Matthew Aucoin: Orphic Moments
BMOP/sound

Gail Kubik: Symphony Concertante
BMOP/sound

On the back panel of every release from the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's BMOP/sound label appears text clarifying that it was founded to, in part, provide access to both “rediscovered classics of the 20th century and the music of today's most influential and innovative composers.” Two recent releases reflect that aim, with one dedicated to the work of Gail Kubik (1914-84) and the other to Matthew Aucoin (b. 1990). BMOP is joined by guests on both releases, five additional players on Kubik's and the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) for the Aucoin.

In the words of BMOP Artistic Director Gil Rose, “Gail Kubik is a name mostly forgotten now, and yet he is an award-winning composer of both classical and film music”; true enough, Kubik qualifies as a composer whose name could be lost to history were it not for an organization like BMOP. In releasing a seventy-minute recording of four concert pieces, the ensemble makes good on its avowed commitment to neglected composers and overlooked works. As Rose also states, Symphony Concertante provides “a great glimpse into American concert music in the mid-20th century.”

Of the four pieces, the half-hour title work is the most substantial in terms of length; however, the two divertimenti and the entertaining Gerald McBoing Boing are as memorable. Frank Kelley (narrator) and Robert Schulz (percussion) enliven the latter, while Vivian Choi (piano), Terry Everson (trumpet), and Jing Peng (viola) are featured soloists on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Symphony Concertante. Two award-winning scores the Oklahoma-born Kubik wrote for films in the ‘50s appear on the release. He collaborated with Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) on the short animated film Gerald McBoing Boing and later made it into a concert piece with narration. Symphony Concertante recycles material from Kubik's score to the 1949 thriller C-Man and was successfully resurrected in 2016 when Choi, Peng, and Everson joined BMOP for a live performance.

Kubik himself said that his “two divertimenti try to be just that: diverting and gay.” Written in the late ‘50s, each is a multi-part suite containing concise movements, with the material diverse in tone yet generally marked by exuberance and melodic vibrancy. Scored for thirteen players, Divertimento No. 1 opens with a carnival-esque “Overture” whose spiritedness endears. The work's playful character carries over into the “Humoresque” and bustling “Scene Change” before the music calms for the painterly evocation “Seascape” and returns to boisterousness for “Burlesque.” The second divertimento, this one for eight players, is a tad less flamboyant though hardly less appealing. Again a spirited “Overture” initiates the ride, but this time it's followed by two pastorales, both soothing and abundant in woodwinds. Whereas the “Scherzino (Puppet Show)” is agitated in its evocation of a 'Punch and Judy' show, the “Dialogue” between oboe and viola that follows is contemplative and serene. Like the first divertimento, the second concludes on a buoyant high with “Dance Toccata.”

As fun as they are, they don't hold a candle to Gerald McBoing Boing, which is charm incarnate. Naturally cartoonish, the fourteen-minute piece—notwithstanding Kelley's theatrical narration—features percussion so prominently (in the second half especially), it resembles a mini-concerto for solo percussion. The story concerns a little boy, Gerald McCloy, who doesn't speak in words but in percussive sounds, which thus affords Schulz a magnificent showcase when he presents the boy's noise-making with timpani, wood block, cymbal, toy glockenspiel, bass drum, and gong. It's not only percussion of course; Kubik's score is rich in woodwinds, strings, and horns too and reflects a rather Stravinsky-esque quality in its writing—not the only time on the recording that happens.

In the Symphony Concertante, Kubik aimed “to reconcile the large-scale expressive demands of a symphony with the virtuoso exhibitionist demands of the concerto form,” a goal assuredly met by the work. Marked “Fast, vigorously,” the opening movement sees an orchestral opening segue into an extensive solo piano episode and then concurrent turns by the other soloists. The chamber-like presentation, jazz-tinged syncopations, and emphasis on viola and trumpet call to mind L'histoire du soldat, though Kubik's work eschews the narration element that's so central to Stravinsky's. The delicate second movement, on the other hand, recalls Copland in its nostalgic longing, and its introspective feel is bolstered by Kubik's decision to feature the soloists alone for much of it. The rousing finale reinstates the spirited energy of the opening, with virtuosic playing called upon from the violinist and trumpeter and the pianist draping jagged chords across flurries of strings and horns.

That Kubik's work isn't better known today is a shame, especially when it bears such a distinctive personal stamp and is so full of melody, colour, and rhythm. As welcome is its occasional irreverence, especially when the element of fun is typically downplayed in classical writing. Rose and the BMOP deserve credit for helping to reacquaint listeners with his name and work, and any concert set-list featuring Gerald McBoing Boing would be sure to bring smiles to audience members.

In the prodigiously gifted department, we have Matthew Aucoin, a wunderkind in the tradition of Thomas Adès. A scan of the dates for the seven works presented on Orphic Moments shows the earliest was composed in 2014 when he was but twenty-four and most of the others a year or two later. The list of his accomplishments is eye-opening: a graduate of Harvard College and The Juilliard School and an accomplished pianist, Aucoin was the youngest Assistant Conductor in the history of the Metropolitan Opera and was Artist-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Opera from 2016 to 2020. In addition to concertos, vocal music, and orchestral works, Aucoin's credits include the operas Crossing, Second Nature, and Eurydice, the latter of which was recently premiered to acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera. He's also the co-founder of the AMOC, which receives co-billing with the BMOP on the release. By any measure, what this young American composer has done in his first thirty years is staggering.

In some ways, Orphic Moments functions as an AMOC calling-card, considering that every track features at least one member of the company and that much of the music was written for its artists. Aucoin notes that he composed his violin sonata, Its Own Accord, with the sound of Keir GoGwilt's violin playing in his head and that the character of This Earth and The Orphic Moment is in part attributable to the fact that he was writing for countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. He also had Paul Appleby's honey-toned tenor in mind during the writing of Exodos for Tony, the album's opening piece. Set to James Merrill's “Tony: Ending the Life,” the work confronts the AIDS-related death in 1993 of the writer's friend Tony Parigory, a gesture that predated Merrill's own death less than two years later. With the tenor joined by Aucoin on piano and the BMOP, the work is suitably elegiac and distinguished by the composer's tailoring of the music's character to the extreme emotional states recounted in the poem. Note, for example, the darkness that shadows the music as the singer intones “Slowly the room grows dark.”

Separating it and the first disc's other vocal work, The Orphic Moment, is Aucoin's mammoth piano concerto, this one featuring pianist Conor Hanick. Towering over the other two movements is the eighteen-minute opener, which swells forebodingly against a blustery backdrop of military drumming and orchestral surges that understandably calls Shostakovich to mind. Navigating a path across threatening terrain, the piano seeks to stabilize itself amidst the tumultuous forces that threaten it at every turn. After that tempestuous beginning, the peaceful tone, pulsing piano chords, and gentle strings of the second movement provide a welcome antidote; at work's end, urgency permeates the final movement when the momentum of the piano part's bolstered by the insistence of the orchestra (Aucoin even works in a few bite-sized nods to Glass-styled minimalism).

Closing out disc one is The Orphic Moment, with Costanzo and GoGwilt respectively adopting the roles of the Greek mythical figures Orpheus and Eurydice for this otherworldly cantata. Costanzo's haunting voice lends itself effectively to capturing what Orpheus is experiencing before glancing back at his lover and thereby losing her to the Underworld; GoGwilt's pleading violin expressions likewise convey Eurydice's desperation and anguish as awareness of the couple's fate crystallizes. Interestingly, the work builds towards the moment of Orpheus's head turn, which comes at the work's end.

The AMOC half begins with Its Own Accord, a three-part sonata for violin and piano that again features GoGwilt and Aucoin. Performed passionately by the pair, the work frames two pithy explorations with an extended slow movement that's at times reminiscent of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Another duet follows Its Own Accord, this one a single-movement work titled Dual and featuring cellist Coleman Itzkoff and double bassist Doug Balliett squaring off in an intense groove-driven workout. Set to a passage from Dante's Purgatorio, This Earth pairs Costanzo and Aucoin, the former fully exposed in his emotional expression and the latter empathetic and sensitive in support. At recording's end is the five-part Gallup (Na'Nizhoozhí), an evocative fifteen-minute tribute to Gallup, New Mexico that incorporates verses by Jake Skeets and involves eight AMOC members, including violinist Miranda Cuckson, vocalists Costanzo and bass-baritone Davóne Tines, and Aucoin in the role of conductor.

For anyone coming to his music for the first time, Orphic Moments offers a thorough account of his wide-ranging interests and adventurous sensibility, and the recording has extra value in featuring first-time recordings of its seven pieces. Still, while there is much to like and admire about the result, it's hard to resist thinking he might have been better served by a single-disc presentation rather than a double set pushing slightly past 110 minutes. Had that strategy been adopted, the release's strongest selections could have been presented and a stronger impression left by a more modest survey. Arguing for the double-disc presentation is the fact that the release splits its material into halves, with BMOP's orchestral performances on the first followed by the AMOC's chamber pieces on the second. That said, a single CD release featuring a mix of performances by the two ensembles would have been conceivable too.

March 2022