Convergence – Music for Piano and Percussion
Chen YI (b.1953)
China West Suite (2007) [13:23]
Brooke JOYCE (b.1973)
Sacred Trees (2007) [16:04]
Marc MELLITS (b.1966)
Tight Sweater Remix (2005/2009) [9:03]
Daniel W. KOONTZ (b.1969)
Soft Stillness and the Night(2007) [18:09]
James M. DAVID (b.1978)
Duo Toccata (2008) [9:10]
Strike (Jefferey Meyer (piano); Paul Vaillancourt (percussion))
rec. Schwob School of Music, Legacy Hall, Columbus, USA 1-5 June 2009; except
‘Tight Sweater Remix’ 11 October 2009
LUMINESCENCE RECORDS LUM002 [65:49]
Some of the greatest pleasure to be had reviewing for this site is when a
disc creeps up on you and charms and fascinates in the most unexpected way.
I cannot say that the shelves of my collection groan under the sheer number
of discs of contemporary music for piano and percussion so I cannot claim
any huge expertise. However, I have been thoroughly beguiled by every aspect
of this disc from packaging and production to performance and repertoire.
A big congratulations to Luminescence Records for producing such a fine disc.
The performers here are a percussion and piano duet called ‘Strike’ featuring
Jefferey Meyer on piano and Paul Vaillancourt on multiple percussion. These
are exceptionally fine players individually and in tandem. As with any recital
of works by five different composers there will always be pieces that an individual
responds to more than others but the programme here is beautifully assembled
to show off the rich diversity of music that has been arranged and composed
for this duo. Many of the sounds and textures conjured here are ravishing
and the mood of the music ranges from gently reflective and spiritual to boisterously
muscular and good humoured. It would be quite unfair on any of the music to
single out one work or another as ‘better’ so I will comment on them in the
order they appear on the disc. The China West Suite by Chen Yi is a
series of four movements written for marimba and piano. Originally composed
in 2007 for 2 pianos Dr Yi – she now teaches at the University of Missouri
– adapted the work for this duo for this recording. In this form it is stunning.
Yi has taken her inspiration from the folk music of Western China – a fact
immediately apparent in the lyrical pentatonicism of much of the music. Try
around 3:20 into track 2 Meng Songs; the piano part is doubled by gentle
marimba trills on the same melodic line creating an extraordinary aural halo
and ambience. Credit here as elsewhere to both players and engineers who succeed
in achieving a beautifully subtle balance in a lovely natural acoustic – this
oozes quality. In the following movement – Zang Songs – Meyer’s playing
is a model of neat articulacy around and above flutters Vaillancourt’s beautiful
marimba sounding miraculously even and effortless – listen to how the movements
evaporates like the morning mist. All the more effective for the bracing energy
of the Miao Dances that complete the suite – a rousing end to an excellent
work
Brooke Joyce’s Sacred Trees is more overtly contemporary. The inspiration
for the six movement work comes from the trees found growing at ancient Native
American burial mounds which, as the composer writes in the liner-notes, led
him to “reflect on my own sense of ritual memory and spirituality”. Certainly
there is a haunted and hugely atmospheric quality to the work. Vaillancourt’s
instrumentation is expanded – judging by production stills in the liner –
to include multiple gongs, vibraphone, wind chimes, various suspended cymbals
and roto-drums and crotales amongst others. Apologies if I have mis-named
any of these instruments – as I mentioned before – this is not an area of
great expertise! Again, the abiding impression is the skill with which the
timbres of the multiple instruments are combined. Unlike the four clearly
defined movements of Yi’s work Joyce allows the various sections to overlap.
The overall character of the work is reflective and inward-looking. Perhaps
it less immediate appeal than some of the other music recorded here but I
suspect, indeed expect, that this is one of the compositions that will reveal
the most with greater familiarity.
After the repose and spirituality of that work Marc Mellits’ three movement
Tight Sweater Remix explodes onto your consciousness as an edgy urban
wise-guy virtuoso work. I love a good title so I’m a sucker for any piece
whose three movements are called Exposed Zipper, Trans Fatty Acid’s Rein,
and Mechanically Separated Chicken Parts. Mellits in his liner-note
makes no explanation of these titles but I’m guessing its some reaction against
po-faced contemporary composers who call their work Construction VI or
even Symphony X (when it isn’t!). An example of the kind of care and
attention to detail lavished on this disc is the fact that this work was recorded
separately from the others with quite a different set-up. Initially this might
sound rather studio-bound and airless compared to the other works. But then
it struck me that this is exactly the kind of recording that you used to get
on many older jazz recordings. And it is that kind of contemporary/jazz/fusion/hyper-active
minimalism that you get here. I love the way both players toss off their complex
and demanding parts with cool virtuosity. The three movements have been extracted
from a larger work which included a cello but again there is no sense of ‘loss’
at all. Again this is scored for just marimba and piano and although the left
hand of the piano does provide a propulsive harmonic energy the sense of the
work is as a kind of brilliant latter-day study in two part contrapuntal writing.
The interweaving and overlaying of musical lines is simply superb. At times
I was reminded of the recordings made by Chick Corea and Gary Burton. Obviously
this is composed in a way the Corea/Burton is not but there is a similar spirit
of alliance and good-natured musical jousting. There’s a rather lovely photograph
from the sessions of Meyer grinning from ear to ear and this sense of happy
collaboration is no-where better illustrated than in this work. But there
are moments of real beauty too – try the end of track 12. The nightmarishly
hard shifting rhythmic patterns of the closing Mechanically Separated Chicken
Parts – I just wanted to write that title again – are performed with total
ease and assurance. These guys are good! If you have any interest
in any kind of minimalist/jazz fusion the disc is worth buying for this piece
alone – a life-enhancing work.
Another marvellous shift of mood takes us onto Daniel Koontz’s Soft Stillness
and the Night. This title comes from the same passage in The Merchant
of Venice that Vaughan Williams set as part of his glorious Serenade
to Music. This work was commissioned by and is dedicated to the players
here. Vaillancourt uses a range of instruments although the marimba features
strongly. Koontz describes it as “arising from sonic fantasies of night and
dawn”. Certainly the atmosphere the six brief movements evoke is of the witching
hour in the depth of the night with half awake thoughts and sounds scurrying
through mainly empty textures. Prepared piano and random marimba notes drip
like a leaky tap. I’m not sure Koontz’s night is a very comforting place to
be, there’s a gently disturbing quality to the music that is very compelling
and all the more effective after the neon-bright certainties of the previous
work. A totally different interpretation of the text from the sensual languor
of the Vaughan Williams too. We are back to the original recording set up
here and again I was struck by the sheer beauty of the sounds being made.
The control of dynamics and texture in the many quiet passages is little short
of perfection.
The care in the planning of this CD programme is again shown in the choice
of the final work. In essence the music has alternated between athletic and
reflective so it is logical that this closing piece should be a kind of fusion
of the two. Jim David’s Duo Toccata subdivides into two movements;
Campanello d’allarme and Aula di tribunale. David’s idea is
to focus on different aspects of ‘touch’ – a literal approach to the meaning
of toccata – in each of the movements. So the opening section deals with repeated
resonating tones from the gongs and bells and piano. The closing movement
is more overtly rhythmic based, the composer states, on Afro-Cuban rhythms.
The percussion part here has much more of a feel of kit playing – apart from
one brief xylophone interlude over a striding piano line - with jazz-influenced
keyboard writing throughout.
I mentioned earlier the packaging of the CD. I do like the way Luminescence
have broken away from the fragile jewel case format. Somehow the style they
have chosen harks back to an age when opening the gatefold of an LP and devouring
every little morsel of information was a very important part of the home-listening
experience – something else the download will never replace. The cream-coloured
heavy card sleeve, once freed from its own clear yellow belt, is covered with
wonderfully technical and utterly incomprehensible detailed diagrams of the
hammer mechanism of a piano and the correct way to hold a percussion mallet.
On the reverse are three unexplained circles with figures and inside a patented
wiring circuit. It’s all wonderfully obtuse – I loved it. The CD tucks snugly
into a pocket under the wiring circuit and pasted to the left-hand page of
the wallet is a brief but beautifully produced booklet. This includes a couple
of quite beautiful close-ups of a piano – genuinely artistic pictures - together
with quirky composer photographs, biographies and brief descriptions of the
works by the composers and session pictures. All of this is prefaced by a
kind of ‘testament’ from the two performers. I would like to quote part of
what they write; “We could not have been more inspired by the creations [compositions];
the results are diverse in style and character, each with a unique sense of
place, time and space, all demanding great creativity on the part of the performers
and offering the listener a wide spectrum of experience”. Just so. I do hope
this disc achieves as wide a dissemination as possible. The dedication and
quality it displays deserves no less. This is not the comfy-chair school of
contemporary mogadon-music that I personally loathe; this is serious and significant
music all composed and performed with exceptional skill and musicality and
no little wit. A disc worth taking a chance on if only to have a piece in
your collection called Mechanically Separated Chicken Parts – there,
I’ve done it again.
Nick Barnard
Not the comfy-chair school of mogadon-music but serious and significant music
all composed and performed with exceptional skill and musicality and no little
wit.