by Adorjan Horvát
Wayne Alpern’s Modern Music is a program of music by the composer that demonstrates his engaging style-based recomposition expertise. Consisting of twenty works for solo piano, Alpern examines the DNA of classical form and re-sequences it in a modern aesthetic, one built equally on harmonic freedom, modern rhythmic clarity, and musical logic. This is not “postmodern collage” for its own sake. Rather, it’s an album of imagination, historic structures reactivated, vernacular idioms repurposed, and modern stylistic synthesis refined into a new working model for contemporary composition.
The album’s scope is ambitious, but Alpern’s control of compositional pacing and the consistently virtuosic interpretation by pianist Steven Beck make the album a delight. Beck is fluent in style as he brings out Alpern’s architectural nuances in each performance. Beck brings passion to each passage with a clarity that highlights the structural choices without sacrificing gesture or energy. His partnership with Alpern is elegant in execution, making for a distinct modern classical recording.
From the opening track, “March,” we hear what this project will be about. The title implies a straightforward binary form; however, Alpern works with oppositional layers, declamatory percussive chords that channel Stravinsky, and a lyrical theme that turns this into an expansive exploration. The contrasts suggest sonata-form dialectics, but rhythm is modern in accent, pulse, and articulation. The harmonic colors and rhythmic figures are the unifying force that creates a continuous flow. Beck’s shaping of the sections according to their rhythmic role in the form is very enlightened. Alpern shows that the project will not be about theme versus development, it’s about musical function through modern gestures.
“Gigue” is a standout for its contrapuntal creativity and rhythmic flow. The meter is a bright 6/8 with a memorable motif. One can hear how Alpern’s music is based in the gigue style from Bach’s French Suites. Alpern showcases distinct rhythmic patterns and thematic elements that bring this compositional style into the modern focus. “Prelude” displays Alpern’s impeccable modern voicings. The lyrical melody is supported with gorgeous chordal voicings with voice leading that builds and releases tension in delightful ways. The second half of the composition has the kind of rhythmic mischievousness that belongs to Alpern alone.
In “Variations,” Alpern takes a theme by Anna Bon di Venezia, an 18th-century composer, and runs it through a sequence of stylistic refractions. One variation, steeped in a jazz waltz feel, uses inner voice motion and harmonic substitutions that evoke Bill Evans. Another variation pulls from a Broadway chordal and harmonic/melodic palette. Alpern keeps the motivic logic intact and transitions between the variations with fluidity that gives the feeling of natural progression and development.
“Aphorism” is a delight in its rhythmic and harmonic structure. The groove and overall mood of the composition is impressive. “Partita” foregrounds the dancing quality characterized by the style with modern harmonic structure, tonal variety, and expressive rhythmic depth. A minimalist lament composed for Alpern’s late nephew titled “Reverie” is a beautiful unfolding theme over steady arpeggiations.
“Novelette” is a composition of rhythmic construction that has a joyous mood. Alpern’s wit runs throughout the score, surfacing in slyly repeated phrases, sudden tension notes, and cadences that refuse to land where one expects. Even his articulations carry mischief, a homage to Joseph Haydn, the great architect of musical humor. Alpern’s use of sonic caricature also calls to mind Stravinsky.
“Raga” unfolds with a buoyant rhythmic drive, its 10/8 pulse organized into an asymmetrical 3+3+2+2 grouping that sets it apart from the more familiar duple or triple meters of Western tradition. The piece gestures toward the contours of Indian classical form, filtered through Alpern’s own ear for pattern and modern propulsion. Echoes of his studies with Harold Powers at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as private tabla lessons, linger in the phrasing—giving the music both authenticity of reference and freedom of reinvention. It also resonates with his earlier, more expansive exploration of the genre in “Vishvakarma” (named after the Hindu god of creativity) from the album Secular Rituals, suggesting a throughline in his compositional imagination that returns to raga not as quotation, but as inspiration.
“Fughetta” takes the bones of an eighteenth-century fugue and dresses them in modern clothes, slipping jazz harmonies and contemporary colors into the contrapuntal weave. Written nearly fifty years ago as a student exercise at the University of Michigan, the piece already revealed Alpern’s instinct for blending eras. His professor at the time praised his stylistic precision. The natural flow of styles in Alpern’s writing obviously is a part of who he is, a composer of transformation that refuses to stay bound by the past, instead synthesizing the rigor of classical craft with the inflections of modern music.
Throughout, what impresses is Alpern’s consistent compositional logic. These pieces may differ in reference point of Baroque, Broadway, Bartók, but they are all built with modern structural integrity. Voice-leading, motivic unity, rhythmic propulsion, and formal shape remain central. That’s where the title Modern Music earns its claim as it adapts classical techniques to a 21st-century creative mindset that accepts hybridity, embraces tradition as a tool, and prizes clarity over abstraction. Steven Beck brings that model to life with command and sensitivity, and Judith Sherman’s production ensures the music remains clean, resonant, and grounded in the piano’s acoustic core.
Modern Music presents a composer reinventing tradition without abandoning it. That’s the short of it!
