Tag: @cbcarey

CD Review, early music, File Under?

2021 – the Josquin Year (CD Review)

Josquin: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie – Missa D’ung aultre amer – Missa Faysant regretz

Tallis Scholars

Gimell Records

 

Josquin Motets and Mass Movements

Brabant Ensemble

Hyperion Records

 

The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez

Stile Antico

Decca Classics

 

While scholarly consensus on Josquin’s birthdate has moved around over time (current estimates are around 1450), his death was in 1521, five hundred years ago. To mark this anniversary, three of the best ensembles singing early music have released recordings devoted to the composer’s works. 

 

The Tallis Scholars began their Josquin masses recording project decades ago, and this program of Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, Missa D’ung aultre amer, and Missa Faysant regretz completes their cycle of these totemic works with a ninth recording (on a previous CD, they even included a mass that may be by Bauldewyn or Josquin, just to be safe). They have saved some of the best works for last. Missa Hercules Dux Ferrari is the first known soggetto cavato mass, mapping syllables of the name of its dedicatee, Duke Ercole I D’este of Ferrara, onto solfege syllables. The motive is repeated a number of times, often in the texturally prominent tenor voice, commemorating the dedicatee resplendently and demonstrating a technique that would be taken up by a number of composers. Missa D’ung aultre amer is an earlier and relatively compact work, with more syllabic and homophonic writing than one often finds in Josquin. It uses a rondeau quatrain by Johannes Ockeghem as its principal building blocks. Unusual yes, but also fascinating and fetching. Missa Faysant regretz is based on a three-part rondeau that is either by Gille Binchois or Walter Frye. The mass is saturated with a four-note motive that appears more than 200 times; it is divided up among all of the voices and appears in various rhythmic guises. Faysant regretz rivals Missa Hercules in compositional virtuosity. While retaining a number of longtime personnel, the Tallis Scholars sound vivacious and well-balanced from sonorous basses to shimmering upper sopranos. They keep a crisp pacing throughout, and the rhythmic verve they demonstrate serves to clearly delineate the counterpoint in all three masses.

 

A collection of motets and mass movements are featured on the Brabant Ensemble’s recording. Ricocheting entrances contrast sumptuous, widely spaced verticals in O Bone et dulcissime Jesu. Pungent dissonances and imitative counterpoint enliven a setting of the Stabat Mater. The included mass movements, rather than being part of an Ordinary cycle, are freestanding. The Gloria de beata virgine and the Sanctus and Benedictus de Passione are easily as musically substantial as sections of complete mass settings and serve as a reminder that, irrespective of the way in which Renaissance music is often presented in concert and on disc, service music in practice was far from a tradition of monolithic cycles. The Brabant Ensemble and Stile Antico share some personnel, notably Helen, Kate, and Emma Ashby in the soprano and alto sections. The singers in both groups create a warm and impressively blended sound.

 

Stile Antico’s first Decca CD features a premiere recording of the beautiful chanson Vivrai je toujours. The rest of their selections include some “greatest hits” – Ave Maria Virgo Serena, Inviolate, integra, et casta es, Salve Regina, and a charming but slightly incongruous inclusion of El Grillo. The centerpiece is Missa Pange Lingua, a paraphrase mass from late in Josquin’s career that employs one of the central hymns of the Catholic liturgy. Stile Antico takes a spacious approach to the mass, with relaxed tempos and impressive delineation of the pervasive appearances of the hymn that define much of the mass. Two laments on the death of Josquin, Dum vastos Adriae fluctus by Jacquet De Mantua and O mors inevitabilis by Hieronymus Vinders, provide a fitting and stirring conclusion to this compelling recording. If asked to choose I would say: get all three. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, Guitar

Ferenc Snétberger and Keller Quartett on ECM (CD Review)

Hallgató

Ferenc Snétberger, guitar; Keller Quartett: András Keller, Zsófia Környei, violins; Gábor Homoki, viola; László Fenyő, violoncello; Gyula Lázár, double bass

ECM Records

 

Recorded live in the Grand Hall of Budapest’s Liszt Academy, Hallgató chronicles an ongoing collaboration between guitarist Ferenc Snétberger and the Keller Quartett. The concert’s program is one of memory and mourning, referencing the Holocaust and repression in Russia and Eastern Europe under Stalin. For the guitarist, whose mother was Roma and father Sinti, a sense of collective mourning, alongside a spirit of resistance, are closely intertwined aspects of his biography and musical resources. The Keller Quartett are fellow Hungarians and prove to be estimable collaborators.

Snétberger’s guitar concerto, In Memory of My People, was composed in 1994 to commemorate the half-century since the Holocaust. It is presented on Hallgató in an arrangement for guitar and string quintet. The first movement begins with an achingly slow cadenza. Joined by the strings, this is followed by a supple lyrical theme. After a reprise of the cadenza, a buoyant folk dance makes a brief appearance before the movement waxes rhapsodic once again. The second movement also traverses slow musical terrain, but here the material is imbued with brief allusions to Brazilian guitar and jazz. The concluding movement’s fleet-footed Roma dance music provides a delightful contrast and excellent finale for the piece.

The Keller Quartett performs Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet, one of his most harrowing works. A fugue using the DSCH motive (a note cipher for the composer’s name), the famous “knock on the door,” a warning that Stalin’s agents might take the composer at any time, and a number of self-quotations of his most defiant music make this an unrepentant statement by a composer under threat of death. The Keller Quartett’s rendition embodies searing pathos and is riveting throughout.

Two arrangements of John Dowland songs follow, “I Saw My Lady Weep” and “Flow My Tears,” combining the “consorts” of Renaissance music by having Snétberger play an embellished version of the lute part while the strings bear the melody and intermittent accompaniment. Dowland’s motto was “Semper Dowland, semper dolens” (Always Dowland, always doleful), and these two songs add another layer to the pervasive grief of Hallgató. The quartet takes up another piece famous for its expression of lament, the Molto Adagio movement from Samuel Barber’s String Quartet, Op. 11. Through a constantly interweaving minor-key melody, it creates a kind of funereal keening. After a number of bathetic accounts of the piece by other interpreters, the Keller Quartett’s recording is remarkable in its restrained dignity.

 

A glimmer of hope amidst the tragic resides in Snétberger’s solo piece “Your Smile.” The disc concludes with “Rhapsody 1,” arranged for guitar and strings. It was originally written as music for a film about the Roma people and the Holocaust. Wistful guitar solos alternate with arcing passages for the whole ensemble, evincing a sense of yearning, mourning, and resignation. Hallgató is a bit hard to translate, and it has different meanings in Hungarian and Roma, but it connotes a sense of listening. This release certainly invites listening, preferably many times, to savor its exhortation to remember.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

Vivaldi’s Il Tamerlano (Best of 2020)

Il Tamerlano

Antonio Vivaldi

Bruno Taddia, Bajazet; Filippo Mineccia, Tamerlano; Delphine Galou, Asteria;

Sophia Rennert, Irene; Marina De Liso, Andronico; Arianna Vendittelli, Idaspe;

Accademia Bizantina, Ottavio Dantone, director

Naïve Vivaldi Edition Vol. 65

In recent years, there has been a reconsideration of Antonio Vivaldi’s stage works. A Vivaldi Edition is appearing on the Naïve label, its latest offering the pasticcio opera Il Tamerlano. Premiered in 1735 in Verona, the work contains arias by Vivaldi’s contemporaries Hasse, Giacamelli, and Broschi. Vivaldi composed recitatives and interludes and contributed several arias of his own. The various trunk arias may be from disparate sources, but the opera coheres around extraordinary vocal writing.

From top – Arianna Venditelli’s Idaspe, displaying extraordinary coloratura runs – to bottom – Bruno Taddia’s resonant yet flexible singing in the role of Bajazet – the cast is excellent. Particularly impressive is the countertenor Filippo Mineccia, whose wide-ranging voice drops into tenor chest notes and to the top of the staff for soprano register high notes. His tone is warm and portrayal poignant. 

Il Tamerlano is an excellent opportunity to hear Vivaldi’s music measured against other prominent opera composers of the day.The high quality of his stage works are becoming firmly established, and the selections by the other included composers suggest that there is still more fertile terrain to explore in Italy’s high baroque era. Il Tamerlano is Sequenza 21’s Best Opera Recording of 2020. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Best of, Big Band, CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Best of 2020: Ingrid Laubrock

Ingrid Laubrock

Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt

Intakt 2xCD

Dreams can be a potent force for creators. Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock has harnessed her subconscious to make her strongest work yet. Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt is a double album, the first CD featuring a chamber orchestra and the second CD small ensembles, both performing the same dream-based compositions, with the second CD’s versions “turned upside down and inside out,” according to Laubrock.

Laubrock’s 2018 orchestral album, Contemporary Chaos, hinted at the skills she would bring to bear when writing for large ensembles. Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt goes even further towards an impressionist concept of sound. While I wouldn’t want to trade either disc for the other, it is also fascinating to hear the pieces reworked for a smaller group in lithe arrangements that feature electronics by Sam Pluta as well as contributions from Laubrock, Cory Smythe, Adam Matlock, Josh Modney and Zeena Parkins.

Atmospheric, harmonically complex, and filled with eloquent solos and intricate charts, the recording is one my favourite releases from this year. Best Jazz 2020.   

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

Piano Concertos on DG (Best of 2020)

John Adams

Why Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?

Yuja Wang, piano; Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Deutsche Grammophon

Thomas Adés

Adés Conducts Adés

Kirill Gerstein, piano: Christianne Stotijn, mezzo-soprano, Mark Stone, baritone; 

Boston Symphony, Thomas Adés, conductor

Deutsche Grammophon

This year saw the release of two formidable new piano concertos on Deutsche Grammophon: John Adams’s third piano concerto, titled Why Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (a quote from Martin Luther about using popular melodies as chorales), and a concerto by Thomas Adés. The recordings feature two of the most dynamic soloists active today, pianists Yuja Wang and Kirill Gerstein. The Adés release also includes Totentanz, an impressive vehicle for mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn and baritone Mark Stone.

Adés has crafted a piano concerto that pays homage to past pieces in the genre, with more than a passing nod at those by Ravel and Gershwin. Buoyancy typifies the outer movements, with jaunty swinging passages appearing in both, but the middle movement is a searing adagio in which dense harmonies are set against a poignant piano solo.  Gerstein is extraordinary in his virtuosity and versatility. His playing is particularly impressive during the latter portion of the third movement, where weighty terrain reminiscent of the second movement is once again encountered, at the last possible second veering back to the fast demeanor of the opening and a brilliant cadenza followed by a strongly articulated final cadence.

In Must the Devil…, Adams displays the polyglot language he has cultivated since the 1990s, in which the post-minimalism of his earlier works takes on the role of a background grid while rich harmonies, American pop references, and a demanding solo part take the fore. The first movement is marked “gritty, funky, and in strict tempo,” and the rockabilly riff that Wang and the orchestra lock into propels the action. It is succeeded by a double time riff from the orchestra over which Wang plays incisive chords and fleet runs. A cadenza deconstructs the riff into angular punctuations and arpeggiations. The second movement features delicate shadings of repeated pitch cells and frequent trills haloed by long descending scales in the strings. Gradually, counterpoint in the winds joins the proceedings and the piano part thickens to lush textures. Textures dissolve until we are left with pointillist versions of the original arpeggiations. Repeated chords lead attacca into the third movement, the repeating pulse undertaken by the orchestra while the piano takes up a wide-spanning perpetual motion figure. A vigorous march, punctuated by chimes and brass and thick chords in the piano supplants this, eventually offset by a triplet riff that gives us just a hint of the piece’s opener. Moving back and forth between double time iterations and solid beat-note blocks of sound, the stage is set for a flurry of activity from the piano. The soloist and orchestra interlock in a  brisk groove that periodically is interspersed by mini-cadenzas. The coda takes on a machine like ostinato that ends vigorously. Wang’s encore is China Gates, one of Adams’s prominent early works that has stood the test of time. Here and in the concerto, her playing is superlative, vivacious, and detailed.

by Christian Carey
CDs, Choral Music, early music, File Under?

Cappella Amsterdam (Best of 2020)


Roland de Lassus

Inferno – Motets for Six and Eight Voices

Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss, director

Harmonia Mundi CD

Roland de Lassus (1530-1594)  – also known as Orlando di Lasso – was one of the most important vocal composers of the sixteenth century. His extant catalog contains more than 2,000 pieces in nearly every sacred genre as well as madrigals, chansons, and lieder. Much of his career was spent in Munich in the service of Duke Albrecht V of Prussia. The motets that appear on Inferno, a Harmonia Mundi CD of six and eight voice pieces, come from this stage of his career. They are penitential in character, the last published motets taking on a particularly melancholy demeanor that seems to impart the composer’s reflections on mortality in old age. 

Cappella Amsterdam, directed by Daniel Reuss, has a beautiful sound, superbly balanced with warmth in every register. Reuss shapes the programmed pieces to demonstrate clarity of counterpoint, expressivity of utterance, and, importantly, the resonance that these frequently mournful works require.  

Among several standout performances, particularly affecting is Media vita in morte sumus, which is preceded by a limpidly executed rendition of its plainchant. The motet contains considerable antiphony, a technique that Lassus uses in a fashion reminiscent to Adrian Willaert’s choral music for St. Mark’s in Venice. In Omnia tempus habent, Lassus similarly splits up the voices, with ricocheting entrances offset by rich, tutti eight-part textures.

Lassus was also a master of word-painting. Published the year of Lassus’s death, Deficiat in dolore vita mea, has a particularly plaintive cast, its text a paraphrase of Psalm 30, verse 11: “Let my life end in grief, and my years in groans, that I may find rest in the day of tribulation” – set as a moving bewailment. From the same 1594 collection of six-voice motets, Vidi Calumnias begins with staggered entrances that gradually give way to scintillating chords. 

Not all of the texts are ones of mourning. Published somewhat earlier, in 1582, Cum essem parvulus sets one of the most beloved passages of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child …” with florid canonic passages offset by richly voiced harmonies. Thus, while Inferno is a solemn document, it is still one that contains glimmers of hope around its edges. Best choral release 2020. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Best of, CD Review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?

Scelsi revisited (Best of 2020)

Scelsi Revisited

Klangforum Wien, Sylvain Cambreling, Johannes Kalitzke, conductors

Kairos 2XCD

A number of prominent European composers took part in Scelsi revisited, a festival, documented on this double-CD, celebrating Giacinto Scelsi’s music. Their tribute pieces were based on unrealized tapes of Scelsi playing the Ondiola, a three-octave tube synthesizer that was his preferred instrument for making drafts of his works. Some are incorporated directly into pieces, others remixed and morphed as part of larger electronic designs, and some merely outline materials subsequently reworked by the selected composers. The forces used are often that of Anahit, Scelsi’s piece for violin and ensemble, previously recorded by Klangforum Wien for Kairos.

Michael Petzel’s Sculture di Suono addresses the beating, tremolo, and fading in and out of material often present in Scelsi’s tapes. The piece contains beautifully distressed microtonal bends, particularly among the winds, ornaments by the oboe, and references to Scelsi’s “organ sound,” with its tonal implications and plethora of thirds and sixths. Michel Roth’s Moi (see the article referenced below) also demonstrates beating, including the rhythmical quality found on Scelsi’s tapes, difference tones, and a particularly varied and engaging orchestration.  

Tristan Murail had a long association with Scelsi, performing some of his works with the ensemble L’itineraire in the 1970s. In Murail’s Un Sogno, the composer reworks Scelsi’s tapes, augmenting them with his own electronics and spectral harmonies for the ensemble, creating an imaginative tribute piece. Introduktion und Transsonation, by Georg Friedrich Haas, allows tapes to roll and encourages Klangforum Wien to improvise along with them. 

Nicola Sani’s “Gimme Scelsi” deals with long sustained sounds that are then morphed by microtonal ornaments  and harmonics, made all the more powerful by space in between the utterances. Later in the piece, block harmonies once again recall Scelsi’s “organ sound.” Clocking in at more than 42 minutes, Ulli Fussenegger’s San Teodoro 8 is the most expansive work on the recording. Fussenegger made tapes from Scelsi’s archives for all of the participating composers and he uses a great deal of this material in his own piece, which is also arrayed with original electronic components and melodic material based on monad and dyad formulations. The Ondiola material is front-loaded in a way that is seldomly done in the other pieces.Like Anahit, it also features a violin soloist, but a number of members of the ensemble get a chance to take a solo turn. Á tue tet by Fabien Levy is for nine winds distributed throughout the performance space. It juxtaposes pointillist shards of ricocheting fragments into gradual pile-ups of texture. The second disc closes with Cardinald by Ragnhild Bergstad, who takes the more gentle aspects of Scelsi’s artistry, as well as nature sounds, notably the song of the robin, to create a more placid surface than the other works presented here. An appealing denouement and gentle coda to a fascinating collection of pieces. 

The booklet notes are excellent, including the Scelsi’ “symbol,” a rare photo of the composer, and Ragnhild Berstad’s thoughtful essay on reception history and the revisited project itself. Berstad doesn’t shy away from the controversies surrounding Scelsi’s legacy, notably the article “Scelsi c’est moi” by Vieri Tosattis, one of the musicians who helped Scelsi to transcribe his tapes to musical notation. Of the revisited project, Berstad instead suggests “Scelsi, c’est nous,” pointing out the myriad ways that the composer has made his presence felt here and elsewhere. Scelsi continues to inspire, as the composers and performers on this recording readily attest. One of the best releases of 2020.

-Christian Carey

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

Best of 2020: Michi Wiancko

(Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing some of my favorite recordings of 2020. -CC)

Michi Wiancko

Planetary Candidate

New Amsterdam

Violinist-composer Michi Wianko’s recording Planetary Candidate presents a selection of solo violin works by Wianko and several of her composer contemporaries. They are “solo” in the sense of having a single performer, but Wiancko’s voice, overdubs of her playing, and electronics are often added to season the pieces. The title work is a case in point, with pizzicato and bowed sections overlapped. Midway through, Thich Nhat Han’s breathing mantra is intoned with vocoder style sonic manipulation. Lest one think that the music is merely meditative, there is a considerably ecstatic ambience that propels it forward. 

Jolie Sphinx by Christopher Adler is a study in perpetual motion, beginning modally and gradually adding chromaticism, the range expanding to encompass the instrument’s altissimo register. Paula Matthusen contributes two pieces for violin and electronics. In the first, Songs of Fuel and Insomnia, violin glissandos and tremolos are combined with electronic drones and percussive sounds. Distortion morphs the violin in a solo reminiscent of electric guitar that ends the piece with a flourish. Matthusen’s second piece, Lullaby for Dead Horse Bay, is gentler, with a slowly undulating solo haloed by sine waves. 

Skyline by Mark Dancigers is built primarily of upward arpeggiated chords with bright, neotonal harmonies in limpid phrases. A central section offsets this with descending scalar filigrees. When the arpeggios return, they are double time, adding a dash of urgency that builds to a quick cadenza. Jessie Montgomery’s Rhapsody No. 2 begins where Dancigers left off, with attractive upper register flourishes, followed by scalar passages throughout the instrument’s compass, a slow section consisting of harmonics and double-stops, and a brief return to the initial section’s virtuosic passagework. 

Two pieces by William Brittelle round out Planetary Candidate, both featuring electronic contributions from the composer. So Long Art Decade combines amplification and  echo-laden effects with analog synth sounds, including some particularly attractive bell-like timbres. Wiancko makes the most of the piece’s effulgent glissandos; at times the instrument inhabits rock solo terrain. A tender passage of double-stops provides an enigmatic coda. Disintegration (for Michi) uses similar effects on the violin and revels in loops in counterpoint. Brittelle once again punctuates the proceedings with synth insertions. The buildup to a swinging moto perpetuo is ephemeral, cut off by a slow section of string chords and a winsome major key tune, which closes the piece and the album in a gradual fade out. Imaginative selections immaculately played throughout, Planetary Candidate is one of my favorite releases of 2020.  

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

counter)induction

Against Method

Counter)induction – Benjamin Fingland, clarinet; Miranda Cuckson, violin; 

Jessica Meyer, viola; Caleb van der Swaagh, cello, Randall Zigler, bass; 

Renate Rolfing, Ning Yu, piano; Daniel Lippel, guitar

New Focus Recordings CD/DL

Chamber ensemble/composer collective counter)induction celebrates twenty years together with the recording Against Method. It consists of pieces contributed by composers associated with the collective as well those by “guest composers.” counter)induction has distinguished itself with  a versatile approach to new music, selecting works with a keen eye toward musicality and a clear resistance to stylistic dogma. Against Method neatly encapsulates this approach. 

Douglas Boyce’s Hunt by Night is an ostinato filled trio at a propulsive tempo for clarinet, cello, and piano. The piece also features glissandos and blurred microtonal inflections that offset the repeated pitches and chords nicely. Before, by Kyle Bartlett, is another trio, this time for clarinet, cello, and guitar. Wisps of texture are succeeded by noisy angularity with scratch tone effects. The unity provided by shared effects makes this broken consort sound at times like a single instrument. The sound spectrum moves between noise and dissonant counterpoint to create formal boundaries. Further along, the trio breaks up into characterful solos, notably a lithe cadenza by guitarist Daniel Lippel, which concludes the work. 

Lippel switches to electric guitar, accompanied by clarinetist Benjamin Fingland, vibraphonist Jeffrey Irving, cellist Caleb van der Swaagh, pianist Renate Rolfing, and bassist Randall Zigler in Alvin Singleton’s Ein Kleines Volkslied.  Rock-inspired chord progressions are played on the guitar, tremolando strings are emphatically rendered at key points alongside bluesy clarinet riffs, pizzicato bass, and jazz-inflected vibraphone arpeggiations. A bustling section overlaps these various playing styles, cut off again and again by tremolandos only to reassert itself. Bass clarinet, guitar, and vibes take over, their parts fragmenting the motives found in the beginning of the piece. Finally, a pileup of all the various elements creates a contrapuntal conclusion. Fingland plays Jessica Meyer’s Forgiveness, in which a  loop pedal plays a prominent role. Air through the mouthpiece begins the piece followed by sustained pitches, all of which the loop pedal allows to overlap into clustered textures and tight counterpoint. Looping has become a favorite of new music composers, but Meyer distinguishes her piece with an organic approach to the sounds of playing and a fine ear for the pitch relationships that result in overlapping.

Ryan Streber’s Piano Quartet is the most formidable composition on Against Method. The various instruments move at different rates, creating a Carterian sense of time flow. Streber also has a finely attuned ear for the selection and spacing of post-tonal harmonies. The linear component, with a number of imitative passages, is also finely wrought. The ensemble comprehensively knows the piece, delivering a performance that is assured and engaging throughout. 

The recording concludes with Scherzo by Diego Tedesco, a piece filled with descending chromatic scales that provide a jocular motive that appears in countless contexts throughout the piece. Tedesco blends pizzicatos from guitar and strings to good effect, followed by the aforementioned glissandos in cascading overlaps of sound. Particularly affecting is the middle section, which is an “eye of the storm” where the piece’s motives are fragmented and delicately hued. Clarinet and guitar are given an extended duet that is followed by an eruptive passage in the strings. Pizzicato and glissandos succeed in turn to create a clear juxtaposition of playing styles, at key points blending to create transitions between sections. Tight dissonances between violin and clarinet ratchet up the tension, which is finally allowed release in a sustained note from the clarinet followed by violin multi-stops. Scherzo is well- constructed, devised to show counter)induction to their best advantage. Top to bottom, Against Method is a stirring listen. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
Choral Music, File Under?, Twentieth Century Composer

Penderecki’s Passion: a new recording

Krzysztof Penderecki

St. Luke Passion

BIS Records

Sarah Wegener, soprano; Lucas Meachem, baritone; Matthew Rose, bass

Sławomir Holland, speaker

Warsaw Boys’ Choir; Kraków Philharmonic Choir

Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Kent Nagano, conductor

Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion (1966) garnered international acclaim that raised the composer’s stature substantially. Penderecki had a long relationship with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, appearing with them a number of times as a guest conductor from 1979-2015. The orchestra gave the Canadian premiere of St. Luke Passion with Nagano conducting. This live recording was made at the Felsenreitschule Salzburg Festival in July, 2018 with the composer in attendance. 

At the time of its premiere, there also were undercurrents of criticism on two fronts. The musical avant-garde pilloried Penderecki for his eclecticism, which ranges from triads to twelve-tone rows (two are used in the piece) to cluster chords and a prominent use of the B-A-C-H motive. In retrospect, one can evaluate the work as a precursor to the polyglot postmodern assemblages of the 1970s. Others decried the use of such devices in a liturgical piece of music. Despite these critiques, the work has weathered well. 

Throughout, there is a powerful sense of declamation by both the soloists and chorus. Soprano Sarah Wegener’s voice supplies thrilling high notes with abandon while baritone Lucas Meachem displays a richly powerful voice and bass Matthew Rose an impressive lower register. Perhaps most impressive is Slawomir Holland’s potent delivery as a speaker. The choruses are superlatively well prepared, their singing mixing thick chords and stentorian high notes as well as swirls of group spoken word passages. Concomitantly a fluidity between styles and idioms prevails.Sprechstimme morphs quickly into detailed harmony, micropolyphony mixes with quotation and tonal signatures. 

Nagano leads the Montréal musicians through an assured and nuanced account of the score. In the wake of Penderecki’s passing, this recording comes at a propitious time to reevaluate his compelling early work. 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey