LANDSCAPES OF THE MIND
The result of these rivalries is that works by a handful of established composers, commissions by major outfits, and particularly compelling works by up-and-comers might occasionally catch the attention of a wider circle, but most new compositions get only one hearing and are soon forgotten. In Chicago new pieces by Ralph Shapey, Shulamit Ran, and John Eaton may circulate widely, but those by their lesser-known colleagues at DePaul and Roosevelt universities are lucky to get a local premiere. Yet if American composers are generally ignorant of what many of their compatriots are up to, their attitude toward the latest currents in other countries borders on isolationism. And I suspect that the overwhelming majority of Western European composers are similarly ignorant of the contemporary-music scene here.
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Tower and Gentile met for the first time last month at “Landscapes of the Mind,” a concert introducing their recent chamber works and those of other American and Italian women composers, all performed by local musicians. Gentile, who’s in her late 30s, teaches at Rome’s Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where she studied with veteran avant-gardist Goffredo Petrassi. Lately, according to a program note, she’s been trying out shimmering, misty sound textures, and both of her pieces on the program were fascinating explorations in the upper reaches of instrumental range. In Flashback (1984) a flute opens with tentative fluttery gestures in a region way above its usual range. At times it swoops downward, but not for long. Soon it’s joined by a nasal cello. Suddenly their airy, inchoate sparrings turn into the first few measures of “La ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Just as quickly they proceed to deconstruct the familiar duet into a series of terse atonal variations energized by bouts of feverish growls from the cello. Finally they go back to their desultory old ways before fading into nothingness. In Insight (1984) two violins and one viola huddle together, whispering, snarling, wailing, and squealing as if cornered or engaged in a fearful conspiracy. For long stretches their tone is tremulous and pitched high. As a denouement, the viola breaks ranks and sings a cadenza, becoming a solitary and sobering commentator on what has passed. (The sotto voce performance by violist Keith Conant and violinists Katherine Hughes and Thomas Yang was marred by a prolonged interruption from a beeper in the audience.) Both pieces are ingenious exercises in adding fresh and captivating sonorities to a mysterious, highly idiosyncratic conversation game. If I preferred Flashback, it’s because I’m partial to the flute-cello combo and because I was pleasantly startled by the artful intrusion of a Mozart melody.
The American side of the program was also represented by Augusta Read Thomas and Kathleen Ginther. Young, prolific, and a Harvard junior fellow, Thomas is remarkably clever at adapting recognizable 20th-century styles to her own aesthetic purposes. Her one-movement string quartet Streams of Illusion (1987) is based on the “concept of phantasmagoria.” I heard ghostly echoes of Bartok: the piece is sober, intense, and introspective, conveying the sense of morose despair of the slow movement of a Bartok quartet. The performance by Hughes, Yang, Conant, and Cernota complemented Thomas’s meticulous craftsmanship, though it couldn’t lift the music above the impersonality of her intent.
