#El 3 the talos principle images full

Some composers took risks, as Marcos Balter did when punctuating the more abstruse edges of his piece, “False Memories,” with select, dreamy sequences of jazz-chord harmony. That was the case with Pamela Z’s “Thank You So Much,” which relied on her practice of looping, editing and phasing samples of someone’s recorded voice - here, Tendler’s - to create motifs. Throughout, you could hear some artists plying familiar ground with assurance. If any piece appeared less distinct than what had come before, that was largely on account of the strong standard set by this cohort. Just as I was fully appreciating the dancing qualities of Angélica Negrón’s aesthetic in “You Were My Age,” the rug was pulled, giving way to the melodic gifts of John Glover’s “In the City of Shy Hunters.” When Christopher Cerrone’s hypnotic and meditative “Area of Refuge” ended abruptly, without the kind of closing, inventive flourishes I’ve come to treasure in his music, I glanced at the program notes and learned that it was written shortly after his own father’s unexpected death. It was a joy to hear so much good music from so many contemporary artists - and in such quick succession “Inheritances” moves fast, and without an intermission. Call it a small masterpiece - a term you might also apply to Timo Andres’s “An Open Book,” which moves between contrapuntal strictures and more free-associative lines with casual discipline.

#El 3 the talos principle images full

So far, so typical, you might think, at least when it comes to post-John Cage experimentalism.īut before long, Wollschleger’s piece works a gorgeous changeup by allowing its more striated tones to flower into full motivic passages, beautiful on their own terms even as the overall harmonic world remains somber. In its opening bars, Scott Wollschleger’s “Outsider Song” includes sustained-tone airs of mourning, stark prepared-piano pitches and bursts of extended technique. Other composers reveled in similar ambiguity: music that suggested some arc of understanding, while also observing the persistent notes of friction in a relationship. But the score isn’t a simplistic journey toward acceptance: Some of the initial mechanistic churning returns at the close. Missy Mazzoli’s “Forgiveness Machine” opens with nervy, high-register oscillations that give way to grave bass interjections, before making space for a more relaxed treatment of melody in its middle section. Nearly every one of the 16 composers on the bill responded to Tendler’s prompt with an A-game effort. It was presented in collaboration with Liquid Music, the group that helped the pianist develop the show over multiple years. But Tendler’s project, “Inheritances,” registered as emotionally involving - a musically rewarding and tightly plotted 80-minute set when he performed the collection on Saturday at the 92nd Street Y, New York.