DAN JOSEPH / Tonalization (for the afterlife)
Dan Joseph Ensemble: Dan Joseph (hammer dulcimer); Tom Chiu (violin), Loren Dempster (cello); Marija Ilic (harpsichord); Leah Paul (flute); Danny Tunick (percussion). Special guest Thomas Buckner (baritone).
This latest collection of chamber works by New York-based composer and hammer dulcimer player Dan Joseph has as its central work the 33-minute multi-movement sextet Tonalization (for the afterlife) scored for flute, violin, cello, marimba, harpsichord and hammer dulcimer. The work, composed in 2009, was the composer's first new large-scale piece to follow his 2006 collection Archaea and marked the return of the Dan Joseph Ensemble to New York's concert stages after a two-year hiatus. Along with the accompanying duos Wind Patterns and Music Primer, these three works formed the core of the ensemble's repertoire from 2009 to 2011. While discernibly tethered to minimalist and post-minimalist idioms, the works on this CD draw strongly from the composer's decade in California (1991-2001), where he came into contact with West-coast pioneers Terry Riley, Lou Harrison and Pauline Oliveros and studied Chinese and near Eastern folk music. The works thus combine the rhythmic drive of pulse minimalism with a contemplative, improvisational approach. Ever present, however, is the composer's strong sense of timbre and unabashed ear for pure beauty.
Tonalization (for the afterlife) is dedicated to the memory of Suzanne Fiol who tragically lost her battle with cancer at the time of the work's creation. Her sudden death in October 2009 affected the composer deeply, as it did so many of those who came to know and appreciate her through their involvement with Issue Project Room, which she founded.
Wind Patterns was composed for flutist Jackie Martelle and was premiered with her in New York in November 2002. It has subsequently been included in Dan Joseph Ensemble programs in an arrangement for cello and hammer dulcimer as well as in its original scoring. Music Primer for baritone and hammer dulcimer sets the first ten lines of Lou Harrison's poetic 1971 prose book Lou Harrison's Music Primer. It was written for Thomas Buckner and reflects musically on the time the composer spent living in the San Francisco Bay Area, a place where Mr. Buckner also spent a number of important years. The piece is divided into ten sections - one for each line - and allows a good deal of improvisation and interpretive freedom.
TRACK LIST
Tonalization (for the afterlife) (33:29)
Wind Pattterns (for hammer dulcimer and flute) (7:24)
Music Primer (for hammer dulcimer and baritone) (18:12)
REVIEWS
Piero Scaruffi
Seattle's composer Dan Joseph (1966), who studied composition in California with Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran and moved to New York in 2001, is a late minimalist whose music absorbs influences from folk music from around the world in the vein of the Penguin Cafè Orchestra.
Archaea (Mutablemusic, 2006) collects three chamber pieces performed by a neo-baroque ensemble comprised of violinist Tom Chiu, cellist Loren Dempster, Marija Ilic on harpsichord, Dan Joseph on hammered dulcimer, clarinetist Michael Lowenstern and percussionist Danny Tunick: the geometric, quasi-dissonant 16-minute Archaea Quartet (2001), the menacing, mutating, fanfare-like, Terry Riley-ian 17-minute Lotus Quintet (2002), and the exuberant, propulsive, Michael Nyman-esque, 19-minute Percussion and Strings (2004), that ends in a a frenzied gypsy-like crescendo.
The highlight of Tonalization for the Afterlife (Mutable, 2011) is the 33-minute Tonalization (2009) for flute, violin, cello, marimba, harpsichord and hammer dulcimer. The piece, which is actually a requiem, indulges in the exploration of tinning and insistent counterpoint that harks back to minimalism, to baroque fugues, to Renaissance court dances, and, after a section of subdued droning music, even to Celtic jigs, with the last movement soaring into a spiral-like fusion of all these elements. The album also includes the simple and tender Wind Patterns for flute and dulcimer, and the pensive 18-minute Music Primer for baritone and hammer dulcimer.
