Joshua Gordon, cello; Randall Hodgkinson, piano Reviews as a duo:

Concert review: Pianist and cellist make French connections By David Weininger, Boston Globe | September 12, 2007

WALTHAM - "Cellotica" is Joshua Gordon's title for a planned series of concerts exploring neglected works for cello. Sunday's concert at Brandeis University, subtitled "French Connections," was its first entry. But Gordon, the Lydian String Quartet's cellist, didn't simply collect a miscellany of French pieces for himself and pianist Randall Hodgkinson to play. Instead, they offered four distinctive and challenging works touched in varying ways by the spirit, sound, and techniques of French music - a series of musical postcards from disparate points on its terrain.

The afternoon began with "Valse Ancienne (Thirteen Ways of Looking Out a Window)" by the Brooklyn- born composer Vanessa Lann. This slow, trancelike work owes a debt to Erik Satie: A repeated pattern of chiming, slightly dissonant piano chords forms the backdrop for epigrammatic motifs and glinting harmonics in the cello. Changes are incremental, and there's little conventional melody. It casts a spell over a listener, though the spell doesn't quite last the work's 15-minute length.

A sonata by Louis Gordon, the cellist's father, was an about-face in nearly every respect: a busy assemblage of dense counterpoint and offbeat rhythms that bristles with energy at every turn. The elder Gordon cites the polytonality of his teacher, Darius Milhaud, as an influence, and that language gives the music a feeling of never being at rest. The central slow movement was less frenetic on the surface yet just as intense as the more agitated outer movements.

A similar pattern of stasis and activity was repeated in the second half, which opened with "Pièce pour Violoncelle et Piano" by the Canadian composer Claude Vivier, whose teacher, Gilles Tremblay, was a student of the great Olivier Messiaen. "Pièce" begins with tremolos passed between the two instruments, which eventually come together and grow to a frightening power. It has something of Messiaen's sense of stillness, though none of his profound calm. It's closer to a series of anguished cries, leavened at the end by a few hints of wistful melody.

The sole work by a French composer was Fauré's Second Cello Sonata. Copland called Fauré "The Brahms of France," and the sonata's tight construction and economical use of material made the comparison seem especially apt. The sinuous, flowing melodies and bright virtuosity, though, were Gallic through and through.

Gordon and Hodgkinson dispatched all four pieces with excellent musicianship, both individually and as an ensemble. Transparency, balance, and rhythmic precision were impeccably maintained throughout. Keep an eye out for their next destination. ---

CD reviews for Leo Ornstein: Complete Works For Cello and Piano (New World Records, 2007)

Vivien Schweitzer, New York Times, September 16, 2007, nytimes.com "the value of [Ornstein's] powerful works for cello and piano is revealed by the pianist Randall Hodgkinson and the cellist Joshua Gordon, admirable chamber musicians who play with passion and sensitivity... These exemplary performances should ensure that Ornstein's cello works will enjoy some of the limelight the composer shunned for so long."

Bradley Bambarger, Star-Ledger (NJ), August 13, 2007, nj.com "Ornstein's scores for cello and piano show the composer at his most alluring... The playing brims with devotion and understanding, as well as the tonal beauty this music demands. One of the year's most engrossing discs" Also: Top 10 Classical Recordings of 2007, December 27, 2007: “Ideally played”

David Lewis, All Music Guide, allmusic.com, Best of 2007 "Five stars... It is great music... these are major performers... absorbing and revelatory."

Andrew Clements, The Guardian (London), Friday July 6, 2007 music.guardian.co.uk "this collection of works for cello and piano, played by Joshua Gordon and Randall Hodgkinson, gives a sense of how remarkable [Ornstein's] early works could be... the intense, almost expressionist writing is totally compelling."

Phillip Scott, Fanfare Magazine, Issue 30:6 (July/Aug 2007) "this is an issue that should have cellists racing to buy the sheet music. If they play it as well as Joshua Gordon, they can be perfectly satisfied. He finds the logic in this music through his sensitive phrasing, and his rich, burnished tone, well caught by the microphone, goes straight to the soul of it. Pianist Randall Hodgkinson also rises to all the considerable demands made on him by the composer, technically and expressively. Full of interest and beauty, this is a disc to live with.

David W. Moore, American Record Guide, May / June 2007 Ornstein has something to say to us in any of his styles, and I welcome any new recording of his music. There is always something heartfelt and searching about his music that makes it worth following through the labyrinth of his thought. These players perform with insight and accuracy and have made an important record of unfamiliar and beautiful music.

Edith Eisler, Strings Magazine, November 2007 "a composer of impressive technical and structural mastery, stylistic versatility, and emotional range. The music is beautiful: tonal, often impressionistic, primarily dreamy, occasionally with a strong Judaic flavor... Not surprisingly, the piano parts are brilliant, full of cascading arpeggios, massive chords, and intricate counterpoint, but Ornstein is equally skilled in using the technical and tonal resources of the cello. The melodies have a singing, spoken quality; the two instruments converse, support, and encourage each other. It is astonishing that more cellists have not discovered these idiomatic, effective works. This recording should change that. The playing is splendid, authoritative, expressive, and involved. Ornstein could not have wished for more committed, persuasive advocates." 

Andrew Druckenbrod, Gramophone, June 2007 (North American Edition) "the listener gets the emotional point easily. Cellist Joshua Gordon and pianist Randall Hodgkinson clearly understand the instinctive nature of Ornstein's compositional aesthetic. The two also do the music justice by performing it with the sumptuosness of late-Romantic style, rather than the less expressive technique of later avant-garde movements. In particular, full and deep bowing by Gordon brings a warmth that shows Ornstein wrote with his heart as much as his head. After his time in the spotlight, Ornstein fell off the musical map; however this splendid and ear-opening disc should further his re-introduction."

Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com, 10/23/2008

Here's an hour and 15 minutes worth of virtually unknown music for cello and piano by Leo Ornstein, abounding in virtuosic challenges, passionate creativity, and sheer instrumental effectiveness. I can't imagine these works not gripping audiences' attention, nor holding the interests of adventurous performers. It's hard to pin down Ornstein's style. You'll find relentless, driving ostinatos so loved by Russian futurists, sensuous slow-moving chords that suggest a threesome between Scriabin, Bax, and Sorabji, plus long, lyrical melodies suffused with wide interval leaps. All these and more figure into the freshly varied Six Preludes that open this release.

The harmonic language either can be scintillatingly modal (the first Cello Sonata's Scherzo), or something along the lines of Cyril Scott's Rachmaninov-isms caked with chromatic mud (the first movement). The spirit of early, atonal, pre-dodecaphonic Schoenberg prevails in the tiny Op. 33 pieces, although you might prefer to liken them to a kinder, gentler Ives. Still, a vital compositional personality consistently emerges.

In any event, cellist Joshua Gordon and pianist Randall Hodgkinson offer commanding, dynamically fervent, boundlessly colorful and heartfelt interpretations that are likely to set reference standards for many years to come. Nor should I fail to mention New World's warm, full-bodied engineering and scrupulous, informative booklet notes. A major catalog contribution.