Turning elements from “Chad Gadya” interleaved with Rosh Hashanah themes in a trombone brass quartet canonic segment is only one of the many interesting twists of the compositions of Matthew H. Fields recording Kabala. Fields has several ‘classical’ music pieces all with extremely unusual uses of Jewish thematic content. The above description comes from “Call of the Shofar” (1992) which is set for tenor trombones, and bass trombone. And I’ll bet you’ve never heard a carillon performing the Sh’ma as the base tune (cantus firmus) of a toccata. “A carillon is a frame of beams and girder to which 23 or more bells are bolted” …so it’s something like playing a xylophone and organ at the same time, only bells ringing…of course that’s not the end… Then there’s Kabala (1993) which is an intriguing composition for clarinet, viola and piano, and a mood piece I liked a lot for it’s mystery and lyrical qualities. This is all available on MMC 2087 Recording http://www.mmcrecordings.com/detail.asp?id=87. To learn more about Matthew Field, visit the composer’s website:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields/complist.html This is all pretty good music and especially for those who are fans of new compositions that’s not too dissonant or pointillistic, but has strong interest, with an eye on beauty of sound, you will defintiely enjoy this composer’s music.