John Musto is a composer and pianist who is well known as an accompanist to recital singers in the New York area and as a participant in chamber ensembles. He is a highly skilled pianist who has roots in jazz and in the great American show tunes and whose endeavors as a composer of serious music came rather late in his development.
Musto's 2004 comic opera Volpone was widely praised and his 1997 song cycle Dove Sta Amore considered for a Pulitzer. Although
Musto has established his reputation in vocal music, Koch's The Chamber Music of John Musto surveys his developing interest in chamber forms.
Musto could hardly wish for a better advocate in the players in
Music from Copland House, crack chamber musicians who are residents at
Copland House, a retreat for composers located at
Aaron Copland's former home in Cortlandt Manor, NY. If there is anything good in
Musto's chamber music, this group will be certain to bring it to the fore.
Musto's work does not reek of conservatory-bred academicism; he has stated that he is "a self-taught composer but not a self-taught musician" and his music is the direct outgrowth of his work as a player and interpreter. While his music, such as the opening movement of his Sextet for clarinet, two violins, viola, cello, and piano, can be rather discordant and biting,
Musto employs traditional formal development schemes and listeners always know where they are in the music. The layout of the second movement of
Musto's Trio for violin, cello, and piano is very emotionally and psychologically pleasing, even if the piano tends to dominate the texture of the first movement. In places where tonality is more ambiguous, the rhythm takes the lead, a stylistic hallmark of all three of these pieces. At points,
Musto enjoys utilizing rather distorted, almost comical, musical ideas, but he is not immune to lyricism and his work does have its occasional nod to romantic tendencies.
The most engaging of these pieces is the Divertimento for flute, clarinet, viola, cello, piano, and percussion.
Bartók is an obvious influence, but Eastern European folk music is not --
Musto loves jazzy phrases and a "big city" kind of New York cosmopolitan idiom; frequent critical comparisons made between
Musto and the music of
Leonard Bernstein seem particularly apt in such instances. One hates to resort to other names when writing about young composers on initial recorded outings, but it seems useful to mention that if the listener is fond of the music of
Paul Schoenfield or
Osvaldo Golijov works such as Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, then this disc of chamber music by
John Musto should prove highly satisfying.