Chamber Music of Arnold Rosner, Vol. 3
Albany TROY553

Sextet for Strings, Op. 47*
Besos sin cuentos, Op. 86**
Sonata for Trombone and Piano, Op. 106***

*Sestetto Agosto
**Julia Bentley, mezzo; Janice MacDonald, fl; Claudia
Lasareff-    Mironoff, vla; Alison Attar, hp
***Gregory Erickson, tb; Angelina Tallaj, pno

Three winners

This disc of chamber music by the distinguished American composer, Arnold
Rosner (b. 1945) is the third in a continuing series from Albany Records.
It contains three pieces, and they couldn't be more different from each
other. There is a lush string sextet, an impressionistic set of Spanish
songs for mezzo and three instruments, and an epic sonata for trombone
and piano.

The sextet was inspired, the composer says, by those of Brahms and Dvorak
and indeed there are harmonic procedures in this piece that do remind
one of the juicy consonance of those late Romantic masters. It is based
on a modal pre-Bachian version of the Lutheran hymn 'Nun komm der Heiden
Heiland' which peeks through in the first movement and bursts forth
gloriously towards the end of the second, thus satisfying a dimly-felt
yearning on the listener's part. Rosner's style makes use of modal
counterpoint that sometimes reminds one of Vaughan Williams or Hovhaness.
This is evident throughout, and particularly in the fugal section of the
first movement, which is a set of variations using all manner of classical
procedures. The second movement, subtitled 'Motet,' is essentially a
song.  And, indeed, if I had to use one adjective to describe this piece,
or even Rosner's overall oeuvre, it would be 'songful.' Every line sings.
The piece was written in the 1970s but extensively revised in the 1990s
for violinist Paul Vanderwerf and five colleagues from the Chicago area;
that group is heard here. With the exception of some uncertain intonation
in a first-movement cello solo, it is played gorgeously.

'Besos sin cuento' ('Kisses Without Number') is a set of six songs based
on Spanish poems from the Renaissance. It is sung lusciously here by
mezzo Julia Bentley, accompanied by a Debussyan trio of flute, viola,
and harp.  These are lovesick poems often with homely folk-tinged images
(e.g. 'Three things hold my heart prisoner of love: the fair Inez, the
ham and eggplant with cheese'). Rosner devises a setting that couldn't
be more Spanish somehow, with rhythms and harmonies that evoke the
sensuous and languorous air of that enchanted country. Think of a Spanish
'Songs of the Auvergne.' Before coming to this set of songs, I had thought
Rosner wrote almost entirely in a noble or dignified style. The humor
and sexiness of this music belies that impression.

Rosner has said that he, inspired by Hindemith and Nielsen, has wanted
to write a sonata or concerto for all the instruments of the orchestra.
Only bassoon and double bass players remain unserved. The trombone sonata
is classical in form. The first movement is an extended three-part
invention with lots of open fourths and fifths, giving it a medieval
feel. The second movement is a musing and melancholy song - there's that
word again! - in slightly unsettling 7/8 meter. The declamatory last
movement, with assertive Hindemithian counterpoint, is cast in classic
sonata form with two contrasting themes and comes to a blazing peroration,
bringing this outstanding disc to a satisfying conclusion.

The sound and production values, as well as the performances, are
exemplary. All hail to the musicians and the three engineers involved
and to the production by John Proffitt of Albany Records.

Scott Morrison