A musical, scholarly and cultural triumph

The Other Cleopatra, Queen of Armenia: Arias by Hasse, Vivaldi, Gluck

This remarkable album is more than a classical music recording; it's also a work of original scholarship and an effective cultural advocacy project. I hasten to add that it works especially well musically. Isabel Bayrakdarian is in fine voice, and she receives stellar support from the very fine conductor Constantine Orbelian and the excellent Kaunas City Symphony in Lithuania. As a bonus, the superb harpsichordist Jory Vinikour is on hand to add special zest to the continuo parts. He and Bayrakdarian are especially fine partners in the recitatives.

In the 18th century Abate Francesco Silvani wrote a libretto based on the story of King Tigranes II, the greatest king in Armenian history, and his wife Cleopatra of Pontus. It was set by a number of composers, including three who feature on this album: Johann Adolph Hasse, Antonio Vivaldi and Christoph Willibald Gluck. Bayrakdarian put this program together as part of her research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is Associate Professor of Voice and Opera,  choosing these arias and recitatives, which fit her "voice and temperament". There are some exciting moments here: "Squarciami pure il seno" by Vivaldi and Gluck's "Presso l’onda" are stand-outs. But even better are the slower, more contemplative, moments: Hasse's "Parte, parte" and "Presso a l'onde", and Gluck's "Priva del cara bene". This is lovely, graceful music. Even more impressive, though, is Vivaldi's aria "Qui mentre mormorando", introduced by the recitative "Lasciatemi in riposo". It's music worthy of the mature Mozart, full of sadness and pathos, but always dramatic. Like Mozart, Vivaldi has a keen sense of the psychology of his characters. So it doesn't matter what actually happens with the plot (alas, Abate Silvani was no Da Ponte!); what is key is how the music helps us to understand what the character is feeling. And, of course, that communication also requires a singer of some psychological awareness as well as technical and dramatic skills, and we are indeed lucky to have in this project such a remarkable soprano as Isabel Bayrakdarian. I couldn't recommend this album more highly.

This album will be released on March 30, 2020

A Golden Disc

From October 3, 2015:

This is the first disc from a fine new choir, Cappella SF, led by Ragnar Bohlin, Director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. The program chosen is, I think, the best kind for a Christmas CD: a mixture of old favourites and unfamiliar pieces or arrangements. As well, there’s a variety of musical textures, a mix of soloists and featured parts, and the important contribution of harp and organ on some of the tracks. Most importantly, the singing is of a very high standard. The title track, Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque, calls for “absolute vocal clarity and pinpoint accuracy of intonation,” as Lindsay Koob writes in her excellent liner notes. Bohlin and his singers deliver just that. Though I’ve always preferred the pure sound of an alto in the Britten carols, soprano soloist Alexandra Sessler is very impressive in Balulalow. Of the less familiar carols on the disc, I especially enjoyed Fredrik Sixten’s simple but profound The Song of the Star, and the very beautiful Jul, Jul, Stralande Jul, by Gustaf Nordqvist. The disc ends with Barlow Bradford’s great arrangement of my favourite, and what I think is the best, of all the secular Christmas songs, Hugh Martin’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Bold and provocative music, beautifully played

From May 16, 2014:

Tracy Silverman’s concerto for electric violin and string quartet Between the Kiss and the Chaos has an interesting programme. Each of the five movements is a personal musical response to a painting or sculpture. The work as a whole speaks to issues of creativity. “It’s about that need to share an idiosyncratic vision” says Silverman in his illuminating liner notes, “because there is something innately human about the need to tell someone, to share your experience, to get someone else to see the world through your eyes.” The chosen artworks, by Michaelangelo, Matisse, O’Keeffe, Van Gough and Picasso, are all bold and provocative, and Silverman’s music has a matching thrust and drive.

Silverman quotes Georgia O’Keefe: “I said to myself - I’ll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it.” The task of attracting attention for one’s art is even harder today than it was then. Silverman got this project off the ground with a successful Kickstarter campaign, and the involvement of the Calder Quartet and the Delos label will bring listeners as well. The musical ideas and the presentation by these talented musicians will fully justify that marketing success.

New arrangements of Villa's music, beautifully played

From January 28, 2011:

The music of Villa-Lobos has always attracted arrangers, including the composer himself. Villa adapted his own works in a multitude of formats; his first thoughts about musical ideas were rarely his last. There is so much interesting music to adapt beyond the usual Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (which is out there in so many versions, including harmonica, saxophone, and percussion) and the Little Train movement from BB #2 (a favourite of marching bands and even reggae groups).

The Brazilian Guitar Quartet included an arrangement of the entire Bachianas Brasileiras #1 in a previous CD "Essencia do Brasil" which I thought worked out very well. The new BGQ Plays Villa-Lobos CD includes a wide selection of music originally written for piano and chamber ensemble, arranged by Tadeu do Amaral for four guitars. The music is selected and presented to show off Villa's music and the group's musicianship to best advantage. There are a variety of infectious rhythms, some sweet and sad melodies, moments of modernist angularity, and transcendent beauty from one of Villa's greatest chamber works.

While Villa-Lobos often composed at the piano, and he wrote a host of amazing, idiomatic pieces for the instrument, his native instrument was the guitar. His nickname as a member of a choroes group was "classical guitar". His few pieces for guitar loom so large in the music for guitar, and he often imitates the guitar in his piano works and even his orchestral music. When he wrote music for harp (besides his 1953 Harp Concerto, he wrote some very important chamber works with harp, especially in the 1920s) he was often thinking of the guitar: "I played the harp from my experience with the guitar", he once said. I mention the harp because the four guitars of the BGQ often evoke this instrument in Amaral's Villa-Lobos arrangements.

It's interesting, then, to listen to the BCG version of the early modernist piano work Suite Floral, written under the influence of Debussy, Faure, and Ravel. The sound of the guitars evokes the sound-world of Parisian chamber music with harp as much as it does the piano music of the impressionist masters. This is definitely transatlantic music, though, since Brazilian rhythms are an important part of the work. Another piece on this disc which stands out is Amaral's adaptation of the Twelfth String Quartet, one of Villa's greatest chamber works, a piece of great subtlety and power. This disc is very highly recommended!

Musical Genius from the South American Folk Tradition

From March 3, 2010:

This new Delos disc from The AMBAR Music Group is a primer of South American dance forms from very different folk music traditions in Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. These forms of music might have humble origins, but each in its own way has developed into more sophisticated music through the compositional genius of some great musicians.

Pixinguinha, who is represented on this disc by three superb songs, is an excellent example. He helped to elevate the 19th century choro from a kind of street-corner serenade into something that Heitor Villa-Lobos termed the "incarnation of the Brazilian soul". He belongs with Villa-Lobos and Tom Jobim in the highest level of the Brazilian musical pantheon. Most of the composers from the other South American traditions represented on this disc have the same personal voice, if not always the divine spark that Pixinguinha brings to his deceptively simple tunes. José Barros, a Colombian musician who wrote more than 800 songs in a variety of forms, is a good example. His porro "Momposina" is presented in a very clever full orchestral arrangement, and it's such fun to listen to. The famous waltz by the Venezuelan Heraclio Fernandez "El Diablo Suelto" was published in 1888; from this song, as with Pixinguinha's celebrated choros, sprang the popular music of a nation. Another standout is the Colombian Carlos Vieco, who provides two pasillos to the mix.

This is a fascinating disc, which might foster a desire to learn more about the national music of South America, or just put an extra jump in your jogging while you listen on your iPod. In either case Delos has put together a highly appealing compilation that deserves a listen. The Colombian musicians Francisco Gonzalez, Nelson Gomez, and Juan Fernando Garcia and their Russian violinist colleague Sasha Rozhdestvensky (with support from the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in a couple of pieces) provide an entertaining and varied programme that I'll be listening to often.