Showing posts with label
Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
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Showing posts with label
Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Show all posts
Canadian conductor Peter Oundjian is moving on from a successful period at the helm of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and one of his final projects with them has been to record two works by American composer John Adams (b.1947). The first is a curious piece, Absolute Jest, for string quartet and orchestra, and the RSNO are joined by the Doric String Quartet. The work was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony to mark their centenary, and the only previous recording to date is by them. Adams draws extensively, and very playfully, on music by Beethoven – you can play a bit of ‘spot the tune’, with material here from Symphonies 8 and 9, as well as the late string quartets. The quartet rises and falls out of the overall texture, and as ever, the Dorics play with sharp precision and energy – in concert performance, the quartet is amplified to balance against the orchestral sound. There is a typically Adams-esque driving energy throughout, and it’s a great ride. The final wild prestissimo comes to a sudden halt, leaving a strange combination of cowbells, piano and harp hanging in the air, like a lost fortepiano echoing from the past. The main work on this disc, however, is Naive and Sentimental Music. The title is a reference to Schiller, and Adams is exploring the contrast between a simple and straightforward artistic response, and a more emotional reflection and expression. There are lots of Adams’ signature devices here, and there was much that reminded me of his great choral work, Harmonium. The first movement begins simply, almost relaxed, but a slow accelerando gradual builds the tension, with the straightforward melody ranging over increasingly insistent rhythms. The movement builds to an exhausting frenzy, with thunderous percussion. The second movement, ‘Mother of the Man’, has a lilting, if occasionally rhythmically off-kilter feel, and the ‘sentimental’ here is the moving solo for steel-stringed guitar (played sensitively by Sean Shibe), coupled with a mournful bassoon solo. The final movement, ‘Chain to the Rhythm’ starts like a quiet ‘Wild Nights’ (from Harmonium), and as the title suggests, is a tour de force of complex rhythms, which Oundjean and the RSNO navigate with impressive precision. Adams also makes great use of percussion, with a central quieter passage evoking the gamelan. The crashing brass and percussion conclusion comes somewhat suddenly, and it’s all over, but this is an infectious piece, and the performance here is striking and full of energy.
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has reached the seventh volume of his collection of the Piano Sonatas of Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Here there are five more sonatas, although the questions of authenticity rise once again with a few of these. The earliest here, Sonata No. 8, appeared in publication alongside four other sonatas, all supposedly by Pleyel, so whether this was from Haydn’s hand is uncertain. It’s a simple, not particularly profound piece, with an energetically stately opening Allegro, a graceful Minuet and a rhythmically jumpy Presto to finish. Bavouzet plays with his usual bright articulation, with some rattling arpeggios in the Allegro. The Sonata No. 46, although also relatively concise, has more interest, with running semiquavers contrasting with a stately triple time. The second movement is more unusual, sounding like a Bach three part invention, but with a Haydn twist. The finale has a lively theme that shifts in and out of major and minor, and Haydn varies the theme with increasingly dramatic virtuosity. The highlight of Sonata No. 13 is the rhapsodic, fantasia-like Adagio, and Bavouzet makes it sing like an extended aria. Sonata No. 57 is the fake here – the second two movements are transcriptions from Sonata No. 19, and the first movement is almost definitely not by Haydn, although it is not insubstantial, with winding lines like a two part invention, and some delicate octave work. The disc closes with Sonata No. 58, with a delicately expressive and improvisatory Andante followed by a lively virtuosic Presto to finish. Bavouzet enjoys the expansive expression of the former, and dashes off the latter with spirited energy.
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 40th 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 80th 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 80th birthday present. You can watch The Tallis Scholars in a video about the recording below:
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.
(Edited versions of some of these reviews first appeared in GScene, April 2015)
First,
music from American composer, John Adams
(b.1947). I saw his opera in 2009 at the ENO, Doctor
Atomic, which centres around the physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, and the build
up to the first test of the atomic bomb.
An unlikely ‘story’ for an opera perhaps, but then Adams has carved
somewhat of a niche for tackling political and controversial topics in his
operas (Nixon in China, and The Death of Klinghoffer, for example). I was absolutely blown away by the intensity
and drama of the music, and also the central performance of Gerald Finley as
Oppenheimer. However, transferring the
music from this to an orchestral symphony, as Adams did in 2007 to produce his Doctor Atomic Symphony, was a tricky
move. Yet for me, the music still holds
the energy, and the second movement in particular (titled ‘Panic’) is truly
terrifying. Adams transcribes the
stunning aria ‘Batter my heart, three-person’d God’, which Finley made his own,
for solo trumpet here, and it almost works.
Overall, the work stands as a coherent symphony, and it is energetically
performed here by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Peter Oundjian. They follow this with
Adam’s popular concert work, A Short
Ride in a Fast Machine. This is a
great orchestral showpiece, and its energy and humour is irresistible. Here, the driving rhythms do not always feel
totally secure, but the drive to the finish is convincing nevertheless. The rest of the disc is then given over to Harmonielehre – which is a really a
three movement symphony. Composed in
1985, it was perhaps one of the earliest large scale orchestral works to emerge
from minimalism. Again, it contains the
same elements of drive, energy and power, achieved from Adams’ relentless use
of the clever combination of slow moving harmonies against fast, repetitive
rhythms, with hypnotic results.
Relatively
little is known about the life of the English Tudor composer, John Sheppard (c.1515-1558), and a lot
of the music that survives is incomplete.
However, the music we do have shows what a skilled writer he was,
particularly in combining and drawing on chant with choral textures. He also made especially imaginative use of
the soprano/treble voice, creating beautifully soaring lines which rise
wonderfully out of the choral textures from time to time. The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, under Andrew Nethsingha, have recorded two of the more substantial works – the ‘Western Wynde’ Mass, and Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria virgo – and
interspersed them with a number of shorter motets and anthems. The opening Gaude, gaude is perhaps the most successful here, and the six part
motet, Spiritus Sanctus procedens is
given a convincing reading. However,
there are some problems of blend overall here.
The boy trebles produce a pleasant sound, but are not uniformly secure
particularly at the top end of the range.
Equally, there are some quite strong and individual lower voices which
stick out of the texture at times. I
suspect there are some budding solo voices here amongst the men, but that’s not
necessarily an asset in this repertoire.
(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, April 2014)
