“Poetry in Motion” = Works of ALBERT, DEBUSSY, LOCKLAIR & Others – Fire Pink Trio – MSR Classics

by | Jan 27, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

Flute, viola, and harp sound dull? Then try this!
“Poetry in Motion” = ADRIENNE ALBERT: Doppler Effect; DAN LOCKLAIR: Dream Steps; DEBUSSY: Flute, Viola, and Harp Sonata; MANUAL MORENO-BUENDIA: Suite Popular Espanola; SONNY BURNETTE: Cruisin’ with the Top Down – Fire Pink Trio – MSR Classics MS 1511, 63:08 [Distr. by Albany] ****:

This is a wonderful collection of flute, viola, and harp pieces by the North Carolina-based Fire Pink Trio (named for a North American wildflower covering mountains in the spring). The program is of course anchored around the Debussy standard Sonata, played here with a pointed obsession for the particular and often peculiar sonorities that so attracted the composer. Doppler Effect is a curiously non-technical sounding work despite its linkage with the acoustical phenomenon derived by the Austrian mathematician Christian Doppler, the changing pitch of an otherwise constant sound as it approaches and recedes. The short work is quite stunning in its six minute flurry of activity.

Equally stunning is North Carolina composer Dan Locklair’s Dream Steps. Based loosely on inspiration derived from poet Langston Hughes’s Lenox Avenue Mural, the piece gives us what by now has become an anticipated elegance that graces all of Locklair’s work. The colorful inclinations of the Moreno-Buendia Suite seem to lean towards Falla’s Spanish impressionistic-mystical musings, but then return just as suddenly to a type of Iberian neo-classicism, folkloric, tuneful, and affecting.
Finally, Sonny Burnette’s Cruisin’ with the Top Down winds things up with a none-too-serious ride through what feels like an open air sunny day in the country, not too hot and not too cold, pleasure-inducing and just plain melodic.

Watson Hall at the North Carolina School of the Arts is the scene for this recording effort, and the sound is vivid and quite becoming to the ensemble. The three ladies play with a lot of style, warmth, and passion in a program of genuine attraction.

—Steven Ritter

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