Let's Dance!

Unexpected America: music by Paul Schoenfield, William Bolcolm, Camargo Guarnieri, Aaron Copland, Mike Mower

Put on your dancing shoes for a well-chosen mix of South and North American music for violin and piano, from violinist Oscar Bohórquez and pianist Frank Braley.

The programme begins with a suite of Four Souvenirs for Violin and Piano, by the Detroit-born composer Paul Schoenfield, written in 1990. An opening Samba, with a slow interlude at its centre, is followed by a sultry Tango. As often happens at a dance, when a slow song comes up, things get steamy! The ghost of George Gershwin is then brought out for Tin Pan Alley. This is top rank pastiche; I definitely use that word in a positive sense! Schoenfield's finale is Square Dance, one of the most lively bits on this album. It's sad to learn that Schoenfield died just under a year ago, in April 2024, at 77 years of age. This wonderful performance makes for an elegy and remembrance of a fine composer.

William Bolcolm's lovely ragtime "Graceful Ghost" is a standout. Bolcolm really shows as well as tells; this is as graceful as any piece I've heard. The themes are so lovely, which is important in this form. With so many repetitions in a ragtime,  each of the tunes must be embraced on its return. Bolcolm's six minute piece never wears out its welcome; this is salon music of the highest level.

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri's Violin Sonata no. 4 is a substantial work in a standard classical music form, but even here one feels the built-in rhythms of the choros, the urban popular music of Brazil. Written in 1956, while his (and every other Brazilian composers') master, Heitor Villa-Lobos, was still alive, Guarnieri's Sonata looks back to Villa's three violin sonatas of the early 1920s, which made such a stir at the Semana de Arte Moderna in Sao Paulo in 1922. The typically Brazilian version of nostalgia - saudade - is evident in the lovely Intimo slow movement, though Guarnieri really lets loose in the raucous Allegro appassionato finale, which has Villa's fingerprints all over it. By the way, Mozart was really Guarnieri's given name; his brothers were Bellini, Verdi and Rossine. A tough act to follow, on top of the Villa-Lobosian elephant in the room, but Guarnieri never seems to have lacked for self-confidence. His music always displays complete self-assurance and equanimity.

Aaron Copland's Nocturne, from 1926, is another slow dance in a modernist idiom. Perhaps it's the context of this programme, but this American music heard through a Parisian lens, with Nadia Boulanger's fingerprints this time, very much feels at home in South America as well. Copland made many personal and professional connections among Latin American musicians through his involvement in Nelson Rockefeller's Good Neighbor initiative of the WWII years, but that was still in the future.

The last work on the disc is the beguiling Bossa Merengova from the British composer Mike Mower's Sonata Latino, from 1994. This clever mix of the Brazilian bossa nova and the Cuban merengue shows the underlying connections between the various dance traditions of Latin America. Again with a wistful element to go with the sprightly rhythms, this is a wonderful way to end a wonderful programme.

Bohórquez plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin on which he produces a beautiful tone; his familiarity with the various musical traditions of Latin America results in completely idiomatic performances. He and pianist Frank Braley really swing this music when required; it's important to stress the folkloric component of this music, especially in a work like the Guarnieri Violin Sonata, with its erudite, academic, component.

An entertaining overview of 100 years of American piano music

Evan Mitchell, American Century

Born in New Jersey, educated in Indiana and Texas, and currently Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Florida, pianist Evan Mitchell obviously has this music in his bones. He's put together a wonderful programme that represents the many strands American composers have woven into their piano music, from Gershwin in the 1920s, to 21st Century pieces by John Adams, Missy Mazzoli and Frederic Rzewski.

Most appealing to me in this fabulous musical montage is the contribution of Florence Price, who I believe is the most exciting musical (re)discovery in classical music in this century. Her three Snapshots, written in 1947-52 but not discovered until 2008, are character pieces that bring to mind three particular moments, captured as notes on manuscript paper as if on film. Price can be seen as a modernist artist working in the same vein as her close contemporary, Imogen Cunningham. Both stop time and achieve transcendence.

Imogen Cunningham, Three Dancers, Mills College, 1930

Another wonderful piece is Missy Mazzoli's Bolts of Loving Thunder, written in 2013. It's Mazzoli's homage to Johannes Brahms, containing references both to his late, great, autumnal works for piano, but also to the vital music of what she calls the "Pre-Beard Brahms", the handsome young man on the left. It's a fascinating 8½ minutes of synthesis of youthful vigour and mature wisdom.

Brahms in 1855 - Brahms+beard, by Maria Fellinger, c. 1893-96

It wouldn't be the American Century without Aaron Copland, of course. But his Piano Variations, from 1930 is a bleak and angular work of uncompromising modernism. Nothing could be farther from his later folkloric Americana-inspired popular works. At first this sounds more like Paris than New England; more like Stravinsky than a Shaker hymn. But it's still American in its own way, and good on Evan Mitchell for placing it in the centre of his album. Adolphus Hailstork's Eight Variations on “Shalom Chaverim” provides a more down-to-earth vibe. It's a cleverly-constructed work based on a really lovely tune. 

John Adams' American Berserk, from 2001, is a fascinating work. Adams called it "extroverted, punchy, and fundamentally good-natured." Mitchell lets the music swing, which is what is required. Let's call this Post-Bop Minimalism.  After another uncompromising piece, Frederic Rzewski's Piano Piece No. 4, from 1977, Mitchell wraps things up with Stephen Hough's brilliant, showy arrangement of the Carousel Waltz, from Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1945 Broadway show.

What a fascinating, varied and thought- and emotion-provoking hour+ of music we have on this Centaur disc. Evan Mitchell teaches us about the breadth of American music for the piano while keeping us entertained, and all without resorting to cliché.

This Canadian review comes with best wishes to Americans of Good Will, without threats or sanctions.

A perfect American pops concert in Vienna

2019 Sommernachts Konzert: music by Bernstein, Johann Strauss II, Gershwin, Max Steiner, Sousa, Barber, Ziehrer, Dvorak, Copland

Gustavo Dudamel has chosen a great program for an American-themed Sommernachts Konzert with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Like every great pops concert, this has something for everyone. The Candide Overture of Leonard Bernstein is a great opener; it still sounds fresh after hearing it so many times during last year's Centennial. And it sounds absolutely fabulous as played by this great orchestra. That, by the way, goes for the entire 70 minutes of this CD. Other highlights for me include the 8-minute suite from Casablanca, prepared, I believe by the composer Max Steiner. The suite begins with the great Warner Brothers Fanfare, which is probably Steiner's greatest work. Steiner's own, relatively modest, atmospheric music for the film is soon forgotten every time the two great non-Steiner songs appear: La Marseillaise and Herman Hupfeld's As Time Goes By. Umberto Eco's summary of Casablanca applies very much to this musical pastiche:

It is a hodgepodge of sensational scenes strung together implausibly; its characters are psychologically incredible, its actors act in a manneristic way. Nevertheless, it is a great example of cinematic discourse, a palimpsest for the future students of twentieth-century religiosity, a paramount laboratory for semiotic research in textual strategies.

If I were choosing an American-themed pops concert, I would have kept going with this movie theme; Dudamel has done such a great job over the years presenting the music of John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, and other great film composers. But there are fine pieces from the concert repertoire as well: Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings sounds predictably sumptuous when played by the Vienna string players, and it provides a serious centre of gravitas in the middle of the program. An American work with a central European flavour is a natural for this venue: Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony. And if there's not enough star power with just The Dude, how about Yuja Wang playing a vivid, sparkling Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue?

Of course, you can't have a Sommernachts Konzert without some waltzes. Dudamel leads the orchestra (or do they lead him?) in two fetching works by Johann Strauss II and Carl Michael Ziehrer. A final encore of Aaron Copland's Hoe-Down from Rodeo ties things up with a red-white-and-blue ribbon. This was fun! Bravo to these fine musicians.



This disc will be released on August 16, 2019

Excellent complex, meaty Copland

The second disc in the Chandos series of Copland Orchestral Works is much more interesting, in my opinion, than the first, which included suites and other excerpts from Copland's perennially popular ballets. Again we have John Wilson conducting the BBC Philharmonic, in recordings made in Manchester and Salford at the beginning of 2016. Besides the virtuoso work of the orchestral musicians, the stars of the recording are organist Jonathan Scott and his instrument, the Marcussen & Søn Organ at The Bridgewater Hall. Copland's early Organ Symphony is an accomplished work considering his relative youth and I'm sure it makes a real impression at a live concert. It makes an impression here as well, with the usual warm Chandos sound (though I didn't get a chance to hear the surround-sound version of the disc). This is a work that has been well-served on disc; besides the famous Bernstein recording from 1967 with E. Power Biggs, there are fine recordings from Dallas, San Francisco and St. Louis, as well as another BBC recording from London, with Leonard Slatkin.

The real meat of the disc, though, comes from the other three works from the 1930s, each of which finds Copland reaching farther into more complex rhythms and away from the more simple-sounding Americana that became the most popular strand of his work throughout his career. Copland ran into difficulties with orchestras and conductors (including such giants as Stokowski and Koussevitsky) over the perceived difficulty of this music, and re-scoring and multiple rehearsals didn't really solve the issue. I'm not sure if the BBC Philharmonic players experienced any real problems in preparation, but they not only sound completely assured here, the music itself seems not especially complex to my ears. This, I think was a problem in the mid-20th century with many composers' works. Just this morning I read this in the liner notes to the new recording of Wozzeck with Fabio Luisi:

Claus Spahn: "The conductor of the world premiere, Erich Kleiber, needed 15 ensemble rehearsals and 34 orchestral rehearsals. Is Wozzeck still an extremely difficult work today?"

Luisi: "On a purely technical level, the score is no longer the problem as it was in Kleiber's day, because we now have much more experience with the music of the twentieth century."

My guess is that Wilson might say exactly the same thing about conducting these fine orchestral works by this American pioneer of both folkloric and modernist music. Kudos to Chandos and the players; I look forward to the next release in the series, which I trust will include Symphony no. 3, one of the greatest of American symphonies.