Nicki Roman, saxophone; Casey Dierlam Tse, piano
Kevin DAY: Unquiet Waters
Leonard BERNSTEIN: Clarinet Sonata
Olivia KIEFFER: Floating Bones
Lucie ROBERT: Cadenza
Bruno MANTOVANI: Bug
Edvard GRIEG: Lyric Pieces, No. 6, “Wedding Day at the Troldhaugen”
Ravello Recortds, RR8055
Format: Physical & Digital
Release date: August 27, 2021
Giorgio Koukl | 29 OCT 2021
In this album, saxophonist Nicki Roman and pianist Casey Dierlam Tse offer a variegated program mainly centered on Leonard Bernstein‘s Clarinet Sonata, with its two movements, “Grazioso” and “Andantino e vivace.” It is a well-known masterwork composed in 1941-42.
cover art
This piece is one of the first works of a then young and promising artist, sometimes influenced by his teacher Aaron Copland, with a hint of Hindemith. Its first reviews were not at all favorable, somebody heavily criticizing the clarinet part as inadequate. Many years passed, and it became more and more difficult to be negative with the famous New York Philharmonics conductor, especially after his tremendous success with West Side Story. It is curious to note how many stylistic elements of West Side Story are already in this sonata.
Since then, this music has been widely played and transcribed, so finding a saxophone version is not inappropriate. Even better, the subtle breathing technique and the perfect intonation of Ms. Roman are sometimes superior in sound to most clarinetists I know. The piano part played is very well, even if sometimes too distant on the sonic landscape.
Despite the invention of this particular instrument in 1840 and subsequent prominence during the glorious Parisian years, it remains true that saxophone literature is not so enormous. That’s a pity because the technical abilities and the possible extension and colors available are not inferior to a clarinet, having a great gift of easier tone emission, which means more expressiveness when compared to the latter.
Nicki Roman, 2017
The rest of the CD mostly features the music of different living composers who are necessarily in an awkward position to be forcefully measured against the quality of a work by Bernstein.
Kevin Day‘s Unquiet Waters for alto saxophone and piano is divided into three movements indicated as “fast, turbulent,” “still,” and “disturbed.”
While the rapid passages possess some jazzy appeal and are well suited for the instrument, one cannot say this about the slow movement or other slow and lyrical passages that suffer altogether a lack of inspiration on the brink of becoming simply boring. I do not think this is a problem of interpretation; there is just not enough musical material to be expressed.
The composer Olivia Kieffer and her Floating Bones for alto saxophone also have three movements: “speak through,” “hyoid,” and “return to the water.”
For the unaware listener, who might be a connoisseur in classical music, but maybe a little less in human anatomy, the hyoid bone is part of our skeleton, being the only bone not connected with other bones. This work is for saxophone only, the only exception being the second movement, a sort of crystallization point where it all began. Here we can follow the interaction of sax and voice, a rather childish and little scary voice which would be great in a thriller, but even there, I would notice the, maybe intentional, pitch problems.
Cadenza, by the Canadian-American composer Lucie Rober, at more than 9 minutes duration, is both the longest track of the disc and the most intriguing. There is no space for any complacent treatment of the listener. The music is difficult, without any intention to compromise. It might not be a love affair for anybody, but at least it is honest, creative, and going somewhere. The rendering is also a great success.
The next track presents a short work of Bruno Mantovani, a French composer who is now the director of the Paris Conservatory. He is well known for his overall activity, his relentless work in popularizing music with the help of different media, and his very precocity as a composer.
This short work, Bug, explores all the possible expressive means of a saxophone, but how hard the composer tries, there is still the limit of a single voice instrument, which cannot be extended to infinity. Without having any development, musical line, or rhythmic pattern, such an experiment inevitably winds up being over-repetitive and difficult to digest. Calling it a Bug is perhaps a good choice.
Nicki Roman performs Bruno Mantovani’s “Bug” in a live perfomance at Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. (rochester.edu)
The CD finishes in a very awkward way, with an arrangement made by Ms. Roman of Edward Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, No. 6, “Wedding Day at the Troldhaugen.”
While this music is pleasant and well arranged, its presence on this disc has simply no reasonable explanation. Sometimes thinking about the dramaturgy of a CD, where all the music present has some meaning or is explicative of a musical journey, could help give the album a certain logic.
Both artists are great musicians, clearly in command of their art. Minor problems, like piano sound sometimes out of tune, should not discourage the listener.
It might still be a work in progress, but at least these two ladies are moving in the right direction. ■
Giorgio Koukl is a Czech-born pianist/harpsichordist and composer who resides in Lugano, Switzerland. Among his many recordings are the complete solo piano works and complete piano concertos of Bohuslav Martinů on the Naxos label. He has also recorded the piano music of Tansman, Lutosławski, Kapralova, and A. Tcherepnin, amongst others, for the Grand Piano label. Koukl has most recently completed recording the solo piano music of Hungarian composer Tibor Harsányi.
(photo: Chiara Solari)
RECENT POSTS
.png){kind=logo}