The trio
Time for Three
got its start when its members were students at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and discovered that they had a common interest in bluegrass and country fiddling. One appealing point of
Letters for the Future
is that the composers involved,
Kevin Puts
and especially
Jennifer Higdon
(a Tennessee native familiar with bluegrass), retain that influence lightly in their virtuoso concertos, offered here. But as
has evolved, the group has thrived primarily on its collaborations with other musicians. The combination of two violins and double bass proves to be a protean grouping that can by turns evoke jazz, virtuoso classical music, Americana, and more. Here,
performs works that evoke the Classical-era symphonie concertante tradition, with
as a solo group set against the
Philadelphia Orchestra
under the baton of
Xian Zhang
.
Puts
and
Higdon
weave quite a few styles into the combination.
's
Concerto 4-3
, although it contains a stronger bluegrass element, also has an admixture of jazz executed by the bassist,
Ranaan Meyer
. Both concertos have lyrical slow movements that ought to be solid crowd-pleasers but do not cloy. What's most satisfying is the sense that both the composers and the performers have been stretched a bit by the encounter, effectively recorded over two days by
Deutsche Grammophon
at Philadelphia's Verizon Hall. This is, in its way, a fresh development in the composer-performer relationship. ~ James Manheim