Search - Harvey Sollberger, Robert [Liner Notes] Morris, Robert [4] Hall Lewis :: New Music for Virtuosos

The Mediocre Old Days

jive rhapsodist | NYC, NY United States | 01/07/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Someday we'll all look back and see that the line between Academic Serialism and Academic Minimalism...was a line. Not a radical change. The key word is "Academic". It denotes certain elements. For example, take Sollberger's Sunflowers. It has moments of beauty, moments of audacity, moments of simplicity - a pretty tune, interesting sounds. But the whole framed within such "well - made piece" structure: the shrieking highpoint, the pitch unfolding...This unrelenting "well - madeness" hasn't left us - it's just more modal now, in a groovier rhythm.

Robert Morris' piece Motet on Doo-dah uses the beloved "interaction with vernacular elements" trope - audibly, I might add (pace Kyle Gann!). Just atonally.That's really the only difference from how the "Totalists" do it. Again, cool sounds, to no great end. It's funky in spots, but only in spots. But it arcs like a good "well - made" piece should. Robert Hall Lewis' Inflections is one of those "lets throw in every extended technique possible and wow the squares" kind of pieces. But the free improvising of someone like Mark Dresser - who comes up with something like this in his sleep - has rendered such pieces obsolete. And this one's ENDLESS! Ralph Shapey brings a little more class to the proceedings. Whatever you can say about the guy, he's some sort of master. But he missed a certain point. A piece like Varese's Density achieves some of its goals by a combination of an inexorable structural flow and the presentation of certain events that function like shocks, resisting development.That's why it still rocks us. All of Shapey's strong phrases become "developed" to death. But that's the well-made way: fast music, to get us into it -"wild". Then some slow music: "lyrical". Then back to the dreaded EE-yaw phrase to wrap it all up!

The Imbrie's a snore...good when you have to fill out a Trombone recital, I guess. Robert Erickson's General Speech is the only classic here, the track that makes this CD almost essential. He could have been our Mauricio Kagel if there had been a scene in the US to support such a thing. Aural and gestural imagination - what a relief! And too short by comparison with these well-meaning windbags. Then back to reality with that proto-Third Streamer, William O. "Bill" Smith. A lot of extended techniques. Well, he opened it up - it's still there for SOMEBODY to do genius things with! At this point, I'm done...but I push on. All of these other writers are so excited about Donald Sinta, so I have to check Leslie Bassett's piece out. OK, if classical saxophone is your thing, he's the man...Enough! This CD can certainly function as an excellent teaching tool - you can use it to address this question: when is good compositional technique BAD compositional technique ? No answers here, but lots of interesting questions raised..."