Cheng-Cochran Speaks for the Inner Voices

For her recital in the illuminating, envelope-pushing Piano Spheres series Tuesday at Pasadena’s Neighborhood Church, Gloria Cheng-Cochran veered toward the music of mystics and rebels, 20th century composers who heeded inner voices while also tuning into the sounds on the streets. In so doing, Cheng-Cochran offered a refreshingly idiosyncratic portrait of the musical century slipping away, and confirmed our suspicions that she is one of best pianists in the West.

Things began with an evocative set of three complementary pieces, full of post-impressionistic sonorities and gently dissonant tensions. The cosmic swirl of harmonies in Dane Rudhyar’s 1926 “Stars” segued naturally into “Breeze of Delight,” a subtle and handsome poem of a piece written in 1989 by Peter Lieberson, and, capping off the set, along came the sweeping, light-then-dark energies of Scriabin’s “Black Mass” Sonata.

Later, the going got lighter, even giddy at times. There was the clever comic relief of Miguel del Aguila’s joyfully crazy “Conga,” Martinu’s jazzy twists and cafe-life flair in “Trois Esquisses,” while Hindemith’s 1922 Suite, Opus 26, mixed wily reinventions of a march and ragtime with an expansive brood in the middle.

The newcomer to the party was the young composer Mark Applebaum, whose “Disciplines” was given its world premiere. Applebaum provided overly ample, overly analytical program notes, written and spoken, but the proof was in the sound, as always, and it was a fine, uncompromising and involving sound.

Although Applebaum dedicates the work to the late eccentric jazz icon Sun Ra, jazz plays a minor role in it. Thelonious Monk-like clusters bump up against Nancarrow-ish rhythmic dislocation in the second movement (only four of the five movements were performed). There are other discernible points of comparisons along the way--to Messiaen-ic harmonies and Scriabinesque tonal nebulae--but an original voice is in the making.

Cheng-Cochran closed a fascinating and thoughtful recital with an introspective encore, “Just a Thought,” by Arni Egilsson.