Tag: CD review

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, 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, File Under?

Molly Tuttle – Crooked Tree on Nonesuch (CD Review)

Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway

Crooked Tree

Nonesuch

 

Songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Molly Tuttle makes her Nonesuch debut with Crooked Tree. Co-produced with dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas, the release includes a number of prominent traditional musicians as collaborators and focuses on Tuttle’s connections to bluegrass and roots music. Previous releases have seen Tuttle sit astride pop and bluegrass, and while Crooked Tree emphasizes the latter, the memorability and single-worthy character of many of its songs reminds us that she is a versatile and formidable talent. 

 

Tuttle plays guitar in a flat-picking style and at turns plays nimble lead lines and boisterous rhythm. A showcase for her playing is “Goodbye Girl.” On this track, as elsewhere, Douglas makes the perfect addition to the proceedings, seamlessly integrating his formidable chops into arrangements with Golden Highway. His solo on “Goodby Girl” is simultaneously fleet and soulful. Tuttle’s band Golden Highway, which consists of fiddle-player Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, mandolinist Dominick Leslie, banjo-player Kyle Tuttle, and bassist Shelby Means, are a formidable combination, all equally comfortable taking a solo turn as well as being imaginative yet rock solid ensemble players. Other musicians joined the sessions in Nashville, including bassist Viktor Krauss, drummer Jerry Pentecost, and harmonica-player Cory Younts. Ketch Secor co-writes several songs with Tuttle and contributes mandolin. Melody Walker is another co-writer and sings backing vocals on the album. 

 

The title track starts with a slow build to the chorus, upon which we get the full band providing a vintage bluegrass arrangement, with a stirring fiddle solo from Keith-Hynes. “She’ll Change” and “Over the Line” show the assembled musicians to excellent advantage. Kyle Tuttle’s banjo takes the instrumental spotlight on “Flatland Girl,” while Margo Price contributes vocals. The layering of her voice with Tuttle creates a beautiful blend. Adding Old Crow Medicine Show to the “Big Backyard” creates another highlight focusing on group singing, a verse with a memorable hook followed by ebullient choruses. Guitarist and singer Billy Strings joins Tuttle on the blues shuffle “Dooley’s Farm.” The waltzing “San Francisco Blues” is a melancholy duet with Dan Tyminski. Perhaps the biggest star turn is Gillian Welch’s appearance on “Side Saddle,” a ribald, rousing showcase for the vocalists with great licks from Douglas. 

 

Left to their own devices, Tuttle and Golden Highway provide equally compelling performances. “Nashville Mess Around” is great fun – a hootenanny, complete with yodeling. “The River Knows” has a haunting melody that alternates sparsely arranged accompaniment of the singing with intricate instrumental breaks.“Castilleja” co-opts the melody of “Poor Wayfarin’ Stranger,” but takes it uptempo. The album  closes with a moving song, “Grass Valley,” which deals with family and loss with an uplifting sensibility. Crooked Tree is a compelling, uniformly excellent recording. Recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

 

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

Wolfgang Rihm – Jagden und Formen (CD Review)

Wolfgang Rihm

Jagden und Formen

Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Franck Ollu, conductor

BR-Klassik CD

 

Wolfgang Rihm’s hour long orchestra work Jagden und Formen (2008) has its roots in an earlier work, some fifteen minutes long, from 1996, dedicated to Helmut Lachenmann on his sixtieth birthday. The piece ultimately morphed and expanded into the version recorded here. There is precedence for this in postwar Europe, particularly in several of the works of Pierre Boulez, which remained in progress and perpetually expanding throughout his lifetime. In his program note, Rihm says that the piece will henceforth likely remain in its current form.

 

While it is dedicated to Lachenmann, the piece remains solidly in Rihm’s language. The music is muscular, post-tonal, and replete with strongly articulated gestures. At the same time, there are guideposts that afford the listener a sense of groundedness: returning sections, repeated pitches that provide momentary centers, and phrase boundaries that include landing points akin to cadences.

 

The piece’s scoring is somewhat unusual. Winds are doubled, but strings are one to a part, the result being a kind of sinfonietta with bolstered textures. The choice for solo strings is canny, in that Rihm frequently deploys them like a chamber quintet within the whole ensemble. The extraordinary tone of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra’s strings undoubtedly abets this impression. This is equally true of the rest of the ensemble, which frequently creates glistening textures and just as often fluid counterpoint that ricochets between instrumental cohorts. 

 

The recording is broken up into tracks, but these do not demarcate movements. They connote sections with particular tempos and scoring, and so suggest the overall formal trajectory of the piece. Adding to the aforementioned concertino impression are a number of solo turns. Particularly impressive are the blindingly fast runs by pitched percussion and the equally fast angular solos taken by the oboe and bassoon. Jagden und Formen traverses a number of tempos, and it is to Franck Ollu’s credit that transitions are seamlessly negotiated and even the most breathless passages are well-coordinated. The piece’s abundant variety and compelling sound world make it a solid addition to Rihm’s compendious catalog. Jagden und Formen will likely see more performances, but this recording will long remain a benchmark.

 

-Christian Carey



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

Aleksandra Gryka on Kairos (CD Review)

Interialcell

Aleksandra Gryka

Florian Müller, harpsichord; Klangforum Wien, Joseph Kalitzke, conductor

Kairos CD

 

Klangforum Wien is undertaking a series of portrait recordings on Kairos of Polish composers. The first solo CD of music by Aleksandra Gyrka (b. 1977), Interialcell, is an impressive introduction to this composer. Consisting of ensemble pieces  written from 2003 to 2015, Interialcell provides a sense of the maturation of an already talented composer in her late twenties to work that takes on successively more intricate materials and formal designs in her thirties. 

 

Regarding the impetus for her music, Gryka is fairly secretive. The hard sciences, particularly quantum physics, are mentioned frequently as a reference point, as are cosmology and sci-fi. A number of her works deal with uncomfortable emotions in extremis, notably the theatre works Scream You! and Our Hell and incidental music for several plays. The instrumental pieces on Interialcell may not have a narrative component that is specifically locatable, but they clearly are wrought from the same combination of scientific, theatrical, and fantastical elements, melding together a panoply of musical elements to provide a sense of this inspirational diversity. 

 

Youmec is a work for harpsichord and ensemble. Florian Müller is frequently called upon to play clustered verticals as well as enigmatic ostinatos. These are accompanied by undulating glissandos in the ensemble. In a sense, the texture is an inversion of the usual concertino. The soloist plays chords while the group is afforded gestural writing. At the piece’s climax, the ensemble begins to ricochet its own vertical off of the solo’s repeated chords.

 

Interialcell opens with thrumming timpani and angular melodic cells in the strings alongside fast chromatic runs in the piano and pitched percussion. The accents of the cells become a grid for rhythmic transformations in a number of scorings and dynamic levels; a deft structural design. Emtyloop begins with furious, corruscating, overlapping strings. This idea of overlapping ostinatos is explored throughout the piece, with hairpin dynamics creating swooning contrasts. Particularly affecting is the later overlap in the upper “dolphin call” register, supplanted by cello glissandos. einerjedeneither juxtaposes percussion pulsations with chromatic wind lines, spectral verticals, and frequent silences. Instruments blown through, aphoristic piano gestures, and microtonal bends complete a haunting, gradually unfolding environment.

 

Mutedisorder closes out the album with furtive, hushed gestures in a portentous ambience. It is somewhat reminiscent of Mark André’s recent works exploring pianissimo. Gryka demonstrates command over the wide range of materials she selects and a special ear for timbre. Recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey 



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

Music for Hard Times (CD Review)

Living Earth Show and Danny Clay

Music for Hard Times

Self-released CD

 

It is fair to say that recent times have been hard on nearly everyone. Living Earth Show decided to create an interdisciplinary project, “Music for Hard Times,” to provide a source of musical comfort. They collaborated on the project with composer and music educator Danny Clay, who created a series of open instrumentation scores to be  interpreted by the group and made available for others to play. Music for Hard Times, the CD, provides one possible, and compelling, interpretation of Clay’s work.

 

Bell sonorities, pitched percussion, piano, and guitars are the primary instruments of Living Earth Show’s recording. In places, string pads halo the proceedings, and late in the album, lyric-less singing and string solos join in. Some online music platforms have pegged Music for Hard Times as New Age, but it encompasses a number of genres, with some of the scores affording leaping intervals and chromaticism that suggest contemporary classical being a strong influence. Elsewhere, ostinatos evoke post-minimalism. Clay’s scores invite a plethora of scorings, and Living Earth Show’s arrangements supply abundant variety, and beauty, in response. 

 

The performances are lush, ambling, and soothing: just what is on order for hard times. 

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, File Under?

Three Recordings for Holy Week (CD Review)

J.S. Bach: St. Matthäus-Passion

Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon

Harmonia Mundi 2xCD

 

J.S. Bach: St. John Passion

English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

Deutsche Grammophon 2XCD

 

The Bach Passions are a staple of the choral repertoire for Holy Week, and there are a number of fine recordings of them. There’s room for more; two additions to this corpus from 2022 are extraordinary: a St. Matthew Passion recorded by Pygmalion, directed by Raphaël Pichon for HM, and a St. John Passion by one of the great Bach conductors, John Eliot Gardiner, with his house bands the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, for DG. Even if you already have recordings of these remarkable works in your collection, it is well worth investing in these. Both are recorded in vivid sound and take a period-informed approach that is lithe and lively, never fussy. 

 

Pichon crafts an exciting version of the St. Matthew Passion that underscores its theological story and musical gravitas. Some recordings split tracks in such a way that there is a distinct feeling of stopping and starting again. Not this one, where the listener is afforded a propulsive trajectory all the way through the trial and execution of Jesus that scarcely lets up. Julian Prégardien as the Evangelist and Stéphane Degout as Christ make for a compelling pair of principals, both underscoring the narrative component of the Passion setting. The soloists, taken from the choruses of Pygmalion, provide singing of arias that is supple and often poignant. In particular, bass-baritone Christian Immler’s singing of the arias “Gebt zum meinem Jesu wieder” and “Mache dich, mein Herze rein” are some of the best versions on record and Tim Mead is a memorable presence in the countertenor solos.  

 

Gardiner’s recording – his third of the St. John Passion – was made from a live performance that occurred on Good Friday, 2021. In adhering to Covid protocols, the performers were more spread out than they usually would be. Rather than weakening the impact of the piece, the spaciousness of ensemble deployment serves it well, with contrapuntal lines distinctly rendered and tutti passages losing little of their weight. The choir’s sections are vivid, displaying excellent diction and musicality, and the instrumentalists present Bach’s music with sensitive tuning and diverse timbral combinations. The soloists, to a person, are compelling interpreters who are well cast in their respective roles. The difference in sound between the two tenors, Nick Pritchard’s eloquent Evangelist and Peter Davoren’s powerful tenor solos, is a fetching contrast. William Thomas, cast as Jesus, provides a strong and eloquent protagonist. In their solos, soprano Julia Doyle and countertenor Alexander Chance spin legato lines that dovetail with obbligato instruments in seamless blends.

 

Now The Green Blade Riseth

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Daniel Hyde, conductor

Matthew Martin, Paul Greally, organ

 

On Now The Green Blade Riseth, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, presents selections that reflect the Holy Week journey from Palm Sunday to Easter. They include hymns and anthems that range in date from the Renaissance to the present day, with special emphasis on pieces that have been performed at King’s in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Daniel Hyde has crafted the choristers’ voices into an extraordinary blend, from the clarion topmost trebles to a powerful bass section, particularly for one found in a scholastic setting. 

 

The hymn-singing emphasizes a blend and balance that encourages collectivity; listeners may well find themselves singing along, particularly to the Palm Sunday hymn “Ride On in Majesty,” and a rousing version of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today,” which includes a cadenza with some surprising twists and turns. Those who have performed with church choirs, from amateurs to professionals, will doubtless enjoy the inclusion of John Stainer’s anthem “God So Loved the World,” from his cantata The Crucifixion. Bob Chilcott’s version of the title hymn, using Lydian rather than the original tune’s Dorian mode, shows off the delicate stops on the organ and piano singing from the choir to great advantage. 

 

There are gems aplenty among the anthems, both in terms of selection of repertoire and performance. The Ubi Caritas setting by Maurice Durufle is the writer’s favorite selection on the CD, a beautiful work beautifully performed. Civitas Sancti Tui by William Byrd, which scholars have often suggested is a coded message of solidarity with recusant Catholics under Elizabeth’s reign, finds the choristers reveling in luxurious imitative counterpoint. O Salutaris Hostis by Giacchino Rossini instead provides powerful tutti passages in an operatic shading of a church anthem. Antonio Lotti’s Crucifixus balances chordal writing with aching suspensions. 

 

English music from Elgar forward is given particularly affectionate treatment. That composer’s relatively early “Light of Life,” affords the organ a lush accompaniment and the singers’ close-knit harmonies. Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s “Wash Me Throughly” features treble solos and ensemble passages, reminding listeners of the extraordinary musical training that young people receive at King’s. A standout is John Ireland’s “Greater Love Hath No Man,” which begins subtly with intricate harmonies and builds to a soaring climax. Christus Vincit by Martin Baker alternates melodic phrases between upper and lower voices and a vigorous organ part. The CD closes with a transcription by Durufle of Tournemire’s Improvisation sur le ‘Victimae Paschali,’ a solo organ piece that serves as a postlude ending things in virtuosic fashion. Thoroughly recommended for Easter or any time of year.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Abrahamsen’s Schnee (CD Review)

Hans Abrahamsen

Schnee

Lapland Chamber Orchestra, John Storgårds, conductor

DaCapo

 

This is the second recording of Hans Abrahamsen’s Schnee (‘Snow,’ 2008), an hourlong imaginative ensemble work populated by idiosyncratic canons interspersed with intermezzos. The first, by Ensemble Recherche in 2015, was an excellent document of the piece. That said, this second interpretation is welcome, as it brings out different aspects of Schnee. Recherche’s recording is atmospheric and colorful, while Lapland Chamber Orchestra provides a rhythmically charged and dramatically intense rendition, in vivid sound with a wide dynamic range, and incisive delineation of canonic voices. 

 

One needn’t adopt a programme for listening to Schnee, but the gestures in Canon 1A  are suggestive: pitched percussion and keyboard as gentle snow falling, squalls of wind in the searing violin and clarinet lines. Another way in, one accentuated in Lapland’s recording, is the pervasive counterpoint in imaginative technical and instrumental combinations. Followed by a hushed sustain in Intermezzo 1, Canon 2B is a signature example of Abrahamsen’s writing at its most rigorous, with overlaps between strings and winds and emphatic keyboard glissandos creating a vigorous, linearly saturated ambience. Where the clarinet and piano led Canon 1, here the flute provides altissimo lines and flourishes that take center stage. The denouement of the movement resembles an ostinato by Stravinsky. 

 

Schnee is abundantly varied. Each movement shifts both the canonic devices used and the way in which they are scored.Canon 3A presents slower moving lines, with glissandos punctuating brass iterations of the canon. As Schnee moves towards its conclusion, compression takes place and the last two sets of canons and intermezzos are miniatures in comparison to the previous sections. They may be compact, but the concluding portions are powerfully wrought, containing permutations of many of the previous lines and textures, but now overlaid and juxtaposed to create a potent summary. 

 

Abrahamsen is one of our great living composers – he turns seventy this year. Schnee was a turning point piece for him, and it is good to hear it encompassing multiple performances that serve to develop its interpretative possibilities. Keeping with the wintry theme, Abrahamsen is now at work on his first opera, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.” 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey