Tag: @sequenza21

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Laura Strickling’s 40@40 Project (CD Review)

 

Laura Strickling

40@40

Laura Strickling, soprano, Daniel Schlosberg, piano

Bright Shiny Things

 

Soprano Laura Strickling was nominated for a Grammy in 2022 for her last CD, Confessions, and has followed this up with forty art song commissions to celebrate her fortieth birthday: the 40@40 project. The eponymous recording features the first twenty of the commissions, with a second volume to follow. 

 

40@40 is already gaining considerable, well-deserved notice. Upon its release, it landed on the top of the Traditional Classical category on the Billboard Charts. Art song doesn’t often garner such a distinction, and Strickling’s advocacy for the genre is laudable. She is a talented vocalist with a wide range, warm in her low register and powerful in an impressive upper register. Moreover, her interpretive gifts are considerable. This is certainly true of collaborative pianist Daniel Schlosberg, who also has chops to spare for the most challenging passages of the songs. He pairs beautifully with Stickling. The twenty composers featured on the recording include some of the leading lights of American song, as well as fine composers who may have thus far flown under the radar of critical acclaim, but more than hold their own with the heavyweights. 

 

“Wind Carry Me,” by James Primosch is a setting of Susan Stewart’s poetry. Primosch was an expert crafter of art songs and the poem clearly resonated with him. The song is given a poignant and assured reading by Strickling, with clarion climaxes and operatic declamation. Tom Cipullo’s setting of “At Spring’s End,” by Ezra Pound, has a wistful piano prelude and long, sinuous legato vocal lines with quick, sometimes surprising, harmonic changes. “Let Us Remember Spring ” by Andrea Clearfield, presents Charlotte Mew’s poem with a slow build that eventually arrives at the top of Strickling’s range with an exultant demeanor. 

 

Myron Silberstein set’s Karen Poppy’s poem “Prometheus’ Monster” with a pleasing, light touch, providing Schlosberg with a fleet-fingered piano part and Strickling with long lines juxtaposed against it. The piano slows, moving into the same lyrical demeanor as the singer, in a coda that is given one spicy dissonance at its conclusion to remind us of the opening. Lori Laitman sets Caitlin Vincent’s “Thanks a Latte” in an arioso that adroitly moves through various sections and tempos that respond to the poem with skilful text-painting. Laitman gives Strickling ample opportunity to explore drama and humor. The soprano has fun with the song, providing a welcome diversion from the moodier pieces. Likewise, Julian Hall supplies “Two Old Crows,” a poem by Vachel Lindsay, with a puckish accompaniment and playful melismatic vocal lines. It culminates with energetic, humorous singing, the piano playing a quote from “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

 

Daron Hagen’s setting of Christina Ramirez’s “Benediction” is flat out gorgeous. Hagen is not only sensitive to word-setting and poetic form, he also shapes art songs to have a design that is elegant, crafting melodies that both paint local words and are part of a larger framework. The recording closes with “Song of Solitude (Alone),” a poem by Nikos Valance, is given a sumptuous setting by H. Leslie Adams, unspooling memorable melody after memorable melody. 

 

Laura Strickling is one of the best advocates for art song performing today. One eagerly awaits the next installment of 40@40 and, with fingers crossed, a songbook containing all forty. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

 

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

Every Living Creature (CD Review)

Every Living Creature

Choral music by Kenneth Leighton

Rebecca Lea, Nina Bennet, soprano; Ciara Hendrick, mezzo-soprano; 

Nick Pritchard, tenor

Finchley Children’s Music Group, Grace Rossiter, music director

Londinium, Andrew Griffiths, director

SOMM Records

 

Kenneth Leighton (1929-88) was a distinguished composer and academic. He taught at various places, including Oxford where he had studied as an undergraduate, spending the bulk of his academic career at the University of Edinburgh. He wrote in many genres, but it is his music for choirs that is most prized. His choral music is rigorous in construction with vibrant rhythms and skilful formal designs; tonal, but never overly sentimental. Every Living Creature, performed by Londinium, the Finchley Children’s Music Group, and a quartet of vocal soloists, conducted by Andrew Griffiths, is one of the finest recordings I have yet heard on the SOMM imprint, with a lively reverberant acoustic and wide dynamic range. It also contains a number of first recordings. Prior to the recording, some of the scores were not even published, languishing in library collections. 

 

The centerpiece of the recording, Laudes Animantium, Op. 61 (1971), is a celebration of animals, with a variety of poets’ observations of creatures real and fanciful. Leighton himself was an animal lover, with a cat, rabbit, and dog who he often watched playing with his children in the yard. His faithful labrador retriever would sit at his feet while he composed, only stirring when Leighton played a chord or two that displeased him.

 

The piece’s Prelude is from Song for Myself by Walt Whitman, the author describing animals as peaceful, ideal companions. Tenor Nick Pritchard, who gives several standout performances on the recording, sings the Whitman poem with a sweet-toned lyrical voice and excellent diction. Rebecca Lea sings with purity and beauty, animating the subjects of many of the movements. Soloists from the choir, Arielle Lowinger and Madeleine Napier, deserve plaudits as well for their singing, performing with fetching delicacy in “The Lamb.”

 

The mood of the cycle shifts between movements, with a lively scherzo, “Calico Pie,” a dramatically imposing “The Tyger,”  and a truly terrifying depiction of “The Kraken.” Throughout, the choir is expressive and finely honed in its accuracy. Griffiths’s direction keeps the counterpoint clean and the tempos fluid. The end of the cycle, “Every Living Creature,” is impressive, with soloists and choristers joining in a piece that could well be an excerpted anthem to conclude a celebration of animals in any Episcopal church with the performing forces to attempt it. Griffiths and company have set a high bar. 

“An Evening Hymn” and “Lord, When the Sense of Thy Sweet Grace” also feature Lea as soloist, her tone and dynamic control impeccable. Hushed singing begins the Evensong anthem, gradually growing, with free counterpoint juxtaposed against  lush verticals. 

 

“London Town” is a powerful piece, with the choir opening up to clarion fortissimos in its climaxes. “Three Carols” are quite lovely and would enhance many a Christmas Eve service. “Nativitie” features homophonic polychords alternating with tight canons. As the piece progresses, the lines get longer and are buoyed by chords, ending with a well executed pianissimo cadence. The final piece on the recording is “The Hymn to the Trinity,” which explores Lydian melodies and staggered cadences, a repeating homophonic passage tying things together. The latter half features brisk overlapping melodies. The Lydian returns, followed by a bright amen cadence, It is a moving close to a disc of great discoveries. Someone please publish this music and distribute it widely. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Boston, Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?

Tanglewood: FCM Chamber Music Concert (review)

Photo: Hilary Scott.

Festival of Contemporary Music

Chamber Music

Sunday, July 30, 2023

 

LENOX – There were a number of firsts on the July 30th chamber music concert. I have never seen the stage at Ozawa Hall require several minutes of vacuuming up bits of wood, but Malin Bång’s Arching, for amplified cello, amplified tools, and electronics, created considerable, if entertaining, mayhem. Another first: hearing “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round,” paired in fugal counterpoint with the Brahms lullaby. 

 

The find for me at FCM was Tebogo Monnakgotla, a Swedish composer who curated Sunday’s concert. The aforementioned nursery rhythm fugue was from her considerably charming piece, Toys, or the Wonderful World of Clara (2008). The backstory: when Monnakgotla’s child was a toddler, she received all manner of musical toys, and loved to run them all at once. The composer recounted that multiple Brahms-singing toys were terribly out of tune, with themselves and each other (this too was incorporated in the piece, in clusters that distressed the lullaby). The idea may have been whimsical, but its deployment was anything but, the piece creating fascinating swaths of texture and crafty quodlibets. 

 

Toys is memorable, but by no means representative of the rest of Monnakgotla’s programmed pieces. Her early Five Pieces for String Trio juxtaposes open cello strings with glissandos, harmonics, and wisps of sul ponticello. The movements cohere into a well-crafted organic whole. Le dormeur du val, a setting of Rimbaud for soprano and mixed chamber ensemble, has a haunting presence. The poem depicts a soldier who appears to be resting near the field of battle. It is only at its very conclusion that we learn of his wounds and realize that he is not resting, but deceased. Monnakgotla employs trumpet calls and vigorous drums to create a bellicose background. The vocal part contrasts this with a feeling of doleful detachment. Soprano Juliet Schlefer did a fine job presenting the ending’s swerve without overselling, and she was equally sensitive when interpreting with the rest of the poem. Schlefer has a lyric voice of considerable beauty: I would love to hear her again.

 

Two other composers were programmed on the concert. Bent Sørensen’s compact string quartet, The Lady of Lalott, reveled in banshee-like distant howls and prevalent extended techniques. South African composer Andile Khumalo’s solo piano piece Schau-fe[r]n-ster II combines spectralist inflections, with shimmering overtones and chords spaced according to registral positioning in the harmonic series, with second modernist hyper-virtuosity. Joseph Vasconi played the work with adroit facility and a depth of understanding that belied his student status at Tanglewood. Khumalo’s language is distinctive. One presumes and welcomes that we will hear much more from him. 

 

After every one of her pieces, Monnakgotla took to the stage to warmly greet and thank the performers. It was clear that this affection was returned, and that mutual artistic respect played a role in the concert’s success. Tanglewood students at FCM benefit much from the mentorship of senior composers, and it was clear that this collaboration was quite successful.

 

 The concert ended with a reflective piece by Monnakgotla, Companions (seasons) (2021), for solo violin. It represents the various stages of a professional string player’s career as seasons: The ebullient spring of a young student, the prodigy’s successes during a long, hot summer, artistic maturity and the demands of performing and teaching in autumn, and, finally, the winter of retirement, in which the violinist’s instrument is like an old friend. The music is ambitious yet touching, and was played with assuredness and grace by Connor Chaikowsky. A stirring valediction to a memorable concert. 

 

____

 

On Friday, August 28th, FCM devoted a curated concert to Anna Thorvaldsdottir, an Icelandic composer who is regularly commissioned by some of the best orchestras in the world. The highlights of the concert were two ensemble works, Hrim and Aquilibria, coached and conducted by Stephen Drury, and the closer, the ensemble work Ró, conducted by Agata Zając. Thorvaldsdottir’s music blooms with effervescent overtones, and addresses elements of tonality in novel and frequently surprising ways. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
Concert review, Conductors, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?

Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, 7/30/2023 (Concert Review)

Photo: Hilary Scott

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Anna Rakitina, conductor

Joshua Bell, violin

Eliza Bagg, Martha Cluver, and Sonja Dutoit Tengblad, vocalists

July 30, 2023

 

LENOX – The Boston Symphony’s offerings on the weekend of the annual Festival of Contemporary Music dovetailed with its curation, lifting up female composers and, on Sunday, a conductor. Leading the orchestra on Saturday, July 30th was Anna Rakitina, who has served as the ensemble’s Assistant Conductor until this Summer. She is a rising star and led the orchestra with assuredness, providing detailed interpretations of all of the scores on the program. The orchestra, for their part, were responsive to her gestures, clearly enjoying working with Rakitina and the music on offer. There was a poignancy to the event, as it was the conductor’s last performance with the BSO as Assistant Conductor. 

 

Ellen Reid’s When The World as You’ve Known it Doesn’t Exist (2019) opened the concert. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic as part of their Project 19 initiative, a series commissioning female composers to celebrate the centenary of the Nineteenth Constitutional Amendment, affording women the right to vote. The piece is diverse in terms of its musical language, and Reid does an admirable job bringing together the disparate strands of its formal design. Vocalists Eliza Bagg, Martha Cluver, and Sonja Dutoit Tengblad are go-to performers for new music with superb voices and vivid musicality. When the World … required them to sing untexted sounds, some playful, others earnestly dramatic. The orchestra frequently responded to the motives in the voices, creating a back and forth dialogue that contextualized the singers’ presence as part of the proceedings. Given the weight of some of the textures over which the singers were required to perform, a bit of amplification would be understandable: the amount used was excessive, adding periodic harshness that the vocalists neither needed nor deserved. 

 

The outer sections of the piece explored fluid textures, with frequent glissandos and vocal ululations, juxtaposed with orchestral tutti. The middle section, a jazzy surprise, introduced a dyadic motive that was then put through a setof variations, including an extraordinary series of long trills near its end. The motive then joined the beginning material to cohere into a beguiling conclusion. Reid is an imaginative composer and excellent orchestrator. One hopes the BSO will commission and program more of her work. 

 

The last time that the BSO played Nicoló Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 at the Shed was in 1987, with Midori as soloist. To have to wait a generation to hear them play it again seems a crime, as it is one of most ebullient and virtuosic of nineteenth century concertos. There was significant recompense, however, in the pairing of violinist Joshua Bell with the orchestra. Bell is one of the most acclaimed soloists active today, erudite and thoughtful as well as bestowed with superlative technical gifts. Bell composed his own cadenzas for the concerto, which were idiomatic, exploratory, and incredibly challenging. 

 

The piece is front-loaded, with the first movement lasting twenty and some minutes. Such was the inspired nature of its performance alone, that there was a vigorous standing ovation before the second movement even began. When it did, Bell played the ardent Adagio’s central melody with poise and gravitas. The final movement is a rondo, with a sprightly theme treated to a technical tour de force of variations. Once again, Bell performed his own cadenzas, which were formidable yet delivered with elan. Once again at its conclusion, the audience greeted Bell and the BSO with a standing ovation. There was no encore: how can you top Paganini?

Photo: Hilary Scott.

The second half of the concert was devoted to ten selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s Music from the Ballet Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64. The piece contains some of Prokofiev’s most memorable melodies, its rich orchestration tailor-made for the BSO. Rakitina never allowed the music to be overdone, yet brought out the emotive side of Romeo and Juliet. In its Introduction, she urged the strings to swoon, yet made ample room for woodwind and horn solos. “Montagues and Capulets,” perhaps the hit tune of the work, was given a brisk reading that embodied the crackling intensity of the families’ rivalry. Contrastingly, “The Child Juliet” was rendered with an innocent delicacy that was quite touching. Likewise, a yearning quality imbued the “Balcony Scene” with luminous ardor. “The Death of Tybalt,” in a flurry of activity, was jaunty in its opening and bellicose at its conclusion, percussion and brass providing a roaring climax. The orchestra sounded tremendous here. 

 

“The Death of Juliet” concluded the performance with one of the ballet’s most arresting themes, played caressingly by the violins and buoyed by lower strings, with eloquent utterances from the lower brass and a rejoinder by a chorus of woodwinds. Its stark close, all octaves with sepulchral bass, had more pathos than a minor chord could ever supply. From beginning to end, this was an engaging program.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
Boston, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, July 29, 2023 (Review)

Photo: Hilary Scott.

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor

Avery Amereau, mezzo-soprano

July 29, 2023

 

LENOX – This year’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood spotlighted female composers. Four created self-curated concerts, and others were featured on BSO concerts. Agata Zubel’s In the Shade of an Unshed Tear, originally composed for the Seattle Symphony, was on the program Saturday night in the Shed. Before its performance, conductor Dima Slobodeniouk talked briefly with Zubel onstage. Prominent among their remarks were the stipulations of the original commission. Seattle was pairing Zubel’s piece with works by Beethoven and wanted her to compose for a classical-sized ensemble, with only timpani for percussion. Slobodeniouk pointed out that new pieces in Europe are generally for a much larger orchestra. Zubel acknowledged that the commission was a challenge. 

 

With In the Shade of an Unshed Tear, the composer rose to the challenge. The timpani began the piece with thunderous attacks, the orchestra following in kind, creating a fortissimo sound that tested the boundaries of a classical-sized ensemble. Zubel employed glissandos grouped among the strings at a lower dynamic level. Still, the fortissimo material seemed inevitable to win out. In a swerve, a denouement followed by the timpani playing pianissimo proved an interesting and organic ending. 

 

Olivier Messiaen’s Les Offrandes oubliêes is a relatively early piece. It is surprising how much of the composer’s musical language was in place by the time he was in his twenties. An ascending mixed-interval scale serves as the principal theme. At the time, the composer was studying Rite of Spring and this is reflected in more rigorous passages that contrast the beguiling melodic ascent.

 

Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard was indisposed and Avery Amereau substituted for her as the soloist in Hector Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été. With a beautiful, round tone throughout all registers from chest voice to high notes, Amereau’s voice was well-suited to the considerable demands of Berlioz’s half-hour long song cycle. Slobodeniouk and she had a few mild coordination challenges, but these were well worth the flexibility of their interpretation.

 

Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 is one of the composer’s finest orchestra pieces. Orchestrated with a deft hand for colorful, abundant contrasts, it encompasses sequences of delicate impressionist harmonies and neoclassical dancing rhythms, with powerful swells at climatic moments that bring the whole orchestra to bear. Slobodeniouk conducted the BSO with verve, urging them to make the most of tutti crescendos while also making ample room for solo passages. The orchestra played with precision throughout and abandon whenever appropriate. It was a satisfying, frequently inspiring evening. 

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
CD Review, early music, File Under?

Orlando Consort Continues Their Machaut Edition (CD Review)

Orlando Consort

Machaut: The Fount of Grace

Hyperion Records

Matthew Venner, countertenor; Mark Dobell and Angus Smith, tenors; Donald Greig, baritone

 

Guilliame de Machaut (1300-1377) was a supremely talented poet and composer. He was an innovator, creating the first polyphonic Mass and developing polyphony in chansons as well. After Machaut, there is little evidence of composers in the Medieval era who set their own words to music. Works devoted to courtly love make up the majority of his output. Fount of Grace adds several topics to that of love poems: devotional and historial components loom larger than on other recordings of Machaut by Orlando Consort. 

 

After thirty-five years, Orlando Consort gave their last performance on June 7, 2023. The Fount of Grace is the tenth of eleven recordings of Orlando’s survey of Machaut. The title references a name for the Virgin Mary, to whom some of the programmed works offer devotions, explicitly or in a veiled fashion.

 

Le lay de la fonteinne is the most overtly religious, petitioning the Blessed Virgin for love and grace. Like traditional lays, the rhythm scheme and melodic framework are complex, with different rhythms and melodies in each couplet, apart from the first and last, which provide a refrain to begin and end the piece. Odd-numbered lines are monophonic, while even-numbered lines are performed as three voice unison canons; a reference to the trinity that, late in the piece, is supported by an evocation of its formula. The singing of the canons is quite beautiful, with the overlapped lines delivered with clear diction and vivacious rhythms. At over twenty-four minutes in duration, it is by far the program’s longest work and, thematically, its centerpiece.

 

Machaut also references occurrences of his day, a particularly fraught time in France, beleaguered with plague, pestilence, and the Hundred Year’s War, which at the time of these compositions was going quite badly for the French. The motet Tu qui gregem/plange regni/Apprehende arma is an example. It references taking up arms against the foe at a point during the Hundred Years War when the nobles of France were in desperate straits, with some taken hostage by the English forces. Likewise, Christe qui lux/Veni creator spiritus/Tribulatio proxima est implores Christ to be with those in danger. The counterpoint, which includes canonic and free passages, is finely knit, with upper voices Matthew Venner and Mark Dobell leading off the proceedings with an ardent duo that, soon enough, is accompanied by the other voices in fascinating overlapping relations. The ballade Donne Signeurs, urges noblemen to be good to their subjects. A sustained tune sung by tenor Angus Smith, an upper register melody performed by Venner, and harmonies incorporated by the other vocalists, with a sonorous bass line by Donald Greig, create a fascinating, vibrating texture. 

 

Courtly love is not neglected on the program. Two versions of the Rondeau Tant doucement me sens emprisonnez are included, one for two voices and the other four. The theme of being imprisoned by love is a venerable one among chansons, and this text expresses it well. The duet’s two voices move at different rates, with a fetching melismatic top voice. The quartet is even more varied in rhythmic activity. With Tant doucement … Machaut creates a tour-de-force times two in the chanson genre.

 

The Orlando Consort still sound in fine voice and will be sorely missed. At least we have one more Machaut recording to which to look forward. 

 

-Christian Carey



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

Manchester Collective – Neon (Recording Review)

Manchester Collective

Neon

Bedroom Community

 

Alex Jakeman, Flute; Oliver Pashley, Clarinet; Rakhi Singh, Violin; 

Hannah Roberts, Cello; Beibei Wang, Vibraphone; Katherine Tinker, Piano 

 

Manchester Collective’s fourth recording, Neon, includes totemic pieces by Steve Reich and Julius Eastman, as well as works by Hannah Peel and the first concert music composition by Lyra Pramuk. It is a well-considered and excellently performed program.

 

The centerpiece is Steve Reich’s Double Sextet, a work for two “Pierrot plus Percussion” ensembles that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. The piece can either be performed live by twelve musicians or by a single sextet against an overdubbed rendition of the second grouping. Manchester Collective opts for the latter. The performance is so tight that the lines between live and recorded are erased. This is due in no small part to the energetic and laser beam focused playing of violinist Rakhi Singh and cellist Hannah Roberts. Double Sextet is one of the best of Reich’s later compositions and this performance is a welcome addition to his recording catalog. 

 

Julius Eastman’s “Joy Boy” begins with vocal improvisations that display a surprisingly Reich-like harmony. Pitched percussion and repeated ululations bring the performance to a cadence point, after which the instruments vie for dominance in the texture. The second section is based on just a few harmonies, but their elongation and the sudden eruptions that periodically occur keep things interesting. 

 

In an affectionate homage, Hannah Peel tropes ideas and sounds from Steve Reich in the recording’s title piece. We are treated to some flavors reminiscent of Double Sextet, but also samples from Shinjuku train station, a nod, albeit a far less angsty one, to Reich’s Different Trains. Peel is expert at bringing together these disparate strands. The first movement, “Shinjuku,” is ostinato filled and brightly hued. The second movement, “Born of Breath,” has some lovely clarinet writing for Oliver Pashley, a fine player with excellent control of limpid runs and upper register forays. Flutist Alex Jakeman is compelling too. Here she contributes shorter lines, often dramatic in the timing of their appearances. Less minimal in design than the other movements, it has a beguiling ambience. The finale, “Vanishing,” features vibraphone and piano, played with keen attention to dynamic shadings by Beibei Wang and Katherine Tinker, with repeated patternings from the rest of the group coalescing into a lovely surface.

 

Lyra Pramuk produced Neon and, encouraged by the group, tried her hand at creating a composition for them. A producer, vocalist, performance artist, and composer of electronica, it is not surprising that she excels in adding another component to her polyartist career. Of her work Quanta, she says,  “There is no universal time. Quanta explores the notion that each of us has an individual sense of how time traces through our lives.”

 

The ticking of a grandfather clock opens the piece, at first keeping strict time, then devolving into varying tempos, and finally stopping. Sustained tones emerge from the grandfather clock’s ticking, followed by a diatonic duet for clarinet and cello. Shimmering vibraphone announces the return of the rest of the ensemble, playing extended triadic harmonies to accompany successive solos from each of the wind and string players. The language is lush, with overlapping lines from the entire group creating a tapestry of interwoven melody. The next section adds flute trills, glissandos, and pizzicato to further enhance the texture. A long decrescendo compresses the material until it vanishes. Pramuk’s Opus 1 suggests she should add more concert music to her resume. 

 

Neon features a thoroughly engaging program and talented ensemble. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Ralph Alessi Quartet on ECM (CD Review)

Ralph Alessi Quartet

It’s Always Now

ECM CD

 

Trumpeter Ralph Alessi brought a passel of originals to his latest recording date, his fourth for ECM, It’s Always Now. Most are single-author compositions, but a few are collaborations with pianist Florian Weber. The two are joined on the recording by double bassist Bänz Oester and drummer Gerry Hemingway. It is a formidable lineup, one responsive to and supportive of each others’ playing. 

 

Coauthored with Weber, “Hypnagogic” opens the album, with whole-tone arpeggiations from Weber and repeating notes from Alessi creating a mysterious atmosphere. Alessi’s lines unfurl into passages morphing the scale patterns Weber uses, imitating elements of his intro and exploring upper register sostenuto. It is a beguiling way to begin. “Old Baby’s” loping tempo and bluesy cast alludes to jazz styles past. Still, the player’s keep these tropes within their own modern language. Oester and Hemingway assert themselves on “Residue,” creating a powerful sound and corruscating rhythms. The solos are correspondingly boisterous. 

 

“The Shadow Side” is an appropriately named mysterious ballad with wide ranging solos from both Alessi and Weber. The title tune, coauthored with Weber, features Alessi playing in the upper register with exquisite control. Slow, soft, inside-the-piano work and thick chords create complex textures. “Diagonal Lady” begins with Oester playing a fine solo with terse melodies and glissandos. It concludes with arco low notes. Alessi explores an anapestic cry and Weber ghosts his melodies.

 

“Everything Mirrors Everything” is a nice change of pace, literally. It begins with an uptempo moto perpetuo. The solos maintain a bebop tempo, Alessi using a mute and firing off line after line in fiery fashion. At the tune’s conclusion, he references the moto perpetuo line and Hemingway’s cymbal’s sizzle away. Short and sassy, “Ire” has a duet of its tart tune by Alessi and Weber, which is then taken out of phase by the duo, Weber adding stabbing comping. 

 

Two extended outings, “His Hopes, His Fears, His Tears,” and “Hanging by a Thread” show the capacity of the quartet to develop small pieces of initial material into larger forms. Here as elsewhere, the simpatico interaction between Alessi and Weber is formidable. Likewise, the interactions between Oester and Hemingway never fail to impress. Hemingway has long been a favorite of mine, and hearing Oester’s lines curl around the pulse the drummer sets down, moving into his own line of syncopations to add another rhythmic layer, is a highlight of both tunes. Weber’s solo on “His Hopes… presents virtuosity in full flourish. “Hanging by a Thread” is another tune where a chromatic melody outlines an uptempo pulse. Alessi begins and is joined by Weber in a follow the leader duo. After the intro, the pace slows, and Weber takes a solo set of variations of the tune. Alessi sequences the tune in his solo and overblows stentorian high notes. He is joined by Weber and the tempo picks up to a rapid pace, florid lines breathlessly flowing. Glissandos from the trumpet heralds a new section and the rest of the quartet plays a vigorous ostinato. Alessi locks in with the patterning of the others, Weber returning to with the chromatic tune, and then Alessi repeating it one more time to conclude.

 

The recording’s last cut, “Tumbleweed,” another authorial collaboration with Weber, has a delicate melody built of latticed repeating cells. As in the past, Alessi and Weber trade angular lines, the trumpeter’s tone plummy in contrast to the silvery sound he often evokes. Rather than explore all of the tune’s potential, it finishes after a tantalizing three minutes.

 

It’s Always Now is one of my favorite recordings thus far in 2023. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Coltrane and Dolphy – Evenings at the Village Gate (CD Review)

Evenings at the Village Gate

John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy

McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman and Art Davis, bass; Elvin Jones, drums

Impulse! Records

 

Evenings at the Village Gate is a rarity that was curated by the New York Public Library. It is taken from test recordings of the Village Gate’s sound system by producer Richard Alderson. Recorded on a single ribbon microphone, it documents eighty minutes of John Coltrane’s 1961 residency at the venue, performed by the all-too-briefly united quintet lineup that augmented Coltrane’s quartet with multi-reed performer Eric Dolphy. Bassist Jimmy Garrison is absent, replaced by Reggie Workman and, on the only live recording of “Africa,” the addition of Art Davis to make a two bass grouping. Pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones complete the group.

 

Hearing Coltrane and Dolphy soloing on “My Favorite Things” is an inspiring listen, the former’s breathless phrasing on soprano saxophone and the latter’s flute jabbing at melody notes, juxtaposed with fleet arpeggiations. Dolphy and Jones create a polymetric construction that buoys the tune’s excitement. Coltrane played “My Favorite Things” many times. Later in 1961 he would record iconic renditions at the Village Vanguard. However, the version from the Gate finds his response to Dolphy’s artistry giving the tune an entirely different flavor.

 

Dolphy plays the melody on “When Lights Are Low,” on bass clarinet and explores the upper register of the instrument with impressive control. Likewise, Coltrane’s solo pulls melodic variations out of the stratosphere and brings them down to earth with lightning fast scales. Tyner takes an imaginative solo that explores extended harmonies and variations on the tune. Tyner’s solo on Impressions is also a standout, punctuating the rhythms that Jones emphasizes with short motives as well as virtuoso filigrees and seamless octaves.

 

With the rhythm section laying down a rock solid groove, “Greensleeves” starts with florid elaborations from Coltrane, only later revealing the Dorian tune with fewer adornments, Dolphy interjecting bass notes at its conclusion. Tyner takes an extensive, well-developed solo, once again saving the tune for last. Dolphy’s solo plays with an angular tune that he develops in multiple registers, moving to the melodic refrain and then howling high notes. Coltrane matches these with altissimo shredding of his own. The two then join in a colloquy of blindingly fast arpeggios and overblowing. Coltrane takes the tune one last time, followed by a decrescendo from the rhythm section to conclude. Dolphy’s addition to the proceedings is felt profoundly.

 

The recording of “Africa” apparently is the only live rendition extant. This is the only tune from the Village Gate sessions on which Coltrane plays tenor saxophone. In addition to the upper register playing and quicksilver scales he already displayed on soprano, his playing here also involves long melodic lines and low register punctuations. Workman and Davis trade off arco and pizzicato playing, remaining two distinct voices in the music. Jones drops out to allow them the chance for an extended duet. Tyner performs trills, chord solos, and repeating soprano register patterns. Jones is exuberant in exploring tremendously syncopated rhythms, particularly in his own solo turn. Coltrane and Dolphy create a contrapuntal duet to close the tune, rhythm section roaring beside them. It seems a pity that more live versions of “Africa” have yet to be uncovered, as this is certainly a highlight of the recording.

 

Evenings at the Village Gate is a treasure trove that provides a different perspective on 1961, a pivotal year in Coltrane’s development of an extended approach to live performance. Had Dolphy lived longer, one imagines he could have played an integral part in Coltrane’s later ensembles and recordings. For now, we must content ourselves with what is here, which is quite substantial and essential listening.

 

-Christian Carey

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

Thomas Adés – Dante (CD/DVD review)

Thomas Adés 

Dante

Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Symphony, Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Nonesuch CD

 

Thomas Adés

The Dante Project

London Symphony Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Koen Kessels, conductor

Opus Arte Bluray DVD

 

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to use Dante as the centerpiece of one’s own creative work. Thomas Adés has courage in spades, as he has created an ambitious  ballet based on the Divine Comedy, for dancers, chorus, and orchestra, commemorating the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death. Two documents of the piece are currently available, a Nonesuch recording of the Los Angeles Symphony, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and an Opus Arte Bluray DVD.

 

Dudamel is firmly in command of the concert version of Dante, balancing its powerful, often intricate, orchestration. The vivid imagery of the poem is ideal material for Adés to use the leitmotifs that so often appear in his theatrical work. In The Inferno section, the “Abandon All Hope” motif, which opens the ballet, is memorable in its angst-filled stridency, “The Ferryman” contains a recurring melody with exquisite writing in the winds, and the Dies Irae is given a set of suitably diabolical variations. “Paolo and Francesca – the endless whirlwind,” is dervish like in its peregrinations. “The Pope’s Adagio – Head First,” contains a soaring, neo-romantic melody. Immediately followed by “The Hypocrites – coated in lead,” which nicely juxtaposes the Pope’s music with slowly moving, low register chromaticism and an inexorable drumbeat. “The Thieves – devoured by reptiles” depicts the chase between condemned and tormentors in a quick dance that, more than anything else in the ballet, channels Tchaikovsky.

 

Some truly terrifying music ensues: the timpani and howling lower brass for “The suicides,” followed by cymbals and upward wind glissandos, has echoes of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. “Satan – in the lake of ice” closes the Inferno section with a harrowing slow movement with dissonant brass chorales juxtaposed with shimmering high winds and strings. It is among the most moving sections of the work.

 

Recorded voices of an ancient Syrian Jewish prayer are intoned at the beginning of Purgatorio, its accompanying music depicting “Dawn on the Sea of Purgatory,” with the sound of recorded waves and modal interludes that resemble the scales being chanted. Voices reappear in “Valley of Flowers” alongside a Middle Eastern dance with ebullient percussion in whirling patterns that gradually speed up, only to be replaced by a slow cadenza. Recorded voices continue their singing and the strings take a long-threaded melody on “The Healing Fire.” Purgatorio in its final three movements begins to depict the uplift of souls to heaven. “The Earthly Paradise” uses a melody from the recorded voices in a brass-forward quick section that ends with a flourish. “The Heavenly Procession” slows the tempo back to that of the initial chanting of the prayer, which is accompanied by chiming punctuations, haloing strings, and an eloquent horn solo. “The Ascent” is triumphant, filled with ringing changes and ascending scales imitated in all the sections of the orchestra.

 

What follows is a compositional tour-de-force.  Paradisum is cast in a single, 27-minute long movement, with the following subsections, “Awakening – Moon – Mercury – Venus – Sun – Mars – Jupiter.” A slow build begins with “Awakening” that continues throughout, with a registral ascent and marshaling of forces culminating in the addition of chorus. Dudamel paces the piece with an exquisite sense of its long architecture, making sure that there is intensity left by the time the music reaches “Jupiter.” Adés’s incorporation of transformed versions of previous leitmotifs provides Paradisum with a sense of closure.  

The Opus Arte Bluray DVD features the Royal Ballet’s Edward Watson in his last performance after twenty-seven years as a principal dancer. Directed by Kevin O’Hare and choreographed by Wayne McGregor, it is a beautifully danced and visually arresting production. Watson, as Dante, and Gary Avis as Virgil, wear tunics, Avis’s gold and Watson’s moving from aqua to half-red/half aqua in Purgatorio, and entirely red in Paradisum. Likewise, the dancers in Inferno wear charcoal body suits and those in Purgatorio and Paradisum are, respectively, light tan and then white. The symbolism of color is complemented by solo and group dancing that varies from undulating modernism to, by the score’s conclusion, more traditional ballet. Sarah Lamb dances the part of Beatrice with graceful versatility, and Dante’s love for her is depicted in affecting choreography. Throughout, McGregor, with a keen ear for its orchestration, captures the essence of Adés’s score.

 

Do I prefer the audio recording or the film? Glad to not have to choose, as they are both excellent documents. Dante is a major work by Adés, and one of his best to date. Highly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey