Search - Osvaldo Golijov, Matt Haimovitz, Lou Harrison :: Anthem

In the age of sterile, hopelessly unimaginative "crossover" projects, cellist Matt Haimovitz earned a solid reputation with his passionate, earnestly invigorating advocay of the Bach Cello Suites in non-traditional venues for classical music. But his exciting project here on Anthem goes even several steps further: rather than rely on a safe brand-name composer, Haimovitz has put together a program of mostly unfamiliar music celebrating both American composers and the unfettered capacity of his instrument. Lou Harrison's prelude from "Rhymes with Silver" is spiked with a taste of baroque linearity but commands with its uncontrived, openhearted melancholy. A sense of musical playfulness dominates in Golijov's Omaramar, a Gardel-inspired fantasia, while one of the disc's most stunning showpieces is Haimovitz's take on a pioneering early piece by Tod Machover, With Dadaji in Paradise, which seemingly explores every inch of the instrument's landscape (Haimovitz can also be heard playing "hypercello" on the latter's intriguing recording the Hyperstring Triology). Two of the pieces were inspired by the atrocity of 9/11: David Sanford's effective Seventh Avenue Kaddish--where the soloist functions, as Haimovitz sees it, as a kind of "professional mourner"--and Toby Twining's microtonally obsessed 9:11 Blues. For all of the in-your-face, upfront emotional directness that is becoming Haimovitz's signature, he clearly also relishes the mind games of Steve Mackey's labyrinth of variations in Rhondo Variations. The title track, meanwhile, stands as a brilliant tribute not only to one of his musical heroes but succeeds in undoing what Haimovtiz has referred to as the electric guitar's "testosterone monopoly." Anthem is not only for fans of the cello and new music but for anyone tired of stale, preformulated patterns. --Thomas May