Dale Trumbore: She Only Remembers
Vickette Records

Dale Trumbore & Gillian Hollis: The Gleam
Vickette Records

After being captivated six years ago by How To Go On, the Choral Arts Initiative release featuring Dale Trumbore's music, I've anticipated with excitement new material from the Los Angeles-based composer, and now we have not one but two releases. Despite their core differences, She Only Remembers and The Gleam are complementary, and, in fact, there are moments when echoes of each reverberate across the other. At thirty-one and thirty-seven minutes, respectively, the digital mini-albums, issued on her Vickette Records imprint, constitute a substantial full-length statement. Described as a “ten-movement ballet for solo piano,” She Only Remembers naturally explores issues of memory loss and draws upon the composer's personal experience witnessing her grandmother's struggle with dementia. The Gleam, on the other hand, features soprano Gillian Hollis singing texts by Robin Myers and accompanied (on separate tracks) by the composer and clarinetist Margaret Worsley. Interestingly, Trumbore recently accompanied Modesto's Central West Ballet in a production of She Only Remembers choreographed by the company's Artistic Director René Daveluy.

Dementia-related memory loss is explored thoughtfully in the ten-movement work and specifically in its theme-and-variations design. Guided by research Trumbore undertook into how memories are rewritten via recall, she wrote a memory theme whose form alters with each variation, the gesture analogically reflecting how an original memory is, for someone suffering from Alzheimer's, remembered or, more likely, misremembered. Paired with the digital release's five tracks is a PDF of the thirty-page score for solo piano, a terrific asset that enhances one's appreciation for the work and includes details one would be unaware of in its absence. Each movement, for example, includes a performance guideline that aligns with the concept, with the opening movement's “Hazy, remembering” followed by the second's “Like a broken music box.” A change in titling is also shown in the move from “She only remembers what she wishes she'd forget” (movement one) to “She only forgets what she wishes she'd remember” (six) to the closing part's “She only remembers.” The sophistication of Trumbore's writing is accentuated all the more when the score is available for study.

The work's haunting theme declares itself at the outset but is voiced allusively through a series of rippling figures and tempo fluctuations—the melody at first hazily defined and only gradually reaching clarity. Even at this early stage, it's easy to visualize someone struggling in vain to remember with accuracy. The protagonist's thoughts seemingly race and anxiety intensifies as the attempt at recall grows ever more fraught with difficulty. Bright splashes of chords resonate across a gentler stream, such interjections suggestive of sudden memory flashes. As the music advances, it convincingly captures the inner flow of consciousness as attempts are made to gain a secure foothold. A sense of peacefulness pervades the sixth movement, the tone perhaps intended to convey those moments when the person is able to revisit the past before instability returns. During the eighth and ninth parts, the theme re-asserts itself, the fragile presentation of the melody amplifying its lyrical quality. As bright chords ascend to a climax in the final movement, one pictures the protagonist experiencing a moment of illumination before darkness creeps back in. While it's true that Trumbore used personal experience to create a magnificent work for solo piano, She Only Remembers impresses as resoundingly when broached on purely non-programmatic grounds. Any contemporary classical pianist in want of material of substance to perform need look no further.

Being a writer as well as composer, Trumbore's passion for setting texts to music is easy to understand. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a dual degree in Music Composition and English before acquiring her Master's in Composition at the University of Southern California. She's written essays, poetry, and fiction and authored the book Staying Composed: Overcoming Anxiety and Self-Doubt Within a Creative Life. Her history with Myers goes way back, the two first meeting as two-year-olds at a New Jersey playground. Today, the Mexico City-based poet is a celebrated writer who's published widely and has also translated many Spanish books into English. Trumbore's relationship with Hollis likewise extends back years, with an earlier collaboration, Snow White Turns Sixty, appearing in 2011. Also a University of Maryland graduate, the soprano has sung in many an opera production and essays the broad emotional terrain of The Gleam with poise and authority. It's through her that the character of the material achieves its immediate expression, and it's a challenge she embraces fervently. Trumbore splits accompanist duties with Worsley, with the latter partnering with Hollis on the three-part A Hush You Could See and the pianist on the three other settings. Credited to both Trumbore and Hollis, The Gleam resonates as powerfully as She Only Remembers.

Inner reflections by a subway traveler as a cellist “bows his low harmonics into the cave” establishes an evocative scene during Union Square Station, the piece highlighting the way an ordinary moment can turn illuminating. As she does throughout the release, Hollis commits herself completely to the performance. Navigating the music's wide-ranging trajectory is no easy task, but she does it with assurance, and her pure, resplendent voice inhabits the upper realm confidently. Trumbore also accompanies her on the set-closing A Reminder, which sees a precious moment of tenderness embraced and held onto. Bright piano clusters evoke a rain-swept city after which the observation “your dress a skin on you” suggests a couple's intimate connection and rumination engenders the concluding affirmation, “Say yes.” On A Hush You Could See, Worsley's clarinet naturally gives the release a radically different character, though Hollis ensures a through-line remains. As if roused from sleep, “I woke so early” fittingly enters quietly as sensations crystallize and consciousness dawns. While “For awhile I tried writing it all down” enumerates a catalogue of experiences—birds, meals, neighbours, "my father's face in the months of his illness”—that in their teeming multitude overwhelms, “When I sleep in the language I forgot” references the feeling of liberation that attends waking and “finding the air again.”

April 2023