Composer
Caroline Shaw
is gaining massive amounts of attention both within her native U.S. (she toured, believe it or not, with
Kanye West
) and beyond; here, her music appears on the
Alpha
label, performed by the instrumental duo
I Giardini
and other musicians.
commissioned the
title work
, a fascinating cello-and-piano dialogue.
Shaw
tends to construct a work by opening with some kind of repetitive element and then interrupting that with some contrasting element; the two continue together, and the intensity grows. The contrast may be in tonality (sample the opening work,
Thousandth Orange
), texture or timbre, or musical source material. Perhaps the most striking work here is
Gustave Le Grey, for solo piano
, where
sets herself a real challenge: in the middle of the piece is an extended quotation from
Chopin
's
Nocturne in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4
, and
has to make this seem like something other than a pastiche. The way this is done is both entirely ingenious and accessible to any listener at all.
, the youngest-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, has threaded the needle, writing music that is constructed according to principles as abstract as those of any hardcore modernist but readily apparent to listeners with no background in contemporary music. It is immensely valuable, and this recording makes a good place to get on the
bandwagon.
and friends are very sensitive to what
is doing, and they have been beautifully recorded by
at the Auditorium of the Darius Milhaud Conservatory in Aix-en-Provence. Issued just ahead of the holiday season, this is an ideal item for someone who "doesn't like contemporary music" yet has an open mind. ~ James Manheim