Composer Portraits: Music of John Zorn

by David Cleary

Saturday, January 29, 2005, 7:00 PM
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA

Not since the 1980s heyday of the Music Production Company directed by Rodney Lister and David Kopp has Boston 's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum hosted a season of all-contemporary music events. Titled “Composer Portraits,” this spin-off from Columbia University 's Miller Theatre series of the same name began in memorable fashion with a concert honoring New York-based icon John Zorn.

For those who only know Zorn's earlier jump-cut pieces like Carny, Cat O' Nine Tails, and For Your Eyes Only, the three items heard this evening show the intriguing paths his music has followed since then. The piano trio Amour Fou and the violin/piano duo Le Momo, both composed in 1999, share the fractured unfolding of his older oeuvre while lacking the sudden style shifts. And both utilize ostinato passages as a recurring structural reference point, the piano trio more extensively so. Of these, Le Momo flaunts a more clangorous harmonic language, in some ways getting as close to a mainstream new music idiom as Zorn allows himself. More tonally focused in sound, Amour Fou also exudes the brooding, warped, nighttime feel of a classic 1940s film noir. Both make for excellent listing.

Written a scant four years later, Necronomicon shows remarkable changes in approach. In this string quartet, one finds not only a multi-movement format but one in which these movements employ a single idea spun from start to finish. Despite nods to minimalist Anton Webern in parts two and four and maximalist Brian Ferneyhough in their three surrounding bunkmates, the inspired craziness of vintage Zorn prevails here. Forms are intuitive, yet somehow feel right. In short, wonderfully exhilarating.

Performances were terrific, among the best your reviewer has encountered this season. Violinists Jennifer Choi and Jesse Mills, violist Richard O'Neill, cellist Fred Sherry, and pianist Stephen Drury demonstrated assured finger work, turn-on-a-dime control of mood and dynamic, finely honed ensemble sensitivity, and a sizable yet mellifluous tone quality.

Here's hoping we are witnessing the birth of a significant new addition to Beantown's cutting-edge music scene. If the rest of these scheduled concerts continue at such a level,“Composer Portraits” will be pretty pictures indeed.