Rendezvous

COMPACT DISC AND DIGITAL REVIEWS

Deon Nielsen Price: Rendezvous

Cambria Master Recordings, 1257 (2022)

ANNA RUBIN (Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Vol. 28, No. 4, 2022)

Rendezvous is an ambitious recording project including four major works by the well-known composer and award-winning pianist Deon Price, who is also distinguished as a conductor, recording artist, author, church musician, and veteran educator. Price currently serves as Composer-in-Residence at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio of San Francisco. Her large catalog comprises a wide variety of works in all genres. This disc allows the listener to sample both purely instrumental as well as vocal music, most of which Price composed during the pandemic. 

In broad terms, Price’s music is marked by constant variation in texture and inventive melodic and harmonic development. She has a sure command of compositional technique and willingness to encompass a wide universe of expression from despair to jubilation to wry comic commentary. Her influences in these pieces range from the Romantics and late Romantics to occasional forays into quartal harmonies, and when demanded by the texts or images, she occasionally exploits atonal expressionism. Her largely tonal language is flexible including the use of modes as well as sophisticated chromaticism. 

The very striking piece, Behind Barbed Wire (2016), is scored for speaker, alto saxophone, and piano. It was commissioned by Chika Inoue, saxophonist, and Mary Au, pianist, for the 75th anniversary commemoration at Cal State University at Dominguez Hills of the signing of Executive Order 9066 that sent 120,000 Japanese-Americans to incarceration camps from 1942 to 1946. Haiku and Tanka poems (seventeen and thirty-one syllables in length, respectively) describe daily life in the camps and were written by internees. There are twenty-three short poems, which are recited mostly before their musical depictions. Price writes in her liner notes that the work required “a wide diversity of musical styles” in order to depict the many different aspects of daily life in the camps including “arrests by military police,” “work in the fields,” “the complete deprivation of privacy,” and “Friday night swing music dances.” The simple opening motif of C-C# becomes the source of many varied permutations as in a saxophone melody or an ominous bass figure in the piano. One particularly striking section near the beginning features a quasi-pentatonic melody for the saxophone accompanied by light staccato octaves in the piano. This returns later in several variations and helps bind the sectional piece together. Price employs everything from atonal and cluster harmonies to pop music references in a strong evocation of this shameful event in American history. I found the most affecting sections to be those evoking Japanese folk song. This exercise in empathy and truth-telling is beautifully performed by Inoue and Au who take turns intoning the texts.

Chamber Symphony: Inspired by Hildbrando de Melo’s Nzambi (God) Paintings is a powerful, four-movement work performed by the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra conducted by artistic director Philip Nuzzo. Price saw the work of Angolan artist de Melo at a major exhibition of his work and instantly began hearing “dramatic musical ideas.” Movement I, “Pathos,” is a dramatic and stark tribute to the many people who suffered with and died of COVID. Brass instruments dominate the section and extreme registers intensify a sense of doom. I heard echoes of the Mars section of Holst’s The Planets in the motoric, repetitive texture. This section eventually comes to a quiet end. Movement II, “Compassion,” is a more lyrical and ethereal ode of tenderness. After a mournful opening of solo trumpet against lower brass, the strings dominate. In the first quarter of the piece, high winds are featured, and the movement ends with soft, high strings. Movement III follows immediately with forceful timpani. Titled “Quest,” this strong movement displays Price’s mastery of counterpoint in two canonic structures featuring a sinuous linear theme. Several small chamber passages with varying instrumentation are also featured evoking the Funeral March (Movement 3) of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, and the texture is punctuated with staccato eruptions. It ends triumphantly. Movement IV, “Felicity,” begins with parallel fourths and melodic fourth successions. The flowing theme that follows is similar to that of the previous section. Constant variation of the melodic material prevails until the music ends in a resoundingly hopeful mood.

Ludwig’s Letter to Eternal Beloved, for countertenor Darryl Taylor and chamber orchestra, is based on Beethoven’s own words that were “discovered on ten small pieces of paper” (liner notes) dating from 1812. Price was furthered inspired by his An die Ferne Geliebte (1816), a song cycle of six poems. The texts are ultra-Romantic and the music follows suit. The mood varies from ecstatic to melancholy to stoically resigned. I find it intriguing that while the composer writes of imitating Beethovenian motives and development, the music still has her own original stamp. Taylor has a striking and unique voice and joins the seemingly ever growing number of countertenors expanding the performance of vocal music beyond the typical countertenor repertoire. His upper range is astounding, and Price gives him ample opportunity to exploit it.

If Life Were to Sing! is a string ensemble piece that features the continual variation of its melodic strands. Price exploits the wide range of colors available to her in a satisfying and lyrical composition. Melodic fourths are a continual thematic element, whether rising or falling, and Price combines quartal and triadic harmonies in the work. She explains that she has used the concerto grosso as a model and weaves solo and/or unison passages in contrast with ensemble writing. A pastoral mood prevails.

This CD attests to Price’s ability to engage her musical talents in a variety of social justice issues along with her love of our shared musical traditions. It is a testament to her curiosity, creativity, and productivity well into her ninth decade of life!

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Anna Rubin is Emerita Associate Professor of Composition, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and an active composer.