CD Review

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Adams Boxed Set Listening Party

John Adams

Collected Works Boxed Set

40XCDs

Nonesuch

 

What a seventy-fifth birthday present. Today, Nonesuch releases John Adams Collected Works, a 40-CD compendium of his recordings for the label and a few from other imprints. 

 

The curation of the set has thoughtful touches. It begins with Harmonielehre, the 1985 recording by Edo de Waart that began Adams’s association with Nonesuch and ends with a live recording of the same work by the Berlin Philharmonic, which released its own Adams boxed set a few years back (well worth seeking out). There are extensive liner notes, with essays by Timo Andres, Nico Muhly, Jake Wilder-Smith, Julia Bullock, and Robert Hurwitz. 

 

Adams continues his creativity apace. Accordingly, space has been left in the box for future recordings.

 

From 12:00 PM to 12 AM (EDT), listen to excerpts from the boxed set here. 



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz, Piano

Vadim Neselovskyi – Odesa (CD Review)

Vadim Neselovskyi 

Odesa

Sunnyside Records

 

Jazz pianist Vadim Neselovskyi was born in Ukraine. He moved to the US to study at Berklee and has since joined its faculty, splitting his time between New York, Boston, and as a touring musician. His latest recording for Sunnyside, Odesa (the Ukrainian spelling of the city’s name) is a memory book of Neselovskyi’s childhood in Ukraine, with various places and experiences recounted as programmatic elements of the music. Another layer of the recording’s organization is the use of Pictures at an Exhibition, by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, its character as a suite of images that one encounters walking through a museum, as a kind of touchstone for the scenes Neselovskyi has depicted. Accordingly, he subtitles Odesa, “A musical walk through a legendary city.” There are several places where Neselovskyi slyly interpolates brief flashes of Mussorgsky’s music; one will hear a particularly vivid quote at the end of track two, “Odesa Railway Station.”

 

Classical music frequently informs Neselovskyi’s playing. He is a double-threat pianist, one able to channel and play concert music while at the same time possessing sturdy jazz chops and improvisational acumen. On “Potemkin Stairs,” there are flurries of ostinatos, calling to mind both minimalism and the passagework of Romantic concertos. These are interspersed with plummy chordal passages that halt the piece’s momentum to savor a rich harmonic language. Where “Potemkin Stairs” is virtuosic, “Winter in Odesa” seems based on Eastern European folk music, with a concomitant Impressionist cast. Here Neselovskyi builds a moving piece out of a simple modal tune and countermelodies. Over time, elaborate ornaments are added to the middle section, only to return to the modal tune with a fourths and fifths harmonic accompaniment: another signature of folk music. 

 

Neselovskyi had distinguished studies and an early acceptance at Odesa Conservatory. This is celebrated by “Waltz of Odesa Conservatory,” which depicts a mischievous youth playing with humorous, showy, and then jazzy gestures. One can imagine young Neselovskyi far away from his teachers when playing in this manner. The waltz is great fun: one could imagine a notated version serving as a competition piece. “My First Rock Concert” is the only composition on Odesa that isn’t an original. It is based on the rock song “Blood Type” by Viktor Tsoy. The voicings remind one of how barre chords are played on the electric guitar, with lots of parallelisms. Playing this alongside the vocal melody, bass part, and inflections of the percussion is no mean feat, and it stretches out with proggy soloistic sections to eight minutes in duration (now I want to check out some Viktor Tsoy: Neselovskyi makes him sound compelling). 

 

Two interludes serve as etudes for modern jazz styles, the first atmospheric and the second angular. “Acacia Trees” inhabits a hushed wayward melody and aching, poignant harmonies. The opening line of “Odesa 1941” delicate too, but it is accompanied by a thrumming, sustained bass pedal and succeeded shortly by dissonance verticals and a polymetric dance and a thunderous middle cadence. It is like a tempestuous amalgam of works by Bartôk and Shostakovich. At the piece’s conclusion, the gentle opening melody returns, basically unaccompanied. Thus, the entire dynamic and rhetorical spectrum is accommodated in just under six minutes. Supplied with a brief Phrygian introduction filled with open fourths/fifths, “Jewish Dance” depicts another aspect of Neselovskyi’s background. The dance proper has a soprano register tune that glides downward through a minor scale with a flat second, a feature of both Jewish and Eastern European music. The tune reverses direction, rising against countermelodies and thick quartal/quintal bass register chords. The two melodies, now in soprano and alto registers, are juxtaposed and one is augmented, creating a long, pedal-supported cadenza. The last section of the piece brings its register down about an octave, thickening the accompaniment and adding a slice of swing to the polymeter. It moves into half-time, then double-time, and ends with another descending cadenza and a pedaled splash of color. 

 

“The Renaissance of Odesa” concludes the recording.  A haunting midrange melody against harmonically intricate arpeggiations, that lead the tune through a number of key areas, occupies a registration previously unheard on the recording. But two flourishes at the end once again evoke Mussorgsky: low bass fifths and octaves and an altissimo register modal duet. It is as if Neselovskyi is saying goodbye, for now, to his past and to all its treasured reference points. Odesa is imaginative, superlatively well performed, and enthusiastically recommended. 

(All proceeds from the recording go to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine).

-Christian Carey



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

Žibuoklê Martinaitytê – Ex Tenebris Lux (CD Review)

Žibuoklê Martinaitytê

Ex Tenebris Lux

Pavel Gunter, percussion; Rokas Vaitkevičius, cello

Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Karolis Variakojis, conductor

Ondine 

 

Ex Tenebris Lux is the second portrait recording in as many years for composer Žibuoklê Martinaitytê. The works here are for string orchestra, two of them with soloists. They present a reduced language, often involving modal collections without any accidentals. Despite this, Martinaitytê draws forth a variety of compelling sonorities and textures.

 

The Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra plays seamlessly, with rich tone and precise intonation. The title work, from 2021, is abetted by these qualities, its descending arpeggiations and vertical sonorities played with rhythmic precision. Conductor Karolis Variakojis understands that forward momentum is a necessary approach to avoid the thick textures feeling languid. In the piece Nunc fluens, Nunc stans (2020), percussionist Pavel Giunter creates gently shimmering passages that enliven the strings. The title is a quote from Boethius, a rough translation being, “The now that passes creates time; the now that remains creates eternity.” Written in the midst of pandemic lockdown, Martinaitytê suggests that this piece was in response to the past being gone, the future being very uncertain, and the only thing left being the present moment. The mindfulness of this bespeaks the meditative trance that Nunc fluens, Nunc stans creates, a beautiful space of contemplation. 

 

Cellist Rokas Vaitkevičius is the soloist on Sielunmaisema (2019). Cast in four movements, the thirty-five minute long piece is a concerto that is more rhapsodic than virtuosic with a spacious ambience. Unfurling melodies, undulating passages, and harmonics are set against glissandos, repeated notes, and achingly long melodies in the ensemble. Ebullient repeated notes and dynamic swells characterize the second movement. The solo takes up harmonic glissandos to provide a coloristic element to the proceedings. The third movement incorporates hushed, mysterious verticals and pitch slides in the solo. The conclusion of Sielunmaisema features poignant overlapping melodies and chordal swells. Questing counterpoint, with the cello solo plangently mining its upper register, creates a closing section that soars with graceful elegance. 

 

Martinaitytê spent her pandemic time productively, crafting two of the three expressive works here. They are memorably beautiful pieces. Her previous recording, Saudade, is also richly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Steve Reich – Reich/Richter CD Review

Steve Reich

Reich/Richter

Ensemble Intercontemporain, George Jackson, conductor

Nonesuch

 

Steve Reich has long admired the artwork of Gerhard Richter, whose abstraction and ties to minimalism seem tailor-made for a collaboration with the composer. The artist’s film Moving Picture (946-3), made with Corrina Belz and based on Richter’s book Patterns, provided just such an opportunity. Reich/Richter was composed to be performed alongside the film and has received over a hundred performances at screenings starting in 2019. This audio recording of the work is amply diverting on its own. 

 

The piece is recognizably Reich, with ostinatos, polyrhythms and full-bodied harmonies interacting throughout. The use of pitched percussion, piano, and strings (with a particularly rangy double bass part) creates a sinfonietta that is an extension of the instrumentation of many of Reich’s key works. The use of wide-ranging soloistic passages in the winds is particularly suitable for Ensemble Intercontemporain. However, it would be a mistake merely to analogize it to past works. Reich/Richter is distinctive in its own right. Directedness of harmonic progressions, which in interior cadences are sometimes thwarted by deceptive fakes but in closing sections are emphatic, suggests a harmonic scaffolding with considerable long-term planning. The structuring of rhythm is rigorous as well. Belz talked about the film’s organization into “pixels,” and Reich used a time scale of rhythmic values to respond to rows of pixels. The end result breaks up the composer’s trusty polyrhythms into different, at times surprising, groupings. 

 

Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by George Jackson, perform a rhythmically incisive and expressive rendition of Reich/Richter. Not so many years ago, the group performing Reich would have been beyond the pale. It is refreshing that those stylistic barriers have fallen so that excellent ensembles known for their interpretations of modernism can have a crack at minimalism. Reich/Richter is a vivid and arresting work that shows as many departures by its octogenarian creator as mainstays of Reich’s creativity. 

 

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

Steven Schick – A Hard Rain (CD Review)

Steven Schick

A Hard Rain

Islandia Music Records

 

Steven Schick is an extraordinary musician, best known as a percussionist but also a formidable conductor. After decades of performing all of the important solo works of the percussion repertoire, Schick is creating a series of recordings, titled Weather Systems, documenting interpretations built on lifelong study. The first, A Hard Rain, includes works by the experimental and serial wings of American music, European modernists, and a tour-de-force rendition of Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonata (1932). 

 

The double disc recording begins with 27’10.554” for a percussionist (1956), a nearly half hour long piece by John Cage. As with so much of Cage’s music, the use of silences between aphoristic gestures is often present. The instrumental complement includes a number of regular percussion implements plus several unconventional noise-makers: radios, whistles, pre-recorded sound, wooden and metallic materials. The pre-recorded sound plays a pivotal role. Schick’s realization of the piece is an eighty-four multitrack mix. Schick calls it “a rainforest of sounds.”  The impression it makes is of a diverse, diffuse sound environment that moves between noise, nature, and more codifiable rhythmic structures.

 

Zyklus (1959), by Karlheinz Stockhausen, is an exciting, highly choreographed, graphic score, with the trick that, like the deployment of its instruments, it is circular in construction. The performer is allowed to enter the circle at any point and work through the piece from there. King of Denmark (1964) is far more intuitive, keeping the slow, soft, spare aesthetic of Feldman but transferring it to percussion.

 

Two American serialists are represented. Charles Wuorinen’s Janissary Music (1966) is an early example of the composer using serialized rhythmic structures. The pitch language also uses 12-tone techniques, the result a fastidiously designed piece that is  muscular in its angularity. Schick went to University of Iowa, where William Hibbard taught, and thus his recording of Parsons’ Place (1968) is a return to one of the first solo percussion pieces he learned. Like Feldman and Cage, Hibbard allows space between entries with a generally soft dynamic. However, they are knotty and self-similar, the pitched percussion chromatic in pitch spectrum. The accretion of gongs, cymbals, and a drummed pulse provides a slow build to an interior cadence. Once again, the texture thins, with long rests interspersing brief eruptions, shimmering gongs joining pitched percussion. Gently articulated melodies interspersed with drumming creates a hybridized last section that becomes progressively more assertive, then drifts off in a shimmer of cymbals.  Schick’s use of dynamic contrasts and nimble gestures make a strong impression. A compelling work that should be better known. 

 

Intérieur I (1966) by Helmut Lachenmann takes the post-War modernism found in Zyklus and expands its instrumental and expressive reach. Glissandos on timpani and xylophone, brightly articulated melody on vibraphone, and disjunct arpeggiations on marimba are offset by long-sounding gongs and punchy non-pitched drum interjections. The whole creates a labyrinthine complex of alternating gestures and textures. 

 

Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonata (1922-32) is one of the most important sound poems of the twentieth century. As the title suggests, the shape of the piece is sonata form, but the vocal sounds required are as far from traditional as can be imagined. Electronics composer Shahrokh Yadegari joins Schick for a virtuosic performance of the piece that includes echoes, layerings, and treatments of the voice. Schick provides a dramatic rendition of the Ursonata, rendering its tongue-twisters, repetitions, and non-sequiturs with flair and fluidity. I heard Schick perform the piece at the Park Avenue Armory, and while a stereo recording can’t capture the encompassing power of Ursonata live, it captures detail and an impressive amount of heft. A Hard Rain is one of 2022’s “must-hear” recordings. One waits with keen anticipation for its follow-ups.   

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical

Wilfrido Terrazas – The Torres Cycle

New Focus Recordings has released The Torres Cycle, a new CD by Wilfrido Terrazas containing seven tracks of original music composed between 2014 and 2021. Subtitled ‘A Musical Ritual for the Seven Cardinal Directions’, this album explores the significance of direction, place and culture as expressed by the proximity of Southern California to Mexico. As stated in the liner notes: “A deepened relation to cardinal orientation loosens social order and transforms common wisdom oppositions into liminal spaces: the cycle’s sonic presences are improvisational, but its figurations monumental; its scope at once historical, mythological and speculative…” Wilfrido Terrazas is a prolific composer with over 380 world premiers in 20 countries throughout Europe and the Americas. He is a master flutist and educator who is constantly exploring the unique cultural relationship between his place of residence in San Diego and his native Ensenada, Mexico. The Torres Cycle continues this important work with an album performed by top-flight area musicians.

‘Torre’ is Spanish for tower and each of the tracks in the album represent a musical expression inspired by looking outward in a certain direction. Orientation and direction are of great historical and cultural significance in Mexico – think of the celestial alignment of Mayan ceremonial buildings or the dramatic ritual of the Voladores: daring young men representing the four cardinal directions, who fling themselves off a high platform and twirl downward over one hundred feet secured only by ropes around their ankles. Even in our contemporary society, direction has a fundamental influence on our awareness. Along the west coast of Mexico and California, facing east generally means seeing mountains while to the west is the sea and the sunset; both inspire very different emotions. In California, facing south connects our imagination with Mexican culture while the obverse is true facing north from Baja. Terrazas exploits the connection between direction and imagination to create a cross-cultural dialogue expressed in contemporary musical forms.

The opening track, Torre del Norte (2018) explores the four cardinal directions of North, East, South and West. The piece is written for any number of brass players and opens with trumpets sounding long sustained tones. These start on the same nominal note, but the players soon bend the pitches to create new and dramatic dissonance and harmonies. As new tones are added, the tension rises and the texture swells and falls with changes in pitch and volume. At 3:00 the pitches again change with more notes with faster rhythms resulting in a flurry of independent passages flying through the air. The complexity builds to an almost chaotic level with lots of trills, tremolos and rapid runs – perhaps a comment on life north of the border? The playing here is quite amazing, especially in the lower brass. More and more extended techniques and special sounds arrive in broken phrases and uncoordinated rhythms. At length, the ensemble settles down and there is a languid stretch with more conventional tones and harmonies – there is an expansive, Duke Ellington feel to this, perhaps reflecting the rich and savory culture south of the border. The dissonance slowly rises as does the volume, increasing the sense of drama even as the piece suddenly halts in mid-stride. Expertly realized by the brass, Torre del Norte is a powerful reminder of the range of emotions that are evoked when simply facing different directions.

Track 4, Tótem II, Miro hacia el cielo (2019), explores another significant direction – in this case up. Scored for any number of piccolo players, this opens with a long, sustained piccolo tone whose pitch is slightly bent even as others join in at almost the same frequency. All of this soon becomes shrill and very penetrating. The sounds bounce around in the listener’s ear becoming almost painful at times. Short, breathy sounds are heard in the background providing some relief while the pitches in the foreground climb ever higher. By 4:20 some piccolo notes are heard in a more conventional register and this soon evolves into rapid runs and phrases that increase in complexity. The lines are independent and flighty, resembling nothing so much as a flock of chirping birds. At 6:50 the piccolos return to multiple sustained sounds with pitches that are within a few cycles of each other. This slows down to a stretch of breathy sounds that bring out a remote and desolate feeling. A flurry of active phrases appear amid the windy sounds but these gradually decline in number until fading at the finish. Tótem II, Miro hacia el cielo artfully captures exactly what you would expect looking upward into nature’s sky.

Tótem I, Camino sobre la tierra (2019), track 2, roughly translates to ‘I walk on the earth’ and is more introspective. Soft gong chimes followed by silence open this, creating a mystical and exotic feeling. The oboe enters with long, mournful tones that bend upward in pitch. The percussion continues independently, allowing the oboe to continue the exploration of an unknown emotional terrain. At length, a drum beat is heard as the oboe line turns shrill, producing a sense of distant menace. A flurry of oboe runs and percussion sounds follow, bringing Coltrane briefly to mind. The oboe ceases and soft percussive notes fade quietly to the finish. In Camino sobre la tierra it is clear that the most exotic direction is inward.

The other four tracks offer further perspectives on the inner influence of direction. Torre del Sur (2014) or ‘to the south’ is scored for five bowed string parts and opens with very soft sounds suggesting a quiet and rural landscape. More intense and complex stretches arise that sound happily chaotic in detail, yet are cohesive in the whole. There are also soft interludes so that one is reminded of the many complex cultures that are scattered throughout the mostly wide open spaces of the Mexican countryside.

Amy Cimini’s excellent liner notes state that “With Torre del Oeste, the cycle ends with laughter, facing west.” This piece is scored for any number of woodwinds and, as each player enters in turn, the intensity increases and exotic harmonies multiply. This piece can be quietly mysterious at times, becoming more actively shrill and almost painful to the ear. The woodwind players confidently navigate this complex musical terrain as alternating cycles of frenzy and repose continue throughout. Slowly the sounds de-escalate and become just a few solitary twitters, declining in volume as the piece fades to a close. Torre del Oeste certainly could be the musical equivalent of ‘gales of laughter’ and is a fitting conclusion to The Torres Cycle.

Using the concepts of direction and location, The Torres Cycle seeks to delineate the confluence of our cross-border cultures. Wilfrido Terrazas continues to build bridges of cultural understanding through the language of new music.

The Torres Cycle is available directly from New Focus Recordings and Amazon Music.


by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Dance, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Alex Wand – Music for Dance 2017-2020

Music for Dance 2017-2020, by Alex Wand, is a new album of selected electronic instrumental music created as accompaniment for choreographed dance. Wand’s experience with the local dance community is extensive and includes residencies with the LA Dance Project, Los Angeles Performance Practice, REDCAT, and Metro Art LA. According to the liner notes, Wand has worked with choreographer Jay Carlon “ …as a collaborator on his site-specific dance theater productions and dance films…” This collection consists of eight tracks of electronic music, primarily realized using modular synths. Although Wand’s supple voice is absent from this album, the inventive sounds he creates provide an open and inviting framework for interpretive dance.

Composers working with dance companies have a distinguished history in new music. Lou Harrison often collaborated with dance choreographers during his career. John Cage famously devised the prepared piano to give his accompaniment more percussive punch, assisting the dancers to better follow the beat. The closest piece to the traditional forms of dance music in Alex Wand’s new album is Crest, track 5, which provides a repeating phrase at a brisk tempo that is mostly percussive in texture. This piece feels like dance in that it encourages movement. The rounded tones are subdued but active, and interesting harmonies develop as the repeating phrases evolve.

Out of Bounds, track 3, further explores the percussive texture but with a different expressive intent. This begins with a strong beat and rapid electronic pulse. The drum beats occasionally vary in pitch and volume so that the feeling is like being inside of a helicopter. A sine tone is heard and the rhythms change up, becoming more broadly mechanical. The pulses here are less a guide for body movement and more a framework that allows the dancer to react. Other tracks in the album encourage a similar response. Flocking, track 1, is typical with deep, sustained tones setting a warm foundation while a repeating, syncopated chirp in the higher registers convincingly evokes other worlds. There is a feeling of open grandeur to this that engages the listener while allowing the dancer full scope for interpretation.

Four Triangles features four synthetic tones with differing pitches and duration. The pitches are based on the resonant frequencies of pieces of sheet metal and the processed sounds are somewhere between a pure sine wave and a bell chime. These attractive tones blend well together and form engaging harmonies. Signal, track 7, consists of complex electronic sounds that seem to be emulating a message of some sort. Low, sustained tones compliment the beeps and boops in the upper registers. This ends dramatically as the signals fall away leaving just the lower tones. The other pieces in this album are similarly intended to give the dancers a wide canvas for expression.

Although often abstract and otherworldly, Music for Dance makes for an excellent contrast with the obvious human element that the dancer provides. Alex Wand writes: “The tracks feature fluctuating synth pulses, swirls of noise textures, and pitch-shifted recordings of planetary magnetospheres… I composed these pieces with the intent to leave room for the dance to speak and hope that this sense of spaciousness is translated to the listener as well.”

In addition to the electronic realization of his accompaniments, Wand has also experimented with physical inputs such as wireless accelerometers and contact microphones to provide a path for interaction between the movement of the dancer and the music. Music for Dance 2017-2020 adds a 21st Century sensibility to the long-standing collaboration between new music and interpretive dance.

Music for Dance 2017-2020 can be heard at Bandcamp.


by Paul Muller
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Mark Turner – Return from the Stars (CD Review)

Mark Turner

Return from the Stars

Mark Turner, saxophone; Jason Palmer, trumpet; Joe Martin, double-bass, Jonathan Pinson, drums

ECM Records

 

In recent years, saxophonist Mark Turner has appeared as a collaborator on a number of ECM recordings, including CDs with Billy Hart and Ethan Iverson. His latest, Return from the Stars, is the first quartet outing he has recorded for the label as a leader since 2014’s Lathe of Heaven. The players who join Turner are trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Jonathan Pinson. All of the tunes are originals by Turner, and he demonstrates versatility and depth as a writer. Just as Lathe of Heaven is the name of an Ursula K. LeGuin novel, Return from the Stars references a totemic sci-fi book by Stanislav Lem. There are no electronics or sci-fi effects that suggest spaciness, but the solos of the winds and freely flowing rhythm section suggest music that aloft ascends. 

 

The title composition has a mysterious cast, beginning with the tune outlined by trumpet and saxophone with heterophonic embellishments in both of the winds and a sotto voce rhythm section. The lines start to crisscross only to once again converge, with Martin interjecting a walking line that supplies another melody to the action. Pinson builds upon Martin’s gestures, swelling to dynamic presence. Turner is a generous collaborator, eager to showcase his colleagues alongside his own playing. Palmer is allowed considerable time to solo. His rangy and rhythmically varied one on “It’s not Alright” is a particular standout of virtuosity and taste in shaping numerous choruses. The tune also features Turner and Palmer playing fleet renditions of the tune in octaves completely together. On “Wasteland” they play a duet in rhythmic unison but in constantly shifting intervals. Martin and Pinson relate to them in an abstract fashion. Just when you think that they are off on a tangent, the group syncs together, with Martin providing harmonic underpinning and Pinson landing with him to articulate arrival points. 

 

Several of the tunes stretch, but “Unacceptable” is the longest form, with cat-and-mouse canons leading off into overlapping winds. A melodic cell is played in intervals and then developed as a principal motive in octaves. The winds submerge at their cadences points, affording space for breaks by the rhythm section followed by solo turns. Turner’s is chromatic, vibrant in tone, and filled with scalar passages that develop and recall the chorus. The game of canons returns, followed by a languid trumpet solo and then a warm wind duet. The close is a beautiful denouement, with the wind duo slowing down and fading to pianissimo and the rhythm section equally hushed. 

 

An intricate piece, “Unacceptable” suggests that Turner would do well to arrange some of his compositions for larger ensembles: perhaps ECM will oblige in a future recording project. In the meantime, Return from the Stars supplies the listener with plenty of fascinating music to savor. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

Sandrine Piau – Handel Enchantresses (CD Review_

 

Handel: Enchantresses

Sandrine Piau, soprano

Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas, director

Alpha Classics

 

Soprano Sandrine Piau is a versatile artist who has compellingly performed a wide range of repertoire. Handel has remained a touchstone for Piau, and on Handel:Enchantresses, she explores a different subset of characters than the heroines and ingenues that were her bread and butter as a young singer. Handel is one of the great composers at illustrating grief, despair, and tempestuousness. The characters who inhabit these traits are given a showcase on this Alpha Classics CD. 

 

Piau’s theatrical and expressive capabilities are on full display here. Rinaldo’s “Il Vostro Maggio,” a lament that is most touching, is delivered with considerable poignancy. Another lament, “Piangeró la Sorte Mia,” from Giulio Cesare in Egitto, alternates between aching appoggiaturas and a slow tempo in the outer sections and a middle section with fiery sixteenths. “Alla Salma Infedel,” from Lucrezia, is filled with closely spaced chromaticism, and Piau navigates her upper register with superlative control. 

 

The soprano’s runs are fleet and clear, as evidenced on “Da Tempeste,” also from  Guilio Cesare in Egitto, in which Cleopatra’s exults over her union with Julius Caesar. Sung with wide-ranging cadenzas and quickly rendered coloratura, this is tailor-made for Piau. “Scherza in mar la navicella,” from Lotario, is another showcase for fast-paced and wide-ranging singing that is as exciting as it is exactingly performed. “Ah! Mio cori,” from Alcina, is a riveting twelve-minute scena that features Piau’s singing at its most richly hued and dramatic.

 

Jérôme Correas leads Les Paladins with considerable flexibility, the ensemble turning on a dime to match Piau’s use of rubato. The instrumental pieces they present as interludes, excerpts from Concerto Grossos and the overture to Amadigi Di Gaulo, display Les Paladins to excellent advantage, playing nimble French overture rhythms in the overture and plangent dissonances in the G-minor concerto movement. They have a well balanced sound that is lustrous while being period-informed. 

 

Some aria collections are grab bags or greatest hits recordings. Thoughtful curation is a welcome alternative that, happily, seems to have become more frequent. Handel: Enchantresses is ideal in this regard, in that it explores a different facet of Piau’s artistry while presenting arias that are, in many cases, underserved treasures. Highly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Microtonalism

Peter Thoegersen – Alien Music

Magic&Unique Records has released Alien Music, a collection of the early works of Peter Thoegersen that combine alternate tuning with polytempic meters. With pieces dating from 2002, this album offers a baseline view of Thoegersen’s long-time exploration of the interrelationships between pitch and rhythm. As he writes in the liner notes: “Alien Music is essentially my first Polytempic Polymicrotonal piece composed from a four part drumset composition in four simultaneous meters/tempos: 3, 4, 5, 7, all played in one sitting. There are additional microtonal instruments added in different tunings: 12tet, 19tet, 7 tone slendro, and 5 tone pelog, tuned to parity with 7-limit just.”

The album consists of Alien Music and seven other tracks that incorporate a variety of experimental tunings, meters, different types of percussion, electronic sounds and even spoken phrases or chant. Thoegersen also includes original etudes and studies that reach back to the earliest realizations of his imaginative musical formulations. All the tracks on the album can be called alien in the sense that they sound otherworldly, but there is a double meaning in the album title: Thoegersen’s Polytempic Polymicrotonal music is also alien to all that has gone before it.

The title track, Alien Music, is perhaps the most developed piece of the collection. This opens with a steady percussive beat and an engaging microtonal melody in the marimba. Thoegersen’s crisp drumming weaves in and out of the texture, supported by an ambient wash in the deep background. The contrast of the frenetic drumming, cymbal crashes, marimba line and luminous bell tones with an undercurrent of languid strings is at once unsettling and engaging. The mixing is carefully crafted and does not unnecessarily favor any one element, allowing each to add to the total. The level of tension rises and falls as the piece proceeds, depending on what sounds are heard in the foreground. The active drumming subsides and then builds up in cycles and the ambient strings occasionally dominate to produce a mysterious feel. A nice groove develops in the percussion towards the finish and the piece ends with a soft bell tone that seems to hang in the air. For all its rhythmic and harmonic complexity, Alien Music holds together convincingly, with each unique element contributing to a cohesive and pleasing overall sound.

Other pieces on the album explore subsets of the polytempic and polymicrotonal possibilities that were incorporated into Alien Music. The shortest piece of the album is Polymicrotonality Etude VII, and this contains just an unintelligible echoed voice with bell microtones, one complimenting the other to create an increasingly anxious feel. Gorgeous Monstrosity, track 2, starts with a light tapping and scuffing, continually building to eventually include mechanical percussion and chimes. There is less integration of rhythm and pitch in this track but nevertheless it conveys a distinctively alien feel. Iraq, track 7, features more of Thoegersen’s solid drumming along with an almost conventional accompaniment of synthesized rock band and electronic keyboard. A sort of rough spoken rap is heard against a lyrical contrasting vocal line, and the ensemble works effectively to make a political statement critical of the invasion of Iraq. The other tracks of Alien Music are much like watching experiments in a laboratory, with each trying assess the potential of various combinations of ensemble, rhythm and tuning.

The impact of alternate tuning in contemporary music is still working itself out. Originally employed as a way to restore some character to the compromised conventional 12-tone equal temperament scale, alternate tuning has become a highly mathematical and theoretical discipline as well as an ongoing search for new harmonic syntax. Adding a polytempic component in addition to the microtone pitch set has been Thoegersen’s line of inquiry for over 20 years. His later works, such as Three Pieces in Polytempic Polymicrotonality from 2019, show a more mature handling of the polytempic polymicrotonal paradigm and are worth hearing for comparison. Alien Music provides a look into the origins of this system and gives us bright flashes of its future promise.

Alien Music is available for listening and download on Spotify.



by Paul Muller