Steven Mackey’s affecting play for actor, string quartet and percussion, based on his mother’s unpublished and colourful memoir, was originally suggested by the folk tale told in Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat. Among many other musical echoes there is a recurring solo violin riff that echoes Soldat. The connection to Stravinsky extends to the easy confidence with which Mackey uses his musical materials and the casual pace of the story.

Elaine Mackey’s fast-paced diorama of snapshots from the first half of the 20th century and her often earthy language suggest the energy of John Dos Passos’s USA Trilogy; blending his original music with evocations of music from her life, Mackey mirrors her personality with an affection that suffuses every bar. He has fun with his mother’s memories of her son, the composer; at the end, during several moving episodes dealing with her alcoholism, he takes a speaking role himself.

Both as narrator and actor, Natalie Christa Rakes sets a high standard for subsequent performances of Memoir with her uncanny ability to inhabit Elaine through all her improbable adventures from Pittsburgh to Hollywood, and yet still leave an intriguing amount to the imagination. The Dover Quartet take full advantage of Mackey’s idiomatic writing for strings, and the Arx Duo play with a wide range of sounds from simply percussive to astoundingly beautiful.

Although the booklet doesn’t have a libretto, it does include a selection of the black-and-white photographs that are projected when Memoir is staged. The sound at Curtis Institute of Music’s Gould Rehearsal Hall has audiophile clarity with warmth and plenty of bandwidth for the percussionists.