Ensemble Modern II

On the second evening of its showcase of the works of Ruth Crawford Seeger, the Ensemble Modern from Frankfurt presents some of her large-cast ensemble pieces. Following a musical reflection on Charles Ives’s “Central Park in the Dark” by the US composer Katherine Balch, the programme includes Ruth Crawford Seeger’s highly poetic “Music for Small Orchestra”, that is introduced by a contemplative and introspective opening movement in the style of Ives’s Park portrait. It culminates in a rousing finale that does full justice to the composer’s marking “In roguish humour.” There is also a chance to hear “Rissolty, Rossolty”, composed for CBS in 1941, which reveals traces of Ruth Crawford Seeger’s work researching folk music, though the composer repeatedly juggles numerous folk themes simultaneously, layering them in an ambitious polyphony.  This second concert by the Ensemble Modern again juxtaposes Ruth Crawford Seeger’s remarkable oeuvre with music by the Cuban-American composer and conductor Tania León, whose consciously original works contain resonances of many diverse traditions. Her five-movement orchestral piece “Ritmicas” lives up to its title as a “rainbow of polyrhythmic inventions” (León) is woven through the entire work: music that was inspired by the Cuban composer, violinist and conductor Amadeo Roldan, who composed the first symphonic pieces with Afro-Cuban percussion in 1930.