme and nine
variations, with a coda, mine moments
of elliptical reflection and abrasive
chordal outbursts. It’s certainly not
quite as generously riotous as he seems
to suggest in his notes – though far
be it from me to contradict him – because
he succeeds in exploiting registral
leaps (deep bass notes on the piano,
high lying cello writing) and a deal
of oppositional writing, some of it
quite abrasive. When we reach Variation
VIII one meets the sheer sense of elation
he can build in his writing, the melody
stated first by the piano and then taken
up by the cello – a process reversed
in the coda.
Mark Kruss’s American
Folksongs are actually advertising jingles
– for Pentium or Old Spice and so on.
He’s taken some well known and some
lesser-known ones and crafted a twenty-one
minute series of them. He generally
states the theme on the solo cello and
then develops them accordingly. I daresay
that State Farm Insurance (motto; Like
A Good Neighbor) never quite envisaged
the expressive contours Kruss would
grant its humble commercial product,
though that may well be part of his
point. Similarly Bumble Bee Tuna (not
something I find on my breakfast table,
alas) opens with a sliver of a Bach
solo Cello Suite haunting it before
taking off into the pop songbook. There’s
something vaguely chorale like about
Old Spice, the shaving lotion (I seem
to remember sun kissed surfers and a
lot of Carl Orff in the British version)
and true to form Kuss varies the stylistic
means by ending with Delta Airlines
in a bout of unstoppable minimalism
– intriguing and amusing, though not
folksongs. Or folk songs.
Finally we have Schoenfield’s
British Folk Songs (real ones this time)
that were composed as a tribute to Jacqueline
du Pré. They alternate between
fast and slow and owe something to Britten,
though the piano parts are not so tart.
They veer between warmly romantic and
bustlingly effective (The Gypsy Laddie
is perhaps better known as The Wraggle
Taggle Gipsies). The high point is reached
at the end with A Dream of Napoleon
where, somewhat like Britten’s Lachrymae,
the theme emerges unsullied and cleansed
towards the end – only the piano’s wandering
unease sounding a cautionary note.
Fine performances all
round enhance this collection of unusual
pieces. Most are slight but they are
certainly not whimsical or lacking in
incidental depth.
Jonathan Woolf
Fred Raimi (cello) 