Mark Zuckerman holds
a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton
University where he studied with Milton
Babbitt, David Epstein, J.K. Randall
and Elie Yarden. A versatile musician,
Zuckerman’s activities range from teaching
composition, tonal and atonal theory,
orchestration and computer music at
Princeton and Columbia Universities,
through writing on music to playing
saxophone, clarinet and piano in stage
and rock bands. In 2004 he was awarded
a Fellowship from the New Jersey State
Council on the Arts.
Zuckerman is obviously
someone steeped in his Jewish heritage
as many of his musical compositions
take inspiration from Jewish themes,
including a growing number of a cappella
arrangements of Hebrew and Yiddish songs.
All the works here are making their
first appearance on CD and represent
both his tonal and not-so-tonal music,
although not even the most complex music
on this disc would prove a significant
challenge for most listeners.
The first work, Introduction
and Fugue, was written for the C. Milton
Wright High School Orchestra in Bel
Air, MD to help mark the 25th
year of service by the music director
and program founder, Sheldon Bair. It
uses an ‘octatonic’ note series ( a
quasi-modal scale of eight notes) and
uses harmonies that sound like ordinary
major and minor triads, although not
functioning in a purely tonal way. I
largely found the ‘empty’ sound of the
harmonies and the steady tread of the
music rather bland and lacking in musical
tension.
Shir Kinah: Elegy
for the Victims of Terrorism is
simply a transcription for string orchestra
of the second movement of the String
Quartet (heard later on the disc). The
victims of terrorism in the title are
those that died in the atrocity in New
York of 11 September 2001. It is a touching
elegy that works equally well in this
and its string quartet version.
Out of the Wilderness
is effectively a five-movement passacaglia
on another ‘octatonic’ note series and
takes as its inspiration the Israelites’
wanderings through the Wilderness. The
mood of the first two movements, Andante
and Largo are almost identical
and reminded me a great deal of the
previous two works. At last, there is
a partial change of mood with the Scherzo
(which the composer suggests is
representative of the biblical Golden
Calf). There is a howling clumsy edit
at 1:07 which one does not expect to
hear on a commercial CD today. The following
Finale is actually the penultimate
movement (the Coda has that honour)
and we are thrust back into more of
the same kind of music that we have
already heard throughout this disc.
I have to say I was glad when Out
of the Wilderness came to an end.
It sounded to me that the composer does
not have the ability nor the imagination
to explore adequately the rather narrow
technical parameters he sets for himself
in the form of the composition, with
the result that it all sounds rather
‘samey’ and uninteresting.
The next short work,
Shpatsír is one of the
two purely tonal pieces on this recording
(the other being Theme Song).
The title is Yiddish for "stroll".
Thankfully short, this three-and-a-half
minute ramble sounds rather like a bad
Percy Grainger song arrangement. Even
shorter, Theme Song apparently
exists in several arrangements for a
wide range of forces. Like Shpatsír,
this piece tries to be accessible and
jaunty but lacks the lyrical spontaneity
to be really effective.
Throughout this CD
the Seattle Sinfonia and Joel Eric Suben
try to make the best of this music,
apart from some noticeable lapses of
intonation above the stave in the violins
(particularly in the badly-edited Scherzo
in Out of the Wilderness. The
recording is perfectly good.
The String Quartet
of 2003 is the longest and, in many
ways, the most successful work on this
disc. It was written as a tribute to
composer and former teacher Milton Babbitt
on his 90th birthday. The
pared-down sonorities of the small ensemble
better suit Zuckerman’s style of writing
and seem to minimise the uniformity
of mood that was so much less successful
in the previous works. The first movement
is a terse and well-argued sonata-form
piece. In memoriam September 11,
2001 is the quartet version of Shir
Kinah heard earlier on the disc.
The Scherzoid third movement
is also reasonably successful, with
some nice pizzicato touches that
give the music on this disc a bit of
much-needed colouristic variety. The
final Small Fugue (not so small
at 12:10!) is a homage to Beethoven’s
Grosse Fuge and uses the great
composer’s work as a model. This piece
sounds rather contrived, however, and
doesn’t sit comfortably alongside Beethoven’s
craggy masterpiece.
The Momenta Quartet,
a New York-based group who are resident
at Temple University, play marvellously
and idiomatically throughout, no doubt
contributing a great deal the relative
success of Zuckerman’s Quartet on this
disc.
I’m not sure who this
CD would appeal to outside the composer’s
own circle of friends and colleagues.
After more than an hour of the music
I was relieved to move on to something
else. Technically competent enough,
the music lacks a strong enough identity,
originality, variety or natural flow
to bear repeated listening.
I have been struggling
to find a stylistic comparison for the
curious listener. There is a genre of
music in the United States represented
by composers such as Norman Dello Joio,
Arnold Rosner and Alan Hovhaness – conservative,
traditionally-rooted music that offers
few challenges or surprises but is attractive
enough in small doses - and some of
Hovhaness’s works have gained enormous
popularity in some quarters. If you
are familiar with any of these, then
that will give you a rough idea of what
to expect here.
Derek Warby
for details
String Quartet (2003) [36:14]
