Kalevi Aho (1949-) is a prominent Finnish composer whose oeuvre includes a number of orchestral and chamber works and a smaller body of vocal music. His string quartets are from relatively early in his career, the first from quite early, written when he was only eighteen. All three are included on a BIS recording made by the Stenhammar Quartet, a group from Sweden.
The pieces are presented out of order, beginning with the second quartet, which was written in 1970, during his studies with Einojuhani Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. It was created just a couple years after his conservatively tonal first quartet (discussed below), but it’s clear that Rautavaara had given Aho a grounding in twentieth century music. After a sinuous opening Adagio movement is a Presto that begins with a chromatic fugue soon surrounded by flurries of dissonance, a welter of sound. The fugue speeds up alongside ascending glissandos, ending on slashing verticals and prestissimo lines moving in contrary motion. The last movement returns to an Adagio tempo, with yearning counterpoint and a diaphanous texture, closing with an open-spaced quartal harmony.
Best known of Aho’s quartets is his Third (1971), which is programmed frequently and considered one of the pieces that first garnered him significant attention. With most of the movements continuing attacca, it begins Vivace with a mischievous Bartôkian tune that is eventually offset by long legato phrases. The movement ends with a cello ostinato and altissimo register violin surrounding bustling inner parts. The second movement, marked Andante, builds up from the lower register in a fugue with a long legato subject. This condenses into tightly constructed vertical presentations of the subject, and concludes with held chords and pizzicato bass notes. The aphoristic Presto third movement features clarion violin lines against repeated notes in the viola and cello. It is succeeded by a fourth movement with shades of Shostakovich. It has a somewhat wayward theme that Aho once again treats fugally against acerbic harmonies. Swooping crescendos are succeeded by a Presto with quick filigrees in the violin countered by a duet texture in the lower strings and fragmented accompaniment from the second violin. In the sixth movement, clusters in the violins and lower strings, first in pairs then combined, take over, while the seventh is a relatively brief Adagio that returns to minor-inflected imitative writing. The finale begins with a triplet-filled melody in the violin while seconds in the other instruments provide a bitter underpinning. A countermelody in the second violin and repeated notes in the cello elaborate the proceedings, while secundal violin lines descend from the uppermost register. A midrange duet imitates the previous passage to conclude enigmatically.
While it is juvenalia, the inclusion of the First Quartet demonstrates that even early on Aho possessed a fine musical ear and sense of formal design. At the time, the composer was playing the violin and he used the standard repertoire he had been assigned as models for the quartet. It is a mix of Baroque sequences and Romantic harmony. The first movement, marked moderato, is a set of variations built on a circle-of-fifths progression. The second, marked Andante-Vivace, is considerably charming, with a wending mixed meter folk dance at its beginning that is replaced by a brusque scherzo section. The dance returns, more emphatic this time. The Presto third movement is a moto perpetuo in 6/8, and the finale returns to an Andante tempo, with a Brahmsian principal theme that is, appropriately, supplied with a series of developing variations, including a minor key variant that is interesting both harmonically and in its rhythmic patterning. The return to major is given a stately rendition by the Stenhammar players, concluding the piece with a foreshadowing of Aho’s future talent.
The string quartet Ethel presents a characteristically diverse program of contemporary music on Persist, their first recording for Sono Luminus. They are joined by composer/flutist Allison Loggins-Hull and the resulting quintet are strong advocates for the emerging composers featured here.
The title work is by Loggins-Hull, currently a composer fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra. Her work is gracefully written and appealing. Persist begins with an ambling section with an angular flute melody, pizzicato strings and percussion instruments. This is varied throughout, juxtaposed with presto passages featuring quickfire flute lines accompanied by circling countermelodies in the strings and pulsating drumming. In 2024, the title’s meaning is self-explanatory and timely, and Loggins-Hull’s piece aptly depicts both the current exhaustion and perennial indomitability of the progressive movement.
PillowTalk by Xavier Muzik opens slowly, with oscillating thirds in the flute and impressionist harmonies in the strings. Languorous in demeanor and gradual in its unfolding, the color chords are eventually augmented by a pentatonic tune in octaves and a more elaborate flute solo that dovetails with pizzicato cello. The violin then takes a turn duetting with the flute. A fast passage with sliding tones and birdsong affords some much-belated energy, indeed making up for lost time in its latter half. A return to slow music reminiscent of the opening brings the piece full circle.
Migiwa Miyajima presents a stylistically varied four-movement piece with her Reconciliation Suite. The first movement, “The Unknowns” is rhythmically vibrant and hews close to the cinematic. The second, “Never Be the Same,” features a flute solo that explores the low register of the instrument with gradual accelerations and slowdowns. Partway through, the cello adds a drone to accompany it. The flute moves higher, and the rest of the strings join with lush harmonies. “Mr. Rubber Sole from the Digital World” has fun with ostinatos á la rock ‘n roll. The suite concludes with “The Blooming Season,” a lushly attired pastorale.
Sam Wu’s Terraria features the flute imitating shakuhachi and the strings using sliding tone and other traditional gestures from Chinese music. It also has passages of neo-romantic arpeggiations. Particularly affecting are the central passages in which high flute and midrange strings double a folk-like melody above a low drone. The second appearance of the arpeggiations is accompanied by energetic flute runs. Harmonics and brief melodies in the flute create an evocative denouement, after which the flute returns to the shakuhachi manner of the opening to close.
Leilehua Lanzilotti is likely the best known of the programmed composers; she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. The final work on Persist is her We Began This Quilt There. It is about Lili‘uokalani, the first and only Hawaiian queen and last sovereign of the islands before their annexation by the US. She made artworks, including the Queen’s Quilt, while she was imprisoned. Kaona, hidden meanings, is a concept Lanzilotti feels is suggestive of the queen’s artwork. The three movements include quotations of prison songs and folk music. Lanzilotti allows these materials space to breathe, with the flute playing melodies over gentle strumming from the strings in the first movement. The second is brief but haunting with flute harmonics and pitch bends over a sustained midrange piece. The final movement, “Ku‘u pua i Paoakalani” is based on a musical composition by Lili‘uokalani, an ode for her supporters. Lanzilotti veils the ode with its musical surroundings. A buildup of triadic repeated notes in the strings is joined by the flute playing the song with the addition of repeated notes: a musical Kaona that concludes a beautiful and meaningful work.
With Persist, Ethel and Loggins-Hull demonstrate their continuing commitment to compositional voices from a variety of geographies and backgrounds. The programmed works are diverse in terms of their impetuses and styles, but uniformly of high quality. Recommended.
Raymond Brien, Michelle Hromin, Eb and bass clarinets
Chris Cundy, Yoni Silver, bass clarinets
Robert Burton, soprano saxophone
Julie Kjaer, alto saxophone, Tim Hodgkinson, alto saxophone and conducting
Jason Alder, baritone saxophone, contrabass clarinet
William Cole, conducting
A live recording made in England’s Cafe Oto, Music for Trumpets, Bass Clarinets, and Saxophones includes both brand new compositions for the assembled musicians and important pieces from the contemporary canon. An example of the latter is John Cage’s Five (1988) which is performed by trumpeter Rebecca Toal, Robert Burton, playing soprano saxophone, Chris Cundy and Raymond Brien playing bass clarinets, and Jason Adler playing baritone saxophone. Cage’s late number pieces are known for their slow, soft character. Written a year after Morton Feldman’s death, Five can sound like a valediction to a recently departed friend. This is particularly true in the supple and well-coordinated performance here.
The spectral composer Gérard Grisey’s Anubis (1983) is performed by Adler, here on contrabass clarinet. Thrumming mixed scalar passages offset short tritone based tunes in a sepulchral register. Adler also plays Giacinto Scelsi’s Maknongan (1976). Webs of conjunct melodies appear in the bottom octave, and there are several wide leaps. Scelsi uses what was then a forbidden interval in the avant-garde, the octave. The piece is tremendously challenging, and Adler performs it with intense commitment.
Julie Kjaer plays her solo alto saxophone piece Grain (2022). Single notes with gliding endings open the work, interrupted by plosive pops, the irregularities implied by the title. Grain gradually gains intensity, Kjaer building a motive out of the beginning tune that evoles into one with fast notes and altissimo glissandos. The piece’s climax is filled with rapid, wide ranging, howling lines reminiscent of free jazz. The coda disassembles the material until Grain concludes with a brief flourish. Kjaer is both a talented composer and a formidable saxophonist.
Theatrum Mundi (2022) by Thanos Chrysakis is an imposing piece. Its seventeen and a half minute duration is filled with waves of angular lines, microtones, and glissandos. The harmony initially is built from clangorous verticals, with the climax adding overtone chords in intense crescendos. After its crest, a denouement counters, with repeated notes and multiphonics played pianissimo. Chrysakis’ Doe of Stars (2014) is played by Toal and Adler, who switches back to baritone saxophone. Microtones and multiphonics serrate the edges of post-tonal melodies and reconstruct dyads into shadowy shapes. The music morphs into rapid re-articulations of single pitches. A rollicking saxophone solo is followed by a winding unison melody, with a widely spaced dyad to close.
Tim Hodgkinson stepped out of the saxophone section to conduct his work Spelaion (2022), and one can readily hear why. The piece has myriad contrapuntal entrances and complexly accumulating passages. The pile-up of corruscating lines and repeated pitches creates slowly evolving and fascinatingly distressed textures. The whole ensemble participates in Spelaion to close this extraordinary evening that revelled in intricate music and superlative music-making.
Musica Viva Choir and Orchestra, Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, conductor
Erin Sensenig, soprano
Frederica von Stade, mezzo-soprano
After a lengthy and illustrious career, the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade says farewell on Crimson Roses, an album recorded by Musica Viva that includes three contemporary choral pieces. The title work, And Crimson Roses Once Again Be Fair, composed by Joseph Turrin, features both von Stade and soprano Erin Sensenig. It is a forty-five minute long cantata that commemorates the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Turrin set three poets who were part of the war effort or wrote about those they had lost, Wilfred Owen (also set in Britten’s War Requiem), Vera Brittain, and Siegfried Sassoon. The soloists are both in fine voice, with von Stade making up for a bit less bloom in tone with an expressive, indeed moving, performance of the cantata’s penultimate movement “Perhaps.” Sensenig, who is a member of Musica Viva, demonstrates both musicality and radiant top notes on the seventh movement, “Soliloquy and the Last Meeting.” The orchestra and choir acquit themselves well in Turrin’s neo-romantic score. Kudos to conductor Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez for leading the piece in a well-paced and thoughtful interpretation.
Gilda Lyons’ Monotombo is a five-movement a capella piece in which she sets poems about the volcanic landscape in Nicaragua. Lyons uses overlapping counterpoint, color chords, glissandos, and steaming sound effects to provide vivid renditions of the texts. Richard Einhorn’s The Luminous Ground uses plucked strings and vocalise to depict the eponymous light installation by James Turrell. While economical in material, the pieces is most affecting.
This is the tenth anniversary of Hernandez-Valdez’s tenure with Musica Viva, and the contemporary pieces that were selected for the recording demonstrate both his dedicated curation and the versatility and talent of the group.
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.
Composer Kenneth Hesketh has written several works for piano, and Clare Hammond has for years been their most dedicated advocate. Hände is a collection of her detailed performances of seven pieces, ranging from miniatures to two substantial works. The first of the latter is Poetic Conceits (2006), a six movement suite of character pieces. “Epigram,” “Epigraph,” “Epitaph,” and “Mad Pursuits” demonstrate colorful post-tonal harmony and angular gestures, while “Of Silence and Slow Time” and “Cold Pastoral” proceed gradually with aching lyricism.
Pour Henri (2013) is dedicated to the composer Henri Dutilleux, with whom Hesketh studied at Tanglewood. It employs several quotations, including the French song Bonne Anniversaire, the composer’s second piano prelude, and his iconic string quartet Ainsi la nuit; all of this in a compact minute and a quarter. It is a moving elegy. Lullaby of the Land Beyond (2018) is another valedictory piece, dedicated to Oliver Knussen. Similarly, it includes a number of Knussen quotations, as well as one from Boris Gudunov, a favorite of the late composer. Higglety Pigglety Pop, Knussen’s second opera, which concludes with the portrait of a dog’s afterlife, provides a receding, misty ambience for this poignant goodbye to a great figure in English music.
Heu, Heu, Heu… Einekleine ausschweifende (Hey, hey, hey… a little riotous celebration) (2012) is as advertised and requires staggering virtuosity, which Hammond has here and throughout in abundance. Chorales and Kolam (2019) is less boisterous but also makes a powerful impression all its own. A kolam is a geometric pattern drawn on the ground by women and girls in India and Southeast Asia for luck. The piece is built from reconstituted material from Hesketh’s piano concerto. The chorales are refracted in a series of variations that gradually unthread the verticals into stratified lines, only to have them gradually reassemble into arpeggiations in a shadowy coda.
Hände, Das leben und die Liebe eines zärtlichen Geschlechts (Hands: the life and love of the fairer sex) (2015) was commissioned for Hammond. When one views it live, the pianist plays along with an eponymous 1928 film that uses the play of hands nearly throughout (there are excerpts in the video below). Correspondingly, the musical work is based on the shape of hands. Not only is Hammond called upon to play repeated notes, chordal ostinatos, diaphanous rolls, and fleet gestures, she also plays inside the piano, uses knitting needles to strike the strings, and clangs six small bells set to the side of the instrument. Like the film, elements of surrealism abound. Hände is a major piece, tailor-made for Hammond’s imaginative and risk-taking approach to performing. The recording as a whole is an excellent showcase for both composer and pianist, and is one of my favorite CDs of 2024.
Jason Anick and Jason Yeager – Sanctuary (Sunnyside)
Violinist Jason Anick and pianist Jason Yeager last recorded together in 2017, and their album Unite revealed a simpatico pairing. Just as it was thematically constructed around its title, Sanctuary, their 2024 Sunnyside release, seeks to emphasize the need for recovery and renewal in these challenging times.
They are joined by estimable collaborators, who are ceded space for their own contributions; this never feels like the Jasons dominate the proceedings. Trumpeters Jason Palmer and Billy Buss, tenor saxophonist Edmar Colón, cellist Naseem Alatrash, bassist Greg Loughman, and drummer Mike Connors form a biggish band provided with deftly arranged charts.
“Futures Past” begins the recording with Anick and Yeager playing the tune’s first section, syncopated and in modal jazz style, and they are soon joined by the rest of the group for an energetic second part of the head. Yeager’s solo recalls the stacked fourths-fifths chord melodies of McCoy Tyner. Palmer’s turn builds a gradual ascent before softly overlapping counterpoint from the brass is contrasted by Connors providing emphatic fills. The second section with the whole band is followed by a thinned out conclusion, led by Anick. The violinist, trilling in the introduction of “The Nearness of Now,” has a fleet duet with the trumpet, and Yeager contributes a bluesy solo with Loughman’s bass ebulliently walking alongside.
Of course, what does the concept of sanctuary require as a foil: the circumstances that require refuge. “Persecution” is an uptempo example with a high dissonance quotient and great intensity. “AI Apocalypse” is quick too and has a sinuous bass line that undergirds ominous interplay from brass and strings. A funk-inflected piano solo, back and forth from trumpet and violin, and rollicking playing from the rhythm section gives a stern rebuttal to the oppressors found in the music of the beginning. But they are not to be denied, and an even more cacophonous tutti ensues before the outro provides a long decrescendo. Wayne Shorter’s “Lost” is a natural for the theme of sanctuary sought, if not yet found. Unison melodic playing from violin, saxophone, and trumpets creates a fascinating, colorful rendition. Given their shared instrument, Colón is a natural for the performance’s spotlight soloist, and his solo ranges widely but is phrased exquisitely. Anick takes a turn, winding filigrees around the tune’s contours. Yeager counters with a pot-boiler, and the group engages in some free play in the conclusion.
‘Ephemary” has a mysterious opening, a contrasting, emphatic trumpet duet, and a swinging solo from Anick. “Colorado” provides a chance to hear the Jasons play in brilliant fashion, suggesting that a future duo album would be welcome.
“Farewell” is actually the penultimate piece, juxtaposing doubled treble lines and bass/piano with a line down low. Stacked harmonies and a trumpet glissando conclude the first section, after which the rhythm section engages in a group passage, with Yeager supplying one of his best solos. The return alternates treble and bass components and is finished with held notes and staccato piano. The concluding title tune, “Sanctuary” is quite beautiful and could be a new standard in its own right, its performance contrasting an offbeat ostinato from the rhythm section with a sustained melody played by the rest of the group. Anick’s solo features glissandos and swift scalar passages. It is followed by an equally swift trumpet solo with an altissimo climax. The head returns, with triplets and violin ornaments decorating it before a denouement leaves the piano playing alone, dissolving the ostinato and ending the album with a sense of repose.
In addition to the Shorter and a number of originals, Sanctuary includes an affecting version of Chopin’s famous “Raindrop” Prelude in D-flat major. It opens with a delicate solo from Alatrash, and the middle section in minor builds to a roar of brass chords. After presenting a relatively faithful transcription of the score, piano and trumpet solos move romantic music into the ambit of postmodern jazz. A return to the middle section is followed by Yeager playing the last section faithfully. How about more? A mazurka next?
While I mentioned a desire for more duets, the assembled musicians are an abundantly talented band, and a follow-up from them would be equally welcome. Sanctuary is one of my favorite albums of 2024.
Ethan Iverson is one of the foremost jazz pianists of his generation. An alumnus of the Bad Plus, he has since appeared with a number of artists, both live and on record. He currently teaches at New England Conservatory of Music. Iverson revels in researching all the eras of jazz, from its inception to the most recent innovations, and is also an advocate for American concert music composers of the twentieth century. His Substack, offers a bevy of information about both subjects.
Technically Acceptable is primarily a piano trio album. The two rhythm sections that join Iverson are bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Kush Abadey, who play on a group of new originals. Bassist Simón Willson and drummer Vinnie Sperazza are on hand for two standards, “Killing Me Softly,” first a hit for Roberta Flack in the seventies and later recorded by the Fugees, and “‘Round Midnight,” a Thelonious Monk signature. The former is given a lush reading with elegant pop harmonies, while the latter features Rob Schwimmer playing theremin in a simulacrum of Annie Ross’s soprano delivery.
“Conundrum” opens the recording with a 90 second brisk introduction, a foreshadowing of the “Overture” and “Recessional” found on Playfair Sonatas. “Victory is Assured (Alla breve)” is undergirded with a cut time groove emphasized by Iverson’s left hand and the rhythm section. The pianist’s right hand is occupied with a circle of fifths sequence and emphatic glissandos. The title tune is a bluesy swing with an upward yearning culmination. Then there is a solo from Iverson that features abundant ornamentation and planing chords.
“Who are You Really” begins with a chordal treatment of its sinuous, scalar tune. Iverson’s solo provides puckish elaborations while Morgan supplies repeated notes in a countermelody and Abadey punctuates the proceeding with cymbal splashes and tom rolls. A double time coda concludes it. “Chicago Style” is a wayward ballad adorned with a wispy piano solo.
Technically Acceptable concludes with Iverson’s Piano Sonata. The program note relates Iverson’s fully notated approach to music from the 1930s: swing, blues, and the classical music of Copland and Gershwin. It also has an Ivesian cast, the first movement cutting among several propulsive motives, including a hard bop section, another that recalls the stride piano of James P. Johnson, and “the first four notes” theme of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. After the second theme’s appearance, there is a brief misterioso interlude, and an elated version of the hard bop theme reappears, with a brusque glissando finishing off the movement. This is followed by an Andante movement with a wandering tune that alternates with dissonant arpeggios. As it progresses, the proceedings are enriched with polychords and decorative chromaticism. The finale is a rondo movement with thick dissonant verticals inserted between short phrases, each time followed by a puckish renewal of the form’s succession of motifs.
Playfair Sonatas shares chamber pieces that are the continuation of Iverson’s interest in notated composition, each in its a way an homage to predecessors in the jazz idiom. It contains both a short Fanfare and Postlude for all of the players, the former with a jaunty tune, the latter with solemn brass followed by a hymn-like piano postlude.
Trombone Sonata features Mike Lormand, whose sound can be clarion like a trumpet or sonorous in its depths. At its outset, against a sustained melody for the trombone, Iverson adds still rhythmic wrinkles by playing hemiola patterns. Partway through, in a slow, rubato passage the trombonist is exhorted to “tell your story.” This is succeeded by a return to the opening material, abetted by a rangy, syncopated melody in the trombone. A long glissando is countered with a sustained bass note to close. The second movement is dedicated to the avant-jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd, with a hat tip to the dedicatee given by the copious microtones for the soloist. The finale is another rondo, this one with a main theme in mixed meter of an anthemic quality, and a corresponding quick motive filled with blues thirds and glissandos. Lormand demonstrates facility in fast tempos, doubling Iverson’s right hand in places, concluding with the main melody embellished with thunderous pedal tones and then a deathless sustained final pitch.
Makoto Nakamura is the soloist in the Marimba Sonata. Some of the piece explores a bucolic environment that accentuates gently humorous material. The second movement evokes the legacy of Dolphy’s “wild modernism,” and the frequency of mallet percussion player Bobby Hutcherson in the reed player’s lineups. Unique to this sonata is a solo cadenza movement, with a slow tempo undergirding a multi-mallet excursion with fetching accumulated harmonies.
Clarinetist Carol McGonnell has an exquisite sound in every register of her instrument, which makes her an ideal interpreter of Iverson’s Clarinet Sonata, which recalls both jazz idioms and modern classical music. The first movement features memorable themes, mixed meters, and cascading arpeggios in both instruments. The second movement, “Music Hall,” is dedicated to the great jazz composer Carla Bley, its oom-pah rhythm imitating the accompaniment of many of her pieces. In a spooky twist, Bley passed away on the very day that Iverson finished the movement .A third movement is neoclassical in design, with a backwards ordering of scherzo, minuet, and an allegro return that includes a soaring valediction for the clarinet. The finale moves the sonata out of the minor mode into a triumphant major, including one of Iverson’s most memorable melodies on Playfair Sonatas.
Who could be a better dedicatee for an Alto Saxophone Sonata than Paul Desmond? The second movement, titled “Melody (For Paul Desmond) is a suavely lyrical ballad in which Iverson effectively channels West Coast Jazz of the 1950s. The other two movements put saxophonist Taimur Sullivan through his paces, the first including fast scalar passages and altissimo held notes in the part, all set against a syncopated shuffle and a middle section in fugato counterpoint. The movement’s melody by itself is appealing, and could easily be given treatment as a new standard. The third movement is an Allegro in which the duo swings with abandon, Sullivan playing a breathless stream of swinging eighths and triplets against a rollicking groove, forceful ostinatos, and quick melodic doublings in the piano. A cadenza provides a dazzling interlude, followed by a radiant coda..
The Trumpet Sonata is imbued with the qualities of early jazz juxtaposed with early modernism á la Hindemith. The middle movement, “Theme (For Joe Wilder),” celebrates a trumpeter who was an exponent of early modernism and one of the first black musicians to play on Broadway and in symphony orchestras. Wilder premiered a number of compositions, notably by Alec Wilder, a classically trained composer who was probably best known for his popular songs, film scores, and musicals. There is a charming suavity to the theme that recalls some of Alec Wilder’s music for movies.
Miranda Cuckson is a go-to violinist for contemporary concert music. The Violin Sonata employs Cuckson’s well-established facility with modern music. The first movement features an Andante theme that is chromatic, nearly post-tonal in conception. This is succeeded by an Allegro section with angular, dovetailing flurries. The sonata also tempts her into the world of modern jazz with a second movement titled “Blues (For Ornette Coleman).” Coleman was known for using microtones and a rough hewn playing style, and Cuckson obliges with abundant amounts of sliding tone and notes between the cracks of the keys. The finale, again in rondo form, begins with pizzicato open strings against a treble register moto perpetuo in the piano. The violin duets with the piano in an effervescent contrasting theme, with sequential material offset by double-stops. The melodic focus alternates between solo and duet, with the mischievous opening section with its combination of pizzicato and the treble staccato undulations in the piano, serving as refrain. After a third tune with ascending scalar passages in the violin accompanied by arpeggiated sixteenths in the piano, the pizzicatos return a final time, topped off with a fingered glissando ascent. This piece could easily appear in either a classical recital or in a jazz concert, being both versatile and engaging throughout.
Technically Acceptable and Playfair Sonatas are significant recordings in Iverson’s catalog, the former demonstrating his finesse as a writer of jazz originals and the latter combining a cornucopia of traditions into eminently successful notated works. One hopes that both approaches remain part of his prolific creativity. Two favorite recordings from 2024.
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.
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.
