Daniel Pinkham was a remarkable composer, performer, and individual. The most public and popular side of Pinkham's creative work located outside of his activities as a performer and recording artist was in his sacred music for chorus and compositions for organ, noted for their ease, adaptability, appeal, and tinge of challenge. That Pinkham also wrote copious amounts of music for orchestra, chamber music, film scores, and even electronic music are among aspects of his activity less known to the public. The sheer number of pieces that Pinkham conceived, executed, and published for almost every conceivable combination is staggering. In his last years, Pinkham worked very closely with the young piano duo of
Sally Pinkas and
Evan Hirsch, who have recorded two discs of Pinkham's piano music, both together and separately, for Arsis; this is the second volume.
All of the music recorded here was composed in Pinkham's last years; the duet October Music was premiered just four months before he died, his liner notes for this album written one month before, and his death occurred literally the day before the first recording session that produced it. That
Pinkas and
Hirsch were able, under such circumstances, to pull off such fine performances in the face of what surely must have been genuine grief after such a long period of close collaboration with, and worry about, Pinkham, is impressive. Inside the booklet there is a photograph of Pinkham posing with
Pinkas and
Hirsch taken in his last days; he seems optimistic in spirit, but is skeletal in frame, almost like Bela Lugosi -- Pinkham looks terrible. That he continued to compose in such physical condition is an achievement in itself; a doctor wouldn't have been blamed for suggesting that he not bother.
Nevertheless, Pinkham did bother; should you? By all reasons, yes; although this collection is made up of often very short pieces, it seems all of a piece. Musings (2006) is in a way an apt title for the whole, as they are the final musings of a masterful and very experienced composer working out concepts while aware he will not be revisiting them. These pieces have a sense of finality, but he still appears to be moving forward in his thinking; the language here is a bit tougher than what we usually associate with Pinkham. His idiom owes much to other music long known to him -- French literature,
Ives' Concord Sonata, neo-classic gestures, tango rhythms -- but all of this is transformed through Pinkham's unique prism. He has a tendency not to weigh ideas in favor of one direction or another and enjoys the friction that results from this equanimity of disparate elements. Although two of the duet sets here are intended for young pianists, they sound no less technically complex than the other music heard, though they are doubtless easier to play as that is their purpose.
Pinkas and
Hirsch play these works, and all the others, with a sense of gravity and dignity, and Arsis' Daniel Pinkham: Piano Music, Vol. 2, is a very moving experience. Concerning American modernism, experiencing these last entries in Pinkham's worklist are almost like having a conversation with an Old Testament prophet.