Dream of Me: American Piano Music by Bolcom, Kernis, Barber, Silverman, Coleman, Andre/Schwandt
Lara Downes, p
Tritone (no number) 58 minutes
This is an appealing program of contemporary American piano nocturnes. The tradition invoked by pianist Lara Downes is not the surrealism of Bartok or Crumb but the dreamscapes of Field, Chopin, and Debussy. Thus we get pieces by Bolcom, Kernis, and others that explore their most poetic, quiet moments. The mother of two small children, Downes’ own nocturnal reveries are ruled by “the rituals and rhythms of childrens’ bedtimes.” Kernnis’s "Before Sleep and Dreams", a lovely depiction of a child being prepared for bed, is thus a perfect choice. Twelve years ago, I had two infants of my own to put to bed: I could have used this album, though Delius’s "Hassan", especially the final, fading chorus, worked wonderfully.
Most of this music is tonal. Adam Silverman’s "Nocturnes and Reveries", written for Downes in 2004, evokes the rhythms of a sleeper’s body.
Samuel Barber’s haunting "Nocturne", composed in 1959 at the height of serialism, defied the expectations of the time. William Bolcom’s "Dream Shadows" has modernist accidentals and inflections but is basically a hazy version of an old fashioned rag, as if overheard in a dream. The closest thing we get to a modernist sound is Dan Coleman’s "Burden of Dreams", which explores Western composers’ collective unconscious by recapitulating fragments from different historical periods. Even here, an all-pervasive note of A flat creates stability. The program closes with Downes’s imaginative transcription of the irresistible Fabian Andre/Wilbur Schwandt standard, ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me.’ Downes plays with exquisite sensitivity; the recording, made at the University of California at Davis, is exceptionally intimate, as it needs to be.
SULLIVAN
Jack Sullivan - American Record Guide