Gloria Cheng-Cochran - Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley (1998)

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Gloria Cheng-Cochran - Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley (1998)

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IT may disturb the composer John Adams that his operas have not been revived, as reported in these pages, but there is a grain of consolation: ''Phrygian Gates,'' a 20-year-old piano work by Mr. Adams, is apparently becoming a favorite of new-music pianists. Available for years only on a single, small-label recording by Mack McCray (and only on LP), it was given a second wind in 1989, when Ursula Oppens included it in an inspired pairing with Elliott Carter's ''Night Fantasies.'' Recordings by John McCabe and Christopher O'Riley followed, and now Gloria Cheng-Cochran offers the second recording of the work to be released this year (after Hermann Kretzschmar's performance on an Adams disk from the Ensemble Modern on RCA): a beautifully delineated, unusually vivid account (Telarc CD-80513).

At a glance, the work would seem to admit little variety in performance: it grows from a trickle of repeated notes into a torrent of slowly shifting figures in Phrygian and Lydian modes, and once it attains its critical mass, it modulates around the cycle of keys with an almost motorlike steadiness. Yet there is ample flexibility in weight, coloration, dynamics and, to a lesser degree, even tempo. Ms. Cheng-Cochran uses these opportunities to mold a personalized performance that keeps the work more dramatic than hypnotic. Her reading of the chordal central section is dark, gauzy and more overtly Lisztian than any of the competitors.

On the same disk, Ms. Cheng-Cochran makes nearly as strong a case for Mr. Adams's ''China Gates,'' a shorter, simpler and more delicate study from 1977, which proceeds along similar lines. And for variety, she offers two recent works by Terry Riley, in which links to the Minimalist past are subsidiary to reinvestigations of earlier forms, both classical and popular.

''The Walrus in Memoriam'' is Mr. Riley's 1991 contribution to Aki Takahashi's ''Hyper Beatles,'' a series in which several dozen contemporary composers provided glosses on the Beatles' music. Mr. Riley's subject was ''I Am the Walrus,'' but only its barest shadow is recognizable: ragtime episodes are interspersed with more intensely focused chromatic deconstructions of the song's chord progression.

The five movements of ''The Heaven Ladder,'' Book 7, of 1994, range more widely. A hint of the finale of Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata drifts through the opening movement, ''Misha's Bear Dance.'' ''Venus in '94'' is an impressionistic waltz, sometimes alluringly chromatic, sometimes almost a salon piece. Ragtime returns, combined with fugal techniques, in ''Ragtempus Fugatis,'' and harmonic quirkiness colors the final two movements, a vibrant fandango and a gentle lullaby.

Ms. Cheng-Cochran is at home in the variety of styles Mr. Riley demands. In fact, her ability to make the ragtime passages swing and the ruminative sections sound comfortable beside the raucous ones imposes a sense of coherence on movements that could easily unravel into a loose stylistic melange.

Review by By Allan Kozinn, Aug. 9, 1998 , NY Times

The Riley compositions will be a bit of a revelation to those who know him primarily from his "In C" and "Rainbows in Curved Air" days. His work here is much more nuanced, and frankly, interesting. The first work is an homage to John Lennon, using elements of "I am the Walrus". You won't be stuck with the Beatles tune in your head when you listen to this however, since the only really recognizable bit is that last 30 seconds. The other Riley work is a suite of 5 movements called "The Heaven Ladder, Book 7". The styles of the movements are quite varied from one to the other. Although we think of Riley as one of the minimalists, what you get here is a melange of styles. Here a bit that sounds like Debussy, there some Poulenc, and over there some Persichetti. Or a bit of Chick Corea. But Riley isn't mimicking these other composers – the comparisons are only an attempt to give a flavor of what the music is like. One of the movements is an honest-to-goodness fugue.

The two pieces by Adams are much more in the minimalist vein, and for this listener, more satisfying – the Riley pieces are in a rather more light-hearted mood. As Adams states in the liner notes, the "Gates" in the titles are derived from electronics, not door-like things. In both pieces he abruptly (but not disturbingly) shifts from one mode to another, like flipping a switch (or a "gate"). In the more ambitious of the two, Phrygian Gates, there is a great breadth of expression: tempo and dynamic changes abound. It is also quite complex, both structurally and technically. It takes some world-class technique to pull it off.

And Gloria Cheng-Cochran does just that. Her playing is not only technically flawless, but is also quite musical – bringing out the nuances, carefully placing each note. For those who think of minimalism as rather dull at times, these performances might just change your mind. The playing brings out "melodic" ideas, middle voices, etc.

Lastly, a comment on the balance of the music: although there are 6 cuts by Riley and only 2 by Adams, the amount of time is much closer than that – roughly half-and-half. The last track (by Adams) is 26 minutes long.

I must say I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this CD.

Review by David A. Beamer, Amazon.com

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Gloria Cheng-Cochran - Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley (1998)

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Gloria Cheng-Cochran - Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley (1998)

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Gloria Cheng-Cochran - Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley (1998)

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Gloria Cheng-Cochran - Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley (1998)

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