Honstein / Andres / Collins - Simplicity Itself - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Tamara Atschba - Violinsonaten [COMPACT DISCS] date 12/21/2012

In the last of his three volume series devoted to Granados's orchestral music, two very different compositional strands are explored. The early Suite oriental reveals his sense of vivid orchestral color and melodic imagination, couched in the exotic language of the time. Written in a more pared-down style, the one-act Inchlyric poemInch Liliana, a collaboration with the writer Apelles Mestres, is a four-movement suite in which Granados conjures up a vivid, mythical world. Elisenda is another impressionistic score, both emotive and ethereal, here performed in it's arrangement for piano and chamber orchestra.

In his insightful liner notes for Robert Honstein's 'An Economy of Means,' pianist Timo Andres writes, Inchisolation can also be an end in itself, sparseness an aesthetic impetus.Inch From the opening flourishes of the title work for vibraphone, played here with bravura by Doug Perkins, we hear compositional patience and restraint. Honstein limits his materials with discipline, finding Inchhidden pathos in clean, well-lighted places,Inch another elegant turn of phrase from Andres' essay. The most subtle of changes become the source of that pathos- an extra repetition in a running passage, a sideways turn harmonically for a brief moment, or the addition of vibrating material to the face of the vibraphone to create subtle, wave-like sounds as we hear midway in both the first and second movements. Grand Tour also explores the solo journey of a multi-movement piece, and does so with a similarly pare approach, despite it's occasional virtuosic outbursts. The work is a travel log of sorts, an internal dialogue with the city of Venice, a city that certainly comes with it's share of historical, and music-historical associations.