By Wilma Salisbury
Classical Music Critic
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH)

Blackbird soars with dramatic style in symphony

Frederic Rzewski gives eighth blackbird the freedom to fly in “Pocket Symphony,” the showpiece he wrote five years ago for the virtuoso chamber ensemble. Founded at Oberlin College Conservatory in 1996, the six-member group rises to the challenge and creates a series of cadenzas that fit the American composer’s edgy style. The dramatic miniature symphony progresses fluently from composed to improvised passages as the wind players produce amazing multiphonics, the percussionist invents rhythmic melodies, the violinist tosses off devilish difficulties, the pianist throws in a hint of jazz and the cellist plucks scales and arpeggios. The disc also features blackbird’s fresh interpretations of two earlier Rzewski works. Les Moutons de Panurges, a melodic musical game inspired by Rabelais’ fable about sheep following their leader in a deadly leap into the sea, is played with an imaginative variety of dynamics, doublings and speeds. “Coming Together,” a powerful political statement based on a letter written by an Attica prison inmate who was killed in the 1971 revolt, receives a stunning performance that begins in a matter-of-fact manner and culminates in maniacal yelling. The intensity is hard to take. But it matches the violence inherent in the words and music.

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