PERSEVERANCE | GRAMOPHONE - REVIEW

Perseverance Review
by: Patrick Rucker

Two things are likely to strike you listening to ‘Perseverance’, Marcus Eley’s new release of African American chamber music. First is the extraordinary beauty of the sound of Eley’s clarinet, velvety throughout all its registers, not to mention its immense expressivity. The second is the sheer variety of musical expression from these eight composers, three of them women, the earliest of whom was born in 1887 and the youngest of whom is 29.

Eley’s virtuosity and musical imagination are front and centre in the two solo clarinet works. For Clarinet by Edward Bland (1926-2013), who was a brilliant saxophonist and clarinet player, displays the composer’s idiomatic grasp of the instrument. The Banyan Tree by Todd Cochran (b1951), a native San Franciscan who studied at Trinity College of Music in London, unfolds in three movements: ‘Seeds’, ‘Roots’ and ‘Fruit’. Cochran writes: ‘Each movement is a metaphorical representation of exploration and natural progression.’ Eley captures its detail without sacrificing a palpable narrative thrust.

Of all the composers represented here, the name of Florence Price (1887-1953) may have the greatest topical recognition, due to the rediscovery of a major collection of her works in 2009, which set in motion a major re-evaluation and revival. Her Adoration, originally conceived for organ, is given a rich, deeply felt performance here.

TranscenDance by Dennis Thompson II (b1968), another northern Californian, is in three movements and the longest single work on the programme. ‘Reggae Fantasy’ uses tremolando figurations, with sassy glisses as punctuation; ‘Largo and Danzetta’ is quietly meditative; while the finale, ‘Pater Pater Uncle Grandfather’, is alert with gentle energy, outlining varied phrase-shapes and vivid textures.

David N Baker (1931-2016) was conductor and artistic director of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and distinguished professor and chairman of the Jazz Department of the Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington. His DUO for clarinet and cello was commissioned and premiered in 1998 by the Ronen Chamber Ensemble of Indianapolis. It may be the most ambitious work on the programme, and Eley and Clayton acquit themselves magnificently in its varied terrain with musicianship that is hand-in-glove. This is its first recording.

For me, the most beguiling work on the programme is that of the youngest composer, Lawren Brianna Ware (b1994), an Alabaman with a DMA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ware’s The Featherheart was inspired by an eponymous painting by Enrique Martinez Celaya, and glistens throughout with gossamer textures of exquisite delicacy.