On September 10, Congregation Beth Israel in Northwest Portland hosted the premiere of Deena T. Grossman’s work for flute, viola and cello Davening. The premiere was an album release party for her latest record, Thrice Burned Forest, featuring Davening, the title track, and Circular Bridge.

A prayer and a gift

First up at the concert was the world premiere of Davening, with a conversation beforehand by Grossman and Cantor Ida Rae Cahana. The origin of the Yiddish word is a bit unclear: online sources attribute it to everything from French to Aramaic. The theory Grossman and Cahana presented apropos of the music is that it derives from the Lithuanian word davn, meaning “gift.”

Ultimately the music was inspired by her childhood experiences hearing her grandfather’s morning prayers. Grossman gives this guidance for the performers in the program notes, and I assume it would apply to us listeners as well: 

A person who is davening, first and foremost, is connected to the expression of the prayer, the melody, the chant. The breath is integral and unforced. In other words, follow your breath to make this music your own.

The first movement was a solo piece for alto flute, performed by Zach Galatis. Galatis effectively used the low register with a breathy tone with a pleasant vibrato that filled the sanctuary. The movement was typical of Grossman’s restrained style, occasionally erupting into melismatic legato lines in the upper register before returning to the pensive opening motif, derived from a descending phrygian dominant scale.

A quick word on this scale. It appears all over the world, appearing in Arabic music as the Hijaz maqam; various Indian ragas such as the vakulabharanam; and in flamenco. The characteristic sound comes from the wide step between the second and third notes. You may also recognize the scale from Klezmer music, as it is the scale from which we get “Hava Nagila” and “Sha Shtil.” 

For the second movement, violist Amanda Grimm (principal violist for the Oregon Symphony) and cellist David Eby (who has performed with Pink Martini and the OSO) joined Galatis, re-orchestrating the opening motif as a three-part canon. The overall tone was dark and moody, guiding the audience deeper. The third movement, based on folk song “Avinu Malkeinu,” was an entrancing duet that used the open strings as drones beneath the melodies. The fourth movement was a “winding dance” that wove chromatic scales up and down. It was delicate and restrained, growing with exciting klezmer-like tempo changes. The final movement was called “wordless song,” opening with a viola solo, acting as a solid finale to the whole work. 

As a whole, Davening had the audience captivated and in a trance-like mood. It felt transportative. In between the two pieces, Lauren Goldberg from Columbia Riverkeeper (for whom Grossman is composer-in-residence) spoke about the work the organization has been doing lately. 

I have lamented before how rare it is to hear a repeated performance of a new work. I have reviewed Thrice Burned Forest before, and it was nice to be able to hear it again in a live setting. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the flute sextet had to be quickly re-arranged for a quintet as Amelia Lukas couldn’t make it. Thanks to some clever moving of notes and some quick instrument switches from the ensemble (especially Galatis), the performance went off without any snags. 

Compared to Davening, the character of Thrice Burned Forest was quite different. While Davening was intimate and a bit cerebral, Thrice Burned Forest was more expansive, with great contrasts in instrumental color throughout its single long movement nearing twenty minutes. The semi-improvised sections served as a lead-in for each solo, creating a cloudy texture before fading away into the distance. The whole work ends with a lilting arrangement of “Hashivenu” in D minor. The melody easefully climbs up and down, building in density from the lone bass flute and ending on a sorrowful piccolo note in its sweet middle-low register. 

Spiritual connection

In his recent review, Matthew Andrews commended the recording quality of Grossman’s last album, Becoming Durga, and the same is true for her latest. The instruments are well-balanced, there is a solid dynamic range, and the reverb is subtle but present. The production matches the tone of Grossman’s music: no tricks or frills. With three pieces totalling over an hour, the album is great meditative-close-listening music, afternoon-in-the-backyard music, or cooking-a-fancy-dinner music. 

I’ve said my piece on the music contained within Thrice Burned Forest in my review of the premiere last year, as well as above. But the experience of listening to the album is wholly different. The opening jet whistle and air sounds produce the most dramatic opener of the three compositions on Thrice Burned Forest. 

The recording of Davening on the record featured Martha Long on the flute part rather than Galatis. She was unable to perform at CBI, as she recently moved to Baltimore for a new job as the Baltimore Symphony’s Principal Flutist. It feels like Long’s performance, when compared to Galatis’ at the premiere, was more studious and controlled–though maybe that was the reverb inside CBI. Both offered brilliant performances in their own ways. 

The one piece on the album that wasn’t performed at the release party was Circular Bridge. Also composed for flute sextet, Circular Bridge takes the form of a series of sonic meditations a la Pauline Oliveros. With the instructions and basic musical material, the sextet crafts an engaging improvised performance. 

It is astounding what Grossman and the sextet are able to do with a mere six notes. From the first to the last track, the music grows and expands from the barest long tones to a vast melange of mock-bird calls, pentatonic motives, trills and extended techniques. Compared to the live performance, this one felt more intimate. When it premiered at the Leach Botanical Gardens, the flutes were scattered around the audience, sometimes quite far away. On the record, all six flutes work together and meld into a single unit more often. 

Throughout my reviews I make an effort to stress the unique qualities of live music when compared to recorded music. With recorded music omnipresent today via restaurant stereos, commercials, ball games and the like, some may see live music as an imperfect facsimile of a perfectly performed, mixed and mastered recording. But live music shouldn’t be seen as an imitation of the recording; but rather the recording as a sonic photograph of a musical event.

In some sense the music is “the same” at both the premiere show at Congregation Beth Israel and on the CD. The listening experience can be very different, however. For one, listening to a CD at home is usually solitary, while live music is communal. The release party had me surrounded by people I have never met, people with whom I may have little in common. But at least we share this moment of music-making, performance and spiritual connection.