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For the complete liner notes that accompany this cd, click here.
To her credit, Leach offers a spiritual recharge without the
banalities of the new mysticism.
Mary Jane Leach explores the physicality of sound, working very carefully with the timbres of instruments, creating combination, difference, and interference tones. The use of sound phenomena, however, is only a means to an end, the ultimate goal being musicality.
Early music, with its imitative polyphony and modal harmonies, is the primary
source of inspiration for the compositions on this disc, four of which are
part of an ongoing project focusing on the myth of Ariande--"Ariadne's Lament"
(for a capella women's chorus), "Song of Sorrows" (for mixed choir), "O
Magna Vasti Creta" (for women's chorus and string quartet) and "Call of
the Dance" (for soprano soloist and women's chorus). Three of the pieces
draw their material directly from Renaissance works: "Ariadne's Lament"
and "Song of Sorrows" from Monteverdi's "Lamento d'Arianna", and "Tricky
Pan" (for solo countertenor and taped tenor/countertenor) from "Tres Gentil
Cuer" by the 14th century composer Solage. The languages Leach sets--Italian,
early French, ancient Greek, Latin, and Cretan--also evoke a sense of connection
to a remote past.
In contrast to most of her contemporaries, Leach's music is from the
aesthetic which favors prolongation, resonance, long statements of subtly
varied persistence. In that sense, her music is both easy to follow and
mellifluously unpredictable. She has a careful ear for pacing and structural
unfolding, often building her pieces to ardent expressive arrivals. Past
and present meld in a music of ethereal and limpid beauty.