Contexts/Memories II: Celebrating Milton Babbitt's 90th Birthday

Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 8:00 PM
Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory of Music, Boston , MA

Milton Babbitt will be turning 90 in a few months, and the annual New England Conservatory-based concert put on by Robert Cogan and Pozzi Escot was a salute to this eminent serialist's milestone birthday. It was also an enjoyable event well worth attending.

Two of Babbitt's finest small chamber utterances appeared here. Soli e Duettini for Violin and Viola (1990) subtly infuses its quicksilver speech with gradations of warmth and peevishness. And its overarching palindromic structure, alternating cadenzas and chamber passages in best Composition for Four Instruments tradition, unfolds with purpose and clarity. Heard here in its version for soprano and electronic sounds, Phonemena (1975) is Babbitt at his best -- witty, succinct, winsome, and tightly built. This is terrific stuff that holds up well over several listens.

In addition to a 2005 update of his Berio-like Polyutterances for paired sopranos, Cogan treated the audience to yet another enjoyable duet, Context/Memories: Version C (2000). Encountered here is a compelling carpet of two-piano textures veering from vigorously intense to sparsely dreamy, capped with a showy coda that ardently seizes the lapels.

Escot's offerings presented the case for this composer as marvelous miniaturist. The seven short movements of Eure Pax (1980) are potent acid drops loaded with craggy yet colorful writing for its violin soloist. Ideas recur throughout the work's myriad divisions -- most conspicuously forceful iteration of the instrument's highest pitch -- helping to impart a smooth flow from start to finish. Your reviewer and several other listeners experienced difficulty concentrating on Escot's Aria III (2005) because of a nearby audience member's prolonged choking plight (fortunately resulting in said person's eventual recovery). What could be gleaned coming from the stage proved intriguing: three brief, ardent, multicolored entries in which a soprano demonstrates collegial rapport with her four stage mates. Here's hoping it can be encountered again soon under less distracting circumstances.

Performances, featuring many regulars from previous Cogan/Escot outings, were terrific throughout. Vocalists Joan Heller and Patrice Pastore sang with crisp enunciation, admirable flexibility, and pleasing timbre. David Fulmer continues to cement his status as a premier new music violinist/violist, presenting Eure Pax with a huge yet nuanced sound, gripping stage presence, and eye-popping bow and finger control. Nathan Schmidt proved a splendid partner for Fulmer in Soli e Duettini , a violinist thoroughly accomplished in execution and interpretation. Pianists Jung-Mi Lee and Jon Sakata contributed bravura playing and top-flight pacing to Context/Memories , while saxophonist Eliot Gattegno and violist Verona Rapp assisted ably in Aria III .

--David Cleary