Meyer Kupferman

* Tuba Concerto
* Going Home, '94
* Into the Breach
* Percussion Symphony ("... On Tibet and Tiannanman Square ...")
* Structures

Edwin Diefes (tuba), Roberto Limon, William Anderson, Oren Fader, Marc Wolf
(guitars), Jiri Kulisev (saxophone), Czech National Symphony Orchestra/Paul
Freeman, The Oregon Percussion Ensemble/Charles Dowd, Stony Brook
Contemporary Players/Matt Ward.
Soundspells CD 135  Total time: 71:54 + 43:33

Meyer Kupferman has been around for years writing away and making a
go of it as a composer, even though few recognize his name.  Kupferman
has an individual artistic profile.  He follows his inclinations, rather
than a school, and his technical facility has allowed him to follow many
paths, even simultaneously.  Kupferman is fundamentally a conservative
Modernist -- tonal (although he has written dodecaphonically), often
with an underlay of Thirties and Forties Big-Band lyricism, the kind
often associated with the Bobby Hackett charts for Jackie Gleason.  He's
also attracted to avant-garde gadgets -- for example, his cello concerto,
which sings modally with an electronic tape obbligato.  Perhaps he strives
to relate the avant-garde to a broader tradition.  Very often, his
compositions feature a dramatic counterpoint between traditional and
experimental methods.

This is volume 16 of a series devoted just to Kupferman's orchestral
works.  All the pieces here are well-written, sincerely-felt, and at
times even beautiful.  Yet, for some reason, they don't really stick
with me.  Works featuring tuba usually come off like stunts.  Indeed,
the tuba-piccolo duo has become a cliche of the beginning composer.  To
my mind, I can think right now of only three composers really successful
in giving the tuba something worthwhile to do: Vaughan Williams, of
course, Hindemith, and Alec Wilder.  George Kleinsinger's Tubby the Tuba
also makes the list, which lets you know the height of the bar.  John
Williams's concerto is busy and fussy, with very little ultimately said.
Kupferman gives the player primarily a singing role, and although he
does pair the tuba with the flute a number of times, it's music rather
than showing off.  The soloist, Edwin Diefes, helps enormously.  I've
not heard a better player -- not Harvey Phillips, Roger Bobo, or John
Fletcher.  Diefes puts out the suavest line and the most golden tone
since Ezio Pinza.  I like the piece while I'm hearing it, but I don't
remember much afterwards and have little reason, other than Diefes, to
seek it out again.

Going Home, '94 for guitar quartet juxtaposes "sewing-machine" modern
with a tone row as well as with things that sound a little like Delta
blues and South American guitar music.  The tone row functions more as
decoupage than anything truly structural.  The first movement of the
three I liked least, but I perked up for the other two movements,
especially the lyrical slow movement -- very civilized, humane work,
but again as a whole not memorable.

Into the Breach for orchestra is the most ambitious work on the first
CD, the most tightly argued.  Everything derives from the first two
measures.  Unless you write it down, you'll never keep it all straight,
but you do notice riffs traded back and forth and put into new musical
contexts throughout the three movements.  I like this piece best of all.
I'd go so far as to call it funky.  The jazz inspirations blend in better
with the overall milieu.  It's not really a jazz piece or even a piece
with jazz elements, but one written by an artist who's absorbed jazz
into his bones.

I took one look at the Percussion Symphony's subtitle, and a bad
feeling swept over me.  I prejudged the work as a probable orgy of
slam-bang.  I was wrong.  Most of the sounds are very delicate, almost
Zen-like (whatever Zen music may be) -- a soundtrack, if you will, to a
documentary on Japanese rock gardens.  On the other hand, there's a lot
of dead weight in the piece.  It does go on, despite brilliant passages.
Kupferman in general to me tends to want to say too much.  Here, he
indulges himself even more than usual.  Kupferman provides liner notes
to the work, and I must say that his descriptions of what goes on sound
really neat.  However, the composer hasn't come up with a realization
that does these Neat Ideas justice.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed Sonic Structures, with Into the
Breach, the most recent work on the program.  This is a primarily atonal
piece with tonal elements, although that description should interest
only musical techies.  More than anything else it reminds me of Stravinsky's
Le Sacre, mostly because of its leaning on ostinato (a device I tend to
like).  It's also less rhetorically garrulous than most Kupferman, and
the orchestration surprised me.  Contrasts and juxtapositions are very
well worked out indeed, and it comes to an exciting end.

The performers are quite fine.  In addition to Diefes, the Oregon
Percussion Ensemble plays with chamber sensitivity, and the Stony Brook
Contemporary Players do an heroic job with the difficult Sonic Structures,
letting the listener in on the piece's quality.  Paul Freeman and the
Czech National Orchestra make compelling music with the just-as-difficult
Into the Breach.  This is more than advocacy.  It's also wonderful
music-making.

The production team and venue switched with just about every item in
the program, so you can expect variable results.  In particular, CD2
comes at you at a much softer dynamic than CD1.  However, the recording
of the Percussion Symphony stands out: each of six different percussionists
with their own groups of instruments sounds in their own space, with
fantastic sonic location.

Steve Schwartz