CD Reviews

CLASSICAL
Eroica Trio
"Pasión" (EMI 7243 5 57033 2 3) and Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival 2000: Latin American Chamber Music Available through the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music website, http://arizonachambermusic.org/
A pair of recent CD releases captures with superb sonics two works by Brazilian composer Raimundo Penaforte, both commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.
AFCM was lucky to have been introduced to this exceptional young artist whose own background hints at the breadth and depth of his influences. He has performed and recorded with jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, folk singer Ritchie Havens, clarinetist Gloria Feidman, and Latin singer Ruben Blades, to name but some. But what is clear in these two recordings is that Penaforte has swallowed whole the totality of Brazilian, Latin American and global rhythms, as well as the full range of classical traditions, digesting and reintegrating them in unique and sophisticated ways.
In 1999, Penaforte's "An Eroica Trio," composed for the crack all-female ensemble of the same name, premiered here, brought into the world by AFCM commissioners Ellen and Anthony Lomonaco. The three movement work takes the title of each movement from figures of the musical world Penaforte found influential.
"Astor," the opening movement, as the name suggests, is for Argentine tango master Astor Piazzolla. Like Piazzolla's music, which is also represented on the EMI disc by four short but tantalizing tangos, Penaforte's score sizzles with unlikely twists, bold, insistent rhythms and the sense of being tugged into emotional light and shadow by fate. Yet this in no traditional tango, any more than Piazzolla's are. Immediately one is impressed with the sophistication of the writing, its longform innovation, tunefulness and sonic richness. Penaforte understands each instrument's range of colors and uses them to orchestral effect, even with such compact forces. One is equally impressed by the flair and dramatic commitment of cellist Sara Sant'Ambrogio, pianist Erika Nikrenz and violinist Adela Peña as they infuse their performance with sizzling accents, choice rubato (rhythmic elasticity) and rich tone.
The middle movement, "Maurice," is a blues of singular beauty inspired by the passacaglia movement of Maurice Ravel's piano trio. Virtuosic, elegant and expressive, it is memorable music making that invites repeated listening. The finale, "Capiba," named for the nickname of Brazilian composer Luorenco de Fonseca Barbosa, is a Brazilian boogie reminiscent of Heitor Villa-Lobos' train music, filled with jaunty syncopations. Here again Peneforte's intimate knowledge of instrumental color is used to great effect, and the performance rocks.
Other highlights of the disc include Eroica's masterful reading of Joaquin Turina's "Premiere Trio," capturing both its French impressionist allusions and its Spanish swagger, as well as the crackling performances of the Piazzolla tangos.
Peneforte's sonic artistry as both tunesmith and colorist is again in full effect on "Quartetice (for four guitars and 'obbligato et ad libitum' percussion)" from the Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival 2000 disc. Brilliantly performed by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet with the composer on hand drum, rattle and triangle, the four-movement work sport evocative and sparkling melodies garbed in nearly orchestral colors, heightening both the drama and joy of the work. The vitality and interplay of its layered rhythms lends an irrepressible spirit to even its most shadowy themes, while its vivid "orchestration" conjures a fuller palette than one might easily imagine. Local commissioners Susan Small, Anne Nelson, Richard and Judy Sanderson, Jean-Paul Bierny and Chris Tanz should be very proud.
The disc is rounded out by a romantic work for clarinet and piano of decidedly European influence by contemporary Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino, Villa-Lobos' "Suite for Voice and Violin," Mexican composer Manuel Ponce's "Sonata Breve," and Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera's "Pampeana #2 Rapsodia para Violoncello y Piano." The Villa-Lobos and the Ginastera are the most exciting. In the former, violinist Bennie Kim sounds like several fiddlers at once as he simultaneously plucks and bows his instrument with utmost skill behind Jennifer Foster's exquisite vocal work. In the Ginastera, TWCMF artistic director Peter Rejto's cello does the talking, lithely supported by pianist Lydia Atymiw, as he renders the score's Coplandesque sense of space, optimism, pride add place in the opening depiction of the Argentine pampas, then plays hopscotch with Artymiw as they gallop across the plain.
Grade for Eroica Trio's "Pasión": A+
Grade for Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival 2000: B+
- Daniel Buckley