CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Duo Gazzana on ECM (CD Review)

Duo Gazzana

Kõrvits/Schumann/Grieg

ECM Records

 

Sisters Natascia Gazzana, violinist, and Raffaella Gazzana, pianist, have recorded a number of releases for ECM that program a combination of great romantic chamber works and contemporary fare. On their latest, they present romantic works by Robert Schumann and Edvard Grieg alongside contemporary pieces by Tõnu Kõrvits. The latter does a great deal to balance the former two, providing a less effusive tone and tangy harmonies.

 

Kõrvits’s Stalker Suite (2017) opens the recording. It was written for the Duo Gazzana and dedicated to the filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The piece is titled after the film Stalker, which has its own distinctive score, but Kõrvits does not quote from it, rather taking moods and reference points from the film as springboards into original music. Kõrvits combines harmonies and gestures from romantic tonality (a linkage with the recording’s other works) and with post-tonal crunches and extended techniques such as col legno glissandos and strummed piano bass strings. After the mysterious atmosphere of the suite’s first movement, “Into the Zone,” the second, “The Room,” takes on an Ivesian cast, exploring two against three rhythms and a haunting melody. Natascia Gazzana gets a solo turn in the third movement, “Monologue,” which begins with melodic fragments that combine and build into an ascending line of considerable beauty, adorned by harmonics and double stops. The final movement, “Waterfall,” incorporates whole tone scales and other signifiers of water borrowed from Debussy and Ravel. Descending octave passages in the violin are tightly tuned, and limpid flurries in the piano’s right hand provide a lovely sense of lassitude. 

 

The Schumann Sonata in A Minor for Violin and Piano (1851) is one of the composer’s finest pieces of chamber music. Cast in three movements, it is filled with interpenetration within and between sections, most famously having the first theme from movement one returning near the very end of the piece’s conclusion. Schumann also crafts several of the themes to be well suited for canonic deployment, which he does throughout the piece. The work is dedicated to Clara, for whom Schumann wrote a formidable piano part, making the piece a true duet. After the complex sonata construction of the first movement, the second movement is a fascinating amalgam of slow movement and scherzo – almost like  the second and third movement forms of a four movement work are bound together. It also explores some distant key relationships. The final movement has rondo-like features, but is far more motivically diverse than the average final movement, incorporating various thematic transformations, including the aforementioned return of material from movement one. Duo Gazzana provides an abundantly clear interpretation that underscores all of the dynamic contrasts as well as counterpoint and intricate harmonies.

 

Four Notturni (2014) by Korvits follows. Spare, song-like, with evocative melodies that often take a Messiaen-like or Bartokian modal cast. Elsewhere polytonal and polyrhythmic facets coexist, once again creating an Ivesian cast. The final nocturne somewhat resembles a Debussy prelude. Despite all of these surface influences, Korvits creates in a space all his own. Duo Gazzana are fine muses for him.

 

The recording concludes with Grieg’s Sonata in C-minor for Violin and Piano (1887). It is interesting to hear this paired with the Schumann sonata. Grieg’s frequent alterations of motives and rhythmic patterning owe a debt to Schumann. The first movement opens with a muscular theme that is succeeded by a number of smaller, often furtive moments. Natascia Gazzana’s sumptuous tone in high-lying passages complements Raffaella Gazzana’s richly sonorous playing. The intervening 36 years between the Schumann and Grieg sonatas had ceded at least one half of the playing field to Richard Wagner, and passages in Grieg’s sonata employ the cascades of diminished seventh chords and spacious breaths between phrases found in Wagner’s operas. The other side of romanticism, the Brahmsian, isn’t ignored, with a number of secondary motives sounding like the folk material of his colleague Dvořák. Thus, the piece is a bounty of disparate musical material. 

 

The second movement also makes a nod to the Schumann piece, combining slow and scherzo material, marked “alla Romanza.” A true “hit tune” of the late nineteenth century, in E-flat major instead of tonic, is haloed with tenderly voiced harmonies. A central melody takes up the scherzo rhythm with violin pizzicatos, then a minor key variant on the motive, with  the piano playing a syncopated tune. After a modulatory transition, the original motive returns, with tremolos in the piano and the violin arcing higher and higher, providing an angelic demeanor. The coda contains a series of deceptive harmonic moves succeeded by a widely spaced cadence and breathtaking altissimo E-flat from the violin.

 

The final movement opens vigorously with a bravura melody exchanged between the two instruments. A gentle segue is followed by juxtapositions of C-minor dance passages and a burnished tune in A-flat that deftly deploys the violin’s g-string. The sense of syncopation of the pulse in the piano energizes much of the movement. Once again, with tremolando piano and the theme hit back and forth, the piece returns to C-minor. A harmonic sequence populated with dance rhythms brings the proceedings through a series of modulations and then quickly articulated modulations, each of which underscores a bit of the preceding material. A-flat puts up quite a fight for supremacy, and the piece remains in major, but concludes elsewhere. The second theme returns, ascending to the soprano register to arrive at a strong cadence. One may think things are concluding, but this material in turn is pushed away by a coda that ends in C-major, providing a triumphant conclusion. The Piano Concerto is Grieg’s most well-known piece. In terms of construction and memorable melodies, the Sonata might well be its equal. In the hands of Duo Gazzana, it turns to gold.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Jennifer Grim – Through Broken Time (CD Review)

Jennifer Grim

Through Broken Time

Jennifer Grim, flute; Michael Sheppard, piano

New Focus Recordings

 

In Anthony Barrone’s astute liner notes, he describes Through Broken Time, flutist Jennifer Grim’s New Focus recording as a mixture of pieces that explore Afro-modernism and post minimalism. I would suggest that classic modernism also plays a role in these varied and compelling pieces for solo flute, overdubbed flutes, and flute with piano accompaniment.

 

Case in point is Tania León’s Alma. Her propensity for Mediterranean rhythms and melodies is on display, but in places it is subsumed by post-tonal gestures and irregular rhythms. Balancing the piece’s digressive narrative, Grim and pianist Michael Sheppard demonstrate a simpatico pairing. The earliest piece on the recording is Alvin Singleton’s Argoru III (1971); the rest have been written in the past fifteen years. Gestural angularity, trills, microtones, bends and florid lines, with suddenly appearing altissimo pitches, make this challenging both from a technical and interpretive standpoint. Grim does an admirable job shaping the piece to create a sensitive performance. Would love to hear more first-rank players tackle this piece.

 

Julia Wolfe’s Oxygen: For 12 Flutes (2021) is a brand-new piece for overdubbed instruments. At fifteen and a half minutes, it is the longest piece on the recording. Even with overdubs, one senses the exquisite breath control required in each part. Whorls of ostinatos are offset by melodies in quarter note triplets. The central section thins down to just the slow melody and then resumes in a buoyant dance with mouth percussion. Gradually, the slow melody does battle with rocketing upward gestures and trills. A new ostinato goes from bottom to top, once again juxtaposing the low melody and trills as a cadence point. Thinning out the texture to the slow melody and a number of polyphonic lines and soprano register flurries, the last few sections then build several of the previous segments into new combinations. The slow melody is presented in the bass register, accompanied by it in halved values in the treble in an oasis before the finale, a pileup of material that displays all twelve flutes, punctuating the close with a bevy of trills.

 

David Sanford’s Klatka Still (2009) is a two-movement piece, dedicated to trumpeter Tony Klatka. The first combines a solemn chorale-like passage in the piano with disjunct gestures in the flute. The duo finish the movement returning to the note A-flat again and again, almost obsessively. The second movement gives the piano a shuffle rhythm. After a cadenza, that flute takes up a moto perpetuo with a bit of swing alongside the piano. Then another cadenza with interpolations by the piano. Gradually the duet evolves into descending third gestures in the piano which spurs still another ostinato in the flute. The duo adopt and then discard a number of tempos, each developing one of the segments of the material presented at the movement’s beginning. Finally, the first ostinato locks in, with the flute adorning it with high trills, leading to an abrupt close.

 

Allison Loggins-Hull’s Homeland (2017) has the benefit of the composer being an accomplished flutist as well. It is expertly composed for the instrument, giving Grim a score to relish: which she does. Like so many of Loggins-Hull’s pieces, it meditates on race, grief, and impoverishment. Homeland’s subtext considers the mournful experience of being deprived a home, from those stolen for the slave trade to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The piece is a compelling testament to mourning, with a soulful yet undefeated character.

 

Valerie Coleman’s Wish Sonatine (2015) is inspired by Fred D’Aguiar’s eponymous poem about the Middle Passage of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Coleman depicts both the creaking of the slave ship’s hull and djembe rhythms from the homelands of the enslaved. Score markings suggest the struggles she depicts: “Defiant,” “Chaotic, gradually more anxious,” and “With fierce indomitability to survive.” Emotive and programmatic, Wish Sonatine vividly communicates the type of engagement she seeks.

 

The piece closes with a new work by David Sanford, commissioned by Grim, Offertory I and II (2021). The first movement knits together spare melodies, often doubling flute and piano. Muted repetitions in the piano and supply lyricism in the flute bring the movement to a close. The second begins with a solo cadenza that is fleet, combining post-bop and post-tonality. The piano chimes in with tense intervals and succinct gestures, the two combine into a Calder mobile of busy overlaps and alternating gestures. The piano gets its own solo turn, the two eventually coming together on unison rhythms but disparate gestures – spaced chords from the piano, and trills from the flute. The piano takes on a muscular strut while the piano adopts another jazz-tinged solo. Descending whole tone patterns followed by a terse game of hide and seek ends the piece, and the recording, with a button. A well-curated and admirably well-performed collection, Grim’s Through Broken Time shares a bevy of repertoire that should be in any new music flutist’s folder.

 

-Christian Carey

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

Hilary Hahn – Eclipse

Hilary Hahn

Eclipse

Hilary Hahn, violin; Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Andrés Orozco-Estrada

DG CD/DL

 

Hilary Hahn is making a reputation programming famous classics paired with twentieth century works. A previous release featured Sibelius and Schoenberg, while her latest recording, Eclipse, programs Antonin Dvorak’s Concerto in A minor, Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, and Alberto Ginastera’s Violin Concerto. While some listeners may come for the Dvorak, they may well be glad to learn of the Ginastera. 

 

Andrés Orozco-Estrada leads the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in a well-shaped and keenly executed rendition of the Dvorak, providing explosive brass cadence points to set up Hahn’s cadenzas and interludes with sumptuous strings and warmly lyrical winds. Hahn adopts a similar approach, with passages of aching delicacy as well as those of laser beam accuracy. While Dvorak has been well-served on recordings, Hahn offers a performance that stands up to the best.

 

Ginastera created a variety of different music throughout his career. By the time he wrote the Violin Concerto for the New York Philharmonic, in 1963, his music had taken a more modernist cast, with post-tonal and microtonal elements alongside vestiges of tonality. The structure of the concerto is fascinating, front-loaded with an eleven-part first movement that begins with an incredibly difficult cadenza. True to form, Hahn plays it with liquescent tone and supple virtuosity. A series of etudes, based on material from the cadenza, follow, each employing a different technique: chords, thirds, other intervals, arpeggios, harmonics, and quarter tones. The first movement ends with a coda, marked maestoso, alternating emphatic gestures from the orchestra with gestures from the cadenza. 

 

The second movement is for a smaller cohort of the orchestra, twenty-two players for the number of first desk performers in the New York Philharmonic. The movement is reminiscent of the Berg Violin Concerto and Schoenberg’s Klangfarben pieces, mysterious and expressionist. Partway, an eruption from the orchestra is negated by a held, altissimo register note from the violin. Calmness pervades for some time, with the harp taking the fore, only to be drowned out again by percussion. The violin and orchestra engage in a duel between angular solo gestures and riotous punctuations. The strings and pitched percussion accompany the soloist in an evocative coda. The third movement is split into two sections, the first a scherzo played sempre pianissimo, with a number of percussive gestures that recall the Central American folk music Ginastera employed earlier in his career. The violin contributes rollicking lines and its characteristic held high notes and long trills. The solo then adds glissandos, harmonics, and a new filigreed melody. The second section is in perpetual motion with flurries from the soloist punctuated by emphatic attacks from the orchestra. A quote from Paganini’s 24th Etude is added to the mix. The work ends abruptly, triumphantly. Fantastic piece, tour de force performance. 

 

The disc concludes in a playful spirit, with Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, which treats the hit tunes of Bizet’s masterpiece as material for a violinist to show off their chops. Alongside the daunting technical challenges are tuneful passages, the Habanera and Toreador Song noteworthy standouts. Sarasate’s orchestrations are transparent and fleet-footed, which the Frankfurt orchestra executes with pliancy and balance. Hahn captures the spirit of this work, its Iberian inflections, dances, and effusive passagework. Great fun and an impressive closer. 

 

Hilary Hahn’s commitment to programming twentieth century repertoire is laudable. It would be all too easy for a performer of her stature to program warhorses exclusively. Hahn’s continued imaginative reach makes Eclipse a special recording. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

Favorites 2022: Louis Armstrong – “A Cool Yule”

Louis Armstrong

Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule

Verve

 

It is hard to believe that the late Armstrong never put out a Christmas album. He did, however, record a number of Christmas singles, including a duet with Ella Fitgerald and sides with the Commanders. Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule brings together his interpretations of holiday songs in beautifully remastered vinyl and CD versions. Cool Yule has quickly ascended to multiple top 10 positions, including Best Holiday Album, on the Billboard charts, the best his work has done in nearly fifty years. 

 

The title track is a mischievous arrangement with incendiary horn charts played by the Commanders.“‘Zat You, Santa Claus” a boisterous jump blues with minor key changes that makes one, just for a moment, wonder if a burglar has replaced Santa in the chimney. Ella Fitzgerald and Armstrong sing the romantic ballad (a bit uptempo) “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” When they harmonize, they sound simply magical. Velma Milton provides a sultry take on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” while Armstrong puns and supplies a few double entendres for good measure. On songs that are chestnuts, ”Winter Land,” and “White Christmas,” Armstrong responds to the ardent character of the arrangements with a romantic tone buzzing with vibrato.

 

The recording includes a previously unreleased track: Armstrong’s rendition of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas,” more popularly known as “A Night Before Christmas.” It is a tender hearted reading gently backed by slow riffs,  aimed at childrens of all ages with a bit of swing in their step. While it is not exactly a song for Christmas, the recording also includes Armstrong’s famous rendition of “What a Wonderful World,” sixty-five years after it was first recorded. 

 

On the recording, Armstrong’s  instrumental collaborators include the bands of Benny Carter, Gordon Jenkins, and the group The Commanders. All present a good understanding of Armstrong’s flexible use of tempo and lilting phrasing. This collection presents an entertaining look at his musicality and an excellent accompaniment to any holiday gathering. One of our favorites in 2022.

 

-Christian Carey 

 

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

Favorites of 2022: Heiner Goebbels and Ensemble Modern – A House of Call

A House of Call. My Imaginary Notebook.

Heiner Goebbels

Ensemble Modern, Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor

ECM Records

Heiner Goebbels’ A House of Call is an evening length collaboration with Ensemble Modern, an group with which he has collaborated on a number of projects over a thirty-five year period; this is their fourth CD for ECM. Subtitled “My Imaginary Notebook,” a reference to John Cage’s roaratorio via Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, the piece brings together several stylistically distinct sections, notably troping pieces associated with the ensemble. Sound recordings that Goebbels has collected over the years, many of folk music-making, are a significant part of the House of Call’s source material. They range from Kazakh, Iranian, Georgian, and Armenian folk songs to poetry and texts by Heiner Müller, Samuel Beckett, and Jalaluddin Rumi. 

 

These recordings are accompanied by vivid orchestrations, amplifying their intensity without diminishing their distinct flavor. Perhaps in part because of the collaborative nature he adopts with the ensemble, Goebbels is the master of this type of amalgam.  The piece is cast in four large sections: Steiner, Scherer, Papier; Grain de la Voix; Wax and Violence; When Words Gone. Each contains three to four movements that survey a kaleidoscopic array of material. The first movement “Introit: A Response to Répons” combines tropes on Pierre Boulez’s totemic piece with recordings of Cassiber, Goebbels’s rock band from the 1980s. Répons is central to the repertoire and aesthetic of Ensemble Modern, and they incorporate the additions and variations fluidly. In Immer den Gleichen Stein, Müller’s deadpan recitations are juxtaposed with boisterous instrumental attacks. The section’s third movement, “Under Construction,” subtitled “Berlin 2017,” is the 21st century version of Copland’s cityscapes, with the ensemble creating a riot of urban noises; clearly in the midst of a traffic jam. In the coda, we get a small taste of respite.

 

Grain de la Voix (a reference to Roland Barthes) has four sections featuring vocal recordings. It begins with a 1916 recording in Mannheim of Giorgi Nareklishvilli, a prisoner of war, singing a keening melody often accompanied by dulcimer and accordion but periodically interrupted by abrupt and explosive outbursts. Next is a 1925 recording of Amrey Kashaubayez, a Kazahk singer. After an extended introduction, the singer enters with haunting, high-lying melismas, to which for a moment the ensemble cedes terrain. An imitative instrumental interlude builds to a fortissimo climax, upon which the voice returns, forward in the mix and ardently intoning. Led by brass swells, the coda descends into a maelstrom, capped off by a final vocal phrase that sounds choked with laughter. “1346” is a performance of Rumi by Iranian musician Hamidreza Nourbakhsh. His incantatory chanting, rife with runs, is shadowed and imitated in an imaginative piece of scoring. The final movement, Krunk, is less tempestuous, featuring harp and dulcimer gently accompanying a recording from 1914 of the great Armenian musician Komitas alongside one from 1917 of Zabelle Panosian. This synthetic duet is most fetching.

 

Part three, Wax and Violence, brings together a mashup of vocalists, including German recordings from the turn of the twentieth century in “”Toccata – Vowels/Woven,” and Namibian vocalists in “Achtung Aufnahme”  and “Nun Danket Allen Gott.” To to transform the composition, Goebbels begins to treat the source materials with greater liberty, recalling the techniques of musique concréte. The final movement of the section, Tí gu go Inîga Mî, explores a grainy recording from Farm Lichtenstein bei Windhoek in 1931 of the singer Haneb alongside percussion and a tangy chord progression. The Ensemble retorts with a howling mix of free jazz and cabaret. 

 

Named after a Samuel Beckett poem later recited, the final section, When Words Gone begins with Bakaki – Diálogo, recorded in 1931 in Quebrada Isue by Victor and Luciano Martinez. It contains murmured hocketing between two voices accompanied by an ambling ostinato. “Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen” features texts by Joseph von Eichendorff recited by Margaret Goebbels, accompanied by particularly spooky music. “Kalimerisma,” recorded in 1930 in Kalymnos, Eskaterina Mangouli performs a passionate and oftentimes chromatic song that is given restrained accompaniment, light percussion and pizzicato cello. The piece’s conclusion, “What When Words Gone,” gives the entire ensemble, apart from the brass, the vocal role, with slowly repeating pitches in each phrase in an intricate pattern. Much of it recalls Feldman, a frequent Beckett collaborator. It finally settles into a two–chord repetition that ends hanging on an extended harmony. 

 

Goebbels outdoes himself here, with perhaps the most far flung references and imaginative scoring he has found to date. Collaborating with Ensemble Modern for over thirty-five years has yielded fresh sounds and scoring approaches, not an easily comfortable working relationship. A House of Call is one of our Favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CDs, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

File Under Favorites 2022: Alsop Conducts Henze

Hans Werner Henze

Nachtstücke und Arien (1957)

Los Caprichos (1963)

Englische Liebeslieder (1984-5)

Juliane Banse, soprano; Narek Kakhnazaryan, cello;

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor

NAXOS 8.574181

Hans Werner Henze is due a revival. His excellent operas and stylistically varied pieces for orchestra, voices, and chamber forces are some of the most distinguished music written by a German composer since the Second World War. Why then does he seem to take a backseat to others, from Stockhausen to Rihm, in terms of acknowledgement and performances? Henze’s music sits astride postwar modernism and the New Romanticism that have been pervasive influences in Germany, not fitting easily into either camp yet serving as an indispensable influence for both. It is perhaps that, without an easy pigeon hole, his work is deemed harder to program. Marin Alsop and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra have made a recording for Naxos that may help to correct the undue neglect. 

 

Nachtstücke und Arien (1957) is cast in five movements, two of them vocal settings of poetry by Ingeborg Bachmann, a frequent collaborator and librettist for Henze, and the others “night music” interludes in an expressionist idiom. Julian Banse is magnificent in the arias, singing the angular, high-lying lines with consummate control and ardent lyricism.

 

Alsop accentuates dynamic contrasts in her interpretations, which lends itself well to the  muscular orchestration of the night music pieces and Los Caprichos (1963), a Fantasia for orchestra based on a series of nine engravings by Goya. Los Caprichos is an evocative set of pieces, with Henze’s writing at its most Bergian. Englische Liebeslieder (1984-1985) are songs without words for cello and orchestra, with one of the songs forgotten by the composer: the marking “Tango” is substituted. Here the orchestration is more supple, encircling the cello solo without ever overwhelming it. Cellist Narek Kakhnazaryan plays with beautiful tone, vibrato, and long phrases that highlight the resplendent romanticism of the piece.

 

The Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra displays a keen understanding of the styles employed by Henze. One hopes that Alsop will join them to record more of Henze’s music.  It is one of our Favorites for 2022. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Favorites 2022: Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore

File Under Favorites 2022

Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore

Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker

Unseen Worlds

 

Violinist/vocalist Silvia Tarozzi and cellist/vocalist Deborah Walker have collaborated on projects as improvisers and interpreted contemporary classical music, notably the work of Harold Budd. On their 2022 release for Unseen Worlds, Canti di guerra, di lavorro e d’amore (Songs of war, work, and love), they delve into folk music from the region Emilia, where they grew up. The specific focus of the release is the anti-Fascist songs performed by partisans during the Second World War. The inclusion of Coro delle Mondine di Bentevoglio, who sing “La Lega ” to the accompaniment of accordion and strings, adds immediacy to the proceedings. 

 

Tarozzi and Walker incorporate folk songs into the melodies they play, but the duo incorporate their approach to contemporary improvisation, with a plethora of extended techniques, scurrying lines, harmonics, altissimo playing and glissandos. “Parziale” is a microtonal excursion. “Country cloud” shimmers with violin scales set against single-note attacks in the cello, which are later incorporated into sustained passages. “Il bersagliere ha cento penne” adds Olo Obasi Nnanna singing and Andrea Rovachi playing mbira, the thumb piano’s arpeggiated chords providing a percussive introduction before a supple vocal line. “Meccanica primitiva” also plays with percussive sounds, these elicited from the bodies of the string instruments, which are tapped in overlapping rhythms. This appears to be a hat tip to the Futurists movement, in which Luigi Rossolo and others create music with noise rather than pitch as the focus. 

 

The duo stretch out on “La campéna ed San Simón – Ignoranti senza scuole,” with the singing of another folk song juxtaposed with artpeggiated cello harmonics. A pizzicato section, standing in for guitar,  ushers in the second verse, in which harmony singing embellishes the song. “Sentite buona gente” closes the album with repeated harmonics in the violin and a mournful melody in the cello. Eventually, beautiful vocalise in harmony are added to the melody. The close is a slide in the cello, cutting off the recording in enigmatic fashion.

 

Tarozzi and Walker are valuable musicians in many contexts. It is fascinating to hear them in such a personal one, reviving the songs of those who sought freedom from Mussolini in the very area where they spent their childhoods. An imaginative release that is one of our Favorites of 2022. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Los Angeles

Synchromy – Play Nice: An Evening of Two Harps

Elizabeth Huston and Catherine Litaker were the featured performers for Play Nice – An Evening of Two Harps, a concert presented by Synchromy and held on a rainy December 1, 2022. Originally scheduled for 2020, this concert was postponed for two years due to the Covid pandemic. Six pieces, including two world premieres, were on the program performed at the CadFab Creative gallery in the Culver City Arts District. A wide variety of unusual harp music was heard including solos, duos, extended techniques and pieces with integrated electronic processing.

The first half of the concert was titled Interstellar Space and opened with Suite Galactique, a solo work by Caroline Lizotte and performed by Catherine Litaker. This piece had two parts and the first, Exosphére, was a musical exploration of the extreme outer limits of earth’s atmosphere. This began slowly, with soft harp notes heard singly, then accelerating as more notes were added from the middle and lower registers. As the phrases moved up in pitch, the notes evoked the free and rising feeling of air escaping earth to the upper atmosphere. As the piece proceeded, more notes added a dimension of complexity that produced an introspective feeling. The playing was impressive and the shower of notes towards the finish produced a lovely sound that captured the giddy sense of the lightest of air molecules dancing in the outer reaches of the exosphere. The pitches continued moving upward and before trailing off in the very highest string register.

The second part of Suite Galactique was Hymne au Bon, and this had a more human and primal focus. As the programs notes explained: “The warrior sits down around a fire with his companions… The chattering effect in the very first bars suggest to us that the warrior is exhausted and cold after a hard struggle.” This was heard clearly as a buzzing sound created by a short piece of paper held in contact with one of the longer harp strings that was rapidly vibrating. The harp then produced a dramatic and familiar melody with a strongly Homeric sensibility. The feeling of relief that the warmth of a fire brings is present in the long runs of notes, aided by some singing by the harpist. Hymne au Bon has an ancient feel, a mixture of fatigue and wistful regret that artfully sketches the timeless image of a warrior resting after battle.

Starscape, by Jan Krzywicki, was next and intended as “…an evocation of night, the night sky and night thoughts.” This was performed by Elizabeth Huston and featured a continuous projection of changing star patterns on the back wall of the stage area. The music began with light trills accompanied by solitary notes and short runs. Drama was added as the piece progressed, with changes in dynamics, runs of notes that were variously faster or slower and some that were sharply struck. At times, the harp sounded a bit like a guitar, but with many more notes and pitches. Near the finish, a suggestion of tension crept in to the harmony but this did not detract from the overall feeling of space as mysterious and strange – but not menacing. A varied mix of playing techniques was required and this was accomplished with poise and confidence by Ms. Huston.

NCTRN V “beast of land and sea” followed, a world premiere composed by Nicholas Deyoe. The piece was commissioned by Synchromy with support from the American Harp Society. It is described in the program notes as a “solo for two harpists.” The opening tutti chord has a dark, uncertain feel and the subsequent harmonies were often dissonant but generally engaging. The two harps traded some interesting rhythms back and forth, and there was good visual communication between the players. As NCTRN V continued, a dark and murky feel developed, with the roiling texture suggesting a turbulent sea. The notes now had a more organic sound and towards the finish the harpists created a series of clicking sounds by running plastic rods along the tuning pins of each harp – all of this suggested whales signaling to each other in the dark depths of the sea. Harp music is seldom heard as a duo, and although this piece was at the margins of typical performance practice, and included extended techniques, it was played with great skill and coordination.

The second half of the concert focused on storytelling and opened with The Juniper Tree, by Rebecca Larkin. This was based on the Brothers Grimm story of the same name and was a disquieting reminder of how gruesome those old stories could be. The plot revolved around a young boy who is murdered by his step-mother, beheaded and cooked into a soup that his father was fed for dinner, unaware of its origin. The bones of the boy – all that is left of him – are buried by his younger sister under a juniper tree where his birth mother was interred. A bird, representing the boy’s spirit, soon appears in the tree singing beautiful songs. This bird flies about, collecting items from the townsfolk; a pair of dancing shoes for the sister, a gold chain for the father and a huge millstone that the bird uses to crush the wicked step-mother in revenge.

The story was vividly narrated by Leandro Cano while the harp duo supplied the accompanying music. The unfolding of this fairy tale was highly dramatic and the music kept pace with the swirl of emotions throughout. So well-matched was the music to the story line that the narration and the music became fused together in the listener’s brain. This was similar to watching a silent film accompanied by an orchestra – at some point the visual and the aural merge into a single perception. The harp playing was artfully executed and complimented the grim narration nicely. The Juniper Tree is an unforgettable story combined with artfully expressive music that leaves the listener simultaneously shaken and consoled.

Play Nice, by Eve Beglarian, followed and is well-named. The piece is intended to be performed by both Elizabeth Huston and Catherine Litaker on the same harp. Play Nice is disarmingly simple in its musical construction; the program notes describe it as “…totally diatonic, doesn’t even require two octaves on the harp, uses standard minimalist variation techniques, and in virtually every way plays nice, except for the performers. It’s actually a mean little thing.” The piece began with simple, single notes by Ms. Huston, seated conventionally at the harp. Ms. Litaker, standing to one side, joined in, adding her notes from the opposite side of the harp strings. With the repeating phrases and straightforward rhythms, a pleasing groove soon developed that was recognizably minimalist in both character and charm. The coordination between the players was impressive and visual communication had to be conducted while looking through the harp strings. Ms. Litaker commented later that she had to find her notes from what would be the opposite side of the harp from her normal hand position – a significant playing challenge, however straightforward the music. Play Nice is not only inventive and entertaining, but a chance to appreciate a duo performance in a unique configuration.

The final piece of the concert was the world premiere of {An End for a New Beginning} by Joshua Carro. This was aptly described in the program notes as “a work that symbolizes an interest to use instruments in new and unconventional ways.” Both harps were included as well as microphones, a large array of processing modules and the composer stationed off-stage at a laptop. A large three-dimensional image was projected on the back stage wall and this was programmed to change shape in response to the sounds from the two harps. The piece opened with the slapping of the lower harp strings so that deep, complex tones were sent into the microphones. The spherical image on the screen quickly morphed into a partially flattened doughnut that seemed to shimmer and squirm as the vibrations from the harps dissipated. Sticks were then drawn across the higher strings and this resulted in a series of sharp spikes around the perimeter of the image.

Various harp sounds were translated quickly into changes on the screen and the effects were mesmerizing to watch. All sorts of sounds came from the harps – buzzing, squealing, tones and thumping – everything, it seemed, except conventional melody. The extended effects were similar to those often heard on a piano, and in response the image rotated, swirled, expanded and contracted in a wide variety of shapes and contortions. The action was very smooth and the figure on the screen convincingly resembled a living organism. {An End for a New Beginning} boldly leaves behind traditional musical forms and content, replacing these with a new and intriguing amalgam of the sonic and the visual.

The Play Nice concert extended the creative horizons of the venerable harp, providing both inventive entertainment and intellectual enlightenment. The playing, while often far outside the scope of conventional harp performance practice, was superb and equal to the many technical challenges.

Play Nice was made possible by the Culver City Cultural Affairs Committee, the Culver City Arts Foundation and the American Harp Society.

by Paul Muller
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Favorites 2022: The Blue Hour

The Blue Hour

Shara Nova, voice

A Far Cry

Nonesuch Records

Where once only one composer would create a work, creative collaborations are gaining a presence in contemporary classical music. The Blue Hour is the co-creation of five artists: vocalist/composer Shara Nova, and composers Angelica Negrón, Caroline Shaw, Rachel Grimes, and Sarah Kirkland Snider. They are joined by the chamber orchestra A Far Cry, who commissioned the work. The texts used throughout are excerpts from On Earth, by Carolyn Forché. The poem contains farflung, often abstract,  images as its protagonist moves in the space between life and death, navigating memories from a lifetime of experiences: childhood, love, war, and loss. 

 

Each movement is composed by one of the collaborators, except for a few which are readings. As Negrón has pointed out, the group has been influenced by each other’s work for years, and for the gestation of The Blue Hour they shared their contributions along the way, allowing for affinities and cross-pollination to become an intrinsic part of the finished piece. 

 

There is a wistful poignancy to much of the music. This befits On Earth and serves Nova’s voice well. Nova is a vocal marvel, able to move seamlessly from pop stylings to high-lying legit singing. Both are called upon in The Blue Hour, as its creators often access popular music in a concert music context. The instrumental music features neo-Baroque figurations setting the more exploratory texts, juxtaposed with soaring lines that accompany parts of the poem that are more ecstatic or mournful. 

 

The disparate threads of its creation do nothing to diminish the coherence of The Blue Hour. It demonstrates the potential of jettisoning the composer as a monolithic (patriarchal) figure, instead providing an attractive alternative that celebrates collaboration. The Blue Hour is one of our Favorites for 2022. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

File Under Favorites 2022: Richard Causton on NMC

Richard Causton

La Terra Impareggiabile

Michael Farnsworth, baritone; Huw Watkins, piano

BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo, conductor

NMC Recordings

 

Richard Causton teaches at the University of Cambridge. His latest recording for NMC, a label with which he has long been associated, La Terra Impareggiabile, features a recent orchestra piece that has already garnered much acclaim, and a song cycle that took twenty-six years to finalize. The contrasts between these pieces demonstrate the breadth of Causton’s oeuvre, and the varied ways in which he approaches composing particular pieces.

 

Ik seg: NU (“I say: NOW) (2019) has an interesting backstory for its title. Solomon Van Son, a Dutch relative of Causton’s, wrote a family history dating back some 730 years. But the impetus for its writing came from hearing his ten-year old grand-nephew state: ”I say now now, and a moment later it is already history.” 

 

Causton’s response to this is a piece that deals with time in a dual layer, a foregrounded one of quick gestures and a slower, deliberate background. Fleet wind figures dominate the former, while pizzicato pulsations delineate the latter. Long glissandos in the strings bridge the gap between these two layers and are featured in the middle section. Melodic gestures recur, but there is also an accumulation of freer material that underscores the tempo relationships. To the glissandos are added angular lines that once again feature fast wind passages. The fast music drops away and gradually articulated pitched percussion joins the ambling bass line. Various sections join the slow layer’s material, with it being passed from instrument to instrument with chimes a persistent background. Slowed down versions of the wind melodies, employing glissandos this time, bring the music back to two layers and a more punctilious demeanor. A buildup with the faster layer coming to the fore gives one the impression that the piece will take a victory lap. Just before the close however, the slower layer again is asserted, pianissimo and adorned with string harmonics. It is a startling and effective way to close the piece.  

 

La Terra Impareggiabile is a song cycle setting the poetry of the hermetic writer Salvatore Quasimodo (1901-1968). In broad strokes, it deals with the life cycle. Paradoxically, Causton began with the last song and worked his way back. The cycle’s gestation was prolonged and arduous, but convinced the composer to continue making work. The results, both of the cycle and the body of music Causton has written, speak to the wisdom of that decision. 

 

For a time an English teacher in Milan, Causton’s fluency with the Italian language makes the speech rhythms and expressive devices used in the songs particularly effective. Indeed, Causton has described “a very physical relationship” between words, voice, and music that he encountered at the piano during the process of composition. 

Likewise, Baritone Marcus Farnsworth is sensitive to even the most subtle inflections, and pianist Huw Watkins creates a rich, sonorous sound that not only provides support for Farnsworth, but also responds to the character of the poems, which explore the two perennial themes of love and death. 

 

Writ large or in the intimacy of song, Causton’s music is imaginatively written in an attractive idiom. La Terra Impareggiabile is one of our favorite recordings of 2022. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

by Christian Carey