Violinist Patrick Yim's One documents his activities commissioning, premiering, and recording new solo violin works by some of the contemporary music scene's most active composers, including Juri Seo, John Liberatore, Takuma Itoh, Ilari Kaila, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, and Matthew Schreibeis.
| # | Audio | Title/Composer(s) | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Time | 69:59 | ||
| 01 | Solitude | Solitude | 8:48 |
OneJuri Seo (b. 1981) |
|||
| 02 | I. January | I. January | 2:26 |
| 03 | II. February | II. February | 0:57 |
| 04 | III. March | III. March | 0:55 |
| 05 | IV. April | IV. April | 0:30 |
| 06 | V. May | V. May | 1:23 |
| 07 | VI. June | VI. June | 1:28 |
| 08 | VII. July | VII. July | 0:55 |
| 09 | VIII. August | VIII. August | 1:40 |
| 10 | IX. September | IX. September | 1:21 |
| 11 | X. October | X. October | 1:27 |
| 12 | XI. November | XI. November | 1:21 |
| 13 | XII. December | XII. December | 1:29 |
| 14 | A Melody from an Unknown Place | A Melody from an Unknown Place | 8:21 |
| 15 | Hermitage | Hermitage | 8:15 |
| 16 | Fragile Remembrance | Fragile Remembrance | 17:48 |
Strange, High SkyJohn Liberatore (b. 1984) |
|||
| 17 | I. Between Light and Shade | I. Between Light and Shade | 4:00 |
| 18 | II. Flowers Dream of Spring | II. Flowers Dream of Spring | 3:59 |
| 19 | III. At Last I Had You | III. At Last I Had You | 2:56 |
Patrick Yim’s One adds six beautifully crafted new works to the rich repertoire of music for unaccompanied violin. Standing on the shoulders of the iconic works by Bach, Ysaÿe, Bartok, and Paganini, the six composers represented here explore new approaches to the instrument while integrating time tested techniques in works that would fit naturally within both contemporary music and more general programming. Yim plays with virtuosity and powerful expression throughout, convincingly framing these new pieces within the strong lineage of the music that has come before them.
Ilari Kaila’s Solitude brings a sense of fantasy and fluidity to the moto perpetuo texture so closely associated with Bach’s iconic solo violin works. Within the driving rhythm and repeated figuration, Kaila builds in contrast with an evolving pitch language, exploration of different registers, and variable rhythmic groupings. Bariolage cross-string bowing patterns add intensity and propulsion, embedding subtle glissando figures within the swirl of notes. Kaila turns to accented passagework and cascading scalar fragments for the dramatic climax of this tour de force, before a somber, contrapuntal coda.
The arrangement of the twelve movement One is oriented around the months of the calendar year, and embraces the duality of time—as Seo writes, “both flowing and static.” The work’s opening movement, “January,” opens on a reminiscent note, with poignant pauses and airy harmonics that act as exhalations between phrases. Seo alternates between contrasting characters from movement to movement, with the vigorous double-stops in “February,” the fleet, irregular arpeggiations in “April,” the luminescent, charged harmonics in “July,” and the furioso scales in “September” representing the piece’s most extroverted material. “March” features lilting chord outlines, “May” highlights fragile harmonic trills, “June” is set in a mournful two voice texture, “August” uses open strings as pedal points against which intervals push and pull, “October” contains some of the work’s gentlest music, “November” builds from an oscillating figure of alternating harmonics, and finally “December” offers guarded hope for the new year with expansive, slowly articulated arpeggios.
Read MoreTakuma Itoh’s A Melody from an Unknown Place uses the natural resonance of the violin and a gracious relationship to the silence around the sound of the instrument to create an evocative meditation. The work mixes ornamental passages with heartfelt melodies, prioritizing lyricism over bombast.
Páll Ragnar Pálsson’s Hermitage frames the experience of isolation during the lockdown in terms of a spiritually cleansing seclusion. Taking inspiration as well from the museum of the same name in St. Petersburg, Russia, Pálsson takes advantage of the rarefied context of a solo violin piece to mine the instrument for delicate, expressive gestures. Pálsson develops an initial idea focused on a central pitch through timbral modulations, glissandi that lean into passing dissonant intervals, and activated trills and harmonics that shimmer and bloom.
Matthew Schreibeis’ Fragile Remembrance evolves gradually from a forceful opening section towards more tactile, textural material and then a reprise of the opening character. The bravura initial gesture features accented chords that are connected by repeated articulations on a central pitch. From the beginning of the work, Schreibeis shapes the gestures as if they become memories in real time, fading away after their assertive entrances. A dialogue between pizzicato interjections and skittering double stops develops as Schreibeis expands the textural vocabulary of the piece, later settling into an integrated duo between left hand pizzicato and a haunting melody. The vigor of the material from the opening returns, transformed here into a steady accumulation of figuration that explodes into furious tremolos and angular double stops. Schreibeis leaves the listener with dissolving repeated gestures, imitating the ephemeral nature of memory.
John Liberatore’s three movement Strange, High Sky is inspired by a collection of aphoristic stories by Lu Xun, Wild Grass. “Between Light and Shade” establishes a compositional argument through arpeggiated figures that snake through harmonic implications in a steady, moderate pulse framed by a rolling contour. “Flowers Dream of Spring” is reflective, building vertical sonorities with accumulating double stops. Liberatore uses implied counterpoint over wide registers here very effectively, tracking voices linearly as pitches from different ranges appear as constellations across the sonic spectrum. “At Last I Had You” is fleet and mischievous, with darting lines, disjunct leaps, and timbral modulations. It closes with a bravura passage that retakes the same scale several times before ascending to the highest register and recovering the entire register of the instrument with a dramatic ascending and descending arpeggio and triumphant closing double stop.
– Dan Lippel
Tracks 1 & 14 recorded February 20, 2023 at Mau Ping Studios, Hong Kong
Engineer, producer, & mix: Ilari Kaila
Track 1 edited by Ilari Kaila, Track 14 edited by Takuma Itoh
Tracks 2-13 recorded October 16, 2023 at the Effron Music Building, Princeton University
Recording Engineer: Carlos Diaz Jr.
Produced and edited by Juri Seo
Mixed by Ryan Streber
Track 15 recorded August 7, 2021 at HKBU Studio, Hong Kong
Engineer, editor, & mix: Lai Ching Kong
Produced by Patrick Yim
Track 16 recorded April 27, 2024 at the O’Neill Performance Hall, University of Notre Dame
Engineer, editor, & mix: Dan Nichols
Produced by Matthew Schreibeis
Tracks 17-19 recorded November 8, 2023 at the O’Neill Recital Hall, University of Notre Dame
Engineer, editor, & mix: Bill Maylone
Produced by John Liberatore
Mastering: Ryan Streber
Liner notes: Patrick Yim
Profile photo: Time Machine Photography
Cover image: Ave Calvar, Unsplash
Design, layout & typography: Marc Wolf, marcjwolf.com
Praised for his “deeply expressive, finely nuanced play- ing” (The Strad Magazine), “dazzling technique and passionate interpretations” (The Whole Note), and “superb” performances (Fanfare Magazine), Honolulu-born violinist Patrick Yim made his solo debut with the Honolulu Symphony, and has performed chamber music with Juilliard, Emerson, St. Lawrence, Pacifica, and Ying Quartet members, and musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Cleveland Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. He performed with the Cleveland Orchestra on tour in the USA and Europe, and at Carnegie Hall with the Emerson Quartet violinists. His recordings, including numerous world premieres, have been published by Albany, Naxos, Navona, Ravello, and Acis. A strong advocate of contemporary compositions, Yim has commissioned more than 50 works to date, including a substantial body of work for violin with non-Western instruments. In 2024, Yim performed the world premiere of Bamboo Grove, a new unaccompanied violin work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Zhou Long commissioned for him by the University of Notre Dame, at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. New Waves, which includes premiere recordings of works by Chen Yi, Zhou Long, and Qu Xiao-song, was published by Albany Records on December 23, 2023. He earned his BM and MM from the Cleveland Institute of Music and his DMA from Stony Brook University. His principal teachers were Philip Setzer, William Preucil, David Updegraff, Jennifer Frautschi, and Hagai Shaham. He previously taught at CIM, Hong Kong Baptist University, Interlochen, and Stony Brook. Yim is Assistant Professor of Violin in the Department of Music, Faculty Fellow at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, and Faculty Fellow at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Ilari Kaila is a Finnish-American composer whose music has been described with words such as “intriguing”, “haunting”, “soulful” (The New York Times), “nearly unbearable beauty... A modern masterpiece” (The WholeNote), “melodically euphoric” (Rondo Classic), “I kept coming back to it... the music is so beautiful, and I want to experience it again and again” (Orchestergraben), and “haunting” (The New Yorker). His work has been presented, among others, at a MATA Festival composer portrait recital; as the Composer-in-Residence of the Chelsea Music Festival in New York and Taipei; the Metropolis Festival in Australia; and the Banff Centre Summer Arts Festival in Canada. Artists he has worked with include the Escher String Quartet, Uusinta Ensemble, Olli Mustonen, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Avanti Chamber Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. An album of Kaila’s chamber music by the Aizuri Quartet and pianist Adrienne Kim was released on the Innova Recordings label in 2020.
Juri Seo is a Korean-American composer and pianist. She merges many of the fascinating aspects of music from the past century—in particular its expanded timbral palette and unorthodox approach to structure—with a deep love of functional tonality, counterpoint, and classical form. With its fast-changing tempi and dynamics, her music explores the serious and the humorous, the lyrical and the violent, the tranquil and the obsessive. She hopes to create music that loves, that makes a positive change in the world—however small—through the people who are willing to listen. Her composition honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress. She has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, Barlow Endowment, the Goethe Institut, and Tanglewood. She holds a doctorate in music from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is currently Associate Professor of Music at Princeton University.
Takuma Itoh spent his early childhood in Japan before moving to Northern California where he grew up. His music has been described as “brashly youthful and fresh” (The New York Times). Featured as one of “100 Composers Under 40” on NPR Music and WQXR, he has been the recipient of such awards and commissions as the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, and six ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Itoh’s music has been performed by the Albany Symphony, the Tucson Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, Symphony in C, the Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Shanghai Quartet, and the St. Lawrence Quartet. His works can be heard on Albany and Blue Griffin Records, and is published by Theodore Presser, Resolute Music, and Murphy Music Press. He holds degrees from Cornell University, University of Michigan, and Rice University. Since 2012, Itoh has been a faculty member at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Páll Ragnar Pálsson is an Icelandic composer. He holds a PhD in music from the Estonian Academy of the Arts (2014) and lives in Reykjavík. He has released two albums, Nostalgia and Atonement, in addition to having works published on various compilation discs. He has twice participated in the International Rostrum of Composers, both on behalf of Estonia (2013) as well as Iceland (2018), winning the first prize for the cello concerto Quake. Páll‘s works have been selected Composition of the Year twice by the Icelandic Music Awards. His first work for film, Quake (2022), a collaboration with Edvarð Egilsson, was nominated both for the Nordic Music Film Awards and Edda, the Icelandic Film Awards. Páll Ragnar has worked with soloists Martin Kuuskmann and Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, conductors Daniel Bjarnason, Olari Elts, Ilan Volkov, Rumon Gamba and Risto Joost, and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, BBC Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and NDR chamber orchestra.
The music of Matthew Schreibeis, which spans orchestral, chamber, and vocal music and includes a series of works for traditional Korean instruments, represents a personal musical vision characterized by vivid color, imagination, and a clear sense of drama. His compositions have been performed by the Albany Symphony and David Alan Miller, New York New Music Ensemble, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, and ensemble mise-en, among others. His Albany Records portrait CD, Sandburg Songs, features soprano Tony Arnold, Zohn Collective, and conductor Tim Weiss. Among his many honors are the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; grants from Columbia University (Ditson Grant), American Composers Forum, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and Hong Kong Research Grants Council; and residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Copland House, and Camargo Foundation in France. He has lectured and given masterclasses throughout North America, Asia, and Australia.
John Liberatore is a composer, pianist, and one of the world’s few glass harmonica players. His music seeks poignancy through levity, ambiguity through transparency, and complexity within simple textures—“to feel pulled along at varying speeds in multiple directions, but always forward.” (Cleveland Classical)
Over the past several years, his music has received hundreds of performances in venues on five continents. He is the recipient of Fellowships from MacDowell (2020, 2017 NEA Fellow), Tanglewood, Yaddo, the Brush Creek Arts Foundation, the I-Park Artist’s Enclave, and the Millay Colony. Other notable distinctions include commis- sions from the Fromm Music Foundation and the Ameri- can Opera Initiative, two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, and the Brian Israel Prize. Through a 2012 Presser Music Award, he studied in Tokyo with Jo Kondo—a mentorship that made an indelible impression on his music.
In 2015, Liberatore commissioned glass blowers G. Finkenbeiner Inc. for a new glass harmonica, becoming one of the few exponents of this rare instrument in contemporary music. So far, he has collaborated as a composer and performer with Roomful of Teeth, percussionist Daniel Druckman, soprano Jamie Jordan, and several others. In 2018, Albany Records released Line Drawings: Chamber Music of John Liberatore. This album features his recording debut on the glass harmonica (alongside Druckman and Jordan), as well as pieces for The Mivos Quartet, pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, Bent Frequency, and Duo Damiana. This collaboration with Zohn Collective marks his second portrait album. Other recordings of his work are available on Centaur, Innova, Ravello, and False Azure record labels.
He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (PhD, MM) and Syracuse University (BM, summa cum laude). In 2015 he joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame where he now serves as Associate Professor of Music Composition and Theory.
Violinist Patrick Yim has shown his dedication to New Music in several albums, including one devoted to pieces for solo violin on Navona. That was four years ago, and this follow-up recital is highlighted by Yim’s technical assurance, lovely tone, and bold musicianship. In my experience, recitals for an unaccompanied instrument, even one as versatile as the violin, are more appealing to the composers and performer than to a general listener. New Music tends to call upon extended techniques to add variety and interest, but the commissions collected here, all in world premiere recordings, aren’t remotely experimental or radical—their tonality is much more mainstream. Much in evidence are the same gestures pioneered by Bach in his Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, which will be a hopeful sign for less than adventurous listeners.
The title work, One by Juri Seo, is a bellwether in that regard. The ground plan, like Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, is 12 movements named after each month of the year. They are brief, lasting from 30 seconds to over two minutes. “January” features wide leaps that come close to the compound melodies of Bach, where the upper and lower registers create the illusion of two voices. Like a number of pieces on the program, One creates identifiable moods, all in service of what Seo calls “my humble yearning for the future and sweet reminiscence of the past,” feelings evoked when the piece was written during the early lockdown period of 2020.
As illustrated by “January,” Kaila is capable of exquisite tonal lyricism. There’s a deliberate alternation between time’s flow and stasis as the cycle unfolds. “February,” for example, is restless, propulsive, and written entirely in double stops, while “April” is a racing moto perpetuo that’s over before you can blink. Some motifs are repetitive and recurring to add unity. All the movements are accessible and enjoyable, although I don’t hear any attempt to depict the characteristics of each month. If One appeals to you, so will the rest of the program.
The only composer I had previous familiarity with is John Liberatore, who contributes a 10-minute, three-movement suite enigmatically titled Strange, High Sky. The inspiration was literary—Yim invited Liberatore to a reading of Wild Grass, a collection of aphoristic stories by the Chinese writer Lu Hsun. These are characterized by inanimate objects coming to life, and without being programmatic, the three movements of Strange, High Sky evoke a shadow, a tree, and a flame from the stories. In practice, Liberatore’s pieces are abstract, creating patterns of tension an resolution in conventional tonal ways. A movement can still be effective, as in “Between Light and Shade,” whose first half, moving like a smooth ribbon of eighth notes, is brighter than the delicate, shadowy texture of the second half. Perhaps music so traditional that it barely departs from Bach can sustain interest after one hearing, but Liberatore’s skill and melodic imagination help in that regard.
I rarely find that long unaccompanied pieces can hold a listener’s attention, and a test, at over 17 minutes, is Fragile Remembrance by Matthew Schreibeis. Performed in one continuous movement, the piece contains wide variations in mood and technique, from an aggressive opening to a gentle threnody. Standard bowing gives way at times to sul ponticello and pizzicato. Long lines appear in some places, sequences of repeated notes in others, just as dissonance and consonance come and go. The music’s constant busyness makes me indecisive—there are so many seemingly unrelated sections that the overall impression is vague, and as with many contemporary works, no emotion is clearly identifiable. Various gestures predominate, each of them holding some appeal, I’d say. Eventually the piece lives up to its title by fading away to leave ghostly remembrances behind.
Three remaining works last around eight or nine minutes, which is long enough to test the composer’s ability to prevent attention from wandering. Ilari Kaila’s Solitude is music seemingly at odds with its title, to judge by what Yim writes in his performer’s note. “I invite listeners to appreciate the high-octane energy and unpredictable nature of the moto perpetuo, the sense of losing control and being tossed about by the powerful forces of the ocean.” The texture of the piece is in rising and falling waves, and Yim effortlessly plays the stream of quick, constant passagework and arpeggios. Kaila’s tonal language makes the out-of-control effect less heart-stopping than I might expected, but without making Yim’s mastery less impressive.
In A Melody from an Unknown Place, Takuma Itoh reflects the loneliness and isolation of the COVID time in which it was written. Long, repeated phrases take a cue from Bach, as does the formal symmetry of the whole piece. As for the “unknown” in the title, Itoh remarks, “The melodies that flowed forth seemed almost as if I had heard them from somewhere before.” His use of tonality is comforting, as are the work’s familiar arpeggios and wistful tone.
A third piece from the pandemic is Hermitage by Páll Ragnar Pálsson, which comes closer to New Music’s customary idiom, although not to an extreme degree—you notice some sliding off pitch centers and eerie glissandos, for example. Although Pálsson and his family spent almost all their time at home during COVID, he writes that “I felt in a way more spiritually connected to the world than before, as contradictory as it may sound.” The seclusion and prayer of a monk’s hermitage are reflected in the lovely meditative expression of the music, which is seamlessly lyrical and movingly played by Yim.
I almost wish that this album’s subtitle didn’t refer to “New Music,” a tag that can put general listeners off. These pieces create many moments of beauty, melody, and a sense of repose along with more dramatic elements. Traditional ears won’t be challenged. Yim is a splendid and at times spectacular violinist. Warmly recommended.
— Huntley Dent, 11.27.2024
New Focus Recordings is an artist led collective label featuring releases in contemporary creative music of many stripes, as well as new approaches to older repertoire. The label was founded by guitarist Dan Lippel, composer Peter Gilbert in 2004, and composer/engineer Ryan Streber in 2004, formed …Read More …
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