Tyler Futrell: Stabat Mater; Brittle Fluid; Vuggesang. Eirin Rognerud, soprano; Astrid Nordstad, mezzo-soprano; Lars-Erik ter Jung, conductor; Terjungensemble. BIS 2548.
According to his website, Tyler Futrell compositionally borrows from different techniques and traditions. Actually, you don't even need to consult the website to immediately gather this by listening to his 2021 Stabat Mater. The work is essentially is a mashup of minimalism, romanticism, 20th-century avant-gardism, and probably one or two other 'isms' I'm forgetting. If this seems crudely put I can only say that it matches my on-again/off-again experience of the music. The late Richard Taruskin, one of my biggest musicological influences, once shrewdly wrote: "The nice thing about an ism, someone once observed, is how quickly it becomes a wasm. Some musical wasms—academic-wasm, for example, and its dependent varieties of modern-wasm and serial-wasm—continue to linger on artificial life support, though, and continue to threaten the increasingly fragile classical ecosystem." (See Taruskin, "How Talented Composers Become Useless," quoted in The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays, University of California Press, 2009, p. 86.) I'm afraid that when I listen to Futrell's Stabat Mater, the 'wasms' of his eclectic mix stick out like sore thumbs and mildly detract from what is otherwise beautiful music.
Wait, I hear you retort, aren't all of the styles he references really "wasms"? Yes, technically. In which case I'll specify in the spirit of Taruskin's quip: the parts of Futrell's Stabat Mater that sound the most old-fashioned and out of place are precisely the avant-garde-inspired materials that were all the rage circa 1965. Before we even hear any singing, we're subjected to a prelude with the subtitle "Crossbeam, nails," which implies the point at which Christ is about to be crucified. And what is it? About 80 seconds of atonal shuffling/scraping via the 'unconventional stringed instrument techniques' featured in works like Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. I found it completely contrived. But once the singing started with the Stabat Mater proper, I was transfixed. Futrell has a real lyrical gift - an enviable capacity for melody and effective text-setting. But apparently he doesn't think that's quite enough. Because at the "Interlude: Pierced" section to follow, it's more noise...only this time over a backdrop of calmly consonant chordal accompaniment in the strings that does some heavy lifting.
And on we go. The shuffling/scraping/screeching is occasionally joined by pitch-bending techniques that sometimes sound vaguely consistent with the lovelier portions, while at other times seeming as tacked-on as the proto-Penderecki stuff. To be honest, it all isn't the hugest deal. In repeat hearings I just tuned out the circus, concentrated on the parts I liked, and enjoyed myself considerably. But the "additions" felt unnecessary all the same. Maybe Futrell really buys into what he's doing, or maybe he's trying to impress certain people (the work is up for one or more awards), or both. I guess time will tell if others have the same reaction as mine.
Multiple listens did nothing to endear me to Brittle Fluid or Vuggesang. Modernist static in the one case, and quasi-minimalist repetitions of dull ideas in the other, rate far below the compelling portions of the Stabat Mater. I think it's high time more composers become less self-conscious. Particularly those as talented as Tyler Futrell.
Verdict: Recommended for the Stabat Mater...at least most of it
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