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In the Here and Now
Faces of AmericaSaturday, May 28, 2005
By Paul M. Somers
Raritan River Music Festival. Newman and Oltman Guitar Duo: Michael Newman, Laura Oltman (guitars); Verdehr Trio: Walter Verdehr (violin), Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr (clarinet), Silvia Roederer (paino). "An American Music Celebration." Dusan Bogdanovic: Three Straws for Two Guitars; Augusta Read Thomas: memory: SWELLS (premiere); Eileen Ivers: Bygone Days; Jennifer Higdon: Dash (2002); Joan Tower: Rainwaves (1997); Gershwin/William Brohn: "I Got Variations" (1999); Alexander Arutiunian: Suite (1992). Presbyterian Church, Clinton.
For anyone in New Jersey who is in search of American music, they need have gone no further than Clinton in rural Hunterdon County. The Presbyterian Church was full, the audience was exceptionally intergenerational, and the music was new (the oldest piece was - gasp - 13 years old).
The famous composer Augusta Read Thomas, whose scores are premiered by big orchestras and choruses, was in attendance to hear the premiere of her memory:SWELLS for guitar duo, commissioned by the Raritan River Music Festival. Before it was played, she came to the front of the Presbyterian Church and spoke about what she was trying to accomplish in her evocation of water at different depths and of her sense of its "deep memory."
As a speaker she is engaging while remaining fairly technical. She spoke of how she designed the *scordatura tuning for both instruments, and how the tempo and texture change with the depth of water she is evoking.
In the event, the work proved to be a gossamer web of sounds, no matter at what depth of water or the spirit being evoked. Like refractions from the sun above, pin-pricks of sound spring to the ear like those visible flashes of light seen by a diver looking up from the depths. The water remains water, but the intensity of the sparkles increases and decreases according to depth.
The guitars of Michael Newman and Laura Oltman were the perfect medium for such evocations. The "ping" and decay of the guitars caught the mystery and the distance of light seen from below.
The score is anything but easy. The notes are written at pitch with Roman numerals above the notes showing which string each is to be played on. Perhaps the most difficult aspect for the players was seeing a note, and having to fight against moving the hand and fingers to the usual place. The trade-off was the creation on the open strings of a resonantly glowing harmony which "normal" guitars would not have.
Anyone wishing for a busy flow of water had to wait for Joan Tower's Rainwaves. Thomas's work was essentially contemplative.
When the Verdehr Trio took over for the second half, they opened with a bang. Jennifer Higdon's [Dash] lives up to its name in spades! What a rip-roaring piece with everybody's fingers flying at top speed. It was very appealing and was received with loud and long applause.
Joan Tower's Rainwaves, too, is about water (Dash very well could be). This one has a long-limbed shape which inevitably becomes more intense. It is yet another gripping, technically demanding work from one of America's finest living composers. And it was also met with great applause.
There was no musical pap in any of these pieces and nothing which belonged strictly on a "pops" concert. All three women created rigorous music in very different voices, all of which appealed in different ways. But appeal they did.
The Verdehrs also performed the I Got Variations by William Brohn, a Broadway orchestrator whose work is a set of variations of Gershwin's own variations on I've Got Rhythm. It was quite sophisticated, often using harmonies and melodic fragments in a modernist manner not similar to Broadway at all.
In memory of long-time Festival supporter Rob Brighton, always a sunny personality when I met him, which was at every Raritan River Festival concert, Newman and Oltman played Irish musician Eileen Ivers' Bygone Days.
The Guitar Duo began the concert with an immigrant's vision of America: three movements based on Turkey in the Straw and Old Folks at Home by Dusan Bogdanovic. It was musically clever and endearing in its use of American music as its basis.
The Verdehrs concluded the concert with an Armenian work by Alexander Arutiunian which they had commissioned but was not American at all. It was like Shostakovich without the edge, but it got great applause as an exciting concert-ender.
There they were - the very things which make America great: music by two immigrants, music from four different female poetic voices, a touch of revamped Broadway, and finally a willingness to include a non-American in an otherwise American concert.
Look no further for what makes American music American.