Micah Behr - "Breaking" and "Setting"

 Micah Behr - Breaking and Setting

Composer and performer Micah Behr premiered a set of two companion pieces, Breaking and Setting, at the Stoughton Chamber Music Festival. Finishing its fifth season, Stoughton Chamber Music put on a "Sun & Moon" chamber concert series this summer, featuring a string septet and clarinetist Brad Cherwin. Behr's two pieces were written exclusively for the "Sun & Moon" concerts, with Breaking and Setting representing a sunrise and sunset respectively. 

While pretty pieces, Behr plays the musical symbolism a little heavy-handed, with both Breaking and Setting sounding more akin to scoring practice for student level films. Behr's musical ideas are quite wonderful, but not orchestrated in a manner which fully supports the aesthetic. Breaking is so dense, with everyone playing all the time, it just becomes tiresome. While the solo clarinetist sounds great, having him always doubled at pitch with either viola or cello weakens the overall effect and creates general awkwardness in the ensemble sound. Even over orchestrated, both of Behr's works are quite approachable in terms of audience and player level, and succeed his goal of creating a set of companion works which establish a clear theme for this concert series.



© 2023 Brutal New Music Reviews

originally written and published 21 August 2023

please send any and all questions/comments/complaints/suggestions to:

brutalnewmusicreviews@gmail.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hugi Guðmundsson - "Windbells" album review

Image
 Hugi Guðmundsson - Windbells  Album Review As an album,  Windbells  is an excellent example of a contemporary composer's views on traditional senses of tonality in the twenty-first century. Windbells  is Icelandic composer Hugi Guðmundsson's third portrait album, this time showcasing music for chamber ensemble, electronics, and voice. Centered around Guðmundsson's perception of musical time, it is interesting to listen how the album represents almost twenty years of compositional output. Windbells  was recorded in November of 2021 and was released late this September through the Sono Luminus label (click here for purchase information). The album features the incredible musicians of the  Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra , as well as flute soloist Áshildur Haraldsdóttir, and mezzo-soprano Hildigunnur Einarsdóttir. The opening track on the album, Entropy , for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano, presents similar musical material in two contrasting movements. The first, "Arrow
Read more

Constellation Men's Ensemble - "Man Up / Man Down" album review

Image
 Constellation Men's Ensemble - Man Up / Man Down Constellation's impeccable blend and intonation brings out a resonant beauty for the duration of the album. After ten years, Constellation Men's Ensemble  has released their debut album, Man Up / Man Down  on the Sono Luminus label. The album's longer and intense titular work is bookended by two shorter bursts of peaceful reflection, Home and manifesto . Constellation's impeccable blend and intonation brings out a resonant beauty for the duration of the album, and are becoming a prominent force within the new music vocal community. Jeffrey Derus ' Home , setting text by Carl Sandburg, opens the album with beauty and tonal simplicity. Derus' music is drawn from his personal experience with choirs, resulting in Constellation creating a beautiful resonance with stellar intonation. Home is in a traditional three-part form, with the middle section in a pulsating quintuple meter. Derus' repetitive text setting
Read more

Annika Socolofsky - "I Tell You Me" album review

Image
 Annika Socolofsky - I Tell You Me album review Socolofsky's voice and the gorgeous sound of the ~Nois quartet never fails to give goosebumps of anticipation. Annika Socolofsky 's emotional song cycle, I Tell You Me , follows up on her previous album release Don't Say A Word . Taking a step back from the blunt rage in her first installment, I Tell You Me continues to explore queerness, but now through the lens of joy and celebration. With music and text by Socolofsky, I Tell You Me tears apart the traditional nursey rhyme "Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice", reinterpreting and expanding on original text segments to result in an empowering demonstration of self-expression. The album, releasing September 8th through Carrier Records , consists of the three-song cycle as well a remix of the three songs, each crafted by a different queer artist. While the concept of remix is certainly not new, it is incredibly unconventional, especially within the standard constraints o
Read more