Brion; 2 Songs from Silas Marner; Sindbad; Exiles
by Robert Carl, Fanfare Magazine
03/01/2011

Brion; 2 Songs from Silas Marner; Sindbad; Exiles
by Carson Cooman, Fanfare Magazine
03/01/2011

CD review: Harold Meltzer, "Brion, Sindbad, Exiles"
by Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
10/31/2010

Sounds Heard: Harold Meltzer—Brion; Sindbad; Exiles
by Frank J. Oteri, New Music Box
10/26/2010

Concertos II
by Kilpatrick, American Record Guide
07/30/2010

The concertos for cello, solo bass clarinet and oboe makes this disc an inviting experiment in the contemporary concerto
by Robert Moon, Audiophile Audition
04/15/2010

Cellos Add Wordless But Lyrical Voices
by Allan Kozinn, New York Times
03/04/2008

Stylistic Wanderings and Flirtations With Multimedia And Jazz
by Allan Kozinn, New York Times
04/18/2007

Earthy Cuban Sounds, Rendered With An Urban Complexity
by Allan Kozinn, New York Times
01/10/2007

A Menu Of Familiar Signposts And A One-Woman Opera
by Anne Midgette, New York Times
04/02/2005

American Piano of the 1940s
by Jack Sullivan, American Record Guide
01/01/2005

Sequitur-Concertos
BBC Music Magazine
04/01/2004

Sequitur-Concertos
by Ian Quinn, American Record Guide
01/31/2004

Sequitur-Concertos
by Ken Smith, Gramaphone Magazine
01/01/2004

Sequitur -- Concertos (Albany)
by Christian Carey, splendidzine.com
01/01/2004

Sequitur-Concertos
by Steve Smith, Time Out New York
11/20/2003

Eclecticism and Humor in Works by Lewis Spratlan
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
11/14/2003

Meditations on Power, Old and Freshly
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
05/22/2003

Sequitur's new-music cabarets offer contemporary classics with theatrical flair
by Brian WIse, Time Out New York
05/15/2003

Music In Review: Sequitur
by Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
05/24/2002

A High-Energy Romp Through The Raucous 1940's
by Anne Midgette, New York Times
10/27/2001

Seasons of Squawks on the Crows' Calendar
by Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
03/01/2001

Two Flutists Explore the 20th-Century Repertory
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
10/28/2000

Concert Connects New With Newer
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
04/28/2000

Poetry as the Setting for Meditations on a Child's Death
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
11/16/1999

The Sound of the City
by Robert Hilferty, The Village Voice
01/26/1999

Music: Classical and New
by Rose Martelli, newyork.citysearch.com
01/18/1999

New Songs Spring Forth In a Lively Mixture
by Paul Griffiths, The New York Times
01/13/1999

A Cozy Cabaret Of Comical Sultriness
by Justin Davidson, New York Newsday
01/12/1999

Sequitur: George Crumb Concert
by Kenneth Goldsmith, New York Press
11/18/1998

Clash Of The Titans: Two Legendary Composers are Feted
by Ken Smith, Time Out New York
10/22/1998

Sequitur: Kaye Playhouse Concert
by Mark W. Greenfest, The New Music Connoisseur
05/18/1997

New Works Teeming With Fauna
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times
02/22/1997

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Sequitur-Concertos
by Ian Quinn, American Record Guide
01/31/2004

The excellent New York-based ensemble Sequitur is led by the composer Harold Meltzer (artistic director) and by the group's keyboardist Sara Laimon (managing director).They give us here four pieces that aim to challenge the typical "heroic" role of the concerto soloist--though that's a characteristic strategy of many post-romantic composers confronting the genre, many of whom subvert the soloist-versus-orchestra paradigm by substituting a chamber ensemble for the romantic orchestra.

We begin with Meltzer's own Virginal, a well-made nine-minute composition in two continuous movements with Laimon as harpsichord soloist. Meltzer's materials are all light and airy bits of diatonic music, but he juxtaposes and synthesizes them in a great many ways, achieving something like a Stravinskian neoclassicism for the age of Bang On A Can. Meltzer's approach to form--fragmentary yet organic--is very much in line with his European contemporaries, but his nostalgic material calls to mind both David Lang and very recent Ligeti.

Next on the program is a horn concerto by David Rakowski. Again we hear a debt to Ligeti, particularly in Rakowski's decision to play the solo instrument against a counterpart in the ensemble, a technique Ligeti has used in all of his concertos except for the Piano Concerto. The five movements of Rakowski's piece are all based on the same basic melodic idea, a (sort of) 12-tone lick that he treats to Schoenbergian processes of developing variation. He is an expert orchestrator and crafts textures of remarkable subtlety and clarity; he is also an extremely funny guy (he taught me score preparation in college, and kept us laughing the whole time) and this shows in the music, especially when he makes fun of typical horn idioms.

A recent viola concerto by Thea Musgrave, with a rather programmatic structure detailed in the liner notes, is next. Like Meltzer's Virginal, Lamenting with Ariadne makes much use of traditional diatonic materials, but Musgrave doesn't do anything all that interesting with them (though the writing is solid and assured), and she rarely gives the soloist a break in this much longer piece.

The last track is Carter's Double Concerto for piano and harpsichord, something of a gold standard for the three other pieces on the program. Some 30 years older than any of the others, Carter's concerto must certainly have been in the ears of his fellow New Yorkers Meltzer, Rakowski, and Musgrave; and Sequitur's slick performance of it is a fitting conclusion to this excellent collection.

Laimon deserves particular praise for her subtle readings of her two very different solo parts (Meltzer and Carter). Liner notes by Frank Oteri, the editor of newmusicbox.org, give a helpful color commentary for each of the pieces, though he's prone to silly turns of phrase like "the wonderful meter of 9/16".

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