“The question is not what you look at,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in his journal, “but how you look and whether you see.” That insight might easily be adapted to fit the music of Linda Catlin Smith. Although written over a span of more than twenty years, these six pieces are remarkably consistent in character, mood, and quality. Smith favours modesty of means and temperate language, crafting discreetly idiosyncratic pieces that steer clear of flamboyance and melodrama. Through the attentive meandering of her recently revised composition Wanderer, or the contemplative stillness and intensity of Dark Flower, her concern is not to overwhelm or impress us but to involve us, the crucial question implied being how we listen, and whether we hear.
Pianist Cheryl Duvall and fellow members of the dynamic Thin Edge New Music Collective bring characteristic vibrancy and assurance to their readings of Smith’s music, but they are well attuned to its subtleties and nuances, drawing out the gentle beauty of its finely graduated emphases and undemonstrative accents. Smith’s Duo for Two Cellos encapsulates the essence of what her music offers, through its quiet surprises, its unanticipated slants, its unexpected details, and above all through the well-ventilated space it opens up, allowing listeners to breathe easily as they enter the frame of this intimate instrumental dialogue. Elegantly constructed, it is—like the other five compositions featured here—an alluring invitation to perception.
Julian Cowley studied in London at University College, the Institute of United States Studies and King’s College, where his doctoral thesis on postmodern fiction was supervised by Eric Mottram. Cowley has lectured and published extensively on literature and cultural studies, and is now a freelance writer on music. He has contributed to every issue of The Wire magazine since 1998, and in recent years has published a number of articles and reviews in Musicworks and other adventurous publications. He lives in Hertfordshire, England, a short distance north of London.