Seed Gathering for a Wintergarden
(Frogville). Taarka
The rejuvenation—and in some cases, reinvention—of the traditional string band during the past few years is one of the most exciting developments in the string world. The Republic of Strings, Crooked Still, and the Mammals are among those string bands that in
recent years have paired virtuosity with youthful energy, playing both old and new tunes on a variety of instrumental groupings.
Taarka fits the bill.
Seed Gathering for a Wintergarden is the fourth album from this Colorado-based quartet: Enion Pelta-Tiller (five-string violin, vocals), Daniel Plane (cello, vocals), David Tiller (mandolin, tenor guitar, vocals), and
Troy Robey (bass, vocals).
The material ranges from the straight-ahead bluegrass of Plane’s original “Michael’s Raindrop” (with strong arco bass lines) to Pelta-Tiller’s intense chamber-folk instrumental “A Whole New You” to a cover of Celtic fiddler Liz Carroll’s “Lost in the Loop.”
There are Gypsy-jazz, bluegrass, Celtic, chamber-folk, jazz, rock, and even Indian influences, all distilled through a gifted group that has toured extensively on the jam-band circuit, but who at its best sounds unlike anyone else in that genre. Taarka’s music is unadulterated by commerciality, unpolished by some standards, but always engaging and even provocative. Case in point: listen to the richly textured chamber-jazz string arrangement, burning rock guitar, and Pelta-Tiller’s aching vocal on “Vestal Flame,” which takes its title and lyrics from Josephine Preston Peabody’s remarkable poem about a spiritual seeker burned by life’s travails.
It’s one of the year’s best songs, comparable to Arcade Fire’s best work.
Violinist Pelta-Tiller, who wrote or
co-wrote five of the 12 tunes on the album, is a classically trained violinist and violist. She attended the Peabody Institute and worked toward a viola performance degree before hopping onboard this musical caravan.
Cellist Plane studied classical music at the Interlochen Academy and later attended the Berklee College of Music, where he studied with Eugene Friesen and Rushad Eggleston. Bassist Robey has played electric bass and studied double bass. He competed in 2007 and 2008 in the international Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho, and won the collegiate-level bass soloist award both years. Together with mandolinist and guitarist Tiller—who honed his chops studying classical and jazz guitar as well as bluegrass mandolin—this eclectic quartet has harvested a bountiful feast of new string-band music.
Benjamin Lees: String Quartets. Cypress String Quartet
(RCA Red Seal)
Commissioning a new work inspired by older works is an unusual way to champion living composers, but that’s how the Cypress String Quartet’s critically acclaimed Call & Response program works. The players—Cecily Ward and Tom Stone, violins; Ethan Finer, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello—select two standard repertoire quartets and “call” on composers to “respond” by writing a new one. Benjamin Lees’ (b. 1924) Fifth Quartet “responded” to Britten and Shostakovich and their influence is clear, especially Shostakovich’s, whose mood swings and contrasts also are characteristic of Lees’ own style.
It is one of three Lees quartets—Nos. 1, 5, and 6—included here.
Formed in 1996 and based in San Francisco, the Cypress Quartet, for whom Lees later wrote his Sixth Quartet, is distinguished by its lovely, transparent, homogeneous tone, flawless balance, and intonation, and by the players’ brilliant individual and ensemble technique. They handle the music’s sound effects, changing tempi and dynamics, rugged rhythms and singing lines with ease and authority; in the Fifth and Sixth Quartets, the scherzos are fleet and ghostly, the slow movements beautiful and expressive. —Edith Eisler
Beethoven Sonatas and Trios.
The Queen’s Chamber Trio
(Bridge)
It’s well known that most string players worth their rosin eventually come to resent hearing how Beethoven put the piano’s name first on the title pages when he published his violin and cello sonatas just because he thought the piano part was more important. The Queen’s Chamber Trio—Robert Zubrycki, violin; Peter Seidenberg, cello; Elaine Comparone, harpsichord—equipped sonically with a 1700 Grancino, the “Ex-Romberg” cello, and a William Dowd replica of a 1720 Blanchet harpsichord, suggests otherwise.
This fascinating two-CD set includes recordings of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata, Op. 5, No. 2; Violin Sonata, Op. 12, No. 1; and Piano Trios, Op. 1, Nos. 1 and 3.
Initially sturdy results give rise to curiosity, then engagement, as if the players were clearing the aural palate. Suddenly, a veil seems to lift and, in particular, the two piano trios give rise to charming stylistic fantasies, impossible with the modern piano, in which harmonic layers and instrumental colors coexist with almost indecent transparency to serve some of the first stirrings of Beethoven’s proud and forceful personality. —Laurence Vittes
Gerber: Chamber Music.
Kurt Nikkanen, violin and viola; Cho-Liang Lin, Cyrus Beroukhim, violins; Brinton Smith, cello; Sara Davis Buechner, piano. (Nonesuch)
The nine short compositions recorded here give an overview of 30 years of the 61-year-old composer Steven R. Gerber’s many-faceted works. The disc offers five virtuosos, including Cho-Liang Lin, an opportunity to display their splendid tone and technique. The acclaimed American violinist Kurt Nikkanen excels on solo violin in the slow, dreamy “Three Songs Without Words” (1986) and the intense, brilliant “Fantasy” (1967), as well as on a solo viola part in the melancholy “Elegy on the Name ‘Dmitri Shostakovich’” (1991). Lin joins him in the calm “Three Pieces for Two Violins” (1997), and all three violinists—including
Cyrus Beroukhim of the award-
winning Fountain Ensemble—team up on “Gershwiniana” (1999), which is more Gerber than Gershwin. Nikkanen and the extraordinary cellist Brinton Averil Smith bring out the changing moods and colors of the virtuosic “Duo for Cello
and Violin” (1969). They reunite with pianist Sara Davis Buechner on “Three Folksong Transformations” (2001), “Notturno” (1996), and “Piano Trio” (1968), in which the many contrasting sections are separated by rests, but the players maintain continuity while underlining the differences. —E.E. |
