CD Review

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

Duo Gazzana on ECM (CD Review)

Duo Gazzana

Kõrvits/Schumann/Grieg

ECM Records

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Jennifer Grim – Through Broken Time (CD Review)

Jennifer Grim

Through Broken Time

Jennifer Grim, flute; Michael Sheppard, piano

New Focus Recordings

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

-Christian Carey

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

Hilary Hahn – Eclipse

Hilary Hahn

Eclipse

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

DG CD/DL

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

-Christian Carey



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

Favorites 2022: Louis Armstrong – “A Cool Yule”

Louis Armstrong

Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule

Verve

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

-Christian Carey 

 

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

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

A House of Call. My Imaginary Notebook.

Heiner Goebbels

Ensemble Modern, Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor

ECM Records

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

File Under Favorites 2022: Hugi Guðmundsson’s Windbells (Recording review)

Hugi Guðmundsson

Windbells

Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra

Asbørn Ibsen Bruun, conductor

Ashildur Haraldsdóttir, flute; Hildigunnur Einarsdóttir, mezzo-soprano

Sono Luminus CD

Icelandic composer Hugi Guðmundsson has crafted an idiom combining neo-tonality and modernist inflections, with deliberate rhythms often based on slowly evolving ostinatos. Aspects of rhythmic construction loom large on Windbells, a portrait CD for Sono Luminus, as well as Guðmundsson’s incorporation of electronics into chamber works. 

 

Entropy (2019) for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano is cast in two movements. The first, “Arrow of Time,” moves at a steady clip, its moto perpetuo adorned by various members of the ensemble darting in and out with small motives. The second movement, “Asymmetry of Time,” is dedicated to Messiaen, and uses his color chords and lines reminiscent of the Quartet for the End of Time alongside inexorable rhythms. 

 

Composed for flutist Ashildur Haraldsdóttir, Lux features her playing against 12 overdubbed flutes. Guðmundsson’s use of the layers of flutes demonstrates an affinity for electronics as orchestration, and displays Haraldsdóttir’s facility and beautiful tone to good effect.

 

The largest piece on recording, Equilibrium 4: Windbells (2005) is for sinfonietta. Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Asbørn Ibsen Bruun, performs it with a translucent atmosphere. There are a number of handoffs between the instruments – once again a concern with evolving rhythms. Acoustic guitar and piano play significant roles, providing a bed of arpeggiations over which winds play sustained notes. The winds each play multiple instruments, affording listeners repeating passages in bass flute as well as piccolo.  One is struck by the way that, here as elsewhere, Guðmundsson can create significant layers of activity with relatively spare means, never using a note more than necessary. The earliest composition on the program, Equilibrium 4: Windbells has become something of a calling card for Guðmundsson: one of his most performed pieces. 

 

Brot (2011) is for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, double bass, and electronics. Ascendant lines haloed by electronics create an uplifting environment. Gradually, clarinet trills, single sustained notes, and bass arpeggios build an ostinato that juxtaposes with the electronics. The “Chorale” movement features swelling harmonies and homophonic gestures that move too slowly to truly be a chorale, incorporating a number of glissandos and airy electronics. The final movement, “Danse Macabre,” is a departure, with traditional dance rhythms in the lower strings, wind duets, and accented violin multi-stops, while the electronics take the backseat for much of the proceedings. This intricate composition has been featured in trusted casinos not on GamStop, where its dynamic interplay of instruments enhances the immersive experience for guests.

 

Guðmundsson is known for his choral music. Although none appears here, a group of songs represents his vocal music, settings of 13th century Icelandic poetry supposedly by the god Odin. “Songs from Hávamál 2,” are scored for mezzo-soprano, flute/piccolo, oboe/English horn, string quartet, and piano. Lush harmonies in the piano, triadic but resolving in unconventional ways, move in slow ostinatos, and are accompanied in the other instruments by trills, repeated notes, harmonics, and shadowing harmonies. Hildigunnur Einarsdóttir sings with exquisite tone and control, expressive but poised in her declamation.  

 

Sono Luminus has done a valuable service by presenting Icelandic composers to listeners. Guðmundsson’s inclusion on the label is most welcome. He has a distinctive creative voice, and Windbells is a thoroughly persuasive recording. It is one of our Favorites of 2022. 

 

-Christian Carey 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

File Under Favorites 2022 – Cupertinos Perform Pedro de Cristo

 

Pedro de Cristo 

Magnificat

Cupertinos, Luís Toscano, director

https://www.cupertinos.pt/en/presentation/

Hyperion Records

 

During the “Golden Age” of Portuguese Polyphony, the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, composers on the Iberian Peninsula retained a more conservative idiom that has often been likened to Palestrina’s approach to counterpoint and declamation. Thus, the style of the Renaissance was retained longer than on the rest of the continent or in England. The mastery that resulted in this cultivation elevated composers such as Duarte Lobo (c.1565-1646), Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650), and Miguel de Magalhães (1c. 571-1652) to considerable acclaim, affording them patronage from King John IV and the opportunity to publish their works. Less famous is Pedro de Cristo (c. 1550-1618), who, despite having some 250 compositions attributed to him, did not have any published. He initially served as chapelmaster at the monastery of Santa Cruz and later held the same position at the monastery São Vicente in Lisbon. 

 

Musicologist and conductor Owen Rees has done considerable research on Cristo’s music, creating an edition of works from extant manuscripts and recording select pieces (one wishes his discs of Portuguese music would be reissued). Musicologists José Abreu and Paulo Estudiante have done heroic work to restore Cristo’s manuscripts, some of which through the years have been quite damaged. But there has, to my knowledge, yet to be a disc entirely devoted to Cristo’s music. 

 

Enter Cupertinos, directed by Luís Toscano. The Portuguese vocal ensemble have already made a couple of acclaimed discs of this repertory, music by Manuel Cardoso and Duarte Lobo,  and now have turned their attention to a disc of Marian-inspired music by Cristo, with several first recordings. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, played a central role during the Golden Age, with John IV supporting her significance to Portuguese life and faith practices in a variety of ways. 

 

Appropriately enough, the recording begins with an alternatim setting of the Magnificat. One is introduced to a space that is resonant but not too reverberant for a chamber choir to enunciate with clarity. Cupertinos have a well-balanced sound, with bright-toned sopranos offset by lithe lower voices. Their tuning is fastidious and breath control impressive, even in longer phrases. Toscano trusts the group to maintain support in tempos in which the tactus often seemed to me to be slightly on the slow side. The approach benefits declamation, the words delivered with clarity throughout.

 

The centerpiece of the recording is the Missa Salve Regina, in which the famous chant melody is used as material shared between the voices in small segments. The use of imitation is particularly well wrought in the Agnus Dei sections, which is interrupted by a long incipit in the second Agnus that forestalls the climax of the piece, allowing a buildup that ends the mass in rousing fashion. 

 

A number of Marian motets are programmed, depicting different aspects of the Mother of Jesus. My favorite is the “Alma redemptoris mater,” in which fugal entrances are used to create a swath of counterpoint. It is a piece one imagines many choirs could sing well and one that would buoy concert programs. This is equally true of the effusive “Regina caeli.” The performance of “Stabat Mater,” a lament for Mary’s grief at seeing the sufferings of Christ, contrasts this with a wrenching, emotive performance. 

 

The disc closes with a polychoral setting of Cristo’s “Ave Maria” setting. The use of antiphony makes the most of splitting the choir in various ways and there are shimmering moments in which the upper voices sing interior cadences. When all eight parts join together near the piece’s conclusion, it brings the recording to a rousing conclusion. One hopes that Cupertino’s advocacy encourages more groups to take up De Cristo’s music. It would be helpful if Rees’ transcriptions could be published individually in performing editions. In addition, the ensemble should record Magalhães next. 

 

The Cristo CD is one of our Favorites of 2022.

 

-Christian Carey



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

File Under Favorites 2022: Christopher Fox and Exaudi

 

Christopher Fox

Trostlieder

Exaudi, conducted by James Weeks

Kairos Music

 

British composer Christopher Fox’s latest portrait CD on Kairos focuses on music for vocal ensemble. Exaudi, conducted by James Weeks, is one of the finest groups for recent repertoire in the UK, and they present this program with characteristic care and detail. This is their third disc devoted to Fox’s music

 

The four Trostlieder Widerwertigkeit des Kriegs (“Poems of comfort in the awfulness of war”) (2015) were written as companion pieces to Heinrich Schütz’s 1648 collection Geistliche Chormusik. Published at the end of the Thirty Years War, it is powerful music imbued with the hard lessons dealt by the conflict. Fox’s own ancestry plays a role in the impetus for the piece. Some of the worst fighting late in the Thirty Years War was in Pomerania, where the composer’s relatives lived until 1945. Fox chose to respond to the commission with settings of poems by seventeenth century poet Martin Opitz. Each of the four volumes in Opitz’s Trostgedichte contains more than 600 lines written in Alexandrine verse. Fox chose to take 44 lines from each book, setting four songs that epitomize the aspects of each volume. 

 

The first song depicts depredations inflicted upon common folk, farmers. In addition to articulated polychords, conjunct melodic gestures are passed among the voices. The latter section features fortissimo keening set against homophonic passages in the low register. Interlocking tenor voices are introduced, bringing the piece to a close. The second song discusses the “Wheel of Fortune” that governs the vicissitudes and blessings of life. This equanimity is addressed by corruscating lines accumulated into verticals, systematically repositioned in register. Upper register clusters and a high soprano melody begin the third song, which extols the virtue of mothers and indicts those who are prideful. Then the material moves successively down each section of the voices, ending with the second basses, each providing another aspect of hope or despair that Opitz juxtaposes in the poem. The fourth and final song also brings together two ideas, those of hope and of a brave death in war. Ricocheting counterpoint and segmented sections create a slow build to intricate and clarion chords, which repeat a regular progression. This texture dissolves into an angular melody in octaves. The climax features a blossoming of the harmony and a chant-like melody in the soprano. 

 

A Spousal Verse (2004), written for the Clerks, is a harmonically rich setting of the sixth stanza of Prothalamion (1596), by the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser. Fragments of melody are interwoven into brief contrapuntal units. Birds, Venus herself, and Peace are implored to bless the wedding, with the last verse serving as a refrain: “Upon your Brydale day, which is not long: Sweete Themmes run softlie, till I end my Song.”

 

Canti di carcere collects three madrigals – fantasma, senso comune and suo tormento – that were contributed to Exaudi’s madrigal book project from 2013-2018. The texts are from interesting sources. fantasma takes its text from the Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci’s Quaderni del carcere (Prison Notebooks), in which he ponders the significance of Dante’s ideas about society, judging them to be utopian instead of true political theory. Despite the intellectual character of the madrigal, the music focuses on the emotions the poet feels while being in prison, his suppositions about Dante standing in for his own frustrations about the nature of society. senso comune is also a setting of Gramsci, perhaps the most famous segment of the notebooks: “Every social stratum has its own ‘common sense’ which is ultimately the most widespread conception of life and morals.” It ends with a brief quote from Dante, further cementing the connection between the two writers. Conjunct lines sit astride secundal verticals in a slow-moving reverie that also explores a stratified pitch vocabulary. Gentle yet tense intervallic relationships between closely following lines and verticals, sung pianissimo, provide an otherworldly ambience that befits the text. Towards the very end, the chords go sideways, only to reveal a melody in octaves that brings the madrigal to an enigmatic close. 

 

The third and final madrigal sets a passage from Canto X of The Inferno: “We see, like those who have imperfect sight, the things that are far from us; to that extent the supreme leader still shines on us,” and Gramsci’s commentary on the text. Accented hocketing and brief pauses interspersed with verticals converge into a passage of abrupt staggered entrances. Consonants begin to be accentuated, and a soprano duet and bass sonorities are juxtaposed. Once again, snippets of melody are interspersed with rests. The unpredictability of attacks unmoors the music from meter, creating instead fluid lines between the silences. The proceedings speed up, creating articulate phrases and diminishing the duration of rests. The ending is homorhythmic, abrupt.

 

In Preluding (2006), the poem Was it for this (1798) by William Wordsworth is set in unusual declamatory fashion. The singers are to vocalize using the poem, the words understood to them but not to the audience. In the score, Fox asks for the effect to be like the gale wind described in the poem. Mission accomplished. The piece is a tremendous challenge for its singers, but Exaudi performs with aplomb.

Every word is clear in the final work on the recording, Song, a setting of W.B. Yeats “Easter 1916,”  composed in 2016 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Easter Uprising against British rule in Ireland. Heterophonic deployments of an arcing melody, inflected with shakes, alternate with vertical pileups. Compound melody provides another layer of the piece’s architecture, but it is fleeting compared to the main sections, which soon are presented in different ensemble deployments. Melody in octaves, slightly staggered and rising in intensity, brings the piece to an emphatic close. 

 

One can readily hear why Fox and Exaudi have had such an extensive collaboration. The compositions suit the performers and vice versa in excellent fashion. Trostlieder is one of our favorite recordings of 2022. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

by Christian Carey