Eclecticism on Parade

Friday night's concert of the ensemble Adesso at Old First Church showcased an eclectic selection of music. The pieces programmed doubtless had little in common, but the quality of the playing made the evening hang together nevertheless.

Howard Hersh's Loop, the concert opener, was a strange bird. Sparkling textures streamed forth in one of three flavors: statuesque stillness, developmental transience, and a rhythmic groove reminiscent of Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint. Stillness led off, with the piano's consonant undulations extended by punctuations in the vibes that floated through musical space. From the cello an idyllic melody emerged and repeated, appearing frozen in time as if the beginning of Stravinsky's Petrouchka were slowed down and stripped of its jarring juxtapositions. Developmental activity then drifted into more dissonant waters, becoming an island of turbulence and eluding a decisive climax in favor of folding in on itself. The grooving middle section was the tastiest of the flavors, possibly because the vitality of the interlocking parts made it sound like it could loop forever. The rest of the first half consisted of text settings by Adesso member Rick Kvistad, mostly modest character pieces that nicely blended the ensemble into a backdrop for soprano Catherine Seidel to deliver the text with clarity and control. Kvistad's keen lyrical writing gave Seidel plenty to work with, but in his setting of Haryette Mullen's "Sleeping With the Dictionary," the soprano, despite being miked, was drowned out by the jazzy percussion accompaniment. Unfortunately, the text was not printed in the program, so it was difficult to surmise what the composer was after. "Power Chords," the first movement of Michael Gandolfi's Cable Ready, was a strong start to the second half. Particularly noteworthy was the balance between cellist Victoria Ehrlich and pianist Josephine Gandolfi in the hard-driving bass riffs that eventually fanned out toward more intimate, contrasting territory. When the movement ended, I was left wondering why the entire piece wasn't performed, especially given the intriguing title of the second movement: "The All-Interval Tetrachord Blues."

Flash From Xylophone and Marimbas

Luanne Warner Katz' masterful playing of George Hamilton Green's Valse-Brillante and Xylophonia was a real crowd pleaser. Green (b. 1893) was an American xylophone virtuoso whose flashy music is more likely to be heard in a percussion studio, and even then in an arrangement for piano accompaniment. Here, four marimbas accompanied the xylophone, and the carefully cultivated sounds achieved by the ensemble defied description. Even in electronic music, I don't think I've ever heard a sound as unique as five mallet instruments playing chords in perfect rhythmic unison in dead strokes — that is, striking the bar and keeping the mallet on it to deaden the sound. Additionally, the precision and freedom with which the group could stretch time in the waltz added a layer to the music that must have been one of the original draws of hearing Green himself perform. John Cage's Third Construction ended the concert, and hearing it live puts to rest that passive-aggressive question disingenuously and tirelessly trotted out by envious, anxiety-stricken artists: That is, why are Cage's ideas more interesting than his music? This line of questioning is of course gobbledygook, and the unceasing urgency of this piece testifies to that. But more impressive than the relentless motivic and timbral transformations is the thoughtful manner in which Cage lets the music unfold. This was clear when conch shell player Adam Luftman finally added his horn call to the mix. Cage leaves space afterward for our memory of that strange and precious sound to influence what we've been hearing in the ensemble, coloring our perception so that remnants of the sonic event start to appear like musical holograms in the rattles, metal buckets, and everything else on stage that's being beaten and shaken. I'm not sure Cage's music has anything at all in common with the ragtime music that preceded it, nor any of the music from the first half for that matter. But the musicality among the members of Adesso is something that listeners can take for granted. Consequently, we can easily question George Hamilton Green's status as a "novelty" composer, and make the "Cage-fighters" quietly submit to the music, if only for the duration of the performance.