"...a disc that merits and rewards repeated listening." Classical Ear
"...a wonderful chamber music issue that enthrals from first bar to last." Gramophone
"...a thrilling display of alacrity and acrobatics." Records International
Bridge Records: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 3 presents chamber music composed over a sixteen-year period (1997-2013), by the brilliant American composer, who resides in London. Sierra has been commissioned by the Seattle Symphony, the Tanglewood Music Festival, the New York Philharmonic, and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. Performers of her work have included the New York City Opera, the American Composers Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, the Tokyo Philharmonic and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
The third disc in the Bridge Records Arlene Sierra portrait series has received rave reviews in the international press. Order now from Bridge Records
Download the programme booklet here
Listen to the complete disc here
Programme:
Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013)
Nicola Benedetti, violin; Leonard Eischenbroich, cello; Alexei Grynyuk, piano
Avian Mirrors (2013)
Jesse Mills, violin; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello
Truel (2004)
Horzowski Trio
Counting-Out Rhyme (2002)
Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Rieko Aizawa, piano
Of Risk and Memory (1997)
Quattro Mani
Nicola Benedetti, violin; Leonard Eischenbroich, cello; Alexei Grynyuk, piano
Avian Mirrors (2013)
Jesse Mills, violin; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello
Truel (2004)
Horzowski Trio
Counting-Out Rhyme (2002)
Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Rieko Aizawa, piano
Of Risk and Memory (1997)
Quattro Mani
Further Reviews:
Bridge Records CD Arlene Sierra, Vol. 3 - Butterflies Remember a Mountain, December 2018-February 2019
When Bridge champions a composer, one needs to sit up and take notice: the series devoted to George Crumb, Fred Lerdahl and Poul Ruders provide eloquent testimony of that. Arlene Sierra, American-born in 1970 but long resident in the UK, is another in the company’s focus and this third volume (the first was released in 2011, the second – of orchestral works – three years later) is a wonderful chamber music issue that enthrals from first bar to last.
The title-work is Sierra’s second piano trio, Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013). The piece has garnered much critical admiration (7/16) and was written for the players performing it here, Nicola Benedetti, Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk. Many of Sierra’s works derive inspiration from the natural world and its fauna (readers may recall the premiere in 2017 of her Nature Symphony, a part-reworking of this trio), and this is no exception. There is a Takemitsu-like conceit to its title, the three movements titled respectively ‘Butterflies’, ‘Remember’ and ‘A Mountain’, and the music has a Japanese exquisiteness and restrained power.
Sierra’s first trio, Truel (2002 04), is of a markedly different character, a duel between the three players (hence the title), combative and utterly compelling. So, too, is the violin-and-cello duet Avian Mirrors (2013), a fascinating non-Messiaenic triptych on birdsong that lingers long in the memory. Counting-Out Rhyme (2002) and the closing piano duet, Of Risk and Memory (1997), are both beguiling and broaden her frame of reference and instrumental palette. The performances are all first-rate; the recorded sound – from three different locations and dates – is beautifully engineered. Very strongly recommended.
– Guy Rickards, Gramophone
Like many of Sierra's works, these duos and trios draw inspiration from dynamic processes in the natural world, from language and poetry and from strategy and game theory. Butterflies Remember a Mountain refers to the extraordinary annual migration of Monarch butterflies. The three movements reflect the fragility of the butterflies, their determined quest and the riot of colour as hundreds of thousands of them descend on their destination. The music is full of restless energy, and so is Avian Mirrors, which explores the ritualised calls and responses between birds. Insects and birds, with their rapid, trembling, febrile energy, turn up again and again in Sierra's music, their formalized, repetitive motions and ritual behaviours linked to the composer's interest in formal rule-based games with many possible outcomes, like that explored in Truel. This is a three-way equivalent of a duel, which may lead to unexpected results depending on the mismatched skill or perceived dangerousness of the participants (think of the dénoument of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'). The first movement sets up the parameters of the match in repetitive ostinati, with different characters assigned to the three instruments. Tension rises, then time freezes in the static ostinato patterns of the slow movement. The same gestures finally generate an energetic perpetuum mobile in the last movement. Rhyming games are played out in Counting-out Rhyme, after Edna St. Vincent Millay's eponymous poem; here the repetitions, rhymes, assonances and repetitions of the poem find parallels in the instrumental interactions. Of Risk and Memory requires a virtuosic level of co-ordination between the two pianists, as they throw Messiaenic chords and rapid passage-work at each other, in a thrilling display of alacrity and acrobatics.
– Records International
This third volume in Bridge’s invaluable survey of Arlene Sierra hones in on chamber music composed between 1997 and 2013. Cellist Leonard Elschenbroich (who commissioned it), violinist Nicola Benedetti and pianist Alexei Grynyuk provide fierce, poetic advocacy for the title track, Sierra’s second piano trio. Inspired by migration patterns of Monarch butterflies, it’s packed with kinetic imagery and atmospherics carried along by a focus-shifting fluidity owing something to Ravel’s direct impressionism and Tōru Takemitsu’s detached delicacy. Truel, the tense, taut first piano trio, is realised with pugilistic pungency by the Horszowski Trio, Avian Mirrors a mesmerising conversation in birdsong between Jesse Mills’s violin and Raman Ramakrishnan’s cello. The piano duet Of Risk and Memory plunges Quattro Mani into constant peristaltic motion in music of often seething (and not a little disturbing) drama. Counting-out Rhyme is a delightful miniature, played with bright, skittish ebullience by cellist Ramakrishnan and Rieko Aizawa on piano. Excellent recorded sound adds to the pleasure of a disc that merits and rewards repeated listening.
– Michael Quinn, Classical Ear
Contemporary, abstract, somewhat tense works for strings and piano. Play!
– WRUV 90.1 Reviews
ARLENE SIERRA’S chamber music. A fresh breeze that blows new air through time-honored classical procedures and forms. Augmentation (expanding) and diminution (contracting) are old classical tricks that can take a wide variety of applications to music (and other art forms). For Sierra, the first sounds very conversational; the second chirps like birds. Miami-born (in 1970), now London-based, Sierra took her education and degrees at American universities and studied with some of our best-known composers. Previously, she had two orchestral CD releases for Bridge Records, and contributed to Cuatro Corridos, a chamber opera whose subject matter is human trafficking. Arlene Sierra, Vol. 3 includes two piano trios, the frequently performed Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013), inspired by the annual migration of monarch butterflies, and Truel (2004), a game-theory duel in three parts, plus Avian Mirrors (2013) for violin and cello, Counting-Out Rhyme (2002) for cello and piano and Of Risk and Memory (1997) for two pianos. Quattro Mani plays the last mentioned. Truel, at 20 minutes the longest piece on the CD, features the Horszowski Trio. Other musicians include violinist Nicola Benedetti, cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and pianist Alexei Grynyuk. Sierra has a long list of works of all kinds and enjoys an endless stream of commissions.
– Performing Arts Monterey Bay
MUSIC REVIEW: Standout classical CDs of 2018
American composer’s collection series on Bridge continues with some chamber settings. From the opening piano trio, “Butterflies Remember a Mountain,” these spare, elegant works draw in the listener. Like the best music, recognizable structures float by — Debussy, Webern. Like the best music, it sounds like an original voice too. Boston-area audiences heard a single work of Sierra’s last season with the BSO in 2017-18 ... This voice needs to be heard, regularly, repeatedly.
– Keith Powers, North Attleborough Free Press
When Bridge champions a composer, one needs to sit up and take notice: the series devoted to George Crumb, Fred Lerdahl and Poul Ruders provide eloquent testimony of that. Arlene Sierra, American-born in 1970 but long resident in the UK, is another in the company’s focus and this third volume (the first was released in 2011, the second – of orchestral works – three years later) is a wonderful chamber music issue that enthrals from first bar to last.
The title-work is Sierra’s second piano trio, Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013). The piece has garnered much critical admiration (7/16) and was written for the players performing it here, Nicola Benedetti, Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk. Many of Sierra’s works derive inspiration from the natural world and its fauna (readers may recall the premiere in 2017 of her Nature Symphony, a part-reworking of this trio), and this is no exception. There is a Takemitsu-like conceit to its title, the three movements titled respectively ‘Butterflies’, ‘Remember’ and ‘A Mountain’, and the music has a Japanese exquisiteness and restrained power.
Sierra’s first trio, Truel (2002 04), is of a markedly different character, a duel between the three players (hence the title), combative and utterly compelling. So, too, is the violin-and-cello duet Avian Mirrors (2013), a fascinating non-Messiaenic triptych on birdsong that lingers long in the memory. Counting-Out Rhyme (2002) and the closing piano duet, Of Risk and Memory (1997), are both beguiling and broaden her frame of reference and instrumental palette. The performances are all first-rate; the recorded sound – from three different locations and dates – is beautifully engineered. Very strongly recommended.
– Guy Rickards, Gramophone
Like many of Sierra's works, these duos and trios draw inspiration from dynamic processes in the natural world, from language and poetry and from strategy and game theory. Butterflies Remember a Mountain refers to the extraordinary annual migration of Monarch butterflies. The three movements reflect the fragility of the butterflies, their determined quest and the riot of colour as hundreds of thousands of them descend on their destination. The music is full of restless energy, and so is Avian Mirrors, which explores the ritualised calls and responses between birds. Insects and birds, with their rapid, trembling, febrile energy, turn up again and again in Sierra's music, their formalized, repetitive motions and ritual behaviours linked to the composer's interest in formal rule-based games with many possible outcomes, like that explored in Truel. This is a three-way equivalent of a duel, which may lead to unexpected results depending on the mismatched skill or perceived dangerousness of the participants (think of the dénoument of 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'). The first movement sets up the parameters of the match in repetitive ostinati, with different characters assigned to the three instruments. Tension rises, then time freezes in the static ostinato patterns of the slow movement. The same gestures finally generate an energetic perpetuum mobile in the last movement. Rhyming games are played out in Counting-out Rhyme, after Edna St. Vincent Millay's eponymous poem; here the repetitions, rhymes, assonances and repetitions of the poem find parallels in the instrumental interactions. Of Risk and Memory requires a virtuosic level of co-ordination between the two pianists, as they throw Messiaenic chords and rapid passage-work at each other, in a thrilling display of alacrity and acrobatics.
– Records International
This third volume in Bridge’s invaluable survey of Arlene Sierra hones in on chamber music composed between 1997 and 2013. Cellist Leonard Elschenbroich (who commissioned it), violinist Nicola Benedetti and pianist Alexei Grynyuk provide fierce, poetic advocacy for the title track, Sierra’s second piano trio. Inspired by migration patterns of Monarch butterflies, it’s packed with kinetic imagery and atmospherics carried along by a focus-shifting fluidity owing something to Ravel’s direct impressionism and Tōru Takemitsu’s detached delicacy. Truel, the tense, taut first piano trio, is realised with pugilistic pungency by the Horszowski Trio, Avian Mirrors a mesmerising conversation in birdsong between Jesse Mills’s violin and Raman Ramakrishnan’s cello. The piano duet Of Risk and Memory plunges Quattro Mani into constant peristaltic motion in music of often seething (and not a little disturbing) drama. Counting-out Rhyme is a delightful miniature, played with bright, skittish ebullience by cellist Ramakrishnan and Rieko Aizawa on piano. Excellent recorded sound adds to the pleasure of a disc that merits and rewards repeated listening.
– Michael Quinn, Classical Ear
Contemporary, abstract, somewhat tense works for strings and piano. Play!
– WRUV 90.1 Reviews
ARLENE SIERRA’S chamber music. A fresh breeze that blows new air through time-honored classical procedures and forms. Augmentation (expanding) and diminution (contracting) are old classical tricks that can take a wide variety of applications to music (and other art forms). For Sierra, the first sounds very conversational; the second chirps like birds. Miami-born (in 1970), now London-based, Sierra took her education and degrees at American universities and studied with some of our best-known composers. Previously, she had two orchestral CD releases for Bridge Records, and contributed to Cuatro Corridos, a chamber opera whose subject matter is human trafficking. Arlene Sierra, Vol. 3 includes two piano trios, the frequently performed Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013), inspired by the annual migration of monarch butterflies, and Truel (2004), a game-theory duel in three parts, plus Avian Mirrors (2013) for violin and cello, Counting-Out Rhyme (2002) for cello and piano and Of Risk and Memory (1997) for two pianos. Quattro Mani plays the last mentioned. Truel, at 20 minutes the longest piece on the CD, features the Horszowski Trio. Other musicians include violinist Nicola Benedetti, cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and pianist Alexei Grynyuk. Sierra has a long list of works of all kinds and enjoys an endless stream of commissions.
– Performing Arts Monterey Bay
MUSIC REVIEW: Standout classical CDs of 2018
American composer’s collection series on Bridge continues with some chamber settings. From the opening piano trio, “Butterflies Remember a Mountain,” these spare, elegant works draw in the listener. Like the best music, recognizable structures float by — Debussy, Webern. Like the best music, it sounds like an original voice too. Boston-area audiences heard a single work of Sierra’s last season with the BSO in 2017-18 ... This voice needs to be heard, regularly, repeatedly.
– Keith Powers, North Attleborough Free Press
Follow links to view the other discs in the series, Music of Arlene Sierra, Vol. 1, Game of Attrition: Arlene Sierra, Vol. 2, and Birds and Insects, Arlene Sierra, Vol. 4