Mathew Rosenblum: Lament/Witches' Sabbath
New Focus Recordings

Mathew Rosenblum's Lament/Witches' Sabbath opens with the suitably bewitching title track, then follows it with three equally riveting pieces of diverse character on this encompassing, seventy-one-minute release. On a collection rich in contrast, two pieces orient themselves around ensemble performances and the others percussion, with strings added in one instance. Such a presentation makes for an illuminating portrait of this contemporary American composer, especially when a broad range of themes, instrumental configurations, microtonality, and other techniques is explored.

That one of his works (not included on this release) is titled Mobius Loop is wholly in keeping with his polystylistic approach. Rosenblum, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and Princeton University and currently Professor of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh, is comfortable drawing from multiple genres in his works as well as a variety of tuning systems, and it's not uncommon for field recordings, samples, and ambient sounds to find their way into a given composition, though not gratuitously. An eclectic brew is presented in Lament/Witches' Sabbath, for example, but each element has a reason for being there, the intent being to maximize the expressive potential of the work's theme in sound design terms. Though he's hardly a traditionalist, he's also not averse to operating in that mode if the subject calls for it.

Rosenblum wrote the titular work for clarinet soloist David Krakauer, with whom he grew up in New York City, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (Gil Rose conducting), who perform the version on the recording. It's an especially personal work for Rosenblum as it involves family history, specifically the story of how his grandmother escaped the 1919 massacre in Proskurov, Ukraine, and thus brings the story to life by incorporating field recordings of Ukrainian laments, his grandmother's voice, and elements from the closing movement of Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique, “Witches' Sabbath.” At twenty-three minutes, Lament/Witches' Sabbath is a towering work that conveys the intense pain of people torn from their lives and forced to seek shelter elsewhere, material that's assumed a particularly timely relevance in an age where refugees from so many countries are confronting similar challenges. The mournfulness of the singing communicates its sorrow universally, even if Krakauer's klezmer-tinged playing imbues the material with a strong Eastern European resonance. Rosenblum layers the elements into a complex panorama that conveys the fear and desperation that comes with sudden, enforced displacement, with the wail of the voices and clarinet conjoined to an ever-turbulent orchestral undercurrent.

A hair longer at twenty-four minutes, Falling, performed by Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (Kevin Noe, conductor) and soprano Lindsay Kesselman proves as gripping. Like Lament/Witches' Sabbath, Falling incorporates sung and recorded materials, yet while the former is mournful, Falling is eerie in basing itself on the real-life case of a twenty-nine-year-old flight attendant who fell to her death when swept through a plane's suddenly opened emergency door. In this case, ambient sounds from the plane cabin establish an unsettling mood that's underscored by the destabilizing effect of microtonal pitches and overlaps between the ensemble's playing, Kesselman's lustrous voice, and an old LP recording of James Dickey reading the poem he wrote based on the incident. Adding to the horror, his text imagines the psychological and physical states experienced by the attendant as she plummets towards the ground.

Being so arresting, it's understandable that those two long-form works would overshadow the instrumental settings, yet they have much to recommend them, too; certainly they help flesh out the portrait the recording provides of Rosenblum. The shorter of the two, Northern Flicker, was written for percussionist Lisa Pegher and is performed by her on the release. Her versatility and virtuosity are on full display in the captivating, eight-minute solo performance, especially when her playing's augmented by samples of the Yellow-Shafted Northern Flicker, its whirr a natural complement to the rapid percussive storm she generates. The final setting sees Mantra Percussion joined by FLUX Quartet for a sixteen-minute rendering of Last Round (ostatnia runda), a rhythmically intense piece composed for the groups and dedicated to the late composer Lee Hyla. The quartet's playing add substantially to the restless sound mass generated by the percussionists, with the shudder of the strings' descending microtonal patterns catching the ear whenever they appear.

December 2018