Modern Yesterdays. Works by Carlos Simon, Carlos Bandera, Kaki King. The American Composers Orchestra,conducted by Daniela Candillari; Kaki King, guitar. Platoon Classical (digital only). Total time 47:59.
DIGITAL REVIEW — “The composers on this program look to recorded, imagined, and personal histories as a way of finding new meaning in the present,” American Composers Orchestra (ACO) artistic director Curtis Stewart says of this live recording of a 2023 performance at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York. Modern Yesterdays, released only in digital, non-physical formats, collects works by three composers. Two look backwards for their inspiration, while one keeps eyes staunchly on the future.
The world premiere of Carlos Bandera’s Materia Prima opens the album. The composer says he drew inspiration from the “mythological motif of the cosmic ocean.” You can’t get further back in recorded human thought than descriptions of life and order evolving from the primordial ooze. It’s not immediately obvious how the word “modern” relates to the work, except in the cynical argument that modern humanity is still stuck in its cosmological infancy; like the music, we are developing from a single point — or the pitch A.
At just over 24 minutes and in a single movement, Materia Prima requires, and richly rewards, the patient listener. Conductor Daniela Candillari nudges the ACO musicians from that single opening pitch, forward and upward at an imperceptible pace. A scattering of violin tremolo, a few quick spiccato bounces of the bow, or a momentary blatting trumpet suggest that organisms are coalescing in the cosmos. Although the overture to Haydn’s The Creation is not mentioned in the composer’s commentary, it’s an obvious comparison to make.
Yet Bandera’s piece does not sound derivative as it builds its universe. And here is where the “modern” aspect comes in, both musically and psychologically. Bandera is not constrained by tonality or preconceptions of form. Although A is the center, he uses dissonance texturally, along with polymetered rhythmic layers, to give a visceral feeling of life being formed.
There are discrete sections to the work, played without pause. After the initial chaos, the lower instruments suggest growth; then the woodwinds, harp, and various high-pitched instruments take over in a delicate filigree of, perhaps, the first raindrops falling to Earth, and the sprouting of the first plant shoots. That builds into timpani and trumpet heralding more powerful and violent imagery — storms or the moving of continental plates?
However the listener visualizes the meaning of Materia Prima’s shifting moods, the work is never dull, repetitive, or predictable. Like a great film based on a beloved novel, Bandera (helped by Candillari with the ASO) manages to keep us glued to a tale we’re familiar with, albeit one whose ending nobody can know. This musical cosmology maintains a transcendent beauty through every scene.
Despite its length of under five minutes, Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers gives a more obvious sense of the passage of time. Simon uses the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as his starting point; the work’s title is a phrase from Homer’s The Iliad that inspired Beethoven. And so, the ancient colors the classical through the lens of the modern day.
The borrowings from Beethoven exist in the use of tonal chord progressions and passages of thick string-writing. The orchestra sounds a little out of its depth at times, not quite in the zone as the rhythms grow frenzied. But there is also some powerful playing, with Candillara controlling long-arcing phrases.
The album gets its title, Modern Yesterdays, from a piece by guitarist Kaki King, whose 2020 solo recording of the work on Cantaloupe Records has 11 movements. This world-premiere orchestration by D. J. Sparr includes only four of them, turning it into a concerto for King.
It’s not an entirely successful cross-genre transfer. While King’s original conception of electronica-backed acoustic guitar sound keeps the 2020 version tight and riveting, Sparr’s addition of other instrumental sounds is sometimes more of a distraction than an enhancement. This is especially true in the opening movement, “Default Shell,” and significant ensemble issues between orchestra and guitar make the arrangement’s details harder to understand.
The performance improves significantly with the second movement, called “Godchild” in this version but “Goodchild” in 2020. Sparr turned what were originally sweeping electronic ocean sounds under the guitar’s meditative phrases into intriguing, carefully textured sweeps of percussion and strings. The stubbornness expressed by the guitar in the opening of the third movement, “Can’t Touch This or That or You or My Face,” is now shared with piano and timpani. A satisfying sonic grit is highlighted by flits of tremolo in the violins.
Sparr’s choice for the final movement is “Puzzle Me-You,” originally the work’s halfway point. The strings’ confident statements sound natural in conversation with the guitar’s repeating patterns of syncopated chromaticism. One might believe this was the original conception for the movement.
Throughout King’s performance, there are significant intonational problems — not within the orchestra but between orchestra and soloist. Yet performance is the operative word. This is a capture of live playing, so there was no second take or re-tuning. It’s also worth mentioning that this was an audio-visual presentation. To get a sense of the kind of video footage that was shown on stage, watch this YouTube clip.
Whether Sparr made a good piece better is debatable, but he and the ACO deserve credit for bringing an undeservedly obscure work to a wider audience.
