Search - Peter Garland, Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio, Heather Heise :: Peter Garland: Love Songs

More poignant desert magic . . .

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 03/29/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

". . . from the inimitable Peter Garland. He's perfected a style that might be termed "folk minimalism." Though not strictly minimalist any more (Garland formally ditched the style in the mid-eighties), his music continues to resonate with that movement's sensibilities. To my ears, he's almost created a new kind of music. One that retains all the beauty and elegiacism of authentic folk tunes, but imbues them with his own deeply delved rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic innovations. This glorious music breaths and pulses with its own incantatory power.



"Coyote's Bones (Last Piece)," written in 2001, is one of the most starkly beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard (esp. Part II, For William Colvig), and certainly represents some kind of high point in the artist's long career. Possessing a depth of melancholy beyond even that of, say, Barber's Adagio or Gorecki's Third, this gloriously elegiac piece was thought so sad by both the composer and his listeners that, according to the liner notes, Garland ceased composing for two years because he didn't want to write any more music like that.



The other two numbers, "Matachin Dances" and "Love Songs," maintain the incredible heights reached by "Coyote's Bones." The first, scored for two violins and occasional percussion, may not, perhaps, be to everyone's taste, as it occupies precincts of such overwhelming barrenness as to be almost, as they say in different circumstances, "exclusive of ornamentation." Nevertheless, it generously rewards careful listening, in my view, eventually wringing out of the listener a kind of hard-won respect, admiration, and even heartfelt attachment.



The title cut, "Love Songs," has a rather curious history. According to the liner notes, it was commissioned by the DAAD while the author lived in Berlin, where it was premiered to a very cool reception (hard to understand, what with its ethereal beauty and ravishing melodicism). Originally conceived as a paean to his girlfriend, the piece morphed in the middle of its conception when the composer's mother died, taking on a kind of unintended although entirely apropos gravitas. If there is a kind of in the nonce schizoid feel to this music, that only adds to its attraction, in my view. Here it is gorgeously rendered by the Abel/Steinberg/Winant Trio, for whom it was originally composed.



Though you really can't miss with any Peter Garland disc, this one moves in the realms of poignancy beyond the call of duty, achieving an ur-importance seldom associated with New Music. Consequently, I literally can't get this disc out of my player.



Absolutely not to be missed."