Classical Candor
By John J. Puccio
September 26, 2010
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Higdon: The Singing Rooms (CD review)

Also, Singleton: PraiseMaker; Scriabin: The Poem of Ecstasy. Jennifer Koh, violin; Robert Spano, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Telarc TEL-32630.

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

Composer Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) must feel as though it's her wedding day. In the past month she has had world-première recordings of her works debuted on two major record labels, DG and Telarc. Since we're dealing with the Telarc album at the moment, here's the lineup: Alexander Scriabin's The Poem of Ecstasy is the "old"; Higdon's The Singing Rooms is the "new"; Alvin Singleton's PraiseMaker is the "borrowed"; and the album cover is mainly the "blue." Or close enough.

The program begins with Jennifer Higdon's The Singing Rooms, which the reader should not confuse with Jim Morrison's The Singing Doors. Violinist Jennifer Koh originally requested Higdon write The Singing Rooms, a concerto for violin, chorus, and orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra subsequently commissioned it, premiering it in 2008. Telarc here offer the first recording of it, with, appropriately, Ms. Koh as the soloist.

A lonely violin opens and closes the Higdon music, the chorus entering for its often quietly melancholy statements. Unlike so many late twentieth-century composers, Ms. Higdon believes in writing real tunes, melodies, rather than simply inventing new soundscapes. In The Singing Rooms she uses seven of the poems of a colleague, Jeanne Minahan. Higdon arranged the poems in a dramatic sequence "like rooms in a house," each with its own emotional response. The music has a lightly lilting, semisweet quality about it, creating lingering wisps of sweetly pensive contemplation. Jennifer Koh's violin playing conveys the varying atmospheric moods of the music, with the chorus and orchestra under Robert Spano continuously furnishing a cushy reassurance that all is well, even though the actual words of the poetry may escape the listener. Is any of it memorable or of lasting importance? Who knows. Only time will tell. Certainly, it is enchanting for the moment.

Alvin Singleton (b. 1940) wrote PraiseMaker for chorus and orchestra in the late Nineties, getting a live première in 1998, with this Telarc rendering its first recording. He sets his work to an original text by poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker Susan Konguell. It is music of mostly restrained rejoicing, and its many contrasts, with occasional outbursts, make it an apt companion to the Higdon work, especially as it also begins and ends in a lonely, somewhat melancholy place. Neither the Higdon nor the Singleton piece is music you'll probably find yourself humming around the house afterwards, however. Most of it seems like a series of hushed, lyrical tone exercises, with the Singleton work sneaking up on you in progressively unexpected ways.

Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) debuted his well-known Poem of Ecstasy for orchestra in 1908. Maestro Spano's reading is colorful, sensual, and downright sexy. Spano draws comparisons to the music of Debussy in its lush textures, expansive themes, and long expressive lines. Hedonistic old Romantic that I am, I enjoyed it more than I did the Higdon or Singleton pieces, but that's just me.

The sound, which Telarc recorded in March of 2009, is fairly soft and distant, and while that may fit most of the music on the disc, it doesn't always provide the best acoustic for one's understanding of the words of the chorus. The midrange loses a good deal of transparency, as though one were listening from the back of an auditorium. Still, it's soothing enough, even if it sounds misty or cloudy at times. In the Higdon and Singleton music, there are few opportunities for the famous Telarc bass drum to make itself known, and, again due to the nature of the music, not a lot of chance for displaying a wide dynamic range or impact. Nevertheless, the Singleton piece in particular does have fine parts for brass and percussion, which stand out, and then in the Scriabin, with its greater orchestral range, the sound is better in most areas, if still a bit too soft and distant for my liking.