Month: November 2024

CD Review, early music, File Under?, Piano

Francesco Tristano – Bach: The 6 Partitas (CD review)

Bach: The 6 Partitas

Francesco Tristano, piano

Naïve 2XCD

 

In his 2024 recording for Naïve, pianist Francesco Tristano interprets some of Johann Sebastian Bach’s most challenging pieces, the six Partitas for clavier. Tristano’s 2022 On Early Music was an admirable outing, with pieces by Giralomo Frescobaldi, Peter Philips, John Bull, and Orlando Gibbons, serving as a taster course for Italian and English approaches to harpsichord playing in the early seventeenth century. 

 

Tristano’s keyboard isn’t the harpsichord, but a beautiful sounding grand piano in a recording studio in Kakegawa, Japan. Abetted by sound engineer Christoph Frommen, Tristano reveled in using all of the studio’s devices at his disposal to make what his liner notes essays calls, “BachtotheFuture.” This never sounds like mere trickery, instead it imparts organic sounding, pleasing results. 

 

Tristano is eminently capable of taking fast tempos, such as his fleet renditions of the Allemande from the B-flat major Partita and the Gigue from the G major work, where the counterpoint is clearly delineated in a virtuosic environment. However, he prefers not to rush, and the midtempo and slow dance movements are the better for it, with clear dance rhythms and cleanly delivered ornaments. Extended movements, such as the Sinfonia in the C minor Partita and Toccata in the E minor work, are well-shaped and paced. Indeed, each movement seems to have been carefully considered in its conception and receives a level of attention that makes all that work in the studio in Kakegawa seem well worth it, even necessary. 

 

It is hard to pick favorites among Tristano’s performances of the partitas, and perhaps one’s mood may play a role, as they each seem tailored to a different demeanor. If a doleful mood besets the listener, the pianist’s traversal of the C minor Partita is truly masterful, and will likely meet you where you are and provide considerable uplift by its conclusion. Bach: the 6 Partitas is one of my favorite recordings of 2024.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
BAM, Contemporary Classical, Criticism, File Under?, Guitar, New Age, Performers, Video

James Romig – Matt Sargent – The Fragility of Time (Recording review)

James Romig

The Fragility of Time

A Wave Press

Matt Sargent, Guitar

 

Composer James Romig’s previous piece for electric guitar, The Complexity of Distance, written for Mike Scheidt, was an overwhelming paean to distorted revelry. It was a swerve from Romig’s previous compositions, which were primarily for acoustic instruments, such as the Pulitzer-nominated piano work still and a number of pieces for percussion. His latest composition for electric guitar, The Fragility of Time, is played clean, sans distortion, and serves as a sort of companion to The Complexity of Distance. 

 

The hour-long work returns to the gradual unfolding of still. Romig began his mature career writing serial music with rhythmic vivacity. In recent years, he has retained a constructivist mindset, but slowed down the tempo of his works. One is tempted to attribute some of this to his many residencies at national parks, where the scenery and time to create seem to have metabolized in a tendency for his phrases to breathe differently. 

 

One could scarcely hope for a better advocate than Sargent who, in addition to recording The Fragility of Time, has performed it at several venues. The level of concentration required to render the piece’s asymmetrical gestures, moving frequently between regularly fretted single notes, verticals, and harmonics, is considerable. The dynamics are subdued for much of the piece, though as it progresses the texture is peppered with single forte gestures, and it closes with forte harmonics.The pitch language itself is post-tonal in design, but doesn’t eschew the use of tertian sonorities.

 

The Fragility of Time has a mesmeric quality. Listeners may attend to subtle shifts occurring throughout the piece or merely bask in its attractive sound world. Either way, The Fragility of Time is a rewarding experience: take time to savor it.

 

Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
BMOP, CD Review, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Piano, Songs, Vocals

Winterreise on DG (CD Review)

Franz Schubert – Winterreise

André Schuen, baritone and Daniel Heide, piano

Deutsche Grammophon

 

Winterreise is the third recording of Schubert’s cycles/song sets (Schwanengesang isn’t a cycle – it has multiple poets) by baritone André Schuen and pianist Daniel Heide. These were some of the last pieces written by Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828), and he sang them at the piano to console himself about worsening health (syphilis likely contributed to his early demise). Of the three, Winterreise is the best suited to Schuen’s voice, a full lyric baritone. The recordings of Die Schöne Müllerin and Schwanengesang are excellent, but his mature sound and the dramatic interpretations Schuen adopts are ideal for the pathos of Winterreise. He captures the narrator’s vacillating inner monologue with declamation ranging from delicate pianissimo singing to roaring rage. Heide has collaborated with a number of singers and instrumentalists, but his work with Schuen is among his best partnerships. He plays with nuance and a fluid sense of the rhythmic component of the piece.  The latter affords Schuen room for small fluctuations in tempo to emphasize particular words. 

 

From the tramping outside his former girlfriend’s door in “Gute Nacht” onward, the tempos are well-considered, never languid even in the most tragic songs. Instead, the duo treats the winter’s journey taken by the narrator as inexorable, a quest without a prize. Along that line, the mystery of the cycle is how it ends, with the song Die Leiermann (the organ-grinder): Who is the organ-grinder? Is he real? A symbol of death? Or the final delusion of the protagonist as he succumbs to the elements? The duo perform the song  understatedly, in such a way as to leave the enigma of these questions intact. Winterreise appears on a number of excellent recordings – here is one more.

 

Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Strings

Danish String Quartet – Keel Road on ECM (CD Review)

Danish String Quartet

Keel Road

ECM Records ECM 2785

 

Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, Violin, Clog Fiddle, Harmonium, Spinet, Voice, Whistle;
Frederik Øland, Violin, Voice, Whistle; Asbjørn Nørgaard, Viola, Voice, Whistle;
Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, Violoncello, Bass, Voice, Whistle;
Nikolaj Busk, Piano; Ale Carr, Cittern

 

The Danish String Quartet have explored music from many eras and styles. Keel Road  (ECM, 2024), is the third recording in which they delve into Northern European folk music, ranging through Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland; they call it “a musical journey through the North Sea.” The arrangements were made by the quartet, and in addition to playing strings, they also sing, whistle, and perform on a variety of traditional instruments. 

 

Those used to the quartet’s Prism series for ECM, which featured Bach, Beethoven, and contemporary pieces, will likely be in for a pleasant surprise. Keel Road displays a correspondingly skillful approach to folk music, as well as a remarkable affinity for the music they have chosen for the album. This is evident from the recording’s opening track, Turlough O’Carolan’s “Mable Kelly,” where the musicians play a winsome tune with ornaments from Celtic fiddling, accompanied by lyrical harmonies. “Pericondine/Fair Isle Jig” begins in a similarly adorned fashion in a jaunty dance. Ale Carr’s “Stompolskan” gradually builds in intensity, developing two-note repetitions alongside another quick dance. “Carolan’s Quarrel With the Landlady” has more of a playful than adversarial demeanor, and its refrain focuses on open strings. O’Carolan likes to focus on character sketches, and the third piece played by the quartet is his “Captain O’Kane,” a study in contrast with a soaring reprise. 

 

“En Skomager Har Jeg Været” is a brief field recording of a solo singer, a nod to the curators of this genre.The traditional song “As I Walked Out” may be familiar to listeners in its Vaughan Williams arrangement, but this brisk version with pizzicato strumming and whistling is enjoyable. Partway through, the whistling subsides and loud downward attacks accompany the tune, eventually subsiding in favor of an undulating accompaniment with the melody moving among the players. The downward attacks return softly, and there is a long fade with the whistling and pizzicatos of earlier. “Marie/The Chat/Gale Warning” is a vibrant medley in which the melody of each section is buoyed by different rhythmic patterns, tempo, and countermelodies.  Glissandos, tremolandos, pizzicatos, and harmonics demonstrate a variety of techniques borrowed from the quartet’s contemporary classical repertoire. The harmony employs stacked quartal chords, including the last vertical in the piece, which is another twentieth century calling card reminiscent of Bartôk and Stravinsky (both arrangers of folk music). 

 

The last track is particularly evocative. “Når Mitt Øye, Trett Av Møje,” is a traditional Norwegian tune, in a resolute arrangement that the quartet plays with sumptuous tone. Once again, the Danish String Quartet has shared the songs of multiple cultures in compelling renditions. Keel Road is one of my favorite recordings of 2024.

 

Christian Carey

 

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

Ban and Maneri – Transylvanian Dance on ECM (CD Review)

Transylvanian Dance

Lucian Ban, piano

Mat Maneri, viola

ECM Records

 

“These folk songs teach us many things.”

 

Transylvanian Dance is the second recording on ECM by pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri; the first was Transylvanian Concert (2013). As the album title suggests,  the duo explores Eastern European material, specifically that collected by Béla Bartók. Ban was born in Romania and delights in the fascinating polyrhythms of this region. Maneri is well versed in the microtonal and multi-scalar aspects of folk song. These are not mere transcriptions. Maneri has described them in interviews as, “a springboard,” a reservoir of melodic and rhythmic ideas that the duo use for improvisation. Recorded live in the Romanian city Timișoara în 2022 as part of ECM’s Retracing Bartók project, Transylvanian Dance demonstrates varied and versatile reinventions of its source material.

 

Bartók collected folk songs in Transylvania from 1909-1917. He made a number of trips to Eastern European countries, sometimes with his friend and fellow folk song collector the composer and pedagogue Zoltán Kodály. With cumbersome recording gear and staff paper at the ready, they sought out amateur singers, particularly those of previous generations. As older people in these regions died off, so too would generations of music-making. Before it would be too late, Bartók was eager to capture and transcribe their knowledge.

 

Ban and Maneri revel in the music Bartók found in his trips to Transylvania. The title track is a case in point, where Ban explores a mixed meter groove while Maneri plays modal scales with glissandos and bent notes that recall the gestural vocabulary one might hear from a traditional fiddler. As the piece progresses, Maneri plays long lines that blur the polymeter, inviting Ban to add splashes of cluster harmonies and a thrumming bass countermelody. Gradually, there is a coming apart and then rejoining by the duo, a recapitulation of the opening material, and then a sideways swerve with new harmonies, inside the piano work, and a rousing viola cadenza. “The Enchanted Stag” has a very different demeanor, slow and mysterious, almost pointillist in conception. 

 

Ban and Maneri don’t neglect the jazz tradition in which they have been steeped. “Harvest Moon” is filled with scales from folk music, but is played like a blues ballad. “Romanian Dance” is an extended workout where Ban builds upon an asymmetrical beat pattern until it becomes a rich ground from which the duo’s forceful soloing emanates. “Boyar’s Dance” uses a soft, undulating piano passage as a refrain, between which is some of the most free improvisation on the recording, building to incendiary climaxes before lapsing into softly repeated dance steps. 

 

The recording concludes with “Make Me, Lord, Slim and Tall,” in which both players explore a sumptuous melody over a mixed meter ostinato. The piece morphs between dovetailing melodies, post-bop, and extended harmonies featuring Maneri’s microtones and elaborate changes by Ban. It ends in a denouement, angular viola riffs and dance rhythms in the piano fading away. 

 

Fluent in folk sources and imaginative in improvising upon them, Ban and Maneri have created a compelling document. I think Bartók would be proud of them. Transylvanian Dance is one of my favorite recordings of 2024.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Elena Dubinets to Concertgebouw

The career trajectory of Elena Dubinets continues to soar upwards. The current Artistic Director of London Philharmonic Orchestra is now headed to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra next season to assume its Artistic Directorship. She will help to steady the tiller of one of the world’s most storied orchestras that has nevertheless seen some recent upheaval, lacking an Artistic Director since Ulrike Niehoff’s sudden departure last year, and a Chief Conductor since the sacking of the scandal-ridden Daniele Gatti in 2018. Her term will presumably overlap with the formal start of Klaus Mäkalä’s Chief Conductorship in 2027 (at a mere 28 years old, Mäkalä is the Concertgebouw’s chief conductor designate, and in a particularly eyebrow-raising move he recently announced that he would also assume the Music Directorship of Chicago Symphony Orchestra starting that same year).

Elena Dubinets by Sorina Reiber

Born in Moscow in 1969, Dubinets (pronounced “doo-bin-YETS”), grew up in the Soviet Union, earned her PhD from Moscow Conservatory, then emigrated to the US in 1996 when her husband accepted a software engineering position at Microsoft. She quickly rose in the Northwest music community, joining Seattle Chamber Players as a programmer in 2001, then joining Seattle Symphony in 2003 where she became Vice President for Artistic Planning during the final years of Gerard Schwarz’s long tenure as Music Director. She retained the position through the legendary Ludovic Morlot/Simon Woods era from 2011 to 2018 during which the Symphony reached a zenith in its international standing, driven largely by its new music initiatives, including the [untitled] series of concerts in the Grand Lobby of Benaroya Hall that often featured Symphony musicians performing contemporary chamber and electroacoustic works, plus numerous high-profile commissions and premieres of full orchestra works by Elliott Carter, Valentin Silvestrov and John Luther Adams among others.

After the departure of Morlot and Woods, Dubinets found herself unwanted by the Symphony’s new and more parsimonious leadership team, whereupon she decamped to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, thence to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, where she serves as the co-equal of the orchestra’s Chief Executive David Burke. Since the LPO retains a Principal Conductor (currently Edward Gardner) instead of a Music Director, Dubinets enjoys complete autonomy over the orchestra’s programming, a role that she has clearly relished after many years spent managing the intricate politics of US orchestras. Her projects in London have included a much-acclaimed production of Heiner Goebbels’ A House of Call and a high-profile US tour with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.

Dubinets is also the author of Russian Composers Abroad: How they left, stayed, returned, published by Indiana University Press in 2021. Those of us with fond memories of her time in the Pacific Northwest wish her well with this exciting appointment.

by Michael Schell
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Electro-Acoustic, File Under?

Leo Chadburn Primordial Pieces (CD Review

Leo Chadburn – Primordial Pieces (self-released)

 

Composer and synthesizer performer Leo Chadburn uses very little in the way of material, but it is employed to craft expansive compositions. On “Reflecting Pool,” pianist Ben Smith plays repeated arpeggios with a sustained low note, shadowed by Chadburn’s bass synth. The unpredictable change of harmonies against the constant bottom note brings together a compositional conceit important to Chadburn, movement concurrent with stasis. Gradually, the synth bends the low note down, creating new chordal implications. A brief fade ends the work. 

 

“Map of the World” is a piece for violin ensemble, played here by Angharad Davies, Mira Benjamin, Chihiro Ono, and Amalia Young. A shimmering sustained vertical is offset by tremolando entrances at several different pitch levels and off-kilter metric accents. The combination of stasis and movement affords the ten minutes of music a continued sense of vibrancy and surprise. “De La Salle (Violins)” builds verticals out of tremolando passages, and Chadburn uses a breathy synth to support the top line, followed by a bell-like angular melody.  Even though they only go down to G3 (the G below middle C), Violins have an impressively wide range, which allows Chadburn to create wide spacings and successive blocks of harmony. Even a small pitch change seems consequential, the move from a third to a fourth in the top voice announces a new section where things go sideways and the bell synth once again tolls. Near the very end, a bell line and single pizzicato line close the door on all the preceding music. 

Smith returns for “Camouflage,” where the left hand breaks up chords and the right hand plays a syncopated melodic line. The left hand adds syncopations on different beat divisions than the right, creating a fascinating whorl of counterpoint. This process is continued, sounding like a fast-paced phase. The constant flow of variation eventually grows into a fortissimo climax, only to recede gradually, slowing, then suddenly silent. The final piece on the recording, “A Secret,” also for piano, begins with whole-tone scalar ascents followed by mixed interval scales that run all the way to the top of the keyboard. The piece has a bit of a “Hanon in Hell” vibe at first, but as the scales complicate, one realizes that again a procedure is afoot. Chadburn once again uses synthesizers to create a pedal, but this one is in the middle high register, filled with overtones, and moves gradually through a sequence of pitches. Unlike Feldman, who would draw one of these processes out over long stretches of time, Chadburn limits “A Secret’ to nine minutes. Plenty of ground is covered during this time, yet the synths provide the concomitant sense of stasis that Chadburn prefers in his work. Primordial Pieces is compelling throughout, and one of my favorite releases of 2024.

 

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

Laura Lentz releases new EP (CD review)

Laura Lentz

Prismatic/Plasmonic EP
Music for flute and electronics
Laura Lentz, flutes; Sean William Calhoun, electronics
Blue on Blue Records

 

Laura Lentz’s Prismatic/Plasmonic EP consists of three works, each addressing contemporary approaches in a different fashion. Lentz plays beautifully, with enviable control and supple phrasing. Although the pieces include amplification and electronics, they do not dilute her sound in the slightest. 

 

Prismatic Wind by Chloe Upshaw is a work meant to abet sound healing. Upshaw is a flutist who lives in Arizona and the idea of supporting the health of others, particularly other musicians, through a composed  version of music therapy is an important part of her work. Prismatic Wind features gestures of rising tension and gentle release, affording an experience not dissimilar to meditative breathing. Electronics are used to add resonance to the flute and to underscore the aforementioned phrasing. 

 

Plasmonic Mirror is written by Rochester-based composer/electronic musician William Calhoun. Cast in four short movements, the piece begins with a lyrical flute passage, followed by beat heavy electronica, altissimo passages, a synth interlude, an IDM pattern with a new theme in the flute, altissimo flute lines, and dovetailing with a bass synth. It closes with the synths and beats moving double time with the flute playing trills and a triumphal ascent. 

 

Lentz and Calhoun collaborate on what is effectively a remix of Claude Debussy’s 1913 solo flute piece Syrinx. Lentz plays alto flute and Calhoun incorporates a warm bed of synths and a high countermelody, all accentuating the modal and whole-tone writing in Syrinx. It is an intriguing experiment. One eagerly awaits Lentz’s next full length recording, but for now, there is plenty to savor in Primatic/Plasmonic.

 

Christian Carey

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=pAhJk7mOZ90

 

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

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė Aletheia – Choral Works (CD Review)

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė

Aletheia – Choral Works

Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Kļava, artistic director and conductor

Ondine

 

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) divides her time between her home country, Lithuania, and the United States. Her works have earned her accolades and laurels such as the Guggenheim Fellowship and a residency and commission from Aaron Copland House. She is well known for exquisitely constructed and powerfully scored orchestral music. On Aletheia, a different side of Martinaitytė’s music is shown; her music for a cappella mixed chorus. None of the pieces programmed on the recording use conventional texts, instead exploring a number of wordless approaches to singing. 

 

Martinaitytė may not be using textual narrative, but the sounds she uses are equally communicative. The title work was written shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Built entirely out of vowels, its stacked harmonies and arcing glissandos suggest a mournful demeanor entirely in keeping with the subject matter. The composer’s harmonies move between cluster chords and deftly tuned overtones, with a gradual development of greater individuation of the parts and faster rhythmic cycling. The piece’s climax is an enormous yawp, followed by a precipitous descent in all of the voices.

 

Chant des Voyelles (2018) has an interesting genesis. Initially, Martinaitytė selected disparate texts to set, then decided to use just vowels from the text. At this point, she realized that she needn’t be so proscriptive, and decided to construct the piece based on vowels of her own choosing. An intricate web of harmonies and sustained lines, sung with pristine tuning by the Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Sigvards Kļava, Chant des Voyelles is a luscious work that doesn’t require a program in order to make a strong emotional impression. Ululations (2023) uses the title technique to create a piece filled with varying speeds and types of keening. Rather than a specific topic, Ululations expresses grief for the violence, suffering, and separation occurring throughout the world in current times.  

The recording concludes with The Blue of Distance (2010). The title is taken from a quote in Rebecca Solnit’s book A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Martinaitytė’s first textless piece, it is composed entirely of phonemes, whose variety engenders a number of vowel spaces that score the voices with a host of colors. So too the gestures found here, which range from held overtones to strongly punctuated utterances. Partway through, minor second oscillations in the soprano pile up into a blur, a reminiscence of Solnit’s “blue of distance,” but in the audible rather than visual domain.

 

Martinaitytė is moving into mid-career with a number of durable pieces in her oeuvre. Given the theatricality she can bring to textless vocal music, one wonders what she might do with a fresh libretto; her only stage work, to date, Steppenwolf, is over twenty years old. Regardless, her next compositions are eagerly awaited. Aletheia is one of my favorite recordings of 2024.

 

Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey