Short review from 21st Century Music

> DAVID CLEARY
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> Boston Microtonal Society presents a 72nd-birthday celebration in honor of Joe Maneri and Ezra Sims. January 16, Killian Hall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
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> The Boston Microtonal Society presented a 72nd birthday bash in honor of the city�s resident grand old men of microtonality, Joe Maneri and Ezra Sims. The concert provided an excellent overview of these composers' unique and wonderful portfolios. Especially notable was how natural and unforced the pitch languages sounded; one never thought "out of tune" or "weird."
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> Sims's compositions were all splendid listens, and Quintet (1987) for clarinet and strings is one of his finest efforts. The work's four movements are by turns percolating, expressive, energetic, and hushed. Careful craftsmanship, effective scoring, and an excellent dramatic sense can be numbered among the piece's many attributes. Violin and cello pairings sometimes sound thin and characterless, but Duo (1997) nicely avoids any such problems. The string writing is toothsome and sonorous, never bland or stodgy. Flight (1989) for flute and tape shows that Sims composes equally well in an electronic medium. Here, the tape part plays like a "super-organ" -- strongly pitch-centered rather than effect-laden, though timbrally colorful in the manner of organ stop pulling. The flute writing is most grateful and contains subtle, fetching melodic material.
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> In contrast to the often natty clarity of his colleague's offerings, Maneri's works tended to be more rawboned and heart-on-the-sleeve, though they proved to be equally wonderful hearings. Ephphatha (1971) was the first microtonal piece written by this composer. Dynamic, brash, and forceful with energy to burn, it's also skillfully paced and well orchestrated for its unusual grouping of piano, clarinet, trombone, and tuba -- a radiant work. Equally novel is Feast of St. Luke (1988), scored for two pianos tuned one quarter-tone apart and performed by a single player. This large, ambitious composition tends to chase one hand immediately after the other (each hand on a different keyboard), occasionally speaking in an echo-like manner. But its rather single-minded gestural sense is put in service to a nicely timed, well-wrought overall sense of shape. And the sound world here is very attractive, the pianos' heavily pedaled pitches often suggesting bells (a notion further !
reinforced by the non-equal-temper!
ed partials that often fill the air in performance). The worthy soprano/tenor saxophone duo Khotlyn (1999) suggests non-Western liturgical chant with its ritualistic sounding vocal line and exotic text. And Sharafuddin b Yah Ya Maneri, Makhdum ul-Mulk (1995) is a soulful, rhapsodic pleasure, a solo work playable by either contrabass or flute (the former version was given).
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> Two delightful solo occasional pieces were also presented, each performed by its respective composer. Study after Ezra Sims (1995) for cello, by Arnold Friedman, is a ternary work based on the pitch techniques found in Sims's Quintet, while Preface and Echo Verse for Joe Maneri (2000) for two pianos/one player, by John McDonald, is a reply of sorts to Feast of St. Luke, a two-movement etude set that explores broken near-octaves and echo effects.
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> Many of the performances were impressive: McDonald's yeoman two-piano turn on Feast, Sue-Ellen Herschman-Tcherepnin's fine fluting in Flight, Chris Burns's excellent contrabass playing in Sharafuddin, and the stunning presentation by the fivesome that gave Sims's Quintet.
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Joseph Pehrson