Albany's Quilt Music highlights one of composer Beth Anderson's most characteristic pieces, the 25-minute-long piano work Quilt Music in its maiden voyage on disc as played by
Joseph Kubera. Quilt Music is a happy patchwork of a few plain themes that go through a variety of unpredictable transformations as the music strides blithely and comfortably along. Quilt Music is a natural, relaxed work that evidences an appreciation of the outdoors, good times with family, building a campfire, enjoying a box of Thin Mints, or whatever one finds in terms of simple pleasures. It achieves, without resorting to minimalist ideas, a sense in music of what Gertrude Stein expresses when she seeks in literature "the eternal present." There is a lot to love in Quilt Music, but one person who does not seem to love it so much is
Kubera, who delivers the piece dutifully and perfunctorily in the manner of a good silent movie pianist. One wonders what a more spectral approach, geared toward emotion and depth, might have wrought -- say if Quilt Music were played by
Gloria Cheng or
Kyoko Tabe.
More enthusiastic is violinist
Ana Milosavljevic, who tears into Anderson's two Tales, Belgian Tango, and Dr. Blood's Mermaid Lullaby with enthusiasm and aplomb. Cleveland Swale, first performed in New York City, is nicely played here, though the two double basses could've been separated more discreetly in the audio mix -- their weighty, combined tone tends to bunch up in the middle, giving the impression that this must be a swale in Cleveland from around the time the lake caught fire. Baritone Keith Borden sings the three song cycles on the disc, and the cycle written for him, Harlem Songs, comes off well. In the Cat Songs and Dreaming Fields he is simply the wrong choice for the material, and we will leave it at that.
As a collection, Quilt Music is neither as good, nor as representative, of Beth Anderson's work as the excellent Swales and Angels on New World or Peachy Keen-O, the collection of her earlier pieces on Pogus. Yet it will do, for now.