Richard Crosby: By the Waters of Memory
Navona Records

Richard Crosby isn't the most prolific composer—at his personal site, a modest twenty-nine compositions are listed, and his latest release, By the Waters of Memory, arrives thirty years after his first, An American Portrait—but the quality level is exceptionally high on this collection of works for solo and duo performers. Significantly, whereas the earlier release features him performing works by Amy Beach, William Grant Still, George Gershwin, and others, By the Waters of Memory showcases him as both pianist and composer. Its six works exemplify a degree of craft other composers would be hard pressed to match.

Crosby isn't an iconoclast but rather an American composer happy to operate within established forms. In that regard, the three sonatas on the release adhere to the traditional three-movement fast-slow-fast structure, while another works with the variations model. Yet even when staying within such conventions, Crosby distinguishes his material with a highly appealing melodic sensibility that's often lyrical and romantically tinged. His is, in other words, a music easy to warm up to and embrace.

Born in Ohio and raised in Florida, Crosby earned his degrees at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music and graduated from there in 1990 with his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano. Four years prior, he joined the faculty of Eastern Kentucky University where he serves as an EKU Foundation Professor. In addition to his compositional output, he composed the soundtrack to the documentary The Essential Eastern, whose subject is the history of Eastern Kentucky University, and is the author of The All-In-One Laboratory Piano Course and Thoughts on Life and Leadership. Fittingly, his latest album was recorded at the EKU Center for the Arts in August 2023.

As satisfying as the sonatas are, it's the two solo piano pieces that perhaps speak most flatteringly of Crosby's talents. The album's titular work introduces the recording beautifully with a seductive expression inspired by Greek mythology and specifically details associated with the Underworld and its river Styx. After the deceased crossed the river and reached shore, the now parched-with-thirst souls would come upon the pool called the Waters of Lethe. If they drank from it, their memories would vanish and they'd reincarnate and rejoin the living; if they didn't, they'd proceed to the Waters of Mnemosyne and, upon drinking from it, remember their most recent and earlier lives and move on to the Elysian Fields. As Crosby clarifies, By the Waters of Memory isn't his attempt to programmatically represent the story but instead to meditate on aspects of it and evoke impressions of melancholy and longing often engendered by memory. Despite its brevity, the four-minute setting makes a powerful mark when its pensive dignity is so affecting and the gently flowing music sparkles so iridescently.

Composed in 2013, Crosby wrote his Variations for Piano Op. 13 in gratitude to Dr. Amit Gupta, the Louisville surgeon who “saved [his] career as a pianist.” It's a fascinating piece, not only for the expected contrasts that emerge between the variations, but for its inclusion of homages to Bartók and Rachmaninoff and a closing variation that honours Gupta in dressing the theme in Indian Raga garb. Following an introductory lament, the fifteen-minute work progresses through eight gripping parts that include a light-hearted waltz, shadowy forays, transporting fantasias, dreamlike reveries, and the entrancing dance with which it ends.

In between those solo piano pieces is the first of the three sonatas, the Sonata for Piano in B Minor Op. 21 also for the instrument alone. After a rollicking rhythm animates the dark, folk-inflected poetry of the “Allegro molto” movement, the delicate “Andante” casts its own potent folk-chant spell before the soaring “Allegro energico” brings the work to an exuberant, harmonious close. Elsewhere, Crosby's joined by Sila Darville for the Sonata for Viola and Piano Op. 10, its impact dramatically heightened by the Turkish violist's authoritative performance. She and the pianist tear confidently through the “Allegro” and furious “Vivace” when not emoting poignantly in the “Andante.” Cellist Nathan Jasinski partners with the composer on the Sonata for Cello and Piano Op. 19, Jasinski as impressive as Darville in the eloquence of his playing. Again the two advance from a spirited “Allegro” on to an endearing, folk-styled “Un poco Andante” and insistent “Allegro energico,” the cellist and pianist expertly attuning their attack to the tone of the material.

September 2024