PROGRAM NOTES

Salina Fisher (b. 1993)
MATA-AU

As Salina Fisher’s work, Mata-Au, opens, each part almost imperceptibly dovetails into the entrance of the other, creating a seamless aural experience as the players meet. What makes this piece uniquely striking, is that Fisher is able to move beyond simply depicting water to evoking a rich emotional landscape of the feeling. Humanity is so deeply connected to water, out of physical necessity and for its metaphorical power. The award-winning composer produced Mata-Au for a commission by the At the World’s Edge Festival. The composer’s commentary on the piece follows:

“Mata-Au, the Māori name of the Clutha River, means ‘surface current.’ In Japanese, the homophonous phrase ‘また逢う’ (mata-au) means ‘to meet again.’ The water dances and swirls as it connects places and people. It flows and gushes with forward momentum and anticipation. In writing this piece I was also inspired by ‘spring,’ both as the season of its premiere, and as a bubbling source of water.”

Freya Waley-Cohen (b. 1989)
CONJURE

Conjure was commissioned by Wigmore Hall and premiered by the Albion Quartet. Though written as one continuous work, it is divided into sections of contrasting energy. The work begins sul tasto (“on the touch”), in all parts, where the bow is placed over the fingerboard, generating a mellower tone. Slowly and steadily from this serene opening, the music builds and shifts into a more rapid mode after a series of sluggish downward glissandos. Throughout, Waley-Cohen paints a colorful picture. Expanding on the inspiration for Conjure, the composer notes:

“While writing Conjure, I was listening a lot to Beethoven’s Op. 109 and 110—his penultimate and antepenultimate piano sonatas. Various rhythmic patterns and ways of moving from phrase to phrase struck me, and have made their ways into the piece. I was also thinking of the idea of a Séance, and the various meanings of that word: originally from ‘sedere’—‘to sit,’ also meaning ‘a session,’ and most commonly a meeting in which people talk to the dead. In folklore and mythology, the idea of three people facing each other, with their thoughts pointed towards one purpose, brings up images of magic and conjuring. Writing this trio, I started to think of the archetypal magical beings who are represented in threes, three graces, three witches, three muses, three little pigs, three fates, three furies.”

Errollyn Wallen (b. 1958)
ROMEO TURN

The sentiment that there are only two kinds of music in the world—good and the other kind, encapsulates the multifaceted compositions of Errollyn Wallen, who believes “There should be room for everything, everyone—and every kind of expression.” A vocalist, dancer, and composer born in Belize and raised in London, she was educated at the universities of London and Cambridge and was the first black woman to have her work performed at the BBC Proms. Her sizeable catalog spans pop to classical (including 22 operas). Though trained in modern art music composition, her output is imparted with tradition, which imbues the sound of her music with a sense of recollection. 

On a plane in Heathrow, Errollyn Wallen noticed the words Romeo Turn passing by outside of her window as they taxied. The scoring for viola, cello, and bass cultivates a specific, grounded, sound world of velvet intensity and recalls Brahms’ love for the lower musical range. Anticipatory fluttering opens the work, interpolated with a pizzicato walking baseline that soon becomes the foundation for the parallel motion melody and the frequently changing meter. A growling, off-kilter rhythm drives forward the second movement that attaches directly to the contrasting, contemplative, yet ardent, third movement. The fourth movement is a lively a boogie-woogie, while the fifth gently rocks and sways buoying a tender melody. A slow chorale-like opening in the sixth movement gives way to a flurry of syncopation. The seventh, and final, movement skips along with a folk-dance rhythmic sensibility that unexpectedly pops into pizzicatos before an intensifying build up to a flourishing conclusion. 

Jean Cras (1879-1932)
STRING TRIO

When we imagine composers, we are likely to produce a mental picture of individuals who sit at an instrument most of the day, spending countless hours consulting with performers, but over the centuries there have been exceptions. For them, music was a labor of love nurtured alongside a professional career in an entirely different discipline or field. Examples include Alexander Borodin, who was a chemist, and Charles Ives, an insurance businessman. Another sub-group pursued or maintained extensive military careers while writing fantastic music. Amongst them are Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and Jean Cras who once reflected, “As a sailor, I’m the master. As a musician, I am the slave. Composing, for me, is obeying a higher order, which dictates its desires to me, and which I serve with the intoxication of the humble disciple, whose only goal is to execute as well as possible his master’s orders.”

Born to a naval surgeon, Cras’ talent for music was recognized early and developed through lessons, but the choice would be made to follow the family model and he entered the naval academy in 1896. In the years after graduation he rose up the ranks to a brilliant career, achieving rear-admiral and many awards for heroism in World War I. 

As a composer, Cras amassed an impressively sized oeuvre including multiple works for stage, orchestra, piano solo, songs, choral pieces, operas, and chamber works. The string trio dates from 1926. It opens with a distinctive repetition of the pitch ‘A’ in the cello that remains insistent as the top lines dance cheerfully above with a rhythm slightly infused with a ragtime sensibility. Interpolated are contrasting reflective, beautifully lush, sections. In the atmospheric second movement, a mystical mood pervades. Perpetual motion and a lively spirit, bouncing along on a sea of pizzicato, characterizes the third movement. That energy is transferred into a folk-dance infused final movement as this extraordinarily creative work concludes. 


Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, music and cultural critic, and freelance writer. A graduate of New England Conservatory, she writes program annotations for ensembles nationwide.