Review of Concert

Lumen Contemporary Music Ensemble

Sunday, March 21, 2004, 3:00 PM
Pleasant Street Congregational Church, Arlington, MA.

Perhaps the most reclusive of Boston's composer consortium groups, the Lumen Contemporary Music ensemble, now in its 14th year, features music by members Stuart Jones, Armand Qualliotine, James Ricci, Betsy Schramm, and Pasquale Tassone. All write music descending from the East Coast school of thought and show a solid command of craft. Because of a prior commitment, your reviewer had to catch up with their most recent concert via CD recording.

Music by Qualliotine and Tassone proved especially effective. The former's solo viola work Er kuesst sie lange auf die Augen (2003) and saxophone/piano duo The Love Feast of the Fireflies (2002) both possess evocatively rich and idiomatic instrumental writing, carefully burnished linear ideas, and convincing yet non-prescriptive architecture. Both carve out a compelling and unique voice within a dissonant ethos. Tassone's two selections, Five Intimate Pieces (2003), also for sax/keyboard pairing, and Nexus VI (2003) for alto flute solo, show preference for older formats, respectively the miniature character piece set and ternary with coda. Happily, Tassone is not content to use these as creaky crutches, finding imaginative ways to express these concepts within his clangorous sonic palette of choice. Nexus VI takes full advantage of its instrument's deliciously dark tones, while Intimate Pieces employs an unusual large-scale organizational schema in its five brief movements. Both pleased much.

The solo viola Sonatina (2000) was the more successful of James Ricci's pair of offerings. Its sonata-like format is cleverly expressed, while the string writing is emotive, showy, and telling--a fine listen. Despite an earnest manner of speech, Ricci's Three Pieces for Piano (1999) seems too much in awe of the Expressionist keyboard masterworks of Arnold Schoenberg and Ricci's teachers, Donald Martino and Martin Boykan, to express a true sense of self. Credit Betsy Schramm with both solid ambition and able workmanship in her cantata The Second Coming (2004) for tenor soloist, three female singers, and mixed instrumental quartet. However, a work endeavoring to set prayers from four religions as well as the title poem of William Butler Yeats demands music of cosmic depth. For all its craft and sincerity, Second Coming somehow lacks the special weight and resonance its texts demand.

Also appearing was a partial presentation of a multi-composer bagatelle collection for marimba duo entitled Time Suite (2003). Perhaps most notable for containing what is likely the last selection penned by the late John Lessard, it also features contributions from Quallitione, Jones, Dominic Donato, and David Rakowski. If anything, the piece benefits from such a plethora of approaches, keeping the marimba writing from seeming too much the same, as can happen in sizeable single-composer works for this instrument.

Performances were generally good, with particularly strong efforts from John McDonald (piano), Kenneth Radnovsky (saxophones), Jill Dreeben (alto flute), Wouter Schmidt (viola), Martin Thomson (tenor), and Donato and Stephen Paysen (marimbas).

The best items encountered here suggest that Lumen need not be so shy about promoting itself. Much to like, and much enjoyed.

--David Cleary