Garth Baxter: Ask of Me What the Birds Sang
Navona Records

A more satisfying and comprehensive account of Garth Baxter's music than Ask of Me What the Birds Sang would be hard to imagine. Consider: the release features a mix of twelve vocal and instrumental pieces performed by duos, trios, a wind ensemble, a solo pianist, and choir. While variety is a key aspect of the recording, what distinguishes it even more is his writing style. Described as a “modern traditionalist,” he's a tonal composer whose works are unabashedly lyrical and melodic; Baxter isn't a hard-liner, however: an unusual harmonic gesture or smattering of dissonance will appear if the material calls for it.

While Baxter, born in Philadelphia in 1946, is recognized as a composer of art songs, his talents extend into instrumental writing, both areas of which are well-accounted for on the release and which were separately emphasized on earlier ones: his 2018 set Ask the Moon features works for voice and piano; Resistance, which followed a year later, presents Baxter's instrumental side. The two areas re-align on Ask of Me What the Birds Sang when its five art songs, choral setting, and seven instrumental pieces all have song connections. Baxter reveals that sometimes music themes, rhythms, and harmonies arise during the writing of an art song that don't work with the vocal piece, which then prompts him to explore them in a purely instrumental form.

Ask of Me What the Birds Sang wouldn't have the impact it does if the performers weren't such an impressive bunch, but that they assuredly are, from soprano Katie Procell and mezzo-soprano Christine Thomas to The Patagonia Winds, the Kühn Choir of Prague, and the many other instrumentalists that take part. Procell, scheduled to sing the title role in the video premiere of Baxter's opera Lily, and Lyons introduce the release with Spanish Johnny, its text by Willa Cather and the song itself from Baxter's song cycle From the Heart: Three American Women. Immediately we're exposed to the composer's distinctive handling of harmony and command of melody—consider how beautifully the latter resolves on the words “to his mandolin”—and the song also memorable for the Spanish-tinged character of Lyons' guitar tapestries and Procell's expert handling of Baxter's challenging melodic line.

If the subsequent When Lights Begin to Show exudes rapture, so it should, given that he wrote it to celebrate the marriage of close friends. Lyons this times partners with flutist Karen Johnson and clarinetist Jennifer Tscheulin for a gorgeous trio setting that's as swoon-inducing as they come. It's hard to resist drawing a parallel between the woodwinds and the wedding couple when the instruments intertwine so lovingly. The soundworld expands considerably for The Patagonia Winds' A Jagged Path. Four woodwinds, French horn, and piano give voice to a rhythmically robust set-piece that builds on two themes from Lily and shows the sensitivity with which Baxter weaves distinct instrumental voices into an elegant harmonic whole. Sans piano, the ensemble also performs A Parting Glass, a stirring folk-influenced piece Baxter wrote after a 2016 visit to Ireland.

Accompanied by pianist Valerie Hsu, Procell performs The Long Hill, its text by Sara Teasdale and a superb example of Baxter's art song writing and in particular the way he studiously matches music to a poet's words. The piece that follows, a two-part duet arranged for clarinet and piano, Wrapped in the Wind and the Sun, illustrates how vocal and instrumental pieces connect on the album when the work's second movement directly references The Long Hill. Written for clarinetist Tscheulin, the melancholy chamber setting is given a singing, heartfelt reading by her and pianist Andrew Stewart.

All twelve of the pieces presented impress in one way or another, November 1994 for the heartbreak Thomas, accompanied by Stewart, conveys in her vocal performance of the song (from the cycle Music's Path: Songs from Irish Poets that the mezzo soprano commissioned) and Flirt, performed by Procell and pianist Valerie Hsu, for spotlighting Baxter's humorous side. Songs Without Words in Miniature, six short piano works based on art songs by Baxter, is performed by Bonghee Lee, for whom the work was written. “Hearts as One” finds Baxter at his lyrical best, but others see him venturing into Satie-like dreaminess (“Starry Wondrous Nights”) and jazz-tinged romanticism (“The Night Grew Cold Without”).

As the album nears its close, flutist Johnson partners with pianist Mariko Hiller on The Darkness Between Us, a two-part work Baxter dedicated to Jwandune, whose face was destroyed by a bomb dropped from a United States drone in Afghanistan. Whereas the first section, “Â lalo lalo lalo,” evokes the sadness and pain caused by her disfigurement, “Jwandune's Song” captures the resilience and courage she showed in dealing with surgical reconstruction. Arriving after that intimate performance is the final one, a towering treatment of Still Falls the Rain by the Kühn Choir of Prague with Lenka Navrátilová conducting and Linda Sitková at the organ.

February 2023