Chamber music between Impressionism, Modernism & the Avant Garde

 

André Jolivet, Chamber Music

The instrumentation of the music in this fascinating program of André Jolivet's chamber music by the Danish group MidtVest might make one think of his slightly older contemporaries, the composers of Les Six. He was only six years younger than Auric and Poulenc, for example. But Jolivet's music is in most cases less pastoral, less nostalgic, hearkening back to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, rather than that master's neo-classical works. 

Jolivet was a pupil of Varèse and a friend of Messiaen, and after World War II he experimented with modal music and complex rhythms. At the same time, though, the one-time "outsider" artist entered the Parisian musical establishment, when he became the music director for the Comédie-Française, from 1945-1959. Jolivet is a fascinating composer who straddles various trends in French music, bouncing between pastoralism and urbanism, between impressionism, modernism and the avant garde. He ends up being a kind of compex avatar for a fairly broad range of music in the middle of the century.

The Petite Suite for Flute, Viola and Harp utilizes the same instruments as Debussy's 1915 Trio. Though World War I was already underway when he began, Debussy's sound-world seems one of innocent joy compared with Jolivet's piece, which was written during the German Occupation of Paris in 1941. The mood is grimmer and the music is sometimes gritty and desperate. But we take what consolation we can in music - especially in French music - and Jolivet ends with a lusty peasant dance, though one that's perhaps more than a bit manic.

In his very helpful liner notes, Paul Griffiths explains what's happening in Jolivet's Controversia for oboe and harp, written for Heinz and Ursula Holliger in 1968.

He employed glissandos (straight and trilled), bisbigliandos (rapid alternations between normal fingering and an alternative giving the same note as a harmonic) and multiphonics (sonorities of two or more notes together – here two a fifth apart – again produced by special fingerings). At the same time he introduced harp sonorities he had learned from Carlos Salzedo, such as ‘timpani sounds’ made by tapping on the soundboard and quarter-tone tuning, or glissandos elicited by sliding the tuning key on the string, these soon joined by ‘timpani sounds’.

Oboist Peter Kirstein and harpist Gesine Dreyer are outstanding in this piece, which seems both timeless and completely rooted in the late sixties. As Jolivet said on his first visit to America in 1964, "I wrote atonal music for thirty years. Nobody suspected it until I told them. There are only two ways of writing atonal music. Either you shout it from the housetops, in which case it ceases to be music, or you just use it."

It's part of the genius of French music and the magic of Christmas that something as beautiful as André Jolivet's Pastorales de Nöel for Flute, Bassoon and Harp could have been written in the dark year of 1943. It's about the birth of Christ, but with his Crucifixion never far from mind; the music balances hope and despair. This entire disc, played with French flair by these fine Danish musicians, gives a wonderful picture of a composer who plotted his own personal path through the always changing world of mid-20th century music.

The cover painting is Landscape from Bretagen (1889) by Paul Gauguin.

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.

Germanic symphonies from a Norwegian composer

Christian Sinding - The Symphonies

Christian Sinding's four symphonies were written during the early (1 & 2), middle (3) and late (4) periods of the Norwegian composer's career. They're well constructed and tuneful works, if not especially profound, and they receive excellent performances from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Karl-Heinz Steffens.

Orchestral music from the first half of the 20th century is full of works representing the folkloric heritage of many great composers: Villa-Lobos, Bartok, Martinu, Janacek, and, among the Norwegians, Geirr Tveitt and Harald Sæverud. However, Sinding is not especially interested in Norwegian themes, and indeed he spent much of his time living in Germany. His music is strongly influenced by the German tradition, and as a determined musical conservative his music is full of echoes of Wagner, Strauss, Pfitzner and even Brahms and Schumann.

Sinding's Symphony no. 1, from 1894, is by no means a juvenile work; the composer was in his 38th year when he completed it, though he had been working on it for a decade. It shows an assurance in marshalling the resources of a large orchestra, and a light touch in developing some often interesting musical material. It's as if Sinding was being especially careful to stay away from self-seriousness. The Second Symphony is much weaker. It's a rather plodding work that unfortunately lacks the lighter touch of the previous work. Luckily, it's shorter than no. 1, with only three movements.

The gem of this album, though, is Sinding's Third Symphony. There's a very positive energy throughout, but especially in the fine first movement. The fourth movement finale is a kind of celebratory remix of Wagner's Die Meistersinger; I really enjoyed this! Symphony no. 4, from 1936, is subtitled "Frost and Spring - Rhapsody for Orchestra". It's another appealing piece of music, a tableau of generally optimistic themes, though without any strong sense of structure. 

Sinding is going his own way in his symphonies, more or less heedless of prevailing modernist musical trends, whether neo-classical or more avant garde. His way, to be sure, is on a fairly narrow path set out 50 years earlier by the 19th century German masters, but Sinding always retains his own musical voice.

The main rivals to this new Capriccio disc are two CPO albums from Hannover: Thomas Dausgaard's first two symphonies from 2007, and David Porcelijn's third & fourth symphonies from 2004. Though I prefer these earlier, warmer, interpretations by the slightest of margins, the rather drier and cooler Norwegian versions often suit Sinding's music. With clear and lifelike sound from Capriccio, this album is warmly recommended, for three of four symphonies at least.

This album will be released on February 7, 2025.

Etudes for Guitar by Turibio Santos on LP

In 2023 I got serious about collecting vinyl; so far I've managed to acquire about twenty Villa-Lobos LPs, mainly from thrift stores. I'll feature some of my favourites in the next few posts of The Villa-Lobos Magazine, and I'll copy these posts to my more general record blog: Music for Several Instruments.

Villa-Lobos wrote his 12 Etudes for Guitar in Paris in 1928/29, but, according to the latest edition of Villa-Lobos: Sua Obra, they weren't heard in a public concert until March of 1947, when Andrés Segovia played numbers 1, 7 & 8 at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.  The first performance of the entire set of twelve Etudes took place on November 21, 1963, at the Auditório do Palácio da Cultura in Rio de Janeiro. They were played by the Brazilian guitarist Turibio Santos, who was only twenty years old at the time.

That same year, Turibio Santos's recording of the 12 Etudes was released in Brazil on the Caravelle label. and in 1969 Erato re-issued this wonderful World Premiere recording.

Erato provided full notes, including a summary by Segovia, inside the gatefold cover. Alas, these are only in French.

I'm experiencing all of the advantages of vinyl with my Villa-Lobos records: warm sound, a chance to pay close attention in a way that isn't always possible with streaming, and the ergonomic advantage of having to get up every twenty minutes to change sides :)

I should mention that the Erato recording was re-released - sometime in the late 1960s, I believe, by Musical Heritage Society. I always enjoy these MHS albums, with their stark black & white covers.

The great advantage of this recording over the many very fine modern recordings of the Etudes - I love those by Norbert Kraft, Timo Korhonen, David Leisner and Andrea Bissoli, among others - is authenticity. Turibio Santos was the Director of the Museu Villa-Lobos for 24 years, from 1986 (he took over after the death of the first director, Villa's widow Mindinha, in 1985) until 2010. Though he was only 16 when Villa-Lobos died in 1959, he has been a major player in classical guitar - and more generally, in classical music - in Brazil since the early 1960s.

Turibio Santos followed this landmark issue with recordings of the rest of Villa-Lobos's rather small but absolutely outstanding guitar repertoire: the Preludes, Concerto, the Suite Popular Brasileira, the First Choros and the Sexteto Místico. I'll be looking out for those recordings in 2024!

Thanks to my brother Lane, who tracked this album down in a Vancouver record shop, and gave it to me at Christmas!

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.