Hannah Collins: Resonance Lines
Sono Luminus

Despite featuring works created centuries apart, Resonance Lines is distinguished by a remarkable degree of uniformity. That's attributable to three things in particular: first, Hannah Collins' cello is the sole instrument involved; second, the cellist brings a deep level of conviction to all six pieces; and third, each of them makes distinct references to music from the past, a move that helps collapse temporal boundaries between the pieces and reveals how the composers built on their personal musical histories with the creation of something new. Collins also has personal connections to the material, which amplifies their resonance all the more. She's known Caroline Shaw, for example, since they met at the Yale School of Music, and Shaw's in manus tuas, included on the release, was composed for Collins in 2009. The idea for Thomas Kotcheff's Cadenza (with or without Haydn) (2020) grew out of a lunch he and Collins had where discussions about modern cadenzas for old concerti developed into the idea of creating a new cadenza for a Haydn concerto. Works by Giuseppe Colombi, Kaija Saariaho, and Benjamin Britten round out the set-list.

Collins is a fervent advocate for contemporary material, but her love for earlier music is as sincere. That's not only reflected in the selections on the release but in her performance practice. In addition to partnering with percussionist Michael Compitello in the duo project New Morse Code, she's a member of the Bach Aria Soloists, Cantata Profana, and Grossman Ensemble. Augmenting music degrees from Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and the City University of New York, she earned a degree in biomedical engineering at Yale University, the latter experience perhaps accounting for the choice of album title. The term comes from physics and has to do with the energy absorbed or transmitted by an atom as it moves between different states. In Collins' view, collaboration between performer and composer is similar in the way creative alliances generate energies that resonate through their interactions. At a 2008 workshop she attended in Santa Fe, she witnessed the collaborative relationship between Saariaho and Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen and was profoundly struck by how a particular piece develops when interpreter and composer work together. That experience naturally influenced her own beliefs about collaboration and the benefits that accrue when creative energies merge. Resonance Lines is thus, among other things, a document of the fruitful outcomes wrought by such pairings.

The recording begins with its earliest work, Colombi's Chiacona (1670), for good reason as it formed the basis for Saariaho's Dreaming Chaconne (2010). Though brief, the opener is long enough to make a compelling case for Collins' artistry in technical and interpretive terms. Lunging centuries into the future, Saariaho's piece presents a variation on Chiacona, one that retains the haunting presence of the original in its makeup whilst clothing it in modern garb. In like manner, Shaw based her in manus tuas (2009) on a sixteenth century motet by Thomas Tallis, and here too echoes of the original resonate through the new material. Shaw famously wrote the piece with the intention of capturing the sensation of hearing the motet within the space of Christ Church in New Haven, Connecticut, and consistent with that powerful senses of wonder, entrancement, and awe emanate from the material.

Of Sept Papillons (2000), Collins herself states, “I was astonished to hear these vividly compelling yet unfamiliar sounds emerge from an instrument I had been playing for decades.” She's right: in the work's seven short parts, Saariaho does seemingly expand on the sound possibilities associated with the cello. During the fourth part, for example, there are passages where the instrument groans and writhes like a wounded creature, though there are lyrical moments also. While the composer doesn't dispense with melody in the work, as much attention is given to texture.

Perpetuating the album theme, Britten used J. S. Bach as a model for the Suite No. 1 for Cello Solo, Op. 72 (1964), the connection revealed in the elegance and stateliness of Britten's writing. The six movements and three cantos range widely in style, tone, and presentation, with some dance-styled, some meditative, and all superb vehicles of expression. Her handling of vibrato and pacing distinguishes the “Lamento,” as does her expert execution of pizzicato in the “Serenata.” The recording culminates with Kotcheff's cheekily titled Cadenza (with or without Haydn), which makes reference to the album's other pieces during its sixteen minutes. Conceived as a cadenza for Haydn's Cello Concerto in C major, Hob.VIIb:1 and alternating fluidly between high-energy and contemplative episodes, the work is an intense showstopper that grants Collins a magnificent forum for her gifts as a player and interpreter.

November 2021