On track: Still at top of her game
5:00AM
Thursday June 05, 2008
By William Dart
Flautist Alexa Still may have returned to Sydney after her Chamber Music New Zealand tour with Roger Chase and Yolanda Kondonassis and her stint at the Taupo Festival, but she has left us with a splendid new CD in which she is partnered by Stephen Gosling.
Still needs little introduction and American-based pianist Gosling visited us in 2004 to premiere the John Psathas Concerto.
He was also a decidedly hip presence on Psathas' Rhythm Spike and Fragments albums.
Carl Vine's 1992 Sonata would be the major attraction for many on the new CD.
It is a sparkle - two outer movements bubble with minimalist glee while the Australian composer's central slow movement reveals Still's expert tonal control and Gosling's ability to explore the full colour range of his instrument.
Later on, Still acknowledges her new home with a luminous account of Goldfish through summer rain by Australian composer Anne Boyd.
Inevitably, the duo dallies on the lighter side for some of the selections, with mixed results. I found the Jewish-tinged lyricism of Paul Schoenfield's Achat Sha'alti a mite kitsch and Ian Clarke's Orange Dawn almost toppled into New Age atmospherics' evoking an East African sunrise.
Humour saves the day. Dan Welcher's All the Words to All the Songs dips into the songbooks of Elvis Presley and others as a tribute to the late Vincent Hammond, pianist and popular song buff. Even if you remain stony-faced at the King's I Can't Help Falling in Love with You slipping and sliding from key to key, you will be won over by Still's burnished tone.
Simplicity wins out in three Songs without Words by Paul Ben-Haim, one of Israel's great composers, while Joseph Schwanter's Soar is a 95-second blast of hi-energy virtuosity.
Best of all, Still and Gosling add two pieces to the growing discography of Tatar composer Sofia Gubaidulina.
While an early Allegro rusticana has the stamp of the sardonic Shostakovich all over it, Sounds of the Forest is more intriguing in its musical idiom. Trills and gruff piano murmurs suggest primeval mysteries in Gubaidulina's forest, a landscape in which one just might be able to imagine the reedy breathings of the accordion-like bayan.
* Alexa Still and Stephen Gosling (Koch CD 7658)
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