First issued on LP
in 1984, the opening bars of Daniel
Lentz’s On the Leopard Altar
seem to place it firmly in the minimalist
idiom of that period, to place it, that
is, with the work of Riley, Glass and
Reich. But as one listens further, it
becomes clear that Lentz was not a fully
signed-up minimalist. Yes, ‘Is it love?’
makes one think immediately of that
Americanised gamelan music, that phased
and staggered repetition of melodic
and rhythmic units, those percussive
keyboard sounds, those synthesiser pulses;
but before long the music moves through
different tonalities with a speed that
more doctrinaire ‘minimalists’ would
have found quite unseemly and the singing
has a charm that belongs in a different
musical language.
Later, in ‘Requiem’,
the last track on the CD – the short
playing time of which is the result
of it being the straight reissue of
an LP – Jessica Lowe’s voice produces
an effect quite other than any one might
have anticipated from the opening of
‘Is it Love?’. The mood, her voice heard
in a reverberant acoustic with keyboards
chiming like church bells, is a strange
and hypnotic fusion of ritual music
from some unknown religion and an unissued
track by Enya! In between, there’s ‘Lascaux’,
a piece played on twenty five tuned
wine glasses; the composer tells us
that sixteen of them are rubbed and
nine struck. Reverb has been added,
but otherwise the sounds are undoctored
– and very beautiful they are, slow
and haunting, with a startling purity.
‘Wolf is Dead’ is, again, closer to
minimalist idioms; insistent patterns
and pulses, create, for my taste, a
surface and texture so highly polished
that the attention too easily slips
off, for all the undoubted vivacity
of the writing. ‘On the Leopard Altar’
is altogether sparer - and altogether
more compelling - in texture. It uses
six short songs - I wish the texts were
provided - each heard both alone and
in combination with its fellows. The
results are intriguing, at times beautiful.
This early work by
Lentz is, for the most part, still striking
and effective. It suggests a composer
with several strings to his bow, with
the musical imagination to strike out
in a number of different directions.
Unfortunately I have heard very little
of the music Lentz has written since
On the Leopard Altar, but from
what I have read of it his later work
has, indeed, been stylistically various
and imaginative.
In the magazine Mojo,
in August 1998, Paul McCartney described
On the Leopard Altar as "a strange
record" and declared that it "should’ve
been a hit". Perhaps it is too
late for it to be a ‘hit’ - though I
could imagine either ‘Requiem’ or ‘Lascaux’
getting a lot of attention if plugged
in the right quarter. Classic FM, perhaps?
It isn’t too late, though, for it to
find listeners who might enjoy its unclassifiable
music – not quite ‘classical’, not quite
‘new age’, not quite … just playful,
inventive, engaging music.
Glyn Pursglove
Jessica Lowe, Paul MacKey, Susan James,
Dennis Parnell (voices); Brad Ellis, David Kuehn,
Arlene Dunlap, Daniel Lentz (keyboards); Brad
Ellis, David Kuehn, Arlene Dunlap, Jessica Lowe,
Susan James (wineglasses) 
