Amy Scurria
Compositions 1992-1998

* Fantasy for Piano (1992)*
* Variations on Reflection (1994)*
* Beyond All Walking (1997)**
* Rains Alive (1996)***
* Furchte dich nicht (1995)^
* 5 Haiku (1998)^^
* A Winter of Flowers (1994)~
* Games Children Play (1995)~~

Susan Boetcher (piano)* ~
Jay Bitner (baritone)*** ^^, JoAnn Kulesza (piano)***
Peabody Symphony Orchestra/Teri Murai**
Shepherd School of Music Ensemble^
Pamela Hay (soprano), musicians from Peabody/Brian Stone^^
Tracey Rhodes (soprano)~
Sylvia Danburg (violin)~~

Total time: 56:55
Available from the composer at web site http://www.amyscurria.com/

Summary for the Busy Executive: Hat's off, gentlemen!

So I'm on this internet music discussion list and a new member introduces
herself as a composer, giving a website URL.  I go to the site, since I'm
simultaneously skeptical and curious when anyone describes themselves as
a composer, mainly because experience has shown me that a claimant usually
thinks that "composer" and "good composer" are the same thing.  I click on
the links of excerpts and am blown away.  I send for the CD, which confirms
my initial excitement.

Scurria, born in Florida and now living in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, is,
to old me, a kid, although she's now in her twenties, but her artistic
personality is quite mature.  She's a graduate of Rice and Peabody (student
of Robert Sirota and Chen Yi), and she credits Peabody with her formation
as a composer.  On the other hand, her works written at Rice have nothing
to apologize for:  they show the same command over materials and poetry as
the Peabody stuff.  I also found her on the MP3 site - short piano pieces
she wrote in high school.  The difference astounded me.  They sounded like
the typical pop, New Age-y noodlings one would expect from a teenager, like
comparing Celine Dion ear candy to a Carl Nielsen symphony.  Whatever came
together seems to have come together very quickly.

The harmonic idiom and time sense is that of a classic modern, like Piston
or Holmboe.  I compare her to symphonists, although as far as I know, she
hasn't written one.  Nevertheless, her architectural reach and her ability
to carry on an extended, dramatic argument I think point to a symphonist.
Opposing this, however, is a lyrical side.  Not many symphonists were also
great song writers, and not many song writers are great symphonists.  I
detect an impulse to song and lyric poetry, although the songs on the disc
impressed me less than the instrumental works.  In part, this might be due
to the choice of texts (Jonathan Pearle in "Rains Alive," Jay Bitner in 5
Haiku, and Mary Oliver in A Winter of Flowers).  There's nothing awful
about these poems, but they are merely pretty.  I'd like to know what
she'd make of work by Jane Kenyon or Galway Kinnell.  In either case -
architectural or lyrical - Scurria's music strikes me as a journey to
discover heartbreaking beauty.  The climaxes of her work aren't so much
dramatic as rapturous.  Furthermore, no moments in the music here merely
mark time or lay there.  A tremendous technique infuses the music, but
Scurria never uses it to cover up a paucity of ideas.  She's an honest
workman - the real goods.

The two piano short pieces, Fantasy and Variations, are really the same
kind of work:  the composer takes an idea (or perhaps two ideas) for a
brief walk.  In both cases, the ideas and treatment are strong - in the
Fantasy a rather muscular cell of rising fourths transmutes into something
singing and back again.  Variations, as far as I can tell, does not adhere
to formal variation, but the same kind of change as the Fantasy.  Here,
the idea is more lyric.  I'm no pianist, but within the modern language
(roughly Barber of the Piano Sonata), the piano writing seems idiomatic, at
times Chopinesque.  Boetcher realizes these works very well indeed, very
possibly because of Scurria's strong ties to the Romantic piano tradition.

The song "Rains Alive" is lovely enough, but the text doesn't really
merit the setting it gets.  That goes double for the 5 Haiku, whose music
is gorgeo us.  The latter has an unusual orchestration - added to the
baritone and chamber ensemble, a wordless soprano, possibly representing
the spirit of nature.  At various points, the baritone joins the soprano
for his own wordless riffs, perhaps representing the observer at one with
nature.  Scurria's music proceeds in the conventional way of haiku settings
- slow and contemplative - but the difference between this setting and
others lies in its ravishing beauty.

A Winter of Flowers, a song cycle for piano and voice, to my ears borrows
the idiom of Hindemith's Rilke settings or perhaps of Barber's Hermit
Songs.  For me, this cycle most successfully marries music and text,
investing the words with greater weight than they otherwise might carry.
I didn't think, for once, that the music was wasted.  However, I believe
Scurria definitely needs to choose harder poetry, so that music and text
don't seem out of whack - that she's not shooting a fly with an elephant
gun.  I should mention, however, that Scurria has replaced Mary Oliver's
text with her own, although the CD presents the older version.

Furchte dich nicht, a piece for chamber ensemble, boasts the unusual
feature of a trumpet with flute, two violins, viola, cello, and bass.
I can't think of too many chamber pieces that mix trumpet with solo
strings.  The Saint-Saens septet is just about the only thing I can think
of.  Although I like the piece, I think it a bit scruffy, too sectional in
design.  Despite its attractiveness (and everything Scurria seems to write
is at least attractive), I found it the hardest to assimilate.  Also, the
trumpet - admittedly a neat sound - always threatens to become too big for
the rest of the group, particularly with no piano to oppose it (the
Saint-Saens has a piano).  Maybe a clarinet instead?

Games Children Play for solo violinist (violin and speaker) is a
divertissement.  The texts, by Scurria, are charming and fun - the music
as well, idiomatically suited to the instrument.  Beneath the fun, however,
lies the anxiety in a child - small, trying to figure things out, and
wondering how to make it to adult life.

Beyond All Walking for orchestra impressed me the most.  The title comes
from a line by Rilke about a woman going blind:

   She followed slowly, taking a long time,
   as though there were some obstacle in the way:
   and yet: as though, once it was overcome,
   she would be beyond all walking, and would fly.

The music's expression ranges from declamatory to lyrical.  The large
gestures are big indeed, as in the opening.  It's a magpie of influences,
even contemporary influences, but it adds up to something personal, just as
Rachmaninoff's music does.  Also, like Rachmaninoff, Scurria's dramatic and
lyrical interpenetrate.  The singing is intense, slightly melancholy, the
drama tinged with tenderness.  During my first couple of hearings, I tended
to listen to the work as that of a young composer and was impressed by the
variety of textures, highlighting and mixing sections, nonetheless part of
a real symphonic argument.  Very quickly, however, I realized that, young
or old, Scurria is one fine composer.  Roughly two minutes from the end
comes a gorgeous, elegiac chorale for strings - something awfully hard to
keep up for that long - capped by a "blue note" in the solo flute for a
stunning, if enigmatic conclusion.

The performances seem to be all student, but standards have risen
enormously since my day.  The voices - Bitner, Haye, and Rhodes - are
still a bit young.  Bitner's has the most personality, reminding me a bit
of the late William Parker's.  Danburg plays enthusiastically, with drive.
Pianist Boetcher plays music rather than notes.  The Peabody Symphony does
sound like a student ensemble, but a very good one, with a nice string
tone.  The most unstable performance comes from the Shepherd School of
Music Ensemble for Furchte dich nicht, but, to be fair, they suffer from
mostly balance problems entirely due to the specification of the trumpet.
I don't know whether it's possible, or even nice, to ask a trumpet to play
softly throughout.

Recording is acceptable.  All the performances are live, and the editing
isn't really commercial quality.  That makes little difference to enjoying
the music, and I do recommend it highly to those interested in a young
tonal composer with something to say.

Steve Schwartz