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About White Man Sleeps
Kronos's second Nonesuch record combines seemingly unrelated work into a fairly seamless whole. From the off-kilter jazz of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" to the strains of Bela Bartók's String Quartet No. 3, this is an album of blues-tinged music. Kevin Volans, the South African composer, lends the disc its title and its opening track, which melts hesitantly familiar folk melodies into a racing quartet. Volans's technique is not far removed from that of Bartók, more than 70 years his senior. Kronos slow the intonations of Bartók's quartet to about a minute and a half longer than the Emerson Quartet's take--long enough to contribute to a kind of defamiliarization. Speaking of which, Ben Johnston's arrangement of "Amazing Grace" is what makes this CD a real keeper. He tests the mettle of this beloved melody by playing it against itself in numerous different ways, and the tune never succumbs to the tinkering. --Marc Weidenbaum
