Birds & Insects
Arlene Sierra (b. 1970)
Birds and Insects, Book I
Birds and Insects, Book II
Birds and Insects, Book III
Steven Beck (piano Books I & II), Sarah Cahill (piano Book III)
rec. 2023-24, South Salem, NY
Bridge Records 9599 [56]

Arlene Sierra’s work has been well served by the Bridge Record label, with a first volume covering chamber and vocal music (review), another with her chamber opera Cuatro Corridos, and a further volume of chamber works, Butterflies Remember a Mountain. This latter title has two reviews on a well-known online retail outlet: “Another one of the world’s great talents. She is so under rated. A truly great artist. Lovely album (five stars)”, followed by “Difficile (three stars)”, which sort of sums up an average listener’s probable response to something like Birds & Insects.

Whether a composer is under or over-rated is a question for posterity, but I think it’s safe to say that fans of Einaudi are unlikely to warm to Sierra’s style. She is by no means wilfully abrasive, but these pieces are more about sonority than tonality, and they certainly go nowhere near any kind of comforting lyricism, if that is what you are looking for. One of the fascinations here is how distinctive two composer’s approach to birdsong can be, as none of this music could ever be confused with anything by Olivier Messieaen, the birdsong composer of reference for the 20^th century.

Sierra has a long track record in music inspired by nature, and Dr David Beard’s booklet notes for this release point out that, rather than developing variations on birdsong, she places it “as if under a microscope, examining its abstract beauty through a focus on concise, defining elements or ‘building blocks’… In this way, Sierra avoids any Romanticising of what the bird song is or does.” This scientific approach allied to the training our ears have undergone through listening to Messiaen might help orientate the mind towards the character of this music, but then, oh dear – feeling one has made some progress, one finds the piece was about an insect rather than a bird, so any foundations based on preconceptions need to be applied with caution.

Birds and Insects was composed over a period of two decades, and consists of three books of five movements, the last of which forms a kind of grand finale to each book, being longer in duration than the rest. There are some movements with pre-recorded birdsong, such as the Hermit Thrush in book two, with the piano and bird in conversation and counterpoint with each other. As you might expect, the high register of the piano is often extensively explored, contrasting with dynamic extremes and punchy low notes such as with the Black and White Warbler, or creating atmosphere as in the repeated highs and long lows in Thermometer Cricket. Tawny Owls as the penultimate piece in book 3 is another piece with pre-recorded birds, creating a striking nocturnal feel alongside the pedal-rich soft chords of the piano.

This is music that you need to hear for yourself. All of the performances are excellent to my ears, and very well recorded. Arlene Sierra’s gift is unquestionably brilliant, but even after hearing them many times these pieces seem to inhabit a strangely insular world. I am as intrigued by the abstract and the enigmatic as much as anyone, but in this case I couldn’t escape the constant question of ‘what do you want to tell me?’ There is a tension here, in that these pieces either have the nature of private art, or that of public art being displayed behind a screen: a quality of work that I can try to appreciate but for some elusive reason will never entirely understand. It somehow has the feel of hiding untapped resources – a buttoned-up quality that can be admired from afar but will never quite ‘let you in’. If it didn’t reach out and grab me quite as I had hoped that’s probably my fault and not the composer’s, and I am sure there are plenty of people who will disagree with me and thank goodness for that. As I say, you will have to hear Birds and Insects to make up your own mind.                       

Dominy Clements

Contents
Birds and Insects, Book I
Sarus Crane
Cornish Bantam
Cicada Sketch
Titmouse
Scarab
Birds and Insects, Book II
Painted Bunting
Hermit Thrush
Black and White Warbler
Thermometer Cricket
Bobolink
Birds and Insects, Book III
Lovely Fairywren
Canyon Wren
Great Grig
Tawny Owls
Troupial