Laurie Altman: From Somewhere
Navona Records

When composer Laurie Altman (b. 1944) responded to an interviewer's question, “Where does all this music of yours come from?” with “From somewhere,” he wasn't being cheeky or evasive but instead simply honest in acknowledging the mysterious place from which compositions emerge. As this comprehensive collection of solo piano works shows, the NYC-raised Altman is the kind of artist who lets his muse speak, a composer who, in his own words, is “a heart creator, not a head one.” Form and content are inextricably bound in his music, each needing the other for the result to be meaningful and authentic.

If his music resists easy stylistic capture, there's a reason. While he did study at Mannes College of Music in New York as a composition major and has received numerous awards for his work as a composer and educator—he was the recipient of a University Professors Citation of Excellence from Tufts University in Boston, for example—he's also enjoyed a career as a jazz pianist who's performed with his quintet at clubs and festivals in the United States and abroad. With such a diverse set of experiences to draw upon, Altman, now living in Spiez, Switzerland with his wife, writes music that at any moment might reflect a classical, jazz, or even boogie woogie influence. While some of the pieces on From Somewhere might hew to conventions of the sonata, prelude, and fugue forms, others are works created in response to real-world events that deeply affected him, be it the death of George Floyd, the isolation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, or the war in Aleppo. In creating material that's as indebted to Bach and Bill Evans as Meade Lux Lewis, From Somewhere leaves simple categorization behind.

A more illuminating portrait of the artist would be harder to conceive than this one, as would a better conduit for Altman's creations than pianist Clipper Erickson. An adventurous explorer and dedicated advocate of new music, Erickson developed his technique through studies at The Juilliard School, Yale University, and Indiana University and is currently a faculty member of Westminster Conservatory in Princeton and Temple University in Philadelphia. His first Navona Records release, 2015's My Cup Runneth Over: The Complete Piano Works of R. Nathaniel Dett, was received rapturously, and there's no reason to believe From Somewhere won't be similarly embraced.

The material on the album, recorded in November 2023 at La Prairie Cultural Centre of the Thiébaud-Frey Foundation in Switzerland, is presented non-chronologically. To that end, the set moves from its opening 1991 piece to ones from 2019, 2020, 2018, 2017, 1997, 2019, and so on. Such temporal shifts aren't jarring, however, but instead strengthen the impression of flow. The consummate musicianship of Erickson and the imaginative openness of Altman's writing are both evident in the opening Prelude 17, whose rhythmic vitality and melodic ingenuity make it register memorably despite its brevity. Following it, Twelve Preludes and Fugues is presented in separate halves, with each non-titled component identified by key alone. Altman adheres to a formal design for the work—“up a minor third, back a major second for each set,” in his words—but beyond that gives free rein to his imagination. While the hymn-like “Fugue in C Sharp Minor” is largely pitched at a hush, an occasional moment of playfulness emerges to vary the tone. “Fugue in G Major” is likewise playful but the “Fugue in B Flat Minor” ponderous and sombre. Each part ranges widely in character and mood, introspective at one moment and dynamic at another, with the composer testing out directional possibilities and rhythmic and melodic ideas. In the full work, it's as if the worlds of the classical composer and improvising jazz pianist have merged indissolubly together.

In contrast to Twelve Preludes and Fugues, titles of the movements in 2017's Piano Sonata # 10 “Aleppo” reference the devastation caused by the war and its decimating impact on civilians. Whereas trauma is alluded to in “Ruins” and despair and desolation in the bleak “Center Point, Devastation,” “Scherzo” is naturally animated, the energized gesture perhaps intended to suggest recovery. Feelings of panic, uncertainty, and bewilderment associated with the pandemic's onset are dealt with in Piano Sonata #11 (2018), the lengthy opening movement (“Aggressively, Expressively”) an explorative exercise in emotional extremes, the second (“Chorale and Fugue”) more calming in expressing a tentative sense of hope and renewal.

Altman's music can be deeply affecting, as shown by the tenderness of “Prelude in E Major,” the poetic, almost Satie-like lyricism of That Day—In Memory of George Floyd, and 1997's Bach-like Soliloquy, a touching love song that's surprisingly solemn considering that it was written for his wife. His material can also be wildly unpredictable and mischievous, and in such cases one's best to relax and simply enjoy the places Altman's ruminative music goes. The set concludes on a note of levity with “Boogie,” the opening movement of Sonata # 8 (2014) and Altman's integration of the rousing jazz piano style into a classical context. Listeners schooled in music theory will bring a different appreciation to these pieces than those without such training, but consistent with Altman's view that “one need not understand the construction of a musical work to fully enjoy its content” the recording has much to offer all listeners, not just a single specialized group.

October 2024