HighFidelity Mighty Winds uring the past two years the years together in Brussels, produced what Elegant and impressive Prism Quartet has issued five is taken to be the first-ever work for a DCDs. If the ensemble were a quartet of the instruments. Nonetheless, offerings from the string quartet, you might call that a busy the literature remained small until the recording schedule, but not unnatural; 1920s, when a seminal quartet headed by Prism Quartet, there’s so much string-quartet literature to the French saxophonist Marcel Mule cover that they’d have to keep up a pretty started making a case for the medium; Music from China, pace if they hope to make much of a dent soon the group’s commissioning efforts in it. But Prism is not a string quartet. It’s gave rise to saxophone quartets by com- Piffaro, a saxophone quartet, and now you may be posers of note, including Gabriel Pierné thinking—admit it—that perhaps you’re and Florent Schmitt. and Canada’s not quite up to listening to five CDs of saxophone-quartet music. Maybe not even Les Jacobins one. And then you hear a track—almost any track—from Antiphony, one of the two CDs the ensemble has just issued in celebration of its 25th anniversary, and by James M. Keller you are instantly persuaded to re-examine your assumptions. The group was formed in 1984 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where its members played their first con- cert not in a concert hall but rather in a restaurant. They were paid for their art- istry in omelets, and this triumph egged them on to greater things. In part, their path involved the standard saxophone- I remember hearing the Prism Quartet quartet repertoire, which goes back to the play some of the classics in their early mid-19th century. The Belgian instrument- years, and they did so adeptly. The group’s maker Adolphe Sax patented the family of tone was forthright but well blended (not instruments bearing his name in 1846, blowzy like the earlier French saxophone and by 1857 his colleague Jean-Baptiste quartets), their voices carefully tuned, their Singelée, a friend since their conservatory facility agile. But within only a few years 44 may/june 2010 they were straining at the limitations of group that plays on Chinese instruments is not a style of saxophone-quartet playing their repertoire, and they harnessed elec- and performs both traditional and con- that Marcel Mule would have recognized.) tronics to lead them down a new path. temporary works. Here the musicians Lei Liang, a product of New England Before the ’80s were over, they were wow- double on various instruments, together Conservatory and Harvard, explains that ing audiences by playing some of their employing an instrumentarium of erhu, his piece was inspired by three diverse selections on MIDI instruments, which zhonghu, banhu, yangqin, pipa, and dar- meanings of the Chinese syllable yuan: enabled them to link their music-making uan—bowed, hammered, or plucked injustice, lamentation, and prayer. All three in real time to the possibilities offered by string instruments all—in addition to overlap in a Hunan folk tale involving emerging computer technology—very percussion. Like Prism, Music from China retribution for a lapse in the legal system, heady stuff at the time. They also saw that was founded in 1984, and it is also com- and the intonations and vocal contours of commissioning new works was going to mitted to eliciting new repertoire, even if that story’s text are reflected in the saxo- be an important part of their future. The its record of 36 commissions falls short phones’ melodies: a dense example of triple foundation of technical excellence, of Prism’s 120. Five of the works on this profound cross-culturalism. esthetic experimentation, and active com- CD were co-commissioned by the two The disc opens with two beautiful move- missioning has supported the group ever ensembles, both of which have received ments by Wang Guowei (artistic director since, even as it has evolved through con- Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards of Music from China since 1996), scored siderable personnel changes. Here they are, for Adventurous Programming. for huqin and the saxophone quartet: a 25 years later, with only one founding A saxophone quartet and an ensemble pensive Pastorale inspired by music of Inner member (Matthew Levy) still in place, of Chinese traditional instruments (mostly Mongolia, and Crescent Moon at Dawn, a occupying a niche of distinction in the strings) might be taken to stand 180 degrees vivacious folk song from northeastern world of chamber music. from one another esthetically and cultur- China that oddly intersects with Jazz Era During its quarter-century, the ensemble ally; and the friction engendered by that connotations from the saxophones. This has commissioned and premiered more contrast adds quite a lot of drama to this association is suggested even more by the than 120 new works. One of the inevitable CD. Then again, both groups are accus- closing set on the CD, a triptych of move- results of such an intense commissioning tomed to shattering listeners’ expectations, ments by Ming-Hsiu Yen titled Chinatown, program is that the works generated vary and as one travels through this recording different takes on the sensations derived, considerably, not only in style but also in the bridge separating the ensembles’ musical as she explains, from visits to “Chinatowns quality. The group’s penultimate release, worlds shortens practically to the point of in the United States.” Like Wang Guowei titled Breath Beneath (on the New Dynamic disappearance. In fact, the two ensembles in Crescent Moon at Dawn, Ming-Hsiu Yen label), comprises Prism-commissioned play together in only four of the six pieces (currently pursuing her doctorate at the pieces by six composers, and although the on the CD: an early composition by Tan University of Michigan) can lead us to the tracks provide sporadic delights and quite Dun (Shuang Que) is a duet for just erhu verge of the xenophobic exoticizing that a few moments of interest, I can’t say that and yangqin (and, though pleasant, it made was practically de rigueur through the early a single one of these works struck me as no enduring impact on my Western ears), 20th century and even beyond. At a few destined for the ages. Any of them might while a work titled Yuan, by Lei Liang, uses moments the snazzy saxophones threaten provide an enjoyable ten minutes in a only the saxophone quartet. The latter is a to spill over into “Chinatown, My China- concert program, but a recording, by its 15-minute tour de force in which the town” or “Chong He Come from Hong very nature, invites repeated listening. I saxophones sometimes scurry with such Kong” or some other Tin Pan Alley con- did not find that my appreciation of this precision of articulation and intonation fection of their inherently racist ilk. But disc grew through repeated listening. that you can scarcely believe that their Ming-Hsiu Yen doesn’t actually cross that Very different was my reaction to the sounds are not computer-generated. (This boundary, touching the reference to racism group’s CD Antiphony (on the Innova label), which followed Breath Beneath by only two months. Again we have six pieces. “Lei Liang’s Yuan is a 15-minute tour de force in I liked them all, and five of them I can’t which the saxophones scurry with such precision get out of my head. The CD is a collabo- ration between Prism and another, very that you can scarcely believe that the sounds different quartet: a foursome drawn from Music from China, a New York-based are not computer generated.” 45 HighFidelity only lightly and then backing off—if, and piano trios. But that may well change taking place outdoors. Most recorded indeed, the reference was even intended as the geographic center of “European-style “waytes repertoire” I have encountered and was not merely supplied by the listener. classical music” moves increasingly toward stresses the peasant possibilities of that At the heart of this recital stand two the continent of Asia, which is clearly what world, but when Piffaro plays instrumental major pieces by the new-music power it is doing. The day may not be far off versions of madrigals by Thomas Weelkes couple Zhou Long and Chen Yi. From when instrumental combinations such as or Robert Jones, or dances by Augustine the latter comes a remarkable Septet for those heard on this remarkable CD don’t Bassano or Alfonso Ferrabosco (Jr.), or— Erhu, Percussion, and Saxophone Quartet, strike many listeners as terribly unusual. surprise!—sacred motets by William Byrd a work that (as Chen Yi explains) is to When that time comes, this CD in general or Thomas Tallis, they do so without some degree depictive of ancient murals and Zhou’s piece in particular may be resorting to coarseness. Indeed, this recital in the Mogao Caves and “the high spirit held up as pioneering achievements of the includes a number of tracks that feature and strong power” of the long-gone world highest order. soft instruments rather than loud ones, such that gave rise to them. Although this is Other wind-oriented recordings have as several pieces played in most pleasing obviously an entirely “composed” piece gotten replay time in my sound system fashion by warmly voiced recorder consorts (and one composed with terrific flair), it is recently. From the Philadelphia early-music or a beautiful duet on the anonymous everywhere infused with a folkish spirit, ensemble Piffaro/The Renaissance Band tune “Rossignol,” played by lute and harp.