AMN Reviews: Yu-Hui Chang – Mind Like Water [New Focus Recordings fcr393]

The new monograph recording by Taiwan-born, Massachusetts-based composer Yu-Hui Chang contains three compositions for chamber ensemble and one for solo cello. What emerges from the recording is an impression of Chang as a composer of finely etched fragments and melodic discontinuities divided up among her ensembles’ different voices.

The three-movement In Thin Air for violin, piano, and percussion is a largely episodic piece underscored by the subdued thunder of low-pitched drum rolls. Rhythm is present here, but represented as much by breaks between the sounds setting it out as by the sounds themselves. Germinate, a single movement work for cello, piano, percussion, flute, and bass clarinet, is a quick-witted, intricately polyphonic composition in which the five voices mix and respond to each other in a way that seems to simulate a particularly coherent free improvisation. The title track is a composition in one movement for string quartet that falls roughly into two parts. In the first half Chang plays with contrasts of dynamics and timbre, while the second half is dominated by unison passages and a passing around of lines from instrument to instrument.

The highlight of the recording is the three-movement Alter Ego for solo cello, given a fine performance by Rhonda Rider. Each movement is named descriptively for a mood or a manner of acting. The first movement, titled “affectionate,” is played pizzicato and is notable for its short, sharp attacks and strummed chords. The second movement – “expressive, yet somewhat distant” – is quietly reserved, with a tinge of melancholy given an edge from passages played sul ponticello. The final movement, “methodical,” is just that. The idea of method is brought to life with a now explicit, now implicit, insistent pulse as well as in a set of asymmetrical, meticulously laid out and repeated motifs.

Daniel Barbiero