A fluid fusion of melody and dance

Dance: Music for guitar and string quartet by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Aaron Jay Kernis and Luigi Boccherini

When I listened to this new CD from guitarist Jason Vieaux and the Escher Quartet, I was reminded of a phrase of John Eliot Gardiner, who said of the Baroque music of Bach and Rameau that it had "the fluidity of gesture and step and the fusion of melody and dance". Though the music of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Luigi Boccherini and Aaron Jay Kernis is a bit later (disco was after the Baroque, right?), this is definitely what's happening on this album, from the first habanera to the last fandango.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Quintet for Guitar & Strings earns its place on this dance-card with the tarantella & habanera in the finale, but the entire work is delightful. It has that perfect balance of folkloric and erudite music of the best chamber works of Villa-Lobos, for example, or Bartok. Vieaux and the Eschers judge everything just right.

The title of Aaron Jay Kernis's 100 Greatest Dance Hits is a very funny reference to the K-Tel TV ads of the 1970s, but the music itself begins in a mainly serious mode. The elaborate percussive effects of the Introduction set the stage for a most interesting and unexpected 20 minutes of music. It might not remain serious, but it's always clever. The 3rd movement, "Middle Of The Road Easy Listening Slow Dance Ballad" contains absolutely gorgeous melodies, but Kernis keeps turning the screw, and the piece veers hilariously, and then perhaps seriously, off the rails. The laughs come fast and furious in the final movement, "Dance Party on the Disco Motorboat," with its slapstick coda. I was reminded throughout this music of the Brazilian composer Gilberto Mendes, whose Ulysses in Copacabana Surfing with James Joyce and Dorothy Lamour for orchestra is somewhat in the same vein. Successful classical music humour is rare indeed, so it's nice to have Mendes and Kernis to give us some comic relief every now and then. Vieaux and the Escher Quartet must have had a ball performing this - I expect if the musicians don't, everyone will notice.

Take a moment before moving on to the Boccherini Guitar Quintet, so that it doesn't sound fussy and old-fashioned after the Kernis. Because it isn't fussy, and the musicians play it with perfect sensitivity to its Enlightenment ethos, making it sound fresh and alive, but always civilized. Still, Boccherini really lets his inner Tony Manero out in the Fandango Finale, which has been a crowd pleaser, I'm sure, since the 18th century. It's introduced by a lovely little mock-serious movement that for a moment crosses over into Mozartian pathos. This Boccherini Quintet is a triumph for Jason Vieaux and the Escher Quartet; it brought me as much pleasure as many a more substantial chamber work by Haydn or Mozart or Beethoven.

Two worthwhile violin concertos

From March 20, 2015:

The young Castelnuovo-Tedesco begins his Concerto Italiano for Violin and Orchestra with not one but two splendid themes, but the musical material in the first movement outstays its welcome before the end of its 15-1/2 minutes. This reminded me of Clover Adams’ witty but not at all unkind reference to Henry James, who, she said, chewed more than he had bitten off. Tightening up that first movement would bring better balance to the concerto, which continues with a slight but lovely, schmaltzy Arioso, and ends with an “impetuous” swirl. This is youthful music, fresh and frothy, and it is well presented, in a world premiere recording, by violinist Tianwa Yang, the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden Baden ind Freiburg, and conductor Pieter-Jelle de Boer.

The second Violin Concerto, written seven years later, is more technically assured, but drier and more erudite. It has a serious program, with its subtitle ‘The Prophets’ and its use of traditional Jewish melodies. It is more reticent than the first concerto, and more thoughtful, even pensive.

Tully Potter says in his excellent liner notes “a slight aura of the cinema hangs about” the second concerto, and coincidentally I was reminded of Erich Korngold’s soundtrack-inspired Violin Concerto, written decades after these two works. Neither of the Castelnuovo-Tedesco violin concertos is at level of Korngold’s, but both deserve to be played much more often than they have in the past. They’ve been given the best possible advocacy by Tianwa Yang and everyone involved in this excellent release.