Puts: Contact; Higdon: Concerto 4-3. Time for Three (Charles Yang, violin; Nick Kendall, violin; Ranaan Meyer, double bass), Xian Zhang, The Philadelphia Orchestra. Deutsche Grammophon B0035748-02.
By Karl W. Nehring
This album came to me as a combination of the known (composer Jennifer Higdon and The Philadelphia Orchestra) and the unknown (composer Kevin Puts, conductor Xian Zhang, and the performers known collectively as Time for Three). Having never heard anything by Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) that I didn’t like, and having great admiration for the venerable Philadelphia Orchestra, I felt reasonably confident that this release was going to be worth listening to, although I really did have no idea what kinds of sounds might emanate from my speakers the first time I hit the play button on the remote.
Much to my surprise, the first few notes of Contact by American composer Kevin Puts (b. 1972) were not instrumental, but vocal. Puts, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his first opera, Silent Night, explains in the liner notes that “Contact, a concerto in four movements, begins with Time for Three singing a wordless refrain. The piece’s four movements – ‘The Call,’ ‘Codes, ‘Contact,’ and ‘Convivium’ – tell a story that I hope transcends abstract musical expression. Could the refrain at the opening of the concerto be a message from Earth, sent into space? Could the Morse-code-like rhythms of the scherzo suggest radio transmissions, wave signals, etc.? The word ‘contact’ has gained new resonance during these years of isolation, and it is my hope that our concerto will be heard as an expression of earning for this fundamental human need.” As I listened to the piece over multiple sessions, I discovered that the concerto gives the musicians of Time for Three plenty of opportunity to display their musicianship, whether it be fancy fiddling as in the energetic first movement or the middle Eastern sounding melodies of the final movement, where Time for Three also add to the mood with some more wordless singing during the final minute. The orchestra provides solid support throughout, especially so in the third movement, Contact, a haunting and mysterious slow movement, the longest of the four, wherein the Philadelphia woodwinds and brass provide washes of color that enhance the splendor of the sound. The seamless transition to the energy of the final movement is simply remarkable, while the ending of the concerto demonstrates that Puts apparently knows how to end a composition just right – neither making it suddenly become overly dramatic nor letting it simply die out. Yep, just right.
Fellow American composer Jennifer Higdon is also a Pulitzer Prize winner, having been awarded that honor in 2010 for her Violin Concerto, the same year she was awarded a Grammy for her Percussion Concerto. She has since gone on to collect two more Grammy awards, in 2018 for her Viola Concerto and in 2020 for her Harp Concerto. (Hmmm, I seem to detect a pattern here. It looks as though a concerto from Ms. Higdon might be a pretty safe bet…) As I mentioned above, I have listened to a number of releases of her music, and always enjoyed them. As our own John Puccio noted of her music in his review of one of her earlier compositions, “ Unlike so many late twentieth-century composers, Ms. Higdon believes in writing real tunes, melodies, rather than simply inventing new soundscapes.”
Of her approach to her new Concerto 4-3, Higdon writes, “I knew the Time for Three Guys before we had the chance to work together; we crossed paths at Curtis, where I taught, and I often heard them jamming in Rittenhouse Square. When I got the call from the Philadelphia Orchestra to write them a concerto, I was thrilled and knew exactly what to compose: a work that would show off the joy that they express in their music. Concerto 4-3 is a three-movement concerto with an optional cadenza between the first and second movements. Each movement title refers to rivers that run through the Smoky Mountains: ‘The Shallows,’ ‘Little River,’ and ‘Roaring Smokies.’ The concerto embraces a traditionally classical approach with elements of bluegrass being incorporated into the fabric of the piece. All occurring within a tonal, 21st Century American style.” Although I hardly expect to hear Tim White introducing Time for Three on “Song of the Mountains” anytime soon to play this concerto, you really can hear little threads of bluegrass that are woven into the piece here and there. What you can really hear, though, is energy and enthusiasm, both in the playing and even in the music itself, which at times truly does seem to evoke the whirling and swirling and bubbling motion of rivers as their waters wend their way determinedly downstream. There are also passages of great tenderness, such as the vocalization near the end of the first movement that leads into the lyrical instrumental passages with which the second movement begins.
Engineer Adam Abeshouse has done an excellent job of balancing the sound so that the solo instruments stand out but never seem larger than life. Throughout both concertos your ears are most likely first to be captured by the sound of the two violins, but as you listen more, you may well begin also to appreciate the contributions of the double bass – at times being plucked, sounding like a jazz bass, at other times being bowed, producing more of a singing quality, and more often than not making a significant contribution to the music even though notes from the double bass do not have the penetrating power that those from the violins possess. From the opening measures of the Puts through the closing measures of the Higdon, Letters for the Future is an engaging release that demonstrates that serious, high-quality, contemporary classical music can be highly entertaining, accessible, and enjoyable.
KWN
By Karl W. Nehring
Much to my surprise, the first few notes of Contact by American composer Kevin Puts (b. 1972) were not instrumental, but vocal. Puts, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his first opera, Silent Night, explains in the liner notes that “Contact, a concerto in four movements, begins with Time for Three singing a wordless refrain. The piece’s four movements – ‘The Call,’ ‘Codes, ‘Contact,’ and ‘Convivium’ – tell a story that I hope transcends abstract musical expression. Could the refrain at the opening of the concerto be a message from Earth, sent into space? Could the Morse-code-like rhythms of the scherzo suggest radio transmissions, wave signals, etc.? The word ‘contact’ has gained new resonance during these years of isolation, and it is my hope that our concerto will be heard as an expression of earning for this fundamental human need.” As I listened to the piece over multiple sessions, I discovered that the concerto gives the musicians of Time for Three plenty of opportunity to display their musicianship, whether it be fancy fiddling as in the energetic first movement or the middle Eastern sounding melodies of the final movement, where Time for Three also add to the mood with some more wordless singing during the final minute. The orchestra provides solid support throughout, especially so in the third movement, Contact, a haunting and mysterious slow movement, the longest of the four, wherein the Philadelphia woodwinds and brass provide washes of color that enhance the splendor of the sound. The seamless transition to the energy of the final movement is simply remarkable, while the ending of the concerto demonstrates that Puts apparently knows how to end a composition just right – neither making it suddenly become overly dramatic nor letting it simply die out. Yep, just right.
Of her approach to her new Concerto 4-3, Higdon writes, “I knew the Time for Three Guys before we had the chance to work together; we crossed paths at Curtis, where I taught, and I often heard them jamming in Rittenhouse Square. When I got the call from the Philadelphia Orchestra to write them a concerto, I was thrilled and knew exactly what to compose: a work that would show off the joy that they express in their music. Concerto 4-3 is a three-movement concerto with an optional cadenza between the first and second movements. Each movement title refers to rivers that run through the Smoky Mountains: ‘The Shallows,’ ‘Little River,’ and ‘Roaring Smokies.’ The concerto embraces a traditionally classical approach with elements of bluegrass being incorporated into the fabric of the piece. All occurring within a tonal, 21st Century American style.” Although I hardly expect to hear Tim White introducing Time for Three on “Song of the Mountains” anytime soon to play this concerto, you really can hear little threads of bluegrass that are woven into the piece here and there. What you can really hear, though, is energy and enthusiasm, both in the playing and even in the music itself, which at times truly does seem to evoke the whirling and swirling and bubbling motion of rivers as their waters wend their way determinedly downstream. There are also passages of great tenderness, such as the vocalization near the end of the first movement that leads into the lyrical instrumental passages with which the second movement begins.
Engineer Adam Abeshouse has done an excellent job of balancing the sound so that the solo instruments stand out but never seem larger than life. Throughout both concertos your ears are most likely first to be captured by the sound of the two violins, but as you listen more, you may well begin also to appreciate the contributions of the double bass – at times being plucked, sounding like a jazz bass, at other times being bowed, producing more of a singing quality, and more often than not making a significant contribution to the music even though notes from the double bass do not have the penetrating power that those from the violins possess. From the opening measures of the Puts through the closing measures of the Higdon, Letters for the Future is an engaging release that demonstrates that serious, high-quality, contemporary classical music can be highly entertaining, accessible, and enjoyable.
KWN
