Acclaim for Aaron Diehl’s Premiere of Tyshawn Sorey’s Piano Concerto “For Marilyn Crispell”

Review: Orchestra in extremes: Radical new concerto meets classic on rough draft
By David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“The quietest piano concerto imaginable met one of the louder, most unruly symphonies in the repertoire at Friday’s Philadelphia Orchestra concert — and both emerged alive and well.

Question is: Was any mutual revelation to be had at the Kimmel Center by pairing the world premiere by Tyshawn Sorey with an unmediated original edition of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 — each piece separated by 150 years? There was some overlap — though music/artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin gave such a smart, charming spoken introduction that you wanted to hear the ear-bending program, whether or not it made obvious sense.

Sorey, 45, is of the most honored composers of his generation (Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur fellowship, University of Pennsylvania faculty appointment) and thus has unspoken permission to take the Philadelphia Orchestra outside the symphonic mainstream. In contrast to the stark, emotionally direct “Cycles of My Being” (2018) — emblematic of the Black Lives Matter movement, written while Opera Philadelphia composer in residence — Sorey has cut a wide swath through the worlds of free-form jazz, alt-classical and left-behind modernists. Most recently, he has embraced the ethereal, trance-inducing music of Morton Feldman (1926-1987), adding his own harmonic richness in one of his strongest works to date, the hour-plus “Monochromatic Light (Afterlife).”

As with Feldman, Sorey’s new piece isn’t called a concerto; the dedication is also the title, For Marilyn Crispell, for Piano and Orchestra. My title would be American Haiku for Piano and Orchestra. The spare, meticulously composed piano writing was never far from the forefront, and given particular clarity by pianist Aaron Diehl‘s incredibly concise mode of expression. When oft-repeated simple motifs morphed into other ideas, the effect was momentous. The orchestra was mainly used for atmosphere, though nothing close to the Philadelphia sound was evident with timpani quietly rumbling, alto and bass flute used as a partly cloudy haze, and vibraphone framing the sound picture. Strings were heard in blocks of chords that stabilized this sensory deprivation experience.”

Critic’s Pick
Review: Tyshawn Sorey Unveils a Wondrous New Piano Concerto
By Seth Colter Walls, The New York Times

“The Sorey piece was a new piano concerto called “For Marilyn Crispell,” and it was the latest deceptively calm entry in his catalog of tribute pieces. His dedicatees are often teachers and collaborators — as is the case with Crispell, a composer of melodic originals and a force in the world of post-Cecil Taylor piano, thanks to improvised solos that can seem dense and dancing in equal measure. (She held the piano chair in Anthony Braxton’s classic quartet in the 1980s and ’90s; this century, Sorey put out an improvised duo album with her.) Friday’s premiere, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, solicited the talents of Aaron Diehl — a gifted pianist across genres who has also recently recorded in Sorey’s small groups — for the solo part. At first glance, Diehl’s roots-focused solo style — including excellent recitals of works by James P. Johnson — isn’t closely related to the more abstract side of Crispell’s catalog. But then, Sorey’s concerto didn’t really call for much straightforward improvisational fire.

…

In moments that were unshowy yet cadenza-like, Diehl only rarely strayed into suggestions of syncopated, two-handed momentum. Most often, he labored intensely over spare motifs, gradually bringing them into states of subtle reconfiguration. (Sorey is open to improvisation, though the program note indicated he didn’t want listeners getting too hung up on what was composed and what was not.) In multiple passages for the soloist and the orchestra, dissonances seemed to reference the atonality of Schoenberg and Webern (whose works Sorey has interpreted, as a percussionist). Sorey brought that across not with haute-European atonal alarm, but rather through textures of intimate balladry plied by American jazz ensembles old and new.

Diehl’s playing was so intensely restrained, it helped make the Philadelphia Orchestra forces come off as the piece’s more extroverted performers. A trio of percussionists were in complete lock step with Diehl; the pitched elements in their collective tool kit had them often seeming to extend the piano’s range. And though the strings were pared back in number, all the players brought fine focus to Sorey’s steely, chromatic designs. It was a shame when a phone did go off — loudly, during one of Diehl’s most exposed and delicate moments. But that undesirable interruption had a way of pointing out how gripping this unusually unhurried music was proving to be. And one great explosion in the orchestral part toward the end showed that the orchestra’s players had maintained their attention to Sorey’s variegated universe of surprise throughout.”