Fresh, evocative voice expresses Cotton's vision

Every composer dreams of expressing a particular vision with a voice that is both fresh and evocative. American composer Jeffery Cotton has done just that, in his hauntingly beautiful string orchestral work, Suite from Pyramus & Thisbe (2002), the second show of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra's season.

Tuesday night's concert welcomed back popular guest maestro Scott Yoo, who last appeared with the orchestra in February. The Boston-based conductor/violinist also founded that city's Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, which performed the world premiere of Cotton's work in 2002. The 52-year-old composer (in attendance) served as the contemporary music ensemble's composer-in-residence from 1999 through 2003.

Originally conceived as an opera based on Ovid's tale of the young Babylonian lovers Pyramus and Thisbe (and prototypes for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet), Cotton shelved the piece for 10 years then resurrected it as a ballet suite inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall when he was living in Germany during the early 1990s.

The dissonant, texturally rich work begins with angular, widely leaping lines accented by forceful jeté and snap pizzicatos in the lower strings. It drives forward with agitated intensity through muted, rhythmic ostinatos creating an otherworldly feel. Principal cellist Yuri Hooker's evocative solo spoke like a soliloquy while concertmaster Karl Stobbe easily navigated his extreme upper range over a pulsing accompaniment. The moody suite resolves triumphantly with a final major chord, as if heralding tumbled walls and new worlds begun.

Arresting in its vitality, individuality and rhythm, always forward-looking and seemingly regular, yet with a lively irregularity within that. Cotton moves from tonality to atonality and all shades in between while keeping the sound transparent.

It's a lively, attractive, and intelligent piece with some nifty surprises to reward close attention. It's also well made and ingeniously laid out for the strings, and it doesn't wear out its welcome. Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" inevitably lies behind the "Elegy," and the whole piece has a retro late-'30s, early-'40s feel to it, which sounds a little odd coming from a young [sic! -- jc] composer of the 21st century. The most interesting movement is the last, a set of variations that spins in widening gyres away from the theme. The composer couldn't have asked for a better performance than the one offered by these supple young string players under Yoo's energetic and detailed direction.

"Lyra," by [the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra's] newly acquired composer-in-residence, Jeffery Cotton, revealed itself to be a gentle, confessional hymn to music of great beauty. Based on a reiterated procession of sonorities written as both lush chords or murmured fragmentary motives, the piece draws the ear into the mystery of lyric utterance.

When Nicholas Cords began his gorgeous viola solo, the tears started; we had arrived at the heart of things. Ethereal solo songs by concertmaster Joanna Maurer and cellist Alexis Pia Gerlach soared over the lumious ensemble sound.

Even the Tage für Neue Musik Festival, which ran at the Darmstadt Academy of Music until yesterday, and during which Jeffery Cotton's trio Night Music received its premiere, there was no escape from a polical discussion about the threatening war with Iraq. In a conversation with Academy co-director Cord Meijering at the start of the second half of the program, Jeffery Cotton explained to the audience that he felt compelled to take a musical stand against the Iraq crisis. Like most Americans, said Cotton, he did not vote for George Bush and does not want this war. Hence the references to war, to the President and to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in this ironic piece, which claims to be "Night Music", but in reality portrays more of a nightmare.

Jeffery Cotton's "CityMusic", in its Cleveland premiere, begins as an evocation of American landscapes - sounding like Richard Strauss meets John Williams - and suddenly becomes a tableau of big-city tumult. The piece has a winning twist: A narrator takes apart the "noises", hones them along melodic, harmonic and rhythmic lines and transforms them into an affectionate and humorous urban tone painting.

Cotton served as the deft narrator, showing exasperation when the city sounds turned dissonant and schmoozing amiably with [conductor Alan] Gilbert and the audience. The orchestra, which commissioned the piece with the Philadelphia Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony, lavished sonic riches on Cotton's lush cinematic writing. The composer must have been in symphonic heaven.

[Conductor Scott Yoo] also did what sounded like justice to Jeffery Cotton's Serenade (1993) for cello and orchestra. This artifact was all at once luscious and logical, elegantly orchestrated with some super fire-and-ice wind chording; it considerately provided occasions to show what a capable cello soloist - in this case Alexis Pia Gerlach - could do.

Cotton's "Serenade" is inspired not by specific works, but the sound of music written in the 1940s and '50s. Featuring a cello soloist, the work is rich, moving and - especially when Cotton colors the sound with exquisitely shimmering dissonance - quite beautiful. It sounds both familiar and new at the same time. You're never sure where it's going to go next, but when it gets there you think to yourself, "Of course."

Orchestra member Alexis Pia Gerlach masterfully filled the cello solo with all the bitersweet passion Cotton - who was in the audience - could have asked for. And Yoo conducted the work with dramatic forward momentum.

Many moods in new chamber piece

Time and exposure will tell if "Meditation" has musical legs to stand on. But judging by the near-capacity audience's immediate and robust standing ovation for Lin and Stoyanov, the piece stands a chance.

"Meditation" pairs violin with gongs, cymbals, marimba and the Bulgarian tapan drum, moving from a slow contemplative tempo to near-frenzy that makes way for bursts of improvisation not common in classical music. The violin is played with passion and fury; the percussions go from reserved and unimposing to booming volcanic eruptions. There's a bit of blues, undercut by an Asian flavor that makes way for an off-the-cuff musical free-for-all.

In a ballroom setting worthy of Old Vienna, the Cypress String Quartet performed one of Haydn's Opus 33 quartets, full of charm and fizz; one of Mozart's "Haydn Quartets," full of darkness and fearful, pleading tension; and a new work by composer Jeffery Cotton, which at once charmed, frightened and rang out with song. Cotton was commissioned by the Cypress to compose a "response" to the Haydn and Mozart works, and his String Quartet No. 1 is a hugely successful solution to that daunting assignment...

Then came Cotton, a Los Angeles native, who explained that his first pokings at the new composition happened at the piano. He superimposed Haydn's light-hearted G major and Mozart's dark D minor tonalities -- and found himself in the jazz-tinged harmonic world of 1920s cabaret song from France and Germany. The approach allowed Cotton to honor the "singing" qualities of Haydn and Mozart.

Cotton has written songs that grab you. How many contemporary composers do that? Saturday, long-lined melodies unfurled amid racing ostinatos, slamming cello chords, shimmering string choirs and sets of variations. The Cypress was visibly excited by this new music, which popped like a champagne cork and then summoned the mood of empty city streets at midnight.

Cotton's grafting of Haydn and Mozart at times sounded like Bartók resolving into Bill Evans jazz chords, but mostly it sounded utterly original, laughing and sighing in unexpected ways.

The Cypress Quartet, in residence at San Jose State University, has for some years been involved in a major outreach, public education, and commissioning program, also known as “Call and Response.” At Kohl Mansion they presented a Haydn quartet from 1781 and a Mozart from 1783. This was the summoning call. Composer Jeffery Cotton provided the response, his own first string quartet. In it, he commented on similarities between the work of the two old masters, and offered his own doxology. So inspired, Cotton then rode out on his own, writing a work which was the performance highlight of the evening. [...]

It was in Cotton's new work that the Cypress Quartet blazed, holding nothing in reserve. Their commitment to this work was startling, and deeply impressive. Cotton went well beyond merely commenting on the similarities between the Haydn and Mozart. He took their forms, their keys, their sensibility, and then imposed and super-imposed his own upon them. He did so with tremendous musical judgment and finesse, giving pride of place to Haydn throughout.

The first movement, Overture, is an aggressive and often motoric essay. Sometimes a pasticcio, sometimes a prism, it gave equal weight to all four voices. Each player responded with driving pulse, unafraid of the oddness and angularity of the writing. They came alive.

A vigorous Capriccio followed. It cited a pizzicato ostinato, and turned it into a galloping exploration of quicksilver ideas, largely driven by the cello and by Ethan Filner on viola. The third movement, “Chorale and cabaret,” offered the strongest writing of the night. It was ruminative and introspective, especially at its most vocal moments. The solo first violin floated on evocations of Mozart, flavored with artificial harmonics and authentic reverence.

The other strings, led by second violin Tom Stone, responded with rich texture and tentative question. One gesture, given twice, created a shimmering sound field that transfixed the audience. Moving slowly from frog to tip, three bows playing as one slipped into tremolando, almost unnoticed. This was extremely idiomatic string writing, and a wisely-chosen special effect. [...]

This was exciting writing, marking the gifts of its composer and the brilliance of his advocates.