INVENTIVE `SHADOWS' REQUIRES OPEN MIND FROM ITS LISTENERS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 2, 1992                   TAG: 9201010078
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
INVENTIVE `SHADOWS' REQUIRES OPEN MIND FROM ITS LISTENERS
"Shadows," the new compact disc by Radford University composer Bruce Mahin, contains five works that total 42 minutes and features performers from the New River Valley and Roanoke areas.
Most of the pieces use computer, tape or both in various combinations with percussion, voice, piano and cello. Mahin, who recently said that his foremost concern as an artist is to connect with his audience and to produce music "from the heart," is one of the more inventive young composers working today.
For example, using only the cello and tape in "Cyclic Maneuvers," he is able to produce effects of symphonic richness and depth.
The average classical music fan, who is notoriously allergic to anything bearing the label "modern music," will need to maintain an open mind to get the most from Mahin's work. Much of it either is atonal or only suggestive of tonality, which makes for a spiky and difficult surface to those accustomed to the traditional harmonic vocabulary of Western music.
"Rituals," for example, which is scored for two percussionists and quadraphonic tape, is dominated mainly by the development of rhythmic cells or patterns. In other pieces the main interest is the interplay of the almost infinite palette of textures that can be created by the computer.
Probably the most ambitious piece is the title work, "Shadows," a setting of Walt Whitman's poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" for soprano, percussion, piano and computer. Emerging from bubbling billows of computer sound suggestive of the ocean's heaving surface, the soprano alternately sings and declaims passages.
This work contains some fine effects, such as the passage of hammering triplets ending in a dense piano chord which seemingly gives birth to a shimmering wall of computer sound. The soprano line is angular and melodically spare, conceding little to conventional notions of "prettiness."
The most accessible work on the disc is also the oldest, "Impressions: Fear," dating from 1985. Though it goes beyond what J.S. Bach might have sanctioned, harmonically it is no more novel than anything that might be heard on a good night from, say, jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis.
Some of the pieces are less than successful. After a dozen listenings, "Of Mice and Men" for vibraphone and computer still strikes me as little more than sonic noodling. "Rituals" is probably the easiest to listen to, though the work's stated purpose - to "explore the role of ritual as tradition and in everyday life" - seems a heavy load for this eight-minute piece to carry. And though repeated encounters are of the essence in appreciating work like this, computer sound tires the ear much faster than music born of wood, catgut and reed.

Seth Williamson produces news features and a weekday afternoon classical music program on public radio station WVTF (89.1 FM) in Roanoke.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB