At the Longy School on Sunday night, Collage New Music celebrated Frank Epstein’s retirement, 52 years after he founded the beloved ensemble; he served as its music director for 20 years.* Concert, No. 4 of the season, “We Carry Our Homes Within Us,” borrowed a line from John Cage. An unusually large ensemble assembled on stage for the occasion, and the program was sizable too, with seven works. Eric Nathan, the newly appointed artistic director, began the gala with a short appreciation of Epstein’s tireless dedication, which was also honored with the announcement of a commissioning fund for new works, just established with a $35,000 war chest, and the introduction of a new Board president (Ann Texeira), four new Board members, and a new general manager (Ciyadh Wells). David Hoose, director emeritus, guest-conducted four works.
John Heiss, composer, flutist, NEC professor, and friend of so many of us when he died two years ago, was lovingly remembered by his Soliloquy in the form of a duo for flute and piano, composed 2007. Sarah Brady played this short but beautiful piece, much of the time leaning into the piano strings for resonance (with Christopher Oldfather carefully and precisely pedaling even when he had no keyboard notes to play). The subtitle of the piece, “Harmonic Images”, was exact, with some elegantly French polychords, offset by accented unisons of piano and flute in single notes.
Passage by Yehudi Wyner (1983), a nine-minute septet for flute, clarinet, trumpet, three strings, and piano, was the oldest piece of the night. The now 96-year-old wrote that the work “seems to be a poetic meditation on the smooth, rich, sentimental popular music of the 30s and 40s,” but I heard some Stan Kenton sound of the 50s as well, warmly buttered with chromaticism, and the trumpet only a faint echo. The beginning in D major moved steadily over a genial ostinato beat to a sudden and wild climax, then just as abruptly to a fadeout.
Reinaldo Moya, who comes from Venezuela’s El Sistema, is a professor at Wellesley College, witnessed his trio, The Earth Outlived the Hands that Held It, for clarinet, violin and piano; the title came from Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, described by the composer as “a moving exploration of life under war.” A nicely-textured section of over-the-strings violin arpeggios alternated with the piano’s left-hand arcs and bright chords with warm impressionist harmony — I thought of Ravel’s Three Mallarmé Poems which I hope we will also remember this year — and a tinkle of far-away high-register bells at the end: “…connection to their humanity during these times of crisis.”
Michael Gandolfi’s Lowell Songs for Pierrot ensemble plus percussion, on four texts by Amy Lowell, got a fine, well-received premiere. Collage’s beloved soprano, Tony Arnold, interpreted brilliantly over a broad spectrum of emotions, from the mixed C major-minor of “A Blockhead” “…pulsing with joy and fire,” to the fast piano triplets and harmonic sequences (plus da capo) of “At Night.” “From One Who Stays” sdounded more reserved, with four-note ostinati in a rocking 4/4 (I even thought of Gershwin’s Prelude no. 2, seldom heard these days). The fourth song, “Grotesque,” made a sharp contrast, but true to its title, employing angry sounds, fast mordentlike piano figuration, ponticello strings, snaps, even a slapstick, and Tony Arnold’s perfectly modulated “Why do [the lilies] shriek your name / And spit at me”. If the song bore a resemblance to Ravel, it would have been to the atonal “Aoua!” in the Chansons madécasses. But Gandolfi’s relaxed, warmly acerbic tonality in the other songs assured a fine balance of mood in the whole. Lowell Songs got extended applause, duly honoring one of our senior composers.
After the intermission we heard Yaz Lancaster’s Happened. Described as “built of small fragments with varying, distinct timbres” it consisted of short ostinati, bounced punta d’arco, fingerboard fidgets, and various harmonics and flautando bursts, very soft, for about five minutes. Lancaster composed it as a tribute to Black Mountain College, the avant-garde retreat that once harbored Josef Albers, John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, and Schoenberg’s colleague Heinrich Jalowetz.
Marcos Balter’s We Carry Our Homes Within Us Which Enables Us to Fly (2015) carried the John Cage connection into 25 minutes of frank ostinato minimalism, with flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and trumpet, in long stretches of polymetric and senza misura patterns that often changed harmonies subtly and attractively but hardly budged from E minor. All of this accompanied Tony Arnold and three singers from the Longy School (Charlotte Ensley, Emma West, and Daniel Haakenson), who sang a Yoruba chant: “Òfuurufu èémí rè lè bàbá kèhìndé eléèjigbó,.. .” The viola (Noriko Futagami) kept the most regular beat. Sometimes the ensemble got down to just two players, then built up again. I noticed that the trumpet player, Joseph Foley, used five different mutes: straight, Harmon, cup, maybe Whispa, and something else. The longest work on the concert, it never flagged.
A year ago Collage had premiered John Harbison’s Prelude — Variations, a graceful C major series of soli over an ascending-scale pattern of chords, but Harbison couldn’t be present then because he was performing in Wisconsin. It got a second wind as a “Special Tribute to Frank Epstein; this time he was with us in person. We all liked it once more.
Frank Epstein said a few words of thanks afterward, acknowledging a long evening of new music and a faithful public of 52 years’ standing. Other Collage regulars, not already mentioned — Heather Braun, violin; Jan Müller-Szeraws, cello; Alexis Lanz, clarinet; Craig McNutt, percussion — cheered on the event.