Avner Dorman: Concertos for Mandolin, Piccolo, Piano and Concerto Grosso (2010)

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Avner Dorman: Concertos for Mandolin, Piccolo, Piano and Concerto Grosso (2010)

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Avner Dorman: Concertos for Mandolin, Piccolo, Piano and Concerto Grosso (2010)

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The diverse concertos presented here combine the excitement and spontaneity associated with jazz, rock or ethnic music within an engaging neo-baroque idiom. Dorman (b. 1975) writes: ‘I have always loved baroque music…the clear rhythms, the strong reliance on the bass, and the extreme contrasts.’

Intrigued by Baroque music since childhood, Dorman (b. 1975) has created a collection of 'modern' pieces imbued with the formal clarity and rhythmic energy of 18th century music. Make no mistake, these pieces sound 'new', but they also sound fresh and friendly, and surprisingly 'original', despite the obvious derivations. Performances are breathtakingly fine, and if you pass by this album you're missing out on a disarmingly satisfying production.

The disc contains four concertos, all Baroque-inspired, though this inspiration is expressed in different ways. The opening Mandolin Concerto is probably the most striking of the four, something like Schnittke-meets-Piazzolla in the middle of a Vivaldi Winter. The idea behind it, as the composer writes in the liner-notes, was to explore the conflict between motion and stasis, as expressed, for instance, in the basic mandolin technique – the tremolo. In the first movement, slow meditative episodes lead to stormy, Vivaldian outbursts. The last episode is hauntingly beautiful: a poignant, aristocratic melody worthy of Piazzolla takes slow and sad steps, while high above the strings create the lightest of veils, like an aurora borealis.

It is not hard to understand the level of enthusiasm about Dorman’s music in some quarters; it is contemporary, accessible in style but not slavishly ingratiating, often speaking in modal, folk-influenced harmonic language embracing both Hebraic and Arabic elements but also incorporating some measure of Astor Piazzolla’s preferences in scoring and rhythm. Dorman’s fondness for rapid ostinati and rich textures may evoke a hint of minimalist style, but his music isn’t minimalistic; while there is definitely a sense of stasis in the Adagio cantabile in the Piccolo Concerto (2001) and in the opening Adagio—Allegro drammatico—Adagio of the Concerto grosso (2003), it is not achieved through repetition. There is an attractive brightness about several of his melodic ideas, particularly in the opening Allegro of the Piano Concerto in A (1995). This is like a postmodern take on Mozart’s piano concerti, whereas the Concerto grosso was by design based on Vivaldi and Handel…Overall, though, Naxos’ Avner Dorman: Concertos is eminently listenable and serves to deliver on the great promise of this young composer, and all of the featured soloists acquit themselves well in these twenty first century compositions.