
Come for the new pieces, stay for the gorgeous playing!
With this new disc from the De Guise-Langlois Atapine Park Trio, we get a peek into one area of contemporary American composition that I guarantee will tickle the ears of Romantic-era devotees.
The CD starts out with a gorgeous cycle of miniatures called A Scattered Sketchbook by Syrian composer Kinan Azmeh. Each of these little pieces draws on the composition practices of a unique culture across the world. The first piece draws on the maqams, or microtonal tunings, of Arabic music to craft delicate and yearning clarinet melodies that shroud the listener in a morose aura. The relentlessness of the pizzicato in the third movement, meanwhile, evokes a sense of indifference which inspires a different sort of darkness. The cycle lightens toward the end, with the frenetic final miniature, but the melancholy is what ultimately sticks with you.
Continuing through the disc gives you even more of a taste of the ensemble’s wide color palette. Pierre Jalbert’s Ultraviolet is an evasive piece, with an intangible shimmer or halo constantly surrounding the music. Libby Larsen’s Trio Noir is a convincing—if a bit gimmicky—piece of program music that imagines the femme fatales and the flashbacks to lost loves found in the film noir genre through luscious cello lines and buoyant piano rhythms. David Ludwig’s Flowers in the Desert is a gorgeous elegy for victims of gun violence whose last movement will leave you filled with dread.
For my money, the highlight of the project is found smack in the middle of the track list in Todd Cochran’s Soul-Bird, a single-movement affair that always feels fresh throughout its relatively short runtime. The opening piano block chords have a double identity of brightness and mystery that hangs over the rest of the work. A kinetic energy constantly propels the music forward, keeping you guessing as to where it will go next. The piece’s sense of melody is salient, and the trading of motives between the instruments shows off the proficiency and lyricism of each player. The care of Park’s phrasing deserves a special shout-out here—without an especially sensitive pianist, the piece would lose its infectious dynamism. Though Soul-Bird does not exactly break new ground in the sphere of contemporary composition, it is an adept and well-crafted work that highlights the cohesion of the ensemble.
Atapine, Park, and Guise-Langois have done a truly admirable job of communicating to us their passion for these contemporary works. In their hands, these pieces breathe, dance, and transform from melancholic dirges to capricious jigs.
If you enjoy the new compositions featured on this disc, I’ve got great news for you! The world of composition is flourishing. There are a plethora of emerging composers offering fresh interpretations of tried-and-true styles, bold and engaging explorations of the frontiers of instrumental technique, and everything in between.
This trio offers their own convincing perspective on contemporary American composition, but there is plenty, plenty more where that came from.
About the author:
Julian Stuart-Burns is a composer and pianist based in Rochester, New York. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Julian is now completing his master’s degree in composition at the Eastman School of Music, where he studies with Professor Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. Julian’s work has been performed by loadbang, Mivos Quartet, and the Eastman Graduate Composers’ Sinfonietta. His music has been premiered at the Paul Hindemith Center in Blonay, Switzerland, Kilbourn Hall and Hatch Recital Hall in Rochester, Field Recital Hall in Chicago, and Pickman Concert Hall in Cambridge, MA. His upcoming projects include a large song cycle set to poems by the Cuban poet and revolutionary Jose Marti, a piece for alto flute, guitar, and viola inspired by the music of Claude Debussy, and an operatic score for an animated short film by a student at RIT. Along with his formal compositional work, Julian loves writing music for games and films, and he hopes to build a career in video game sound design. He has been an intern at WXXI Classical since August 2024.