"After the Saint-Saens had thundered its last, Slatkin led the orchestra in a specially commissioned "encore" by the gifted Tina Davidson - Beyond the Blue Horizon. It is a lovely work - lively, jostling, somehow aquatic and orchestrated with clarity and precision. " Washington Post, 2001
"It is not enough that Tina Davidson goes into high schools and community centers and coaxes composition out of unsuspecting victims. She also remains a composer with a consistently persuasive voice of her own.
For Paper, Glass, String & Wood, premiered at the Fleisher Art Memorial, Davidson employed not only a professional string quartet, but two others comprised of students from Settlement Music School and The Girard Music program. The idea was for the fledglings to play elbow-to-elbow with the pros, gaining experience in real music, and, as more than one optimist has put it, perhaps consider music as a career option.
Such acts of altruism rarely succeed in their dual mission. They mostly achieve their social goal; it's the real-music part that gets lost in the process.
But that's where Paper, Glass, String & Wood is different. It is real music, with structure, mood, novelty and harmonic sophistication Ð with haunting melodies that grow out of complex, repetitive rhythms. " Philadelphia Inquirer, 2000
"The freshest piece here was They Come Dancing, a 15 minute toccata written
in 1994 by Tina Davidson. Ms Davidson has a vivid ear for harmony and
orchestral colors. Over sustained pedal tones and quietly pulsating bass
patterns, diffuse harmonies -- like out-of-focus Copland chords -- sound
forth and dance." The New York Times, 1997
"Tina Davidson's new collection of works, entitled I Hear the Mermaids
Singing grapples with profundity ... While listening to Davidson's
compositions I sense that incandescent glimmer -- the fleeting 'why?' of
music. Davidson knows why - you can hear it. Her music is primal.
Ostinati knock calmly at the door and thirds resound like emergency vehicle
horns sans the usual impatience and anger. What remains are delightful
sounds - sounds that make us human and resound in the universe. If these
words sound lofty, it is the result of listening to this otherwordly
music."
IWCM Journal, 1997
"Tina Davidson is the very model of a post minimalist composer. That is
not to say that her music is formulaic; indeed, it bespeaks a real artistic
personality ... and creating a sensuous texture that can gradually move in
a variety of directions -- either to a more traditionally tonal gesture or
to more rhythmically propulsive sections. What distinguishes this music
most for me is not so much this particular sound (seductive as it is) as
the manner in which Davidson shapes the telling details within the texture.
She has a gift to listen very closely to the microscopic moments in her
music and imbue them with real individuality and substance."
Fanfare,
April, 1997
"A disc from CRI titled I Hear the Mermaids Singing -- music by
Philadelphia-based composer Tina Davidson -- has given particular pleasure.
Davidson's style is eclectic; each of her pieces (and there are six on her
disc) has an individual sound, yet they all share certain characteristics.
Her music is primarily lyrical and concerned as much with creating
atmosphere as with constructing solid musical structures.
"The opening work on the disc, Transparent Victims (1987), is for multiple
saxophones -- all played here by Marshall Taylor, an over-dubbing virtuoso.
Davidson has created accessible music of real substance. The other works
on Davidson's disc are equally effective, particularly Bleached Thread,
Sister Thread, played with intense commitment by the Mendelssohn String
Quartet."
Classical Insites, 1998
The Delight of Angels for string quartet is "a state replete with sweet tunes layered among the strings, fragments that circle in and out of consciousness, sustaining slender, sometimes shimmering, textures."
The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 24, 1999
"It is My Heart Singing opens with a wailing, lyrical violin melody -- the
kind of slightly mournful tune you might expect to find wafting across a
dusty Turkish town. Commissioned by the music festival, the work is
continuous, meditative swath of sound. String voices fold in and out,
repeating undulating rhythms that energize the texture. It is moody and
not without mysticism."
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1996
"Tina Davidson's Over Salt River formed the emotional heart of the AIDS
Songbook concert. The work begins as a lament, but gradually brightens and
rises up the scale ... this song became a soaring affirmation of the
wonder and beauty of life in the face of death."
City Paper of
Philadelphia, 1996
"Tina Davidson's Fire on the Mountain was
commissioned by the Network for New Music, and the network got its money's
worth, whatever the cost. Scored for marimba, vibes and prepared piano,
the piece is rhythmically driving, with fascinatingly simple yet lovely
harmonic changes. Davidson prepared the piano by inserting screws and
erasers into the string. It was intriguing to compare the sound of
eraser-thwarted notes and that of the marimba. The percussionists
manipulated the sounds of their instruments by hitting them with different
implements -- rubber mallets, soft mallets and the hard-edged wooden
sticks.But in Davidson's case, the methods were not important; her music
would be just as pleasurable if it were scored for a full orchestra or
piano alone. The composer makes music satisfying by carefully managing
tension and release...it's being able to bring a sense of beauty and
emotion to a strict organizational structure, a rarity in any age."
The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Tina Davidson's Cassandra Sings was more interesting. This is a solemn
ambitious work that begins with a wailing cadenza for the cello and
gradually builds into a knotty complexity. Eventually all devolves into
chaos...but the spare, beautiful choral-like melody that follows made for
an effective emotional climax."
Tim Page, Newsday
"Tina Davidson (Cassandra Sings) provides a transitional piece that bridges
the avant-garde with tradition. Her music builds to a climax of tremendous
richness, throwing out a soundscape that would seem to be much greater than
merely four instruments can produce. An extended coda achieves a
resolution of sublime dimensions."
Fanfare, 1994
"Tina Davidson's Cassandra Sings is the kind of piece you want to spend
some time with. The emotionally intense cello solo at the beginning, belts
out a message with a melody very much like a human voice bending under
strain and stress. The other instrument sit idly, mute with indifference.
Slowly, the other voices rise and overtake her message with dissent. The
second half of the piece is a lament. But the mournful music sends a
dramatic message -- one of hope. Musically the Philadelphia composer's
work has a masterly and sensitive command of texture and a wealth of
memorable melodies."
The Philadelphia Inquirer
"And the no-school school declared itself with Tina
Davidson's Lullaby, a gorgeously gentle pieces for variable
solo instrument -- in this case violin -- and an accompanying group what
wraps the solo lines in echoes and shadows."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"The increasingly prominent Philadelphia composer Tina Davidson was
represented by a sad, dreamy Lullaby, which may be performed by a wide
variety of different forces. It proved entirely successful in the Wolpe
instrumentation, with saxophonist Edward Golaszewski sounding particularly
beautiful in the vocally conceived melodic line."
Andrew Stiller, The
Philadelphia Inquirer
"Blood Memory: A Long Quiet After the Call for cello and orchestra is
deliciously lyrical, dominated by strings throughout most sections, almost
a cello concerto in feel, opening with a round, sensual cello solo. I kept
liking the piece more with each turn, 'til I fell in love with it."
Derek
Davis, Welcomat
Blessings (Sacred Space) for alto saxophone and full
orchestra was "written for saxophone virtuoso Marshall Taylor. The
piece incorporated a primordial, dissonant mutter developed in percussion
and bass. Against that, the saxophone plays long low tones, and the player
is asked to improvise. It grows towards a clear, bright unison before the
piece seems to open into a broadly lyrical, but rhythmically urgent
affirmation. The work showed its distinct profile and its innovative
sounds."
Daniel
Webster, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Woman Dreaming [is] a vividly descriptive piece in which darkness
gradually gives way to enlightenment. The transparency of the writing
enables Davidson's journey from mysterious, static phrases to nostalgic,
jazzy and shimmering statements to come across with crystalline clarity.
This is a tightly knit work in which each instrumental strand adds
resonance to the overall structure. Davidson has devised episodes that are
succinct and telling. The colors and moods, animated at times by frisky
rhythms, are beautifully deployed."
Donald Rosenberg, Pittsburgh Press
"My own favorite was probably Tina Davidson's Star Myths, which starts out
with serene detached notes -- like a science fiction movie maker's vision of
space -- and ends up capturing the intensity of the real thing."
Tom
Purdom, Welcomat
"Davidson has written music that cries out to be choreographed. In a
piquant performance by Reading Symphony Orchestra, Dancers conjured up
whirling ghosts with weird, eerie screeches, percussion, and even vocal
effects. Davidson's atonal melodies, syncopated rhythms, and a texture
woven of jazz, fanfares, and abrupt changes of timbre, draw the listener
into a dream space where there is no predicting what will happen next."
Susan L. Pena, Reading Times
"Two Beasts from the Forest of Imaginary Beings is a phenomenal work!"
Symphony Magazine
"The music of Tina Daivdson is making it commercial-disc debut in the
recording of the complete Seven Macabre Songs (1979). Based on seven
grossly sardonic -- yes, macabre -- poems by Howard Nemerov, each of
Davidson's programmatic pieces is intended to be a poem as well, created,
as Davidson says, with a 'tightness, a scarceness of development and the
intensity of line inherent in a poem.' But tightness gives a false
impression of the extroverted spirit of these unique songs. Sound effects
such as forearm rolls, harmonics, and the lucking and strumming of the
inner strings create weird and wonderful images -- a lot of haunting, fun
exhibitionism."
Fanfare
"Davidson's River of Love, River of Light sets seven texts about the Virgin Mary from sources as varied as Hildegard von Bingen, 16th century translations of Aztec sources, and a poem of Gerald Manley Hopkins. Her musical voice changed with each. A short text by Sor Juana with marimba, tumbled happpily with what sounded like a Latin beat, while a meditation by Hildegard echoed with the open intervals of medieval chant. Davidson's spare use of instruments added weight to her ideas. The harp-like marimba writing in "Hear Me, Hear Me," the dance rhythms in "Tla ya," and the English Horn solo in the final section intensified and clarified the mood of each. Her medieval evocation in "Antiphon for the Virgin" and the nervous layers of choral writing in the "Alleluia" set those above the others."
Daniel Webster, Philadelphia Inquirer, 1998
"The highlight of this concert of "Music of a New Century" was the cantata River of Love, River of Light (1998) by Tina Davidson. Based on Marion texts, this is an exploration of the Virgin of Guadeloupe in which the composer is "honoring the still point within each of us." ... strongly defined rhythms and repetitions; quickness of the opening and closing phrases contrast with deliberation, in the middle repetition in Latin is a totally different melody, sensual feeling and effect. The emotional center of this piece is the High Seas section: piano, marimba and cello create a seductive rolling rhythm of strong turbulence and wind, as "our ship flounders in the waves; the waters enter into our souls." The fugal Alleluia movement rises to a peak in a burst of light as "two realms become one." The final section of Hopkins text is "The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe," as the instruments set a rushing, tumbling sound matching the color of the text."
Deborah Kravetz, Penn Sounds, 1999
