Michael Jon Fink’s Celesta Suite on Cold Blue

from the Amazon.com Web page

This coming Friday Cold Blue Music will be releasing two new recordings. One of these is entitled simply Celesta; and, true to its name, it consists entirely of a twelve-movement suite for solo celesta composed and performed by Michael Jon Fink. As usual, Amazon.com is processing pre-orders through its Web page for this album.

I first encountered Fink on an earlier Cold Blue album. He was one of four composers providing new works for clarinetist Marty Walker. The other three were John Luther Adams, Rick Cox, and Jim Fox, the latter being the founder of the Cold Blue Music label. I later learned that this was one of eight earlier albums presenting Fink’s work prior to the release of Celesta.

I should probably begin with a personal impression. As might be guessed, my wife hears a lot of music coming from the room in our condo where I do my work. Shortly after the first gesture of the first movement of Fink’s suite, she came to the room to ask what she had just heard. When I explained that it was a suite for solo celesta, she observed that she thought she had heard gamelan music!

I offer this anecdote as a way of observing that the overall range of sonorities of the family of metallophones (regardless of structure or performance technique) is relatively limited. This may be why, when any composer other than Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is involved, the instrument tends to be used for sonorous coloration, rather than extended melodic solo work. Fink is clearly aware of these limitations and compensates for them through the diversity of the phrase structures deployed across his suite’s twelve movements.

He is also aware that an instrument whose most salient property is that of the lengthy reverberation of each of its metallic bars is not an instrument disposed to polyphony. Thus, Fink’s primary medium of expression is accompanied melody. His accompanying harmonies can be imaginatively rich, but he knows how to keep them from overwhelming his melodic lines. The result is that each of the twelve movements establishes its own unique character, and none of them extends the development of that character over a particularly long durations. Each movement says what it has to say and then steps back to allow its successor to do the same.

It will not surprise me if I encounter this album on one of Stephen Hill’s Hearts of Space broadcasts. My wife enjoys the calming effect of his programming at the end of a difficult day. However, while Hill seems to be interested in providing what might be called “new-age mood music,” there is no question in my mind that Fink’s work holds up to attentive listening. True, the listener needs to be aware of more subtleties than might be encountered on other recordings; but the overall impact is one in which focused attention is well rewarded.