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Blackbirds Arise
eighth blackbird Releases Round Nut Tool
Story by Paul Cox '92
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"Round Nut Tool" 1) Fantasy Etudes by Fred Lerdahl
(1:00) |
 RELATED eighth blackbird to Appear on CBS Sunday Morning and make NYC Debut |
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the Conservatory |
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Listening Room |
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eighth blackbird is made up of six Oberlin graduates: violinist Matthew Albert ('96); keyboardist Lisa Kaplan ('97); cellist Nicholas Photinos ('96); flutist Molly Alicia Barth ('96); percussionist Matthew Duvall ('95); and cellist Michael Maccaferri ('96)
Fans of alum new music sextet, eighth blackbird (8th bb) have waited a long time for this debut CD, humorously titled Round Nut Tool. Recorded in Oberlin's Finney Chapel by the consummate engineer Michael Schulze, the CD does exactly what it's supposed to do: whet one's appetite to hear 8th bb live in concert. 8th bb's expansive repertoire is well represented here with first rate readings of Fred Lerdahl's Fantasy Etudes, David Lang's cheating, lying stealing, Jacob Druckman's Come Round, and selected movements from Thomas Albert's Thirteen Ways.
Along with re-energizing the chamber music world with their invigorating performances, 8th bb breaks new ground in the digital revolution with this CD, which was commissioned by AT&T Research Labs for use in developing new compression technology for distributing music over the net. Soon you will be able to hear Round Nut Tool online at www.eighthblackbird.com. Nevertheless, I still recommend buying the CD for your lonely computerless friends and family.
Fantasy
Etudes (Excerpt: 56k
| ISDN)
(1985) is a complex work involving 12 interconnected
"Etudes." 8th bb's ability to make this music sound
transparent (they perform it from memory in concert) is
immediately apparent in the first track. Whimsical gestures
and the layering of disparate musical elements (e.g. a cello
chorale accompanied by rapid figuration in the flute and
vibraphone) are executed with great sensitivity and balance.
Percussion sounds coaxed with attention to the diverse
shadings of ensemble texture set the stage for evocative
solo and duo combinations within the sextet. Further, the
work's fantasy structure and colorful texture (flute trills
and glockenspiel gestures, in particular) conjure up the
music of Debussy and Boulez. In short, to know the Fantasy
Etudes well requires a great deal of time and effort--two
things that rarely come together in the lives of six
musicians. Most composers writing highly determined works
can only dream of a performance of this caliber.
David Lang's cheating, lying, stealing (Excerpt: 56k | ISDN) fits well with 8th bb's youthful sensibilities. Certainly, their life-long immersion in popular culture provides an edge when performing Lang's rhythmically driving work, which I hereby label "urban art funk!" The catchy opening rhythmic combination performed by brake drums, bass clarinet, marimba and piano has a way of sticking in one's ear for several months. This aggressive rhythmic sequence is contrasted by Photinos' touching lyrical cello interludes. Kaplan intensifies the proceedings with a percussive, polyrhythmic accompaniment that firmly asserts the piano's true home in the percussion section. The middle section is haunting. A Dostoevskyesque mood pervades as the music vamps over lyrical motives backed up by a disjointed rhythmic accompaniment between the piano and marimba. A repeating snare drum riff gradually grows in volume ushering the climactic reprise of the opening section, brake drums and all. (Who thought brake drums could sound so, SO lustrous?)
Jacob Druckman wrote music that was beyond most performers' sonic capabilities. His experiments in electronic music at the Columbia--Princeton Electronic Music Center profoundly influenced his ideas about maximizing the range of instrumental timbres. 8th blackbird's performance here illuminates Druckman's musical palette with technical attention to sound production. From the opening flute line that seamlessly flows into the sound of the clarinet, it is clear that 8th bb understands Druckman's modus operandi: At times, the six players sound positively electronic. 8th bb's virtuosic use of extended techniques (varied vibrato, piano techniques, wind articulation, harmonics, etc.), are executed with such clarity that one can only lament that Druckman died before hearing this recording.
Thomas
Albert's Thirteen Ways was commissioned by 8th bb and
premiered in 1998. Written by Matthew Albert's father, the
piece was inspired by Wallace Stevens' poem "Thirteen Ways
of Looking at a Blackbird," from which the group derives its
name. The work is best described a set of virtuosic
miniatures that creatively shows 8th bb in all its various
guises. Schulze's recording captures the work's wide dynamic
range from the clang of the opening piano notes to the soft
violin harmonics hanging over the mellifluous machinations
of the bass clarinet.
Unfortunately, the program book for Round Nut Tool does not indicate the exact movements culled from Albert's thirteen, though there are a lot of neat pictures of a stripped nut tool. Albert describes this works as an "underscoring, or accompaniment, for a textless film of the poem's images" and seeks through our allusive art to ask the question, "…what exactly, is the blackbird? For your reference, here is Stevens' complete poem.
In movement XI (Excerpt: 56k | ISDN), this ensemble of six talented musicians (need I remind you) creates the sound of a symphony orchestra. Rapid arpeggios in the violin, block chords in the piano, pedal tones in the marimba, and full tones from the winds form the building blocks of this sound. Albert's orchestration illustrates why the "Pierrot" ensemble format (flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano) became so popular among composers as an alternative to the orchestra during WWI, when most European orchestras were out of commission.
Movement VIII reminds me of a sour mood I was in about a year ago when I was griping about the absence of vernacular music in art music. But after attending two 8th bb concerts and reading Kyle Gann's ('77) American Music in the 20th Century published by Schirmer Books (highly recommended), I began to notice more of an intersection between these two related but disparate musical worlds. This movement is a case in point. Albert expertly weaves elements from the Beatles' tune "Blackbird" into the movement. At first, we only hear a hint of the harmony, which is all we need to recognize this timeless tune. Fittingly, the piccolo utters a transcribed birdcall before the brief movement fades away.
In closing, Paul McCarthy's lyrics best sum up my thoughts about 8th bb's debut CD and their future:
"All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise."
