Country : États-Unis Label : New Focus Genres and styles : Year : 2024

Arthur Levering – OceanRiverLake

· by Frédéric Cardin

Here I an discovering (as you might also) Boston-area composer Arthur Levering. The recipient of numerous awards and professional accolades, Levering’s music is vibrantly textural and colourful, in a serious but engaging contemporary idiom. It has spectral overtones mixed with Schoenbergian atonal modernism, added to expressive and discursive gestures that are typically American, post-John Adams, say.

It’s brilliant, intellectually satisfying, emotionally assertive and musically stimulating. OceanRiverLake is a triptych based on water-evoking musical references in various topological forms. The first movement, as you may have guessed, evokes Debussy’s La mer, without quoting it too explicitly. The second brings to mind Ives and Three Places in New England, while the last evokes Schoenberg and his Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, the third of which is entitled Summer Morning by the Lake. Levering is a very good orchestrator who knows how to deploy a multitude of sonic treasures with great refinement. It is a real pleasure to listen to his scores, played here with delicacy or vigour (depending on the movement) by the Boston Modern Orchestra conducted by Gil Rose.

The rest of the programme is made up of chamber scores, also beautifully constructed in colouristic, harmonic and textural terms. The surprising combination of Giocattolo, for piccolo, guitar and celesta, turns out to be quite fortunate. The nine-minute work is a delicately detailed landscape shimmering with a soft light, full of deftly interwoven sonic peckings. A little gem of musical poetry.

Squeezebox for string quartet is a set of three miniatures inspired by Celtic music, evoking the sound of a concertina, an instrument in the accordion family. The string playing is cleverly constructed to evoke the ‘breathing’ of this instrument, without neglecting the melodic aspect associated with folklore.

The programme ends with a suite in the form of a Theme and Variations for piano, Garland for Steven Stucky. Here Levering pays tribute to a colleague and compatriot who died in 2016. In it he deploys his use of the principle of compound melody (ausfaltung in German, déploiement in French). Stucky had expressed an interest in Levering’s use of this principle. This method can be described as the implication of more than one melody or line by a single voice by jumping between the notes of the two melodies. Some convincing examples exist in classical music: Bach’s Sonatas and partitas for solo violin.

In the end, Garland for Steven Stucky is a fairly advanced musical and conceptual exploration that sounds much better, narratively, than the hyper-theoretical aspect of the approach would suggest. It’s rigorous, of course, but musically rich and communicative.

If Levering was unknown to me before the arrival of this production from the New Focus label, his music is now firmly imprinted in my mind. This top-notch album will have the same effect on you, if you love music at its best and most advanced.

Latest 360 Content

FIRE! Orchestra at FIMAV: Power Trio Meets Canadian Community of Avant-Garde Players

FIRE! Orchestra at FIMAV: Power Trio Meets Canadian Community of Avant-Garde Players

Blondshell – If You Asked For a Picture

Blondshell – If You Asked For a Picture

Hitting a Fever Pitch at the Ribbon Skirt LP Launch 

Hitting a Fever Pitch at the Ribbon Skirt LP Launch 

Wu-Tang Clan & Mathematics – Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman.

Wu-Tang Clan & Mathematics – Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman.

Dalit Hadass Warshaw, Boston Modern Orchestra Project / Gil Rose – Sirens

Dalit Hadass Warshaw, Boston Modern Orchestra Project / Gil Rose – Sirens

Howard Shore/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France – Shore : Anthology

Howard Shore/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France – Shore : Anthology

Quatuor Diotima – Boulez : Livre pour quatuor

Quatuor Diotima – Boulez : Livre pour quatuor

LMNL – Rainbow

LMNL – Rainbow

Strat Andriotis – Exits

Strat Andriotis – Exits

Richard Reed Parry – The Actor

Richard Reed Parry – The Actor

Tamara Stefanovich – Organised Delirium

Tamara Stefanovich – Organised Delirium

Galan Trio – Embrace

Galan Trio – Embrace

Jack Van Zandt – A Chaos of Light and Motion

Jack Van Zandt – A Chaos of Light and Motion

Tommy Crane – Reality Curated: Live at Ursa

Tommy Crane – Reality Curated: Live at Ursa

Thomas DeLio – Anti-paysage

Thomas DeLio – Anti-paysage

No Hay Banda – Steven Kazuo Takasugi : Il Teatro Rosso

No Hay Banda – Steven Kazuo Takasugi : Il Teatro Rosso

Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra; Vancouver Chamber Choir – Christopher Tyler Nickel : Mass; Te Deum

Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra; Vancouver Chamber Choir – Christopher Tyler Nickel : Mass; Te Deum

Hypercube – The Force for Good

Hypercube – The Force for Good

PUP – Who Will Look After the Dogs?

PUP – Who Will Look After the Dogs?

Duo AYA – Cycles

Duo AYA – Cycles

Papillon Social Club – Dur de la feuille

Papillon Social Club – Dur de la feuille

Coalescent Quartet – The Wall Between Us

Coalescent Quartet – The Wall Between Us

Samuel Bonnet Trio – Live in Harmony

Samuel Bonnet Trio – Live in Harmony

Subscribe to our newsletter