Tag: CD review

CD Review, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Clarinets and More Clarinets: Alder plays Chrysakis (CD Review)

Milieu Interieur

Jason Alder, clarinets

Clarinet music by Thanos Chrysakis

 

Thanos Chrysakis is a prominent composer from Greece who works in electroacoustic music, as a performer and creating sound environments, as well as writing contemporary concert music. He relishes small combinations; solo and duet writing feature prominently in his output. Milieu Interieur is a full length recording of music for clarinets, performed by Jason Alder. Chrysakis has composed five pieces for Bb, bass, and contrabass clarinet of significant duration for solo works. The versatility with which he approaches these pieces, as well as his detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the clarinet, make this a diverting listen. 

 

Fáessa is for solo Bb clarinet and it passes eleven minutes in duration. Here as elsewhere, extended techniques abound: microtones, multiphonics, glissandos, and the like. Fáessa is a showcase of fluidity, with smooth movement between pitches and micro-intervals, interrupted intermittently by passages of multiphonics. It moves through the entire range of the instrument. Alder’s altissimo playing is seemingly effortless. 

 

There are two versions of the title piece, one for bass and another for contrabass clarinet. The first begins in the lowest register, sustained, then trilling. An angular melody punctuated by glissandos becomes the principal linear element. Luster-toned overblown notes create an interlude, then trilling and bass growls return. Another passage features a conjunct passage of multiphonics. The melody returns in a baritone register. Fluttering notes conjoined with multiphonics create a singular timbral passage. Despite the variety of these modes of playing, Chrysakis uses repetition and registral development to create a coherent, albeit labyrinthine, formal design. The second half features long, sustained notes, a slowed down version of the material from earlier. Seamless shifting between registers is another calling card for Alder’s playing. A rapturous section of repeated notes throughout the compass is juxtaposed with disjunct arpeggiations in a coda that concludes with a clangorous bass note. Millieu Interieur 2 is half the length of the first piece and revises its form to reposition material in different places. The sound of the altissimo register of this instrument is extraordinary, perhaps equaling its tremendous, sonorous bass notes.

 

Noctilucent Clouds is for two overdubbed bass clarinets. Slow-paced trilling and oscillations of micro-intervals are set against repeated notes in the upper register. When the two instruments reach detuned unisons, blurred repeated notes, and sustained multiphonics in coordination, there is a shivery effect. Fleet melodic passages alternate with these passages of slowly evolving textures. In addition to these sections of close-spaced duets, there are also registrally distinct colloquies, where bass notes provide a pedal over which the second instrument deals with spectral overtones. Dovetailing howls then pursue one another, only to be succeeded by a low register duet. Detuned intervals, mostly in rhythmic unison, bring the piece to an evocative close.

 

Thunderous repetition of bass notes, followed by upper register multiphonics, provides a dramatic opening for the album closer, Μαύρο Φως/Dark Light for contrabass clarinet. Repeated notes in the bass become one of the principal gestures, as do trills, bent small intervals, and the aforementioned multiphonics. The sound of the contrabass clarinet is extraordinary: vivid and powerful. A brief disjunct gesture is interpolated with the aforementioned materials. This signature device of Chrysakis provides a post-tonal melodic foil to the effects-based writing. There’s even a brief jazzy variant on the gesture. Sustained multiphonics return, crescendo and diminuendo shaping them to conclude the piece.

 

Milieu Interieur is a masterclass in clarinet writing and playing. I am eager to hear Alder play more. Performers, composers, and listeners should take note of it.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Benjamin Lackner – The Last Decade (CD Review)

Benjamin Lackner

Last Decade

Benjamin Lackner, piano; Mathias Eick, trumpet; Jérôme Regard, bass; Manu Katche, drums

ECM Records

 

Pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his ECM debut with Last Decade. Joined by a stalwart group of collaborators, many of them ECM alumni who have appeared on many of the label’s releases, Lackner is in an ideal situation to present his compositions, as well as one by bassist Jérôme Regard. A few of the constraints the pianist placed on himself, no electronics, a staple of his previous recordings, and the addition of trumpeter Mathias Eick to his usual piano trio format, have afforded him the chance to stretch. Lackner has described rethinking harmonic voicings and allowing space for a melodic voice as aspects that were spurred on by Eick’s presence.

 

Lackner’s originals move away from his prior post-jazz leanings back toward the modern jazz tradition. The recording’s opener, the smoky “Where Do We Go from Here,” begins with a slow tempo trumpet solo with a memorable melody that is then deconstructed by Lackner, with the two exchanging mid-tempo lines.Katche and Eick are well known to each other, having played on many ECM albums together, some as leaders and others as collaborators. Regard has been the bassist in Lackner’s groups since 2006. The two duos combine as an acoustic quartet that is distinctive and well-attuned. Lackner’s flourish-filled solo on “Circular Confidence,” followed by the slow build solo that follows from Eick, who emulates the climax of the piano material, is an engrossing piece. “Hung up on that Ghost” includes prominent bass pedals and a slow intro from Lackner, followed by a mid-tempo main section in which Katche provides variety from the kit. Gerard and Lackner continue their colloquy with burnished melodic play from the bassist. Eick’s belated arrival is no less welcome, his solo here angular, adding motives for the others to explore only scarcely outlined in the changes. The group ends up playing their material in counterpoint, creating a quilt of amalgamated textures.

 

The title track begins with a chordal presentation of the melody, with Gerard and Katche creating an undulating rhythmic canvas. Lackner’s solo gradually moves through 3:2 passage work to fleetly rendered arpeggiations. As it builds, the pianist burrows into the middle of the piano, ferreting out chromatic seconds. Eick’s solo instead begins with a light touch, gradually moving into the upper register but maintaining a piano dynamic. The piece ends with his solo, Katche providing a snatch of sizzle as punctuation.

 

Gerard’s composition “Émile” finds the bassist playing a funky solo reminiscent of his work with Lackner on previous outings. It is succeeded by the album closer, “My People.” Initially tried out in rehearsal in the polyrhythmic meter 11/4, the recording’s introduction instead shows a free rhythmic context in which Katche guides them without a strict time. Eick’s solo responds to this wayward context with free jazz lines that eventually are coaxed by the drums into a swinging post-bop essay. Lackner interposes lines with Eick, the two here playing some of the most creative music on the album. The tempo and demeanor shifts to a mournful minor-key ballad, sending the conclusion satisfyingly sideways.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Whit Dickey Quartet – Root Perspectives (CD Review)

Whit Dickey Quartet

Root Perspectives

Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp, piano; Brandon Lopez, bass; Whit Dickey, drums

TAO Forms CD

 

Drummer Whit Dickey has put together a formidable quartet for Root Perspectives, a release on his TAO Forms label. Joining Dickey are tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, pianist Matthew Shipp, and bassist Brandon Lopez, all stalwart players of ecstatic jazz. While the musicians have worked with each other in various contexts, this particular configuration is new. They find their footing fast. 

 

Malaby is versatile in his approaches to playing. Howling high notes, skronk squalls, and chromatic scalar work are the stock in trade of free jazz, and he excels in this area. But there are also places where he allows the plummy mid-register of his saxophone to bloom, creating lyrical melodies as interludes between more assertive soloing. Tiis is particularly evident in the coda of the first track, “Supernova,’ where Malaby conjures a beautiful melody out of the ether and Shipp follows suite with diaphanous accompaniment. Shipp too uses an array of approaches, from stentorian rearticulated verticals to fleet-fingered soloing and dazzling arpeggiations. He and Lopez frequently make a play for the lower register, each incorporating gestures from the other to develop. Lopez also frequently directs the harmony to surprising places, bitonal, extended thirds, and mixed interval chords. Dickey is a powerful drummer, but a sensitive one too. He listens carefully to the gestures played by the rest of the quartet, sometimes incorporating them, at others prodding the quartet to take up one of his own rhythmic motives. 

 

The recording consists of four pieces. You don’t have to get too far into the opening piece, “Supernova,’ to realize the specialness of this session. It is never about showing off, but instead about listening to one another and creating dialogue. The next piece, “Doomsday Equation,” plays with punctuated lines from Malaby and Shipp alongside an inexorable funeral march from Dickey, Lopez, and Shipp’s left hand. “Swamp Petals” provides a suave demeanor with polyrhythmic playing from Dickey and a solo from Malaby that takes from the tradition of modern, rather than experimental jazz, to build a formidable solo. As the piece reaches its midpoint, Malaby plays with overtones, restoring a sense of the experimental. Dickey takes a solo, a gradual build with subtle high harmonics from Lopez alongside. The focus gradually moves to the bassist, who creates a swath of overtones  before ceding territory to a storming section led by Malaby and Shipp. Altissimo howls take Malaby things as far away from the opening tune as possible. “Swamp Petals” closes as a complete transformation. 

 

The final piece, “Starship Lotus” begins with a cool effect: bass harmonics are combined with saxophone overtones. Meanwhile, Shipp keeps a steady pulse with chords while Dickey provides fills that offset it. Malaby offers an ascending melody and Shipp moves his chord scheme upward to accommodate. The two then create swaths of melodic exchanges while Lopez and Dickey swing with abandon. The quartet then coordinates interlocked ostinatos followed by a limpid solo from Shipp. When Malaby returns, he repeats a melodic cell at various pitch levels to develop a solo which then tapers off into sustained notes. It builds to a fierce crescendo, with overblowing creating vibrant multiphonics. The rhythm section takes the foreground, with a nimble solo from Lopez that includes double stops, and multiple tempo streams from Dickey. Malaby and Shipp return with material similar to the opening, with the addition of thunderous hammer blows from Shipp, that presents the quartet at its most powerful. A brief denouement for drums brings “Starship Lotus” to its conclusion. Root Perspectives is excellent in its variety of interactions and superlative in the quality of its music-making. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey 



by Christian Carey
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?

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?

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
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