Michael Torke - Color Music

Michael TORKE (b.1961)

Color Music

Green

Purple

Ecstatic Orange

Ash

Bright Blue Music

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

David Zinman

The words of T. S. Eliot describe the music on this disc perfectly. Torke's first Argo recording (12/90) made a similar impression, but here the effect is positively joyous. I'll dispense with the technicalities first and report that these are amongst the most committed and persuasive performances of contemporary music I've heard for a long time; in the words of Heidi Waleson, when it comes to Torke's music ''Zinman is a true believer''—and it certainly shows. Producer Andrew Cornall is too, which is more than evident in the immaculate and beautifully produced recording. But what of the music? Torke is certainly a difficult composer to pigeon-hole. He isn't a minimalist (at least not in the accepted definition of the word), nor is he a member of the 'intellectual brigade' (though he is more than capable of using set theories and tone rows when the need arises), and he certainly doesn't fall into the category of composers who feel the need to 'water their music down' to appeal to a wider audience. No, Torke is his own man, and his music speaks with an honesty and candour that I find most refreshing.

If the first disc focused on Torke's more pop-orientated music, then the second clearly reveals the more classicist side of his creativity. Green, Purple and Ecstatic Orange date from 1985-7, and although they were originally conceived as independent orchestral works, they have also gained a considerable reputation as a three-movement ballet choreographed by Peter Martin for the New York City Ballet; one need only sample the first few minutes of Green, with its rhythmic buoyancy and brilliantly coloured orchestration, to discover why Martin was so enthusiastic to translate Torke's music into movement. For the listener it's an exhilarating roller-coaster ride through an ever-changing terrain, a Disneyesque flight of imagination fused with the energy and power of a Beethoven scherzo—a veritable Torkean tour de force. As the colour might suggest, Purple is altogether more sophisticated in language—silky and lyrical, with occasional touches of dissonance for added spice, and spiky, syncopated rhythms that reveal Torke's interest in jazz and dance music. Ecstatic Orange (astonishingly Torke's first excursion into orchestral music) is perhaps the most frequently performed of the three. Its abrasive, punchy rhythms place it firmly into Torke's pop orientated music, and as such, has something in common with the earlier chamber piece Vanada (1984).

Side-stepping Ash for the moment and moving on to Bright Blue Music (1985), we find Torke revelling in the sheer pleasure of creating music for pure enjoyment, at once immediate and appealing. Beethoven and Schumann appear to be the primary sources of inspiration, though I should add that their presence is one of affectionate homage rather than pastiche or self-indulgence. Its propulsive energy and joyous harmonies (predominantly tonic and dominant) are guaranteed to lift even the lowest of spirits.

In many ways Ash (1989) is the most extraordinary piece on the disc, and in my opinion certainly one of the most remarkable orchestral works to have emerged from America in recent years. Sounding like a disembodied torso from a classical symphony there will be many I'm sure who'll cry 'pastiche' (personally I find it provocative), but there's more to it than that: it assails one's senses with its power and audacity, but above all it is music of discovery, of a young composer discovering himself, and an audience rediscovering the 'comfortable' and the 'familiar'. Which brings us nicely back to T. S. Eliot and the last of the Four Quartets:

And the end of our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Enjoy!'