Bridge of Light
Keith Jarrett describes his pieces as "prayers that beauty may remain perceptible," and indeed he seems to have written exactly what his ear and heart told him. The music is peaceful, lyrical, pastoral, sometimes mournful, sometimes dancelike, often devotional. It spins out melodies in long silken threads, without real form or development, shaped only by rising and abating intensity. Its harmonies are firmly based in tonality, and there are hardly any dissonances. It could have been composed in an earlier century, but far from being derivative, its very lack of self-conscious striving for "style" gives it originality. The orchestral sound has a natural richness without gimmicky effects; the writing for the solo instruments is wonderfully idiomatic.The Elegy for Violin and Strings, written for Jarrett's maternal Hungarian grandmother, is somber, intense, with a gypsy flavor, and fluctuates between major and minor. The Violin and Piano Sonata has five contrasting movements, two of them dances, one Spanish, one half-Spanish, half-Oriental, both with an ostinato rhythm in the bass; the rest are singing and lyrical. Michelle Makarski plays both with a lovely pure tone and great nobility of expression. The Adagio for Oboe and Strings is pastoral but somewhat contrapuntal; Marcia Butler's full, languid tone both blends and contrasts with the strings. "Bridge of Light" for Viola and Orchestra has a chordal, hymnlike quality and colorful orchestration; the viola merges into and emerges from the texture, standing out with no apparent effort. Patricia McCarty, who commissioned and premiered the piece, plays it beautifully, with warm, loving tenderness; the orchestra is excellent.--Edith Eisler