Music from Santoro's Sixties

Claudio Santoro: Symphony no. 8, Cello Concerto

As one of the top Brazilian composers of the middle and late 20th century, Claudio Santoro stayed on top of the latest musical trends, but always kept an eye on the tradition created in part by Heitor Villa-Lobos, his Bachian, Brazilian forebear. More than 30 years younger than Villa-Lobos, Santoro spent time in Paris, studying with Nadia Boulanger, so Villa's modernism was absorbed at the source. Though Santoro ventured into atonality, under the influence of another teacher, Hans Joachim Koellreutter (who also taught Antônio Carlos Jobim), there are as many similarities between the two composers as there are differences. The split between the "Nationalists" and the "Serialists" that came about when Koellreutter started Musica Viva is in this case rather permeable.

This is especially apparent in the Cello Concerto, which Santoro wrote in 1961 (two years after Villa's death). The cello was Villa-Lobos's instrument, along with the guitar and piano, and he wrote a number of great cello concertos and other works featuring the instrument, which I'm sure Claudio Santoro knew well. Cellist Marina Martins gives a spirited performance of the work in this new recording from Naxos's estimable Music of Brazil series, with able support from the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra. Though it was written in Berlin during a historic geopolitical crisis and amidst revolutionary musical changes, the Cello Concerto shows at least some remaining touches of Brasilidade, if not the full-scale national (and at that point conservative) sound of late Villa-Lobos.

Santoro's Symphony no. 8 comes from the following year, 1962, when Santoro was back in Brazil, teaching at the University of Brasilia. Symphonies loom larger in his oeuvre than in Villa's, and this work makes its mark through its intensity and depth of feeling. A vocalise in the second movement Andante - beautifully sung here by mezzo-soprano Denise de Freitas - hearkens back to Villa-Lobos's most famous work. It's supported by dark murmurings and ejaculations from the orchestra, and bookended by the similarly expressionistic first movement and a dramatic, rhythmically propulsive finale.

By 1966 Santoro was back in Berlin, where he wrote the Três Abstrações (Three Abstractions) for string orchestra. These are wonderful short character pieces - two or three minutes each - that make use of a serial technique to create alternating moods of mystery, dread, and, in the final piece, perhaps some hope for transcendance. By 1969 Santoro, who was not in the good books of the military dictatorship in Brazil, was at work in Paris, where he wrote his Interações Assintóticas (Asymptotic Interactions - a term taken from the current mathematical research of a physicist colleague of Santoro's). This is a very cool ten-minute work that makes use of quarter tones, beautifully coloured by Santoro's clever use of every instrument in a large orchestra. Olivier Messiaen once said that Heitor Villa-Lobos was the greatest orchestrator of the 20th century, and Claudio Santoro is carrying on this tradition. This is such an entertaining piece, and one that showcases a virtuoso orchestra in the Goias Philharmonic, under Neil Thomson.

By way of an encore, the disc ends with One Minute Play, a work from 1966. It's a tiny, clever, perpetual motion machine for strings, and it must be a great deal of fun to play. What a wonderful ending for a challenging but always interesting disc.

Tropical Baroque from Madeira

 

António Pereira da Costa: Concerti Grossi

There is only a single surviving published work of the Portuguese composer António Pereira da Costa: a set of 12 concerti grossi published in London in 1741. Pereira da Costa was the Chapel Master of the Cathedral in Funchal, Madeira.

I don't imagine there are many composers who are known for only a single work, but the six concertos from Pereira da Costa's Opus 1 recorded here by Ensemble Bonne Corde under the direction of Diana Vinagre show a master of taste, wit and style.  These concertos follow the model of Arcangelo Corelli, as so many works from the period do, but there is a true originality in his musical voice. The middle of the 18th century is probably the most likely place to come across truly fine composers who are completely unknown, at least partly because there is a real International Style in place that includes not only the musical centres of Europe - Paris, London, Venice - but also the far-flung edges of the musical world. 

Madeira is closer to Lisbon - the centre of the Portuguese variant of the International Style - than the thriving musical culture of Brazil, though one can think of the New World culture of the Portuguese empire beginning on the island nearly 1,000 km. from Lisbon. Indeed, the fine liner notes by Fernando Miguel Jalôto refer to Pereira da Costa's music as "tropical Baroque". I'm not sure exactly what this means, but perhaps there's a tendency for the music to show a bit more flair and individuality, away from the homogenizing effects of big-city tastemakers. Though there were no indigenous people living there when it was discovered by Portuguese sailors in 1419, it was on Madeira that enslaved people were first used in the sugar industry, and perhaps the rhythms of West Africa might have influenced the composer in a small way. But there aren't the same cross-cultural influences here that one finds in the music of the Iberian New World.

These six concertos were recorded in October 2021 in Lisbon. There's no indication in the documentation that the remaining six were recorded at the same time, but I'm certainly hoping that was the case. A second volume of this wonderful Opus 1 would certainly be welcome!

Postscript: 

I was this close to entitling this review of "One Hit Wonder" Pereira da Costa's single work "That Thing You Do". And this video would be required:

More wonderful piano music by women composers

The Future is Female, vol. 3: piano music by Montgeroult, Chaminade, Bacewicz, Yi, Ali-Zadeh, Oliveros, Kendall, Shirazi, Harris Baiocchi

Sarah Cahill has produced another winner, the third CD in her series The Future is Female. This disc is full of substantial works by mainly fairly obscure women composers who all deserve to be better known. Of the nine composers represented here, I only knew three: Cécile Chaminade, Grazyna Bacewicz and Pauline Oliveros. 

But from the beginning I was taken by a sonata by Hélène de Montgeroult, who was born about a decade after Mozart, and died about a decade after Beethoven. The Sonata in F sharp minor, op. 5 no. 3 was published in 1811, two years after Haydn's death, and it reminds me very much of the minor key sonatas that master wrote in the 1770s and 80s. But Montgeroult updates that Sturm und Drang feel, moving to the verge of Romanticism; her Études published in 1820 perhaps influenced Chopin. Sarah Cahill plays this sonata with more of a classical feel, while Nicholas Horvath, in his 2021 disc of Montgeroult's Complete Piano Sonatas, pushes harder on the incipient Romanticism, sounding more like Beethoven, if not Chopin. I prefer Cahill's approach; in this sonata she's a more effective advocate for this fascinating composer.

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh's Music for Piano uses a John Cage-style prepared piano technique to create a sound reminiscent of the tar, an Azerbaijani stringed instrument. I don't believe there's any connection to Todd Field's 2022 film Tár, though that is also a celebration (of sorts) of women in classical music. 

There are so many other exciting pieces included here; some are short, but all are worth a listen, and multiple listens as well.

The complex being of 'Woman'

Maria Mater Meretrix: music for voice and violin by Holst, Crumb, Dufay, Martin, Kurtag, Hildegarde von Bingen & more
 

"This is the theme of this album, Maria Mater Meretrix – a study of the three classical female phenomenologies into which, since time immemorial, the (un-female!) eye and ear have divided up the complex being of ‘Woman’: as Saint, Mother, and Whore."

Thematic albums like this new disc from soprano Anna Prohaska and violinist/conductor Patricia Kopatchinskaja, with the Camerata Bern, have recently become more popular in the classical music sphere. Back in 2016, Patricia Kopatchinskaja released a marvellous album around the theme of "Death and the Maiden"; in my review I called it an "illuminating, moving project." We have another such winner here.

The quote at the top of this review is from a fascinating essay by Christine Lemke-Matwey. She highlights the Virgin Mary - and Mary Magdalene - references in the huge range of music included here: from early works by Hildegard von Bingen, Walther von der Vogelweide and Tomas Luis de la Victoria to 20th century music by Frank Martin, Gyorgy Kurtag and Gustav Holst. Clever arrangements, by Michi Wiancko and Wolfgang Katschner, are included with original chamber and orchestral works. The resulting common sound-world allows one to truly appreciate the common themes in this incredibly diverse music. This album rewards close and careful - and repeat - listens. I feel like I learned more each time I sat down with this music.

I'm reading Adam Gopnik's new book The Real Work: On the Mystery of Meaning, and I feel this passage applies here:

"We find meaning in one thing by enlarging the area of reference, making it not more precise but less, by a horizontal leap relating it to something larger. Meanings expand as our contexts expand. Art only becomes articulate within a history..."

The wonderful cover photo of Prohaska and Kopatchinskaja is by Marco Borggreve. There are two equally fine shots of each of them inside the cover.

Remarkable music from Iceland

Atmospheriques: music by Thorvaldsdottir, Mazzoli, Bjarnason, Sigfusdottir, Gisladottir

I listened to these two discs one after another: the first is a normal CD, which I listened to to familiarize myself with this music. This is all definitely in my wheelhouse: Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s CATAMORPHOSIS, from 2020; Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), from 2014; Daníel Bjarnason’s From Space I Saw Earth, from 2019; Maria Sigfúsdóttir’s Clockworking for Orchestra, from 2020; and Bára Gísladóttir’s ÓS, written for the Iceland Centenary in 2018. It's beautifully played by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, directed by Daniel Bjarnason.

Only a few months ago I reviewed Missy Mazzoli's latest album, Dark With Excessive Bright, which also includes her Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), with Tim Weiss conducting the Arctic Philharmonic. It seems like high-latitude orchestras are best situated to play this piece about the Music of the Spheres, situated as they are far from the noise of the world's cities, and closer to the light show of the Aurora Borealis. I prefer the performance of the Iceland players by the narrowest of margins in this important work, helped as it is by the sound engineering of Sono Luminus.

And it's the audio that brings us to the second disc: a Pure Audio Blu-ray disc with the identical repertoire, totalling just under an hour, in remarkable Surround Sound. As I've mentioned a few times in my reviews, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about the audiophile component of recording, but listening to this Blu-ray knocked me for a loop. This will surely become a demonstration disc for high-end Surround Sound systems.

Iceland is a small country, but its music, both classical and popular, has the huge scope and universal appeal of the Sagas. This is a distinguished addition to a long and distinguished artistic tradition.

The cover painting is "Water and Mist I", by Kristin Morthens, from 2022.
 

Sunny and dark music for string trio

String Trios by Dohnányi, Enescu, Françaix, Sibelius & Bach

The string trio is one of my favourite formats; it doesn't have the baggage of the string quartet: that daunting mass of masterworks from Haydn to the present day. The String Trio has, on the one hand, the light serenade side, and on the other the intensity of great string trios by Schoenberg, Villa-Lobos and Schnittke. In the middle is the perfection of Mozart's great string trio from 1788, the Divertimento, K. 563.

The first two works chosen by the exceptional group Leipziger Streichtrio - violinist Adrian Iliescu, violist Atilla Aldemir and cellist Rodin Moldovan - try for that Goldilocks medium attained by Mozart. This is joyful music, but not completely ignoring dark undercurrents. Ernö Dohnányi's Serenade for String Trio, Op 10, is a relatively early work, written in 1902. It takes as its formal model not Mozart's Divertimento, but rather Beethoven's Serenade for String Trio, op. 8, from 1796-97. Jean Françaix's String Trio, from 1933, is a neo-classical gem, which exemplifies the modus operandi of Les Six: slightly sad nostalgia, slightly ironic romps, slightly erudite fugal passages, always having fun with serious matters. 

Jean Sibelius's String Trio, which dates from 1894 is a more serious beast. This is an almost altogether stern work, and though it's only 8 minutes long, it has a symphonic feel to it. When have you ever seen Sibelius smiling in a portrait? *

There are two additional pieces in this interesting program, which one might consider encores. George Enescu's Aubade, from 1899, is a bit of fun, a rustic folkloric piece full of swoops and pizzicati. Andras von Toszeghi's arrangement of J. S. Bach's great Chaconne from the 2nd Partita for Solo Violin is substantial, and interesting. Mozart himself transcribed six Bach Preludes & Fugues for string trio in 1788, K. 404a. I love listening to the Chaconne in any guise - I especially enjoy Brahms' version for piano, and Leopold Stokowski's for full orchestra. But this isn't quite a complete success as an arrangement - the violin gets to keep most of the good bits, and the viola and cello have the leftovers that make the soloist sweat while double-stopping in the original. It's neither fish nor fowl, but tasty anyway! Altogether this makes an exceptional hour of music.

* Here's your answer: Werner Bischof very nearly got a full smile out of Jean Sibelius in this 1948 portrait.

 

Splendid, authentic, joyful chamber music

Septets by Beethoven and Berwald

In the world of Charles Schulz's Peanuts, it's not Schroeder who's most like Beethoven, but the fussbudget Lucy. Beethoven had a lot to moan about in his difficult life, but even when things went well, there was always something to complain about. 

His Septet of 1799, scored for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and double bass, was a big hit, a very big hit. This irked the composer, since he felt that the serenade-like work was far eclipsed by his more important works, which at the time included his First Symphony, his first two Piano Concertos, his op. 18 String Quartets and a fair number of Piano Sonatas, including the Pathétique. I think what upset him most about the success of the Septet, a work of great charm and considerable ingenuity, was that it represented what he considered an obsolete role for the composer. Even today we connect the serenade with musicians playing on demand, often in the open air, for aristocrats. In this ancien regime scenario the be-wigged composer beating time is little more than a servant providing entertainment for courtiers.

In a controversial essay in the New York Times, Martin Scorsese posited that "cinema is an art form that brings you the unexpected. In superhero movies, nothing is at risk." Beethoven's Septet was a kind of Marvel Movie for the musical consumer of the turn of the 19th century, a safe source of entertainment that didn't tax the brain or emotions too much. Everything that Beethoven truly valued in his own music, as well as the music of others, was based on a much more radical and unsafe point of view. 

I know the Wigmore Soloists from their very fine 2021 recording of an undisputed masterpiece, Schubert's Octet. Here they navigate the tricky line between popular and erudite music, and come up with the perfect compromise. Their Septet is, quite properly, not treated as the Eroica, but neither is it tossed off with little regard for its true merits. The result is, I think, as fine a Beethoven Septet as I've heard.

Franz Berwald's Septet seems like the perfect pairing for Beethoven's Septet, since it was written in 1828, the year after Beethoven's death. But this is, I believe, only the second time the two works have appeared together on one disc; the other was in a 2017 CD from the Uppsala Chamber Soloists. That was a well-played recording, especially the Berwald, but it's completely outmatched by the new Wigmore Soloists disc. Everything about this new BIS recording is perfectly judged, from the splendid, authentic, joyful performance to the always impeccable BIS engineering, and the fine liner notes by  Philip Borg-Wheeler. Very highly recommended.

The Illuminators

Oboe Concertos by Kerzelli, von Schacht and Pla

This new disc of Oboe Concertos from the Court of Thurn und Taxis has some of the most obscure repertoire I've ever come across. I had never heard of any of these three composers: Franz Xaver Kerzelli (c1730-c.1794), Theodor von Schacht (1748-1823) or Joan Baptista Pla (c1720-c1773). And I only knew two things about Thurn und Taxis: firstly, the Post Service for the Holy Roman Empire was run by the Princely House of Thurn und Taxis, beginning in 1450.   

Thurn-und-Taxis Post's 1859 15 Kreuzer stamp

And secondly, Rainer Maria Rilke lived as a guest of the Princes Thurn & Taxis at Duino Castle near Trieste. It was there that he wrote his Duino Elegies, between 1912 and 1922.

At an earlier version of a Thurn und Taxis castle, in the 18th century, a huge library of music was built up. We're indebted to the work of music librarians and scholars that have allowed some of this obscure music to make its way, slowly, onto recordings like this one.

I happened to be reading John Russell's 1968 book on Henry Moore when I first listened to this album. He speaks about Moore going to Paris for the first time in the great year of Modernism, 1922. Russell talks about how, in the midst of the great works of that time, by artists like Picasso, Braque, Brancusi, Kandinsky, T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, there was an "ever-widening gap between the work of living art which came off and the work of living art which didn't."

"There was a topmost level of achievement, as there had always been: below that level there was only chaos and confusion. The minor master or acceptable epigone, so common in earlier epochs, had been swept off the board altogether since the beginnings of analytical cubism.... Attempts at resuscitation have proved again and again that there just is not, any longer, a level of acceptable minor achievement, some way below but within hailing distance of the giants. These giants have kicked down the ladder, once and for all, and it has to be set up somewhere else."

I'm not sure how well Russell's analysis of High Modernism holds up today; it seems a bit like an "End of (Art) History" argument that has been overcome by subsequent events in art historical fashions. But if we look back at music in the period of this album, we're perhaps in a perfect epoch of "acceptable minor achievement", the era of the Galant schemas that instantly slots music within an International Style that spans all of Europe during the 18th Century. With these devices in their musical toolboxes, a huge cohort of composers could stay within hailing distance of the Giants of their time, from Bach and Handel to Haydn, Gluck and Mozart. And they were guided by the Enlightenment-consensus concepts of beauty, loftiness, ease, sprezzatura, lightness, spirit and inventiveness, and that vital special sauce of the time: taste.

On the evidence of the oboe concertos in this historically informed and expertly played disc, we have another trio to add to the crowded ecosystem of second- and third-raters of 18th century music. This is pleasant music, and even, at times, more than pleasant. There's enough variety that one never tires of the oboe and strings sound; it helps that the von Schacht piece is for three oboes. Certainly this is not especially original music; the shadow of Mozart, and especially Haydn, is always there. 

When Elaine de Kooning was asked if she was in her husband Bill's shadow, she replied, "I was working in his light, & a great many others were working in the same light. I found him an illuminator, hardly a caster of shadows." Haydn and Mozart were both illuminators in this sense, and their light helps Kerzelli, Pla and von Schacht shine as well.

One of the prime marketing strategies in the crowded Classical Music marketplace is to unearth unknown masterpieces. Occasionally a great gem is found - the recent discovery of the orchestral music of Florence Price is perhaps the best recent example. But even if not every discovery is precious, there can be great pleasure to be gained from semi-precious gems, and even rhinestones can be fun if you have a couple of glasses of wine. Enjoy!

 

Bird With Strings

Phil Woods: Bird With Strings... And More!

On November 30, 1949, Charlie Parker recorded a 10" Mercury LP for producer Norman Granz, with Stan Freeman on piano, Ray Brown on bass and Buddy Rich on drums. Jimmy Carroll arranged six standards for Parker and his trio, with five strings and a harp, plus an oboe, played by future A&R man and conductor Mitch Miller. The album, which featured an iconic David Stone Martin cover, was so successful that a second 10" LP was recording the following summer, with 8 standards, arranged this time by Joe Lipman.

On June 12, 2005, Phil Woods presented his new arrangements of Parker's famous standards in Zurich, with a much larger string section: 24-30 strings rather than the original 5. This fine 2-disc set from Storyville Records also includes new standards with similar arrangements. 

Parker's albums were always controversial: the jazz cognoscenti thought he was selling out, both for the lush arrangements and the fact that he was playing standards exclusively. But the jazz-with-strings genre that began with this project has always been a popular one. I've always enjoyed the Charlie Parker albums; I played this music a lot during my CD-player days! So there's certainly a bit of nostalgia mixed in when I listen to Phil Woods' album, but I appreciate this project on its own merits: for Woods' playing as well as that of his sidemen, and for the gorgeous sound of the full complement of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra's strings. This is very highly recommended!

Here is a video of Woods playing "I'll Remember April" with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, from 2005. 

And this is the original: "I'll Remember April", from Charlie Parker with Strings, July 1950:

This album will be released on March 3, 2023.

Two slighter early works, and a mature masterpiece

Villa-Lobos: Piano Trio #1; Turina: Piano Trio #1; Ponce: Trio Romantico

These three composers were near contemporaries; Joaquin Turina and Manuel Ponce were both born in 1882, while Heitor Villa-Lobos was born in 1887. Of the three piano trios on this disc, those of Villa-Lobos and Ponce are both early works, dating from 1911 and 1912, respectively. As appealing as both of these pieces are, neither is really representative of the mature work of either composer. Ponce called his work "Trio Romantico", and Villa-Lobos's first Trio also has a very Romantic sound. Ernest Chausson or César Franck might be cited as influences. Significantly, these trios have little of the folkloric sounds of Mexico and Brazil that would soon become so important for both composers, and no trace at all of the modernism that Ponce and Villa-Lobos would embrace as each spent more time (often together) in Paris later in the teens and 20s.

On the other hand, Turina's Piano Trio #1 is a mature work, dating from 1926. This wonderful piece is a fascinating amalgam of modernist influences, especially from Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky; dances from Galicia, Northern Europe, the Basque country, Aragon and Turina's native Andalusia; and even hints of jazz.

It's no surprise that the most successful performance here is of the Turina Trio; violinist Simón Gollo, cellist Horacio Contreras and pianist Ana María Otamendi have the measure of this music, swinging a bit when Turina nods to Ravel and winks at jazz, and presenting the dance rhythms without making this music into a travelogue pastiche. But a less serious touch might have improved the rest of the programme, especially the Villa-Lobos. It's a natural impulse to play up a weaker early work by a composer, even ones as accomplished as Ponce and Villa-Lobos, but not making a meal of these pieces might give a better chance of revealing their charms.

This album will be released on March 3, 2023.

 

Legendary audiophile Beethoven from Minnesota

Beethoven: Leonore Overtures, Fidelio Overture, The Ruins of Athens

Terry Pratchett, whose aphorisms are on the same level as those of Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde, once said, "Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong." Beethoven's orchestral music is so dramatic, but he only managed to write a single opera, and for that he came up with four different overtures, in a remarkable display of compositional dithering. What failed to fail to go wrong in Beethoven's operatic career?

First of all, Fidelio is a remarkable work, though Beethoven laboured mightily to complete it in a version he felt good about, creating lots of hard feelings along the way. It's not as if Beethoven's compositional career has any dead spots in it. If he didn't write a great deal of vocal music, he obviously made up for that with instrumental, chamber, orchestral and sacred music at the highest level. So here's the first answer: he was busy writing other kinds of music.

Secondly, there's a difference between dramatic music and theatrical music. Opera is a collaborative art, and Beethoven is the least likely person to succeed in working with others. It's maybe only because we have Mozart's example at hand that we think Beethoven should have produced other operas besides Fidelio. It wouldn't be until Wagner that someone as self-centered as Beethoven succeeded in creating both quantity and quality in his operas. But Wagner is perhaps sui generis, and besides, he had Beethoven as a musical model.

Listening to the three Overtures to Leonore, I thought about those DVD "deleted scenes" commentaries, where movie directors explain why scenes were cut. When he moves from the 2nd to the 3rd Overture, Beethoven tightens up his material and jettisons everything that doesn't move things along. This isn't to save time, but to allow him to introduce a very dramatic recapitulation (the two pieces are virtually the same length - around 14:20 - on this recording). In any case, with the Leonore Overtures we have three splendid concert works that refer to the dramatic feeling of Fidelio, without in any way becoming a potpourri of themes or "opera without words".

In 1980 Vox released a 3 LP VoxBox set of Beethoven's orchestral music for the stage played by the Minnesota Orchestra, conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. This was one of the projects produced and engineered by Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz of Elite Recordings, who made some of the most impressive sounding classical discs ever. We finally have one of those LPs - comprising the 3 Leonore Overtures, the Fidelio Overture, and the Overture and some incidental pieces from The Ruins of Athens - available on CD, transferred in 192 kHz, 24 bit High Definition sound, from the original analogue tapes.

Though I don't call myself an audiophile, I certainly appreciate the lifelike orchestral sound presented in this project. And I definitely think that this is Beethoven playing of the highest order. In Leonore 2 and 3, Skrowaczewski has his musicians hitting on all cylinders; he takes things at a feverish pace at times, sure that his fine musicians can follow. I've focused on those two works, but the others on this disc are wonderful as well. There are a couple of bonus tracks that are really fun: the Turkish March and March and Chorus "Schmückt die Altäre" from The Ruins of Athens. The latter features the choir of the Bach Society of Minnesota.

This is orchestral virtuosity of the highest order. I look forward to more of these splendid Vox Audiophile recordings in the near future.

This album will be released on March 24, 2023. 

Grazyna Bacewicz for Strings

Grazyna Bacewicz: Music for String Orchestra

Grazyna Bacewicz wrote wonderful music for string orchestra, and it has shown up, in various combinations, in quite a few CDs in the past ten years. Here's a new disc from Poland with a full program of some of the Polish composer's best music.

Stefan Kisielewski called the Concerto for String Orchestra, from 1948,  "a modern Brandenburg Concerto" - it really is a masterpiece of the neoclassical idiom. The conductor Lukasz Blaszczyk and the Primuz Chamber Orchestra bring a lighter touch to this work than either of the other performances I know, discs from Naxos and Hyperion.  This brings with it a certain loss of majesty; overall this is an accomplished if slightly superficial interpretation. 

I prefer this performance of the Symphony for String Orchestra from 1946; Kisielewski hasn't smoothed out any of Bacewicz's rough edges here. There is plenty of rough energy in the opening movement, and the pathos of the second movement Adagio is quite moving. The passacaglia-like third movement Allegretto is one of Bacewicz's most impressive inspirations, flirting with positive feelings, veering into sorrow and despair, and ending with quiet resignation. The Theme and Variations finale starts slow, quiet and gloomy, then slowly builds to more energetic and dramatic passages. I like how Kisielewski has structured this entire Symphony; it has a satisfying arc here.

The rest of the disc is filled with an early work, the Sinfonietta from 1935, and a late one, the Divertimento from 1965 (Bacewicz died in 1969). These two pieces demonstrate her evolution from a relatively uncomplicated neoclassicism to a much more advanced and difficult approach to composition. I love the Divertimento, but I'm afraid this version is outclassed by another recent recording, from the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio under Agnieszka Duczmal.

A mixed bag, then; an outstanding Symphony, with perfectly serviceable but not top class Concerto, Sinfonietta and Divertimento. How gratifying that the Grazyna Bacewicz discography is getting large enough that we can begin to make these distinctions, rather than just be happy to have one or two recordings!

I happened to finish this review on Grazyna Bacewicz's birthday; she was born on February 5, 1909. I love this portrait by Irena Jarosińska, from 1968, the year before the composer died.

This album was released on February 3, 2023. 

Music of light and dark

Missy Mazzoli: Dark With Excessive Bright & other works

Though John Milton was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost, his description of God in Book 3 makes use of visual - indeed painterly - images:

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st
Thron'd inaccessible, but when thou shad'st
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud
Drawn round about thee like a radiant Shrine,
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appeer

It's that chiaroscuro effect of Milton's that Missy Mazzoli took as her theme in 2018 when she wrote Dark With Excessive Bright, a concerto for contrabass and string orchestra.

"'Dark with excessive bright', a phrase from Milton’s Paradise Lost, is a surreal and evocative description of God’s robes, written by a blind man. I love the impossibility of this phrase and how perfectly it describes the ghostly, heart-rending sound of strings."

When Mazzoli adapted her original version for violinist Peter Herresthal, she replaced the contrabass with a violin, "... essentially flipping the original work upside-down." It's instructive to compare the two versions; in a way, this new version for violin is almost like a negative image of a photograph. The clever synaesthetic effects, mixing light and dark with high and low sounds and contrasting musical textures, still remain, with this new variation only deepening the total effect of this music. Here is Mazzoli's version for contrabass, as recorded by Maxime Bibeau and the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Richard Tognetti:

There's an additional chapter to this, though. Mazzoli also wrote a version of her original work for contrabass and string quintet, and likewise, then, for this new version for violin and string quintet. This underlies the contrasts between the concertante and ripieno parts, and makes all the string textures more transparent. Both orchestra and quintet versions are included here, and it's fascinating to compare the two. Herresthal is a wonderful violinist, and a fine musician; the shift from virtuoso concerto to more of a chamber music sound is subtle, but finely judged. Likewise with the orchestral players: Jim Gaffigan conducts the Bergen Philharmonic's string forces in the full version, and Tim Weiss conducts players from the Arctic Philharmonic in the chamber work. It's all beautifully played. The BIS engineers provide suitable open and natural acoustic spaces for each version, highlighting all of Missy Mazzoli's subtle effects of texture and sound. This is fascinating music!

Mazzoli's Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) has as one of its themes the Pythagorean concept of the "music of the spheres". This concept, popular in the Renaissance, appears often in Paradise Lost, where Milton, whose father was a composer, can indulge in something closer to his own experience than the visual imagery that relied upon his imagination and memory. But Mazzoli adds another spin here (pun intended), for Sinfonia also refers to the old Italian name for the hurdy gurdy; the "orbiting sphere" becomes more homespun: the hand-cranked rosin wheel of the instrument juxtaposed with the planetary orbits of the neo-Platonists.

These Worlds in Us, from 2006, takes its title from James Tate's poem "The Lost Pilot", about his father's death in World War II, and is dedicated to Missy Mazzoli's own father, who served in the Vietnam War. This is no Spitfire Prelude & Fugue by William Walton; this music is more contemplative than stirring, more about fatherhood than patriotism.

The two-part suite for orchestra Orpheus Undone has a serious program; it's about the moment when Orpheus loses Eurydice. "I have used the Orpheus myth as a way to explore the ways traumatic events disrupt the linearity and unity of our experience of time." This serious concept might have swamped a 16-minute piece for orchestra, but Mazzoli balances a heavy weight with finely drawn themes and slender orchestral effects. In the past few years I've had first-hand experience of how time is bent and tortured during the grieving process, and I found this music both understandable and somehow consoling.

Vespers for Violin, from 2014, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Composition in 2019. It's played here with panache by Peter Herresthal. This is such an evocative piece; in only six minutes it builds an impressive architecture of yearning and hopefulness. This is one of the finest albums of new classical music I've heard in a long time!

I must mention the wonderful essay by novelist and poet Garth Greenwell included in the liner notes. "This is music of intense drama, pungently gestural," he says, "but Mazzoli’s gestures are never orphaned, leading nowhere, as in so much contemporary music (and contemporary writing, too) that aims for drama." Greenwell praises Mazzoli for "using every resource at her command to think her life and her world at the highest intensity." There's so much here: from a blind poet's imagining of light and shade on a canvas to the entire range of sound available to the 21st century composer, and Missy Mazzoli brings it all to life with such grace and imagination.

The great cover photo is by Mats Bäcker.

This album will be released on March 3, 2023.

An outstanding contribution to the Weill discography

Kurt Weill: Two Symphonies, Der Silbersee excerpts

Der Silbersee was Kurt Weill's European swan-song; premiered in Berlin in February 1933, it was banned by the Nazis in March, and Weill was forced to flee, first to Paris, and then to New York. The text, by Georg Kaiser, is as strongly satirical as anything by Bertolt Brecht:

Raise a tower with walls of stone around you,
You won’t hear the wretched cries outside.
Be blind, be deaf, never write off a debt,
You’d lose your money and the gains from it.
Don’t ever deny the greatest of all profit:
Interest and compound interest.

Weill's music for Der Silbersee reminds me of his great musical theatre works with Brecht: The Threepenny Opera (1928), Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), and The Seven Deadly Sins (1933). "The Song of the Lottery Ticket Seller" from the first act, "Was zahlen Sie für einen Rat?", uses the same tango rhythms we know from those works. There's a jarring contrast between the pungent text (beautifully projected here by HK Gruber) and the lovely orchestral accompaniment that perfectly sums up Weill's best music. There are only a few excerpts from the score, but they're choice.

When Kurt Weill made his way to Paris in 1933 he began work with Brecht on The Seven Deadly Sins, and you can hear echoes of this work in his Symphony no. 2, which was completed in 1934. This marvellous Symphony is close to the top of my list of obscure orchestral works that deserve to be programmed and recorded much more frequently. He's taken the accessible theatre music which had become his hallmark, and neatly slotted it within the classical symphony form of Haydn and Mozart. What a shame that the critical pans that followed its premiere at the Concertgebouw under Bruno Walter pushed Weill to swear off concert music for the rest of his career. 

Before any of these works mentioned, back in 1921, Kurt Weill had written his Symphony in One Movement (his First). His characterization of it: "By Mahler, out of Strauss, trained by Schoenberg." Weill cleverly melds the neo-romantic tradition with leading edge serialism. This is more than juvenilia; it's an accomplished work in its own right. Weill has the compositional skill this early in his composing career to produce music that has value a century later.

HK Gruber is a fascinating person: a one-time child chorister with the Vienna Boys Choir, he became a virtuoso of the double-bass, a composer and conductor. He's also an outstanding singer and actor, and a great advocate for the music of Kurt Weill. Gruber's own view of Weill:

"He brought complexity and popular music under one hat. It makes no difference between light music and serious music — just a kind of music which is simply honest."

This project is a perfect example of honest performance of great music; with stellar support from the musicians of the Swedish Chamber Choir, we have here an outstanding contribution to the Weill discography.

The wonderful cover photo of The Lichtburg cinema in Berlin is by Martin Höhlig, from 1929.

This album was released on February 3, 2023.

Fresh and Vital Bach and Pärt

Bach: Violin Concertos; Pärt: Fratres, Spiegel Im Spiegel

"The slow movement from Bach’s A Minor Concerto was the reason that, at the age of four, I knew I wanted to play the violin for the rest of my life. Of course, I had no idea at the time what that would really mean — but I was so overwhelmed by the beauty and depth of Bach’s music that there was no question for me: I simply had to become a musician!"

Playing the Guarneri del Gesù ‘Sainton’ violin from 1744, Arabella Steinbacher provides a luscious sound, rich and full, that focuses one's attention completely, almost ignoring the to-and-fro of the orchestral and solo parts, and even of the beautiful melodies that Bach provides. It's remarkable how an instrument made that long ago could be used to play music that's three centuries old and sound so fresh and alive. I've long been a fan of Steinbacher's; I've raved about her playing in a wide variety of repertoire: Bartok, Brahms, and Hindemith and Britten. Here she plays two Bach Violin Concertos: in E major and A minor, and a Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, with another fine violinist, Christian Kontz. Once again Pentatone provides fine accompaniment: the agile and stylish Stuttgarter Kammerorchester.

J. S. Bach's manuscript score of the violin part for

the slow movement of his A minor Concerto

Two Arvo Pärt pieces bookend the three Bach concertos. His Fratres comes in many versions; this one, for violin, string orchestra and percussion, is from 1992. This is a suitable prelude to the meat of the programme: hushed and reverential, but in the end as dramatic a curtain raiser as a Rossini overture. The final piece, Spiegel im Spiegel, in its original 1978 version for violin and piano, acts as a kind of valedictory encore. Once again, Arabella Steinbacher has a fine partner, in pianist Peter von Wienhardt.

The wonderful photo of Steinbacher on the album cover is by Co Merz.

This album will be released on February 10, 2023.

Between sacred and profane

Heinrich Biber: Sonatae Tam Aris, quam Aulis servientes

The title of Heinrich Biber's sonatas from 1676 can be translated as "as much for the altar as for the table". The composer seemed to specialize in the overlap between the ecclesiastical and the courtly, religious and secular, sacred and profane. Blurring the lines between these spheres is evidence of Biber's own faith, but also a spirit of experimentation and innovation, and a firm belief that music is a central feature of life. A predilection towards theology turns to mysticism, coming to full flower in his Mystery Sonatas, also from 1676.

Biber was the Sir Paul McCartney of his day. In 1690 he was raised to nobility by Emperor Leopold I, with the title of Biber von Bibern. As with Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Louis XIV a few decades later, it's encouraging to see great composers receiving sincere praise from monarchs; so often we hear stories of geniuses unappreciated in their lifetimes, their careers blighted by Philistine taste-makers and powerful people.

The Sonatae Tam Aris, quam Aulis servientes are made up of a mixture of styles: French dance suite and Italian sonata, differing orchestration, a variety of moods, and an alternation between virtuosity and contemplation. Trumpet fanfares are inserted in this version, calls that evoke the majesty of both the Church and the Monarchy and Nobility. This is an entire world-view contained in about 80 minutes of music.

This music is especially well served on disc. I've sampled the versions by Ars Antiqua Austria, from 2015; Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, from 2007; and the Purcell Quartet, from 1996. But my go-to disc for this music is the 1998 recording from The Rare Fruits Council under Manfredo Kraemer. That's not supplanted by this new version from Harmonie Universelle, but it can be difficult to replace a well-loved recording more than twenty years old. I was certainly impressed with the virtuosity and violin sound of the two soloists, Florian Deuter and Monica Waisman, as well as the ensemble playing of the musicians of Harmonie Universelle. We're lucky to have such a wealth of Biber interpretations!

This album will be released on January 20, 2023.

Sonatas for the Sun King

Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: The Violin Sonatas of 1707

The publication by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre of six Violin Sonatas in 1707 was a landmark event in French music. The music of "Mademoiselle Delaguerre" was dedicated to Louis XIV, and the Sun King attended its first performance.

"Dinner being over, His Majesty spoke to Mlle de la Guerre in a most gracious manner; after having praised her sonatas extensively, he said to her that they could not be compared to any other such works. Mlle de la Guerre could not have received higher praise, for these words revealed that the King had not only found her music to be most fine, but also to be original — a quality that today is extremely rare."

These are among the first violin sonatas in which the harpsichord makes the move from being part of the continuo, towards an obligato role, becoming a true partner of the violin, which would eventually reach its zenith in the publication 34 years later of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pièces de clavecin en concerts.

These are wonderful performances, with Dana Maiben playing a beautifully-sounding Nicola Amati violin of 1658, Sarah Cunningham on viola da gamba, and Lisa Goode Crawford on harpsichord. This performance was recorded more than five years ago, in July 2017, but I don't believe it's been published in any other form. This is an important disc of important music, and the sense of occasion that comes when one listens to it makes it clear that it was definitely worth the wait.

I love Quinton McMillon's illustration on the album cover, based on the famous painting by François de Troy, which dates from the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century.

This album will be released on January 20, 2023.

More Haydn symphonies from Heidelberg

Haydn: Symphonies 3, 33, 108, 14

The numbering of Haydn's symphonies is very complicated, and sometimes even controversial. It might look like this selection of symphonies comes from the beginning, middle and end of the composer's career, but they're all rather early, probably from the early 1860s. Former Chief Conductor Thomas Fey had completed 24 discs in this Hännsler series of Complete Haydn Symphonies. When Johannes Klumpp took over in 2020, he continued the series, with volume 25.

I've been spending a lot of time in the world of galant schemas lately - see my recent reviews of Boccherini and Michael Haydn. As relatively minor as these four symphonies might be within Franz Joseph's oeuvre, they all strike me as being well above the industry average of the time. It's works like these that helped Haydn build his European reputation once he made his move to Esterházy Palace in 1761.

Symphony "108" (aka Symphony B), from 1762, was once thought to be a String Quartet, but wind parts were later found. It doesn't sound at all out of place in this context. The Heidelberg players are a small group: 13 string players and 11 woodwinds, brass and drums. Though they're lithe and nimble, this is completely a chamber orchestra sound, rather than chamber music.

Symphony 33 is either from 1761-2, or 1763-65. I'd be inclined to choose the later date; this is a wonderful trumpet and drums work, very festive, but not lacking in substance. Klumpp characterizes this symphony in his excellent liner notes: "Large intervals are the order of the day – wild leaps, like a young stallion, no solemn stuffiness." The Heidelberg players really nail this one!

Symphony 3 is just as out of place as the 108/B and 33: it was written in 1760-62, while Haydn's earliest symphonies were written in 1757. This is another charming piece, and played with style and grace. In the context of this album Symphony 14 is the Goldilocks Symphony; not too early, not too late. It's just right, in terms of the numbers. And it's just right musically as well. As slight as this piece is, it's full of invention, and the Heidelberger Sinfoniker really swing here. According to Klumpp, "Everything is many-faceted and variegated. The art of making a lot from a little is Haydn all over. It whirls and dances with its wits about it."

My complete Haydn Symphonies standards are Adam Fischer's set with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, and the Haydn 232 set still in progress, with Giovanni Antonini conducting Il Giardino Armonico and Kammerorchester Basel. Heidelberg's Haydn isn't quite in that league, but their set is definitely getting better as it reaches its final volumes.

This disc will be released on January 6, 2023.