Danielpour’s “Mosaic” of Pandemic Life

from the Amazon.com Web page for the album being discussed

This Friday Supertrain Records will release An American Mosaic, the latest solo album of performances by pianist Simone Dinnerstein. The album is devoted entirely to music by Richard Danielpour. The title composition is a suite of fifteen miniatures inspired by living under pandemic conditions. It is followed by solo piano transcriptions of three movements by Johann Sebastian Bach, the chorale “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” from the BWV 244 setting of the Passion text from the Gospel of Matthew, the final chorus of BWV 244, “Wir setzen, uns mit Tränen nieder,” and, between those two selections, the “Agnus Dei” aria from the BWV 232 setting of the Mass ordinary in the key of B minor. As usual, Amazon.com is processing pre-orders for this new release.

The An American Mosaic suite was commissioned by the Oregon Bach Festival (OBF). Dinnerstein gave the premiere performance this past December 6 from her home in Brooklyn, streamed online for a virtual OBF concert. Thus, it would be fair to say that the music was composed on the basis of the first half-year of pandemic conditions.

I have to say that I have acquired a taste for what I have previously called “miniaturist rhetoric,” influenced particularly by Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 17 Sarcasms and his subsequent Opus 22 Visions fugitives. As a result, I found that, as a listener, I could easily adjust to Danielpour’s rhetorical strategies. It was only after my initial listening experience that I learned the circumstances under which these miniatures were created.

The pandemic was particularly stressful for Danielpour. As he wrote in his note for the accompanying booklet, he is asthmatic. As a result, during the first wave of the pandemic, his pulmonologist warned him that, were he to contract the COVID virus, his chances of survival would be about 30%. As might be guessed, the stress of that warning brought about insomnia. His booklet note observed:

The only thing that was able to relax me enough to sleep (no amount of medication would do the trick) was listening to Simone Dinnerstein’s Bach recordings.

Nevertheless, there is little sense of personal stress in the fifteen movements of An American Mosaic. Danielpour’s intention was to commemorate different segments of the American population that had been particularly influenced by the pandemic, such as doctors, parents, children, front line workers, caretakers, and those who have lost their lives to the virus. While many of the movements amount to moments of sober reflection, there are occasional outbursts of enthusiasm, such as in the “Journalists, Poets, & Writers” movement. These musical portraits are framed by a “Prologue” and an “Epilogue,” along with two “Interlude” movements. All of of those movements are labeled as “Consolations;” and, ultimately, consolation is the prevailing rhetoric at the conclusion of this suite.

The Bach arrangements amount to thanking Dinnerstein for her role in motivating the suite’s creation. As arrangements go, they make for satisfying listening. Nevertheless, I must confess a preference for “original version” Bach. This is particularly the case in that final chorus of BWV 244, where Bach scores a truly bone-chilling dissonance for the oboe. Danielpour did not try to smooth over that dissonance, but the sharp contrast of the oboe’s timbre clearly could not migrate to the body of a grand piano.