Derek Bermel: Intonations: Music for Clarinet and Strings
Naxos American Classics

Part of Naxos's esteemed ‘American Classics' series, Intonations is a composer-based collection with a difference: Derek Bermel not only wrote its five works, he plays on two also. His clarinet isn't the only distinctive sound on the nearly seventy-minute release, either. Dutch electric guitarist Wiek Hijmans plays on one piece, and the renowned JACK Quartet appears too, generally as a group but with violinist Christopher Otto playing solo on Violin Etudes. Intonations is marked by many things, including variety, and in featuring five world-premiere recordings, the release is an invaluable addition to the award-winning composer's discography.

Intonations speaks flatteringly of Bermel's gifts as a writer but also instrumentalist. To call his clarinet playing impressive hardly does it justice. He's appeared as a soloist alongside Wynton Marsalis, has performed his clarinet concerto Voices around the world with dozens of orchestras, and is the founding clarinetist of Music from Copland House. His playing is so credible, Bermel could easily fill a personnel spot in an ensemble such as Oregon or The Silk Road Ensemble were the opportunity to present itself. As composer and player, his music has benefited from the eclectic array of artists with whom he's collaborated, among them John Adams, Paquito D'Rivera, Mos Def, and Midori. Bermel's mentors include Henri Dutilleux and Louis Andriessen, and this intrepid adventurer has traveled to Bulgaria and Ghana to study and deepen his understanding of different musical forms. That Bermel's classical creations often exhibit a pronounced jazz, blues, and/or world flavour shouldn't come as a huge surprise, given such diversity of experience.

In liner notes for the release, comprised of Intonations (for string quartet, 2016), Ritornello (for electric guitar and string quartet, 2011), Thracian Sketches (for solo clarinet, 2003), Violin Etudes (2009-16), and A Short History of the Universe (for clarinet and string quartet, 2013), Nathan Fields notes that the oppositions within Bermel's music—“between classical and vernacular, comic and serious, visceral and cerebral”—largely collapse, with the settings on Intonations illustrative of the tendency. That's immediately clear the moment the title work's opening movement, “Harmonica,” begins the album with wheezing chords and rousing figures that evoke the country-blues swing associated with the mouth harp; complicating matters, Bermel deconstructs the phrases by breaking them down into spidery plucks and funky fragments without losing entirely the trace of the initiating melody and its attendant swing. “Hymn/Homily” perpetuates the plangent blues character of the opener but slows it to a moaning, crying crawl, after which the off-kilter “Hustle” grinds, struts, and winces in a manner one might describe as raunchy. JACK Quartet, of course, executes all of it with its customary command and makes the incredibly difficult sound like a walk in the park.

In pairing electric guitar and string quartet, Ritornello naturally catches the ear but does so even more for its incorporation of prog guitar that calls figures such as Steve Vai and Adrian Belew to mind. However much on paper Hijmans and JACK Quartet might seem strange bedfellows, the two blend well, with the contrasts in their timbres working effectively to establish clear separation. The twelve-minute piece advances through multiple episodes, some featuring refined classical-styled picking by Hijmans and others scalding slabs of distortion. The strings go toe-to-toe with him at every turn, the JACK players showing themselves similarly adept at refined and anarchic expressions.

Featuring Bermel on clarinet only, Thracian Sketches vividly draws on his Bulgarian experiences in its sinuous tonal and rhythmic character. Hints of folk, jazz, and classical also subtly work their way into the seven-minute exploration, which dazzles for the authority of the composer's execution. While not necessarily intended as a vehicle for demonstrating his virtuosity on the instrument, it nevertheless shows him to be a player of remarkable facility. The other work for solo performer, Violin Etudes sees Otto digging into its five concise movements with gusto. Bermel titles the parts descriptively, with “Twenty Questions” characterized by a back-and-forth implying questions and answers, “Gravity” tenuously inhabiting an upper sphere and hovering around a single pitch, “Figure and Ground” using pizzicato to elegantly suggest an entwining dialogue, and the agile “Chôros” evoking the Brazilian popular style with which it shares its name.

Mirroring the tripartite form of the opening work, Intonations closes with A Short History of the Universe, a three-part structure inspired by the lectures of Nima Arkani-Hamed and scored for clarinet and string quartet. While the material is intended as a musical riff on the physicist's ideas about gravity and time, it can more simply be appreciated for its musical content sans any programmatic attachment. Patterns slip and slide through the opening “Multiverse” movement, the instruments careening acrobatically through space like roller-coasters. Whereas keening oscillations and sliding tones lend a lulling entrancement to “Heart of Space,” “Twistor Scattering” adds an infectious, klezmer-like dance dimension to the work that's offset by hymnal flourishes.

October 2022