Search results: Search results
86 results
Products
-
-
-
Part: Magnificat & Stabat Mater / Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche
Brilliant Classics · May 2019CD$17.99 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Dvorak: String Quintet & Piano Quintet / Masurenko, Triendl, Vogler Quartett
CPO · Sep 2016CD$18.99 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Bach: Partitas & Sonatas BWV 1001-1006 / Sigiswald Kuijken
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi · Jul 2010CD$29.99 -
-
-
Part: Magnificat & Stabat Mater / Koetsveld, Le Nuove Musiche
-----
REVIEW:
There are plenty of first-rate recordings of these works available, particularly the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, but who’s going to complain about a new one that delivers a slightly different perspective–that is, one created by a minimal vocal ensemble (eight voices), well-tailored to Pärt’s famously minimal scoring? The voices are (happily) very well-matched, and their favorable blend and balance often leads you to forget how many (or few) of them there are. You just enjoy the sound—both for its fullness and textural clarity, as well as for the special quality that comes from a handful rather than a roomful of compatible voices resonating.
While the Magnificat, Nunc dimittis, and Maria antiphons are all finely sung, the Stabat Mater—heard less frequently, probably due to its uncommon scoring for three voices and three strings—is the highlight, showing in luminous detail the beauty of particular voices—soprano Wendy Roobol, alto Hugo Naessens, and tenor Falco van Loon (great names, all!)—as well as the three singers’ exceptional technical and interpretive mastery. I was not familiar with this ensemble, Le Nuove Musiche, before, and its earlier claim to fame is a 12-disc set of Monteverdi madrigals. All available clues suggest that this is a Netherlands-based group, but good luck trying to find out much at the ensemble’s website: strewn with an odd and unhelpful mix of (mostly) Dutch and (occasional) English, its contents are certain to leave most sincerely inquisitive browsers frustrated and still uninformed. There is virtually no information about the group—other than a composite of individual head-shot photos—in the disc’s liner notes.
Oh well. The music and the singing are very good, and give no reason to disappoint either the newcomer or the experienced Pärt listener, even if there’s nothing here in the performances of the Magnificat, Nunc dimittis, and antiphons that elevates them beyond the existing reference versions. If you happen to be new to Pärt’s music you will find a substantial commentary on various works in our reviews archive, from which an excerpt, describing some of the music’s unique characteristics, concludes this review:
“The bias toward minor thirds in both melodic and harmonic contexts, the pervasive use of antiphonal choral effects, the chord inversions that give a sense of suspended time, the slow-moving harmonic changes unbound by traditional metrical or temporal constraints–all of these in some way define Pärt’s post-1976 music. But ultimately, the proof is in receptive, un-analytical listening, and no matter how many times you hear Pärt’s works, each time you’re somehow carried beyond an expected esthetic experience to a more spiritual place–whether you want to be or not.”
– ClassicsToday (David Vernier)
BLUE NOTE PLAYS RAY CHARLES / VARIOUS
Michael Ellison: A triptych of transcultural operas
TIME 2 GROOVE
L'Amour et la Mort
Notorious RBG in Song / Michaels, Kuang-Hao Huang
Soprano Patrice Michaels, “a formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker), and collaborative pianist extraordinaire Kuang-Hao Huang offer Notorious RBG in Song, an album of world-premiere recordings saluting the life and work of legal pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg in celebration of her completion of 25 years on the United States Supreme Court. Ginsburg, a longtime crusader for equal rights, has become a pop culture icon known as “Notorious RBG.”
Michaels, a vocalist of “spectacular and diverse gifts” (Journal of Singing) is also a gifted composer. Her nine-song cycle, ‘The Long View’, illuminates key aspects of Justice Ginsburg’s personal and professional life through letters, remembrances, conversations, and even Court opinions. The album concludes with songs by American composer Stacy Garrop, winner of many prestigious awards and commissions; JUNO Award-winning Canadian composer Vivian Fung; prolific art-song composer Lori Laitman; and an aria from Derrick Wang’s new comic opera, Scalia/Ginsburg.
American composer Stacy Garrop, recipient of many prestigious awards and commissions, based her deeply moving “My Dearest Ruth” on the farewell love letter the Justice’s husband, Georgetown University law professor Martin Ginsburg, wrote shortly before his death in 2010. The aria “You are Searching in Vain for a Bright-Line Solution,” from Derrick Wang’s opera Scalia/Ginsburg, which captured widespread media attention, crystallizes Justice Ginsburg’s views on interpreting the U.S. Constitution. JUNO Award-winning Canadian composer Vivian Fung’s humorous “Pot Roast à la RBG” provides directions for preparing the beef dish, using Justice Ginsburg’s own words as related in the text by daughter Jane Ginsburg. Prolific art-song composer Lori Laitman’s setting of the Emily Dickinson poem “Wider than the Sky” wasn’t written with Ginsburg in mind, but it was performed at her 80th birthday celebration because it perfectly embodied her intellectual breadth.
REVIEW:
This is a difficult production to review, not just because Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become such a significant figure in modern American life, but because the range of her achievements—whether as a jurist or as a wife, mother, opera maven, attorney, professional colleague and feminist icon—resists purely musical treatment. That’s not a reason to hesitate in offering her this lovingly produced tribute. Like RBG herself, who responded to the notion that women had no place in the legal profession by going ahead and doing it anyway, Cedille General Manager Jim Ginsburg (her son) and singer Patrice Michaels (her daughter-in-law) have taken the plunge with evident gusto.
The main item here is The Longview, an imposing portrait of RBG in nine songs composed by Michaels for voice and piano in an attractive, post-modern tonal idiom. There are vivid and beautiful numbers here, especially the central Anita’s Story, a wonderful tale of the power of Ginsburg’s words to change a life; but for many listeners the main interest will lie in the eighth song’s quotations of Ginsburg’s own legal opinions. Imagine setting this to music to get an idea of what Michaels is up to: “I have said before and reiterate here that only an ostrich could regard the supposedly neutral alternatives as race unconscious.” What results from this effort is not so much a conventional song cycle as a theater piece—I could readily imagine it staged, particularly as Michaels, whose voice is hardly conventionally beautiful but whose intelligent artistry is beyond question, performs it here.
The remainder of the program consists of four songs by four different composers, all inspired by RBG’s life and legend. Vivian Fung’s “Pot Roast à la RBG” is the most amusing; Stacy Garrop’s “My Dearest Ruth”, a love letter written by husband Martin Ginsburg from his death bed, is the most touching. I suspect that more than a few tears were shed both here and elsewhere during this project. Through it all, Michaels receives ideally sensitive support from pianist Kuang-Hao Huang, while Cedille’s engineering, as usual, is first class. The final impression that emerges is a portrait of a family as much as of an individual—a very remarkable family indeed. I suspect that RBG may regard this as her greatest achievement of all.
– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)
From Windsor with Love / The Queen's Six
The Queen's Six return to Signum with a new album of romantic pop song arrangements. Conceived with US producer TJ Armand, the album of new a cappalla arrangements sets traditional classics such as Bob Dylan’s "Make you feel my love," and Young and Heyman’s "When I fall in love," next to more unusual songs such as Huey Lewis and the News’ "The Power of Love," and Limahl’s "Never Ending Story." Based at Windsor Castle, the members of The Queen's Six make up half of the Lay Clerks of St George's Chapel, whose homes lie within the Castle walls.
The Chapel Choir, which consists of boy trebles and twelve professional adult singers, performs some eight services a week, as well as at private and state occasions, often before the Royal Family. In 2018, their duties with the Chapel Choir included singing for the wedding of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. In 2021, three members of the group’s voices were raised at the funeral for His Royal Highness Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh. Their repertoire extends far beyond the reach of the choir stalls: from austere early chant, florid Renaissance polyphony, lewd madrigals, and haunting folk songs, to upbeat jazz and pop arrangements.
MONK ALONE: COMP COLUMBIA SOLO STUDIO RECORDINGS
Music For You - Skempton: Piano Works / John Tilbury
This disc, reissued in Sony's beautifully packaged 'Music for You' series, highlights the contemporary British composer Howard Skempton at his best and most idiomatic. While his creative peak, to date, is perhaps represented by his orchestral masterpiece Lento, these miniatures are probably more representative of his body of work as a whole and share with Lento a profound ability to communicate with their audience. Simplicity is the key here, and the composer's own booklet notes, while bearing little resemblance to the usual track by track commentary, divide the pieces into two types - chorale-like or landscapes. In one sense, I can see the logic at work here but the music encompasses so much more than that stark description could ever do.
The quintessential pianist for experimental British music of this vintage, John Tilbury, not only finds within himself performances that commune completely with works he is playing, but also contributes a second, highly perceptive booklet note. The composers he chooses to compare are American (Cage and Feldman) but I would add that anyone fond of the piano miniatures by the likes of Sculthorpe or Pärt will find much to please them here. Beyond that, I can, predictably I suppose, hear the ghost of Satie, by turns playful and solemn, at work as well.
This is a recital disc first and foremost and it would be wrong to overanalyse and isolate too many individual elements, some of which might be diminished by separation but certain tracks/pieces I cannot let pass me by without particular mention. The opening tribute to Skempton's teacher Cornelius Cardew is a friendly, unpretentious homage, whereas the extraordinary music, collected here as Images, written for a TV series about photography, places Skempton in the wider context of the English tradition with its incorporation of The Cockfight (a stunningly beautiful realisation) and, not for the first time with this composer, a version of The Keel Row. The Durham Strike reminds us that Skempton is not, unlike many of his contemporaries and, indeed, predecessors, detached from the real world but succeeds in its attempts at the transmutation of the daily grind into something more noble. These ears hear everything from Irish caoines to French impressionism in five and a half minutes of true genius.
Most of these pieces were written between 1970 and 1981, although they are not individually dated, and now it is surely time that Skempton gains the recognition he so richly deserves. Like the often very similarly inspired, though more "rock" aware music of Brian Eno's younger brother Roger, it positively bleeds artistic integrity and is what really ought to be playing on Classic FM's "chillout" sessions, rather than the pseudo-filmic ephemera of Einaudi et al. Absolutely essential, it reminds me of so many things I love in music, from the vaults of the ECM back catalogue to the contents of Singing Together I learnt as a child thirty years ago, this disc is a hymn to life itself.
-- Neil Horner, MusicWeb International
Sorabji: 100 Transcendental Studies Vol 1 - Nos 1-25 / Fredrik Ullen
SORABJI 100 Transcendental Studies: Nos. 1?25 ? Fredrik Ullén (pn) ? BIS CD-1373 (71:11)
?Our highest insights must?and should?sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for them? Nietzsche notes in Beyond Good and Evil , 30. Yes?and like drunkenness, mania, delirium, ferocity, black magic, malice?seduction, if one is a composer of startling originality. Fredrik Ullén herewith joins the small band of ?predisposed and predestined? pianistic supermen who have opened the adytum on Sorabji?s hermetic soundscapes?Marc-André Hamelin, John Ogdon, Geoffrey Douglas Madge, Michael Habermann, Kevin Bowyer, Jonathan Powell?casting up fragments of his stupendous, visionary ?uvre compellingly before us. For Hamelin, that?s true in a practical sense as well?Ullén thanks him, with Simon Abrahams and Alexander Abercrobie, for editing the Studies because ?Sorabji?s manuscripts, while calligraphically beautiful, are in general not readable enough to be useful for the performer.?
This first installment of the 100 Transcendental Studies , composed over 1940?44, suggests a more or less systematically pithy inventory of oddments comprising the Sorabji manner and its technical means, most playing a minute or two, the longest just under six. If music is, in an essential sense, for musicians, and the pleasure non-musicians derive from it a happy consequence, this relation of music to a putative audience is raised to a power in Sorabji: Busoni remarked to Bernard van Dieren?composers Sorabji admired intensely and lovingly eulogized??We must make the texture of our music such that no amateur can touch it.? The ?texture? of Sorabji?s music is such that even the well-trained professional may suffocate in it. The point is not that Sorabji is difficult to play and we?re obliged to applaud those who can bring his pieces off, but that his fantastication is such that few listeners possess the apperceptive mass?the background of associations and perceptions with which his music is in dialogue?to grasp it. For instance, the way Sorabji simply sidestepped the ?Tonal oder Atonal? obsession of his time with the sovereign caress of 10 fingers on a keyboard demonstrates that there is a richly substantial world elsewhere. Sorabji?s music does, indeed, possess sensuous appeal?cheek-by-jowl with intentionally rebarbative imprecations. Ullén?s indispensable annotations prompt the ear:
4. (Scriabinesco) Soave e con tenerezza nostalgica is an arabesque and a loving meditation on Scriabin?s B major étude, Op. 8, No. 4. There are some interesting polymetric experiments in the later section.
6. (untitled) The 100 Transcendental Studies contain études in parallel lines for each possible interval. This is the first one in seconds with rich use of 3:4 polyrhythms. A scintillating will-o?-the-wisp étude in the romantic tradition.
9. Staccato e leggiero . A remarkably modern piece for its time. Both hands play staccato chords, first in perfect asynchrony, later on with irregular alternations between the hands. Frequently Sorabji has one hand play only on white keys and the other only on black keys, a device used much later by, for example, György Ligeti.
20. Con fantasia . One of Sorabji?s refined, mysterious nocturnes . . .
22. Leggiero volante e presto assai . The piece explores an interesting new device for pianistic fireworks: glissandi on chords. A quick hazardous piece that passes by leaving you wondering what really happened.
For those of a logical or mathematical bent, the philosopher Kenneth Derus glosses Sorabji with an exploration of the metaphysics of memory reminiscent of Alfred North Whitehead at his most punctilious. And that?s to say that if you?ve read this far, you are either a Sorabji insider?to whom this will be sine qua non ?or a candidate for initiation. Sound is closely detailed and immediate?uncramped?with neither ambience nor reverberance.
FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis
IN CONCERT AT THE OLD MILL INN
LITTLE GIRL BLUE
BASS ON TOP
CLUB ZANZIBAR BROADCASTS - LIVE FROM NY, 1945
Dvorak: String Quintet & Piano Quintet / Masurenko, Triendl, Vogler Quartett
Following the successful edition featuring Dvorák's complete string quartets, the Vogler Quartet releases more chamber music by this composer. During the course of his life Dvorák penned more than forty works for chamber ensemble. While most of his symphonies are most famous, they were often "sandwiched' between numberous chamber works.
REVIEW:
It is always an unexpected and very special surprise to receive a disc of very familiar works you already have multiple recordings of and have heard countless times, but one of such singular beauty that it causes you to fall in love with the music all over again, as if you were hearing it for the first time. Such is the magic of these performances of Dvořák’s String Quintet in E♭-Major and Piano Quintet in A Major, op. 81—I include the distinguishing opus number here because the composer wrote an earlier piano quintet in the same key, designated op. 5.
I’m not usually at a loss for words, but there’s not much else I can say other than that these are the most enrapturing performances of these two works I’ve ever heard, either live or on record. The balance between the instruments is such that tiny details emerge that one simply doesn’t hear in other recordings.
— Fanfare (Jerry Dubins)
JAZZ MONEY
All Of Me
COLLECTION: 1947-62
TIMES ARE CHANGING
OTIS BLUE: OTIS REDDING SINGS SOUL
CONSECRATION 1
Arise my love - Music for the Break of Day
Bach: Partitas & Sonatas BWV 1001-1006 / Sigiswald Kuijken
BACH Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (complete) • Sigiswald Kuijken (vn) • DEUTSCHE HARMONIA MUNDI 77043 (2 CDs: 128:22)
British musicians of the tempo-strict style have so dominated the historically informed performance scene that I fear many listeners have forgotten that there were other schools of thought vying for public support during the 1970s and early 1980s. Dutch musicians were, in contrast to many English and some Americans, more concerned with inflection, rubato, a singing tone, and what modern Yuppies call a “holistic” approach. They bound the solving of technical problems to matters of interpretive individuality. The primary, but not the only, musicians of this school were harpsichordist-conductor Gustav Leonhardt, recorder player Franz Brüggen, and the Kuijken family: Sigiswald (violin), Wieland (viola da gamba), Barthold (flute and recorder), and Piet (celesta and harpsichord). Sister Marie was also sometimes in the picture as a mezzo-soprano. All of the principal movers and shakers of the Dutch school (excepting Marie Kuijken, of course) were present and accounted for on Leonhardt’s groundbreaking recording of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos in 1975. It was a statement of musical principle even more so than a performance that proved a HIP orchestra could not only play in tune, but also could clarify the textures of orchestral playing better than most modern-instrument groups.
Yet it was this groundbreaking album featuring one solitary instrument that burst on the HIP world like a bombshell in 1983. Up to that point, it had been assumed that Bach’s solo violin works could only be performed in a more-or-less angular style, that the counterpoint and different “voices” of the music dictated their tempo, contour, and shape. Sigiswald Kuijken proved everyone wrong. He even proved that you could indeed play the Baroque violin without holding it either against the chin or chest, but against the shoulder; that the bow pressure need not be as loose as the Dolmetsch family had insisted, nor as hard as the British insisted; and that the musical style could be curved, even circular in general motion, rather than linear. That this may very well have been the way Bach conceived these works is further suggested by the single page of the manuscript reproduced in the record’s booklet. Bach never wrote the stems or flags of his 16th, 32nd, or 64th notes in a straight line, not even as approximately straight as Mozart and Beethoven did. They were as curvy and irregular as a roller-coaster ride.
I can still remember, in generalities, the lengthy, well-written, and extremely persuasive review of this recording by William Malloch, possibly America’s greatest musicologist, in a 1983 issue of Ovation magazine. In essence, he said (at much greater length) all the things I said in the above paragraph. And he was right. After a hiatus of about three years, when this recording suddenly disappeared from the shelves in 1987, it was issued on CD by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 1990. The fact that it has never left the catalog since is, I think, proof enough of its enormous ability not only to persuade the listener but also please the senses.
Above and beyond all the technical hurdles Kuijken overcame and musical decisions he made, these are performances of tremendous love and passion. This is Bach breaking through the glass ceiling of academia and speaking to us across the centuries. This is immense hard work and musicological research forged in the crucible of one man’s heart and soul and put forth for the world to judge its intrinsic worth. More than a quarter-century after they were recorded in November and December of 1981, they have been judged unassailable—not, perhaps, “definitive” readings, but better than definitive. They opened the doors to other individualistic interpretations, equally valid, none of which have anything to do with Nathan Milstein—fine musician though he was—sawing away in strict tempo and one volume level through them.
FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley
Pictures of America / Dessay
I asked five incredible musicians to arrange them for the Paris Mozart Orchestra, thereby building a bridge between classical music, jazz, and musicals. I then worked to develop a new voice—a deeper and more intimate sound that would whisper into the listener's ear. It was a voice I had to learn to control, like a small, secretive wild animal. I wanted to open things up with "On A Clear Day", which serves as an introduction, and a promise. Next comes a self-deprecating and low-pitched version of "I Feel Pretty" in quintuple time that leads naturally into "I Am A Fool To Want You", a song about someone who is ready to do anything and everything to win over a lost love. "Send In The Clowns" marks the disenchantment of people whose paths cross, but never at the right time. Hope lies just beyond the next bend in the road with "Detour Ahead" followed by "Something's Coming…Maybe Tonight". Next is "Autour de minuit" based on the beautiful poem by Claude Nougaro, which rings with the promise of a brighter tomorrow and of luck that might finally go our way. But the memory of our beloved refuses to fade, and every night we find ourselves back at the counter of a café that echoes with happy memories with "I Keep Going Back To Joe's", except that now it's just us at the bar as we listen to "In My Solitude". It's times like these that make us want to settle down with "A Place You Want To Call Home", but in the end, as "The Two Lonely People" asks, won't we always wind up alone even when we think we have a special someone? What do we have left, then, if not show business? As "There's No Business Like Show Business" tells us, isn't the world just a stage filled? Enjoy your journey through music and paintings with these "Pictures of America"."
-----
REVIEW:
Dessay sounds in great form and uses every trick in the book. She takes aspects of a Streisand-inspired technique. Taking the cover off the voice mid-note and opening the tone right out to its full; or whittling it down to a sexy, Julie London whisper.
– Opera Now
Lau: Under a Veil of Stars / St. John-Mercer-Park Trio
Intimate. Cosmic. Two words that describe not only my ideal musical vision—music that invites us into an experience with the warm; welcoming touch of the familiar; only to then show us the universe—but also the piano trio ensemble itself; which is somehow both very small (three musicians!) and very grand; symphonic even. I am thrilled to have my four piano trios represented on this album; along with a handful of piano trio subsets that I felt complemented these works. I have long been fascinated by music’s ability to transport us; to serve as a bridge to places that lie beyond the scope of everyday experience and language. For me; music offers a glimpse into an emotional and spiritual reality quite distinct from the ordinary; "objective" world. Perhaps unsurprisingly; the theme of childhood—a time of life where these hidden realities are more likely to manifest; in the form of the fantastical—pervades almost every work on this album. Sometimes the connection is explicit; as in the album’s closing work; A Simple Secret (2019); which takes its title and inspiration from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince; a novella I have had the privilege of musically interpreting several times in my career. This gentle piece is a loose adaptation of themes I composed for the film score to Charles Officer’s documentary; Invisible Essence. Over the course of the piece’s six minutes; the violin and cello engage in a ritual of friendship that echoes that of the Fox and the Little Prince in Saint-Exupéry’s fable of childlike wonder; culminating in the Fox’s "simple secret": “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” In my solo piano piece The Dreamer (2017); fantasy is conjured through more abstract means; a single; repeated E-flat provides the foundation for a dazzling kaleidoscope of sound; a metaphor for the sleeping consciousness that dreams entire worlds into being. By the end of the piece; the E-flat has dissipated into a cloud of ethereal filaments. Still more abstract is my Piano Trio No. 1 (2004); an early work whose sparse; mostly serene language was inspired by the sense of meditative awe found in the films of Hayao Miyazaki. On occasion; my affinity for the fantastic takes a surrealistic turn. Composed during the third year of my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto; Timescape Variations (2003) offers an early glimpse into this language. The piece is a theme and variations on A Musical Offering; in which Bach’s restlessly chromatic theme is subjected to a variety of "temporal" variations—stylistically warped episodes that recall Schnittke; though the Brahmsian finale betrays my Romantic side. A darker kind of surrealism—influenced in part by Michael Ende’s short story anthology; Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the Mirror)—emerges in the violin and piano duo If Life Were a Mirror… (2020). Commissioned by violinist Lynn Kuo and finished just weeks before the onset of the pandemic; the title posits a question: To what extent is the world around us a reflection of who we are—our dreams; our anxieties; our nightmares? My response was to construct a phantasmagorical labyrinth; littered with musical artifacts that reflect one another like a hall of mirrors. Some of these artifacts take the form of musical quotations from well-known classical pieces; others are almost-quotations; tip-of-the-tongue references without a specific anchor. Memory plays an antagonistic; slippery role throughout; indeed; a literal memory slip is built into the piece (listen for the violinist’s frustrated collapse several minutes in!). The question of whether there is a reality in this piece; beneath (or beyond) what we have already heard before; is up to the listener to decide. In late 2020; I wrote a set of pieces called Intuitions; which were intended to be played by musician partners who occupied the same social "bubble." One of these ("Intuitions No. 2") was written specifically for cellist Rachel Mercer and her partner; violinist Yehonatan Berick. Conceived as an exploratory dialogue between the two instruments; the piece unfolds like a somewhat unpredictable dance that flickers between multiple stylistic traditions; passionate and playful in equal measure; but one where the partners are always in step. The piece was inspired by; and ultimately dedicated to; Yehonatan and Rachel—and the dance they created together. Yehonatan passed away—suddenly and unexpectedly—shortly after "Intuitions No. 2" was completed; leaving behind a grief-stricken musical community; family; and partner. The centrepiece of this album—the large-scale piano trio Under a Veil of Stars—was commissioned originally by the AYR Trio; which at the time was composed of Angela Park; Yehonatan; and Rachel. Yehonatan’s passing altered not only the constitution of the trio; but the music itself—its materials; structure; and purpose. What began as another fantastical journey became; instead; a tribute to a man; whose legacy of inspiring others I have tried to do musical justice to. It is a memorial painted not in sombre hues (although there are certainly sombre moments) but in vibrant; life-affirming colours. It is a work that embraces lyricism; virtuosity; passion; otherworldliness; and—eventually—a kind of grace that I can attribute only to Yehonatan’s guiding spirit. The trio is structured in three movements which—taken as a whole—suggest a broad life cycle that chronicles childhood; adulthood; and old age. The first movement ("I. The Stars Are Never Still") is based on a short story I wrote in 2021 for my friend’s one-year-old daughter; about a girl who chases (and catches) stars. The music explores the spirit of wonder and adventure associated with childhood; with shimmering textures evocative of sky brimming with stars; as well as the bittersweetness of surrendering something precious to the will of the universe. By contrast; the second movement ("II. Land of Poison Trees") is a distinctly grown-up meditation on resentment and revenge. A fantastical rumination on William Blake’s poem "A Poison Tree," the movement’s scherzo-and-trio form houses a cauldron of musical snakes—queasy string pitch-bends; explosive dissonances; and a driving; propulsive piano part. Brief lyrical episodes and an eerie; "classical" coda suggest the pretense of civility; which often masks the rage beneath. Rabindranath Tagore’s poem "Sail Away" provides the impetus for the third movement; "III. In That Shoreless Ocean…." This movement reflects an earnest (and at times despairing) attempt to grapple with death; with grief; and finally with the possibility of transcendent reunion. The movement spotlights the cello; both in its opening lament; and in the pastoral; Beethovenian chorale which—after a series of exhausting; oceanic crests and troughs—arrives like sunlight upon the shores of a new world. Under a Veil of Stars is dedicated in loving memory to Yehonatan Berick.
