No mention is made
of the perverse reason for adding an apostrophe to ‘Finnegans
Wake’ in the programme notes, and with David Gompper’s eponymously
titled piece having an Irish fiddle reel as its source material
he should know better. It’s a small point - although it wasn’t
to Joyce - and may even be intentional, though I really don’t
see the point of promoting or perpetuating that particular literary
howler. While I’m having a moan, the average age of the pieces
here is about 1978, so ‘new music’ is also not entirely accurate.
Many of these pieces will however be new to many people, so
I won’t mention this point again.
Copland’s 1943 Sonata
is dedicated to a friend of the composer, Larry Durham, who
was killed in action in the South Pacific. The work’s tragic
character is expressed in relatively simple melodic lines, Copland’s
fingerprint open intervals and often declamatory accompaniment
from the piano. The second movement is almost medieval in its
bell-like and canonic writing, and the modal harmonic effects
are continued into the more energetic Allegretto giusto third
movement, with its playful imitative writing between the piano
and violin.
A little more space
between the closing chimes of the Copland and Elliott Carter’s
Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi would have been better,
but the programming is good, with the solo piece breathing poetic
depth into Copland’s stable tonality. Despite being characteristically
atonal, this piece is made approachable by its expressive, slow
lines, given markings like dolce, legatissimo, and scorrevole.
There are intervals of more gestural writing, but the overall
impression is of a fairly introverted, almost improvisatory
music.
Ching-chu Hu’s Passions
opens with an extended solo for the violin, promising a
rocky road ahead. The sweetly expressive entry of the piano
therefore comes almost as a shock. Hu is an Asian/American composer,
and approaches this piece with that duality in mind – the rich
European tradition being played against idioms which appear
on traditional Chinese bowed instruments. Without the associations
in sonority which the composer intends, the development of the
piece has an almost purely romantic feel to my western ears,
with Chinese musical gestures and much double-stopping in the
violin thrown in at the climax.
All in all Hu’s
piece works well enough, and provides an interesting contrast
with the more rigorous sounding Capriccio by Jeremy Dale
Roberts. Roberts, born in Gloucestershire, is a former head
of composition at the Royal College of Music in London. The
composer notes that the music is based on a number of Paganini’s
Capricci, Bartók’s Duos and hints of Szymanowski. The
opening melodic flourishes provide the material for the entire
piece, treated to a wide-ranging palette of expressive, sometimes
almost fragmentary, moments. The work is atmospheric and disciplined
at the same time, with effective bell-like sonorities in the
piano, and a finale which builds to a veritable musical firestorm
– dissipated in a final coda which casts us adrift on mist-covered
waters.
Morton Feldman’s
1977 Spring of Chosroes possesses all of that nagging
beauty which characterises his mature work. The title refers
to ‘a marvellous carpet representing a garden’ which, as legend
has it, was woven during the reign of the Sassanid prince Chosroes
(531-579 AD). The carpet pattern is of course an appropriate
connection to Feldman’s often spatial approach to notation.
The piece has a hypnotic effect, with an overall soft dynamic
and a great deal of silence between the notes. For the uninitiated,
this is, at only 14 minutes, a good introduction to Feldman’s
uncompromisingly sparse sound-world.
So, we come to the
title track. The Irish fiddle sets in straight away, immediately
dispersing Feldman’s intensity. As one might expect with such
material, the music swings and dances, and Gompper’s writing
for both piano and violin is highly effective. The Green
Groves of Erin is the popular reel from which much of the
music is derived, but Gompper’s idiom takes this starting point
into the ‘art music’ world. In doing so has created a superb
concert piece with a great deal of character and substance.
The playing on this
CD is highly accomplished, and the recording is atmospheric
– set in a fairly resonant acoustic, but losing none of the
detail which such pieces demand. At 70 minutes it is a well
considered and attractive programme which will provide an interesting
voyage of pleasant discovery for many. I still stick up for
Joyce, but in spite of my apostrophe fixation I think this CD
deserves solid and unreserved recommendation.
Dominy Clements
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Wolfgang David (violin),
David Gompper (piano)
