MUSIC REVIEW : Xtet Premieres Denisov Song Cycle

Since its inception in 1986, Xtet has provided some of the brighter spots in local contemporary music. Though by nature variable in configuration, it works with greatest relevance and revelation in the rich modern repertory for singer and mixed ensemble.

That was the case on the latest of the Monday Evening Concerts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where the North American premiere of Edison Denisov’s “La vie en rouge” capped an uneven program of Gallic predilection on the Russian composer’s 63rd birthday.

“La vie en rouge” is a seven-part song cycle on poems by Boris Vian, satiric narratives and weary personal reflections brightened by a surprisingly tender and sensual affirmation in the penultimate lyric.

Denisov treats the texts with characteristic skill in eclectic styles, ranging from Stravinskyan jazz transformations through a neo-Mahlerian dead march to cabaret parlando. He draws distinctive colors from a mixed ensemble, while leaving the voice all the dramatic foreground.

Soprano Daisietta Kim sang with typical intelligence and an unusually husky sound, emphasizing grittiness and cynicism. Violinist Elizabeth Baker, cellist Roger Lebow, flutist Gary Woodward, clarinetist David Ocker and pianist-percussionist Vicki Ray backed her with pointed, accommodating accompaniment.

Kim’s ability to sustain long lines came more into play in Byron Adams’ “Quatre Illuminations,” along with greater purity of sound. Adams’ Rimbaud settings--premiered by Xtet last month at UC Riverside, where the composer is on the faculty--are big in scope and sound, conservative in style and quite flattering to as accomplished a band as Kim and seven Xteteers. All four movements work together in a cohesive personal drama, rising to a luminous crest in “Antique,” with a change to macabre menace in “Being Beauteous.”

“Quatre Illuminations” also complemented “La vie en rouge” in structure and spirit. How the stylized folkloricism of Ginastera’s early “Cantos del Tucuman” was supposed to work on the program was not apparent, however, particularly in Kim’s thick performance. Baker, Woodward, harpist Jo Ann Turovsky and percussionist David Johnson provided deft support.

The stress on shifting instrumental colors and textures in the French songs found more astringent reflection in Boulez’s short “Derive.” Violinist Jennifer Woodward, Lebow, Gary Woodward, Ocker, Ray and Johnson gave it a fluid reading, direct in focus and glittering in sound.

Andre Jolivet’s “Pastorales de Noel” began the evening with bland noodling, braced by earthier rhythms in the last two movements. Gary Woodward, bassoonist John Steinmetz and Turovsky gave it every advantage of a faceted, elegant performance.

Padding the concert was Steinmetz’s “What’s Your Musical IQ? (A Quiz),” basically an in-joke monologue with sound effects--not unfunny, but long for the material and adding nothing to the rest of the program.