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Fanfare

The title of this disc, Blue Sounds, could lead one to believe that it will be a jazzy, fairly light collection of piano music. It is anything but. Camden Reeves is an English composer (b. 1974) who spent much of his youth in Texas before returning to England, where he is now a professor of music at the University of Manchester. His musical interests are widespread, including jazz but also Modernists like Boulez, Birtwistle, Stockhausen, Carter, and Xenakis. Reeves’s music finds an appealing way to combine these disparate influences.

Tangle-Beat Blues is an extended work (almost 13 minutes) that changes mood and color frequently and dramatically. Bluesy melodic lines might be interrupted by violent chords. Dynamics shift suddenly, and the mood can swing just as suddenly between violence and tranquility. In David Fanning’s excellent accompanying notes, he quotes Reeves about Tangle-Beat Blues: “It’s exactly what the title implies. Various Blues-related materials, each in a different but related pulse, are mangled and tangled together.” On first hearing one doesn’t have any idea what is coming next, which can be unsettling. But I found the music engaging, and repeated hearings helped to give it shape.

The title track, Blue Sounds, is described by Reeves as “a meditation on color.” In his notes he invokes names as diverse as Bill Evans and Stockhausen. This piece is gentler and more atmospheric than Tangle-Beat Blues. Although there are interruptions of bursts of sound, they are now farther apart rather than tangled and jammed together. The prevailing mood is delicacy, with more than a hint of Debussy in the music’s colors.

Referring to Nine Preludes, Reeves says that “Chopin’s 24 Preludes, op. 28 are perhaps my favorite single piece of music by any composer, and his cycle has influenced my own in two principal ways. First, like Chopin’s, mine comprise movements of extremes of length—from the very sight to the quite extended. Second, there is a certain openness to the form. Like Chopin’s my Preludes may be played as a complete cycle … or as individual pieces.” As in Tangle-Beat Blues, the shifts can be sudden. The First Prelude, marked Allegro molto, starts out explosively; the Second, Grave funebre, is slower but still somewhat violent; and the Third, Adagio molto rubato, is much more introspective and calmer. The longest of the Preludes, No. 8, is a stunning virtuoso display marked Allegro ritmico. All these works were written for Tom Hicks, a British-born pianist now teaching at Northwestern University and at a private studio in Chicago. He clarifies complex contrapuntal details and fully explores the diverse sound world that Reeves has created. The recorded sound is fine. This release is warmly recommended to adventurous listeners interested in exploring music that is quite unlike anyone else’s.