Steven Mackey: Beautiful Passing. (CD Review)
Beautiful Passing, for violin and orchestra; Mnemosyne’s Pool, for symphonic orchestra. Anthony Marwood, violin; David Roberston, Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Canary Classics CC22.
By Karl W. Nehring
What we have here is something of an international mix, which is certainly not uncommon in the world of classical music. The composer, Steven Mackey (b.1956), was born in Germany to American parents and raised in California. According to Wikipedia, not only is he a composer and a professor of music at Princeton, he is an accomplished electric guitarist who has performed on that instrument along with the Kronos and Arditti Quartets as well as the New World and Dutch Radio Symphonies. The violin soloist, Anthony Marwood MBE (b. 1965) was born in London and has made more than 50 commercial CD recordings. Adding to the international mix is of course the Australian orchestra, led by American conductor David Robertson (b. 1958), who was the orchestra’s chief conductor at the time these recordings were made (2015 and 2017). Some classical music lovers might recall that Robertson led the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2005 though 2018, and adding to the international dimension, was director of the Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain (EIC) from 1992-2000.
Mackey explains that “Beautiful Passing was inspired by the experience of watching my mother die. She was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2004. She was treated with chemo and radiation, won the first round, and was able to dance with me at my wedding in 2006. She remained cancer-free until a recurrence in 2007. Around that same time, we found out that we were expecting our first child. My mom was so excited and vowed to fight the cancer (again) and meet her grandchild.” Sadly, Mackey and his wife lost their pregnancy, and when they told his mother, she replied that although she felt confident that they would go on to have a family, she would not be able to hang on another year to meet her new grandchild. A mere week later, she called Mackey to tell him it would be her last day. He spent that final time with her at her apartment, working on his laptop at her insistence. One of her final instructions to him was that he should “please tell everyone I had a beautiful passing.” Although Mackey’s account might lead to the assumption that this concerto would be a soft, reflective, peaceful composition, it is actually for the most part more on the brash, boisterous side. The violin gets some lyrical lines to play, but is often seemingly attacked by harsh outbursts from the orchestra. It is not easy listening; however, it is not harsh and dissonant. The solo violin part is entrancing throughout, with Marwood really getting a chance to chance to show what he can do on his instrument.
Despite Beautiful Passing being given title billing for this release, it is actually the shorter of the two compositions included, coming in at 24:33 versus 42:50 for the five-movement Mnemosyne’s Pool. about which Mackey writes, “deals with memory within the music itself, and in so doing it deals with our memory, the human capacity for memory and the act of remembering.” (Mnemosyne was the mythical Greek goddess of memory – it is in her honor we term a memory aid a “mnemonic device.”) Like the concerto, it is richly scored, dynamic – but more varied in mood and sonority. After the brash opening movement, tiled Variations, the second, Déjá vu (Medley), offers a nicely melodic contrast. The briefer third movement, appropriately titled Fleeting, is infused with rhythmic energy and functions much like a symphonic scherzo. The mood becomes more serious in the following movement, titled In Memoriam A.H.S., which Mackey says he composed as a memorial movement for his father-in-law. Moving but not morose, it is the emotional highlight of the composition. The final movement is the longest and most musically complex. Titled Echoes, it could likely stand on its own as a nearly 13-minute concert piece that showcases what the orchestra can do. It makes quite the sonic impression, which has been well captured by the recording team, as is the rest of the program on this disc There is not enough deep bass to challenge subwoofer setups, but that would seem to have more to do with scoring than engineering. This may not be an audiophile demonstration CD, but it is perfectly suited for conveying musical enjoyment. Recommended to all but the more strongly conservative musical tastes.
KWN
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor
Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.
Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.
Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor
For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.
For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.
William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor
Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.
The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.
Ryan Ross, Contributor
I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.
I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.
Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst
I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.
Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.
Mission Statement
It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.
When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.
So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio
Contact Information
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What we have here is something of an international mix, which is certainly not uncommon in the world of classical music. The composer, Steven Mackey (b.1956), was born in Germany to American parents and raised in California. According to Wikipedia, not only is he a composer and a professor of music at Princeton, he is an accomplished electric guitarist who has performed on that instrument along with the Kronos and Arditti Quartets as well as the New World and Dutch Radio Symphonies. The violin soloist, Anthony Marwood MBE (b. 1965) was born in London and has made more than 50 commercial CD recordings. Adding to the international mix is of course the Australian orchestra, led by American conductor David Robertson (b. 1958), who was the orchestra’s chief conductor at the time these recordings were made (2015 and 2017). Some classical music lovers might recall that Robertson led the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2005 though 2018, and adding to the international dimension, was director of the Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain (EIC) from 1992-2000.
Mackey explains that “Beautiful Passing was inspired by the experience of watching my mother die. She was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2004. She was treated with chemo and radiation, won the first round, and was able to dance with me at my wedding in 2006. She remained cancer-free until a recurrence in 2007. Around that same time, we found out that we were expecting our first child. My mom was so excited and vowed to fight the cancer (again) and meet her grandchild.” Sadly, Mackey and his wife lost their pregnancy, and when they told his mother, she replied that although she felt confident that they would go on to have a family, she would not be able to hang on another year to meet her new grandchild. A mere week later, she called Mackey to tell him it would be her last day. He spent that final time with her at her apartment, working on his laptop at her insistence. One of her final instructions to him was that he should “please tell everyone I had a beautiful passing.” Although Mackey’s account might lead to the assumption that this concerto would be a soft, reflective, peaceful composition, it is actually for the most part more on the brash, boisterous side. The violin gets some lyrical lines to play, but is often seemingly attacked by harsh outbursts from the orchestra. It is not easy listening; however, it is not harsh and dissonant. The solo violin part is entrancing throughout, with Marwood really getting a chance to chance to show what he can do on his instrument.
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