Adventurous, virtuosic and highly expressive celebration of 15 years of the Canellakis-Brown Duo

Cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown, met in their early twenties some fifteen years ago and have been performing as the Canellakis-Brown Duo ever since, as well as maintaining their separate solo careers. They clearly have a close friendship which has also stimulated compositions and arrangements  from both, a number of which receive première recordings here. 
 
First, let’s get the album title, ‘(b)romance’ out of the way. Now celebrating male friendship is no bad thing, but the term ‘bromance’ is unfortunately problematic for me. The implication is always that such a friendship between two presumably straight men needs a label, however tongue in cheek, lest we ‘misunderstand’. And just in case we are in any doubt, it is confirmed that Canellakis has a girlfriend, whilst Brown’s website informs us that he has two Steinways with female names (really?). Now there’s clearly a play on the term here, with reference to the numerous Romances for cello and piano amongst the eclectic and expressive repertoire, and their friendship and professional partnership of 15 years is worthy of celebration. But still…
 
Anyway, closeness of communication and warmth of connection are immediately evident in the Saint-Saëns Romance opener, with Canellakis in particular producing a glorious cantabile sound. Brown is equally expressive in the Romantic piano solo of the Romanze from Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, with Canellakis joining for the expressive, luxurious duet that emerges. Fauré’s Romance has a wonderful flow in the meandering, expressive cello melody, with Brown providing the necessary sense of motion from the piano. The rich, lower register opening from Canellakis is particularly striking here too. This is followed by Romance à GF, composed by Canellakis himself. He doesn’t clarify whether GF is his girlfriend, or the former composer’s initials, but regardless, it is an evocative piece, with the cello on long sustained piano notes of a rising scale emerging from the quiet mysterious piano opening. Once the melody gets going there is definitely a nod to Fauré here. Brown picks up the pace and intensity to support Canellakis’ outbursts, before it all dies away, leaving Canellakis at the heights of the fingerboard. Brown’s compositional offerings here include 35 Chords for Nick (a 35^th birthday present). The score (reproduced in the notes) indicates that the tempo, character and dynamics of the chords is up to the performer, and should be different every time – whilst setting down a recording obviously limits us to one version. But Canellakis’ mixture of spread chords, multiple stoppings, pizzicato and harmonics is engaging, and he again puts that richness of tone to great effect. There is also a Prelude and Dance from Brown, originally written as a solo cello piece for Canellakis, but with Brown adding the piano part later. The Prelude is an expressive, questioning conversation, in which the cello part’s repeated notes in particular get more insistent. The Dance that follows is wild and relentless, with most of the drive coming from the cello, with the piano adding complexity to the rhythms, before they swirl towards its frenzied conclusion.
 
The longest piece here is Sibelius’ dark Malinconia, and at just over 11 minutes in a programme of largely miniatures, it feels epic in proportions. Full of anguish, written in response to the death of the composer’s infant daughter, from the dark mysterious cello opening rising in anguish to the piano cascades, and then the folk-like cello lament over the piano’s rhythmic pulse, this certainly packs an emotional punch. As the intensity rises, Brown’s crashing piano is matched by Canellakis’ heart-wrenching full sound, followed by a quietly raging conclusion, making for a highly moving performance of this astonishing piece. Ginastera’s Pampeana No. 2follows this with the bell-like piano and extended dramatic cello flourish leading into a swirling dance and long passages of extreme expressive outbursts, then just when you think it’s almost over, there is a wild dance to finish, with both Canellakis & Brown showing their virtuosic prowess. 
 
Elsewhere, Canellakis makes the melody of Rachmaninov’s Lied sing alongside the relatively simple piano accompaniment, whilst Copland’s Poème, a contrastingly reflective piece, is given a peaceful, almost sensual reading. Debussy’s song Beau soir, here transcribed by Canellakis, is limpid and warm, with a beautifully controlled high ending from Canellakis. And Lukas Foss’ (1922-2009) Capriccio is full of American folksy melodies, galloping pace and train-like rhythmic energy, once again allowing both players to demonstrate their virtuosity. 
 
They end the disc playfully, first with 3 Preludes by Gershwin, arranged by Canellakis. The first is great fun, and the third is a joyful romp, whilst the central prelude is sultry, with a bluesy (if a little ‘clean’ here) second half. But they finish with a wild, virtuosic and crazy dance, Don Ellis’ (1934-1978) Bulgarian Bulge, originally for big band, in another Canellakis arrangement. Its 33/16 metre is fiendishly infectious, and Canellakis and Brown swirl and spin with sparkling energy to bring their programme to a glorious close. All in all, a great programme, performed with style, virtuosic command and expression – just a shame about that title!

Various. 2024. (b)romance. Nicholas Canellakis, Michael Stephen Brown. Compact Disc. First Hand Records. FHR134.

 
 

CD Reviews - August 2016

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.

Various. 2015. American Works for Cello and Piano. Paul Watkins, Huw Watkins. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 10881.

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 17^th 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. 

Various. 2016. Notes from the Asylum. Clare McCaldin, Libby Burgess. Compact Disc. Champs Hill Records. CHRCD111.

(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, August 2016)

CD Reviews - April 2015

The Tallis Scholars have recorded their first CD of contemporary music since their famous recording of music by Sir John Tavener back in 1984 (my review of its recent release is here), unless you count their single track download of the piece they commissioned from Eric Whitacre to celebrate their 40^th anniversary in 2013 (and a review of that here too).  However, they have performed works by contemporary composers frequently in concert, and their Director Peter Phillips sees a close link between the music of Arvo Pärt (b.1935) and the renaissance polyphony repertoire with which The Tallis Scholars are mostly associated.  So, as a tribute to Pärt in his 80^th year, they have released an album of his music.  It’s entitled Tintinnabuli, which is Pärt’s own composition technique, formed after he experienced a block in composing in the early 1970s.  He had been composing in the neo-classical style, and then using serialism, but reached a compositional dead end, as well as getting into trouble with the Soviet authorities.  He turned to early, particularly medieval music for inspiration, and his new style combined simple meditative harmonies with the clustered overtones bells make when struck. The Tallis Scholars have recorded eight of Pärt’s most significant a capella works here, the most well known being his setting of the Magnificat, which they precede on the disc with his Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen ('Seven Magnificat Antiphons'). The Tallis Scholars’ pure sound is well suited to this music, and the sopranos in particular produce an appropriately ringing sound. Most of the works here were written for larger choral forces, but The Tallis Scholars bring an intensity which means that the sudden fortissimi perhaps don’t create the wall of sound we might expect, but still achieve a sense of power – the climax of the Magnificat is a case in point.  Rhythmic interest is rare in Pärt, with the sixth Magnificat-Antiphon, and the curiosity of ‘Which Was the Son of…’ stand out. In the latter piece, a daring setting of the genealogy of Christ, so basically just a list of names, Pärt actually achieves considerable interest in varying the textures and The Tallis Scholars relish the slightly tongue-in-cheek fun – Pärt was mildly mocking the Icelandic way of organizing family names (the work was commissioned by the City of Reykjavík). There are some delightfully simple textual settings here, such as I Am the True Vine, and The Woman with the Alabaster Box.  As well as the bell-like quality of the perfectly blended sopranos, the basses also deserve mention for their rich tone and anchoring drones.  A stunning release, and a fitting 80^th birthday present. You can watch The Tallis Scholars in a video about the recording below:

Pärt, A. 2015. Tintinnabuli. The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips. Compact Disc. Gimell CDGIM 049.

Violinist James Ehnes has reached his third volume of chamber works for violin by Béla Bartók (1881-1945), and this disk is dominated by the set of Forty-four Duos for Two Violins, for which he is joined by fellow violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti.  The Duos appeared in four books, and were intended for students of the instrument to play either with their teacher or with fellow students (I remember attempting a few with my own teacher many years ago!).  They draw on a whole range of folk traditions, as one would expect from Bartók, but they also make extensive use of canon between the two violins, as well as bitonal harmonies and unexpected dissonances to shake up their seeming simplicity.  Rarely longer than a minute each, these spiky miniatures make for a surprisingly rewarding listen, as the folk melodies fly by one after the other. My highlights include ‘Wedding Song’ and ‘Pillow Dance’ from Book 1, the ‘Soldier’s Song’ from Book 2, the ‘Dance from Máramos’ from Book 3, and the slightly more substantial ‘Prelude and Canon’ which opens Book 4 – but you will certainly find your own favourites here. The two violinists are perfectly blended, to the extent that you will be hard pressed to know who is playing which line.  The disc begins however with Contrasts, a trio for violin, clarinet and piano, and for this Ehnes is joined by Michael Collins on clarinet, and Andrew Armstrong on piano.  The work was requested by Bartók’s compatriot, violinist Joseph Szigeti, who wanted a work to perform with Benny Goodman (and who recorded the work with the composer in 1940).  Bartók swaps around our preconceptions of the instruments here, often giving the jazzier lines to the violin, and the folk melodies to the clarinet, especially in the opening ‘Recruiting Dance’ movement. Again in the last movement he marries complex Bulgarian folk rhythms with jazz. The middle movement ‘Relaxation’ has a strange otherworldly feel, not least because of the unusual retuning of the strings of the violin required. Collins excels in his virtuosic cadenza in the first movement, and Ehnes responds with equal élan to his cadenza in the finale, ‘Fast Dance’.  In between, Ehnes and Armstrong perform the Sonatina, which is actually a transcription by Gertler of an original solo piano work.  Bartók used melodies here that he had recorded from Romanian village fiddlers, so the transcription by the young 18-year-old student was entirely appropriate, and Bartók gave his approval.  In its three short movements, he crams in five different folk tunes, including ‘Bagpipes’ and a ‘Bear Dance’.  A great disc of endlessly fascinating music, excellently performed by Ehnes and friends.

Bartók, B. 2014. Chamber Works for Violin, Volume 3. James Ehnes, Michael Collins, Amy Schwartz Moretti, Andrew Armstrong. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN10820.

Chinese pianist Xiayin Wang has recorded three American Piano Concertos with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Peter Oundjian.  George Gershwin’s (1898-1937) Concerto in F major will probably be the best-known work here, but the disc begins with the Concerto, Op. 38 by Samuel Barber (1910-1981).  The short two-movement Concerto by Aaron Copland (1900-1990) follows, and they finish with the Gershwin.  There is a thread of jazz influence throughout all three works, although in very different ways. The Barber Concerto is the latest work here, composed in 1962, and it is in the last movement especially, in 5/8 time, that jazz rhythms come to the fore.  It is an incredibly challenging work for the pianist, and Wang is completely on top of its demands.  The central movement has a typically sad extended lyrical melody, whereas the first movement is more confidently strident.  Wang and the RSNO under Oundjian judge these contrasts well, and this was definitely the highlight of the disc for me.  I have to confess to not being a fan of Copland, and I find his attempts at jazz unconvincing, and reviewers of his Concerto’s première felt much the same.  He’s at his best when he sticks to his French influenced post-impressionism (ironically considered distinctively American).  Anyway, his short two movement Concerto has a bluesy first movement, followed without break by a ‘snappy number’, as Copland referred to it. His attempts at humour here, with its swaggering, almost drunken feel I’m afraid just don’t work for me, and the competent performance from Wang and the RSNO doesn’t convince otherwise.  The Gershwin Concerto, composed one year earlier than Copland’s in 1925, is so much more successful – it is what it is, a joyous exploration of jazz, blues and dance.  Occasionally Wang could perhaps relax into the idiom a little more, although in the slow movement there is more of a sense of style.  Overall, it’s the Barber – both the work and the performance – that wins out on this disc.

Various. 2014. American Piano Concertos. Xiayin Wang, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Peter Oundjian. Hybrid Super Audio Compact Disc. Chandos CHSA 5128.

(Edited versions of some of these reviews first appeared in GScene, April 2015)