American Classics - Coates: String Quartet No. 9, Sonata For Violin Solo; Lyric Suite
Naxos
CD
$19.99Sep 28, 2010
COATES String Quartet No. 9.1 Sonata for Solo Violin.2 Lyric Suite for Piano Trio, “Split the Lark, and You’ll find the Music2,3” • 1Kreutzer Str Qrt; 2, 3Peter Sheppard Skaerved (vn); 3Neil Hyde, (vc); 3Roderick Chadwick (pn) • NAXOS 8.559666 (58: 51)
I get the feeling that Gloria Coates does not spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not other people enjoy her music. That is a compliment, not a complaint. Whether or not you like what she does, she does it with a very personal style and with great conviction. The present CD, the fifth of Coates’s music to be released under Naxos’s American Classics imprint, ranks very low on the list of CDs one would play as light background music during a convivial dinner with friends. Coates’s music, this CD included, forces one to consider why we listen to music at all, and to examine what we mean by “entertainment.” To my thinking, entertainment, in the usual sense of the word, is overrated. We need to devote equal time and effort to moving ourselves into new emotional and intellectual territories, even at the risk of causing ourselves a little pain.
Coates is an American who now lives in Germany. In an interview, she describes the German culture as “very serious and formal,” and comments, “One is left alone much of the time unless he plans ahead.” Is there anyone in the United States who is writing music quite like Coates’s? Not that I am aware of. Her music says difficult things—things Americans seem unwilling to say at this point.
This is the world premiere recording of her recent (2007) String Quartet No. 9. The work is in two movements, both of them slow, and both of them making an almost obsessively detailed exploration of texture and sound. The first is a canon and nearly a palindrome, although the materials thus treated are not only melodic but also textural. The long, siren-like glissando, a trademark of Coates’s music from the start of her career, appears six minutes in and produces an unsettling effect. The listener also is thrown off kilter by pitch, because the first violin and the viola are tuned down one quarter-tone. Glissandos occur in the second movement, albeit within a narrower range; imagine listening to the slow movement of a late Beethoven quartet on a turntable whose motor is giving out and from an LP that has been pressed off-center. As Kyle Gann writes in his booklet notes, “The atmosphere is unworldly, creepily dissonant and yet serene, a kind of music of the spheres.”
The Sonata for Violin Solo (2000) allows aspects of Coates’s compositional style to stand out in stark relief. The movement titles—Prelude, Fantasia, Berceuse, and Hornpipe—suggest Handel or Bach, or at any rate more “traditional” composers, but once again, Coates goes her own fascinating way.
One might think that Emily Dickinson would elicit a brighter response from any composer. All of the Lyric Suite’s (1996) seven movements are headed by a fragment from Dickinson’s poetry. The Belle of Amherst was a mystic and a visionary, though, and Coates’s music underscores the notion that much of Dickinson’s work was actually quite strange, considering the time and place in which she lived. Once again, unusual playing techniques, including strings tuned a quarter-tone flat, create a sound world that is eerily beautiful and queasy.
For Coates newbies, any of the discs featuring her orchestral works might be a slightly easier introduction. Nevertheless, I feel that the present CD is an honest representation of who she is and what she does.
The Kreutzer Quartet has participated in earlier Coates recordings, and the quartet’s first violinist, Peter Sheppard Skærved, has championed Coates for her music for two decades. (Neil Heyde is the quartet’s cellist.) It is hard to know what to say about the performances, except that there would be little point in performing and recording this music if one didn’t believe in it. Separately and together, the quartet’s members, plus pianist Chadwick, are committed to the task, and carry it out with deep concentration.
As usual, the cover art is a painting by Gloria Coates, whose visual art looks much like her music sounds. As the saying goes, when God gave out talent, she stood in line twice.
American Classics - Awakenings: New American Chamber Music For Guitar
Naxos
CD
$19.99Aug 31, 2010
Chamber music breaks exciting new ground with these three works by leading American composers. Aaron Jay Kernis’s beautiful Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby is a touching song cycle for the unusual combination of soprano, violin, guitar and piano. In the rhythmically agile Aged Tunes, Jorge Liderman contrasts the sonorities of guitar and string quartet. Steven Mackey’s Measures of Turbulence, a remarkably subtle soundscape despite its title, explores the gonglike multiphonic sounds of acoustic and electric guitars. Each of these new pieces was written for the artists who perform them here.
American Classics - Lang: Pierced, Heroin, Wed, Etc / Rose, Bleckmann, Real Quiet, Et Al
Naxos
CD
$19.99Nov 18, 2008
One of the things I like about this disc is that all the pieces try to take classical music someplace it doesn't usually go, declares David Lang, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who co-founded the experimental classical music festival Bang on a Can.
EIGHT VISIONS: A New Anthology for Flute and Piano – BEGLARIAN, E. / BUNCH, K. / CHEN, Y. / HUI, M. / LEÓN, T. / MORAVEC, P. / ROREM, N. / SANFORD, D.
Naxos
CD
$19.99Dec 15, 2009
New Zealand-born, American-based flautist Marya Martin enjoys an international career. She joins acclaimed American pianist Colette Valentine for this recordingwhich brings together eight contrasting yet complementary pieces commissioned for her f.
A Musical Journey - A Musical Visit To Andalusia, Sitges, Seville And Granada
Naxos AudioVisual
DVD
$13.99Sep 25, 2012
SPAIN
The Places The tour starts in the countryside near Sancti Petri, and shows other aspects of the fertile landscape of Andalusia, leading to the historic hillside town of Medina-Sidonia, seat of the Guzman family whose Duke led the Spanish Armada in 1588. The resort of Sitges in Catalonia is followed by the great Cathedral of Seville, reputedly the largest Gothic church in the world, and towns that reflect the Moorish past of this region of Spain.
The Music The French composer Maurice Ravel inherited from his mother, of Basque origin, a strong interest in Spain. Spanish elements influence much of his music including the Rapsodie espagnole, completed in 1908, Ravel’s first major orchestral work and a demonstration of his originality and of his gifts as an orchestrator. The music moves from the stillness of night to two characteristic Spanish dances and a final Spanish fiesta. Isaac Albéniz enjoyed a double career, winning an international reputation as a virtuoso pianist and doing much to establish Spanish music in a form acceptable at home and abroad. He divided the later years of his life, a period of deteriorating health, between Paris, Barcelona and Nice, years which saw the composition of his Iberia.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1 Region code: 0 (worldwide) Running time: 55 mins No. of DVDs: 1
A Musical Journey - Schumann: Carnaval / Scenes of Childhood
Naxos AudioVisual
DVD
$9.99$13.99Save 30%May 28, 2013
The tour takes US first to the carnival celebrations in Basel, with it's elaborate displays. There follows a visit to Vigeland Park in Oslo, with it's characteristic figures, the work of Gustav Vigeland. The music chosen for this tour is by Schumann. His Carnaval accompanies the carnival in Basel, flowers in the countryside are depicted in Blumenstuck and the granite figures in Vigeland Park, in Oslo, are matched with Scenes of Childhood.
A Musical Journey: Sicily - Palermo, Erice, Segesta, Stromboli
Naxos AudioVisual
DVD
$13.99Nov 19, 2013
SICILY
The Places Sicily has enjoyed a remarkably varied history, held by Phoenicians and Carthaginians, it became part of Roman territory, later to be occupied by Ostrogoths, recaptured by the Byzantines, ruled by Saracens, and occupied by the Normans, followed by German, French, and Spanish overlords. It was only in the mid-nineteenth century that the island was drawn into the unified country of Italy. The historical changes that Sicily has undergone are reflected in its culture.
The Music The music chosen for this tour of Sicily is by Beethoven and consists of three of his best known piano sonatas, the Pathétique, the Moonlight and the Appassionata.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3 Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 Region code: 0 (worldwide) Running time: 57 mins No. of DVDs: 1
By coincidence, Bridge Records have recently released a disc of American composer Lawrence Dillon's chamber music. It’s entitled "Insects and Paper Airplanes" and was warmly reviewed here. This release by Naxos brings his discography to four, following a 2002 chamber works volume on Albany Records (TROY 513) and another with voice, also on Albany (TROY1170).
The Naxos blurb says: "A love for lyricism, a dash of wit, and what he has called “an irresistible urge” to connect with the Classical music heritage have remained easily identifiable hallmarks of Dillon’s music." These words give a pretty accurate idea of what the potential listener can expect from this disc. Dillon does have a blog on Sequenza 21.com, a trendy American site which grandly bills itself as "The Contemporary Classical Music Community", but which leans heavily towards music that "refuses to be pigeon-holed": experimental-cum-crossover. But the nearest the music on this CD gets to that is the short 'duet' in Fifteen Minutes for violin with kazoo - otherwise this is an hour of music that is often profound without being pretentious, sometimes light-hearted but never 'lite', humorous without being arch, and immensely appealing but never frivolous. According to Naxos's usual formula, {American composer} always = {American Classics}, but sometimes there is more than a touch of prescience about such fundamentally commercial choices.
This CD also represents the debut recording of up-and-coming Mexican-American violinist Danielle Belén, who was Grand Prize winner at the 2008 Sphinx Competition. Her award charged her with choosing an American composer with the intention of recording his or her violin works - she chose Dillon. Her website, at the time of writing, features a YouTube video of her performing the Bacchus Chaconne. Her musicianship on this disc bristles with expressiveness, technical agility and considerable enthusiasm for Dillon's writing.
The recording covers 25 years of the composer's work. There are two pieces for solo violin, the brief and zippy Mister Blister and the quarter of an hour long Fifteen Minutes. The two are related in that they are in a way the same commission, one done right, one done wrong - the amusing story is in the notes! Fifteen Minutes - with a nod to Andy Warhol - is really 16 individual shorts moulded into a polystylistic and often technically challenging suite, which includes a variety turn on the kazoo.
There is one work for violin and marimba, Spring Passing, an atmospheric, nebulous elegy Dillon wrote by way of tribute to his father, who died when he was two; and one for violin and viola, the Bacchus Chaconne, which Dillon composed as a cathartic response to the very late cancellation of an almost-finished commission for a cello concerto. The work starts slowly and deliberately solemnly, all the better to contrast with the dancy, rock-inflected chaconne that follows, in which the soloists try to outplay each other, before the work ends, figuratively, in tears!
The remaining three works are all for violin and piano. The Voice is Dillon's melancholic, dramatic embellishment of a transcribed aria for an "unstable" soprano, from his own 2001 opera Buffa. Façade is one of Dillon's earliest works. In his own words, it takes "an 1890ish waltz, a pretty salon melody, and twists it through some increasingly irrational harmonic shifts until it shatters into inarticulate fragments. After a minute or two of stumbling about in confusion, it gradually reassembles itself into a fragile version of its former self." A lovely, sharp, innocuous piece, Dillon reports that it caused a bit of an uproar at its university premiere, with a "distinguished professor" instructing his students never to perform such a shockingly unmodernistic piece!
The final work is also the most important one: the Sonata, which started out as a flute sonata - indeed it was in that form that it received its premiere in 2005. Dillon adapted the work for Belén for this recording. Subtitled Motion, the intriguing titles of its three movements are: Motion/Emotion, Emotion/Commotion, and Commotion/Motion. According to Dillon, the movements explore the conflict implicit in the titles. The finale contains what he describes as a "whimsical tribute to early rock and roll", but that should not deter listeners: from beginning to end this is a fine, impassioned, attractive work, played alternately with great vigour and delicacy by both Belén and Australian pianist David Fung, one that deserves a place in the violin sonata repertoire.
Sound quality is excellent, with little difference between the church and studio venue, save the atmospheric resonance and barely audible background traffic of the former. The booklet notes are fairly detailed and interesting, and all biographies present and correct. Quality music, quality performances, quality production.
Works for 2 Keyboards, Vol. 2 – Music for Two / 3 Dances
Naxos
CD
$19.99Apr 29, 2014
John Cage’s practicality transformed the piano into a full percussion orchestra and a workbench for sonic experiment. Three Dances is one of his most ambitious prepared piano works. Music for Two includes bowed piano techniques to create shifting tapestries of subtle expression, making for some of the most exquisite and moving chamber music of the late 20th century. The second of a three volume series; Volume 1 can be found on Naxos 8.559726.
Paulus: Three Places of Enlightenment; Veil of Tears; Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra
Naxos
CD
$19.99Oct 14, 2014
I first came across the music of Stephen Paulus a couple of years ago in preparing a choral concert. I was struck then how very well written it was for the forces it used, and also pleased that it made an immediate impact upon the audience. The music here is perhaps more challenging and ‘serious’, but it has those same characteristics, making this disc a fascinating listening experience.
So we have two concertos of very similar profile and dimensions, flanking a short piece for string orchestra. The first three tracks contain the Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, a work written at the behest of the leader of the Cleveland Quartet, William Preucil. It’s interesting that the middle movement is by far the longest – longer in fact than the other two put together – and also that the Grand Concerto on tracks 5-7 has very much the same profile.
What of the music’s style and content? Firstly, I’d recommend listening to the CD before you read too much of the ‘blurb’, some of which is a little off-putting and pompous. I found this an enormously rewarding and enjoyable listen; Paulus is not a progressive composer, nor is he a ‘minimalist’. As you listen, you are more likely to relate his style to music of the second half of the twentieth century – Shostakovich, perhaps, in the nervous rhythms of the Concerto for String Quartet’s thrusting first movement, and maybe even Tippett in the rather beautiful but uneasy slow movement that follows. That is not to say that Paulus is derivative; I only cite these composers to give a stylistic reference point.
The concerto is sub-titled Three Places of Enlightenment, and each movement has a title too; the first is From Within, the second From Afar and the lively third is From All Around and Radiating Ever Outward. Make of that what you will, but the simple fact is that this is entertaining music, superbly conceived for the forces involved.
Veil of Tears is an interlude from Paulus’ holocaust-inspired oratorio To Be Certain of the Dawn. It is a searching, desolate piece — again Shostakovich comes to mind — which could and should find its way into the established string orchestra repertoire. Once more, the composer shows what a wonderful ear he has for texture, and creates music which, while not incredibly hard to play, still manages to use to the full the resources available to him.
The programme on this disc is well constructed, because the Grand Concerto for Organ and Orchestra begins in darkness, following on from the mood of Veil of Tears. This first movement soon opens out into an eventful quicker section, contrasting the solo organ and the various sections of the orchestra in highly effective ways. The recording is excellently balanced – organ concertos are notoriously tricky in this respect – and the alert, characterful playing of the Nashville orchestra under Guerrero comes over with total clarity.
Another refreshing characteristic of Paulus is that he is not afraid of melody. The middle movement of the Grand Concerto begins with a fine example, a winding descending line that ends with the quiet entry of woodwind and strings. The textures here are wonderful, the high-pitched reed tones of the organ blending and mixing with the upper woodwind. Neither is he afraid of a climax, as the colossal build-up at the centre of this magnificent movement (sub-titled Austere: Foreboding) attests. Out of this emerges a long climbing melody in the violins that seems the antithesis of the despondent falling phrase of the opening. The movement ends very quietly. Incidentally, in his note on this movement, the composer mentions his reference to a hymn-tune Come, come ye saints, set to an English folk-melody All is Well. It’s heard softly in the organ near the end.
Busy strings and percussion usher in the finale, Jubilant. It certainly is, and witty too, as it seems to re-create the celebratory mood of the good old Widor Toccata. The energy is vast, and over the organ’s frenzied activity, Paulus introduces the tune O Waly Waly high in the violins. Not sure why, but that doesn’t matter – it’s an exhilarating ride.
All in all, a wonderful CD, and one I would passionately commend to anyone searching for a modern composer who is neither bamboozlingly obscure nor patronisingly accessible.
Leshnoff: Chamber Music / Carpe Diem Quartet, Opus 3 Trio
Naxos
CD
$19.99Jun 26, 2012
Jonathan Leshnoff is one of the most exciting voices in contemporary American music, and his lyricism is accompanied by vibrant expressive qualities. The String Quartet No. 2 reflects the personal qualities of those who commissioned it with originality and vitality, Leshnoff embracing both mystery and Klezmer-inspired writing. Seven Glances at a Mirage creates shifting perspectives and contrasted sonorities, whilst Cosmic Variations on a Haunted Theme alternates between hints of Bachian chorales and Bartók-inspired drama. …without a chance is a response to 9/11, where abrupt rhythms are movingly resolved.
REVIEW:
Naxos is simply an amazing company. In its catalog that comprises some 6,000 titles, it evidences an outstanding track record of issuing worthwhile new American music, a prime example of which is found in the CD under review. The efforts of this company hardly are limited to American music though, and seemingly extend to each country with any kind of a tradition of what we call classical music. When I was last in Denmark, for instance, I visited a few CD shops and saw any number of Naxos recordings of Danish composers that I’d never seen in any CD shop in the U.S. So more power to this company, and others such as Bridge, New World, CRI, and Albany that are also doing a fabulous job in recording and promoting contemporary music.
Jonathan Leshnoff, the latest in quite a string of important composers whose music I’ve had the privilege of becoming acquainted with in my work as a Fanfare reviewer, is still young, having been born in 1973. His orchestral music has received numerous performances by major ensembles, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony, where he is currently serving as composer-in-residence. In an interview with David Peironnet in Kansas City, Leshnoff stated that he seeks “to bring some centricity to music. I write what I want to hear. A lot of people enjoy my orchestration and harmony. I want to connect with the audience so they enjoy my music, too.” This philosophy, along with his obvious compositional gifts, may explain why he has connected to audiences, critics, and performing musicians alike. His music is saturated with an energy that keeps the auditor on the edge of his seat.
This energy is manifest even in the slow movements of his Second String Quartet that opens the CD. The work was written to a commission from family and friends of a Baltimore couple to help celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. As such, it is filled with personal references to the couple, Dr. and Mrs. Robert Edelman. The gentle first movement includes the use of a theme that Dr. Edelman sings on Sabbath evenings, while the second movement portrays Mrs. Edelman’s warm and caring personality. The very busy and energetic finale captures the doctor’s “very positive attitude towards life.”Seven Glances at a Mirage for violin, clarinet, and piano opens with a dramatic gesture in all three instruments that quickly gives way to a pleading line in the clarinet, accompanied by fluttering and other gentle sonorities in the piano. The piece, composed for the Strata Trio in 2003, is generally based upon a short theme that rises a few steps and quickly falls back again. Its seven movements flow seamlessly from one to the next. The title is explained by the shifting in and out of focus of the theme—indeed the aural equivalent of a mirage. Clever stuff this, and a lot of fun to listen to.
Cosmic Variations on a Haunted Theme is a companion piece to its predecessor on the CD, being composed in the same year, and for another trio, the Opus 3 Trio. Like its discmate, it is assembled from small thematic motives, which are expanded and developed in various ways through its nine variations, all of which draw upon the rich palette of colors available in the piano trio medium. At more than 17 minutes, this is the most substantial work on the CD, although even after a careful listening, I’m not quite sure what makes the theme “haunted.”
The disc closes with one of what must be by now numerous works memorializing the 9/11 tragedy. …Without a chance, dating from 2002, is scored for percussion ensemble and was written for the United States Marine Band. Although the work evidences moments of darkness and tension, it is primarily intended by its composer as a tribute to the human spirit. It evokes the sound of bells and a chant-like theme before giving way to jagged rhythms with interjections from drums. At the end of the work, the tonality of A Major is summoned to lead the work to its dissipation into nothingness. The style of the work is somewhat different from that of the other works herein, but nevertheless recognizable as a work of the same composer, given its energy and rhythmic vitality, and contrasts in mood.
This CD succeeds brilliantly on every level, with committed performances and vivid sonics, both of which enhance the already stunning music. The disc will certainly be a contender for my next Want List.
Journeys – Urban Sketches / Journey to the West / 12 Signs
Naxos
CD
$19.99May 12, 2015
Chiayu's evocative music reflects her origins in Taiwan and responses to life in the West. Zhi explores counterpoint and Taiwanese rhythmic patterns, while Huan conjures up sounds from nature. Employing virtuoso non-traditional techniques, Twelve Signs portrays a complete cycle of character traits, while Journey to the West depicts an allegorical adventure towards enlightenment. Sparkle was inspired by fireworks and includes special brass-instrument effects, while Urban Sketches takes us on a walk through NYC, with electronic sounds interwoven seamlessly with those of the musicians.
![Chamber Music with Piano –
GODOWSKY, L. / HELPS, R. / IRELAND, J. / MENDELSSOHN, F. / POULENC, F. [2 CDs]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/1890395.jpg?v=1788489171&width=400)
