MEC XTET

The name of Bright Sheng has come into circulation lately. Born in Shanghai in
1955, he came to New York in 1982, has had performances and commissions by
orchestras here and abroad, is currently composer-in-residence at the Chicago
Lyric Opera, and assisted Leonard Bernstein on that composer’s “Arias and
Barcarolles.” At 35, he has made his mark.
At Monday night’s concert by XTET {cq}, the splendid aggregation of freelance
musicians with a special bent toward new music, Bright Sheng’s “Three Poems
from the Sung Dynasty” was by all odds the evening’s knockout piece. Three
ancient poems are set by the composer into a chamber ensemble brilliantly used.
The atmosphere is less Oriental, more universal. Reminiscences of Stravinsky
and Boulez float across the horizon. The songs were gorgeously sung by Dasietta
{cq} Kim, and beautifully framed by the ensemble under Donald Crockett, in 20-
or-so minutes of magical, strong music.
The Bright Sheng songs, and lesser works by David Ocker and Donald R. Davis —
most of it busy-busy writing without much focus — were framed by two
“contemporary” works of the past. Stravinsky’s amusing cycle of pseudo-
folksongs called “Pribaoutki” (also magically sung by Dasietta Kim) came at
the start. Aaron Copland’s Sextet of 1937 sent the crowd home happy.
An extraordinary work, that Copland. He wrote it as a “portable” version of
his 1933 “Short Symphony,” partly out of justified fear that the orchestral
version might be too difficult for conductors and orchestras of the time.
(Serge Koussevitzky and Leopold Stokowski had both scheduled and then canceled
performances, probably for that very reason.)
Today this music arouses fewer fears, although it’s interesting to note that
there is only one recording of the symphony in the current catalog — an
excellent one, under Dennis Russell Davies — compared to two of the sextet.
Still, the daring is as obvious in the work now as when it was new: most of all
the driving, quirky motion (nicely described in Roger Lebow’s program notes as
“street-wise, jazz-besotted rhythms”). The slow movement, with those arching,
intense melodies that came to represent Copland’s best melodic style, is pure
and beautiful, perhaps even more so in the chamber version.
An exhilarating ending, then, to a concert with many rewarding moments. In a
city well-stocked with skillful new-music ensembles, XTET ranks near the
top.