Leonard Salzedo

* Partita, op. 112
* Sonatina for Tuned Gongs and Piano, op. 115
* Four Antiphones, op. 121
* Giuocco dei Colpi, op. 105
* Epifania, op. 131

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Music-with-Percussion Ensemble and
Concert Chorale; Christopher String Quartet; Lou Cucunato, piano; Wayne
Cooke, trumpet/Pavel Burda, cond.
Albany TROY511  {DDD} TT: 62:39

Summary for the Busy Executive: High-class gong show.

I got this disc under the mistaken notion that I would hear the music
of Impressionist Spanish harpist-composer Carlos Salzedo.  The Londoner
Leonard Salzedo (1921-2000) turned up, in one of those fortunate accidents.
Like most people, my first reaction to an unfamiliar name is to ignore
it.  But, what the heck, I had the CD staring up at me reproachfully in
my own home, so why not give it a listen?

Most new music, for me, is a mixed bag, but let me report mainly good
news.  The program features tuned gongs -- not just any tuned gongs,
but a full chromatic set of over two dozen -- with various other forces.
Pavel Burda first heard them while recording for North German Radio and
decided to commission a series of works from Salzedo, all exploiting
different combinations of instruments with the gongs: tuned percussion
and string quartet, gongs and piano, gongs and choir, and so on.  Salzedo
created a varied set of works and, in at least one case, something very
beautiful.  Of course, composers have used gongs before but, as far as
I know, more for a very occasional dab of color (I think especially of
Gershwin's dramatic stroke in his Concerto in F or Ravel's orchestration
of Pictures at an Exhibition).  What happens when one features these
instruments or makes them shoulder a musical argument?  A composer must
consider the chief sonic characteristics of a gong -- notably, a lot
of prominent overtones as well as the fundamental pitch and the dogged
lingering of the sound -- characteristics pretty similar to those of a
bell.  It's very difficult to tell which note the player has actually
struck, and hitting more notes, even at a moderate pulse, can muddy the
sound even more as new pitches and overtones jostle against the old ones
still hanging about.  The low gongs cause more problems than the high
ones.  So the composer must solve a non-trivial problem.

Overall, Salzedo does very well.  In the Partita, the most outwardly
conventional of the series, the gongs play sparingly, with their pitches
reinforced by xylophone (an instrument with little reverb), what sounds
like high, clear glockenspiel, and the strings.  The gongs are there
mostly for atmosphere, judiciously applied.  This mercurial work consists
of a series of character pieces, whose moods usually show up in the
titles.  Salzedo is particularly good at changing the color of the
ensemble, or stretching the ensemble's emotional range.  In the first
movement, "Introduzione," we hear a procession to some ritual.  Again,
the gongs sound for color, as they do in the Ravel orchestration of
Mussorgsky's "Great Gate of Kiev." The "Toccata" follows, and it's a
marvel -- fast, rhythmically-precise music featuring gongs.  In this
case, Salzedo uses the higher-pitched gongs (less reverb) at a low
dynamic, so one hears the strokes without the Schmutz.  The "Notturno"
is another slow piece, evoking for me a very clear night, with each star
twinkling like a diamond in the huge black bowl of the sky.  The "Capriccio"
continues the night mood, an uneasy scherzo of unseen, flying things.
In "Aria," the strings sing a beautiful lament.  Even the gongs get a
brief moment in the spotlight, a nice change from their usual merely
"background wash" role.  The final "Moto Perpetuo" worries several quick
ideas obsessively, with even the gongs getting in the act.  Overall, a
lovely piece, cannily written.

I consider the Sonatina for Tuned Gongs and Piano the fly in the soup.
For my money, the work has too little contrast between the gongs and the
piano.  The piece sounds like a piano in the Holland Tunnel, with the
constant, undifferentiated hum of traffic.  The piano part alone, however,
is quite fine and, alone, would probably make a bigger effect.  Salzedo
has, for once, failed to imagine the sound well enough.

With the Four Antiphones (sic), we're back on track.  Salzedo sets
the four Marian antiphons -- "Alma Redemptoris," "Ave regina coelorum,"
"Regina caeli laetare," and "Salve regina" -- for gongs and piano, just
as he did with the Sonatina, but adds a choir, which makes all the
difference.  You know Salzedo has thought through the sonic problem of
tuned gongs.  He conceived the work originally for choir and gongs alone
but came to recognize the difficulty of picking out the gongs' exact
pitches for most choirs, even most good choirs.  For one thing, it's
very easy to mistake an overtone for the fundamental pitch, particularly
with the lower gongs.  The choral writing strikes me as similar to that
of the Russian Orthodox Church -- block chords changing with slow
regularity -- so a lot of it reminds me of the death scene in Boris
Godunov (this isn't a bad thing).  The piano not only provides pitch,
but also taps out the rhythmic pulse, so one gets the image of a religious
procession with swinging censer.  The gongs add a mysterious color to
the sound.  Here and there, with the help of piano and choir, you can
also make out pitches from the gongs.  Somehow, despite the same musical
character over the first three antiphons, Salzedo dodges monotony.  He
also changes the tone in the final "Salve regina." The music becomes
increasingly agitated, a prayer in extremis, something like the "Agnus
Dei" from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, but without the final consolation.

The Giuocco dei Colpi (interplay of strokes or plucks) uses the gongs
plus a whole mess of tuned percussion, plus pizzicato bass.  It's an
extravaganza of cross-rhythms over a wide dynamic range and a couple of
idees fixes, with the bass injecting a "jamming," jazzy element.  If you
know the final movement of Holst's Beni Mora, you have some idea of what
to expect.  I find the piece hypnotic.

All most all of these works have been quite fine, but the gorgeous
Epifania raises an already high bar.  Salzedo creates an unusual
ensemble of chorus, trumpet, tuba, timpani, marimba, tuned gongs, and
piano.  The trumpet assumes a starring role.  Salzedo sets a text by the
late sixteenth-, early seventeenth-century Spanish poet Jose de Valdivieso,
"Romance, Dia de la Epifania, descubierto el Santisimo Sacramento" (ballad
of the Epiphany, on the exposure of the Holy Sacrament).  I have no idea
what the poem says, since nobody thought to print the text in the
accompanying booklet and the choir's diction just doesn't cut sufficiently
through the ensemble texture.  But, boy!  the music is a rouser, with
fanfares and rhythms that may derive from Spanish gitano (gypsy) music.
By the way, it's Epiphany as I write this.  How's that for coincidence?

The performances are all good, without that extra that would push them
to great.  For example, there are some rather spongy attacks in the
Giuocco dei Colpi, not what you want in a piece whose point is rhythm.
On the other hand, Burda has the interpretive measure of all these
not-easy works, and the recording team has avoided the many minefields
surrounding a series of pieces featuring gongs.  Most of the time, the
musical material is clear, rather than drowned in gong decay.  None of
this music is cliche.  Kudos to Burda, to the late Leonard Salzedo, and
to the performers.

Steve Schwartz