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Saturday, January 19, 2002

By Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic

The vast majority of the 10,000 or so American composers writing today don't have the wax, wick and match to make a candle, much less hold it up to Beethoven or Chopin. If you think that's a harsh assessment, don't forget we treasure only about 1 percent of the composers of the 18th and 19th century.

	Listening to audio with this story This audio is from the discs Eric Moe, "Sonnets to Orpheus; Siren Songs" Farnum, Brandes, Lemon, The Group for Contemporary Music Koch and "Speaking Extravagantly: String Quartets of David Stock," Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Innova. Click on the highlighted links in the text of the story to download an mp3 sample. Visit the following sites to download players for Windows or Mac machines to listen to the file: Real Player Microsoft Windows Media Player WinAMP

Pittsburgh, however, is blessed with several truly good composers, two of whom have recently released excellent new discs.

Eric Moe, "Sonnets to Orpheus; Siren Songs" Farnum, Brandes, Lemon, The Group for Contemporary Music Koch

It was only a matter of time before the music of Pitt composer Eric Moe would be associated with water. The liquid imagery of Moe's exquisite song cycle "Siren Songs" aptly suits his fluid musical language. This collection of songs for piano and soprano hits the ears like cool water on the face.

The subject matter, poems about mermaids and sirens drawn from three millennia, is not your typical fare. But as reflections of human traits -- exotic sensuality, control and the gap between the sexes -- these figures of fantasy provide a potent theme. The overriding emotion is one of isolation and dissatisfaction that stems both from the authors -- Dante, Homer, Kafka and contemporaries Janet McAdams and Paula McLain -- and from the reader's own psyche.

Moe's writing is light and pointed, evocative and rhetorical at the same time. His unpretentious discourse flows from measure to measure with an inevitability not unlike that of tonality, but it's always a little odd. The melodic gestures make sense emotionally, but notes and phrases occasionally swerve off in surprising and fresh directions. Moe's language is personal and universal simultaneously.

Soprano Elizabeth Farnum sings "Siren Songs" with brilliance and sensitivity as Moe accompanies. "Sonnets to Orpheus" brings the excellent Group for Contemporary Music to the plate with soprano Christine Brandes. This cycle is equally as introspective, with extraordinary drive and poignancy that shows Moe has quite a knack with the genre.

"Speaking Extravagantly: String Quartets of David Stock," Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Innova

David Stock is not what you'd call a dry composer, but this disc finds the Duquesne University professor communicating with extraordinary expression. His quartets No. 2, 3 and 4 span nearly 20 years, but a personal thread runs through them all.

Stock's trademark active rhythms pervade the works. However, as with the tortoise and the hare, it is the slow movements that win the ear and heart. The second movement of Quartet No. 4 (1997) is an elegiac tribute to a lost friend that winds mournfully in the violins.

Likewise is Quartet No. 2 (1981), "Speaking Extravagantly," dedicated to his father, who died in 1967. Its finale is simple, slow and spaced music that gently reveals feelings beyond words -- sorrow and pleasant nostalgia. This follows two movements that carve an aural bust of his father as a passionate ("With great extremes of expression") and obsessive ("scherzo ostinato") person.

Speaking of obsession, Stock begins Quartet No. 3 (1994) with a movement titled just that. It's dedicated to his mother, and it's little wonder that Stock pays such remarkable attention to detail. But this quartet is sweet and touching. The second movement, "Reflective," perhaps catches him as a child watching his mother deep in thought. And that first movement, "Obsessive," is the best on the CD. Stock tenderly captures worries floating above the driving pulse of repetitious thought, the music never sacrificing depth in its vernacular ease. This also is a credit to the Grammy-nominated Cuarteto Latinoamericano, which plays with supple responsiveness and flexibility throughout.

Stock's CD release party will follow a 7:30 p.m. concert by Cuarteto Latinoamericano at Carnegie Mellon University Thursday evening in the Kresge Recital Hall.