Weill: ACJW Ensemble Performs Ives, Adams, Lang and Copland

Yesterday evening I saw the ACJW Ensemble in performance for the third time in the past several weeks.  On this occasion they were once again at Weill Recital Hall for a program of modern American music, most of it by well known composers.

The first piece was The Unanswered Question (1908, rev. 1030-1935) by Charles Ives.  Composed as a companion piece to Central Park in the Dark, the work takes its title from a line in the poem The Sphinx by Ralph Waldo Emerson that reads "Thou art the unanswered question." The work is an exercise in polyrhythm and polytonality with three distinct groups of instruments performing at the same time what are essentially three different pieces of music played at different speeds.  In composing such a work, Ives was once again decades ahead of his time as is suggested by the fact that the first performance did not take place until 1946.  At yesterday's concert, the strings were placed at one side of the stage and the woodwinds at another while the trumpet was played offstage from the balcony.  It was a very effective arrangement that allowed the audience to better grasp Ives' intentions.

There followed Shaker Loops (1978) by John Adams.  The work was created from fragments of an earlier string quartet entitled Wavemaker with which the composer had been dissatisfied.  He redid the work in its present form in four movements and scored it for string septet.  It is minimalist and repetitive - hence the reference to tape "loops" that can be played over and over - and is meant to evoke the ecstatic gyrations induced by the Shakers in their religious worship.  It's an interesting concept that actually works quite well in performance.

The third piece was pierced (2007) by David Lang.  This was an interesting, fast moving piece that fit in very well with the Ives and Adams works that had come before it.  It was scored for solo piano, solo cello and solo percussion together with string quintet.  In the program notes, the conception of the work is described as follows:

"In pierced, Lang asserts that he wanted to create the dynamic of antagonism between the two parties, but less in the way of soloists fighting against the orchestra 'for the supremacy of their ideas.'  To achieve this, he composed a 'permeable membrane, a kind of filter or fabric between the soloists and the ensemble' that allows for a mix of sounds and crossover."

The composer was present in the hall and took a bow onstage at the conclusion of the performance.

The recital concluded with one of the best known pieces of modern American music, Appalachian Spring (1944) by Aaron Copland.  Although early in his career Copland studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, he is most famous for the populist works he composed in the 1930's and 1940's.  Aside from Appalachian Spring, these include Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo (1942).  He was given impetus in this direction, interestingly enough, by Alfred Stieglitz and was also influenced by the photography of Walker Evans.  Later, as anti-Communist sentiments pervaded American culture and Copland himself was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he abandoned the leftist sentiments which had been at the core of these works and moved closer to European musical trends, including serialism.  Although Appalachian Spring is very melodic and pleasant to listen to, I found its traditional structure a bit anticlimactic after the works that had preceded it.