The "piano trio," which usually consists of cello, violin, and piano, has been a staple of chamber music for hundreds of years. The clarinet-violin-piano trio is relatively rare and modern by comparison, probably because of its potential to sound unbalanced without the low-end anchor of the cello. Bartók, Stravinsky, and Ives all tried their hands at it, and it's really picked up steam over the last few decades, during which the Verdehr Trio has commissioned hundreds of new works for it. Victoire, a quintet from Brooklyn, puts a progressive spin on the clarinet-violin-piano trio by adding keyboards, double bass, light IDM-inspired electronics, and the striking compositional voice of pianist Missy Mazzoli. In one fell swoop, the ensemble bypasses the low-end dilemma and breaks with the existing repertoire, in search of music that gives voice to a thoroughly post-classical age.
This isn't to say that Victoire jettison tradition entirely. Their debut LP, Cathedral City (which expands upon material from their 2009 eMusic "Selects" series EP), compares favorably to a number of eminent touchstones. Philip Glass looms large over its balance of lean, taut pulses and pensive, circling melodies, which conjure feelings of hesitancy and doubt. More contemporaneously, you might hear traces of Julianna Barwick in the digitally ruffled choral vocals that crop up, though Victoire's are much crisper and drier, of a piece with their music's almost fussy personality. There's also an affinity with Nico Muhly's Mothertongue: Low, burly keyboards slide tectonically under nimble yet austere tunes, and quotidian vocal elements (especially the spoken numbers on "India Whiskey") sift around like interference. Like Muhly, Victoire evoke a vast interiority-- the composer's multi-tasked mind, rustling and preoccupied. But Mothertongue felt like a mind brashly spilling out, while Cathedral City is more introverted and intimate: an album of private fixations.
Victoire worry at their motifs like difficult knots but ground them in relentless cadences. Within these strict parameters, they pack in an admirable variety of technique and emotional shading, from dawning unease to distressed inspiration. "A Song for Mick Kelly" feels at once fretful and poised, with a violin sawing desperately against immovable electric guitar chords courtesy of the National's Bryce Dessner. "A Door Into the Dark" is furtive but forceful, its layered motifs pausing, lunging boldly forward, scattering. On "I Am Coming for My Things", violin tremolos dart around deep, even figures in the clarinet and crackling radio transmissions. The music settles down when the voices subside, implying a direct link between freedom from encroaching signals and serenity of mind. That's a timely preoccupation if ever one was-- privacy, after all, is also a relatively modern invention; one that is currently under duress. Decisively erratic and turbulently lyrical, Victoire condense moments of focused beauty and quiet conviction from the pandemic distractions of modern life.
