After being on hiatus last year due to the pandemic, Ojai Music Festival just completed four days of innovative, progressive and a smattering of traditional programming and also offered live streaming of concerts at Libbey Bowl via their website. Of course the Festival celebrated its 75th anniversary with surprises like the world premiere of Dylan Mattingly’s Sunt Lacrimae Rerum, west coast premiere of Samuel Adams Chamber Concerto, the son of John Adams, the Festival’s 2021 Music Director and other works such as – Caroline Shaw’s Plan & Elevation, played by Attacca Quartet and selections from the recording I Still Play with Timo Andres. Shaw’s music and Andres’ pianistic prowess seemed intriguing enough to offer a review of two recordings that highlight their talent – Orange and I Still Play, both on the Nonesuch label.
In Orange, Shaw’s compositional approach is engaging, inviting and relies on a core of tonality that is pleasing to the ear as well as experimental in its exploration of harmonic and rhythmic sequences. In 2013 she was the youngest recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in Music for the work Partita for 8 Voices. Now, at 39 years old and on the faculty of NYU she churns out compelling albums, collaborates with artists such as Renee Fleming, Dawn Upshaw and is a violinist member of Roomful of Teeth – a vocal band whose new release Fall Into Me was recorded in a seven-story high steel water tank in Colorado.
Attacca Quartet won a Grammy last year for their performance on the album Orange because their interpretation of the six pieces is brilliant, precise, resonant, and provides a sense of inspiration throughout. If there are takeaways to Shaw’s style it is the use of pizzicato flittering on open strings and harmonics, pure and drone sounding chordal intervals, sonority found in string works of Beethoven and Haydn, flamingo-like strumming, serene melodic motives - effects that make these works so vibrant and unique.
The main work, Plan & Elevation is based on five garden related themes of which The Ellipse opens with a simple three note descending melody that is taken up and harmonized by all players, until patterns of animated perpetual motion emerge. The Herbaceous Border and The Orangery feature imitative and reflective interactions between violin and cello, dissolving into a sound world of intense humming. In fact, there is a beehive of sonic fluttering going on in several other pieces such as Entr’acte, Valencia and Limestone & Felt with its almost Moorish tinge, but Shaw beautifully infuses the darting from high to low points of the line with mysterious nuances that punctuate the restless mood, which is skillfully conceived by Attacca Quartet members.
I found Punctum a fascinating montage of contrapuntal patterns and snippets from Bach’s chorale O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden and Ritornello 2.sq.2.J.A. draws out pizzicato Morse Code motives that linger and embellish the organic atmosphere of this work. Didn’t Beethoven or someone similar say that one should learn the rules before attempting to surpass them? Caroline Shaw is a composer for the 21st century.
I Still Play is a homage to Bob Hurwitz, the former president of Nonesuch Records for over thirty years of which each of the eleven piano works are either composed or played by artists Hurwitz had signed or worked with at Nonesuch. Under his leadership, this label has produced traditional and trending repertoire composed and performed by a far-ranging roster of artists. While the idea of musical tribute or dedication is not new, some of the selections on this disc are miniaturized gems contributed by the following contemporary music specialists:
Timo Andres, Oscar winning songwriter Randy Newman, electronic music innovator Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich, John Adams, Philip Glass, Louis Andriessen, Donnacha Dennehy (recent Guggenheim Fellowship recipient), jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, Nico Muhly and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau (2020 Grammy award winner for best jazz instrumental album Finding Gabriel).
These pieces provide an introduction to the compositional techniques by composers of our time of which there are certain identifiable techniques such as elliptical repetitions, elusive, new age or impressionistic harmonies, plucking intonations, rotating intervallic patterns and scale fragments that end as soon as they begin. John Adams’ I Still Play is a finesse piece for its mixture of mesmerizing and innovative sentimentality, performed by new music devote Jeremy Denk and fasten your seat belt for Dutch minimalist Louis Andriessen’s new age etude-like Rimsky or La Monte Young with its pop cork ending. Other notable moments include a lovely Irish folk melody inflected 42 Years of Metheny, played by Brad Mehldau, the prepared piano alterations of Dennehy’s Her Wits (About Him) and Newman’s 50 second La ci darem la mano aria inspired Recessional, played by the composer.
Andres gives commanding performances of seven of the eleven selections including his own Wise Words, a piano concerto styled melange of jazzy patterns, as well as works by Andriessen and Dennehy. Andres has embraced new music repertoire in concerts and recordings including last year’s online premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Imaginary Pancake and his own composition Early to Rise, given a world premiere by Attacca Quartet. These two discs offer some fascinating listening and while I don’t find their music as aesthetically disruptive as Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps or even the wild syncopation of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, two of the most creative works ever, these composers reflect the sounds and ideas of music of our time.