Anna Clyne: Shorthand (Streaming Review)

by Karl Nehring

Shorthand; Three Sisters; Prince of Clouds; Within Her Arms; Shorthand REDUX. Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Avi Avital, mandolin; Colin Jacobsen, Pekka Kuusisto, violins; The Knights; Eric Jacobsen, conductor. Sony Classics

It seems impossible that it was back in early 2020 when I first became acquainted with the music of British-born composer Anna Clyne, who now resides in the Hudson Valley area of New York
. I can’t remember exactly where or when I first saw her name in print, but not long after that, I mentioned her name to Bill Heck during a phone conversation. To my surprise and delight, Bill responded that he and his wife had attended a concert by the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio, where they had both been greatly impressed by a piece titled Within Her Arms – a piece composed by none other than Anna Clyne. Intrigued, I checked Amazon for a recording, but alas, there was none to be found. However, I was soon able to audition it thanks to YouTube, where I was able to track down a video of a live performance. Like Bill and Mary, I too was greatly impressed. I quickly sent the link to another music-loving friend, who was also impressed. How was this wonderful music not yet available on CD?!

Although Within Her Arms was not yet available on disc back in 2020, a few months later I was able to review a new CD release on the AVIE label that paired the venerable Cello Concerto by Sir Edward Elgar with an invigorating new cello concerto by Ms. Clyne titled Dance, a review you can read here. Then early in 2021 AVIE released an all-Clyne orchestral CD titled Mythologies, a release that left no doubt about Clyne’s distinctive and imaginative compositional voice (you can find that review here).

Well, fast-forward three years to the present day, 2024, and it appears that the time has come for Anna Clyne to be more widely acknowledged as a major contemporary composer with this new release featuring her music being played by the well-known superstar soloists Yo-Yo Ma of Sesame Street fame (just [half] kidding) and mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, supported by the up-and-coming young New York-based chamber orchestra, The Knights. This is certainly an exciting release – but why oh why is there no CD? Call me old-fashioned, but I (and many others) still prefer physical media, thank you. (And don’t tell me about “CD rot,” for the first CD I ever bought, Glenn Gould’s 1981 Goldberg Variations, still plays just fine, thank you.) My fear is that there will be music lovers who will miss out on discovering the remarkable music of this gifted composer simply because they still use CD as their primary source of listening to music. I hope I am wrong – and I will end my rant and return to this rewarding release.

Speaking of the opening composition on the program, Clyne writes, “I wrote Shorthand in 2020 when we were in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic and when I was invited to write a piece for The Knights’ recording project, The Kreutzer Project. I was thrilled to compose this piece as I am a cellist, and I love writing for strings – I can imagine and relate to the physicality of the instruments. Shorthand references two themes from Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano (which inspired Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata): the opening theme, as well as a second theme that Janácek also incorporated in his own String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata” (also inspired by Tolstoy’s novella). That second Beethoven theme inspires the opening material for Shorthand. The title comes from Tolstoy’s comment that ‘Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance’.” From the opening phrases of Ma’s cello, the emotions do indeed pour forth from this piece, but with sincerity and power, not saccharine and schmaltz. The way The Knights reflect and interact with Ma’s solo part the highlights the beauty of both his playing and Clyne’s writing, both of which are sublime. 

The next work on the program offers a contrasting sonority as the solo instrument shifts from the cello to the mandolin. Clyne writes of her work Three Sisters, which features featuring mandolinist Avi Avital, “in 2016 I was awarded the Hindemith Prize, which provided an opportunity to compose a new work for Avi and string orchestra: Three Sisters. I began work on Three Sisters at an artist retreat in upstate New York in 2017. Alone in a studio in the middle of the woods, dwarfed by a sea of 100-feet pine trees that masked the daylight and harbored the night’s creatures, and situated on an estate littered with haunting stories of ghostly visitations, the music that emerged was itself haunting and ghostly. And so, I fled back home. Saving just a few fragments from my curtailed residence upstate, I continued the work at my home studio in Brooklyn but soon after returning, I had to move apartment unexpectedly. The work was completed in a tiny apartment a little further away from the lights of Manhattan, but which offered something far more beautiful—a rooftop with an unobstructed view of the night sky, decorated with a scattering of jewels on a clear night. And it is the constellation Orion that stared down upon me night after night—the three stars of his belt, the three sisters, shining bright. And so, this work of three portraits unfolded, each portrait sharing the same DNA in varying guises. In addition to my varying whereabouts, the main source of inspiration throughout this journey was Avi’s incredible dexterity and virtuosity, coupled with the tenderness that he brings to the most delicate and sparse of music.” The plucking of the mandolin set against the contrasting sounds of the strings offers a fascinating musical sonority over the work’s three movements, each lasting a little over five minutes, with the movements being cast in the traditional fast-slow-fast concerto arrangement. It’s an utterly delightful work, an unexpected highlight – at least for those of us who never would have expected the mandolin, these days so associated with bluegrass music (sorry, I’m showing my USA provincialism here – but Avi Avital’s playing is completely convincing. Such a wonderful performance of such an enticingly entertaining work this proves to be!

Next on the program is Prince of Clouds, featuring violinists Colin Jacobsen (brother of conductor Eric Jacobsen and a co-director of The Knights) and Pekka Kuusisto. Clyne writes of this work, “originally composed for Jennifer Koh and her mentor at the Curtis Institute of Music, Jaime Laredo, this thread was in the foreground of my imagination as a dialogue between the soloists and ensemble. As a composer, working with such virtuosic, passionate and unique musicians is also another branch of this musical chain. I always imagined this piece having more moments of folk-style-inflections and I’m delighted to have an opportunity to revisit Prince of Clouds with Colin and Pekka.” It’s an intense piece that alternates between lyrical passages and almost violent outbursts from the soloists. Interestingly enough, as I was doing some background research, I ran across a review that John Puccio did of the original recording made back in 2014 by Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo, which you can read here.

Within Her Arms is scored for fifteen individual string parts,” explains Clyne, “and the musical material, which begins with a simple A-G-F#-G motif, dances around the ensemble from beginning to end. Weaved into the climax of the piece is the melody from a Taizé prayer, Oh Lord Hear My Prayer. The score includes an outline for where each musician should be positioned on stage, and I orchestrated the music accordingly, so that the musical motifs move around the listener. The score also includes specific indications for unified musical inhalations and exhalations at specific moments in the piece. On October 17th 2008, I was walking up 7th Avenue - just around the corner from Central Park - in New York City, when my father called to share the devastating news that my mother had unexpectedly passed away. For the next few days, the music that forms Within Her Arms poured out of me. Each evening I sat at the piano, in my childhood home, with a candle and a recent photo of her standing on a bridge with a warm smile from a few days before she died. Writing this music allowed me space to reflect on what had happened, and also to find a closeness and peacefulness with her. The title comes from a writing by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh – I found these words in my mother’s very beautiful handwriting during the week following her death. This is my most personal piece of music and I couldn’t imagine a more special group of musicians to record it with.”  It is a composition that is at once calm and intense, swirling with emotion that stirs the soul. The listener can feel longing, but also resolution as the sound of the strings rises and fades. 

The album ends with an abbreviated version of Shorthand, which this time around seems to be the perfect way to follow the emotional tone set by Within Her Arms. There is a sense of looking back with satisfaction toward what has come before, of accepting life’s losses, challenges, and blessings with equanimity. Of course, each lister will have their own reaction to this – or any – music, for such reaction is certainly subjective; however, I feel confident in making the objective judgment that Anna Clyne is a composer whose time has come, and that Shorthand is an album well worth a serious audition.