FALL 1999
LICA CONCERT REVIEW, of Oct. 4th, 1999
(by Alf Bishai, NY Chief Correspondent, Film Music Magazine)
The Long Island Composers Alliance presented its third annual concert at
NYU's Composers' Forum Monday, October 4. It was well received by the capacity
crowd.
First on the program was Denise Broadhurst's Equinox for clarinet, which
is a very light and good-natured work with interesting melodic shape.
Next was Sonora by Marga Richter for two clarinets and piano, inspired
by a lanquid drive through the desert. Richter is an adept composer, and
writes particularily well for the piano, most notably in her independent
use of the hands. This is a very romantic work and has a friendly and interesting
texture. It is unclear, however, why she chose to use two clarinets. There
was almost no convincing two-part writing, which would suggest that the
choice was one of colour. It would improve the piece many times again, therefore,
to simply replace one clarinet with a soprano or alto sax, or some other
wind. Sonora is full of varied dramatic gestures which were very engaging
for the first minute, but became frustrating when they failed to give the
piece any sense of direction. The audience knew it was coming to the end
only by judging where the clarinetists' eyes were focusing on their parts.
This left me thinking that one was be very careful when one is inspired
by lanquid drives through the desert.
Boreas and Zephyrus by Charles Griffin was originally created for electronic
instruments, but the audience heard an accoustic arrangement for clarinet,
bass clarinet and piano. The first section's freely tonal sound made for
many wonderful moments which can only be described as spooky and funky.
The second section was beautifully canonic which, if it lacked the harmonic
interest of the opening, was extremely musical. It was enjoyed by the hall.
Reminiscence is a keyboard percussion piece by Inwha Nam-Lee. It consists
of three sections which were structured on specific intervals. Reminiscence
has fallen into the trap of being minimalistic without having the clear
intention of being minimalistic. Nam-Lee studied with Morton Feldman, of
six-hour-string-quartet fame.
The highlight of the evening was Dante's Violin for solo violin by Bruce
Saylor, written as scene-changing music for a staged production of Dante's
Inferno. It is a virtuosic romantic piece with twentieth century spice.
The idiomatic writing is outstanding and received a robust, passionate performance,
which might only have been improved by a little more sensitivity with smaller
dynamics. Dante's Violin is full of variation and drama, although at times
it came across as slightly melodramatic (Yes, I know where Dante went!)
Nevertheless, this was the first piece in several years where I have seen
the audience listening in captivated silence.
Mon., September 27th
JOSEPH PEHRSON and LEONARD LEHRMAN, visiting composers
Joseph Pehrson's piece "PROFONDO", for bass flute struck me as
rather dreamy, childlike, as though one were lost in the woods. The piece
started with a simple melody which segue into circular patterns that modulated
and eventually came back to the begining simple linear melody. The bass
flute has a very unique sound and I thought the piece was very effective
in portraying a moody , meditative feel.
The second work of the evening also by Pehrson was five pieces based on
the poetry of Lewis Caroll entitled "LEWIS CAROLL SONGS". These
pieces combined many musical elements. In some instances the pieces portrayed
a pop music quality, kind of a torch song broadway feel. The work had a
lot of syncopation and a balance of consonance and dissonance and a wide
use of jazz harmonies. The piano acted as support for the soprano who sang
the poetry with leaping intervals and cascading scales. The piano punctuated
the singing poetry and left a lot of space for the soprano. This piece started
out grabbing the listener with its wide use of styles but I felt it got
repititous after a while.
Pehrson's next piece of the evening , "THREE PIANO PIECES", was
a three movement work that started out with thick dissonant chords then
into a call and response between single lines and chords. The piece struggled
with consonance and dissonannce and evoked a feeling of beauty and tragedy
fighting it out. This first movement went back and forth between big and
small sections that seemed to fight each other for control.
The second movement started with a spacey feel, the piano tinklin very softly.
Soprano parts mixed with triplet figures in the bass. Much more reflective
than the first movement. Beautifully sad.
The third movement started very busily with rapid scaluar patterns. It was
very sharp and punctuating, with a wide usage of triplets, very unsettled
starting and stopping. In some areas the piano sounded like a harp. This
movement was very thick and chaotic. This piece showed off the talents of
the piano player very well.
The last work of the evening was an opera by Leonard Lehrman, 'THE FAMILY
MAN". It is a Russian text translated to english. The story is about
a Russian man who kills his own son during war and his daughters resentment
towards him for committing this horrible act. It was hard to understand
some of the text so I'm sure I missed a lot of the story, but I found the
subject matter to be very powerfull in some parts and it was very graphic
in its portrayal of the horrors of war. I liked the part where the tenor
sang of hand to hand combat and the emotions that were shared between the
killer and the soldier being murdered. It was very effective, but I thought
this piece reached its climax to early and it became long and boring. It
could have been less technical musically. I think more simple melodies and
then building to a chaotic climax would have been more effective. (Jeff
Dick )
Review of Pehrson/Lehrman concert, September 27, 1999
Last Monday's concert of the works by Joseph Pehrson and Leonard Lehrman
was very musical, and a much needed change of pace for me personally. Both
composers brought to the concert a completely individual combination of
styles. Their modernist teaching was evident, but there was a distinct sensibility
that was very exciting.
The first half of the concert belonged to Mr. Pehrson, though Lehrman played
in most of his pieces. Starting with a bass-flute solo; this turned out
to be the only non-piano piece in the whole evening. Without owing too much
to Varese it was sweet and reminiscent.
The first of two sets of songs by Pehrson were called The Lewis Caroll songs.
He used a variety of text painting and expressive techniques. Humorous at
times and generally light-hearted, but multifaceted no doubt. Altogether
contrasting to his solo piano piece.
Three Pianopieces, a single piece with three sections, divided the vocal
portions of the evening rather nicely, but I failed to find much interest
in it. Apparently it contained several references, one of which to a mutual
teacher of Lehrman and Pehrson's. Perhaps this piece was written through
the perspective of that period of Pehrson's life, because it felt like a
work from the 1960's or 70's to me.
The other set of songs, Slices, written in 1999, was a very fresh bit of
text setting. The poet was unknown to me, Cynthia Nadelman, but I felt very
warmed by her words. More delightful text painting like the piano sounding
like an electric fan when the soprano sings the word "fan." Also,
one line spoken in the second movement, "beach some distant fantasy,"
perhaps sprains our whimsical, half-hearing of the piece; our fantasy with
music is questioned perhaps. Slices is an appropriate title anyway, bringing
extremely varied styles to the composition table.
Next, Leonard Lehrman brings his tenor, Ronald Edwards up on stage for his
one-act, one-character opera. This is a huge demand on one person, both
singing and acting all the emotions for several story motives. Edwards does
very well, and Lehrman's piano accompaniment was like an orchestra of sounds.
There were bangs, and zings, and "banshees;" dynamically critical
to the piece as a whole, I felt the voice and piano were equal partners
in this epic saga.
The story, by Mikhail Sholokhov, is actually very sad, but not depressing.
It shows the frailty of the human heart. When a man kills his son to save
his own life, he complains that it is for the sake of his other children.
When his other children forsake him and he is forced to murder yet another
child, he realizes his folly that conflicting generations/loyalties has
afforded him. His children also have children.
Over all it was a pleasantly surprising evening of sounds and emotions.
Both composers have a real sense of drama in their music that is missing
in a lot of musicians. I hope that we see Joseph Pehrson and Leonard Lehrman
back at NYU in the future.
(Lucas Marquardt)
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