CD Reviews - March 2023

Jonathan Dove (b.1959) has composed many operas, as well as orchestral, chamber and film music, but I am personally most familiar with his choral works, ever since singing in performances of his oratorio, There Was a Child, with Brighton Festival Chorus and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Halsey, back in 2011’s Brighton Festival. A few of the BFC tenors were then invited to join the CBSO and the CBSO Chorus for a performance of the work in June of that year, at Symphony Hall in Birmingham. That concert was recorded, and it was great to have the opportunity to really get inside this striking work for soprano & tenor soloists, adult & children’s choruses and orchestra. I remember then being particularly impressed with Dove’s effortless choral writing, presenting singers with rhythmic and harmonic challenges, but always within very ‘singable’ music – understanding choral singing is still surprisingly rare among composers. And so it was a great pleasure to explore a new disc of Dove’s settings of texts by the Greek poet Sappho (c.630-c.570 BC), commissioned by the Cambridge based choir, the Fairhaven Singers, conducted by Ralph Woodward. Sappho Sings consists of six settings of fragments of verse, and are scored for the choir and orchestra, and the Fairhaven Singers are joined here by the London Mozart Players. There is great contrast here, with pastoral flutes and perpetual motion underpinning long vocal lines and falling cascades in the opening ‘From Heaven to here’, to driving string energy, vocal jabs and repetitive rhythms reminiscent of John Adams in ‘You burn me’. Dramatic timpani and brass, and racing strings create a stormy background for ‘Love shook my heart’. Then the upper voices are given richer textures from the strings and horns to underpin their tender rendition ‘Of Love’, with its sensual climax left hanging. In contrast, the lower voices have boisterous rhythmic energy in the

racier ‘Night’. The set then concludes with more long sustained vocal lines, and building, layered choral textures, in ‘Stars around the radiant moon’. There is some lovely word painting here, with falling vocal clusters on ‘stars’, a build to radiant high chords on ‘She’ and ‘silver’, and shimmering high strings left in the air at the very end. These are very effective pieces, with ample variety of textures and vocal styles in a relatively short set (around 19 minutes). The Fairhaven Singers give strong performances here, managing well the challenges of the sustained lines and tricky clustered harmonies, and there were only a couple of points at which the orchestral textures were in danger of overwhelming them in the balance. They sustain the long lines well, and give energy and drive to the more rhythmic passages. These pieces certainly deserve to be picked up by other choirs, adding to Dove’s growing catalogue of strong choral repertoire.

Dove, J. 2022. Sappho Sings. Fairhaven Singers, London Mozart Players, Ralph Woodward. Compact Disc. Convivium Records CR076.

Dove, J. 2012. There was a Child. Joan Rodgers, Toby Spence, CBSO Chorus, CBSO Youth Chorus, CBSO Children's Chorus, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Simon Halsey. Compact Disc. Signum Classics SIGCD285.

 

American composer George Crumb (1929-2022) passed away last year, and shortly before his death, recordings from a concert of his works given in Holland in 1978 had just been rediscovered. Ensemble Dreamtiger (Kathryn Lukas (flute), Alexander Balanescu (violin), Rohan de Saram (cello), Douglas Young (piano) and James Wood (percussion)) were formed in 1973 and were dedicated to performance of new and old music from around the world, although American music featured prominently, including the music of George Crumb, and in that concert in 1978, they performed three of his works. The ensemble gave their last concert in 1989, but they have offered up these remastered recordings in tribute to Crumb. First of all is a remarkable piece, Dream Sequence (Images II), for violin, cello, piano, percussion and off-stage glass harmonica. There are four groupings here – four tuned wine glasses, percussion, piano and strings. The groups play independently of each other, so every performance will be different – a recording can therefore only be one option for performance. The ringing from the glasses goes on pretty much throughout the seventeen minutes, creating a slightly disturbing tinnitus-like effect after a while, with glassy string shimmers and insect-like slides, squeeks and birdlike pecking. Shaking bells and bowed crotales add further effects, and the cumulative effect, once you get used to the constant ringing, is definitely dream-like, with thoughts flitting in and out of consciousness. The sudden crashing piano interruption towards the end is certainly a wake-up call, before the piece ends on a single glassy note and then disappears. The three movement Sonata for Solo Cello that follows provides a welcome contrast, and is the earliest work here, from 1955. Cellist Rohan de Saram delivers the opening movements guitar-like pizzicato followed by its dramatic exposition with passionate expression, and the central movement’s set of variations on a gently swinging siciliana combines improvisatory expression with racing pizzicato and singing harmonics. After a slow introduction, the finale races off in a moto-perpetuo gallop, with only occasional halts in its insistent rhythm. The disc then ends with Vox Balaenae (‘Voice of the Whale’), an eight section work for flute, cello and piano, progressing from the beginning of time, through successive geological eras, to the very end of time. The flute opens with fluttering and singing into the instrument, evoking Andean pipe music, before the piano crashes in and then delivers Jaws-like scrapings on the strings. There is extensive use of harmonics from the cello, as well as some falling, whistling firework effects. In the later sections, the piano is used to imitate the gamelan, and high crotales introduce the final section. Like Dream Sequence, this is a haunting piece that captivates once you settle into its world, and the expressive cello and flute duet and slightly more secure harmonies that follow in the final section give some sense of resolution. This is a fascinating window on Crumb’s music, and this disc is an important record of Ensemble Dreamtiger’s relationship with the composer and performances of his work. 

Crumb, G. 2022. Dream Sequence, Cello Sonata, Vox Balaenae. Ensemble Dreamtiger, Rohan de Saram. Compact Disc. First Hand Records FHR130.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the Manchester Camerata, conducted by Gábor Takács-Nagy, have reached Volume 7 of their project to record all of Mozart’s Piano Concertos. And their project is special for other reasons. Firstly, their ‘Mozart, made in Manchester’ project centres on the acoustically acclaimed Stoller Hall at Chetham’s School of Music, and they have also involved string students from the school in the project. The recordings also pair the concertos with some of Mozart’s opera overtures, so on this latest disc, two late concertos are joined by the Overture to Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). As with previous volumes, the matching of Bavouzet’s energetic precision and fresh articulation with Takács-Nagy and the Camerata’s nimble playing makes for recordings that positively fizz. The woodwind of the Camerata stand out particularly in the chamber, serenade-like passages, such as in the slow movement of the Piano Concerto No. 24, K491. There is an alertness in the players’ responses, so that the relationship with the pianist feels so much more conversational. In the opening movement of No. 24, Bavouzet’s playing has bite in the articulation, with the timpani, the perky horns and the fresh woodwind solo passages responding in kind. Yet there is real grace in Bavouzet’s slow movement here, beautifully paired with the chamber, pure-toned woodwind serenade. And then all concerned have a great play with the seemingly four-square, almost martial finale, always giving shape and nuance to Mozart’s simple theme, and the strings in particular get to play with the pianist here. The strings are also particularly sprightly in the opening of the Piano Concerto No. 25, K503. Bavouzet makes the rapid passagework flow beautifully, and the play on the Marsellaise in Broberg’s cadenza is a joy. Again, his grace is gloriously matched with the woodwind in the slow movement, which has a very laid back, relaxed feel, before the slightly spiky strings set off the finale with driving energy, setting things up for the racing piano entry, and here Bavouzet takes full advantage of Mozart’s playing with the sense of the downbeat. These are lively and illuminating performances, with a freshness and real sense of joy in Mozart’s glorious invention. The disc begins with a positively fizzing Overture to Le nozze di Figaro, with great dynamic contrasts from the quiet opening to the explosion that follows, and the precise articulation throughout from the players, without ever sounding laboured, is highly impressive.  

Mozart, W. A. 2023. Mozart: Piano Concertos, Volume 7. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Manchester Camerata, Gábor Takács-Nagy. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 20192.

 

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)

Brighton Festival 2012 - Lunchtime Concerts, Part 1

Finally catching up on some of the first week of concerts in Brighton Festival.  The week began with me unfortunately having to miss a lunchtime concert (Saturday 5 May) of Jessica Grimes (clarinet) and Fiachra Garvey (piano) due to a rehearsal clash (see BREMF Consort of Voices concert below).  My partner went along instead, and despite some of the repertoire not being his cup of tea, he really enjoyed the concert, and was particularly impressed by the young duo's ability to communicate their obvious enthusiasm for the music, and their comfortable stage presence.  As a non musician, he also found her background explanations of the pieces performed helpful and insightful.  Grimes also performed the challenging Fantasie for solo clarinet by Jörg Widmann (you can see him perform the piece himself on YouTube).  Grimes described Widmann as one of her musical heroes, and she and Garvey both attended the concert the following day at Glyndebourne in which Widmann performed the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with the Hagen Quartet (see my review here).  

Then on Monday 7 May, another lunchtime concert - this time, Jayson Gillham on piano.  Another young performer, he also has great stage presence, with a natural ability to engage with the audience, again choosing to speak about the music too.  He performed Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata (No. 21 in C major, Op. 53), followed by four of Debussy's Études (numbers 6, 7, 8 & 11).  He concluded his programme with Chopin's Ballade No. 4 in F minor.  Born in Australia, Gillham settled in the UK in 2007, and has a number of competition prizes to his name, as well as a well established concert performance career, and two CDs to his name.  His Waldstein was powerful and robust, the Debussy beautifully delicate, and the Chopin was appropriately bravura and full-blooded.  We were also treated to a short encore, which Jayson kindly informed me via Twitter was the Étude No. 10, Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) by György Ligeti.  An impressive performance all round.

Tuesday 8 May - more lunchtime music from guitarist Michael Partington.  Born in Wales, he now lives in Seattle, and judging by his soft accent, he's been there a while.  Initially I feared the rather dead acoustic in the Pavilion Theatre would not favour the instrument, and I struggled to hear some of his sensitively quiet playing to start with.  However, I think in the end, this actually worked for him, in that I felt drawn in to listen more carefully to the intimacy and delicacy of the music.  Once again, we were given useful introductions and background notes on the music.  He began with a pleasant set of Variations, Op. 102 by Mauro Giuliani.  These were followed by his own arrangement of two Sonatas (K208 & K209) by Domenico Scarlatti.  As he explained, these keyboard sonatas fit remarkably well on the guitar, and his arrangements are fitting and effective.  Partington is also a great advocate of new music for the guitar, having commissioned and premiered many works.  He next performed Six Preludes by the Oregon based composer Bryan Johanson.  A great contrast to the rest of the programme, these showed a wide range of influences, as well as using some extended techniques on the instrument.  One, we were told beforehand, was even based around a Supremes song.  I spotted that it was the fourth, but couldn't identify the song - I heard him tell another audience member after, but didn't catch the title - so if you're out there, Michael... (update from the man himself - it was 'Keep Me Hanging On').  The highlight of his programme was the beautiful Tombeau sur la mort de M. le Comte de Logy.  Le Comte de Logy (or Jan Antonín Losy) was the 'Prince of the Lute' in his day, and Sylvius Leopold Weiss wrote this moving piece upon his death in 1721.  Interestingly, it uses one of the same 'extended' techniques we heard in the Johanson (string bending) to evoke wailing and grieving, and the rising scale towards the end depicts Le Comte's soul rising to heaven.  Despite a couple of memory lapses (I think), this was a touching performance, and made me want to seek this piece out again.  The programme ended in perhaps more familiar territory, with Tres Piezas Españolas by Joaquín Rodrigo.  

© Eric Richmond

The final lunchtime concert in this first week was very special, and for this we moved over to the Corn Exchange - although the concert was surprisingly not sold out (a top name pianist, for just a tenner...).  He began with Debussy's Children's Corner.  Despite their deceptive simplicity, these miniatures are not straightforward, but are equally not great virtuosic showpieces either.  It was nice to hear such a great pianist performing these graceful and witty pieces with such subtlety of expression, and they provided the perfect opener, before the more challenging Processional by George Crumb (b. 1929).  One of Crumb's few piano pieces that doesn't involve extended effects or preparations, this piece nevertheless does use on particular effect rather well - chords are placed silently following heavily attacked chords above or below, creating a curious resonance.  In the larger, slightly barn-like acoustic of the Corn Exchange, this proved rather effective, although it may not have carried completely to the back of the hall.  The lion's share of the programme was then taken up with Ravel's Miroirs, a mammoth work of five impressionistic and highly evocative pieces, containing huge challenges for the pianist.  The arpeggios of the third piece, Une barque sur l'océan, was particularly beautifully performed here, the music rippling and flowing almost endlessly.  The concluding bells of La vallée des cloches perfectly concluded a captivating and uplifting oasis in the middle of a miserably rainy day!