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String Quartet No. 1 Flute Sonota.
Out on a Limb. Piano Trio 1999
o Yuval Waldman (vn); Robin Zeh (vn); Olga Terlitsky
(va); Chagit Glaser (vc) Lauren Weiss (fl);
Paul Posnak (pn) o CENTAUR CRC 2739 (57:15)
I
interviewed Steve Perillo (b.1 1955) in the
July/August 2002 issue of Fanfare. For those
who hadn’t come aboard yet, a brief recap is in
order. Readers in the northeastern United State
might well know of “Perillo Tours,” a family
business that has helped American tourists visit
Italy for three generations. As Centaur’s booklet
notes put it, “Perillo is a composter by night and
the president of an international tour company…by
day.” Upon admission into Boston University’s
School of Music, he studied with composer David Del
Tredici, who encouraged him to write tonally, using
harmonic techniques in use during the Classical and
Romantic periods. It is no surprise then, that his
music is approachable. In the composer’s words, “My
music is designed to transport you into my world
upon one listening.” This is Perillo’s fourth
commercial CD to be released by Centaur. The first,
“Requiem for a Goldfish,” came out in 1999, and the
second and third, Perillo’s Magnificat and Other
Choral Masterpieces” and “Perillo’s Napoli!” both
came out in 2001.
Perillo’s music made a good impression on me in
2002, and I have no reason to revise my opinion
almost four years later. In fact, there seems to be
more substance to his music this time around—not
only does it still taste good, now it even sticks to
your ribs! This isn’t just a developmental issue,
though, because these are not new works. The Flute
Sonata was composed in 1995, the Piano Trio in 1999
(obviously), and the String Quartet in 2001. (I
can’t tell you about Out on a Limb, a work
for solo violin, as it is not listed on Mr.
Perillo’s web site. Centaur’s unhelpful booklet has
nothing at all to say about the music on this CD.)
There were many moments in the String Quartet when
you could have convinced me that I was listening to
Shostakovich, and that’s high praise indeed.
Perillo can’t quite sustain the music’s quality,
inspiration or developmental course over 20 minutes,
but he and the Russian master both speak in a voice
that is alternately elegiac and rough, and both mean
what they say. The Flute Sonata begins playfully,
but with an off-kilter quality one might associate
with Prokofiev or Poulenc. The middle movement is a
gloomy waltz that takes off on a soaring melodic
flight as it progresses. The finale is a brief,
brilliant Rondo. Again, development isn’t Perillo’s
forte, but his movements are short, so structural
weaknesses don’t have enough time to become critical
failures.
I
may be way off base on this, but I hear allusions to
lullabies in Out on a Limb (“when the bough
breaks, the cradle will fall”). The title might
simply be an allusion to the demands that the work
places on the violinist. Perhaps both
interpretations are correct. At the outset, the
music is almost bluesy, but it soon gets spiky, even
aggressive. Perillo keeps the tension going over
the work’s seven-minute length. I liked the Piano
Trio best of all. Again, Shostakovich’s own Piano
Trio No. 2 might have been an inspiration, even down
to the suggestions of klezmer music in the
concluding Rondo. As with all the music on this CD,
a high value is placed on tunefulness, but there is
no sense of pandering to the listeners.
Centaur’s presentation is sloppy. The notes don’t
even tell us which performers are playing what. In
most cases, it’s obvious, but there’s no way to tell
who is the violinist in the Piano Trio and in Out
on a Limb. Even the disc’s total playing time
is shortchanged by almost eight minutes on the inlay
card. Fortunately, the performances all seem
excellent, though Weiss’s flute tone probably would
have been more attractive and not so buzzy if it
hadn’t been so closely miked. (The CD sounds as if
it were recorded in one of those tiny rehearsal
rooms found in conservatories.)
Perillo deserves a big pat on the back for this
one. He is a real composer, not a dabbler with a
wad of dollars. If he could devote himself to
composition full-time, who knows what he’d
accomplish? We need more composers like him.
— by Raymond Tuttle |
