Month: November 2023

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles

Microfest Records – Flotsam and Jetsam

Flotsam & Jetsam is a new release by Microfest Records that features pieces by three contemporary composers. Altromondo (2013-15, rev. 2018), by Kurt Rohde, consists of ten tracks as performed by Genevieve Feiwen Lee and Aron Kallay. Titanium (2014), by João Pedro Oliveira, is performed by the piano duo of Vicki Ray and Aron Kallay, Nothing hidden that will not be revealed (2007, rev. 2019), by Alan Shockley, is also performed by Kallay. These pieces are comprised mostly of piano music although there are many extended techniques as well as other unusual instruments included. The album is sub-titled “Music for Piano and Assorted Accoutrements” and as a result, each piece has its own distinctive characteristics.

The first piece on the album is Kurt Rohde’s Altromondo, written for piano duo. This proceeds in ten shortish movements of between two and seven minutes each. In addition to playing extended techniques on the prepared piano, the performers are also called upon to incorporate sounds from a variety of items such as the melodica, harmonica, Chinese paper accordions, triangles and antique cymbals. The inspiration of the piece is roughly nautical, with movements such as “flotsam”, “jetsam” and “derelict”. The music has an unconventional and otherworldly texture that is constantly shifting, coalescing, scattering and then reassembling itself as it flows along. The album notes for the final movement serves to summarize the entire structure of Altromondo: “All things are an assembly of parts; even the parts have parts, moving or still, adding up to a whole, breaking down further to the breakably small.”

The first movement of Altromondo is “piano…piano [homonym]” and this acts as an introduction to the entire piece. Light bell tones ring out, quietly accompanied by a repeating two note line from the melodica. Mysterious phrases now emanate from the melodica, dominating the texture. Rising scales, disjointed rhythms and independent lines evolve into what sounds like a chattering conversation. A short silence is followed by a renewal of the bell tones and a more solemn melody line. The piano enters with aggressive rhythms that disrupt the restful feeling and build to a sudden ending. The contrast between the bell tones, melodica and piano create a distinctive texture that seems to oscillate between the abstract and the conventional. Genevieve Feiwen Lee and Aron Kallay establish an effective foundation for the diverse combinations later heard throughout the entire piece.

“Flotsam” and “Jetsam”, title tracks for the album, are two of the shorter movements in Altromondo and are most directly inspired by the nautical theme. Jetsam refers to material thrown overboard from a ship that is sinking or struggling in heavy seas. This movement begins with strong piano chords in the middle registers, perhaps signifying some distress. There are syncopated melodic notes accompanied by single notes that arc above, bringing a mysterious and introspective feel. Rapid rhythms and descending scales cascade into a gentle harmony at the finish. “Jetsam” evokes the panic and drama of lightening the load when facing disaster. “Flotsam” illustrates the consequences of debris seen scattered across the water. Straightforward chords in conventional harmony open, but now stern, declarative chords add a certain tension. The presence of flotsam indicates a state of maritime disorder, and the rhythms become increasingly disorganized and jumpy to the unsettled finish. All of this is expressively played with a stylish and engaging flair.

Other movements are playfully off the maritime theme. “aside: Let Me Play With Your Poodle”, the fifth movement, opens with a strong piano chord and uptempo ‘fanfare’ passage. Complex independent passages in various registers provide an intricate, yet stylish sound, reminiscent of 1930s dance music. The third movement, “aside the side I” opens with soft repeating phrases in middle/high register with intriguing harmony. The lovely feel to this interrupted suddenly by strong, deep chord. This is more introspective than the other movements and described as ‘Himmelmusik’ in the album notes. Movement 7, “aside the side II” expands on this. Other tracks on the album are similarly surprising and imaginative.

Masterfully performed by Genevieve Feiwen Lee and Aron Kallay, Altromondo presents a wonderful assemblage of musical sounds not often heard together, creating new textures and nuances that stimulate the imagination in unexpected ways.

The second piece on the album is Titanium by João Pedro Oliveira, performed by the piano duo of Vicki Ray and Aron Kallay. One of four works by Oliveira inspired by the earthly elements and, more specifically, the Greek gods of strength, Titanium is full of rapid bursts of abstract phrases that create a mysterious and slightly ominous atmosphere. There is an excellent mix of low rumbling in the piano with light percussion riding above. All of this is played with careful attention to precision, and while complex, it is never overwhelming. An inventive mix of sounds, it is space-like at times with a slightly alien feel. The phrasing changes in some detail but overall this piece has similar structural lines throughout.

At 9:00 the tempo slows and the texture thins out with short stretches of silence between the passages. Still mysterious but now more transparent as the layering of sounds is somewhat reduced. The feeling is more distant and remote as a series of sharp piano chords build to the finish. Titanium is a nicely balanced mixture of the abstract and the accessible, skillfully realized by the Ray-Kallay duo.

The final work, Nothing hidden that will not be revealed, by Alan Shockley is 25 minutes in duration and the longest piece of the album. A great variety of sounds and expressions are heard in this piece, all exquisitely played by Aron Kallay. Dramatic and mysterious, the piece was Inspired by Buddhist themes and sayings from the Gnostic gospels. Alan Shockley writes that “This is a piece about the sounds behind the sounds being actuated by the player’s hands on the keys. Every sound is connected to other sounds, resonances, ghosts, and sympathetic vibrations.”

Nothing hidden … begins with a quiet opening chord, distant and remote. Short, rapid phrases repeat in middle piano registers. A low rumble is heard, followed by meandering passages and angry pounding. The mysterious feel to this is enhanced by contentious passages that vary in tempo and dynamic. The piece proceeds, shifting back and forth between quiet, single notes and louder, ponderous sounds. Kallay strums on the piano strings, adding a distinctly alien element. There are great contrasts throughout, reflecting an almost bipolar character. Nothing hidden … is pensive at times, as if waiting to spring on the listener.

At 10:45 a great cluster chord booms out like a sudden explosion. In contrast, soft conventional chords soon appear, interspersed with various extended techniques. Quieter cluster chords are heard like distant thunder. The audio engineering on this piece is exceptional – the nuances of all the many unconventional sounds are clearly heard. At 15:45 a hymn melody is heard with some baroque ornamentation – a welcome bit of familiarity. Sharply dynamic chords follow, sounding like lightning strikes along with distant rumbles in the lower registers. A series of repeating single low notes sound like a the striking of a clock tower. The piece slows and fades towards its finish, as if winding down. Nothing hidden that will not be revealed skillfully weaves a great variety of sounds and textures from the piano, all masterfully played by Aron Kallay.

Flotsam & Jetsam delivers a vibrant palette of colors and textures that expand the expressive possibilities of contemporary piano music beyond the conventional.

Flotsam & Jetsam is available directly as a digital download from Microfest Records.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Experimental Music, File Under?

Jessica Pavone – Clamor (CD Review)

Jessica Pavone

Clamor

Out of Your Head Records

 

Violist Jessica Pavone has made a detailed study of microtones, excelling as well at techniques such as harmonics, bow pressure, and multi-stops. Clamor, her latest recording for Out of Your Head Records, combines all of these in four extended solo works.

 

As the title of the recording suggests, there is a fair amount of dissonance and noise. Not so on the first track, “Neolttwigi,” in which sumptuous multi-stops, modal melodies, and the exploration of multiple overtone series combine in one of Pavone’s most memorable compositions to date.

 

“Nu Shu,” split into Parts 1 and 2, is an exuberant celebration of noise, with the aforementioned pitched components saturated with dissonance and unpitched string sounds, bow pressure chief among them. Pressed harmonics are redolent with upper partials. Pavone frequently plays them in the piece. When fleet melodies take over, they too are distorted, at times sounding more like electric guitar than viola. Tapping and scratching various places on the viola yields percussive effects. A held bass note with ascending glissandos is a reverberant refrain. While much of this suite explores noise, not all of it is loud. One of the best passages is a soft presentation of scratchiness alongside descending glissandos and repeated notes. Its finale, however, is filled with exuberant yawping fortissimos.

 

The final track is “Bloom,” on which Pavone explores the language of folk music in a doleful, Celtic-sounding, opening tune. Ornamented with filigree and supported by a drone in the bass, it once again returns Pavone’s music to a more pitch-based palette. A squall of semitones interrupts the reverie, but the drone and tune soon return. Multi-stops and a placid ostinato then undergird high harmonics. Repeated notes animate the tune, but this is contravened by the persistent stillness of the rest of the texture. Swelling modal harmonies, once again capped off by dissonant verticals, provide a fascinating interlude that soon is interrupted by the opening drone and slower oscillations. As “Bloom” moves toward its conclusion, dissonances are juxtaposed against a different drone. At the height of the intensity, modal chords commingle with the more fraught elements, imparting a diverse sense of harmonic movement. “Bloom” ends enigmatically, on an accented, dissonant, high chord.

 

Pavone has distinguished herself as a talented soloist (and collaborator) and a dedicated investigator of extended materials. Clamor is her best to date, with daring contrasts and  not a note – or scratch – out of place. It is one of my favorite recordings of 2023.

  • Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Sciarrino on Kairos (CD Review)

Salvatore Sciarrino

Paesaggi con macerie

Kairos

Monica Bacelli, mezzo-soprano

Icarus vs. Muzak, conducted by Marco Angius

 

Salvatore Sciarrino (b.1947) is one of today’s most prominent Italian composers. His work encompasses the effects and inflections of second modernity, frequently alongside transcriptions of earlier music. This combination yields singular pieces from a composer who has a distinctive and compelling voice. Icarus vs. Muzak, conducted by Marco Angius, adopts well the various facets of Sciarrino’s music, performing the quotations with clarity and the frequent contrasts energetically.

 

The influences incorporated on Paesaggi con macerie, Sciarrino’s latest portrait CD for the Kairos imprint, are a disjunct pairing, Chopin and Gesualdo. Passagi con macerie (2022) is a three movement work written in homage to Chopin. His Mazurkas are presented in various guises – snatches of quotation, full length quotes, and, in the last movement, the group plays the famous Mazurka in C-major, distressed by percussion to sound like a skipping Victrola. Surrounding the Mazurka material are the special effects that also typify Sciarrino’s work. Few composers work so well with borrowed material, incorporating into a contemporary aesthetic.

 

Mezzo-soprano Monica Bacelli joins the ensemble for Le Voci sottovetro (1999), a piece inspired by stories of genies in bottles at the bottom of the ocean and by the music of Gesualdo. Sciarrino transcribes the madrigalisms found in Gesualdo’s work, creating a vivid scoring. Bacelli is an expressive singer with a generous lower register. Her sense of phrasing is both detailed and emotive, a delicate balancing act.

 

Exporazione del bianco II (1986) is based on a poetic image, the moment of blindness after a bolt of lightning. The piece doesn’t employ quotation, instead using extended techniques in pointillistic fashion to create a fragmentary score. Icarus vs. Muzak is in their element here, performing the score’s terse, rhythmically intricate entrances and overtone-based harmonies with assuredness.

 

The recording concludes with Gesualdo senza parole (2013), a four-movement piece written to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Gesualdo’s death. Instrumental transcriptions of Gesualdo’s madrigals, scored to bring out colorful textures and dovetailing melodies, for the most part eschew extended techniques, the occasional glissando or harmonic sufficing. Antiphonal passages and dynamic echoes give the image of these pieces being sung. The transcriptions are expertly done, making their renditions seem nearly inevitable. The fourth movement, initially an addition to the piece, is described by Sciarrino as “an insolent concertino for marimba and six instruments.” Here he reincorporates effects and pointillism, frequently breaking up Gesualdo’s music into fragments. Upon the marimba’s entry, a madrigal transcription enters, returning the ambience to that of former movements. Gradually, transcription and extensions converge, finishing the piece in the distinctive polyglot ambiance that is Sciarrino’s preferred approach.

 

Paesaggi con macerie is a fascinating addition to Sciarrino’s catalog. The combination of extraordinary progenitors and Sciarrino’s expert way of handling them makes this one of my favorite recordings of 2023.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Stephen Yip – By Moonflowers (CD Review)

Stephen Yip

By Moonflowers

Kairos 

 

Composer Stephen Yip (b. 1971) was born in Hong Kong and now lives in Houston, Texas, teaching at the local community college and fulfilling a number of high-profile commissions. His debut on Kairos is a portrait CD featuring excellent ensembles that play his intricate works skilfully, with a keen sense of their fluid interpretive potentialities. 

 

The Mivos Quartet performs Luminosity Etude (2017), in which rich harmonics and high partials are distressed by glissandos. Mivos also plays the title track (2022), which is inspired by Bashõ’s five original haiku. Although the general atmosphere is subdued, the work is filled with extended techniques. Here again, Yip explores sound spectra. The quartet is also called upon to imitate Chinese musical gestures and scales. The confluence of elements of second modernity and indigenous music display a distinctive vocabulary and compositional voice.

 

inFLUX flute and harp – Izumi Miyahara and Emily Klein – perform Elegance in Emptiness (2018), a meditative piece with many moments of concord – colorful overlaps of unisons, pentatonic harp passages and arpeggiations accompanying relatively simple melodic lines in the flute. There are also metallic strums, percussive attacks, multiphonics, glissandos, harmonics, key clicks, tremolos, and breathy tones. Unless willing to consider the piece from a reflective stance, the abundance of material could easily overshadow its supple deployment. inFlux performs Elegance in Emptiness with crystalline timbres and well-coordinated rubato.

 

Renga in Kigo (2019) for viola and cello is played by William Lane and Chak-yin Pun, both members of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble. Yip’s interest in overtones, tremolos, pizzicatos, et cetera, persists. Although these are lower members of the string cohort, much of their time is spent well above the staff, with only occasional punctuations in the bass register, usually to begin a particular overtone series. Bashõ’s five original haiku is also the inspiration for Renga in Kigo. The four seasons, their various atmospheres and activities, are depicted in a series of interactive duets.

 

… in a silent way (2014), performed by KLK String Orchestra, conducted by Roman Kreslenko, concludes the recording. In addition to the aforementioned string and spectral effects, the ensemble sometimes plays col legno, adding an element bordering on noise. Yip’s techniques writ large create fascinating, often thornily mixed, textures. As the piece progresses, melodies in octaves make a powerful impression. Harmonics, pizzicato, tremolando, trills, and sliding tone create a buildup that heralds the final section, in which contrapuntal entries juxtapose with swells, glissandos, and glassine upper partials. A long denouement concludes with the concertmaster playing repeated tonic notes and then vanishing. 

 

On By Moonflowers, Yip’s compositions prove to be imaginative, intricate, and eminently engaging. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey 



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Bracing Change 2 on NMC (CD Review)

Bracing Change 2

Piatti Quartet, Heath Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini

NMC Recordings

 

The first Bracing Change recording dates from 2017, when Wigmore Hall decided to use the moniker as the title for a series of string commissions. Three string quartets play on Bracing Change 2, another collection of commissions by the organization.

 

The Piatti Quartet plays Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “Contusions.” It begins with sforzando punctuations of a modal ostinato, gradually picking up steam, accumulating material, and more dissonant harmonies along the way. An emphatic and knotty passage of counterpoint marks the end of the first large section, after which there are viola and cello solos trading angular melodies. The upper voices join, creating a duo cadenza. A new ostinato, this one more emphatic and motoric in feel, accompanies snatches from the various solos. Full-throated tremolandos lead into the final section, a suddenly subdued passage of a third type of repeated patterning. The swells from the opening, this time forte, join the rest of the material to create a sense both of return and greater intensity. A final melody in the cello is accompanied by harmonics and tremolandos, and the chords from the piece’s opening, this time subdued. A brash vertical ends the piece conclusively.

 

Quatuor Bozzini plays Paul Newland’s “Difference is Everywhere,” which combines slow-moving mixed interval chords with sustained single notes at a soft dynamic. Bozzini are some of the best exponents of the Wandelweiser Collective, so this is right in their wheelhouse. Newland’s music may adopt Wandelweiser signatures, but “Difference is Everywhere” is a distinctive and attractive piece.

 

Helen Grime’s String Quartet No. 2 is a major work in her catalogue. The Heath Quartet’s rendition is detailed in terms of articulations, special techniques, and dynamics. The first movement combines tremolandos and mixed interval chords. Gradually these build in dynamic, replaced by quick-paced lines juxtaposed with pizzicatos. A syncopated gesture asserts itself as a principal motif, which is followed by a soft interlude of trills versus sustained notes. Fleet forte scalar passages create a vigorous coda. The second movement also features pizzicatos and the syncopated gesture found in the first. The latter is played fortissimo and surrounded by glissandos. A doleful melody, sliding between pitches, begins the final section in which previous motifs are played in a long decrescendo to a hushed close. The third movement begins with a near-continuation, with intricate harmonies accompanying a brisk violin solo. Verticals continue on their own, and the sliding melody from the second movement makes an altered reappearance with pizzicato punctuations. Glissandos and trills build a hive of dissonance, its buildup then replaced by undulating arpeggios. Swelling harmonies move from mixed interval chords to ones that orient the piece closer to minor. A long decrescendo of fragments of melody and sustained chords completes the movement, and the piece. The quartet is a worthy successor to Grime’s Quartet No. 1.

 

Bracing Changes 2 lives up to its title, but there is a significant amount of variety among the pieces. It is one of my favorite releases of 2023.

 

Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical

Yotam Haber – Bloodsnow (CD Review

Yotam Haber

Bloodsnow

Sideband Records

Taylor Ward, Baritone; Don-Paul Kahl, Alto Saxophone

Talea Ensemble, James Baker, conductor

American Wild Ensemble

 

Composer Yotam Haber’s Bloodsnow is based on life events and contemporary concerns. The title work was from a harrowing experience. Haber was caring for a friend’s sled dogs during her first Iditarod, and sustained a serious injury to his finger. The blood mixing with snow, the fear of finding treatment for the wound, and the sense of dizziness from blood loss are all musically depicted with bracing verisimilitude. Talea Ensemble, conducted by James Baker, catches every nuance of its quixotic span.

 

Foreboding bass winds and dampened piano percussion open the piece. Blurry runs and woodwind multiphonics add a sense of disassociation. Harp glissandos and piano clusters further depict the ambience. A high violin, syncopated piano runs, and upper winds, imitating the previous low winds’ material, move the piece into a second section, closely followed upon by jazzy bass clarinet, thrumming piano notes in its low register, and prestissimo string runs. The eye of the hurricane features extended triadic harmonies from the piano and hushed strings. With suddenness, this moves back to the previous aggressive demeanor, with keyboard stabs and swelling string chords. The digressive nature of these sharp turns seem to embody the frantic mood of someone bleeding. Even the occasional musical oasis makes sense; the woozy figures depicting the blood loss into the snow. Ascending piano chords and darting winds suggest a denouement, but a coda of bustling energy, with cascading runs in the piano mirrored in the other instruments, then abruptly ending, concludes the piece with a satisfying surprise.

 

Baritone Taylor Ward joins the ensemble to sing They Say You Are My Disaster, a set of two songs with texts by women from different generations. “Schnitzel,” by Dorit Weisman, combines two different through lines: breast cancer surgery and meal preparation. The music veers between violence and quietude, with Ward displaying a wide range and impressive dynamic control. “Oh, My Bank” by Tahel Frosh again deals with two subject matters, both giving rise to the narrator’s anger: the repressive nature of late capitalism and the role of women in such a society. Snarling Sprechstimme and disjunct lines from Ward are accompanied by a bass clarinet solo, in similarly high dudgeon, and powerful instrumental swells. The coda initially quiets these elements, with one final vocal cry and a crescendo leaving a sense of ominousness in the song’s wake.

 

Resistance is an extensive piece for solo saxophone, played by Don-Paul Kahl. It is filled with special techniques, percussive pops, aggressive growls, microtones, and multiphonics, to name a partial list.  There is much shifting between a number of melodic cells, with mercurial changes between jazzy runs and combustible angularity. However, it is the melodies submerged beneath these playing methods, visible at the edges and seemingly trying to find their way to the surface of the texture, perhaps a titular metaphor, that allow Resistance to transcend its formidable technical demands to become a work of rich expressiveness.

 

The recording closes where it began, in the Alaskan wilderness. The ensemble work Choref is about Haber’s week spent hiking in Wrangell-St. Elias. Its two demeanors picture the stillness of the surroundings with slow, sustained harmonies, and the burbling vitality of life that persists, even in such conditions. As the piece moves through its trajectory, what began as two distinct sectional boundaries are commingled into music of varied textures, with bustling woodwind bird calls, high modal lines, sepulchral bass clarinet, string tremolos, and intricately constructed harmonies.

 

Haber’s music revels in complexity that is in service of larger narratives, never for its own sake. He is an imaginative and skillful creator, willing to look at his own terror alongside the peace of nature, managing to make them pieces of a whole.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Conductors, File Under?, Orchestras, Twentieth Century Composer

Concert Review: NY Philharmonic performs Ligeti

Susanna Mälkki conducts the New York Philharmonic with Pierre-Laurent Aimard performing Ligeti Piano Concerto at David Geffen Hall, 11/2/2023. Photo by Chris Lee.

New York Philharmonic, Susanna Mälkki, conductor

Jenõ Lisztes, Cimbalom

David Geffen Hall

November 4, 2023

NEW YORK – Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (1851) is such a challenging barnstormer of a piece that one often wonders how ten fingers suffice. On Saturday evening, Jenõ Lisztes, making his New York Philharmonic debut, used two mallets on a cimbalom to realize the rhapsody. His arrangement replicated the work in its entirety, and he played it with extraordinary virtuosity. Liszt was known to improvise a cadenza at the end of the piece, and Lisztes improvised one of his own, improbably one-upping the work proper. The standing ovation that followed was well-earned.

Jenõ Lisztes. Photo by Chris Lee

The rest of the concert’s first half was also devoted to music by Hungarian composers. In 1915, Béla Bartôk was fascinated with Romanian folk music, making song gathering trips to the country and incorporating these materials into his own work. Six Romanian Dances was originally written for piano, but in 1917 was scored by Bartôk for string orchestra. Under Susanna Mälkki’s direction, contrasts were played up, with luminescent timbres in the piece’s slow movements and vivacious mixed-meter music in its fast sections. The final dance built towards its close with an urgent-sounding accelerando.

Susanna Mälkki conducts the New York Philharmonic with Pierre-Laurent Aimard performing Ligeti Piano Concerto. Photo by Chris Lee

The Philharmonic is celebrating György Ligeti’s centenary with “Ligeti Retrospective.” Rather than a single week devoted to his music, the orchestra has presented single works on programs during the Fall, as well as chamber music concerts and “Nightcap” events. Ligeti’s Piano Concerto (1988)  is one of the composer’s most highly regarded later pieces. Soloist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, a contemporary music specialist, has recorded the concerto for DG with Boulez and is its go-to performer. He amply proved this on Saturday, deftly performing the sometimes thorny but always diverting music.

During the 1980s, Ligeti’s musical palette expanded. He explored the polyrhythms of African music and, by extension, minimalist composers such as Steve Reich, who had an interest in Ghanaian drumming. Latin American music was introduced to Ligeti by his student the composer Roberto Sierra. Ligeti’s use of ostinatos is complex, involving overlap of different frameworks and tempos. From Asian music comes pitch material, with scales recalling Gamelan. Alongside these are various other symmetrical divisions of the octave and modal writing. The composer repudiated the idea that his work could easily be categorized as modernist or postmodernist, insisting that the synthesis of elements in a piece like the Piano Concerto evaded being pigeonholed.

Cast in five movements, the concerto’s scoring makes for some tricky entrances, with frequent unison attacks by dissimilar instruments – piano, slapper, and low brass for instance – that could easily go awry. Particularly in the first movement, marked Vivace ritmico e preciso, Mälkki negotiated these interrelations with laser beam accuracy. The second movement has often struck me as overly diffuse, even on Aimard’s DG recording. Here, Mälkki’s navigation of its trajectory and beautiful balancing of its timbres, as well as Aimard’s crystalline gestures, rehabilitated it to be a beguiling standout. The third movement, marked Vivace Cantabile, explores Ligeti’s fascination with polyrhythms, with several layers corruscating around a single line piano melody with its own rhythmic grid. Despite the interplay of ostinatos, it felt more maximalized than minimalist. The fourth movement, in which the texture thins out, vigorous attacks, complete with referee’s whistles and piercing piccolos, still impart the feeling of multiple simultaneous pulsations. One of Aimard’s favorite composers is Messiaen, and, in an example of synergy, the harmony here reflected that composers’ Modes of Limited Transposition. The final presto movement is a great unfurling of the interplay built up in previous sections, with brass solos and shimmering pitched percussion accompanying a gradual ascent of cluster chords in the piano. The cadenza is slow at first, displaying interlocked lines. Upon the orchestra’s return, tension and activity build until a final unison crack closes the piece in midair.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Modest Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), in Maurice Ravel’s 1922 orchestration. Much of Ravel’s own orchestral music involved transcribing piano pieces, and his inimitable scoring is exquisite in Pictures. Musorgsky based the piece on paintings by Viktor Hartmann (1834-1873), from an 1874 memorial showing of his work in St. Petersburg.

Pictures’s famous Promenade suggests the peregrination between paintings by a viewer of the exhibition. The four iterations of the Promenade are presented in different scorings. The latter half of the piece dispenses with the Promenade in favor of movements depicting one painting after another. These programmatic pieces are, for the most part, miniatures, but they are chock full of material. The formal freedom with which Musorgsky deploys elements of the music creates unexpected, sometimes startling, juxtapositions. This is abundantly in evidence in the second movement, “Gnomus,” a portentous mixture of multiple themes, first sequentially, then overlapped, and finally given a bellicose valediction. “The Old Castle,” with its suave woodwind solos, has a folk-like melody with off-kilter phrasing and a varied accompaniment. “Bydlo” is a showcase for French horn with snippets of the Promenade melody interspersed with new material. A countermelody soars in the strings. Its climax is filled with thunderous timpani and strings in octaves, after which the music recedes to the accompanied horn solo. “Samuel Goldberg und Schmuỹle” is built with a yearning melody imitative of synagogue music, awe-inspiring in its low-strings presentation. The middle section quickens to a relentless woodwind counter-melody, ultimately joined with the string tune in counterpoint, followed by an emphatic close.

Musorgsky had a playful side as well, which is displayed by the movements “Tuileries Gardens” and “Ballad of the Unhatched Chicks.” Graceful moments populate the opening of “The Market at Limoges.”

Susanna Mälkki conducts the New York Philharmonic. Photo by Chris Lee

The last movements provide a buildup to the much-anticipated finale. “Catacombae (Sepulchrum Romanum)” features stentorian brass chorales, “Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua” is an ominous reworking of the Promenade material, which transforms into a particularly Ravellian denouement of pianissimo strings and a gentle, angelic flute solo. It is interrupted in brash fashion by “The Hut on Chicken’s Legs.” In its outer sections there is a chromatic tune, folk dance ostinatos, and emphatic tutti brass passages in full cry, with mysterious pianissimo passages in between. The movement is followed attacca by “The Great Gate at Kiev,” a tour-de-force for symphony orchestra that is a glorious conclusion.

The NY Philharmonic truly sounded glorious itself, enjoying the improved sonics of David Geffen Hall and Mälkki’s assured leadership. The conductor’s gestures were clear and often more characterful than in other pieces on the program. For example, she animated “Gnomus” with incantatory motions, elicited an emotive cast from the theme in “Samuel Goldberg und Schmuỹle,” and lead the finale with broad gestures, ending with her arms closing in a near embrace. The Philharmonic responded with committed, enthusiastic playing that crafted a superlative rendition of Pictures at an Exhibition. I would wager that Mälkki would be welcomed by the orchestra anytime she visits. The audience too.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, early music, File Under?

Fabio Biondi plays Vivaldi Concertos “Per Anna Maria”

Concerto per Violino XI, “Per Anna Maria”

Fabio Biondi, violin; Europa Galante

Naive Records

 

Anna Maria (1696-1782) was one of Antonio Vivaldi’s principal muses. She was a pupil of his at Ospedale delle Pietà, where he taught for forty years. A child prodigy, Anna Maria was a violinist of enormous talent. Vivaldi recognized this and composed at least twenty-four concertos dedicated to her. 

 

Judging by the concertos performed by soloist Fabio Biondi, the composer entrusted Anna Maria with works requiring enormous facility and musicality. The D Major concerto that opens the recording begins with a brief snatch of a simple theme that is a red herring for the vigorous soloing to come. The ensemble plays with rhythmic verve and dynamics that, while terraced, bring an expressive character, powerful in the forte sections and dulcet in the soft. The middle movement is a harmonically twisty theme accompanied by the continuo, which includes a portative organ and lute. The finale is a gigue with quick-paced sequential passages for the soloist. A brief minor interlude is followed by a fleet-footed cadenza, played with nimble virtuosity by Biondi, then a bold conclusion. 

 

The concerto in B-flat is subtitled “il corneto da posta” (the post-horn). The first movement is filled with zesty double-dotted rhythms. The second has a flexible  solo part with an emotive minor middle section. The concerto does indeed make use of post-horn calls, albeit in strings, in its buoyant finale movement.

 

The Concerto in E-flat, RV261, is a particular standout, featuring a bustling Allegro in which the tutti are a muscular foil for Biondi, who plays ricocheting lines with a glimmering tone. The Adagio is a plaintive minor key movement, with the ensemble again emphatic while the solos are played with supple grace. The final movement is taken at a breathtaking tempo and is a showcase for both soloist and ensemble.

 

The concerto in C-major supplies some of the most regal-sounding music I have heard from Vivaldi in an instrumental context: it is as if he has borrowed Handel’s wig. Biondi demonstrates his talent for period-informed bespoke ornaments in the Largo movement. A separate track at the end of the recording demonstrates the score’s original ornaments. Touches like this make “Per Anna Maria ” an estimable contribution to Naive’s Vivaldi collection. It is one of my favorite recordings of 2023.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey