CD Review - November 2018

Composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s (b.1980) strength in imaginatively setting words to music shows no sign of slowing. Magic Lantern Tales, which gives her new disc its title, is a setting of poems by Ian McMillan, which were in turn responses to interviews and documentary photography by Ian Beesley.  Beesley was Artist in Residence at a psychiatric hospital, and his interviews with elderly people document stories of love, loss and in particular, the impact of the First World War.  McMillan’s poetry, and Frances-Hoad’s expressive settings, capture the poignancy and intimacy of these tales, as well as their humour and human drama.  Tenor Nicky Spence, who premiered the cycle, sings with full-toned immediacy of communication, from the folk-like idiom, almost troubadour style of the opening ‘Marching through Time’,to the romantically poignant narrative of ‘Lily Maynard’, and the loss of her love in the Somme. Frances-Hoad cranks up the tension here, with ever-richer harmonies, and even gunfire from the piano (played here by Sholto Kynoch) as events take a tragic turn.  Even the bouncy ‘Ballad of Harry Holmes’, with elements of music hall and even drinking song, has moments of pause for bird song effects, but here again, the story telling is key, and Spence is captivating throughout.  The sadness of ‘Mabel Walsh’, with its insistent, pecking piano part under a long, lugubrious lyrical vocal line is followed by the opening song’s return, and throughout the cycle are references and allusions to music associated with the First World War period, such as Butterworth’s ‘The Lads in their Hundreds’, and songs such as ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ and ‘Pack up your Troubles’.  The Thought Machine sets ten children’s poems by Kate Wakeling, and the contrast of tone could not be more different, yet story-telling remains central.  Soprano Sophie Daneman and baritone Mark Stone, with Kynoch again on piano, share the task of portraying the silvery, ethereal atmosphere of the New Moon, the motoring rhythm of a mysterious Machine (with added egg shakers played by the singers!), and the strange, leaping extremes of voice and piano in the Telescope.  Humour and rollicking fairytales are here too, with great comic timing in Skig the Warrior and Thief, and some fabulously fun word-painting in Rita the Pirate.  Contrasting yet again, in Scenes from Autistic Bedtime, both parent and autistic child are given voice, with Edward Nieland (treble) as the boy and Natalie Raybould (soprano) as the mother, with cello, vibraphone and piano accompaniment.  There’s much repetition of text and musical motifs, and the frailty of the boy’s anxiety, as well as the tiredness and frustration of the mother are expressed skillfully by both singers.  The text (by Stuart Murray, himself a parent of two autistic boys) and Frances-Hoad’s music capture wonderfully the conflict of intimate and at times playful experiences of boy and mother, with moments of clear distress for both, particularly in the last of the three scenes.  Space does not allow me to do justice to the other material here, including two sensuously jazzy and dreamy solo piano miniatures played expressively by Kynoch, the wonderfully sombre Lament sung by Anna Huntley (mezzo-soprano), with low bell tolling on piano from Alisdair Hogarth, and the Britten-esque intoning in the trio for soprano, mezzo-soprano and countertenor (Verity Wingate, Sinéad O’Kelly and Collin Shay, with Hogarth again on piano), Invoke Now the Angels, with its dazzling outburst on the words ‘extraordinary angels’.  The same three singers, this time unaccompanied, deliver a beautiful close blend for A Song Incomplete, Frances-Hoad’s short Aristotle setting, written for her own wedding.  Finally, Love Bytes, for soprano (Wingate), baritone (Philip Smith), vibraphone (Beth Higham-Edwards), cello (Anna Menzies), conducted by George Jackson, is a mini-opera, a modern tale of a virtual romance that is perhaps doomed before it starts.  Frances-Hoad combines elements of almost musical theatre style with imaginative instrumentation, once again showing her knack for authentic communication of contemporary situations and emotions.  A highly impressive collection, striking in its sheer variety, emotional impact and communicative expression.

Hoad, F. 2018. Magic Lantern Tales. Various. Compact Disc. Champs Hill Records CHRDC146.

(Edited versions of this review first appeared in GScene, November 2018)

CD Reviews - December 2015

Pianist Barry Douglas’ fourth volume of Works for Solo Piano by Brahms (1833-1897) continues with his practice of mixing and matching more substantial works such as the Sonata No. 1 and two sets of Variations with selected shorter works from the later collections of Intermezzi and Fantasies.  It is interesting to hear these shorter pieces out of the context of the whole sets in which they were published – although there is nothing to suggest Brahms intended them to be performed as complete sets. So we hear here the beautiful C sharp minor Intermezzo from Op. 117, together with the E minor Intermezzo from Op. 119, three of the seven Fantasies Op. 76 and the first Ballade.  The great Sonata No. 1, Brahms’ Op.1 opens the disc, and the first book of the Variations on a Theme by Paganini (yes, that famous theme) ends the programme, with the Variations on a Theme by Schumann as the centrepiece. By doing this, Douglas cleverly contrasts power and weight in the larger scale pieces with intimacy and retrospection in the smaller pieces, thereby avoiding the cliched criticism of Brahms’ music being all too heavyweight.  It is also very effective placing the Sonata, his first published work alongside works from the very end of his career.  The Schumann variations are perhaps less well-known than the Paganini sets, but are another sign of the close relationship Brahms had with the Schumanns (he dedicated the set to Clara Schumann), and contain numerous references to both Clara and Robert. Douglas shows great power and command in the Sonata, particularly in its fiery and heroic finale, yet he also shows great subtetly in the two brooding minor-key late Intermezzi. The Variations allow him to demonstrate extremes of virtuosity, as well as moments of delicacy, particularly in the Schumann set. Once again, this is an impressive set, and Volume 5 is out too – highly recommended.

Brahms, J. 2015. Works for Solo Piano, Volume Four. Barry Douglas. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 10857.

Solo repertoire for the oboe took along time to become established in the seventeenth century, due to the oboe being largely inaccessible to amateurs and also because of the entrepeneurial fashion for publishing music for as varied forces as possible. So pieces would be published as suitable for flute, viol, oboe and other instruments to maximise the audience, making it hard to identify when a composer was specifically writing for a particular instrument. It was therefore commonplace for works to be transposed and transcribed to suit different instruments, and many composers expected and sanctioned this. Marin Marais (1656-1728) is best known for his music for viols, yet he expressly suggested many works could be transposed to be made suitable for other instruments. With this in mind, Baroque oboe specialist Christopher Palameta has recorded six of Marais’ Suites, making suitable transpositions and adjustments for the oboe. He is joined by a continuo of Eric Tinkerhess (bass viol), Lisa Goode Crawford (harpsichord) and Romain Falik (Baroque guitar and theorbo). The rich, warm sound of Palameta’s oboe is matched beautifully with the depth of sound from the continuo instruments, so that one would never know they weren’t written for the oboe. Whilst the form of the six suites here is relatively formulaic, with a Prélude followed by four or five dance based movements, there is nevertheless great variety in Marais’ writing. The Sarabandes are dignified and stately, the Gigues are sprightly and the Préludes are suitably arresting. A few individual movements stand out too, such as the rustic Musettes in the G minor suite, and the Spanish inflections of the final ‘La Biscayenne’ of the E minor suite. Palameta makes a convincing case for this music on the oboe, and hopefully more recordings from him will follow soon.

Marais, M. 2014. Suites for Oboe. Christopher Palameta, Eric Tinkerhess, Romain Falik, Lisa Goode Crawford. Compact Disc. Audax Records. ADX 13702.

I recently reviewed a disc of choral and vocal music by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, and have since been enjoying an earlier recording made of her chamber works.  The disc is called ‘The Glory Tree’, which is the one work here with voice, with a chamber ensemble accompaniment. Soprano Natalie Raybould, who sang on the vocal recording, performs Frances-Hoad’s settings of Old English poems with members of the Kreisler Ensemble. These are challenging pieces, with real extremes of dynamic, extending even to a scream which ends the final song. Yet there are also subtleties of writing here, with bell-like piano writing combined with woodwind ripples in the fourth song, and sombre string writing in the third. Elsewhere on the disc we have a angular, virtuosic solo violin piece, The Snow Woman (performed impressively by Natalia Lomeiko) and a richly intense, almost claustrophobic piece, Invocation, for solo cello with six tutti celli and double-bass, performed by Leonid Gorokhov and members of the Yehudi Menuhin School, where Frances-Hoad herself studied. With a darkly oppressive piano trio, Melancholia, inspired by paintings by Edvard Munch, a dream-like string trio, The Ogre Lover, and a quirky, jazzy solo piece, Bouleumata, for clarinet, this is a strong calling card showing off Frances-Hoad’s varied and imaginative writing for chamber forces. The disc opens with a wonderful work for oboe, cor anglais (both played here by the great Nicholas Daniel), string trio and piano called Memoria, inspired by Back’s Solo Cello Suite No. 2, and in memory of the oboist and cellist Sidney Sutcliffe who taught Frances-Hoad. After a tender opening to the Prelude, the textures build in complexity, and the fluidly interpreted Fugue which follows shows a strong sense of form and imaginative development of musical material. Together with the choral/vocal disc, this showcases a highly talented composer to be watched closely.

Frances-Hoad, C. 2011. The Glory Tree. Various artists. Compact Disc. Champs Hill Records CHRCD021.

(These reviews first appeared in GScene, December 2015)

CD Reviews - September 2015

I recently had the pleasure to experience a première of an amazing work by Cheryl Frances-Hoad performed by The Cardinall’s Musick in the BBC Proms (review here). On the back of this, I’ve been listening to a CD of her vocal and choral works, called You Promised me Everything.  The title comes from her work for soprano, piano 4 hands and cello, You Promised me Everything Last Night, which explores, in repeating this phrase over and over, its many inflections and interpretations, charting perhaps rather depressingly a trajectory from joyous ecstasy to ultimate bitter desperation and sadness. The inflections are expertly characterised with a stunning performance from soprano Natalie Raybould, over a largely simple and somewhat bleak accompaniment.  The disc opens with Frances-Hoad’s response to Schumann’s song cycle, ‘Frauenliebe und Leben’ (Women’s Lives and Loves), which is, although a Romantic masterpiece, perhaps stuck in a male 19^th century perspective on female emotions. So Frances-Hoad brings this up to date (while still drawing on elements of harmony or figuration from Schumann’s songs) in a cycle of eight songs, ‘One Life Stand’, setting poems by the poet and crime-writer Sophie Hannah.  As with Schumann’s cycle, the songs cover a range of emotions, but additionally here there is humour, in the dilemma of ‘should I, shouldn’t I phone him’ in ‘The Pros and Cons’, and especially in the mocking of male attitudes to pregnancy and childbirth in ‘Ante-Natal’. Yet Frances-Hoad also captures the depths of emotion, in the beautiful yet anguished lyricism of ‘Tide to Land’, with disturbing undertones in the harmony belying the vocal emphatic climax, and in the moments of cold shock and loss captured by ‘In the Chill’. Throughout, Frances-Hoad uses the texts imaginatively, whether vocally (for example the somewhat comedic yet barely suppressed anger and bitterness expressed in ‘Rubbish at Adultery’), or in the piano writing (such as the departing train in ‘Brief Encounter’). A brave thing to try and ‘update’ Schumann – but this is a highly successful cycle, and mezzo soprano Jennifer Johnston, who inspired the cycle, inhabits the spectrum of emotions here with great expertise. The piano accompaniment is at times highly challenging, yet Joseph Middleton performs this with apparent ease.  Johnston also performs the other major work that ends this disc, this time accompanied by Alisdair Hogarth in a setting of the Anglo-Saxon poem, ‘Beowulf’.  Highly ambitious, this is almost a mini-opera in itself, with barely a break for the singer in roughly half an hour of dramatic narrative. Yet Frances-Hoad achieves surprising variety, with passages of largely recitative over chordal underpinning from the piano contrasted with racing rhythms to portray moments of action, and great word-painting for the serpent and the dragon at the climax. The closing moments of wailing grief for Beowulf’s funeral pyre are heartbreakingly bleak. A live performance would offer greater communication between singer and listener, harder to achieve on CD, but nonetheless this is an impressively individual piece of dramatic vocal writing. ‘Don’t’ 

was dedicated to soprano Jane Manning for her 70^th birthday, and wittily sets marriage advice from the 1913 book ‘Don’t’s for Wives’, comically accompanied by the extremes of piccolo and bass clarinet. Jane Manning performs here with great gusto and aplomb. There are three choral pieces on the disc, all performed confidently by the Gonville & Caius College Choir, directed by Geoffrey Webber. They include a seemingly straightforward yet moving setting of ‘There is No Rose’, which avoids the saccharine of so many other modern Xmas settings – all the more impressive given that she composed it aged 14!  Her Psalm 1 setting contrasts stability, underpinned by the organ, with some wild, violent setting, with leaping intervals, and then ends with a striking effect of the organ literally dying away, with the instruction to switch of the blower, creating a bizarre effect of deflation. Her 21-part setting of the Nunc Dimittis is highly challenging, with a particularly high-wire part for 1^st soprano, including numerous top Ds, ably sung here by Rose Wilson-Haffenden.  Overall, this disc demonstrates an incredibly wide variety of styles and moods, from humour to real depths of human emotion, and shows that Frances-Hoad is a composer of broad-ranging talent.

Frances-Hoad, Cheryl. 2014. You Promised Me Everything. Various. Compact Disc. Champs Hill Records. CHRCD057.

Violinist Tasmin Little has teamed up with pianist Piers Lane to record all of Schubert’s works for the instruments, and they are also joined by cellist Tim Hugh for the bonus addition of the Sonata for Piano and Arpeggione (or cello), and finally an Adagio for all three instruments.  The three early violin Sonatas, composed when Schubert was just 19 (although we have to remember he therefore had just 12 more years of composing, before his premature death at age 31) are light works, subtitled as ‘Sonatinas’ by Diabelli when they were published, perhaps in indication of their relatively small scale.  These are not juvenile works, however, and although the first movement of the first sonata is clearly based around Mozart’s E minor Sonata, many aspects of Schubert’s mature style are also here.  These are real chamber works, in that the violin and piano are very much in equal partnership, and Little and Lane are sensitive to this.  As ever, Little produces a warm tone throughout, and Lane has a lightness of touch when needed, as well as energy and intensity in some of Schubert’s darker writing. The fourth Sonata, from just under two years after the first group, already shows Schubert’s rapid development, and increases the level of virtuosity required from the violinist in particular. The Rondeau brillant which opens the second disc, composed just two years before his death, is much more virtuosic again, and gives Little a chance to flex her muscles. The Fantasie was the last work Schubert wrote for the combination, composed the year before his early death, and from the very opening feels emotionally from a totally different place. The ‘fantasy’ form allows him more flexibility, although there is still a clear structure, and both instruments are given the chance to shine individually and together. The tender pianissimo playing from both in the Andante opening (which returns towards the end of the work) is very touching, and the central variations on one of his own song themes, first presented on the piano is Schubert at his most sublime.  The arpeggione was a short-lived instrument, a kind of hybrid cello-guitar, with six strings tuned like a guitar but played with a bow, and Schubert’s Sonata is really the only notable work for the instrument to survive, most often now played in a transcription for the cello. Tim Hugh’s warm, relaxed tone brings some welcome respite after the intensity of the Fantasie, and then the three join to close the disc in the very slow, exquisite single movement Adagio.  Another very late work, this was possibly intended as a slow movement for a full piano trio, but as with so many other of Schubert’s incomplete works, it is almost even more sublime for its fragility, without outer movements to diminish its intensity.  Overall, the violin sonatas are perhaps not amongst Schubert’s greatest works, but the playing here has such energy and life that these minor works are lifted beyond their lightness, and the later works, particularly the Fantasie, are works of exquisite beauty, and the trajectory of the programming, right through to the late Adagio, at all times performed with such sensitivity and expertise, makes this an outstanding collection.

Schubert, F. 2015. Chamber Works. Tasmin Little, Tim Hugh, Piers Lane. Compact Discs (2). Chandos 10850(2).

The Cuarteto SolTango are a German group, comprising Rocco Heins (bandoneón), Karel Bredenhorst (cello), Sophie Heinrich (violin) and Martin Klett (piano), and they specialise in authentic tango music.  The new wave of tango music has perhaps been most famously brought to new audiences through the compositions of Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), and they include a number of his compositions on their new disc, Cristal.  However, there are tangos here by a whole range of presumably Argentinian composers from the twentieth century, and a couple still alive today.  Sadly the CD notes give very little information on the composers or the individual works here (although there are some interesting notes on the history of tango music and its origins), so it’s best to just go with the flow here, and enjoy. Right from the opening flourish of the title track, ‘Cristal’, through the jagged rhythms of ‘La cicatriz’ (‘the scar’), the wonderfully spiky ‘Olivero’, the joyful, waltzy ‘Paisaje’, and the wistfully lyrical ‘Poema’, to the dramatic ‘Alma de bohemio’ (‘Bohemian soul’), the Cuarteto SolTango take us on a wonderful journey through the rich world of tango. The five Piazzolla works are striking in their relative complexity by comparison, however, with the sophisticated ‘Verano porteño’ (‘Summer in Buenos Aires’) and the mysterious ‘Homenaje a Córdoba’ (‘Tribute to Cordoba’) standing out. Beautifully sultry, this is a must for a late summer evening’s listening.

Various. 2015. Cristal. Cuarteto SolTango. Compact Disc. Avi Music. 8553331.

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