by John Sunier | Aug 30, 2011 | Audio News
CEDIA Expo-USA Sept. 7 thru 11 – The annual convention of the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association takes place the 7th thru 10th of next month at the Indianapolis Convention Center. Over 20,000 visitors are expected for the show which brings together companies and technologies for audio, video, lighting, home networking, software, hardware, environmental controls, automation, system integration, security, and everything integrating home systems for on-demand, connected living. Exhibitors will show a variety of electronic systems for the home—typically media rooms, single or multi-room entertainment systems, home automation and communication systems, plus integrated whole-house subsystems which provide control of lighting, security and HVAC systems.
Paradigm Readies their Value Series for CEDIA – Speaker maker Paradigm will show a complete redesigned Cinema series which uses technology from the firm’s Reference series. The smallish speakers have curved and sculpted acoustic-suspension cabinets with high-gloss finish. They have a $999 5.1 speaker package, a $349 subwoofer, and 2 ½-way speakers at up to $549 each. The top-of-line Cinema Trio is a three-in-one speaker delivering three front two-way channels via three 1-inch tweeters and four 4-inch bass/mid drivers. The tweeter technology delivers wide and spacious dispersion while protecting the tweeter domes. The cones of the bass-midrange units have had mineral content added to stiffen them. All but the Dinema 100 feature removable self-aligning magnetic grilles.
Parasound Debuts Zphono-USB Preamp – Parasound’s Zphono-USB is a premium phono preamp with an A-D converter to translate vinyl LPs to digital audio via USB on your computer. RIAA EQ defeat capability on the USB output enables users to apply more precise software-based EQ in their selected recording software. The unit also has two pairs of line level inputs, and is part of the firm’s half-rack-width components. There are inputs for MC or MM phono cartridges, and real-panel settings for the user to select the ideal impedance to match their cartridge. Front-panel rumble-filter and mono/stereo switches are also available. High-quality parts and precise RIAA EQ achieve low levels of noise and distorition, and accurate frequency response. The Zphono-USB will be available next month at $350 SRP.
Steve Jobs Resigns – Apple’s board of directors has announced the resignation of Steve Jobs, as well as that his replacement will be Tim Cook, who was previously COO. His resignation is said to have to do with his health.
Procella Readies LCR Speaker and Subwoofer for CEDIA – Procella Audio will launch its P610 biamplified full-range LCR speaker and a new P10Si room-balancing subwoofer. Each P610 is designed for rooms up to 30 feet deep, and has a shallow depth of 5.9 inches, by 27.6” tall and 21.3” wide. It is said to produce THX cinema reference-level playback levels continuous in all but the largest screening rooms and home theaters, and delivers response down to 40Hz. One or more P10Si subwoofers can be used together with Procella P18, P15 or P10 subwoofers to smooth out low-frequency modes in a room, reducing seat-to-seat variances in low-frequency response and providing more consistent bass response thruout a room. SRP of the P610 is $3199, with $1495 for the P10Si sub.
by John Sunier | Aug 30, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
PONCHIELLI: Fantasy on Motifs from the opera La Traviata for Trumpet, Op. 146; Euphonium Concerto, Op. 155; Trumpet Concerto, Op. 198; Gran Capriccio for Oboe, Op. 80; Trumpet Concerto, Op. 123 – Giuliano Sommerhalder, trumpet/ Roland Froscher, euphonium/ Simone Sommerhalder, oboe/ Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin/ Matthis Foremny, conductor – MD&G Scene multichannel SACD (2+2+2) 901 1642, 60:58 [Distr. by E1] ***1/2:
Who is Amilcare Ponchielli you might ask? Well, aside from being the composer of La Giaconda, he is well known for writing the Dance of the Hours, the most famous bit probably made infamously immortal by Alan Sherman as “Hello Muddah, hello Faddah” on the Ed Sullivan Show many years ago (in case you need a refresher, try this) He was in fact much more than that, convinced for many years that his fortune lay as an opera composer, yet destined to be little more than a musical footnote. But in this day when practically everyone is being rediscovered, why not Ponchielli? He was a composer who was amazingly gifted, and had a lot of success in his time.
Thirteen rather dismal years were spent composing for a wind band, and he created many pieces for this ensemble, though the work was drudgery to him—hard to imagine anything further from opera than wind music. Yet because of the enormous popularity of Verdi he was able to bring some opera into his musical routine, as shown by the La Traviata fantasy here. And concertos? Well, there were plenty of them created during those years, though one of the things you might notice about these performances is that they are all for orchestra and not the original band arrangements (with the exception of the Gran Capriccio which might have been intended for orchestra but remains only in piano score and was orchestrated in 1923 and redone for this recording). This, I fear, is a flaw in the conception of this program. Why not give us what Ponchielli wrote? What would be so bad about that? Why the need to arrange them for orchestra here? I cannot figure that one out, unless the producers thought the idea of printing “wind band” on the cover would dissuade people from buying the album. News flash—it is the name Ponchielli that is more likely to discourage a potential buyer, not the instrumentation. So three trumpet works are given, one for euphonium (a sort of tenor tuba), and a marvelous work for oboe.
What saves the concept from going sour is the magnificent playing on this disc, especially by brand-spanking new Principal Trumpeter of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, 26-year-old Giuliano Sommerhalder, whose astounding technique redounds in every bar, and who approaches this music with a real flair and almost I-dare-you mannerism. His fast vibrato is almost period-like in these works, and he has a lot of fun. Simone Sommerhalder, lately of the Gewandhaus Orchestra also makes easy work of the difficult Gran Capriccio, surely one of the composer’s finest creations in any genre. The Euphonium playing of Roland Froscher is quite, well, euphonious (you just knew that one was coming, didn’t you?), and all the forces here are on top of their games. The music is really a mixed bag, much superb, others a little parlorish, but that is just what Ponchielli was and is, so if you like it you will relish this album, and if not—well try it anyway, just for the remarkable instrumentalists involved. The surround sound is truly excellent, well-spread and evenly distributed.
— Steven Ritter
by John Sunier | Aug 30, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
“Other Love Songs” = BRAHMS: Liebeslieder Walzer, op. 52; Neue Liebeslieder, Op. 65; STEPHEN HOUGH: Other Love Songs – The Prince Consort/ Alistair Hogarth, director/ Philip Fowke & Stephen Hough, piano – Linn multichannel SACD 382, 62:55 [Distr. by Naxos] ****:
My favorite to this point for the Brahms works has been the EMI recording with Anne Sofie von Otter, Kurt Streit, Bengt Forsberg, Barbara Bonney, Helmut Deutsch, and Olaf Bär. That is a beautifully recorded disc that also has the Spanische Liebeslieder, Op. 138 as well. But there are many others, including a fabulous version with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers on Telarc that includes some miscellaneous songs too. In fact, there are around 20-25 readings of these pieces available, and many are quite excellent. Okay, face it—these pieces are not really the most difficult things in the world to sing, and often require less stringent interpretative nuance than many of Brahms’s other works. But they still have to be in tune, properly balanced, and done with the correct degree of style and spirit, and that means a very deep acquaintance with the art of the ländler, that rustic, pre-waltz form that so attracted Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler—and yes, Brahms himself.
In other words, there has to be a certain sense of the amateur in performances of these works without sounding amateurish. They have to have the sense of a party about them, a soiree, a good time, a get together with friends out in a parlor on a Sunday afternoon. And the voices, while needing to blend properly, can’t be too perfect, which really is what we get on the EMI recording and so many others. The voices here, all of up-and-comers, are just new enough to not take themselves too seriously and concentrate on the virtues of the ensemble (when needed—some are solo vehicles) as opposed to the glories of individual voices.
These were very popular in Brahms’s day, the first set following the composition of the German Requiem (one of his greatest successes), while the second set, much more somber in tone and deceptively serious, preceded his First Symphony. Almost all of Brahms’s early works were enormously and immediately popular. The Prince Consort is young enough to not be intimidated by anyone and make a really carefree run at these pieces, to great effect.
The Hough premiere was commissioned by the Prince, and the composer set out to take on the theme of love, but not romantic between a man and a woman, but focusing on “different” kinds of love—I’ll let you read the texts to see how different they are. He also avoids waltzes, which is a good idea coming between the two Brahms sets as it serves as a very nice bridge and transition, amazingly so. These are profoundly lyrical pieces of intensity and excellent craftsmanship, making me want to hear more of Hough’s music, as I have known him to date only as a pianist—clearly there are other sides to the man.
The Prince performs perfectly in these works, and the surround sound is elegantly displayed to wonderful purpose, proving once again that Linn is on the ascent when it comes to audiophile recordings. Very nice indeed.
— Steven Ritter
by John Sunier | Aug 30, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Percy Grainger: The Complete 78-rpm Solo Recordings, 1908-1945 – Columbia Concert Band (Hungarian Fantasia, 1918)/ Percy Grainger, piano – APR 7501 (5 CDs) 79:09, 77:12, 76:19, 77:37. 79:48 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] *****:
The life and times of Australian piano virtuoso and composer Percy Grainger (1882-1961) would likely make a fine dramatic film. [They already have…Ed.] Originally trained by his mother Rose to be a fine pianist, Grainger found inspiration in the playing of Ernest Hutcheson, and teachers like Louis Pabst, Adelaide Burkitt, Carl Friedberg, James Kwast, and briefly Ferruccio Busoni. The emotionally twisted relationship Grainger had with his possessive mother Rose–as well as her eventual suicide in 1922–warrant Freudian interpretation from a cinematic master like Ken Russell. [And got it…Ed.]
Grooming himself to be a composer, Grainger found intellectual stimulation in the works of Rudyard Kipling and generally in the folk traditions of Britain and Scandinavia. Bach for Grainger bordered on a religious exercise, a composer whom Louis Pabst had introduced to Grainger as “a wonder of richness and complexity.“ Anti-Semitic, pro-Nordic, sexually adventurous, and sado-masochistic, Grainger–who remained astonishingly physically attractive most of his life–contained within himself any number of discords in his personality, which rejected the hero-worship Busoni demanded but found comfort in the relatively simple affection Edvard Grieg and his wife showed him in their time together, 1906-1907. Grainger’s often daring ideas on composition rival the experiments of Ives and Scriabin; and his willingness to forego traditional stave and bar lines and indications of meter quite anticipate the aleatory school that overtook music in the 1970s. Yet his ultimate self-assessment speaks a denigrating remark, “I have never been a true musician or true artist.” Those who audition this APR legacy may well deny the composer’s utterance.
The Chopin Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58 (10-11 June 1925) seems an excellent starting point, since represents the first set of instrumental music produced by the electrical process. The playing retains a monumental muscularity, relishing Chopin’s polyphony as well as his distilled melodic purity of line. The elastic rubato in the linear flow, the elegant trills, the poetically breathed phrases: each testifies to a comprehensive grasp of Chopin’s style in Grainger’s own terms. A blistering Scherzo leads to a deftly controlled Largo, suave and deliberately nuanced in its rounded periods that dissolve into sensuous space. The last movement elicited the epithet “seismic” to describe Grainger’s relentless vehemence and sizzling fioritura, a breathtaking passion we would hear again in the likes of William Kapell. The lilting Chopin Prelude in A-flat Major (1 April 1926) conveys sweep and poetry in its concentrated syncopes. Staggering octave work marks the Etude in B Minor, Op. 25, No. 10 (9 October 1928), the punctuations explosive, almost brutal. Yet the middle section relents and opens up a world of soft reverie. The so-called “Ocean” Etude in C Minor, Op. 25, No. 12 (31 March 1926) represents merely one of a number of colossal inscriptions Grainger made this day. Here, one feels a titanic undercurrent surging well in anticipation of Hurricane Irene, inevitable, implacable, numinous. If Debussy’s Clair de Lune (31 March 1926) offers us Grainger’s “water piece” ethos to rival Gieseking‘s realization, so does his utterly charming Brahms Waltz No. 15 from Op. 39 (31 March 1926). This day of recording ends with a virile eagle’s rendition of the Debussy Toccata from Pour le Piano, a worthy rival to that of Moiseiwitsch. The one “pure” Bach moment–the Gigue from the Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825–comes from the 1 April 1926 session, a dragonfly’s wing controlled by velvet marionette strings.
Grainger began to record for the first time on 16 May 1908–and despite my own reluctance towards the acoustic process sound–there are some mighty gems in his catalogue, beginning with a torrential cadenza for the Grieg Piano Concerto, with which Grainger became eternally identified. Despite intrusive swish, the second half of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 enjoys elegantly fluid panache, especially in the upper registers. The knotty Irish March-Jig: “Maguire’s Kick” after a piece by Charles Villiers Stanford demonstrates how much élan the relatively youthful Grainger could impart to his colorful palette. The year 1914 produced only three inscriptions, of which two are Grainger’s own, spirited arrangements of Shepherd’s Hey and Mock Morris. Despite the sonic limitations, the Debussy Toccata travels at pulsar speed, the patina hard but dazzling, with lightening shifts in the metric current. For the charming clarion Hornpipe from Handel’s Water Music we must skip to 28 February 1924. The 29 October 1923 arrangement of Gluck’s Gavotte (arr. Brahms) proves–in its music-box sensibility–as striking as those made by Elly Ney and Josef Hofmann.
Anyone might mistake Grainger’s schwung-rich A-flat Waltz, Op. 42 by Chopin (3 December 1917) for Hofmann, the dragonfly sparks flying as they do. The two recordings of the A-flat Major Prelude (7 June 1918), at nine seconds difference, project an astonishing array of colors and harmonic depth, and we might assume Josef Lhevinne were at the keyboard. Patrician aggression marks even abridged versions of the Heroic Polonaise (2 January 1918) and the B-flat Minor Scherzo, Op. 31 (25 February 1924). Grainger’s rubato could enlighten many a contemporary virtuoso. Grainger’s three-voiced Schumann makes its presence felt early in Warum? from Op. 12 (27 February 1927). Grainger relished Schumann and brought subtle hues to his music through deft pedaling, especially sostenuto, a factor Grainger stressed for his Steinway performances. Canny use of appoggiaturas make his Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody (29 August/19 September 1917) ethnically pert while the explosive friss section proves tailor-made for Grainger’s personality. Grainger’s Twelfth Rhapsody (10 February 1920) challenges the Mischa Levitzky inscription for sheer transparent finesse. Grainger’s 15th Hungarian Rhapsody (4 August 1922) never had a 78 rpm shellac issue, so its fiery rendering of the Rakoczy March makes a welcome addition to the Grainger legacy. The huge E Major Polonaise (29 November 1921) enjoys a grand scale and heroic temper, a veritable flood of ethnic emotion that takes time to muse on the tragedy of nation-states.
Grainger performs Bach in transcription, opening with the ubiquitous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 (13 October 1931), as arranged by Carl Tausig, Ferruccio Busoni, and Grainger himself. Grainger inscribed three major Bach works that fateful October day, including the Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543 as arranged by Liszt and the Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 in the same arrangement. Idiosyncratic but eminently potent, the realizations seem to draw from an infinite fount of color effects. The conscious desire to rival the full sonority and resonant diapason of the organ remains a constant, especially when Grainger’s Vesuvian double octaves assume massive proportions. A pity we don’t have Grainger’s conception of Cesar Franck’s Prelude, Chorale et Fugue, which exploits the same character. Schumann benefits from an explosive reading (1 June 1927) of his G Minor Sonata, Op. 22, whose indication “as fast as possible” and “even faster” Grainger takes quite literally, but without sacrificing the Schumann melodic gift. No repeats, but the intensity of the reading burns itself into one’s memory banks. Then ensues the 28 May 1928 Op. 13 Symphonic Etudes, whose counterpoints obviously draw from Bach but graced by Schumann’s own innate lyricism. Grainger offers a brisk but intelligent reading–sans the posthumous etudes–that relishes the hugely arched melos and magisterial coda that arise from the original theme. Grainger’s bass line warrants a close hearing, and his silken accents, however personal, make for enthralling listening. Grainger added the lovely F-sharp Major Romance from Op. 28 as a filler, its three staves likely a metaphor for the father Wieck’s opposition to the marriage of the true minds of Robert and Clara. The disc ends with a sweeping hymn to love in the Liszt third Liebestraum from that same 1 June 1927 session that produced the inflamed Schumann G Minor Sonata.
Grainger’s is the debut recording of the Brahms F Minor Sonata, Op. 5 (30 January and 2 February 1926), and a towering monument it remains. Alternately enmeshed in turbulence and wistful tranquility, the performance dictates every emotion in between, rife with nuance and personality. The reflective passages radiate a warmth quite rare even among our modern keyboard masters. The influence of Schumann in the antiphonal soft choirs in the Andante espressivo mark the occasion as special for the Brahms recorded tradition. A molten Scherzo leads to the reflective, Beethoven-infused Andante and “ruckblick,” the dramatic looking-backwards. What an imperious realization Grainger provides! A deliberately-slowed approach to the final movement soon unleashes the tiger from the depths of the jungle. The Brahms Lullaby (15 June 1927) that ensues, moreover, occupies a special place in the history of the transcribed art-song. A music-box charmer, the Ramble on ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ or Blithe Bells (15 October 1931) projects the same loving intricacy we expect from a Godowsky etude. This sense of superfluous layering prevents Grainger’s Ramble on Love: Paraphrase of the finale from Der Rosenkavalier (21 January 1929) from achieving unbridled success other than as a baroque curio. We might mistake Molly on the Shore (1 June 1927) for a piece by Gottschalk or Joplin, but Grainger himself authored its busy saunters. Grainger’s 13 April 1945 recording of this piece varies only by three seconds’ length. Grainger’s Jutish Medley (21 January 1929) collects Danish folk song into a series of tricky exercises in metrics and articulation.
That Grainger, like Liszt, granted Tchaikovsky one paraphrase–the latter from Eugene Onegin–might be a concession to popular taste, but the Flower Waltz Paraphrase (2 January 1918 and later that month) in two versions imbues the Russian with that Vienna charm via Godowsky methods that transcend the mere etude medium. At last, consider Grainger’s forte, his Grieg. Grainger remarked, “I had wanted to be Grieg’s prophet. . .but I became his protégé. And who believes in the impressionableness and criticalness of a protégé?” The Wedding Day at Troldhaugen (15 June 1927) moves ferociously, perhaps due to the constraints of the 78 rpm medium, but the playing astonishes. After such blistering articulation, it proves equally awesome to hear the degree of repose Grainger projects in the middle section. His earlier inscription of Wedding Day at Troldhaugen (5 February 1921), though faster, enjoys a greater freedom of rhythm. To Spring (15 June 1927) shimmers with a holy light we likewise hear in Gieseking’s Grieg. The earlier recording (17 June 1919) proves diaphanous but not so mystical. Grainger’s two traversals of the Norwegian Bridal Procession (19 September 1917 and 18 February 1921) again demonstrate a tendency of the later inscription to speed up, but the articulation gains clarity and lightness. So, who believes in gifted protégés or at least in this gifted one? I do.
— Gary Lemco
by John Sunier | Aug 30, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
Antico • Moderno = Renaissance Madrigals Embellished – Doron Sherwin, cornetto/ Julien Martin, recorder/ Josh Cheatham, viola da gamba/ Skip Sempe, harpsichord and virginal/ Capriccio Stravagante – Paradizo 0008, 66:24 [Distr. by Allegro] ****:
Paradizo, a relatively new label according to their website “features the recordings of Skip Sempé, harpsichordist and founder /director of Capriccio Stravagante, the Capriccio Stravagante Orchestra and the Capriccio Stravagante Renaissance Orchestra. Following fifteen years of distinctions and awards with three prestigious labels, Skip Sempé created Paradizo, featuring authoritative, bold music making, and celebrating a renewed vision of creative interpretation in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire.” I certainly wish them well, especially if their other releases are anywhere near this standard.
What this album is all about is essentially improvisation based on the idea of diminution, whereby a solo instrument plays elaborations on an existing melody—not necessarily variations per se—which can sometimes be quite ornate and even extend to the bass line. It also marks the very beginning of the basso continuo tradition. As you can see in the track listing, most of these pieces are by quite famous composers, and are indeed vocal works. Here there is a mixture according to the “arranger”—again, some old timers from the era of composition while others are done by the members of the ensemble performing them, and some are still vocal works while others purely instrumental renditions of the particular madrigal. These are not barn burning works by any means, as it is impossible to think of any madrigal that really is an exercise in pure virtuosity; but many of the embellishments are quite disarming in terms of complexity, and here we have a recording where as much talent and skill went into the preparation as it did in the performance. There is a certain sameness of tone here, meaning that this is not an album you want to put on in order to keep you awake, but if you are in the mood for some superbly realized instrumental embellishments on some beautiful madrigals, and can keep yourself attentive to the delicacies here, there is some tremendous music making to be appreciated.
TrackList:
1. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525/26-1594), Pulchra es amica mea
Embellished by Francesco Rognoni (1620)
2. Cipriano de Rore (1515/16-1565), Ancor che col partire
Embellished by Richardo Rogniono (1592
3. Josquin Desprez (c.1440-1521), In te Domine speravi
Recorder consort version of the original frottola (before 1592)
4. Pierre Sandrin (c.1490-après 1561), Doulce mémoire
Embellished by Doron Sherwin (2009)
5. Jacques Arcadelt (c.1505-1568), O felici occhi miei
Embellished by Diego Ortiz (1553)
6 . Jacques Arcadelt, O felici occhi miei
Embellished by Vincenzo Ruffo (1564)
7. Pierre Sandrin, Doulce mémoire
Embellished version, Tablatures of Jan van Lublin (1537-48)
8. Pierre Sandrin, Doulce mémoire
Viol consort version of the original chanson (1538)
9. Giacomo Fogliano (1468-1548), L’amor, dona, ch’io te porto
Recorder consort version of the original frottola (c1500)
10. Cipriano de Rore, Ancor che col partire
Embellished by Doron Sherwin (2009)
11. Cipriano de Rore, Ancor che col partire
Viol consort version of the original madrigal (1582)
12. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Vestiva i colli
Embellished by Francesco Rognoni (1620)
13. Cipriano de Rore, Ben qui si mostra’l ciel
Embellished by Girolamo dalla Casa (1584)
14. Cipriano de Rore, Ancor che col partire
Embellished by Giovanni Battista Spadi (1609)
15. Marchetto Cara (1470-1525), Cantai mentre nel core
Recorder consort version of the original frottola (1517)
Giacomo Fogliano, L’amor, dona, ch’io te porto
Recorder consort version of the original frottola (reprise)
16. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Io son ferito
Embellished by Doron Sherwin (2009)
17. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Vestiva i colli
Embellished by Bartolomeo de Selma y Salaverde (1638)
18. Marchetto Cara, Cantai mentre nel core
Embellished version, Intabulation of Andrea Antico (1517)
19. Pierre Sandrin, Doulce mémoire
Embellished by Diego Ortiz (1553)
20. Pierre Sandrin, Doulce mémoire
Embellished by Diego Ortiz (1553)
21. Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594), Susanne un jour
Embellished by Doron Sherwin (2009)
— Steven Ritter
by John Sunier | Aug 29, 2011 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
Ravel Meets Gershwin (2011)
Live concert at Philharmonie, Berlin, 12/31/03
Conductor/Orchestra: Simon Rattle/The Berlin Philharmonic
Guest vocalist: Dianne Reeves with her trio
Program: GERSHWIN: Strike Up the Band Overture, 6 Songs; FAURE: Pavane; RAVEL: La valse, Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2
Studio: EuroArts 2053648 [8/30/11] (Distr. by Naxos)
Video: 16:9 color
Audio: PCM stereo
No region code
Length: 91 minutes
Rating: *****
If only all attempts at classical/jazz/pop crossover projects were as completely as successful as this one! Sir Simon really let his super-curly hair down for this one, and it’s a gem from start to finish. Of course we already know some of those Berlin musicians can swing very well, from the recordings of the Berlin Cellists. There is an uncredited violinist who does a gangbusters hot fiddle solo in the midst of the last Dianne Reeves Gershwin song, “A Foggy Day.”
The only selection that seems to be giving in to the typical pops concert program is Faure’s Pavane. The rest of the program sparkles and jumps, and everyone seems to be having a terrific time, even some of the rather dour audience. The two composers are among the most favorite of most listeners’ 20th century names, and the two more serious Ravel orchestral works fit in beautifully to the program.
Dianne Reeves has a powerful voice, which is sometimes needed to be heard over the very creative and swinging arrangements being played by the Berlin Philharmonic. She usually sings the entire opening verses, which are not often heard—the clever lyrics of Ira Gershwin. She also does a terrific bit of scatting on one of the tunes. Sometimes the camera looks like it is tracking right down into her ample vocal cords. I was disappointed to be unable to find any credit for the arranger or arrangers of the Gershwin songs. Surely George hadn’t written versions for full symphony orchestra! And they’re just perfect — light, rich and swinging yet often complex — not in any way revealing that these musicians may be trying hard but just don’t know how to swing it, like some crossover attempts.
The Philharmonie is most impressive; must be one of the largest concert halls in the world. Even the pipe organ in the corner looks a bit lost in the huge hall. The image quality is superb—very close to Blu-ray. And the stereo sound is clean and widerange. We knew those Germans could do up the tech side nicely, but may be surprised to find they can do such an energetic, styled-just-right pops concert! Maybe it’s the conductor and vocalist.
—John Sunier
by John Sunier | Aug 29, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Claire Daly Quintet – Mary Joyce Project: Nothing to Lose [9/1/11] – Daly Bread Records, 51:17 ***1/2:
(Claire Daly – baritone & alto saxophone, flute, vocals (track 8), producer; Steve Hudson – piano; Mary Ann McSweeney – bass; Peter Grant – drums; Napoleon Maddox – human beat box)
Some artists look forward and some artists contemplate the past for inspiration. Saxophonist Claire Daly does both on her latest release, Mary Joyce Project: Nothing to Lose. The genesis for Daly’s 11-track, 51-minute record is the rugged individualist Mary Joyce, Daly’s father’s first cousin and a woman who lived in Alaska and had some amazing adventures in The Last Frontier prior to, during and after the second world war, including but not limited to being a nurse, a bush pilot, a saloon owner and a ham radio operator.
The material (three tracks by Daly, four by pianist Steve Hudson and four co-written by Daly and Hudson) was composed as a counterpoint to Joyce’s journal of a three-month, 1,000-mile dogsled trip she took from Juneau to Fairbanks in 1935-36, a grueling journey which few non-natives had done, not to mention any non-Alaskan women. Joyce’s spirit, style and courage permeate the music and provide an undercurrent of exploration, discovery and progression.
Daly blends traditional jazz tones with unusual touches such as the occasional assistance of human beat box Napoleon Maddox, who uses his voice to replicate electronic and rhythmic effects akin to some of Bobby McFerrin’s exploits; Daly’s spoken-word anecdotes; and indigenous Alaskan cadences which gesture through opening number, “Guidance,” which is dedicated to the Tlingit guides (misspelled as Tlinkit in the liner notes) who traveled with Joyce on various legs of her long trek.
Daly’s sax glides softly and surely on the quietly endearing ballad “Lonely Wilderness,” which evokes the isolated Taku Lodge where Joyce resided for a time. The melodic lines echo what it must have been like to stay in the remote wilderness year-round. There is an eager energy on the bop-ish “Kluane,” about a huge Yukon lake which Joyce traversed when it was frozen over, despite the advice of more experienced locals. Bassist Mary Ann McSweeney and Maddox have a particularly intriguing duet during the tune’s latter half, and Daly and Hudson also trade lines back and forth. Maddox and McSweeney also furnish rhythmic variations throughout the percussively-inclined “Who’s Crazy?,” based on what some people thought about Joyce’s planned route to Fairbanks in the dead of winter when temperatures fell to forty below zero.
One of the most joyous cuts is the upbeat “Tippin’,” titled after Joyce’s lead sled dog, Tip. Here – as almost everywhere else on this album – Daly illustrates her command of the baritone sax, an instrument which rarely gets as much attention as alto, tenor and soprano saxes. Daly’s rich timbre and engaging melody helps keep “Tippin’” brisk and jumping, as does Peter Grant’s lively cymbals. Daly concludes with the nudging “Epilogue,” where Daly quotes directly from the last paragraphs of Joyce’s journal and where Daly shares her own thoughts on Joyce’s intrepid determination. The spoken-word sections have a universal spiritualism which transcends any specific time or space and connects listeners with Joyce’s own longings, desires and yearnings.
TrackList:
1. Guidance
2. Homage to Freedom
3. Determined
4. Lonely Wilderness
5. Complicated Love
6. Kluane
7. Who’s Crazy?
8. Shine
9. Gotta Go
10. Tippin’
11. Epilogue
— Doug Simpson
by John Sunier | Aug 29, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Mary Lou Williams — At Rick’s Café Americain — Storyville 1038420 2:20:12 [Distr. by Allegro] ****:
(Mary Lou Williams – Piano; Milton Suggs —Bass; Drashear Khalid — Drums)
While the history of jazz contains no small number of masters not given their full due, perhaps none are as cheated of their legacy as Mary Lou Williams. In an art form still so dominated by the myth of the male genius, the omission of Williams—a prolific composer and arranger for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, a trusted artistic adviser and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis, as well as composer of a Catholic jazz mass—from the foundational accounts of jazz becomes particularly glaring. Her ability to adapt well to the stylistic leaps she lived through and pioneered, from ragtime and stride to soul jazz and avant-funk, partly contributes to her body of work getting overlooked. Unlike her good friend Monk, who insisted on performing his singular genius doggedly as critics and fans slowly caught up, Williams never lingered over-long in any era and even gave up music in favor of Catholicism for a spell.
At Rick’s Café American offers one of the last recordings of Mary Lou Williams playing live in Chicago in March 1979, just a few years before her passing in 1981. The two-disc album shares several sets all from the same night, so we hear her playing evolve over the course of the night and hear her set closer “A Grand Night For Swinging” interpreted three times over the course of the album.
Williams begins with five short compositions of her own played solo— “Spirituals 2 & 3” showcasing a gospel approach equally inflected with stern Catholicism and beaming religiosity; segueing from there to the tavern ragtime of “Fandangle” and the aptly named churchy “Old Fashioned Slow Blues;” ending with two Midwestern swing tunes “Night Life” and “Baby Bear Bogie/Roll.” All told, Williams plays just under ten minutes unaccompanied and the rest features her playing trio with no more of her own compositions.
The crowd, appreciative throughout, really starts to get into it once she embarks on her interpretations of the standards. In Williams’ hands, each song gets treated like an old friend and the recording captures the audience’s joy of recognition each time the next familiar tune reveals itself. Williams doesn’t strive to recreate standards like “‘Round Midnight,” “I Can’t Get Started,” “My Funny Valentine” with unfamiliar arrangements, instead presents them with the familiarity that can only come from someone who very well might have workshopped “ ‘Round Midnight” with Monk himself and whose years as a composer predate many of the tunes.
“Caravan” particularly stands out, giving it an uptempo intro reminiscent of a Jazz Messengers arrangement, but, of course, Art Blakey got an early start in an ensemble formed by Williams. “St. James Infirmary” is also a treat, with her showy flourishes making clear that, while she knows the debt owed New Orleans within the Jazz idiom, she herself came up through the Midwest to New York Northern blues.
The rhythm section of Milton Suggs and Drashear Khalid compliments her orchestral fullness by locking solidly into a minimalist groove. Khalid’s drums are tuned tightly and give off terse reports in time to a workman swing; Suggs adds his bounce judiciously and only stretches on his solos.
When Williams ends with her third time through “A Grand Night For Swinging,” the material is no closer to stale than the first two times the trio plays it. The tune well provides a theme for the night, as her goal is clearly to swing grandly and let all else be damned. And who else better to school you on precisely what that means?
TrackList =
Disc 1: Spirituals 2 & 3; Fandangle; Old Fashioned Slow Blues; Night Life; Baby Bear Bogie/Roll ‘Em; Gloria; Autumn Leaves; I Can’t Get Started; They Can’t Take That Away From Me; Satin Doll; The Jeep Is Jumping; A Grand Night For Swinging; Blues For Timme; St. James Infirmary.
Disc 2: Surrey With The Fringe On Top; The Man I Love; My Funny Valentine; Oh! Lady Be Good; Mack The Knife; ‘Round Midnight; Caravan; A Grand Night For Swinging; Love For Sale; What’s Your Story Morning Glory; Without A Song;Over The Rainbow; A Grand Night For Swinging.
—Robin Margolis
by John Sunier | Aug 28, 2011 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
Orpheus (Orphée), Blu-ray (1950/2011)
Director: Jean Cocteau
Starring: Jean Mariais, Marie Déa, Maria Cesares, Francois Périer, Henri Cremieux
Studio: Janus Films/The Criterion Collection 68 [8/30/11]
Video: 1.33:1 B&W 1080p HD
Audio: French or English dubbed PCM mono
Subtitles: English
Music: Georges Auric
Extras: Audio commentary track by film scholar James S. Williams, “Jean Cocteau: Autobiography of an Unknown” (1984) feature-length documentary, “Jean Cocteau and his Tricks” (2008) interview with Claude Pinoteau, “40 minutes with Jean Cocteau” (1957) interview, “In Search of Jazz” (1956) Cocteau talks about use of jazz in his films, “La villa Santo-Sospir” (1951) 16mm Kodachrome film by Cocteau, Stills by portrait photographer Roger Corbeau, Newsreel footage (1950) of bombed-out St.-Cyr military academy ruins used in Orpheus, Theatrical trailer, Illustrated booklet with essay by author Mark Polizzotti, excerpt from an article by Cocteau, and essay on La villa Santo-Sospir
Length: 95 minutes
Rating: *****
Talk about important classic films — Orphée is probably right up there in the top ten or twenty. It was a much more fleshed-out cinematic vision by the versatile French poet/writer/artist/filmmaker that his much earlier Blood of a Poet. In fact Cocteau says in one of the interviews that with the earlier film he was playing with one finger, but with this one he used both hands. It is an update of the familiar Orphic myth: a well-known poet (played by Marais) has lost his “chops” and is now scorned by the youth of the Left Bank. His love for his wife is diminished when he comes into contact with a mysterious princess, who is from the underworld and represents his death. Her assistants are her chauffeur and a younger poet who had the adulation of the young people but has been killed.
Orpheus is fascinated with the princess and seeks inspiration in the cryptic messages which he hears on the radio in her car. When Eurydice is also killed Orpheus is taken to the underworld by the princess’ assistant Heurtebise, to bring her back. He is forbidden to look at her. But after their return to life he sees her in the car’s rear view mirror and once again she is gone. Cocteau’s visual poetry is even more predominant here than in his Beauty and the Beast. Mirrors are the portals to the other world and frequently a part of the dreamlike progression of the film. (Cocteau used a bath of mercury for the shots of hands and arms beginning to enter the mirror, and at one point the vat of mercury broke—with mercury flowing all over the studio.) There is also much creative use of Cocteau’s favored trick of running the film backwards to cause bodies to rise up from the floor, etc. The only odd note here is the very Hollywood ending, with Orpheus and his wife lovey-dovey again; not to be believed due to his fascination with the princess of death, who reciprocated.
The very extensive extras are all fascinating. Hearing of Cocteau’s youth with Satie, Debussy, Picasso, Diaghilev and others, is most interesting. His color 16mm film of the tattoo-influenced art with which he decorated the doors and walls of the Spanish villa he lived in courtesy of a wealthy supporter, his now-dated comments about jazz, the shots of the ruins of the military academy Cocteau used for some of the underworld scenes, are all worth seeing. Another welcome and beautiful film restoration from Criterion.
—John Sunier
by John Sunier | Aug 28, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
LEO BROUWER: The String Quartets; String Trio – The Havana String Quartet – Zoho Classix ZM 201108, 74:21 ****:
Afro-Cuban guitarist, composer and conductor Leo Brouwer was known primarily as a guitarist until the early 1980s when an injury to one of his fingers cut short his concertizing career. He turned to conducting and composition, and his numerous works include eleven concertos for guitar and orchestra, chamber and choral works, modern ballet and over 60 film scores, including the 1993 film, “Like Water for Chocolate.” He has received over 200 international awards, including the Latin Grammy for Best Classical Music Album (2010) for this recording. He has also served as musical spokesperson for the Cuban revolution and left wing politics.
The chamber music works on this album range from 1959 to 2007 and represent forays into modern musical languages, including aleatoric music and improvisation, elements from traditional popular Cuban music, and Afro-Cuban lyricism, dance and percussive sounds. In the aleatoric (elements of the work are left to chance and the musician’s choice) Second Quartet, “Know the Matter and the Word will follow,” the Havana Quartet quotes from other classical works (Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – first movement) and others.
In Quartet No. 1 (1961) “In Memory of Bela Bartok,” Brouwer uses the stylistic language of Bartok to fashion a dramatically riveting work that effectively uses cellular themes in a cyclical manner. Especially effective is the melodically brooding Lento. If you like Bartok’s quartet masterpieces, this work will fascinate. The String Trio (1959) was written while Brouwer was studying at Juilliard with Vincent Perschetti. The pensive and beautiful two middle movements are completed by a rhythmically joyful finale “based on a Classical Theme.”
This premiere recording of Brouwer’s Fourth Quartet (2007) includes classically-derived improvisations by the second violinist, snippets from Cuban popular music, and a brief vocal obliggato by the players. It’s clever and strangely moving. The programmatic Third Quartet (1991), dedicated to the Havana Quartet, starts with a hypnotically gripping “Ritual Voice for New Year’s Eve.” The final movements, “the Impossible Dance” and “The Rhythm of the Night Changed” are ingenious examples of celebratory Afro-Cuban dance. This is powerful and striking music that deserves repeated hearings.
There is much to savor and study in the multiplicity of styles that Brouwer has used in these compositions. The Havana Quartet, founded by Brouwer in 1980, has this music in their fingers and soul. The recording is close and present.
— Robert Moon
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 28, 2011 | Pop/Rock/World CD Reviews
Robert Earl Keen, Jr. – Ready for Confetti – ALOS 65701, 47:11 ***1/2:
(Robert Earl Keen, Jr. – acoustic guitar, mandolin, vocals; Bukka Allen – accordion, Hammond B-3 organ; Rich Brotherton – classical, resonator and electric guitars, banjo, vocal harmonies; Deani Flemmings – vocal harmonies; Lloyd Maines – banjo, dulcimer, 12-string, baritone, resonator and electric guitars, mandolin, producer, ukulele; Pat Manske – congas, keyboards, percussion; Marty Muse – dobro, lap steel and pedal guitars, Wurlitzer organ; Riley Osbourne – piano, Wurlitzer organ; Mickey Raphael – harmonica; Tom Van Schaik – drums, percussion; Bill Whitbeck – bass, vocal harmonies)
The Austin, Texas music scene has generated talent from blues rockers Stevie Ray Vaughn and The Fabulous Thunderbirds to country artists Willie Nelson and Joe Ely. For three decades, Americana songwriter/singer Robert Earl Keen, Jr. has been a mainstay of the city known as the Live Music Capital of the World. Keen’s songs have been covered by Nelson, Johnny Cash, The Dixie Chicks and more; he’s a renowned live performer who tours up to 200 days a year; and has issued a solid stream of albums.
On his 16th record, Ready for Confetti, Keen reaches backward and forward for inspiration, where he matches compelling musical portraits and insightful lyrics with a playful sense of humor and optimistic fervor. Keen thrives on challenge and this time he reworked his playbook to come up with a fresh outlook. First, Keen decided to pen his new music while on the road instead of his usual approach of spending a few weeks by himself in his cabin. Keen also chose to keep his music more concise and melodic and use more universal themes, including the loss of love, living life to the fullest potential and the pursuit of a higher spiritual deportment.
The result is twelve cuts – nine by Keen, one co-written with friend Dean Dillon and two covers (Todd Snider’s “Play a Train Song” and the traditional gospel cut “Soul of Man”) – which balance upbeat positivity with reflective rumination. The title track signifies Keen’s attitude: cheerful, bouncy and highly melodic. Beneath the bright exterior, Keen says, lies something different. The song’s main personalities live on society’s fringes with a viewpoint and mental discontinuity where every day is a new day to celebrate, thus there is no past and no future to fret about.
Many of Keen’s tracks display an impression of going from place to place, of people surviving by being on the move. This perspective is epitomized by the first single, “I Gotta Go,” which has a steady sauntering beat courtesy of Keen’s long-time drummer Tom Van Schaik, while guitarist Rich Brotherton propels the tune with a coiled riff. The piece follows in the footsteps of many Keen narratives about outsiders on the lam: this time Keen constructs a tale of an outlaw abandoned at birth, who breaks away from an orphanage, steals a car and goes on a robbery spree, and ends his life when he’s caught cheating at cards and is killed: his epitaph, “I gotta go.” Then there’s the affable country-swinger “Top Down,” about a music star who has the world in his pocket. Keen provides a touch of sarcastic irony which underscores his rose-tinted parable. Keen’s best road chronicle, though, is the country-colored “The Road Goes On and On,” where the forthright narrator answers to, challenges and references Keen’s classic “The Road Goes on Forever,” from Keen’s 1989 release, West Textures.
Keen goes further into his past on an interpretation of his “Paint the Town Beige,” from A Bigger Piece of Sky (1993). Keen’s initial rendering was immersed in reverb and a bit top-heavy on the production. Here, Keen’s rearrangement is clearer and more concise, which heightens the compassionate account of a former troublemaking wanderer who is determined to endure small-town life even though he has some lingering doubts and a yearning to put the pedal to the metal.
Multi-instrumentalist and producer Lloyd Maines (The Dixie Chicks, Jerry Jeff Walker, many more) creates an impressive atmosphere which accentuates Keen’s mindset and individualism, helping bring out or encouraging Keen’s artistic discernment. For example, Maines utilizes a scratchy vinyl-like effect to introduce the kinship sketch “Lay Down My Brother,” he mixes mandolins and pedal steel to furnish a light Jamaican flavor to “Waves on the Ocean” and it was Maines who convinced Keen to end with a poignant rendition of the sacred ode “Soul of Man.”
TrackList:
1. Black Baldy Stallion
2. Ready for Confetti
3. I Gotta Go
4. Lay Down My Brother
5. The Road Goes On and On
6. Show the World
7. Waves on the Ocean
8. Top Down
9. Train Song
10. Who Do Man
11. Paint the Town Beige
12. Soul of a Man
— Doug Simpson
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 28, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
BRAHMS: Piano Quartets 1 & 3 – Milander Quartet – Avie 2203, 76:14 [Distr. by Allegro] ***1/2:
This is the first recording by the youthful Milander Quartet, and since Avie labels this as Volume One we can be certain that the complete piano quartets will be forthcoming; whether or not a suitable disc mate is found to pair up with the lengthy Opus 26 remains to be seen.
On first hearing I was quite enthused with these youthful firebrands, but a couple of comparisons tempered my enthusiasm somewhat. It’s not that they can’t play—believe me, they can, and the deep rich sound that Avie provides only adds to the excitement. But upon playing one of my favorites, the Argerich-Kremer-Bashmet-Maisky recording on DGG of the Opus 25 (coupled with the Schumann Fantasiestucke), I was struck with the image of a group of children playing when suddenly the adults enter the room and show them how the game is really played. Argerich and company bring such an impenetrable depth to this music, something that goes far beyond mere things like phrasing and tempos (of which some of the movements here are slightly questionable). There is a profound maturity of understanding that those great artists bring to the music that makes the Milander sound just on the other side of immature.
Yet I do not want to belabor that point, for they have a good grasp of this music, especially the rigorous and more classically constructed C-minor quartet, written some 15 years after the first. Here the Milander seems to find a more convivial arrangement, and produce a reading that is lovely on almost all counts. However—and I know it might not be fair—I had to turn to the most classically-oriented of any of the Brahms piano quartets I know, that of the Beaux Arts (along with Walter Trampler) to hear what a true classical conception of this piece might sound like, and the results are again startling. The beauty of that reading is that one can hear what Brahms sounds like when the emphasis in on line and form above all else; the Milander falls somewhere between the Argerich and the Beaux Arts.
So what we have is a quartet that is very much a work in progress. For a complete set a good choice might still be Tamás Vásáry and Berlin Philharmonic principal players on DGG, but the Milander is nothing to be trifled with, and though I am sure their next Brahms recording will be along the same lines as this one, they have much to offer, and the future should be very promising indeed.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 26, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
Czech Chamber Music = JOSEF FOERSTER: Piano Trio No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 38; VITEZSLAV NOVAK: Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 27, “Quasi una Ballata”; LEOS JANACEK: A Tale; ZDENEK FIBICH: Piano Trio in f – Kinsky Trio Prague – Praga Digitals multichannel SACD 250 80, 71:26 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
This engaging album brings together four Czech composers of whom three are heard only sporadically. All are representative of the emerging Bohemian Nationalist School so ably spawned by Smetana and Dvorak. Though these other composers, with the exception of Janacek, cannot begin to approach their importance, they still contributed much, as the pieces on this album will testify.
Foerster (1859-1951) was a staunch Christian who found himself increasingly at odds with the socialist regime that took hold later. Both of his piano trios are dedicated to loved ones, this second one to his beloved sister Marie. It is not a mournful work but instead concentrates on the peace he felt later following her death, and the memories of her life emblazoned in B-flat major. Novak (1870-1949) was Professor of Composition at the Prague Conservatory and followed the example Dvorak had set in terms of reinvigorating the tone poem. But he also spent much effort on chamber music.
Fibich (1850-1900) led a short life that was nevertheless a productive one. Particularly important is his collection of 376 piano pieces called Moods, Impressions, and Reminiscences. His F-minor Trio was popular from the beginning, essentially driven by the piano part, not unlike Schumann’s Piano Quintet. And of course Janacek could not have been left out of such a collection as this, and we are treated to the original version of Pohadka, his only work for cello and piano which underwent numerous revisions, finally reconstructed and premiered in 2008. This recording is the first presentation of the four-movement original.
The Kinsky Trio Prague is a young and lively group of musicians formed in 2004 from students of the Academy of Prague, and their performances are brisk, alert, and impassioned. I can’t imagine better readings of any of this music, and the surround sound only adds to its glory. This is a very fine disc, and I hope there is more to come.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 26, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Nigel Waddington – Bigger Pictures – Cala Records CACD77011, 60:58 ****:
(Saxophones and Woodwinds – Nick Homes, Len Aruliah, Rachel Musson, Rob Hughes, Colin Crawley, Mick Foster, Jay Craig; Flutes/Piccolo – Roland Sutherland, Katy Gainham; Oboe/Cor Anglais – Althea Talbot-Howard, Chris Redgate; Clarinets – Pete Furniss, Jon Carnac; Bassoons – Sarah Price, Glyn Williams; Trumpets – Steve Jones, Paul Newton, Steve Waterman, Pete Rolinson, Martin Shaw, Mike Diprose, Nigel Waddington; Trombones – Richard Pywell, Paul Taylor, Adrian Fry, Mark Horton, Holly Bull, Jeff Miller; French Horns – Anneke Scott, Herrick Hayes, Rachel Martin, Emma Knight; Bass – Gareth Huw Davies; Piano/Keyboards – Rob Taggart, Phil Peskett, John Holer, David Frankel; Guitars – John Blackwell, Gerry Hunt; Drums – Chris Dagley, Brent Keefe; Harp – Hugh Webb; Backing Vocals – Jacui Hicks, Daniel D. Winton; Violins – Vaughan Jones (leader), David Bearman, Maya Bickel, Richard Blayden, Nell Catchpole, Antonia Fuchs, Laura Haarala, Gita Langley, Emma Marin, Gabriel Painter, Margot Rusmanis, Susan Verney; Violas – Reiad Chibah, Mark Coates-Smith, Nina Kopparhead, Rachel Robson; Cellos –Anna Holmes, Emma Black, Zoe Martlew,Anna Mowatt; Double Bass – Gareth Huw Davies)
Nigel Waddington is a trumpet player located in the United Kingdom. He played in big bands. He began arranging and writing for horn sections in jazz and pop projects. He turned also to symphonic or orchestral arranging and compositions. Through his experiences and contacts with excellent musicians he applied his techniques to gain unique and excellent performances both in the recording studio and concert performances. His charts have been broadcast by the BBC Big Band. Some of his work has been used in the United States by other big bands. Nigel has produced two albums under his name: After a Journey and the album being reviewed here, Bigger Pictures.
The title Bigger Pictures is followed by the descriptive phrase, The Art of Nigel Waddington on the album cover. That is an accurate description of the styles of music he presents from track to track. This is an eclectic group of styles of music. My comment is that it works!
The album starts with a tune called “You Got It”. The sound of the music made the group Tower of Power pop into my mind. It starts with a thumping drum and bass for a few bars to be joined by a hefty brass and horn section, electric guitar and keyboard runs. It definitely got my juices rocking.
Suddenly the music cools you down with “I Fly” that is totally orchestral and a ballad like tune aptly reflecting the title. A beautiful vocal is the icing on the cake by the wonderful Claire Martin as you dance through the sound clouds in your mind.
The album continues on with a slow lyrical saxophone playing backed by the orchestra on “Is This a Rainbow”. “Talking to Thomas” is solo piano. Do you get the idea that you do not know where the music style will take you next?
I was really tickled when I first heard the album. My first run through I did not even look at the listings. Suddenly on track seven I heard a distinctive sound similar to Steely Dan. I was stunned and enjoyed it. The vocal on this was by Jacqui Hicks and gave a definite sound like Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The piece is named “Jazz Chops, No Hang-Ups” (an ode to Steely Dan)
Eight of the twelve tracks were written by Nigel Waddington and all were his arrangements. Bigger Pictures actually could be a set of music worked into a motion picture for a sound track in my estimation.
The musicians and musicality are excellent. Sound quality is good and the album notes well put together. This definitely is a fine album. It is difficult to nail down how to categorize it, It’s not really jazz, it’s a bit of many things: easy listening, a little rock, some pump it up funk. It travels everywhere and is just plain fun.
TrackList: You Got It; I Fly; Is This a Rainbow; Talking to Thomas; Bigger Pictures; September; Jazz Chops, No Hang-Ups (an ode to Steel Dan); Lantern on the Stern (in memoriam Malcolm Arnold); James; Like Someone in Love; Tristesse Lili Boulanger; For Dave.
— Tim Taylor
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 26, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
“Stories” = LUCIANO BERIO: A Ronne; JOHN CAGE: Story; JACKSON MAC LOW: Young Turtle Asymmetries; ROGER MARSH: Not a Soul but Ourselves; SHELDON FRANK: As I was Saying; CATHY BERBERIAN: Stripsody – Theatre of Voices/ Paul Hillier, conductor – Harmonia mundi multichannel SACD 807527, 66:40 ***:
I wanted to like this album far more than I did. Paul Hillier and any group he conducts always give us thought-provoking and often esoteric music that is well worth adding to anyone’s listening repertory, and I just knew this was going to be another one of those albums.
Wrong.
I am quite sure that some people somewhere will find this valuable, as the performances are stellar, and the sound is just spectacular, surround sound personified. And many would kill for a version of Berberian’s Stripsody, so called because it takes stories from comic strips as its base, and then explores certain sounds found in the words as its structural center, even though this particular performance is done with an ensemble instead of a solo soprano. But truth be told, aside from the cultural and hagiographical overtones to the piece, it really isn’t worth much, and I don’t really enjoy hearing it.
Most of the pieces on this disc take their cue from the Cage Story, with the exception of the typically collage-like Berio work A-Ronne which includes the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, along with verses from T.S. Eliot and Dante. If you like the now-famous Sinfonia, you very well might like this also. But the Cage work is the most creative and interesting, repeating the words “Once upon a time the world was round and you could go on it around and around”, with various permutations on the possible rhythmic patterns. It is intriguing, as are the other pieces on this disc, but I must say that I am not at all convinced that any of it even qualifies as music; let me correct myself—it isn’t music. It might be what we have now come to know as performance art of some kind, and even seems more akin to naked rap (which I also don’t consider music per se), but those expecting musical sounds apart from accidental acclimations to general speech-tones will be disappointed. Those who like experimental avant-garde vocalizations will most likely be all-too enamored of these superb performances, and like I said, the sound is simply stunning. All others be sure to sample first.
—Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 26, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Eugene Goossens: London Recordings Volume 1 = BALAKIREV: Islamey (orch. Casella); TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a; RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Le Coq d’Or–Suite; BORODIN: Polovtsian Dances – New Symphony Orchestra (Balakirev)/ London Philharmonic Orchestra/ London Symphony Orchestra (Rimsky-Korsakov)/Eugene Goossens – Historical-Recordings HRCD 0078, 50:00 [www.historical-recordings.co.uk] *****:
Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) has more representation of his enormous gifts for color and visceral excitement in these restorations, 1930-1938, made in London. The program opens with Balakirev’s often wildly exciting 1869 Islamey–an Oriental Fantasy which Alfredo Casella orchestrated shortly before the composer’s death in 1910. Balakirev claimed that several of the melodies had been played for him by a Circassian prince in the course of the composer’s sojourn to the Caucasus. The second tune supposedly derives from a Tatar melody popular in the Crimea. Goossens’ recording (27 April 1930) despite its age resonates with a fiery Russo-Oriental energy that concludes with a thrilling coda.
The Nutcracker Suite hardly needs explanation or apology. Goossens (3 September 1937) moves the first four dances along quickly and briskly, though the entries remain brisk and the rhythms nervously energized. With the Arabian Dance, however, we hear Goossens’ achieving the sensuality and undulating mystery we associate with Stokowski’s often voluptuous sound. The bassoon and flute combine over plucked strings to realize a fluid and aerial Chinese Dance, whose triangle and increasing momentum make the episode infectious. The Mirlitons’ Dance enjoys a lovely transparency of sound in the winds and no little menacing drama in the middle section. The expansive approach to the Waltz of the Flowers conveys a distinctly French taste to the proceedings, including a ravishing harp cadenza. The upbeats more than tie the waltz to the Johann Strauss tradition, while the melodic stretches and rubati churn the sequence into Russian cream. The London Philharmonic’s cello section warrants the price of admission.
Rimsky-Korsakov might have retired from composition after the publication of his opera The Invisible City of Kitezh, but he felt compelled in 1907 to compose a “razor-sharp satire of the autocracy, of Russian imperialism and of the Russo-Japanese war” into which the Tsar had calamitously thrust his country. The pompous clown of a dictator King Dodon clearly parodies the Tsar, who prohibited performances of The Golden Cockerel. Goossens’ performance (9 May 1938) conveys the arrogance and destructive pride of the principal while maintaining a wiry and splendidly etched melodic line that often moves in transparent counterpoint. One would have to wait almost twenty years for an inscription–from Igor Markevitch–to match it. The LSO brass justify their international repute for top notch intonation and chiseled, layered entries. King Dodon on the March carries a ceremonial bluster that quite captures the composer’s frothy irony. The “love scene” between Dodon and the Queen of Shemakha projects a thin nasal sound in the strings and reeds that perhaps undercuts the lust and ambition of the plot, with its seductive charm, a political “resolution” accomplished without violence. For the last scene, Wedding and Lamentable Death of King Dodon, Goossens unleashes his LSO with the same deftly blistering colorful speed we know from the Albert Coates manipulation of that ensemble’s stunning capacity for accurate velocity of execution.
The Borodin Polovtsian Dances (16 July 1937), happily, do not suffer any anti-climactic consequence of having followed the passionate Rimsky-Korsakov performance. Goossens chooses to open with strings and harp, a brief sequence that might have presaged the Danse Macabre of Saint-Saens, except that lovely soft winds waft at the flaps of our tents while a muezzin call floats into the night. Then, the music explodes in dervish colors and diaphanous panoply that move with fervent authority–matched only by Mitropoulos in his New York Philharmonic performance–into the “Stranger in Paradise” sequence, itself a testament to a cool seamless sensuality that must be heard to be believed. The last series of dances vibrate with masculine vigor and feminine allure at once, intensely volatile, yet under a brilliantly nuanced leash or whip that evokes Borodin’s especial mystery to perfection.
—Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 26, 2011 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
HANDEL: Theodora (complete oratorio), Blu-ray (2011)
Conductor: Ivor Bolton
Christine Schafer (Theodora)/ Bejun Mehta (Didymus)/ Joseph Kaiser (Septimus)/ Johannes Martin Kranzle (Valens)/ Bernarda Fink (Irene)/ Ryland Davies (Messanger)
Salzburg Bach Choir/Freiburg Baroque Orchestra
Producer: Magdalena Herbst
Director: Christof Loy
Studio: Unitel/C Major 705804 [Distr. by Naxos]
Video: 16:9 1080i Full HD Color
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, PCM Stereo
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish
Length: 189 minutes
Rating: **1/2
This production, given at the Salzburg Festival in 2009, is so loony on so many levels that it is hard to know where to begin. But kudos must be given to the organizers for two major efforts: daring to stage a Handel opera at so large a festival and setting, and daring to stage this opera, which is not an opera at all, but an oratorio. At least it was until these folks got ahold of it.
When you listen to it you do begin to understand why Handel did what he did. The action is almost non-existent, is very preachy, and perfectly suited to a stage production—an opera is something else altogether. More on that in a moment. What this production does is exemplify the ideas and ideals of the period instrument movement, and puts many elements of it, as far as opera is concern, into the realm of bedlam. Look at what we have—an operatic stage the width of half a football field, a large chorus, what appears to be an extended period instrument orchestra, all singers having to resort to microphones in order to be heard, an “updated” staging that puts all of the singers in suits, ties, and tuxedos in an obviously non-descript modern setting, all of which testify to an inherent fraudulency in the period instrument movement. I mean, where do you start with all of this? There is no authentic period performance site anywhere in the world that rivals the largeness of this venue. Period performance never knew microphones. It never knew choruses this large, except in certain specific gala instances, like those that occurred in large cities. Modern dress certainly did not appear in Handel’s time, and period instruments are certainly the height of anachronism in this setting—why on earth are they needed here when everything else testifies to a vengeance for the need for very modern instruments instead? It just does not make sense at all.
Regarding the transferal of this oratorio to the stage—such things are not always advisable, and in the case of Theodora it is doubly difficult due to the aforementioned storytelling issues that render the work exceedingly non-dramatic. This was not a popular work in Handel’s time even though it contains some of his most magnificent music. The libretto was based on a corrupted version of the story (which Byzantine rendition essentially regards Didymus as the true hero of the narrative, and Theodora herself has none of the “priggishness” so accused of the Handelian version) where self-sacrificial love between a Christian virgin and a Roman imperial bodyguard in the third-century leads to the martyrdom of both, and the information presented in the libretto speaks of the virtues of the characters more than the action of the play. Christof Loy mentions in the notes that his intentions in this work were to avoid a traditional narrative, but even the most cursory glance at the staged action belies this assertion; the chorus members move around constantly, the principals push, shove, hug, and sing to one another in dramatic fashion. In other words, if your point is to avoid a narrative, which is essential to any opera, why make it an opera to begin with? Just leave it as Handel envisioned it, and God fare thee well. As is we get the strange concept of a hero (Didymus), a man, singing like a woman (counter-tenor) and later disguising himself as a woman in order to convince the powers that be that he is actually Theodora. Voices only could pull this off, but the transferal to action makes it nutty. It boggles the mind and stretches credulity beyond the readily apprehensible. A straight-up oratorio performance makes far more sense, and for that, best turn to the Nicholas McGegan recording on Harmonia mundi with Lorraine Hunt (Lieberson) and Drew Mintner.
Aside from all of this, the performance is not bad at all. Though I detected some insecurity in the normally reliable Christine Schafer, she does a creditable reading of Theodora. Bejun Mehta is little short of sensational in his singing of the Didymus role, brilliantly brought to life in spite of the ridiculous staging, and he possesses one of the strongest counter-tenor voices I have heard. Joseph Kaiser is quite the dramatic actor (but this isn’t supposed to be emphasized, right?) to the point of shedding real tears toward the end, and sings very well. Johannes Martin Kranzle seems too compressed in his vocalizing, as if there was something in the way of a full and open delivery, though he knows the role well. Bernarda Fink is by far the most accomplished and steady singer of the bunch, easily delivering the most assured performance. The always reliable Freiburg Baroque Orchestra plays superbly while Ivor Bolton gives a very secure reading. Director Peter Sellars opened this particular Pandora’s box a few years ago with Hunt Lieberman and David Daniels at a Glyndebourne performance, and though the setting is still very modern (even more so than this one) it works better because of the emphasis on the drama—it looks more like an opera, though the concept is still quite flawed in my opinion.
If you want to buy this just to listen to it, by all means do—generally it is a good reading, though short of the McGegan. Watching may prove a chore, despite the excellent Blu-ray picture (almost too good—every drop of sweat, of which there is a lot, shows) because at some point innate intelligence kicks in and we simply have to say “what???”
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 26, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
MOZART: Piano Sonatas (complete) – Robert Silverman, piano – IsoMike multichannel (4.0) SACD 5602 (7 discs), 7+ hours [www.isomike.com] *****:
These are quad recordings that are no less impressive for that, apparently the de Facto standard at IsoMike—a spinoff of high-end audio manufacturer Kimber Kable. Of course they are very careful in their recording process, this time at the Austad stage at Weber State University in Ogden Utah, which seats around 2000 people. According to the notes pianist Silverman is a true audiophile himself, so everyone looked forward to these 2007 recording adventures with a lot of anticipation. We are not disappointed here, as the true-to-life and wonderfully recorded Mozart masterpieces come through with a vibrancy and realistic presence as few do, so from a simple sonic standpoint these recordings go to the top of the heap in terms of splendiferous listening.
The IsoMike system, which involves the placing of four separate microphones divided by “Jumbo” ears, proves to be an ideal way to capture a piano. Even the concerns over hall reverberation, mentioned in the notes by the session photographer, proved pointless in the end, and there is none of that present on these recordings. There is reverb for sure, but controlled and balanced and kept in place by the miking system. Rarely has a Steinway sounded so natural and full of life.
Silverman is a known entity, having spanned the globe for 50 years now, and reaped many awards along the way, including a Grand Prix du Disc from the Liszt Society for his solo album, and a Juno Award for the complete Beethoven sonatas. His Mozart is equally affecting—while many might consider some of this playing anachronistic, I like to think of it as a real labor of love, the fruit of many years of experience with the music, and the assimilating of its mysteries in a very personal manner. It is not affected at all, yet the pianist doesn’t hesitate to hesitate when needed; lingering is not a moral issue with him, nor is the ideas of drama and long line. He takes Mozart’s every phrase as a personal conversation in a quiet room, and then relays the message to us later. Yet when power and authority is needed he provides it in spades, and the results are quite exciting. The best thing about these recordings is the complete avoidance of any sort of doctrinaire motives hovering in the background; each sonata is taken individually for what it means to convey, with no prerequisites being brought to the table. Think of the crispness of Brendel mixed with the subtlety of Uchida and you might get an idea of what Silverman has accomplished here. Most highly recommended!
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 25, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
* BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26; Romance in F Major, Op. 85; String Quintet in A Minor, Op. posth. – Vadim Gluzman, violin / Sandis Šteinbergs, violin (Quintet) / Maxim Rysanov and Ilze Klava, viola / Reinis Birznieks, cello / Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Litton – BIS multichannel SACD, SACD-1852 [Distr. by Qualiton], 58:04 *****:
In no way could Max Bruch be thought of as a one-work composer, when at least three of his compositions are firmly ensconced in the repertoire. But as well loved as his Scottish Fantasy and Kol Nidre are, they can’t hold a candle in popularity to the Violin Concerto No. 1 of 1867. In later years the concerto became a bête noire for the composer since it eclipsed his other works, including his Second and Third Concertos, which Bruch insisted were just as good, if not better (they’re not, of course). Horst Scholz’s notes to this recording include an amusing poem that Bruch penned to express his woes over his most famous work:
Police injunction regarding M. B.’s First Concerto
As recently the astonishing fact has manifested itself
That violins have started to play the First Concerto on their own,
We hasten to announce, to reassure anxious souls,
That we are hereby strictly proscribing the said concerto.
The First Concerto proved to be a particularly ill wind for Max Bruch since it not only brought him heartache but failed to bring him fortune: he had given up rights to royalties in favor of a lump-sum payment from his publisher and thus spent his final years in straitened conditions, during and just after the First World War. At least in his lifetime Bruch was celebrated as a choral composer; today, none of his big oratorios such as Odysseus and Moses is ever heard, let alone his once-popular short works such as Schön Ellen.
So here, from Vadim Gluzman and the Bergen Philharmonic, comes the 120th (give or take a few) available recording of the First Violin Concerto. I think even Max Bruch would be gladdened by its appearance because it is certainly one of the finest performances ever committed to disc and is far and away the best sounding inscription of the work I’ve ever heard. In the last few years Ukrainian-born violinist Gluzman has been building quite a celebrated discography, and you can hear why. His tone is vibrant, big and rich, his technique faultless, but more than that he has the ability to inject such emotional weight into this great old warhorse that it seems new-minted. The second movement Adagio is the emotional core of the work, and Gluzman plays it as if it speaks directly to his heart, launching Bruch’s soaring melody with the kind of fervor that, in turn, addresses the listener’s heart. That kind of fervor extends into the spunky Allegro energico finale, which Gluzman, Andrew Litton, and the Bergen orchestra deliver with more light and heat than I’ve ever heard. The gorgeously realistic SACD recording helps them make their case, of course.
The late (1911) Romance, originally scored for viola and orchestra, has shown up on disc a lot lately. It’s the tender-but-meaty sort of short piece that lets a performer showcase his or her interpretive skills since it’s all about deep-felt emotion rather than glitz. It’s a lovely appendix to the concerto, especially in Gluzman’s fine-tuned rendition.
Rather than another work for violin and orchestra, Gluzman turns to one of Bruch’s rare excursions into chamber music. With the exception of a piano quintet that he wrote in the 1880s, Bruch’s chamber works come from the beginning and end of his career. Bruch had confessed to his publisher that he’d rather write “three full oratorios for choir and orchestra than three string quartets.” Yet in the last years of his life, he turned out three chamber works for strings: two quintets and an octet. Perhaps, as Horst Scholz speculates, this was at the bidding of Willy Hess, the violinist and violist whom Bruch consulted for the string-based works of his final years, including the Romance. That would explain why both the quintet and octet are driven by the first violinist, who has virtuoso work to do throughout the two works. Gluzman is certainly the man for the job; he and his colleagues make this richly melodic composition sing and soar as it should.
I ought to mention that there’s an equally fine performance by violinist Ulf Hoelscher and his ensemble on the CPO label, and I actually prefer the recording they receive; the BIS recording for Gluzman, set down in the lively acoustics of a hall at Schloss Nordkirchen in Westphalia, is not as warm or intimate as I’d like. But that can’t detract from a superb performance of Bruch’s quintet or from a recording of the First Concerto that goes straight to the head of the class.
–Lee Passarella
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 25, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews
RAVEL: Trio in A Minor for Violin, Cello, and Piano; Sonata for Violin and Cello – Jamie Laredo, violin/Jeffrey Solow, cello/ Ruth Laredo, piano/ Leslie Parnas, cello (Sonata) – Sony Classical 88697 92169 2, 45:12 [Distr. By ArkivMusic.com] ****:
These 1973-1974 performances purport to be “Music from Marlboro,” but the Ravel works had their inscription at the Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New York City. The Marlboro connection relates to the common musical bond each of the featured performers maintained to Rudolf Serkin and his musical vision in the Green Mountains of Vermont. So we might consider the appearance of Jaime and Ruth Laredo and Jeffrey Solow and Leslie Parnas as part of the touring ensembles who represented the joyous spirit of chamber music playing that permeated the Marlboro ethos of the period.
Ravel’s Trio in A Minor (1914), conceived on the eve of and during the early outbreak of WW I, obsessed the composer, who worked feverishly to complete the score before his enlisting for the 13th Artillery Regiment of the French army. Rife with Basque, Moorish, and “Malay” harmonies, the work exudes an exotic languor and hazy eroticism quite detached from the political strife of the times. Relatively new to the piano trio medium, Ravel found himself concerned with the sonorities of the group as problematic for the cello writing, which exploits the instrument’s broad range, especially in the higher registers.
The opening Modere, performed with a casual, breezy abandon by the Laredo-Solow Trio, passes through a number of variants of its 8/8 meter in a gypsy style of the zortziko of Spain but fastened to Classical sonata-form. The Pantuom in ¾ with a trio in 4/2 takes its inspiration from a Malayan verse form, dancing in vivid colors via pizzicato and staccato notes that jab and scratch like Stravinsky riffs, somewhat jazzy and anticipatory in the keyboard part of the G Major Concerto. Ravel maintains the two rhythms at moments to thicken an already sultry texture with added heat. Ruth Laredo (1937-2005) opens the stately Passacaille, which we recall is a Spanish form based on an ostinato pattern established as a ground bass. Each of the three instruments has its moment of divine statement of the noble line. Solow’s deep cello sonority bestows a melancholy beauty on the proceedings, along with any number of ravishing chords from Laredo’s keyboard. The lovely dialogue near the end between Jaime Laredo and Solow anticipates the rich tapestry of the 1922 Sonata also featured on this disc. The exuberant Anime provides a natural, ‘oriental’ showpiece for the ensemble, especially when they sail into F-sharp Major in thick piano chords and sustained string trills in the manner of the Saint-Saens Egyptian Concerto. The dexterity of the orchestral effects quite assail the ear and intoxicate the senses, as though a sensuous Gauguin painting were undulating viscerally before our eyes.
Ravel in 1928 spoke of his 1920 Sonata for Violin and Cello as a “turning point” in his career, “[since] a purging process is in it — a departure from the appeal of harmony, the increasing tendency to return to melody.” Conceived as a memorial for the late Claude Debussy, the piece conveys a spare, cool, demeanor that eschews melancholy or mournful valediction. It seems to skitter through traditional harmony in favor of more audacious periods, and it may well exist as a reaction to a performance of Kodaly’s own duo for the same instrumental combination. One contemporary commentator noted that the cello is to sound like a flute, and the violin to sound like a drum!
The dry direct sonority of Laredo’s violin weaves in and out of Parnas’ rich cello line for the opening Allegro, the economical, linear progression balanced precariously in sevenths that occasionally explode in a semblance of ethnic dance or “Eastern” doxology. Something of the plucked and strummed effects in Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat influence the percussive and slashing sensibility of the Tres Vif second movement. A buzzed, haunting ostinato infiltrates the movement, which thuds and plods in busy figures in harmonics or wicked trills. An agonized sort of melody emerges, but not for long. The cello introduces and eight-bar melody of somber musing before the violin enters for the slow movement in song form. If the outer sections remain serene, the middle section exhibits high tension, harmonics and leaping figures predominant. The virtuosic last movement, a spirited if impish rondo, moves with sizzling staccato figures and resonant pizzicato chords. Laredo and Parnas seem to spit-fire the effects one after another, often in close imitation. Parnas uses the tip of the bow to introduce a martial tune whose tessitura likes to dip down then swoop upward. Just how close the harmonic movement lies to Schoenberg’s twelve-tone row must have amused Ravel’s sense of irony. An aural feast of its kind, the music, masterfully engineered here by John Friedenburg, stings the ear in a rich broth of pleasure and pain.
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 25, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
CRAIG MADDEN MORRIS: “Dreams” = Violin Concerto (piano reduction); Piano Trio; Dream Songs for piano; Cello Rhapsody (piano reduction); Tropical Dances for piano– Christine Kwak, violin/Eduard Laurel, piano/Nan-Cheng Chen, cello /Martha Locker, piano – Ravello Records RR7813, 79:32 [Distr. by Naxos] ***:
Craig Madden Morris is a New York based composer whose music lies squarely in the neo-Romantic mold. A violinist originally, Morris’ music has been performed by an impressive variety of ensembles including the Bronx Symphony Orchestra, the CETA Orchestra, the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia and the Nyack College Chorale. Interestingly, Dr. Morris is also a child psychiatrist and assistant professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians. He also writes a fair amount of sacred music for Sabbath services and it seems clear, from just this recording, that his music certainly tends on the melodic, diatonic, largely restful side of things. Therefore, it is hard to imagine anyone not liking these pieces.
For example, the two solo piano works in this collection make a very favorable first impression. “Dream Songs”, from which the album title is apparently derived, is a very pleasant three movement work, each bearing a title conveying a ‘song’ of love. Overall this is a very nice, plaintive work – simple and direct in its emotion. “Tropical Dances” makes a similarly strong impression. Another three movement work, this time based on Latin forms and moods, as the title implies, the effect is quite nice and this conveys a “tropical” feel as Ibert might have done – less on overtly predictable rhythms and more built on impressions. In each case, pianist Martha Locker plays with supple technique and very nice phrasing that emphasizes the beauty of these pieces.
Morris’ “Piano Trio” for violin, cello and piano is another good example of his melody infused, somewhat tranquil style. This is a single movement work that is based mainly on sections of melody that get interplay among each instrument. There is plenty of tradeoff and some nice variety between a fairly legato approach and some more rhythmically varied pizzicato and staccato treatments of the main melody. It is fun to follow the melody as it moves along and some of the nicer effects are achieved when the long unison line are interrupted by the pizzicatos, albeit briefly. There are just a few moments when the piece seems to initiate development and forward motion but the style and tone shifts a tad unexpectedly. Here too, this is a pleasant piece that leaves a very positive impression – especially if listened to a couple of times in a row. The performance is very fine featuring Christine Kwak, violin, Nan-Cheng Chen, cello and pianist Eduard Laurel.
The two works in this collection for soloist and orchestra, in piano reductions, are the ones that I felt left a little longing to hear the fully orchestrated originals. The “Violin Concerto” for example begins in Morris’ characteristic and pretty melodic musings. Each of the three movements has a very picturesque title; “By the River”, “Breezes” and “Dance” each implies some very colorful orchestration. “Breezes” also features a very long line melody and the arpeggiations in the piano do suggest a gentle breeze, not at all a storm at sea. “Dances” in the finale are very waltz-like and gentle. Again, the piano reduction works, of course, but one gets the feeling that the net effect would be stronger hearing the orchestration. Christine Kwak and pianist Eduard Laurel do a very nice job. Morris’ “Cello Rhapsody” is a similar story. This is a single movement work and very restful, a bit elegiac in places, having been written in memory of the composer’s first teacher. The tone, pacing and dynamic in this “Rhapsody” remain very consistent throughout its fifteen minutes; it is quite pretty, only occasional ‘restless’ and very moderate and plaintive in its approach.
I did enjoy this disc and I do find Dr. Morris’ music very interesting and pleasant. He does seem to be a composer – based on this disc alone – not prone to extremes. Melody and sentiment do seem to be his calling card and the aspects of composition that appeal to him the most. This is not music with a wide range of volume, tempo, mood, and harmony – no sudden “jolts”, no cock your head harmonies. Some might find that, therefore, the music does not make a strong indelible impression. The effect of each piece is one of simplicity. There is certainly a place for that. I would like to hear the “Violin Concerto” and the “Cello Rhapsody” in their full guise to really appreciate the effect. I cannot envision anyone not liking this music, especially if you want the simple pleasures of pretty melodies and uncomplicated textures.
— Daniel Coombs
by Audiophile Audition | Aug 25, 2011 | CD+DVD
“Climate Changes” = POULENC: Cello Sonata; DEBUSSY: Cello Sonata; JACQUELINE FONTYN: Six Climats; MESSIAEN: “’Louange a l’eternite de Jesus” from Quartet for the End of Time; BONUS DVD: DEBUSSY: Cello Sonata; Rehearsal of the POULENC: Cello Sonata – Jan Pas, cello/ Stefano Vismara, piano – Evil Penguin Records Classic 009 CD + DVD, CD: 56:48, DVD: 24:12 [Distr. by Naxos] ****:
Jan Pas is cellist for the Staatsoper Stuttgart, and has assembled an interesting program revolving around the French abandonment of traditional opera and ballet idioms starting around 1870 with the advent of Saint-Saens’s latent nationalism, and ending with a fairly new work by a Brussels composer whose lessening the stringencies of serialism allow her to enter the impressionist foray that haunts each of these pieces.
One might question the nature of impressionism as it pertains to Poulenc’s 1948 Cello Sonata, but a few bars of the second movement show that linkage to be anything but speculative. The first movement shows a very distinctive move away from the purely neoclassical ramblings of his earlier chamber music to a very pronounced nod towards, of all people, Brahms. It’s no wonder that this piece was so heavily criticized—still is—but from a distance of 60 years now we can certainly appreciate its beauties without the ball-and-chain of preconceived notions as to what his style should really be. The Debussy is a piece that reflected the composer’s first turn to chamber music. He created this sonata, which was to be the first of six, in 1915, subtitled initially “Pierrot angry with the moon”. But discard that—in the end it does little good. Instead listen to the alternating shifts between the archaism of the early Baroque and the frequent ventures into the world of rhythmic uneasiness and his patented whole-tone chords.
Fontyn taught counterpoint at the Brussels Conservatory, and uses these Six Climats as a way of poetically engaging the listener in a tour of climate change as miniature etudes written for talented students. The piece is mildly engaging when considered apart from its obvious titles, of which there are no audible connections to these ears. Taken as pure music they represent nothing bold or new—thank goodness—and yet seem trapped in the conventions of sixties serialism. Nonetheless there are moments of real interest, though the piece seems oddly out of touch with the heavies on the rest of the program. Quartet for the end of time is of course a Messiaen standard. The strange scoring of the work (piano, clarinet, cello, violin) reflects the fact that this was written from a POW camp in the Second World War, and this is what was available to the composer—one wonders what the inmates thought of this first genuine masterpiece from the man. This is the fifth movement of the quartet, with its long-lined cello melody and ecstatic utterances.
I like the way Pas and pianist Stefano Vismara play all of this music, vibrant and not holding back on the passion, something that often deadens music from this genre. The sound is also very rich and deep. The video documentary is like “a day in the life of Jan Pas”, while the rehearsal of the Poulenc and performance of the Debussy are very nicely done with superb picture quality and sound, though I would rather have had another piece offered on the CD and skipped the DVD—but they didn’t ask me.
— Steven Ritter
