George Rochberg created quite a scandal when he moved away from writing serial music in the late-1960s to return towards tonality with quotes from Beethoven and Mahler in his Third String Quartet. From a later generation, John Harbison inhabits a traditional musical world entirely without inhibition and with considerable success. Two pieces on this record—Rochberg's Piano Quartet and Harbison's Variations—are part of a series of 12 chamber works commissioned by Frank E. Taplin. The American Chamber Players serve the composers well, but the quality of the piano sound is disappointing.
When Rochberg rejected his more dissonant style the simplicity of the Violin Concerto (1974) seemed rather empty. The Piano Quartet and various other works in the 1980s bring back some of the Bergian intensity which formed part of Rochberg's background. The Quartet is basically a dark, brooding slow movement with some rapid outbursts. Part of the static, motionless, sostenuto is almost as uneventful as Cage's First Quartet. Thematically the Rochberg is easy to follow—a rising fourth figure on string harmonics offset by a rapid turn on the piano and then a repeated-note motif starting on the cello. These are the three principal themes which give the work a firm focus and the context of slow music sets the mood.
I have enjoyed Harbison's CD on New World Records/Koch International ((CD) 80395-2—to be reviewed later) with pieces on a larger scale than here. He responds well to a text, as in The Flight into Egypt, which won a Pulitzer Prize, and dramatic situations, created by the orchestral layout of the Concerto for double brass choir and orchestra. Now in his fifties, Harbison could be described as a middle-of-the-road composer, drawing in a polished way from any aspect of his musical past. His music is grateful to play and there's a kind of immediacy about it which may relate to his background as a jazz pianist.
But these two chamber works, although often pretty to listen to, seem to lack focus. Twilight Music starts casually, introducing the violin and horn to each other; there is virtuoso horn writing—and playing—in the presto; but by the time we reach the Antiphon a style-modulation takes place to something consonantly neo-medieval followed by a reminiscence of Liszt or Franck.
In the Variations for clarinet, violin and piano, the lyrical flow makes up for the deliberate lack of integration between the three instruments. Again, there is an improvisatory flavour, an unassuming start, and it is rare for all three players to be involved at once. This treatment has not stopped a work like Messiaen's Quatuor from becoming a classic and Harbison has built it into his scheme, too, so that the Variations wanders less than Twilight Music.'