String Orchestra of Brooklyn: enfolding
New Focus Recordings

Curation isn't everything, but it is critical. The material String Orchestra of Brooklyn (SOB) and its conductor and artistic director Eli Spindel chose for its sophomore release—Scott Wollschleger's Outside Only Sound and Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti's 2022 Pulitzer-Prize nominated with eyes the color of time—is as daring and audacious as the outfit itself and speaks volumes about its values and priorities; enhancing the release's appeal, both are premiere recordings.

enfolding was affected in different ways by the pandemic. Whereas the orchestra's live premiere of Lanzilotti's piece, originally scheduled for its new music festival in early 2020, was canceled to help contain COVID's spread, Wollschleger's was conceived and designed in accordance with the then-emerging state of things. By the year's mid-point, indoor performances had been suspended, and the very idea of performing, indoor or out, was fraught with anxiety; adding to the trepidation, musicians couldn't even safely gather to rehearse. The SOB's solution was to set two conditions for new commissions: the presentation of the piece had to be amenable to an outdoor environment; and the orchestra would require mere minutes to rehearse the work before the performance.

In his own words, Wollschleger structured Outside Only Sound so that “each player was like a single cicada and there was never a need for a conductor. Instead, each player used a stopwatch and functioned as one of a group of insects in a field, or like a gaseous cloud of sound.” The metaphors are apt: there are times during the fourteen-minute performance, recorded live in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park on October 17, 2022, where the musicians both swell into an engulfing swarm and approximate a nebulous mass. Scored for string orchestra and six percussionists (who bow large metal mixing bowls), the piece opens and closes with ethereal bell timbres whistling alongside the ambient sounds of people chattering, children laughing, and traffic noise. Shuddering and scraping, strings gradually enter as the mass slowly grows into a dizzying fireball with rustling noises, barking dogs, and a siren surfacing to fill out the vibrant soundworld.

Wholly different in concept and character, Lanzilotti's with eyes the color of time alludes in its eight movement titles to works of art at The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu. While the opening “the bronze doors” references Robert Graham's entryway to the museum's entrance, the movements that follow refer to George Rickey's 1988 sculpture Two Open Triangles Up, Gyratory III, Deborah Butterfield's 1986 metal sculpture Nahele, David Hockney's L'enfant et les sortilèges, originally conceived as a set for Ravel's opera, James Seawright's 1987 piece Mirror XV, and Toshiko Takaezu's sculpture series moons. In advancing through parts of contrasting character, Lanzilotti's shape-shifting composition distances itself from the monolithic slow-build of Wollschleger's. Also unlike Outside Only Sound, with eyes the color of time was recorded in the studio at Oktaven Audio on August 8, 2021.

Programmatic connections aside, the work itself unfolds in a series of ritual-like statements, with SOB's lustrous textures used to evocative effect throughout. Painterly phrases and oscillating figures blend into a cross-field of melodic counterpoint, with the collective sound alternating between hushed and declamatory expressions. Particularly ear-catching are “Nahele (the bronze horse / the forest)” for the fragility of its ghostly string sonorities, the effect generated by bows delicately gliding across strings, and “les sortilèges (the wound / the torn page),” whose aura of Romantic angst is more reminiscent of Mahler than Ravel. Intense, tightly wound scraping noises add to the movement's striking character, after which arpeggiated patterns, violent scratches, and percussive effects do much the same for “Mirror XV.” In another arresting turn, granular thrum sourced from rain sticks appears in “mahina” in place of strings before the originating motive from “the bronze doors” returns. Only with the advent of the closing “enfolding” does some semblance of conventional string writing appear, with the material's tone triumphant. Lanzilotti's vibrant, ever-adventurous piece is unpredictable in the best sense of the word, much like the orchestra itself.

August 2022