Having recorded four volumes
of British Works for cello and piano, the brothers Paul Watkins and Huw Watkins (cello and piano respectively) have turned
their attention to American works for the same forces. Their disc includes
works by five American composers (incidentally, three of whom were gay), and
the works span forty or so years of the twentieth century. The earliest work is by Samuel Barber (1910-1981), his Sonata
Op. 6. Barber composed the work
after playing Beethoven & Brahms’ cello sonatas in Italy with Domenico
Menotti, the brother of Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber’s subsequent life
partner. It is a strongly romantic work,
with clear influence of Brahms, and perhaps without the individuality of his
mature output. However, Barber cuts
through the lush lyricism of the Adagio with a central scherzo-like Presto, and
the Watkins brothers handle this contrast expertly. Similarly, the impassioned finale is
controlled with frequent tempo changes, which can threaten the work’s
coherency, but not so here. Next up are Three Meditations by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), arranged
by the composer from his monumental and highly controversial Mass from 1971, a
musical theatre piece which intersperses settings of Latin mass movements with
contrasting sections in English, drawing on several choirs, a rock band and a
marching band. Not particularly well
received at the time, it still divides opinion on whether its mash-up of genres
works or not. Even in these three short
Meditations, Bernstein combines earnest, almost yearning writing, and glassy
harmonics for the cello in the first, spiky chromaticisms drawing on a theme from
Beethoven’s Ninth Sypmphony in the second, with an unexectedly bouncy, folk
dance (with Huw Watkins adding bongos rather than Bernstein’s instructions for
using the piano lid for percussive effect) in the final Meditation. A somewhat bizarre mixture of styles, Paul
and Huw nevertheless make a convincing case for the work, particularly in the
complex second Meditation. Elliott Carter (1908-2012) was an
incredibly prolific composer, particularly in his latter years, before his
death at the age of 103. His Sonata for Cello and Piano dates from
1948, and marks a shift in Carter’s output from a more popular neoclassicism to
the beginnings of his exploration of what he called ‘temporal modulation’,
where the relationship of pulse lengths become a key structural element of
composition. Once again here, the
Watkins duo navigate this with expert precision, and their commanding
performance here is the stand out moment of the disc. Huw then gets a rest as Paul performs George Crumb’s (b.1929) Sonata for Solo
Cello. Composed in 1955, he
dedicated the work to his mother, an accomplished cellist. Drawing on baroque traditions in its Fantasia
and Toccata outer movements, there are also strong influences of Bartók evident
here. Paul Watkins is particularly
impressive in the rapid Toccata, with its almost perpetual motion
throughout. The brothers join for the
final piece, the Waltz and Celebration from
Aaron Copland’s (1900-1990) Billy the
Kid, arranged by the composer for cello and piano. I am not a fan of Copland in his faux-folksy
mode, and after the intensity and complexity of some of the other works on the
disc, these two short, rather light movements feel a little out of place, but
they receive articulate and sensitive attention here. Overall, very strong performances, and a
fascinating survey of such varied composers, despite being broad contemporaries.
A few years ago I reviewed
an excellent disc of mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin singing works written for her by Stephen McNeff (b.1951), and she has returned to disc with a
collection exploring the theme of female ‘madness’, entitled ‘Notes from the Asylum’. McNeff’s and McCaldin’s working relationship
has continued, and in 2013 McNeff wrote his opera in six songs for
mezzo-soprano and piano, Vivienne,
which McCaldin performed with pianist Libby Burgess. The work explores the life of Vivienne
Haigh-Wood, who married T. S. Eliot in 1915.
The relationship was difficult to say the least, and after Eliot decided
on a separation, effectively then shunning her from his life, Vivienne’s mental
and physical health finally led to her brother having her committed to an
asylum in 1938, where she remained until her death in 1947, never visited by
Eliot. McNeff’s six songs, using texts by Andy Rashleigh, move from Vivienne in
the asylum remembering her life before her relationship with Eliot, through the
turbulence of their relationship, as well as her affair with Bertrand Russell,
leaving Vivienne at the end imagining Eliot visiting her and coming back to
her. McNeff writes strikingly nostalgic
music, perfectly evoking a sense of the time, particularly in the spoken lines
of Bertie, à la Walton’s Façade. Yet there is a highly individual voice here
too, particularly in the sense of disintegration McNeff creates in the final
song, Belladonna, as the voice is
left increasingly alone. As is often the
case when performers have premiered a work of this nature, McCaldin has clearly
inhabited the world of Vivienne, and her performance communicates a strong
sense of truth and honesty, throughout the highly virtuosic demands put on her,
with real extremes of range and dynamics.
A real tour de force. Vivienne actually closes the disc, and before
this McCaldin moves through a good three centuries of repertoire exploring her
theme and how composers, mostly but not quite all male, have portrayed in their
music women with perceived madness.
Useful sleeve notes by Paul Conway discuss the prurient 17th
century obsession with mental illness, and how this was reflected in the
popularity of the Restoration ‘mad’ songs, of which Purcell’s ‘Mad Bess’ is a prime example, describing ‘poor senseless
Bess’, presumably as a result of lost or unrequited love. Here, it is performed in the arrangement made
by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976),
which adds a harder edge to the song, and McCaldin matches this accompaniment
with a fuller sound than might be expected in Purcell. Two sets of songs by Brahms (1833-1897) and Hugo
Wolf (1860-1903) (who also ended his life in an asylum) are preceeded by a
brief song by Harriet Abrams
(1758-1821), ‘Crazy Jane’, a rather quaint setting of a text more anguished
than the music might suggest, once again reflecting the image of a woman driven
mad by the falseness of men. Brahms’ Ophelia Lieder draw on texts from
Ophelia’s ‘mad scene’ in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and despite their brevity,
Brahms packs an emotional punch, particularly in the final song of the set,
‘Und kommt er nicht mehr züruck?’ (‘And will he not come again?’). Wolf set many poems by Eduard Mörike, and here McCaldin sings five, all sung from the
perspective of an Ophelia-like character, Agnes. The harmonic language is denser and more
dramatic here than the Brahms songs, with strong touches of Wagner. McCaldin’s full tone is well suited to these
affecting songs, and the emotional climax of ‘Wo find ich Trost’ (‘Where shall I find comfort?’) is particularly
powerful. Jumping forward to 1971,
McCaldin and Burgess are joined by clarinettist Catriona Scott for American composer Ned Rorem’s (b.1923) Ariel,
Five Poems of Sylvia Plath. These are highly virtuosic settings, for all
three perfomers, which capture the sense of anger and turbulence of the poetry,
written shortly before her suicide at the age of 30. The
Hanging Man has a particularly challenging cadenza for clarinet, and Lady Lazarus pushes the bounds of
technique for the singer, ending ‘with a loud gasp’. This is a powerful disc,
and McCaldin demonstrates the wide range and adaptability of her voice across
such a broad range of repertoire, but it is in Vivienne that her dramatic
abililties are most impressively in evidence.
Libby Burgess (piano) also
deserves praise, showing great command throughout the wide-ranging repertoire.
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