Portland Percussion Group - Patterns & Form
Portland Percussion Group - Patterns & Form
Their first album out on New Focus Recordings, Portland Percussion Group's Patterns & Form showcases their technical skills and aesthetic range as an ensemble dedicated to percussion chamber music. The three works included on the album were all written with a direct connection to the ensemble. Each approaches different stereotypes associated with percussion music, which tracks as all three composers are either also percussionists or heavily involved in the world of percussion music.
The titular work, Alejandro Viñao's Patterns & Form, is presented in three movements and takes up a little more than half the album. It is by far the strongest of the three pieces presented here, both compositionally and in performance. Viñao's work is composed for eight percussionists and piano, with this recording featuring guest pianist Yoko Greeney. The recording and mixing on this piece is incredible and immensely elevates the listener experience. The engineer has put us physically quite close to the instruments, at times even sounding as though we are inside the ensemble, enabling Viñao's approach to rhythm to be at its most dramatically effective.
All three movements are named quite literally. "The Fabric of Pulse (La Trama del Pulso)" opens with a pulsating musical gesture accented with piano hits. The pulse expands and eventually layers the instruments on top of one another. The combination of mallet instruments and piano begin to merge into a barrage of attacks, before Viñao resolves them back into the initial pulse. "Bells Keep Tolling (Las Campanas siguen Doblando)" re-emphasizes the chimes, literally always tolling. Despite Greeney's solid rhythmic incorporation into the ensemble, at times I begun to question the necessity of piano's role within the piece. The third movement, "The Fabric of Form (La Trama de la Forma)," is quite audibly inspired by Ligeti's micro-polyphony. Viñao does an incredibly effective job of simplifying this technique so that its form is audible to track as a listener. His implementation of the chimes across all three movements create a sense of cohesion while also giving the middle movement more validity. Throughout the entire work and especially in the final movement, PPG's tight-knit ensemble playing is on display. The intricate rhythmic layers are distinguishable while still uniting into a clear bigger picture.
Mendel Lee's The Spaces Between is a relaxing pause between the two intensely rhythmic works on the album. The highlight of the piece is Lee's crotales writing, allowing the overtones to blend and shimmer seamlessly with the other mallet instruments. By the end, the insistence of the bowed vibraphone turns from being calm and reflective to mundane. Whatever was lost never thenceforth mattered by Daniel Webbon finishes off the album. Webbon's music is rhythmic and energetic as a traditional percussion ensemble piece often is. While I enjoyed the initial listen, after reading his program notes the piece fails in a major way. Claimed to be inspired by a short story by David Foster Wallace, the quirkiness of the percussion writing does not align with the gravity of Wallace's depiction of parental grief and guilt.
find on New Focus Recordings here
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