Transformations

Album review

The Transformations title of this album is apt, for all of the music on this release is linked by personal and generational ties, as well as by the serialist idea. Violinist Elizabeth Chang was a student of composer Leon Kirchner at Harvard, and Kirchner was a student of both Roger Sessions and Arnold Schoenberg, with the former having come under the strong influence of the latter. It's interesting that the pieces on this album are all late works; Schoenberg's Phantasy for violin and piano (1949) was one of his last works, and the Duo for violin and cello of Sessions and Kirchner's Duo No. 2 for violin and piano were both written when their composers were well into their 80s. Some later composers rejected serialism in favor of Romantic-influenced styles later in life. These composers did not do that, but one can nevertheless detect an orientation toward emotional expression in these pieces. Chang puts it nicely in a short note when she writes that "Kirchner's voice reflects the thorny complexity of modernism while palpably reaching for the sensuality of the musical language of a previous era," and in her hands, and those of pianist Steven Beck, this is true of all the music here. The music is still not for those who reject the radical dissociation from the musical language of the surrounding society that serialism entails, but as a tracing of the development of serialist thought through the works of Schoenberg's followers, this is both clear and impassioned.

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