Composer
Caroline Shaw has seen her prominence steadily increase since she won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2013, and commissions have been coming in from Europe and as far away as Japan. The prize was given for an a cappella vocal work, Partita in 8 Voices, but
Shaw has now recorded a couple of albums with New York's
Attacca Quartet, and it must be said that the string quartet medium is especially congenial to her talents. She composes clear structures in which conventional quartet textures are but one element of a palette that may include string harmonics, percussive sounds from the players, and here,
Shaw's own voice on several tracks. The latter includes the four movements of the title work, with prose texts by
Shaw describing a single tree on a Canadian rainforest island off the British Columbia coast. It is a delicately programmatic work that is quite absorbing. Other works on the album explore unusual relationships between text and music or between musical and nonmusical sounds. These performances are precise and idiomatic, and one hopes for further collaborations between
Shaw and the
Attacca Quartet. Fans of such composers as
Jennifer Higdon and
Missy Mazzoli will find much to admire here, and the album also makes a good introduction to
Shaw's work. Exceptionally for an album of American contemporary music, this album made British best-seller charts in the fall of 2022. ~ James Manheim