Volume 23 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2018

very disparate sources, ranging from African
instruments to Bach, Schumann and Yiddish
folk song.
Bittersweet melodies pervade the threemovement
Viola Concerto, dedicated
to and performed by superb violist Paul
Neubauer, former principal of the New York
Philharmonic. The 32-minute concerto is
dominated by its third movement, A Song My
Mother Taught Me, lasting nearly 20 minutes,
in which Kernis elaborates on the Yiddish
song Tumbalalaika and the Fughette from
Schumann’s Klavierstücke Op.32.
The 26-minute, two-movement
Dreamsongs is dedicated to and performed by
virtuoso cellist Joshua Roman. The first movement,
Floating Dreamsongs, pits dreamily,
plaintive melodies in the cello against orchestral
textures featuring harp, marimba and
vibraphone. Kora Song, the second movement,
is more animated, cello pizzicati
evoking the sound of the kora, a plucked
gourd, with the orchestra augmented by a
West African djembe drum.
Echoes of Bach’s Brandenburgs inhabit
the16-minute Concerto with Echoes, scored
without soloist or violins. Its three movements
encompass a vigorous Toccata, a
poignant passacaglia (Slowly) and a nostalgic
Aria that gently fades away.
Many critics, myself included, have
commented in the past that Kernis’ lyrical
lines often lapse into sentimentality, as can
be heard on this CD. I’m convinced, however,
that this very sentimentality has actually been
the basis of his music’s audience appeal and
the key to the ongoing success of his compositional
career.
Michael Schulman
Finn Mortensen – Symphony Op.5
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra; Peter
Szilvay
SSO Recordings 3917-2 (sso.no)
!!
Weighty
Brucknerian
moods and gestures
imbue the darkhued,
dramatic
Symphony
by the previously
unknown
to me Norwegian
composer Finn Mortensen (1922-1983),
enhancing a powerful and rewarding
listening experience, so much so that I played
and enjoyed it again immediately after my
first hearing.
A restless, long-lined chromatic melody
in the lower strings launches the Allegro
Moderato. A gentle English horn solo then
creates a moment of calm before a storm of
prolonged, repeated thunderbolts, followed
by a return to the grumbling opening theme.
Finally, a solo flute breaks through the gray
clouds with a ray of sunlight and the movement
ends in radiant glory.
The Adagio continues the pervading
noir-ness, a gripping musical counterpart to
the popular, bleakly brooding Nordic detective
novels. The scherzo, marked Allegro
Vivace, alternates dancing, light strings and
woodwinds with heavy, ponderous brass and
percussion. In the final Allegro Moderato,
an aggressive fugue leads to the English
horn melody of the first movement, now
transformed into a triumphant concluding
brass chorale.
This tempestuous, late-Romantic music
receives a full-blooded performance from the
Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, conducted
by Peter Szilvay, who first fell under the
Symphony’s potent spell as a teenage violist
performing it with a Norwegian youth
orchestra. At only 37 minutes, this CD may
seem less attractive than the two other CDs of
the Symphony, both of which include additional
Mortensen works; nonetheless, this
splendid recording of this splendid symphony
is well worth your consideration.
Michael Schulman
Kenneth Newby – Chambers: Emergence
Trilogy Volume 1
Flicker String Quartet; Flicker Ensemble
MP3-320 digital edition, CD Baby, Spotify,
iTunes, Apple Music
(flickerartcollaboratory.org)
!!
A member of
the Computational
Poetics research
group, British
Columbia
composerperformer,
media
artist and senior
researcher at UBC’s
Centre for Culture
and Technology, Kenneth Newby’s music is
not well known among the general audience
on this side of the country. Newby’s music
uses computational techniques in combination
with acoustic ones, marked by his
training in classical and improvised musics,
as well as his extensive music studies in Bali
and Java during the 1980s. His current work
involves interdisciplinary collaborations in
the creation of audiovisual installation works
that represent complex images of multicultural
identity. The composer writes that his
Emergence Trilogy is “the culmination of
a five-year research-creation process that
involved the formulation of a personal theory
of music which guided the development
of a set of generative processes for music
composition...”
Consisting of 23 primarily aphoristic tracks,
Chambers is the first album of Newby’s
Emergence Trilogy, the other albums being
Elegeia, and Spectral (Golden) Lyric, also
available for download. The works are
performed with precision and panache by the
Flicker String Quartet and Flicker Ensemble.
For Mingus is Newby’s longest composition
at just under ten minutes. It is also the most
varied texturally and timbrally. It prominently
features the double bass – as one might
expect given the title – the prepared piano,
a lacey battery of bells, bowed cymbals and
other metal percussion, plus an inventive use
of winds. The pointillistic texture is revealed
over time via a motoric rhythm, lending the
colourfully orchestrated work an attractive
forward momentum. For Mingus exhibits
several facets of Newby’s advanced transcultural
musical aesthetic where echoes of
gamelan mingle successfully with Edgard
Varèse and John Cage. It certainly deserves to
be more widely heard and performed.
Andrew Timar
Seán Mac Erlaine – Music for Empty Ears
Seán Mac Erlaine; Jan Bang; Eivind Aarset;
Sadhbh Ní Dhálaigh
ergodos ER28 (ergodos.ie)
! ! Music for Empty
Ears gives the
perfect hint to what
you are about to
hear on this new
release by Dublinbased
woodwind
instrumentalist,
composer and
producer Seán Mac Erlaine. It comes as no
surprise that he was noted as one of the most
progressive musicians of his generation in
Ireland – his music is truly unique. On this
album, Mac Erlaine collaborated with two
Norwegian artists, live sampling pioneer Jan
Bang and guitarist Eivind Aarset. Together,
they have created a sonic story that will play
with your perceptions of time and space, and
make your ears beat with pleasure.
I was immediately taken by the first track
on this album, Winter Flat Map. The music
ushered me into the post-apocalyptic space
of pulsating sound waves, enriched with
ethereal clarinet lines. This tune was followed
by The Melting Song, featuring tranquil vocals
(the fantastic Sadhbh Ní Dhálaigh) and gentle
minimalism. And so the journey begins into
the world of Mac Erlaine. Although sparse at
times, the music is so richly textured that one
truly needs to start listening with empty ears
or, rather, without any preconceived notion
or expectations. Layers upon layers are laid
down with a variety of woodwind instruments,
electronics, guitar, keyboards and
vocals, creating a world of wonders, surprises,
haunted melodies and melancholic impressions.
This album is a gem.
Ivana Popovic
82 | June | July | August 2018 thewholenote.com