< PreviousIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202126 Wanda Brister and Jay Rosenblatt: Madeleine Dring: Lady Composer Clemson, SC: Clemson University Press, 256 pp., appendices, indices, tables, pho- tographs, musical examples. ISBN 978-1- 949-97931-2 (2020) BONNY H. MILLER Wanda Brister and Jay Rosenblatt’s book, Madeleine Dring: Lady Composer, tells the story of the London-born, twentieth- century composer in a detailed but engag- ing text. The co-authors utilized a wide ar- ray of personal papers, diaries, letters, and music manuscripts to chronicle the course of the life and activities of Dring (1923- 77).1 The clearly-written chapters and subsections address specific topics within a generally chronological framework. Dring’s words from different decades are liberally quoted to give the reader a sense of her personality. The biography includes fifty pages of notes that incorporate full ci- tations in lieu of a separate bibliography. The omission makes it challenging to con- firm the authors’ sources; however, this choice enables space for an index of musi- cal works and details of theatrical partici- pation that illuminate Dring’s life. Tables 4.2, 5.3, and B.1 tabulate music that was published during her life, music published posthumously by her husband, Roger Lord, and further publications by Brister and oth- ers following Lord’s death. An additional useful index directs readers to discussions of specific works in the text. The book’s subtitle, “Lady Composer,” was the title of a song that Dring wrote ca. 1951. The humorous number mocks Dring herself as well as more senior women com- posers, such as Elisabeth Luytens, Grace Williams, and Elizabeth Maconchy (all born in 1906/7). Dring’s song is archly clever as it relentlessly makes the point that women composers struggled to have their work per- formed at all, let alone multiple times. “No work is played TWICE,” the song laments. In the book’s prologue, Brister and Rosenblatt discuss their decision to use the phrase with the caveat that Dring was second-rate to no man. They would rid the An earlier biography of the composer, self-published by the British pianist Rosemary Hancock-Child, is not widely available (Mad- eleine Dring: Her Music, Her Life, Micropress Music, 2000; 2nd ed., 2009). expression of its misogynistic roots and restore its meaning of “an indication of gender, not an evaluation of ability” (p. 4). This is laudable, but the co-authors belabor their thesis by repeating the phrase in every chapter title (“In Search of the Lady Com- poser; The Lady Composer Makes Her En- trance; The Lady Composer Takes Her First Steps, etc.). Less would have been more. Dring attended the Royal College of Music (RCM) from age ten through her ear- ly twenties. Along with composition (prin- cipally with Herbert Howells), she studied dramatic arts at the RCM and “was more active as an actor than as a musician” dur- ing her collegiate years (p. 97). She married fellow musician and oboist Roger Lord and shared the family home, in turn, with her mother and then with her son’s family. Dring was adventurous, as the authors reveal, and enjoyed getting involved in any promising project in a new medium; for example, she contributed music to television series and specials as early as 1947. She was a clever and flexible musician and performer. After a few years of marriage, her hus- band’s income permitted her to select jobs and pursue her particular interests in stage shows and revues. 2 Dring was a gifted lyricist, song composer, and actress, a di- rection she pursued with good success in London’s West End. In Chapters 4 and 5, the biographers delve into Dring’s thespian career and thus provide a basis to under- stand the range of styles in her music. Dring noted that composition was “a desperately lonely occupation” that was both draining and intoxicating. She craved human interaction and demonstrated a nat- ural inclination for communication with an audience, whether it be theater, television, radio, opera, or film. Her métier on the stage was the revue, a particularly ephem- eral genre with musical numbers constant- ly changing, disappearing, and frequently lost forever. “With Dring’s experience in classical and popular music, it was an easy task for her to write an ‘audience friendly’ work,” the authors state (p. 221). Dring did it well, whether the style was jazzy (Colour Suite), neo-Classical (woodwind chamber music written with her husband in mind), or art song (settings of Shakespeare, Betjeman, The text, tables, and Appendix B detail her participation in the London theater scene during the 1950s and 60s. Armstrong). The musical descriptions in the biography vary in degrees of technical detail but suggest insights for the listener and succinct structural commentary for the performer. Dring’s music seems as natural and effortless as it is polished and meticu- lous. Brister and Rosenblatt observe that critics in the composer’s lifetime found her concert works attractive, well-crafted, and accessible. Mezzo-soprano Brister has released two CDs of Dring’s music and has pub- lished nine volumes of songs and material from her stage works, as well as the one- act opera Cupboard Love, and a television production, The Fair Queen of Wu. Brister and Rosenblatt serve the composer well in this new biography, which, along with re- cordings and score publications by Brister, Hancock-Child, and others, should lead to more performances and recognition of Dring’s music. Bonny H. Miller is an independent scholar and pianist who served as head accompanist at the University of Miami Frost School of Music summer study program in Salzburg, Austria, for more than a decade. She has taught piano and music history at universities in Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and Virginia. She received the Janet Levy Award for Independent Scholars in 2008 from the American Musico- logical Society. Her book, Augusta Browne: Composer and Woman of Letters in Nineteenth- Century America (University of Rochester Press, 2020), is reviewed in this section. (www. bonnymillermusic.com) Anja Bunzel: The Songs of Johanna Kinkel: Genesis, Reception, and Context Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 291 pp., appendix of works, bibliography, index, and musical examples, cloth, ebook. ISBN 978-1-78327-410-9, 978-1-78744-810-0 (2020) JENNIFER PIAZZA-PICK Classical singers and voice educators have historically favored the German Lieder of Romantic Era male composers such as Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, while excluding many other composers of the time, especially women. Today, we are seeing an expansion of the canon in this area to include Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler, and Josephine Lang, among others. With this new book by Anja Bunzel, BOOK AND MUSIC REVIEWS27 we can now add Johanna Kinkel (1810- 1858) to our ever-growing list. This book focuses on Kinkel’s Lieder output and the socio-political context of her songs. A composer, poet, educator, pianist, writer, and activist, Kinkel published sev- enty-eight Lieder in her lifetime. Despite being Catholic, she successfully divorced Johann Paul Matthieux, converted to the Protestant faith, and married poet and po- litical revolutionary Gottfried Kinkel, with whom she had four children. Because Kin- kel did not keep a diary, Bunzel’s under- standing of her life comes from correspon- dence, socio-cultural attitudes of the time, knowledge of Gottfried Kinkel’s activities, and inferences from the type of poetry Kin- kel set in her songs. Kinkel’s songs are relatively typical of German Lieder of her time: she often choos- es poetry that focuses on nature, eternity, the night, and loneliness. Her poetic sources come not only from the great German po- ets like Goethe and Heine, but also from her friends, her husband, and herself. One can find strophic songs with simple harmo- nies as well as complex, through-composed works with more diverse harmonic progres- sions in her catalog. Bunzel argues that Kin- kel’s songs not only reflect the typical aes- thetics of women composers of her time, but they also transcend them. Throughout the book, Bunzel explains Kinkel’s life through her choice of poetry, as well as the way her compositional choices affected her ability to market her works and build her reputa- tion as a composer. Many of Kinkel’s Lieder were reviewed in renowned musical jour- nals, such as the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Her compositions were regularly critiqued in a positive manner by Ludwig Rellstab and many others. Such reviews contributed to her reputation as a composer and allowed her to earn income for her family. The section on Kinkel’s love songs presents them chronologically and relates them to Kinkel’s personal love life. This in- cludes the songs when she is processing her first marriage, the years before she married Kinkel, and the years her second husband was part of the political revolution in Ger- many, including his imprisonment. Bunzel infers much about Kinkel’s personal life based on the poetic choices of these songs in particular. In the epilogue, she expands upon why she believes that these songs can be used as autobiographical evidence. Us- ing correspondence between Johanna and Gottfried Kinkel and between Johanna and her friends, as well as comparisons to the work of Josephine Lang, Bunzel creates a relatively strong case. References to the Rhineland are par- ticularly prominent in Kinkel’s Lieder, as this was her native land. This is not surpris- ing, given the nationalistic feelings in Ger- many at the time. Many of Kinkel’s Lieder have more overt political themes. Because Gottfried Kinkel was actively involved in the nineteenth-century revolutionary movement, it is not surprising that Johanna Kinkel chose to set so many texts that were political in nature. Programming some of these songs in a politically-themed recital would be interesting. Like many of her contemporaries, Kinkel often uses the piano as a collabo- rator to paint the picture of the text. This is especially evident in the analysis of the songs in praise of nature. When searching for songs that might pair well with other Lieder composers of the time, a singer would find the epilogue to this section par- ticularly helpful. Bunzel identifies many of the Romantic themes of German poetry of the time and includes titles of Kinkel’s songs that fit these themes. Particularly noteworthy is the chapter on composi- tional aesthetics, where Bunzel discusses Kinkel’s compositions in comparison to other composers of the time. If one seeks to compare settings of the same poem, this chapter offers a wealth of information. With a list of Kinkel’s compositions in the appendix, a large bibliography, and ex- cellent poetic translations, Bunzel has pro- vided us with many opportunities to learn more about the Lieder of this woman and gain insight into these lovely songs. It is re- warding to read a book about a woman Lie- der composer that is not written through the lens of gender, but rather as a reflection of the composer’s life and her place in time. As Bunzel states at the end of the book, “It is up to us...to rectify the image of Johanna Kin- kel and her lesser-known contemporaries as significant nineteenth-century cultural pro- tagonists...by way of detailed examinations and performances of their artistic output.” This book provides the inspiration to do so. Jennifer Piazza-Pick is a soprano, educator, re- searcher, and advocate for women composers, and she is Lecturer of Voice and Aural Skills at Georgia College and State University. An active soloist, she has performed with the National- theater Mannheim in Germany and at Carnegie Hall and elsewhere in the US. She was the win- ner of Hawaii Public Radio’s art song contest and the George Cortes Award for Classical Singing by the Artist Foundation of San Anto- nio. She is the co-founder of Whistling Hens. Bonny H. Miller: Augusta Browne: Composer and Woman of Letters in Nineteenth-Century America Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 474 pp., appendices, bibliography, index, photographs, musical examples, cloth, ebook. ISBN 978-1-58046-972-2, 978-1-78744-883-4, 978-1-78744-966-4 (2020) LAURA PITA In the Preface of her book Augusta Browne: Composer and Woman of Letters, scholar Bonny H. Miller provides valid reasons as to why it is important to know more about this woman and what her story can reveal about nineteenth-century musical life in the United States. By Miller’s admission, Augusta Browne (ca. 1820-82) did not compose “masterworks,” nor was she a “feminist” in the modern sense of the word. Instead, her compositions were mainly pi- ano pieces intended for the salon, and her Protestant faith shaped her writings. But, as Miller’s meticulous research demonstrates, Browne’s multi-faceted career, which in- cluded composition, music publishing, teaching, and essays for journals and maga- zines, was indeed an extraordinary accom- plishment, and this study of her achieve- ments and contributions is much more than just a compensatory biography. Moreover, because of the diversity of Brown’s activi- ties and connections, Miller can expand out from her focus on Browne to place her within the larger community of music-mak- ing during her time. Thus, this work makes a significant contribution not only for its examination of a creative nineteenth-centu- ry woman but also for what it tells us about the musical culture of that time in America. The opening three chapters focus on Browne’s family history, childhood, and maturity as a professional composer and teacher. Miller’s thorough archival research draws upon census records and family letters to trace the immigration of Browne and her parents from Ireland to Canada, Boston, New York, and Philadel- phia. Miller also researched extensively in magazines and newspapers, among other published materials, to describe her father’s struggles as a music teacher who strove to Book and Music ReviewsIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202128 open his music academy. Here Miller pro- vides a detailed discussion of the fiercely competitive music industry in the 1820s and the commitment of Browne’s father, David, to the system of piano training de- veloped by Johan Bernhard Logier. From her meticulous work, Miller reveals the world of piano education and music pub- lishing during this time and connects this confluence of demand and competition to Augusta Browne’s development as a child prodigy, encouraged by both the wishes and the needs of her father. These chapters do more than provide information about Browne’s early life; they uncover much about music-making on the East Coast. The nature of the business, the composers, and the techniques that were in vogue, as well as the struggles and concerns of those working in the industry are all a part of the story of Augusta Browne’s youth. As she moved into adulthood, Browne forged a career, with the support of the family’s music academy, as a teacher, com- poser, and performer. Miller’s analysis of Browne’s compositions and arrangements for piano, which appeared in both music publications and magazines, illustrates her ability to compose works that met the need for entertaining piano music to be played at home. Miller discusses the positive re- ception of her compositions and her per- formances that appeared in the press. She analyzes the influence of popular songs and operatic arias on her music, and she discusses the demands of her audience and the families who brought her music into their homes. In Chapters 4-6, Miller shows us the multi-dimensional nature of Browne’s ca- reer as a composer, teacher, and essayist working in New York City. She illustrates the role of music-making in the city’s mid- dle- and upper-class families and the styles of piano composition that were market- able at the time. Miller also examines the writings of Browne, providing details that enable the reader to get a real sense of the nature of the musical essays that were pub- lished in newspapers and journals of the pe- riod. These chapters are valuable as much for what they can inform us about music composition and criticism of the time as they are for what they can tell us about this very prolific and remarkable woman. Browne’s later years, as discussed in Chapters 7-9, were marked by challenges and loss. Her parents, her husband, and several siblings preceded her in death, and she also endured the Civil War. Miller sympathetically portrays this very human side of Browne, who continued to be active as a composer and essayist while maintain- ing friendships with influential publishers and clients. As Miller writes, Browne was active until her untimely death in 1882, and her creativity was remarkable in the face of such adversity. The book’s final chapters are valuable for their assessment of Browne’s legacies and contributions to music and journal- ism. Miller sees Browne as a composer with the potential to create orchestral mu- sic, but having understood the limitations of gender expectations at that place and time, she devoted herself to piano genres instead. In addition, as Miller writes, Browne’s compositions for piano were a part of the competitive business of sheet music as a whole, and their eventual mar- ginalization is not solely attributable to the fact that they had been composed by a woman. Nonetheless, Browne made an unusual place for herself as an essayist on music. In her writings, Browne com- mented about musical styles, genres, and trends of the time, including comparisons between “educated” and “popular” music, an assessment of the current state of music in America compared to Europe, and her negative views on Black minstrelsy. The book concludes with very detailed appendixes of the children and descendants of Browne’s parents, a chronology of her music and letters, and a list of her musi- cal works. In addition to this book, Miller maintains a blog, “Music, History, Women, and Heritage” (https://bonnymillermusic. com/), in which she posts articles and other materials on Browne. This site offers a rich educational resource for those interested in inquiring about feminine experiences and agency in the face of societal constraints in the multidimensional musical culture of nineteenth-century America. Bonny H. Miller’s Augusta Browne is a superb piece of musicological scholar- ship. Every chapter reveals methodologi- cal mastery, nuanced analysis, engaging writing, and contagious enthusiasm for re- storing a historical figure who has been un- deservedly neglected. Through a compre- hensive discussion of the musical world in which Browne was raised and made her ca- reer, Miller illuminates the challenges that musical women of professional aspirations met when dealing with the businesses of music education, publishing, and criticism in nineteenth-century America. Against this background, Augusta Browne’s story emerges in all its complexity: a child prod- igy, a music teacher, a performer, a com- poser, an essayist, and a woman working in a male-dominated industry, who deter- mined for herself the parameters of her ca- reer. Miller’s monograph of Browne makes a noteworthy contribution to our present understanding of women’s music-making in nineteenth-century America. I anticipate that it will stimulate further research in this fascinating area of study. Laura Pita’s research has focused on women and music in 19th-century Latin-America, spe- cifically in the area of salon music and piano virtuosity. She is co-editor of the piano and chamber works of the Venezuelan pianist-com- poser Teresa Carreño (Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2008; Cayambis Music Press, 2017a, 2017b). She has taught at Universidad Central de Venezuela, University of Kentucky, and is presently teaching at the School of Lan- guages, Literatures and Cultures of the Univer- sity of Missouri-Columbia. She is review editor of the Journal of the IAWM. Pauline Viardot-García, Ausgewählte Lieder für Singstimme und Klavier Volume 1, edited by Miriam-Alexan- dra Wigbers, Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel 8887 (2021) HILARY PORISS AND ADRIANA FESTEU Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), best known as one of the nineteenth-century’s most powerful prima donnas, was also a prolific composer who wrote music continuously throughout her adult life. As Patrick Wad- dington and Nicholas Zekulin have docu- mented in their meticulously assembled chronology of her works, seldom did a year pass without her setting pen to paper. 1 Her first published work, a song for voice and piano titled “L’Enfant et la Montagne,” appeared in 1838 when she was nineteen, incorporated within a larger collection as- sembled by Meyerbeer, Paganini, and Cherubini. Viardot did not allow her music Patrick Waddington and Nicholas Žekulin, The Musical Works of Pauline Viar- dot-Garcia (1821-1910), University of Cal- gary’s Digital Depository, accessed October 10, 2021, https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/han- dle/1880/49849/Viardot__catalogue__2013. pdf;sequence=1.29 to languish once it was published. Instead, she placed “L’Enfant et la Montagne” on immediate display, using it to feature her own vocal talents in concerts in Leipzig and elsewhere. Her final flurry of composition- al activity took place nearly seventy years later and included, among other pieces, two airs de ballet, around half a dozen songs, and a mazurka for piano four-hands. Over the course of seven decades of activity, Viardot produced hundreds of compositions. Among these works are a vast number of songs with texts in French, German, Italian, Russian, and English, as well as several operettas. An accomplished pianist, she composed music for keyboard solo and four hands; for her son, the vio- linist Paul Viardot, she wrote Six morceaux pour piano et violon (1867); and she pub- lished pedagogical tomes that remain in use up to the present day: L’Heure d’etude, a two-volume work containing hundreds of original exercises for female voice; and L’Ecole classique du chant, a collection of Italian, German, and French arias to which she added phrasing and nuance and short prefaces describing her thoughts on correct performance. Despite the time and energy Viardot devoted to compositional activity and the volume of her output, biographers have tra- ditionally given this aspect of her creative life short shrift. As the story goes, she was not “serious,” writing occasional works for her family, friends, and students. April FitzLyon’s faint praise of Viardot’s mu- sic, for example, lands with a thud: “Her compositions were usually sound, compe- tent, and agreeable, although they never achieved any real distinction.” 2 Mary Ann Smart has discussed this attitude in refer- ence to the compositional accomplishments of Viardot’s older sister, Maria Malibran. As Smart suggests, this type of dismissal is highly gendered, reflecting a “deliber- ate strategy…to deflate the significance of her compositions, to reduce her music to just another form of entertainment or diversion.”3 The same might be said of Vi- ardot’s reputation as a composer. 2 April FitzLyon, The Price of Genius (New York: Appleton-Century, 1964), 130. 3 Mary Ann Smart, “Voiceless Song: Maria Malibran as Composer,” in Autorschaft-Genie- Geschlecht: Musikalische Schaffensprozesse von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Kordula Knaus and Susanne Kogler (Cologne: Böhlau, 2013), 137-58, at 139. Fortunately, Viardot’s presence as a musical giant has never entirely faded, and the twentieth century has witnessed efforts by important prima donnas such as Mari- lyn Horne and Cecilia Bartoli to showcase Viardot’s brilliant career as a composer as well as performer. This continuing interest in Viardot has gained an important contri- bution: the new critical edition of songs edited by Miriam-Alexandra Wigbers and published by Breitkopf & Härtel. This beautifully produced volume con- tains two of Viardot’s song collections, a to- tal of seventeen songs. Twelve are settings on Russian texts by Pushkin, Fet, and Tur- genev, and five are settings on Italian texts drawn from Giuseppe Tigri’s Canti populari toscani raccolti e annotate. The volume’s preface, in German with an English transla- tion, provides a brief overview of Viardot’s life and career, situating her compositional activities in the context of her family lega- cy. Her father, Manuel Garcia (1775–1832), was an international opera star and the first Count Almaviva in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and her sister, Malibran (1808– 1836), was a reigning diva until her life was cut short by a horse-riding accident. Garcia was a gifted composer of opera and song, as well as one of the century’s most important voice teachers. His vocal method formed the basis of bel canto style. He passed these talents down to both of his daughters, and to his son, Manuel Garcia, Jr. (1805-1906), whose own pedagogical accomplishments eventually surpassed those of his father. This background is helpful in under- standing Viardot’s compositional output, for not only did she write music to display her own highly developed voice, she also worked closely with her students at vari- ous stages of their development, composing music that served the dual purpose of edu- cating and entertaining. Many of the songs in this volume provide a vivid illustration of this pedagogical-performative balance. The vocal line of the first song, “Serenata fiorentina,” the first of the five Canti popo- lari toscani, for example, is set in the middle register, rendering it accessible to sopranos and mezzos alike—some tenors and high baritones might even find it suitable. While most of the five Canti popolari toscani are relatively easy vocally, there is one excep- tion. The third in the collection, “Non vi maravigliate,” contains high B-flats and several passages requiring significant agil- ity on the part of the performer. In adding this slightly more difficult song into the mix, Viardot may have been showcasing her sig- nature sense of humor, intentionally setting the singer on edge, as if to say, “never get too comfortable.” The connection between Viardot’s students and many of her compositions is also evident in the fascinating publication history of the Canti popolari toscani. The first edition was released in St. Petersburg by the publisher A. F. Johannsen in 1878; in this publication, Viardot dedicated the songs to some of her individual students.4 Perhaps because Viardot’s dedicatees for these songs are so proliferous, the new Bre- itkopf & Härtel edition does not acknowl- edge this aspect of their history, neither in the volume’s preface, nor in the headings of the individual numbers. While the exclusion of this information does not preclude enjoy- ment of the songs, it nevertheless represents a lost opportunity to draw connections be- tween Viardot’s music and the voices she once imagined performing them. A part of their history, in other words, is sadly erased. There are a few other quibbles one might have with this edition. The preface’s English translation is awkward in places, grammatically incorrect in others, and there are musical differences in the piano accom- paniment between this and earlier editions that remain unexplained. Nevertheless, the positive far outweighs the negative, and this edition includes elements that would not have been possible during the nine- teenth century. For example, Breitkopf & Härtel has set up an informative website to accompany the edition, which includes a preview of the first pages of the volume, al- lowing the curious to browse a fair amount of the volume prior to purchase. Moreover, the release of the critical edition was cel- ebrated with a podcast featuring Wigbers 4 “Non vi maravigliate,” for example, was dedicated to Lydie de Heiroth, a lead- ing singer in Italian and Russian theaters be- tween 1879 and 1882; and the fifth song in the cycle, “L’innamorata,” was for the famed Belgian singer Desirée Artôt. When the songs were released in a second edition, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1879, Viardot chose a new group of dedicatees, including Marianne Brandt, Biancha Bianchi, and Artôt’s husband, Marianno Padilla. A third edition, this one pub- lished in France by E. Gérard (1881), carries dedications to yet a third set of students and acquaintances: Felix Lévy, Marthe Duvivier, Lidie de Torrigi, Blanche Boidin-Puisais, and, once again, Biancha Bianchi. Book and Music ReviewsIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202130 and collaborative pianist Eric Schneider in conversation with the brilliant Viardot scholar Beatrix Borchard. Finally, Wigbers and Schneider have recorded a selection of songs from this edition, a link to which is also included on the website. Importantly, moreover, this Viardot project has not yet concluded. This edition is the first of two that Breitkopf & Härtel will publish of her songs. The second edition, which is cur- rently in preparation, will include Viar- dot’s settings of poetry by Ludwig Uhland, Eduard Mörike, Heinrich Heine, Goethe, and a handful of others. All told, these edi- tions represent a remarkable addition to the literature surrounding Pauline Viardot, a musician whose contributions to nine- teenth-century musical culture were both substantial and profound. Hilary Poriss is Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Music and the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern Uni- versity. She is the author of Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Per- formance (Oxford, 2010), Gioachino Rossini’s Barber of Seville (Oxford, 2021), and co-editor of The Fashions and Legacies of Nineteenth- Century Music (Cambridge, 2011) and The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2012). She is currently writ- ing a biography of Pauline Viardot for the Uni- versity of Chicago Press and is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Musicological Research. Adriana Festeu is a mezzo-soprano, voice teach- er, and lecturer. She is currently Undergraduate Programme Tutor at the Royal Academy of Music and Senior Lecturer in Classical Voice at Leeds Conservatoire. Her primary research interests are voice classification and the Fach system. An active soloist, she recently performed at the Romanian National Opera in Cluj. She has also sung at the New Palace Opera, the Royal Acad- emy Opera, the Garsington Opera, the European Opera Centre, and the British Youth Opera. Recent Publications Emma Lou Diemer: My Life as a Woman Composer Ardent Writer Press, 456 pp. Available in hardcover ($37.95), paper ($24.95), and Kindle ($9.99) at Amazon and elsewhere (December 2021) Emma Lou Diemer’s memoir contains more than 90 essays about her life and her mu- sic as well as numerous photos. She tells about her family and her studies at Yale, Eastman, and Tanglewood and her career as a composer, performer, and teacher. Diemer has com- posed a wide variety of music over a period of almost 80 years, and she has received many commissions as well as honors and awards, including an honorary doctorate. She taught composition and theory at the University of Maryland and for 20 years at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was instrumental in founding the electronic/computer music program. Diemer has also had an active career as a keyboard performer (piano, or- gan, harpsichord, and synthesizer), and she has recently given concerts of her own music. Eugene Gates and Karla Hartl, eds.: The Women in Music Anthology Toronto: The Kapralova Society, 378 pp. ISBN 978-0-9940425-9-0 (softcover), limited edition. ISBN 978-1-7777795-0-4, e-book (2021) Part I of the publication begins with two major essays on the “Woman Composer Question” and continues with chapters that explore, in some depth, the lives and legacies of eight women musicians who made a major impact in their respective fields and com- munities: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Schumann, Ethel Smyth, Amy Beach, Ag- atha Backer Grøndahl, Maude Valérie White, Florence Price, and Vera Lynn. One chapter also focuses on the history of all-female orchestras. Part II is dedicated to the latest research on Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940), with several chapters pertaining to the intriguing task of reconstructing mu- sic from sketches and autograph fragments. The book is available in two formats, printed and digital, with the latter available for free download from kapralova.org. Rhiannon Mathias, ed.: The Routledge Handbook of Women’s Work in Music London: Routledge, 496 pp. ISBN 9780367192099 (2022) The Routledge Handbook of Women’s Work in Music presents a unique collection of core research by academics and music practitioners from around the world. The wide range of topics include women’s contributions (both historical and present-day) to West- ern and Eastern art music, popular music, world music, music education, ethnomusicol- ogy, music technology, and the music industries. Sarah Quartel, ed.: Breath of Song (score) Oxford: Oxford University Press, paper, 96 pp., $15.50. ISBN: 9780193532021 (2021) The publication includes ten original works by contemporary women composers for unaccompanied SATB choir with both secular and sacred texts and an ecletic mix of styles and colors. The composers featured in it are Joan Szymko, Becky McGlade, Cecilia McDowall, Reena Esmail, Sarah Dacey, Laura Hawley, Sarah Quartel, Jenny Mahler, Eleanor Daley, and Annabel Rooney. Elizabeth Austin: Windows Panes Krakau Radio/TV Orchestra, Szymon Kawall, conductor; Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, Joel-Eric Suben, conductor; An- thony King, reciter; Amanda Kohl, soprano; Christopher Grundy, baritone; Ulrich Ur- ban, piano; Melinda Liebermann, reciter, piano; Cornelius Witthöft, piano; Elizabeth Austin, piano. Navona, NV6304-2 (2020) MONICA BUCKLAND Elizabeth Austin (b. 1938) describes her compositional technique as “akin to peer- ing out of a window into an appearance of past musical landscapes,” as she inter- weaves reminiscences of existing pieces with her own contemporary language (lin- er notes). And indeed, the album Window Panes, a retrospective of six of the compos- er’s works for orchestra, piano, and voice, spanning fifty years, does feature several pieces that integrate quotations from past composers in an intriguing and meaning- ful way. This is particularly the case in her two Symphonies, “Wilderness” and “The Lighthouse,” which open the album. Symphony No. 1, “Wilderness,” dat- ing from 1987, is a single-movement set of character variations based on the poetry of Carl Sandburg, and it explores the connec- tion between wild beasts and humans. In the introductory section, the work’s main theme is presented by the solo violin as a “voice crying out in the wilderness,” before male and female voices enter, reciting the verses of the different “animal variations.”1 There are brief quotations from other mu- sic, such as recognizable moments from Elizabeth R. Austin, “Program Notes: Wilderness Symphony (#1) (1987),” accessed October 10, 2021, http://www.elizabethaustin- music.com/my-music.html REVIEWS: COMPACT DISC AND DIGITAL RECORDINGS31 Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Austin, in her notes to Puzzle Pieces for piano, also fea- tured on the album, states: What engages me is to so im- bed tonal quotes in a non-tonal or pan-tonal fabric that what has sounded familiar becomes trans- formed into something regarded as foreign and invasive. It is as though the body allows the cun- ning invader, wrapped in recog- nizable guise, to catch it off bal- ance. The musical remembrance exists without expansion, but it is made eccentric through this adjacent pane technique. My aim is for the contemporary sounding fabric to begin to sound “right” to the listener and the tonal quote to sound oddly out of place. 2 This quote could equally refer to the language of the two symphonies. Listen- ing more closely—with the light on, so to speak—the sonorities begin to make har- monic sense as well, emerging from ap- parent opacity into a system built on minor sixths and minor thirds, and thus avoiding the octaves and fifths of traditional tonal music. A moving beam of light is the direct inspiration for Symphony No. 2, “Light- house” (1993), in three contrasting move- ments. The inspiration comes from Aus- tin’s experience while spending time by the ocean; all the embedded quotes from works by other composers (such as Samuel Bar- ber’s Dover Beach and Claude Debussy’s La Mer) have some connection with the sea. In Austin’s own words: “I spent many summer hours at the ocean, taking in the Watch Hill lighthouse and listening to the bell buoys at close proximity, I was drawn to the power of that arc of light, that beacon which seemed to illuminate the waves.” 3 The effect of the lighthouse beam can be heard in the music. The falling semitone motive (a to g sharp) is a Doppler effect that mimics the beam of light swinging round, transforming the light into sound as it turns, approaching slowly, then flash- ing in a moment, before disappearing on another round, with a brief quotation from 2 Elizabeth R. Austin, quoted in Michael K. Slayton, “Elizabeth R. Austin (1938–),” in Women of Influence in Contemporary Music: Nine American Composers, ed. by M. K. Slay- ton (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011), 11–52, 23–24. 3 Ibid., 33. Robert Schumann’s Mondnacht: “Es war, als hätt’ der Himmel die Erde still geküsst” (It was as though Heaven had softly kissed the Earth). The second movement, “Burlesque on a theme by Johann Stamitz,” is more than a nod to Mannheim, where Austin spends part of each year. The symphony’s conclud- ing movement, “Elegia,” returns to the ra- diance of the lighthouse and “Gute Nacht” from Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin. The “Gute Nacht” motive also appears in the next piece on the album, An Ameri- can Triptych for solo piano, written at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio retreat in 2001. Here Austin, a student of Nadia Boulanger, reveals herself as a master of counterpoint. Yet the pieces are anything but academic. The first is a rag quodlibet— a patchwork, or mash-up, with hints of Jo- plin, the second—a kind of blues, and the third—an all-American hoedown (but with detectable traces of Prokofiev). The vocal music on this album does not contain quotes from other composers. As Austin says, “The poem’s texts in a song must be front and center!” (liner notes). And indeed, they are in these five Sonnets From the Portuguese for soprano and pia- no (1988), which set poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The first song, “The Face of All the World,” features some spo- ken text, while the third, “Unlike Are We,” opens unaccompanied, and elsewhere, the setting never loses its focus on the words. The songs share recurring thematic materi- al, varying to different degrees throughout the cycle. Soprano Melinda Liebermann rises to the challenges of a vocal line with great leaps and a wide tessitura, and pianist Cornelius Witthöft is consistently sensitive to the discreetly changing colors of the ac- companiment. This play of color is another way in which “window panes” describe Elizabeth Austin’s music: the third thing glass can do, if the light strikes it just right, is to refract this light, splitting it into many colors. Austin writes for orchestra deftly so that the varying timbres subtly become part of the structure of a piece, and the ear never gets tired, a skill that is also apparent in her handling of the piano as both solo and ac- companiment. Puzzle Preludes for piano, composed between 1994 and 2008, are perhaps the epitome of Elizabeth Austin’s “window- paning” technique. Each of the seven pre- ludes is explicitly based on a quotation from a particular composer, and five are given in the album: Brahms, Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. The album closes with its earliest work, Drei Rilke Lieder, which was the work that convinced Boulanger to invite the 19-year-old Austin to study with her at Fontainebleau. The Lieder are sung in Eng- lish on this album by Christopher Grundy and Amanda Kohl, in turn, joining in duet for the third song, “Lovesong,” and they are accompanied by the composer herself. Austin’s handling of tonality is already ap- parent in this youthful work. As she puts it: “I use the word nontonal versus tonal because this is, in my music, an agent for contrast. This is the way I approach tonal- ity, to set it against a nontonality. I think we are all looking for this balance, but how do we approach it?” 4 The pieces in the album were recorded at different times and under very different circumstances. Listening to the whole CD in one sitting emphasizes these contrasts between live and studio recordings, and the different approaches of the engineers (getting very close up to the singers in the Rilke Lieder, for example, and allowing a bit more space in the Sonnets). But this is not meant as a criticism: the album is a showcase of different works spanning the composer’s career and does not attempt to follow the program arc of a live concert. Austin suggests combining her own works with those of the composers she quotes: “A wonderful program would be to take pieces which quote and couple them with the home-piece.”5 And that may be the best way to listen to the CD—one piece at a time, using it as a window pane through which new light is shed on music you al- ready know, enriching both it and the mu- sic of Austin. Monica Buckland is a conductor and educa- tor, currently living in Sydney, Australia, where she is Musical Director of the Balmain Sinfo- nia. She is an Associate of Newnham College Cambridge, and also lectures at the University of New South Wales; she continues to teach at Durham University in the UK and at the Paluc- ca University of Dance in Dresden, Germany. She is currently a member of the Board of Di- rectors of the IAWM. 4 E. R. Austin, Quoted in M. K. Slayton, “Elizabeth R. Austin,” 40. 5 “Composer Elizabeth Austin: Conversa- tion with Bruce Duffie,” Bruce Duffie, accessed October 10, 2021, http://www.bruceduffie.com/ austin.html Reviews: Compact Disk and Digital RecordingsIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202132 Hommage à Dinu Lipatti Compositions by George Enescu, Dinu Lipatti, and Violeta Dinescu. Marcus Schäfer, tenor; Mihai Ungureanu, piano; Felix Epp, recording mix and master- ing. Recorded at Morgenland Festival Osnabrück, Sendesaal, Bremen, Germa- ny, December 5-6, 2020. Dreier Gaido, DGCD21132 (2021) NANETTE KAPLAN SOLOMON Mention the name Dinu Lipatti (1917- 1950) to any present-day pianist, and one will inevitably hear almost hyperbolic admiration for an artist whose revelatory interpretations brought clarity, authentic- ity, and luminosity to the piano literature. What is less commonly known, and what I learned just this past summer during the Bard Music Festival’s “Nadia Boulanger and her World,” was that Lipatti was also a very skilled composer who had studied with both Boulanger and his fellow Roma- nian mentor George Enescu (1881-1955). Lipatti is the centerpiece of this beau- tifully performed and engineered CD, which features his two song cycles: Cinq Chansons de Verlaine, op. 9and Quatre Mélodies. This homage is bookended by glimpses from the past and future, opening with Enescu’s Sept Chansons de Clément Marot, op. 15and closing with Violeta Di- nescu’s song scene Mein auge ist zu allen sieben Sphären zurückgekehrt, written in 2017 for Lipatti’s 100th birthday. IAWM member Dinescu, born in 1953 in Bucharest (three years after Lipatti’s death) studied composition, piano, and pedagogy at what is now the National Mu- sic University Bucharest, and she has lived in Germany since 1982, where she has led a distinguished teaching career, currently on the faculty of the University of Oldenburg. She has established both Eastern European and contemporary music concert series, and has written extensively for all genres, with some quite unusual instrumentation. Her song scene Mein Auge…was in- spired by Lipatti’s piano playing, which, for Dinescu, possessed an unbelievable richness of colors. And indeed, her sixteen- minute dramatic setting utilizes all sorts of soundscapes, resonances, and shim- mering overtones. Dinescu sets a section from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy as her text: verses from canto 22 from “Para- diso,” which describes the traveler’s eyes returning through all the seven spheres and holding earth’s to be the least. Dinescu creates an otherworldly, sculpted effect in the interaction between voice and piano. It opens with powerful registral contrasts in the piano, creating an effect reminiscent of Enescu’s night-time bells in his piano piece Carillon Nocturne (the last movement of his 1916 Piano Suite no. 3). After the pre- sentation of the first three lines of the verse, the singer elaborates the text in a quasi- improvisatory fashion, repeating separate words and syllables, with a sprechstimme quality, and playing with the expressive possibilities of the voice, from speech to exclamation evoking Berio’s Visage, al- beit more melodic. This deconstruction of the text gives an eerie, disembodied effect, evocative of the subject matter. The singer alternates presentations of the remaining text in both German and Italian, while the piano provides an almost symphonic ac- companiment, with shimmering tremolos, toccata-like ostinati, and widely-spaced se- rial lines. The dramatic atmosphere evokes that of Schoenberg’s Erwartung. It was thrilling to hear this imaginative work, and I look forward to getting to know more of Dinescu’s oeuvre. The vocal performance by Markus Schäfer is astonishing in its clarity of articulation and expressivity; the piano collaboration of Mihai Ungureanu is stellar as well. The performers do equal justice to the Enescu and Lipatti works on the disc. Lis- teners not familiar with these song cycles will be richly rewarded. The Enescu songs (1908) are set to texts by sixteenth-century poet Clément Marot, and in the first of the seven songs, the piano plays chords sug- gestive of a lute, to evoke the time period. Having known Enescu’s compositional style solely from his iconic Romanian Rhapsody, I was surprised at the lush, harmonically-rich settings of these minia- tures; however, upon learning that Enescu was a student of Gabriel Fauré, the influ- ence is evident. In Lipatti’s Cinq Chanson de Verlaine (1941),the composer chose texts that alternate between suffering and hope. The famous poem Il pleure dans mon coeur is given an onomatopoeic os- tinato, and throughout the cycle, the piano is mostly dominant with the voice almost an obbligato. In Quatre Mélodies (1945, texts by Rimbaud, Eluard and Valéry), the piano parts are much more subdued and more accompanimental, while the style ranges from impressionistic to quite har- monically adventurous. Nanette Kaplan Solomon is a pianist and ad- vocate of women composers. She is Professor Emerita from Slippery Rock University of Penn- sylvania. She performs frequently as a soloist and chamber musician, and served on the board of the IAWM, College Music Society, and Penn- sylvania Music Teachers Association. Her four compact discs: Piano Music of Nikolai Lopat- nikoff (Laurel), Character Sketches: Solo Piano Works by Seven American Women (Leonarda), Sunbursts: Solo Piano Works by Seven Ameri- can Women (Leonarda), and Badinage:Piano Music of Mana-Zucca (Albany) have received critical acclaim. Lydia Kakabadse: Ithaka: Vocal and Choral Works The Choir of Royal Holloway, Rupert Gough, conductor; Cecily Beer, harp; Claire McCaldin, mezzo-soprano; Paul Turner, pi- ano. Divine Art, DDA 25188 (2019) TAMARA CASHOUR We have all heard the phrase: “It’s the journey, not the destination, that counts.” This is the view of the British composer Lydia Kakabadse (b. 1955), and is the ba- sis for her artistic ethic in her CD Ithaka. She maintains that journeys enhance our lives with the “richness of wisdom, expe- rience and knowledge” (liner notes). The CD opens with a seven-part choral suite titled Odyssey. Listeners who expect a syn- optical quick trip through the 24 books of Homer’s tome might be surprised at the suite’s format: each movement is based on a historical period of Greek culture and uses a representative text from the era. Movement 1 (Archaic, approx. 750- 480 BC) begins with the opening lines of the Odyssey,which give a brief overview of the long narrative that is to come. Paired with this text is the somewhat titillating passage from Book 6 (vv. 110-139), where, thanks to the contrivances of the goddess Athena, Od- ysseus washes up on the shores of Scheria, Sofia Gubaidulina Musicians around the world are cel- ebrating Sofia Gubaidulina’s 90th birth- day (October 24) this year with many performances of her music. As part of the celebration, Deutsche Grammo- phone released a recording of The Light of the End for orchestra, her Violin Con- certo No. 3, and The Wrath of God for orchestra, performed by the Gewand- haus Orchestra of Leipzig, Andris Nel- sons, directing. 33 land of the Phaeacians, naked except for a few fig leaves, and frightens some maidens who are playing ball in the sea. An unac- companied soprano sings “Ah” while a trio of male voices eerily introduce the first few lines of Homer’s text in Greek. To depict ancient times, the vocal part is monophonic, with occasional harp glissandos, which be- come more active as Odysseus (sung by a tenor) bemoans his fate. The movement re- flects the period when the city-states were still in inchoate form and the people were nomadic wandering tribes. Movement 2 (Classical, 480-323 BC) is choral and presents three texts: 1) Pin- dar’s ode to the grandeur of the Olympic games, set in the dramatic dithyramb style of the period with a con fuoco rhythmic strumming on the harp; 2) Aeschylus’ tale of the hapless Prometheus, who stole fire for the benefit of humanity but was subse- quently punished by the gods. A solo tenor sympathetically channels Prometheus, chained to a “crag at the edge of the world,” as the female chorus, representing the daughters of Oceanus, calmly come to his aid; 3) Sophocles’ Antigone, lines 44-75, a vibrant dialogue between Antigone and her sister, Ismene, about burying their brother, Polyneices, punishable by death under King Creon’s decree. The harp is featured in this movement, and the text shows three uses of fire: Torch/Triumph, Trial by Fire, and Extinguishment. Movement 3 (Hellenistic, 323-146 BC) covers the period when the great Greek philosophers emerged; sadly, it was also the last era of independence, sand- wiched between the death of Alexander the Great and the sacking of Corinth by Rome. This hilarious, tongue-in-cheek setting of Constantine Cavafy’s Beckettian poem Waiting for the barbarian features a hap- py tune, blissfully supported by the harp. The ironic text relates the anxieties of the Greek people, who get dressed up, ready- ing themselves for the barbarians, who do not arrive. The movement opens with the choristers shouting: “What are we waiting for?” Kakabadse makes effective use of echo techniques and antiphonal passages between the male and female choruses. Terrified, the people sing to calm them- selves, and, unfortunately, the destructive Roman barbarians eventually do arrive. Movement 4 (Roman, 146 BC-331 AD) reflects the period of Roman rule, and the music is an austere setting of the Kyrie eleison, featuring a cappella choral chant- ing and alternating solo and choral sections written in parallel octaves and open fifths. Movement 5 (Byzantine, 331-1453) presents arrangements of two kontakion (thematic hymns) in the homophonic, unaccompanied style of the period. The lovely, richly-harmonized Hymn to the De- fender Mother of God is an arrangement of the beloved sixth-century hymn. The more musically reserved, suppliant Kontakion on the Nativity of Christ was originally penned by a famous Byzantine hymnogra- pher, St. Romanos the Melodist. Movement 6 (Post-Byzantine, 1453- 1821) depicts the poem Erotocritos by the seventeenth-century poet Vitzentzos Korn- aros. The two lovers, Aretousa and Erot- ocritos, are represented by solo and ensem- ble male and female voices. The lovers, separated by economic class, lament their longing in Sections 1 and 2, and The Poet, in Section 3, narrates that they must settle for fulfillment in the ephemeral, rather than in the real world. Kornaros was a leading figure of the Cretan Renaissance, a period where the arts, particularly literature and painting, thrived. Movement 7 (Modern, 1821-present) opens with the Greek national anthem, Hymn to Liberty, sung in Greek and then in English. C. P. Cavafy’s short epic poem Ithaka encapsulates a journey and its pur- pose in a few brief lines that tell us we should not shirk danger (Cyclops, Laistry- gonians, Circe) on our journey, but should welcome it as a meaningful experience. Thus does Kakabadse fulfill her musical mission. The second section of the CD presents nine art songs, sung effectively by mezzo- soprano Clare McCaldin and accompanied gracefully by pianist Paul Turner. The texts reflect nostalgia for hearth and home and do- mestic dioramas. Themes of poverty, ineq- uity, and spiritual wealth, as well as real and figurative events of traveling and religious devotion, are featured. The musical settings range from darkly austere to sprightly with motifs based on jazz and parlor music. Tamara Cashour is a pianist, organist, and com- poser and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the BCA (Bronx Council on the Arts) 2020 Arts Award for her choral composition Forbearance, which was filmed during Covid times for YouTube release (https://www.you- tube.com/watch?v=jXCAzs46G6I), ASCAP, the New York City Arts Grant, Bronx BRIO award in musical composition, IAWM 2015 Interna- tional Online Conference featured score, and first place in the feminist “For Women Only” Choral Composers competition. She is organ- ist at Trinity United Methodist Church. www. tamaracashourcomposer-pianist.com. Amelia Kaplan: String Music Dechopol Kowintaweewat, violin; Suela Lee, violin; Yu-Fang Chen, violin and vio- la; Mei-Chun Chen, viola; Katrin Meidall, viola; Pablo Muñoz, viola; Kurt Fowler, cello; Zizai Ning, cello; Elizabeth Craw- ford, clarinet; Paul Reilly, guitar; Ketty Nez, piano; Soojin Jin, piano. Albany Re- cords, TROY1853 (2021) KRYSTAL J. FOLKESTAD, NEE GRANT String Music, a collection of compositions by the American composer Amelia Kaplan, contains one solo for guitar, three duos fea- turing the viola, one piano trio, and one string quartet. Although Kaplan remarks in the liner notes that her piano trio is almost fifteen years older than the other works, its use of instrumental dialogues, compos- ite gestures, motivic restraint, and timbral explorations are present throughout the al- bum. Both the trio and the string quartet are notable for the equality of the instruments. The viola duos, in particular, make impres- sive use of a variety of bowings, and the guitar solo explores wide-ranging timbral possibilities with novel details, although it is her first composition for the instrument. In each piece, individual instruments use extended techniques while vividly execut- ing Kaplan’s organic, irregular phrasing. Polyphony and monophony rather than homophony abound throughout Over the Top for piano trio, distancing it from its Romantic era antecedents and producing captivating, unexpected sonic landscapes. A highlight of the first movement is a section where the violin and cello stay within an octave of each other for a duet that ascends from the low register of the violin to the high register of the cello. The second move- ment opens with jagged piano chords and flourishes layered with silky violin and cello lines. The same texture returns in the fourth movement at the piece’s quietest section when the violin and cello play similar mate- rial in high harmonics while the piano plays fast, inverted melodic lines in its highest and lowest registers. The third movement of the trio is for piano solo. As this movement approaches its end, a low register chord re- peats almost twenty times, sounding like a grandfather clock as sparse notes are played or plucked on the piano’s strings. Reviews: Compact Disk and Digital RecordingsIAWM Journal Volume 27, No. 2 202134 A few instances of plucking and glissando inside the piano are sprinkled throughout Over the Top, but in the duo Superviola 3.0, a prepared piano accom- panies the viola. Frequent col legno, chop- ping, and other noisy bowings combine with metallic, wooden, and other enhance- ments to enrich the piano part as violist Ka- trin Meidell and pianist Ketty Nez convinc- ingly make their instruments sound more like machines than musical voices. Sig- nificantly, in the last quarter of the piece, the violist bounces and rubs the bow on its strings while the pianist scrapes and strikes the piano strings. When melodic material returns to conclude the piece, it remains unorthodox with sul ponticello in the viola and high, stopped repeated notes in the pia- no. The skill of recording engineer Christo- pher Nils Thompson is also notable in this track: the subtleties of the piano’s altered resonance and additional percussiveness are audible on various streaming platforms in addition to the CD. Glissandi and unisons are the prima- ry materials of (St)Ring Tones for string quartet. In the opening, disparate pitches sweep through a glissando into a sustained unison, a gesture that becomes mesmeriz- ing as it repeats and returns later as glis- sandi into octaves, chords, and clusters. After the opening, the unison pitch is developed through rhythmic articulation, pizzicato, and octave displacement until it becomes part of a melodic motive. The violin presents a complete melody unac- companied, which incorporates a few sets of repeated notes, maintaining the idea of the unison. The melody and its fragments are passed among the other instruments, first surrounded by a throng of brief glis- sandi then in counterpoint with itself. Throughout this section, the Zorá Quar- tet plays each part at the same volume, highlighting the contrast from the initial monophonic presentation of the melody. When the melody appears later, the upper strings sustain a quiet, high register chord, while the cello plays the fiery lower mel- ody. Next, the melody becomes composite and combines pizzicato and bowed notes, some sustained and some with glissandi between them. The last time the melody returns, it is in the middle register and is accompanied by quieter glissandi than in its original appearance. When the melody stops, these glissandi become wisps that gently end the piece. In Double Indemnity for violin and viola, sisters Yu-Fang and Mei-Chun Chen display expressive agility in bringing out the contours of melodic lines that make use of normal bowing, pizzicato, short glissandi, double stops, and sul ponticello with ex- treme crescendo or decrescendo. In a brief comment on the current state of insanity, the matching of articulation between clari- netist Elizabeth Crawford and violist Yu- Fang Chen is superb, and Chen’s harmonic sweeps beautifully counter Crawford’s high register multiphonics. The work features harsh staccato, snap pizzicato, flutter tongu- ing with creaky bowing and gruff, rapid, si- multaneous trills as well as legato melodies. The percussive quality of Meditation on a Guitar is remarkable. Guitarist Paul Reilly expertly controls how he stops the strings, sometimes imperceptibly, often percussively. In a moment toward the end of the piece, percussive stopping of the strings leads to a phrase that requires striking dif- ferent surfaces of the instrument with dif- ferent parts of the hand to create a melody of indefinite pitch. Snap pizzicato and strik- ing rather than plucking or strumming the strings add to the unusual array of sounds. It would be interesting to see his execution of these techniques in a live performance. Besides the extended techniques, howev- er, the piece does have phrases of melody emerging from or within chords and melo- dies built of unisons as in the string quartet. Kaplan’s development of limited mo- tivic and gestural material is exemplary throughout the album, but her innovative uses of the instruments are arresting. The album’s artwork by Claire N. Kaplan, sis- ter of Amelia, consists of brightly colored marker drawings of the neck and bridge of a bowed string instrument, with the strings themselves becoming whorls be- yond the frame of the instrument. It is an apt visual representation of the compos- er’s sonic explorations. Krystal J. Folkestad, nee Grant, is a pianist, composer, and writer. She holds a Ph.D. in composition from Stony Brook University. She has taught composition and music theory in Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia. From lecture-recitals in elementary schools of her hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, to a musi- cal theater club at a senior center in Brooklyn, New York, she, creates an oasis of inclusivity within classical music. She collaborates with performers and teachers to curate repertoire by underrepresented composers. https://arsar- vole.com/ Carol Barnett: Shaker Suite: “Canterbury” in Lock & Key: New Chamber Works, Vol II Šárka Adamíková, flute; Weronika Flisek, oboe; Jindřich Molinger, french horn; Daniel Svoboda, clarinet; Jan Šmíd, bassoon. Navona, NV6335 (2021) DEON NIELSEN PRICE Shaker Suite: “Canterbury,” for woodwind quintet, is a captivating suite of fantasies on four traditional Shaker hymns. The Ameri- can composer Carol Barnett (b. 1949) has composed a mix of rhythm, textural bal- ance, and color in tonal settings that have the flavor of Shaker modality. Her experi- ence playing flute in a woodwind quintet is readily apparent as she expertly explores a multitude of textures and articulations pos- sible within the particular challenges that woodwind timbres present. Barnett knows and hears the idiosyncrasies in the different registers of each instrument—flute, oboe, horn, clarinet, and bassoon—and is able both to blend their timbres and, conversely, to feature particular instruments. I particu- larly enjoyed the beautiful melodic passag- es in the horn. Barnett’s compositional style is accessible, yet always modern and fresh. Barnett’s exhilarating work, The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass (2006) for SATB, S/A/T/ soli, mandolin, banjo, guitar, and bass was enthusiastically reviewed in the Journal (Vol. 15, no. 1, 2009), and she continues her affinity with American folk influences in Shaker Suite: “Canterbury,” recordedon Lock & Key, New Chamber Works, Vol. II. From her resource, A Col- lection of Hymns and Anthems Adapted to Public Worship, compiled by Henry Clay Blinn and originally published by the Shakers of East Canterbury, NH, in 1892, she selected four hymn tunes: “Scenes of Glory,” “Purest Blessing,” “Ministration,” and “The Good Samaritan.” As a flutist in the Augsburg College resident woodwind quintet, she writes that she composed the suite with her quintet colleagues in mind. It is one of three works on this CD recorded in the Czech Republic. In the liner notes, Barnett writes that she chose tunes that are distinctive in tem- po and character. “The Good Samaritan” has the added attraction of being the only hymn in the entire collection set in a mi- nor key. Each fantasy is unique and each includes at least one setting of the entire hymn tune. The composer’s craft, wit, and 35 ability to maintain the character of each tune, whether in a broad development or a free fragmentation, is impressive. Her grouping of the settings comprises a larger work that is intriguing and gratifying. In “Scenes of Glory,” the march-like melody, which begins with a traditional perfect fourth, is stated at the beginning by the clarinet, then by the oboe. The rhythmic marching motif continues almost through- out, and we do not hear the complete mel- ody again, only imitative fragments of the opening melodic motif, the rhythmic mo- tif, and the closing motif. We get the sense that the more distant the key and harmony, the more distant are the marchers. The long phrases in the lilting melody of “Purest Blessing” are heard first in the horn and then the oboe. Barnett writes that she stretched the 6/8 meter to 9/8 to make the tempo flow more easily. After a short development section in a quicker tempo, exciting scalar lines and a stunning paral- lel passage are presented, and the original tune reappears in a slightly telescoped form. Both this fantasy and “Scenes of Glory” are in ABA form. In “Ministration,” the steady, down- ward, stepwise motion in the clarinet, im- itated by the other winds, leads to a rich color in the low register, which provides a fresh contrast with the colors of the first two fantasies. A rhythmic, rising counter- motif enlivens the movement throughout. Emerging from full harmonies and paral- lel progressions, near the end of “Min- istration,” scalar passages ascend, then descend, to introduce the hymn’s entire melody in a four-part hymn texture. At this point, we finally hear that the hymn’s first phrase is built on the downward, stepwise scale and the second phrase, on the as- cending rhythmic motif. Lines in contrary motion—the descending steps in the flute, oboe, clarinet, and simultaneous ascending stepwise motion in the bassoon and horn— converge sweetly for the final resolution. After an eight-bar, march-like intro- duction, “The Good Samaritan” melody is played by the oboe. It quickly becomes apparent that the hymn is constructed throughout of four-measure phrases. Only later, in the development section, is there flexibility in phrase length. Barnett writes in the liner notes, “As with all these set- tings, the fun begins when the tune is bro- ken up to be tossed back and forth between the instruments, creating interesting tex- tures and contrasting moods.” This is aptly said and is one reason “Good Samaritan” provides a joyful listening experience. Bar- nett writes that she owes the sprightliness of this setting to the influence of Malcolm Arnold’s Sea Chantey for Wind Quintet, and that other stylistic influences include Samuel Barber’s Summer Music and Irving Fine’s Partita for Wind Quintet as well as his lovely choral suite The Hour Glass. The other works on the CD represent a variety of styles and feature mostly wind instruments played by various artists and recorded in four different locations. Two Nostalgic Melodies for B ♭ Clarinet and Piano by Kenneth Kuhn feature beauti- ful, romantic melodies with variations and graceful pianistic accompaniments. Iceland Invention, for woodwind quintet, is a brief work with lively, mostly non-legato themes. Philippe Kocher’s Projektionen II features eloquent polyphony in a contemporary har- monic idiom, and it includes extended tech- niques on the instruments. Sarah Wallom- Huff’s The Oracle, for violin, cello, flute/ piccolo, B ♭ clarinet and piano, is aleatoric and is constructed from a framework of fifty randomly-drawn tarot cards. Deon Nielsen Price, composer, educator, and pianist, is a founding member and former Presi- dent of IAWM and is Composer-in Residence for the Interfaith Center at the Presidio of San Francisco, where she curates a concert series in the historic Presidio Chapel. Her compositions are published by Culver Crest Publications, Southern Music, and Theodore Front Musi- cal Literature, and archived in Special Collec- tions at Brigham Young University. Her book, Accompanying Skills for Pianists, 2nd Edition (Culver Crest), is used in many piano depart- ments. Her catalog, videos, and audio are avail- able at http://culvercrest.com. The Other Half of Music Compositions by Colette Mourey, Teresa Procaccini, Marilena Zlatanau, Laura Pet- tigrew, Adriana Isabel Mañas Figueroa, Dzintra Kurme-Gedroica, Wen Zhang, Ag- nes Dzodtsoeva-Bashir, Rae Howell, and Edewede Oriwoh. Ensemble Chaminade. Dynamic, CDS7837 (2019) CAROL ANN WEAVER This remarkable CD, recorded in 2018 in Bolzano, Italy, features ten compositions by ten contemporary women composers from ten different countries encompassing Europe, Argentina, China, Canada, Jor- dan, Australia, and Nigeria. A varied, yet uniquely compatible set of pieces creates a fascinating array of sounds from these five continents. Each piece is exceptionally well written, effectively scored, and ex- pertly performed by Ensemble Chaminade, specifically formed for this album: Mo- nique Ciola (piano, founder), Elisa Metus (oboe), Roberta Gottardi (clarinet), Ales- sandro Valoti (horn), and Oscar Locatelli (bassoon). The album begins with French com- poser Colette Mourey’s La Maestria, a four-movement work that allows clever, unexpected, deft harmonies to reach unex- pected, delightful cadences. With largely homophonic textures, a gently sad melodic palette is contrasted with light, diversified voicings, leading to an upbeat, lilting end- ing. Whether neo-romantic or simply 21st- century consonant, Mourey’s style is con- vincing and compelling. In dramatic contrast to the previous works, Italian composer Teresa Procac- cini’s three-movement Quintetto, op. 130 contains the most abstract sounds on the album. Lucidly angular, restless, point- ed, fragmented statements are vaguely reminiscent of Ruth Crawford Seeger or Barbara Pentland. The Allegro vivo’s con-rhythmic texture, creating ceaseless motion with all voices moving together, is in contrast to the somber melodies with taut, spare, restless phrases in the adagio section. The Presto, in 5/4 meter, is play- ful, featuring solo winds versus orchestral blocks of sound, contrasted with arresting, murmuring textures. The piece ends where it began, asking questions. Greek-born, Norwegian-based Marile- na Zlantanou’s Five Sketches is unabashed- ly beautiful, filled with fascinating textures and rhythmic intrigue. During the second sketch, a sudden swirl of activity sounds like a flock of birds sweeping through. Very effective! The third sketch begins with am- bient sounds, which yield to a fast, relent- less tempo and a surprise ending. The fourth sketch starts with a captivating groove— one of the loveliest moments on the entire album. And the fifth travels from sad to af- firmative in musically credible ways. Canadian composer Laura Pettigrew’s Soaring…on Eagles’ Wings, in a gentle triple meter with Lydian modal touches, resembles a soothing lullaby, but its ef- fortless, seamless polyphony betrays a textural intrigue that lifts the music be- yond clichéd simplicities, creating the most successful use of independent voic- Reviews: Compact Disk and Digital RecordingsNext >