Greg Stepanich

'Clocks' a worthy disc from FAU

Florida Atlantic University released four classical discs in November on the school’s Hoot/Wisdom label as part of a package of six underwritten by Pete and Kerry LoBello.

The classical discs include Russian Treasures, a recording of two-piano music by 19th- and 20th-century Russian composers for two pianos; Clocks, a disc of piano quintets by Amy Beach and the Uruguayan-American composer Miguel del Aguila (pictured above); Fives for Five, a disc of music by Arthur Weisberg for woodwind quintet and other wind combinations; and Didgeridoo Diversions, a record of pieces featuring the didgeridoo, the Australian aboriginal folk instrument.

Each of the discs has merit, and it’s laudable that FAU’s relatively new commercial music operation has been able to produce music of this kind of variety and quality. Production values are quite good when it comes to sonic questions, and the playing throughout all four is also very fine.

The one notable blemish on all four is the inconsistency and layout weirdness of the accompanying program notes. There isn’t enough information about these works in some of the notes, and in others, a typographical attempt to make each of the booklets stand out instead has left them too hard to read.

Perhaps that’s a minor quibble, but not to an old reader like me. Anyway, it doesn’t take too much away from the music, and over the few days I’ll briefly review each of the discs.

I’ll begin with Clocks, subtitled Piano Quintets of the Americas, which features pianist Heather Coltman, chief of FAU’s music department, and Mexico’s Cuarteto Latinoamericano. They’re joined for one of the pieces (either a sextet or septet, depending how you look at it) by pianist Felicity Coltman (mother of Heather), and cellist Ian Maksin.

The major work here, and perhaps the high point of all four discs, is the Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor, Op. 67, by the American pianist and composer Amy Beach. Premiered 100 years ago this February, it is, like much of Beach’s music, quite conservative in language generally, and redolent of Brahms in particular.

But it has passages of real adventurousness, such as its mysterious opening, which returns at the finale and then unfolds into a gentle, tender reminiscence of an earlier theme.

It has a beautiful, heartfelt slow movement, and the writing throughout is expert: Richly inventive, well-judged for instrumental capabilities, and a pleasure to listen to. The piano tends to dominate, as might be expected with a piece written by a virtuoso pianist, but there is plenty of attractive string writing as well.

Beach’s melodic invention isn’t quite distinguished enough to make this quintet memorable enough to sit with the greatest works of the genre, but it comes very close. It’s a distinguished addition to the chamber music canon, and why it doesn’t get more performances (and recordings), especially by American ensembles, I’ll never know.

Coltman and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano give this work a first-class reading, adding the right amount of late-Romantic nervous intensity this music calls for, and I’ve found myself returning to it frequently.

The other two works on the disc are by Miguel del Aguila, who studied music in his native Montevideo before moving to the States in the late 1970s.

Del Aguila’s Charango Capriccioso, Op. 90, written in 2006, is a powerful, exciting piece for two violins, viola, two cellos, and piano, four hands, that starts in delicate fashion with simple lines and chords then leads to a lovely unfolding in the solo cello, which the composer writes is a meditation on the Spanish conquest of the Andes.

The two players at the piano introduce a charango, a catchy folk dance, and this builds into a Ginastera-like explosion of all-out dynamics and rhythmic obsession before collapsing into a fat tone cluster, setting the stage for a return of the opening music.

The second quintet on the disc, del Aguila’s Clocks, Op. 58, is a six-movement work from 1998 that the composer says is “akin to an aural visit to a clock museum.” This music is concerned with imitative sounds as much as it is more standard quintet approaches.

The first movement (“Shelves Full of Clocks”) features lots of ticking in plucked strings, while the third, “The Old Clock’s Story,” presents a whirring string figure that sounds like clock movement over which a long-breathed, sweet melody floats rapturously.

The fourth, “Sun Dial 2000 BC,” features high pizzicati and big percussive notes in the piano that set up a mock-Egyptian melody that the players sing. In the fifth, “Romance of Swiss Clock and the Old Clock,” a quasi-Swiss tune alternates with another one of del Aguila’s slow, melancholy motifs — he’s strongly drawn to melody, and he’s good at it.

The finale, “Keeping Time,” is an exercise in different meters and syncopations that veers a little too close to the salon for me, though it’s an effective, engaging piece of music. One of the most notable aspects of these pieces is wide variety of colors and sounds del Aguila has drawn from the regular instruments. It adds a liberating freshness to this format, and makes for good listening.

The level of playing throughout this disc is very high. Coltman and the quartet know their business, and they play these very different works with great sensitivity and thorough technical polish.

It’s a rewarding record, well worth searching out (it can be downloaded here), and a real accomplishment for FAU’s fledgling commercial music program.