AMN Reviews: Robert Gross – Penumbra [New Focus Recordings fcr381]

Penumbra, Robert Gross’ second release on the New Focus label, gives witness to the composer’s interest in conventional and unconventional instrumental combinations by presenting acoustic, electroacoustic, and electronic works together. While the differences among these six works are readily apparent from their instrumentation, they do share a common language in Gross’ whole tone-based quasi-tonalism and predilection for composing with a classical clarity of line.

The title composition, a string quartet performed by the Cordova Quartet, opens the album with a dramatic flourish. The piece is densely textured and maintains a high level of tension through its manipulation of dynamics and pulse; Gross’ tendency to score the voices in rhythmic agreement keeps the composition’s organizing motifs clearly legible throughout. In a radical change of instrumental means the track following Penumbra is the all-electronic Essay for Autoharp and Electronics, a composition for autoharp samples and the Absynth 5 synthesizer. The sound is delightfully reminiscent of the classic electronic compositions of the 1950s and 1960s – a kind of look back at what the past thought future music would be like. Although its soundworld obviously contrasts with the acoustic string quartet, like the quartet it coheres by presenting its motifs in multiple voices moving together.

The album’s most engaging piece is the electroacoustic Five Movements for Flute and Electronics, performed by Anne McKennon on flute and Gross on electronics. Like the Essay for Autoharp and Electronics, this composition features sounds reminiscent of electronics past, most notably from the 1970s. Gross sets up a semi-independent relationship between the two voices with the flute being left in its natural state as it moves within the electronic ambience. The first movement turns around a predominantly whole-tone pitch set expounded on flute, with answering gestures from the electronics; the second movement is a lyrical soliloquy for flute against a backdrop of futuristic washes and a portentous synthetic choir. For the third movement flute and electronics-as-synthetic-harpsichord fall into a more-or-less conventional relationship of lead and accompaniment, a relationship continued with a contrapuntal twist into the fourth movement; the concluding movement binds the two voices more closely together in rhythmic unison. Gross employs a similar architecture, but on a larger scale, in his acoustic Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Nine Instruments, the album’s final piece.

Penumbra also includes the electronic Symphonies of Electronic Instruments, and the vocal work Here We Call it Pop.

Daniel Barbiero