March 6, 2015

by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

Budding composers are well advised to write for standard instrumentation: The simpler and more common the forces required, the higher the chances of a piece getting performances beyond the premiere.

But Augusta Read Thomas, the subject of a Composer Portraits series at Columbia University’s Miller Theater on Thursday and the recipient of numerous prizes and orchestral commissions, is no longer a novice. In fact, according to statistics released last year by ASCAP, a performing rights organization, she topped their list of most frequently performed living composers in 2013-14.

She has permission, then, if any were needed, to think big. “Resounding Earth,” a 30-minute work for percussion quartet that received its New York premiere at Miller this week by the commandingly elegant Third Coast Percussion, calls for a battery of some 300 metal instruments, including tiny cymbal-like crotales, giant gongs, Burmese temple bells and metal coils. The work was developed in close collaboration with the Third Coast players and has been released on a beautiful CD by New Focus Recording.

But there’s nothing quite like the hypnotic experience of being immersed live in the shimmering, thrumming, pealing sound cloud created by these instruments, many of which have ceremonial powers in their cultures of origin. The work is divided into four movements, each dedicated to two or three influential 20th-century composers, with each one inhabiting a distinct mood. There was the brightness of “Invocation” (Messiaen and Stravinsky), a heady brew of overtones in “Prayer” (Berio and Boulez), the throbbing plasticity of “Mantra” (Lou Harrison and Ligeti), in which the players twirled bells before striking them so that the sound approximated a trill as the bell unwound itself, and the supremely vocal quality of “Reverie” (Varèse, Partch and Cage). The choreography of the performers is an integral part of any percussion piece and the Third Coast members were a delight to watch, moving with a riveting blend of precision and fluidity.

Fluidity is a quality in much of Ms. Thomas’s work, even as it retains the uncompromising angularity of modernism. Much of that has to do with her unerring ear for tone color and the ever-changing timbres she creates, which pull the listener along as surely as a traditional harmonic progression. Even in “Capricci” for violin and viola, performed expressively and with firm tone by the violinist Ari Streisfeld and the violist John Pickford Richards, she created unusual colors in the metallic pizzicatos and arrowlike crescendos that shaped the music’s syntax.

Mr. Streisfeld and Mr. Richards returned as part of the JACK Quartet for “Invocations” from “Sun Threads,” a piece in a heroic mode characterized by forward-looking energy. The two quartets — JACK and Third Coast Percussion — joined forces for the world premiere of “Selene,” a work alive with dance rhythms and vibrant colors that included both moments of painterly delicacy and comical touches. An ambitious piece taking in a wide range of moods and sonic landscapes, it received a premiere so persuasive and well balanced as to make a case for the percussion-string octet as a new standard form.

Read the original article here.

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