Stephen Hartke - The Horse with the Lavender Eye

Stephen HARTKE (b.1952)

The Horse with the Lavender Eye, Episodes for Violin, Clarinet and Piano ((1997)

Selections from "Post-modern Homages", for Piano (1984-92)

Sonata, for Piano (1997-98)

The King of the Sun, Tableaux for Violin, Viola, cello and Piano (1988)

Richard Faria (Clarinet)

Ellen Jewett (Violin)

Xak Bjerken (Piano)

Los Angeles Piano Quartet

Recording: January 6-7, 2006, Performing Arts Center, Purchase College, 

State University of New York, NY

Stephen Hartke (b1952) has enjoyed limited exposure this side of the Atlantic (though a New World disc of his Second Symphony and Violin Concerto is well worth seeking out), so this Chandos miscellany should redress the balance in favour of one whose stylistic range and unpredictability are as intriguing as they are provocative.

The Piano Sonata (1998) is the most impressive work here because the most focused in material: a lengthy Scherzo, resourcefully integrating minimalist and dance elements, prepared for by an expansively chordal Prelude then distilled into a limpid Postlude. Few composers have expressed this much so understatedly through this genre in recent times, and the chamber works are hardly less absorbing. The Horse with the Lavender Eye (1997) features some appealingly surreal imagery and expressive sleights of hand, notably the final left-footed Rumba whose emotionally distanced epilogue has droll inevitability, while The King of the Sun (1988) maintains a certain rhythmic consistency over increasingly anarchic musical imagery before an apotheosis of nonchalant matter-of-factness. Any from the selection of Post-Modern Homages would make an instructive encore – postmodern in the original “what might happen if”, rather than the current “who cares anyway” sense of the term.

The performances are precise and probing, abetted by lucid sound and a booklet-note from Xak Bjerken that offers context and poses questions in equal measure. Those who see the Coen brothers rather than Steven Spielberg as being representative of modern American culture will find much to ponder on and enjoy here.

Gramophone magazine