Dominant Curve
- Brooklyn Rider
- In a Circle Records
The three new pieces on this album from the New York-based string quartet Brooklyn Rider do an intriguing dance around the two older ones (Claude Debussy's Quartet in G minor and an arrangement of John Cage's In a Landscape). Achille's Heel, by violinist Colin Jacobsen, engages in a direct four-movement dialogue with Debussy that pays him the compliment of almost never mimicking him. Kojiro Umezaki's (Cycles) what falls must rise is full of auditory depictions of birds and breezes (assisted by shakuhachi and electronics) and a clarity of attitude that Debussy would have understood. Some post-Debussyan touches emerge also in Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky's …al niente. The Cage arrangement is beautifully cosmic and simple, and there are lovely episodes in the quartet's performance of Debussy, though the opening movement feels stiff.
Brooklyn Rider plays the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto Tuesday night.