Here is an important recording of the music of a composer that you absolutely must know if you don’t already. Born in New York, Linda Catlin Smith is now Canadian and based in Toronto. Her music is of remarkable temperance and delicacy. A kind of post-post-Webern, if I may. JUNO nominations, recognition from the Guardian as one of the best of the 21st century, BBC commissions, etc., confirm the international and growing status of her fame.
Fellow Torontonian and pianist Cheryl Duvall begins with this album a four-volume complete collection of Smith’s piano music. To launch this extraordinary project (a rarity in today’s music), she chose the monumental (though very contemplative) work The Plains, a slow and long introverted monologue of some 67 minutes, without a break.
The extreme gentleness of the sonic language is matched only by its inner strength, expressed through notes sparingly placed and organised within a transparent framework where particles of sound move placidly, quietly, as in a weightless space.
That said, don’t think it’s an endless stretch of atmospheric muzak! There is movement, subtle, almost whispered, but sometimes more obvious, in this hour of attentive introspection. For those who think of Morton Feldman, I would answer yes… but no. The type of energy is comparable, but the language is completely different, harmonically more scattered. I come back to Webern again, but in a version tenfold in terms of duration, and informed by the repetitive minimalist school.
Mrs. Duvall absolutely must come and offer this masterpiece in Montreal.
The Plains is a significant creation in Canadian music. This recording by Cheryl Duvall, exceptional in the quality of her quintessential approach to the score, will be a landmark. We can only look forward to the next three volumes of this new project.
