Tag: Nonesuch

CD Review, Concert review, File Under?, Piano, Twentieth Century Composer

Jeremy Denk at 92nd Street Y (Concert Review

Jeremy Denk, piano
Kaufmann Concert Hall
92nd Street Y

 

92nd Street Y

Thursday, December 2024

Photos courtesy of Joseph Sinnott

 

NEW YORK – When devising a recital program, pianist Jeremy Denk always provides thematic interest to abet the musical diversions. The centerpiece and entire second half of his performance at the 92nd Street Y was the Concord Sonata by Charles Ives, a totemic work in the repertoire of twentieth century piano music. Denk is an Ives specialist, having recorded both the piano and violin sonatas for Nonesuch (more on that later). 

 

The first half of the recital complemented Ives with a composer he revered (and quoted in the Concord Sonata), Beethoven. The Opus 90 Piano Sonata in E-minor is a two movement piece that moves to E-major in the second movement. It is relatively brief but chock full of mercurial scalar passages in its first movement. The second movement, at a slower tempo but still played with quicksilver ornaments, is a theme and variations of a fetching melody, “to be played in a singing manner.” The recital’s first half concluded with a sonata from Beethoven’s late period, his second to last to be written, Op, 110 in A-flat Major. The first movement, marked moderato cantabile, is slower than the usual allegro one finds in this part of a sonata. However, it has two distinct themes and a minor key development, keeping it in the sonata genre. It’s no accident that during this time period Beethoven was also working on the Missa Solemnis. The incisive second movement features bold attacks and anapestic cascades of short motives. The finale is fascinating, with material that imitates recitatives and quotes Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which is followed by a fugue in the tonic key. Denk played both sonatas fluently, occasionally looking out at the audience to share Beethoven’s mood with a bold visage.

 

Sandwiched between the sonatas was a group of miniatures that explored Black American musical genres. Scott Joplin’s rag Bethena began the group with characteristically syncopated rhythms and imaginative chord progressions. This was followed by The Banjo, a piece by Louis Moreau Gottschalk that Denk took at a spirited pace. Its refrain is a keen imitation of the African instrument transplanted to the US, but the piece takes off into stratospheric arpeggios and nimble runs that transform the material into a virtuosic vehicle. William Bolcom was a pivotal figure in the ragtime revival, and one of his rags, “Graceful Ghost Rag,” provided a stylistically true homage to the composer. A musical theater song, “Just in TIme,” by Jule Styne was presented in an extroverted arrangement by the pianist Ethan Iverson of Nina Simone’s iconic recording. 

Piano Sonata No. 2, “Concord, Mass., 1840-1860,”  pays tribute to the American transcendentalists, an important philosophical movement for Ives. Its gestation is a moving target, the first edition composed between 1916-1920 and the piece, characteristic of Ives, being edited over and over until the premiere in 1938 by John Kilpatrick. It is intricately notated, with few barlines, complex rhythms, and overlapping lines and chords. Ives felt that the lack of conventional structuring would help the music to flow.

 

The first movement, “Emerson,” introduces the opening motive of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as an idée fixe that interpenetrates other movements of the sonata, but is developed, treated in counterpoint, and presented in the midst of shards of dissonance. As is Ives’s practice, frequent incongruous asides occur, including a stride passage in the middle of the movement and quotations of hymns and popular songs. This persists throughout.

 

The second movement, “Hawthorne,” begins with scherzo-like figures and continues to introduce sprightly material, even including a bit of ragtime, and later sonorities that are meant to evoke a church service, including bell sounds created by pressing the black keys with a block of wood. The Beethoven theme is only joined by the “main theme” of the piece in the third movement, “The Alcotts.” The polytonal voicing of the variations on Beethoven 5 move it into the harmonic world of Stravinsky. In the final movement, “Thoreau,” Claire Chase was the guest flutist that is an optional component of the sonata, providing a mischievous cameo. The piano meanwhile, incorporates snatches of popular music from the 1910s all the way back to the Civil War, the two themes, and Protestant hymnody into impressionist water music that signifies Thoreau’s residence at Walden Pond. 

This was an authoritative performance, unbelievably accurate and technically assured despite its herculean challenges. Denk is one of the great Ives interpreters of our time. The audience applauded for more, but how do you follow the Concord Sonata? Denk took off his jacket and picked up his wood block to indicate that the memorable evening was concluded. 

The 150th anniversary of Ives’s birth is being celebrated this year by a number of concerts and recordings. Denk’s recorded contribution is Ives Denk (Nonesuch). A double disc, it includes a remastered version of his benchmark recording of the piano sonatas as well as a recording of the violin sonatas with Stefan Jackiw. The violinist is an excellent partner, understanding the roles of quotation, collage, the doppler effect, and dissonance in these pieces. The revival meeting movement of the second sonata is incandescent, and the final movement of the first sonata opens with a thrill ride redolent with popular music. Its central section is slow, with folk melodies haloed by ambiguous arpeggiations. A gradual accelerando returns the music to its earlier demeanor, then the sonata concludes with a tremolandos and a fade. The entire Fourth Sonata, “Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting,” is delightful. 

 

Denk’s traversal of the piano sonatas displays dazzling playing and thoughtful interpretations. Ives has emphatic tendencies, but his music can also display great tenderness. Denk embodies all of the contrasting shifts that result, providing detailed dynamic and articulative contrasts, shading the music with myriad tone colors. Ives Denk is one of my favorite recordings of 2024.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Guitar

Yasmin Williams on Nonesuch (CD Review)

Yasmin Williams – Acadia (Nonesuch)

 

Guitarist Yasmin Williams displayed a number of unconventional methods for playing acoustic guitar during her first two recorded outings, Unwind (2019) and Urban Driftwood (2022). These were no mere tricks of the trade, instead serving as organic components in her creation of supple folk instrumentals. Acadia is her first recording released on Nonesuch, and features a number of collaborators. In another first, Williams also writes lyrics for her music.

 

Although it is her primary instrument, on Acadia Williams doesn’t confine herself to the acoustic guitar. She also plays tap shoes, harp guitar, banjo, bass guitar, calabash drum, electric guitar, and kora. On the track “Cliffwalk,” alongside her guitar and tap shoe percussion, folk musician Don Flemons plays rhythm bones. One of the best tracks is “Harvest,” on which Williams and Kaki King trade rhythm guitar patterns while violinist Darian Donovan Thomas outlines a melismatic tune. Abetted by banjo-player Allison de Groot and fiddle player Tatiana Hargreaves, “Hummingbird” starts with an effortless hoe-down and then has a slow interlude in the piece’s middle, the fast music returning in ebullient fashion to conclude it. On “Dawning,” Aoife O’Donovan sings multiple layers of vocalise while percussionists Kafar and Nick Gareiss accompany Williams’s folk style finger-picking. Darlingside and Rich Ruth join Williams, who plays harp guitar, on “Virga,” another nuanced vocal piece.

 

“Sisters” may have the most collaborators joining Willams, a string trio, marimba player Steph Davis, and another acoustic string-slinger, William Tyler. The arrangement is artfully made, suggesting that Williams could easily do a convincing album with larger groups of musicians. “Dream Lake” is the first track on the album on which Williams plays electric guitar and bass, accompanied by drummer Malick Koly in a piece that opens and closes with New Age music only to rock out in the middle. Multi-instrumentalist Magro contributes drums, synths, and bass guitar to “Nectar,” on which electric guitar is also featured in a fluid solo. On the last piece, “Malamu,”  Williams plays both acoustic and electric guitars, with introductions and interludes featuring the former and the verse and chorus abetted by overlapping with the latter. Joined by drummer Marcus Gilmore and saxophonist Emmanual Wilkins, “Malamu” demonstrates a more jazz influenced side of Williams’ playing.

 

Acadia is one of my favorite albums of 2024, and it reveals exciting potential  pathways for Williams to take. I am eager to hear what’s next. 

 

  • Christian Carey

 

 

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

Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion – Sing On (Video)

Photo: Adam Sliwinski

Composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist Caroline Shaw rejoins Sō Percussion for Rectangles and Circumstance, a new full length recording out today on Nonesuch. To celebrate the release, a video for the lead-off single, “Sing On,” has been released on YouTube today.

Rectangles and Circumstance combines imaginative percussion writing with abundant electronics and Shaw’s pop-adjacent singing. Shaw takes on an assured and distinctive role. Her voice is sometimes treated to make it nearly unrecognizable. Elsewhere, her singing is presented in its natural, fetchingly lyrical guise. Sō has developed a sound world that befits Shaw’s heterogeneous compositions, using a plethora of pitched percussion, drums, and electronics. Whether the music leans towards pop, classicism, or totalism, it is uniformly engaging. Recommended

-Christian Carey

 

 

 

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

Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles (CD Review)

 

Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles

Brad Mehldau

Nonesuch Records

 

Pianist Brad Mehldau is a chameleon-like figure, able to play music in many styles and a creative composer. He excels at finding new standards, recent pop songs that benefit from jazz treatment. The Beatles’s songbook is among the most durable in the pop canon, having endured numerous revisionings, some inspired and, sadly, some insipid. Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles is strongly inspired. 

 

A live recording that consists of ten Beatles songs and a David Bowie encore (“Life on Mars”), the audience is warmly enthusiastic. Other pianists who mine pop for new standards, Herbie Hancock, Ethan Iverson, and Christopher O’Riley to name just a few, each bring their own approach to the task. Often, the original’s arrangement is discarded for flights of fancy. Mehldau sometimes stays true to the Beatles’ recordings. I Am the Walrus’ adheres to as much of the psychedelic bounty as two hands can manage. “For No One” is riff-filled during its instrumental breaks, but keeps true to the verse and chorus and its beginning and conclusion.

 

Elsewhere, Mehldau uses the songs as springboards for improvisation. “I Saw Her Standing There” is given a rousing rock ‘n roll treatment with a bluesy solo. “Golden Slumbers” is adorned with post-bop riffs. “Your Mother Should Know” gets a swing shuffle treatment, while “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” sounds in places like Thelonious Monk has visited the stage. “Here, There, and Everywhere” is moving in its restraint, played by Mehldau with a rubato approach that begins true to the original, then adds modal jazz’s parallel planing of chords and dissonant extensions that add surprise to the  tune. 

 

The Bowie encore is performed with poignancy alternating with virtuosic octave passages. Interestingly, instead of embellishing the chord structure, Mehldau strips out a few passing chords to keep the changes in a more Romantic vein. 

 

Above all, Mehldau displays curiosity and affection for the songs themselves. The Beatles will continue to inspire different approaches to their music. Future interpreters would do well to keep Your Mother Should Know in mind as a touchstone for how it should be done. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

Mivos Quartet Plays Steve Reich (CD Review)

Steve Reich: The String Quartets

Mivos Quartet

Deutsche Grammophon

 

Steve Reich wrote his three string quartets for the Kronos Quartet, who have premiered, recorded (for Nonesuch), and continued to champion them. With Kronos still active, why does another quartet record these pieces? Mivos Quartet makes a strong case that there is room for other interpretations of Reich’s string quartets.

 

I remember well being at the Carnegie Hall premiere of Steve Reich’s piece for string quartet and multimedia WTC 9/11, performed by Kronos Quartet. Its incorporation of sound recordings, a dead phone line, air traffic controllers, and those trying to escape the building, was harrowing. Like his first quartet, Different Trains, Reich creates instrumental motives out of spoken word passages, imitating their contour and imparting pitch. The final movement, in which Jewish prayers are said over remains from the site, is extraordinarily moving. By the end of the work, many in the audience were visibly shaken by its visceral impact. Kronos has since recorded WTC 9/11, in a gritty rendition reminiscent of the energy of the live performance. 

 

Mivos plays with equal poignancy, but also with  a laser beam clarity that brings an entirely different palette of textures to bear. The recorded voices too have been remastered to emphasize incisiveness of utterance. Even with the constraints of overdubbing and vocal samples, there is freshness to Mivos’s approach to phrasing, taut and lithe. 

 

Triple Quartet features three quartets overdubbed throughout the piece (no vocal samples). Mivos play up the polyrhythms that festoon the work. Just when you think the groove is interlocked for good, Reich throws another intricate rhythmic relationship into the mix. Lest things become too motoric, glissandos and solo turns enliven the texture. Triple Quartet doesn’t have the narrative arc that defines the other pieces here, but it is a fine piece of abstract music 

 

Different Trains is an iconic work. At the beginning of the Second World War, Reich was shuttled back and forth on trains between separated parents. The “different trains” are those destined for the death camps in Poland. Its first movement features voices from Reich’s train rides, a porter, and governess, and clangorous train sounds. As in WTC 9/11,  Reich creates melodic phrases that mimic the contours of the sampled speeches. The second movement is terrifying, with speakers who are survivors of the Holocaust describing their trips on trains to the death camps. Air raid sirens are added to the train sounds, which move on a different polyrhythmic pathway. The final movement describes the end of the Second World War, bringing voices from America and Europe together to consider what has transpired. The last section moves from the emphasis on rhythm to a major key cadence accompanying the description of a deportee with a beautiful voice. One of the masterpieces of the late twentieth century, Different Trains is a piece that delves into issues of ethnicity and religious persecution that are, sadly, all too present in today’s society.  

 

The renditions by Kronos are irreplaceable, but Mivos creates compelling complementary readings. Recommended.

 

-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, Choral Music, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Tyondai Braxton – Telekinesis (CD Review)

Tyondai Braxton

Telekinesis

Nonesuch/New Amsterdam

 

Telekinesis is Tyondai Braxton’s largest piece to date.  It is inspired in part by the Japanese manga classic Akira, the story of a young boy’s discovery of his telekinetic powers and the disaster that ensues. Commissioned by the Southbank Centre in London and Musica Nova Helsinki Festival, Telekinesis is scored for electric guitars, orchestra, choir, and electronics. It is the latter that Braxton has thus far been associated with, but Telekinesis includes large sections of notated music, blending with the electronics to make thickly layered amalgams. 

 

The performers on the Nonesuch/New Amsterdam recording are the Metropolis Ensemble, conducted by Andrew Cyr, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus conducted by Dianne Berkun Menaker, and The Crossing conducted by Donald Nally. The coordination between these various forces and the electronics is superb. I am reminded of a performance by The Crossing of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, where the choir held its own against formidable acoustic and electronic elements and created powerful chords built from intricate harmonies. The same is true of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, who are given challenging parts that bely their ages, yet turn in a superlative performance. The super-orchestra that is created by the various elements remains engaging throughout.

 

The piece is cast in four movements. “Overshare” begins with shimmering strings to which are added spooky synth arpeggiations and oscillating percussion. The way in which the ensemble is gradually incorporated to bolster the electronics sneaks up on you. Strummed harp imitates the rolled synth chords, brass adds to the vertical component, and insistent drumming provides forward momentum. Towards the end of the movement, disjunct melodies softly turn around sustained unisons with the harp and crescendoing brass filling out the frame. 

 

“Wavefolder” begins with insistent repeated tones in varying tempos, the electronics particularly pungent, brass building stalwart verticals and flutes imitating the soaring synth lines. Wordless choir joins the proceedings with sustained vowels. Dissonant strings and insistent synth lines compete with percussion for the foreground. The choir periodically adds wordless sustained chords. Flute solos imitate the lines from the first movement. There is a gradual denouement that imparts sounds of fetching delicacy. It ends with a surprising electronic punctuation.

 

“Floating Lake” starts hushed. A sudden interruption by the string figure and the “telekinetic” motive that appears in each movement muddy the waters only to have the music quickly return to placidity. This alternation reoccurs throughout the movement, the interruptions becoming longer and more emphatic. Phaser bleeps add a sci-fi cast to things. One senses that Akira is coming to a climax in this imaginary soundtrack. 

 

The final movement, “Overgrowth,” is an intense conclusion, employing every member of the forces in an ominous movement that presses forward with thrumming beats and dissonant verticals. The Crossing’s male singers respond in lower registers to the string chords and children’s choir. Bleak brass solos give the music a tragic cast. A new synth motive arrives about halfway through, providing a disjunct foil to the chords from the ensemble and choirs. Added to these are held bass notes and a martial pattern from the timpani. The synth theme is transferred to brass and low strings add another ostinato. The texture abruptly thins, and another wandering synth melody is presented. Soft brass chords are followed by a pause. Then pianissimo percussion leads the piece to its enigmatic conclusion.

 

An ambitious and imaginative piece, Telekinesis is Braxton at his best.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Adams Boxed Set Listening Party

John Adams

Collected Works Boxed Set

40XCDs

Nonesuch

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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



by Christian Carey
CD Review, 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?

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