John Aylward: Angelus
New Focus Recordings

As compelling as Angelus (2014-18) sounds in this forty-three-minute iteration by the Ecce ensemble, the background to this monodrama by American composer John Aylward (b. 1980) is as fascinating. The project's genesis originated in a 2014 trip to Europe he undertook with his mother, who hadn't been back since fleeing from Germany as a refugee during WWII. Inspired by a viewing of Paul Klee's Angelus Novus at Paris's Centre Pompidou, Aylward discovered text by Walter Benjamin about the 1920 monoprint (which the writer once owned, in fact) that the composer then set to music, as he also did with extracts of writings by Schopenhauer, Jung, Plato, Adrienne Rich, and others. In grappling with existential questions, the ten-part vocal chamber work, in Aylward's words, constitutes “an exploration of life felt through the lenses of various cultural histories [and] a kind of treatise on the human experience.” Stated otherwise, his piece aspires to examine human experience through the filters of physical, spiritual, and psychological prisms. The leap from Klee's angel to the weighty thematic material of Angelus derives from Benjamin, who regarded the image as the “Angel of History,” one bearing witness to the horrors of the past and the destruction wrought by humanity.

For this recording, Ecce ensemble conductor Jean-Phillipe Wurtz puts Nina Guo (voice), Emi Ferguson (flutes), Hassan Anderson (oboe), Barret Ham (clarinets), Pala Garcia (violin), John Popham (cello), and Sam Budish (percussion) through their paces. All are integral to the presentation and acquit themselves superbly, but it's Guo who deserves special mention. Angelus demands so much from its singer, who's at once vocalist, speaker, raconteur, and witness, one imagines her both lusting after the part and experiencing no small amount of trepidation in taking it on. With so many vocal techniques called upon, the work becomes an incredible test of the singer's range, but it's a test Guo clearly passes. She repeatedly alternates between monotone recitation and theatrical outpourings, her shifts precisely attuned to the music. Hear, for example, how fluidly she segues, in the Nietzsche-based third movement, from an impassively delivered spoken part (“We must value the force…”) to singing in the upper-register (“… that forms, shapes, simplifies, …”), such transitions repeated seamlessly throughout. Or, in the fifth part “Supreme Triumph” (its text from D. H. Lawrence's Apocalypse), consider the various vocal treatments the word “now” receives—the first spoken, the second shouted, the third whispered, the fourth leaping high—as well as the equal degree of attention given the other text in the movement. Guo's performance in “Anima,” from whispers and dry utterances to stutters and tongue flutters, is remarkable, as is Ferguson's flute playing in the way it mirrors the singer with extended treatments of its own.

The vocal dimension is central in another way too. Aylward fashions the instrumental writing so that it follows, accents, and complements the singer's lines, with the composer acutely sensitive to the timbral properties of the instruments. The result is gripping music of a high order, and dense too despite being performed by a chamber group of modest size. Consistent with the texts, Aylward's music invites close listening to appreciate how carefully the vocal-and-instrument configurations have been devised. It's as common for Guo to be accompanied by a single instrument, be it cello, oboe, flute, or percussion, as the full ensemble. The work's climax arrives at the end of its penultimate part, “The Wing,” which otherwise presents Guo's rendering of Plato's Phaedrus with a virtuosic violin display by Garcia as accompaniment. The final movement, a subdued treatment—welcome after the preceding part's frenzy—of excerpts from Weldon Kees' A Distance from the Sea, provides a satisfying resolution, Guo musing calmly against a dreamlike backdrop of alto flute, clarinet, and vibraphone.

Angelus possesses no formal ties to any particular tradition or school, but its expressive stylistic character and spoken-and-sung vocal dimension suggests it would naturally appeal to devotees of Berg and Schoenberg. The manner by which Aylward conjoins his vocal and instrumental elements in the work sometimes calls to mind Berg's handling of orchestration in Wozzeck and Lulu—a comparison any living composer, I'm guessing, would be happy to accept.

July 2020