Lee Hyla: Trans

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The Boston composer Lee Hyla writes works that deftly blend expressionistic, complex contemporary atonal idioms with elements of avant-garde jazz, rock and even punk... While American orchestras... — New York Times More…

Catalogue No: NW80614
Label: New World
Length: 53 minutes

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Hyla: Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Orchestra

Work length10:59

$1.50

$2.10

Tim Smith
Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Gil Rose

Hyla: Trans

Work length18:14

$3.50

$4.90

Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Gil Rose

First Movement

Track length7:42

$1.50

$2.10

Second Movement

Track length3:45

$1.00

$1.40

Third Movement

Track length6:47

$1.00

$1.40

Hyla: Violin Concerto

Work length24:22

Album only

Laura Frautschi
Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Gil Rose

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About

In the music of Lee Hyla (b. 1952), the jagged, honking, barking, raucous, strongly articulated rhythmic layer patrols and protects an inner layer of timeless, crystalline beauty, almost too fragile to survive on its own. His obsessive recycling of material, subtly transformed over the course of the piece, rude interruptions, and unexpected glimpses of an internal radiance all add to a sense of uneasy striving towards a kind of transcendent experience.

The three works on this disc - Concerto for Bass Clarinet and Orchestra (1988), Trans (1996), and the Violin Concerto (2001) - are intelligent, but not intellectual. They are obvious siblings, though each piece sustains its own strong character. Lee has chosen, in all of these works, to tell a tale, to work within a musical space whose boundaries consist of wildly contrasting elements. Bluntly cut transitions range from slow to fast, soft to loud, classic and contained to raucous rock-and-roll-with an almost bizarre use of Beethovenian techniques exercised on poached riffs. The source materials diverge wildly, from The Art Ensemble of Chicago to Alban Berg. While at first it may seem like putting mustard on ice cream, such use of contrast maps out a large space and plants markers-very bright markers-at the boundaries. These are the unforgettable flags, made indelible by their very contrast, that articulate a large musical space. Like in many works of Beethoven, the material is tightly controlled, but the scope of the pieces is vast.

Reviews

New York Times

The Boston composer Lee Hyla writes works that deftly blend expressionistic, complex contemporary atonal idioms with elements of avant-garde jazz, rock and even punk... While American orchestras keep commissioning the same handful of tame Neo-Romantics, here is a truly original composer who has yet to gain the attention he deserves.

Lee Hyla: Trans

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