A professor for many years, Per Nørgård has been loudly praised and awarded great prizes around the world. His music, though, can be relatively quiet in its exterior and searching by nature. Per Nørgård holds his senses open to signals from the planet and the cosmic miracle. This Danish Nestor works not so much for deafening fanfares or death by double bar lines — so, ‘when do you begin to get things finished?’, as his mother once sighed! For this reason his pieces may require a little extra attention. A work by Nørgård comes to life when its listeners attend to it with just the right amount of openness. Our receptiveness is rewarded tenfold as pleasure in responding to the works, and in the longer term by a generally enhanced attentiveness. Singing Secrets is a thoughtful and profoundly lyrical album which is both a strikingly original statement and a splendid addition to Dacapo Records’ extensive Norgard catalogue. The program demonstrates the range of Norgard’s compositions, with chamber and vocal pieces illustrating some of the distinctive steps of his musical journey.
This is the second volume of Michael Kallstrom's flute chamber work. They offer varied timbres, interesting orchestrations, thoughtful melodies, bold harmonies, and interesting new cross-rhythms. Heidi Pintner has made performances of Kallstrom's music a specialty for her.
Among the most active composers of the past century, Jean-Michele Damase undoubtedly occupies a prominent place. Student of the ecole francaise, he has always been linked to the great musical institutions, and he dedicated his activity to the musical theater, ballet, instrumental music and he gives particular attention to the flute and harp, for which he composed works in honor of Jean-Pierre Rampal and his mother Micheline Kahn, great harpist and direct interpreter of the works of Faure. His music ''refined and sincere'' is correctly interpreted in this album by the duo Luise-Parrino after 4 years from the composer's death.
Rebay: Complete Music For Clarinet, Flute, & Guitar / Esteso Trio
Brilliant Classics
CD
$13.99Feb 12, 2021
The dates are deceptive: the Viennese composer Ferdinand Rebay (1880-1953) remained largely unaffected by the turbulent musical currents swirling around him in the Austrian capital during the early 20th century. Instead, he composed highly appealing music, Romantic in harmony and Classical in form, with a particular focus on the guitar. Brilliant Classics have brought his name back to light in recent years with modern recordings of the duets for clarinet and guitar (94171), the quartets for guitar, flute and strings (9250) and the sonatas for flute and guitar (9291). In a similar vein, the Italian Esteso Trio now presents three variation sets scored for clarinet, flute and guitar. The first of them is based on an Austrian folksong and conceived as a series of homages to Rebay’s Viennese forebears: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Johann Strauss. The second takes a Tirolean folksong for inspiration and Rebay supplied his own theme for the third, again popular in character and ending with an ebullient Scherzo. In between these highly attractive variation sets, the Esteso Trio plays a Trio and a Spanish Rhapsody’, both likewise dedicated to Rebay’s niece, the concert guitarist Gerta Hammerschmied, who apparently inspired the composer’s passion for the instrument: ‘Meiner lieben Gerta! Ostern 1941’ reads the title page of the Trio. Rebay worked as a piano professor at the conservatoire and composed prolifically in his spare time – more than 600 works bear his name – in a spirit of relaxed craftsmanship that makes an hour spent in his company full of uncomplicated pleasure. ‘Rebay was no dilettante - as tuneful as his music always is, it is unfailingly imaginative’ (MusicWeb International).
Penderecki: Piano & Flute Concertos / Douglas, Wit
Naxos
CD
$19.99Mar 26, 2013
PENDERECKI Piano Concerto, “Resurrection.” Flute Concerto • Barry Douglas (pn); ?ukasz D?ugosz (fl); Antoni Wit, cond; Warsaw PO • NAXOS 8.572696 (60:30)
It is fascinating to trace the development of Penderecki’s compositional style, as he seems to become more conservative the older he gets. The Piano Concerto, composed in 2001/02 and revised in 2007, is a work that the Penderecki of the 1960s and the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima probably never dreamed of writing. In fact, nothing in Penderecki’s canon, not even his recent works, prepared me for this concerto. After several auditions, I’m not sure it’s even a successful work (I’ve seen the adjective “kitschy” applied to it), but if it’s not, it is, in today’s popular terminology, a hot mess, and a fascinating one at that.
In this work, Penderecki has channeled the romantic piano concerto. In the words of annotator Richard Whitehouse, it renews “Penderecki’s direct involvement with the ‘grand’ concerto tradition—notably of the Russian lineage that had its culmination in Rachmaninov and Prokofiev.” Granted, the work is not as lyrical as, for example, Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, or even Prokofiev’s Third, but there’s no missing the size and the strength of the emotional gestures, and the respect for virtuosic display. For the first time ever (in my experience, anyway), Penderecki has even included passages that a reasonable person might describe as “pretty”—for example, at 2:30 into the second section, and that passage returns near the end. (The work is in 10 continuous sections, and Naxos has tracked them separately.) Granted, the concerto’s overall mood is more tense than pretty, and there are violent climaxes. I have to say, though, that the music that kept coming to mind as I heard this concerto was Bernard Herrmann’s Concerto Macabre, a work that he composed for the 1954 film noir Hangover Square—and I intend that as a compliment. “Resurrection,” the concerto’s subtitle might be understood as a Christian reference, but apparently it is not meant to be taken too literally. Whitehouse indicates, however, that a “plainsong-like idea (which was conceived in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack) . . . only gradually makes its way into the foreground before emerging at full strength during the climactic stages.” Barry Douglas, whose name now comes up less often than it did at the start of the CD era, plays the heck out of this 37-minute concerto, and does not stint on its steel, drama, and emotional power. The engineering, by the way, is outstanding—this is a sonic showpiece. I’d be interested to hear an earlier recording (on Dux), conducted by the composer, with pianist Beata Bili?ska.
The Flute Concerto dates from 1992, and is more in line with what we have come to expect from latter-day Penderecki. It is, in other words, an anticlimax to the piano concerto, but worthwhile nevertheless. Like the piano concerto, it is a single-movement work, but that single movement contains several clearly contrasted sections. If the piano concerto is unexpectedly emotional, the flute concerto is in keeping with the composer’s familiar style, which I would describe as intellectual and objective, gaining its interest from the way in which Penderecki develops his material, and creates interesting instrumental timbres. The word “eclectic” keeps coming up, which I suppose is another way of saying that the music is modern, but not too modern. It was composed for Jean-Pierre Rampal, who did record it, with the composer, for Sony, but I have not heard that version. There’s also another Dux disc, with the composer conducting, and flutist David Aguilar, but the version I know, also on Naxos, is with flutist Petri Alanko and the Tapiola Sinfonietta, conducted by Okko Kamu. Alanko and Kamu pare more than three minutes from the score’s total length. Their reading is more dramatic than the new one, and Alanko emphasizes the lyrical aspects of the music more than Dlugosz does, wherever he can. Compared to Wit, Kamu is more precise, and creates more focused sonorities with his ensemble, but I do like the lush sound that comes out of the Warsaw Philharmonic, and I feel that Wit is a superior story-teller to Kamu.
Although neither of these works is new to CD, the combination is unique, and the performances are very strong. I see no reason not to be enthusiastic about this release, and the piano concerto is growing on me. Let’s see if this makes it onto my Want List in the next issue!
Often cited as the most distinguished neoclassical composer of post-war America, Robert Muczynski (1929-2010) was born in Chicago to Polish parents. This album of chamber music surveys an output which is always restless and unpredictable thanks to the embrace of both Bartokian harmonies and structures as well as the more lyrical yet open-ended language of Samuel Barber. The Cello Sonata of 1968 is often considered to be Muczynski’s chamber music masterpiece, in which the problems of balance and register inherent to the genre are not only solved but transcended with a mastery especially evident in the central Scherzo. From a year later, the Fantasy Trio Op.26 is a welcome addition to the clarinet-cello-piano trio genre established by Beethoven. Energy and punchy rhythmic interplay are hallmarks of Muczynski’s music, as the earlier Flute Sonata engagingly demonstrates: in its whimsical, abrupt, headstrong progress through a compact four-movement form, it may even be considered the most important such work by an American composer. Muczynski took technical agility and devil-may-care confidence for granted in his interpreters; in this case, an international quartet of musicians based in the US. There is an extended booklet essay by the pianist Dmitry Samogray which places both composer and works in invaluable context. Any listeners curious to fill out their appreciation of American music beyond Copland and Bernstein will want to hear this release.
Music For Flute And Organ / Daniele Ruggieri, Andrea Toschi
Brilliant Classics
CD
$13.99Feb 24, 2015
An enterprising and original programme of works originally written for flute and organ by a wide variety of composers, spanning more than 150 years (not the usual compilation of Baroque lollipops like the Albinoni Adagio or the Bach Air).
Featured are works by composers Hartmann, Lachner, Donjon, Doppler, Hiller, Gallon, Genzmer, d’Aurizio, Manzino. They explore the rich possibilities and diverse qualities of the two instruments in a fascinating way, sharing a spiritual or liturgical background.
Following the success of their last album, Timelapse, this new album from Orchestra of the Swan is a collection of extraordinary works connected by ideas of pilgrimage, contemplation, exploration and enlightenment through the works of composers such as Richter, Respighi, Britten, Piazzolla, Brian Eno, Nico Muhly, Joy Division and more. As with Timelapse, the joy is to be found in discovering the surprising and delightful connections between culturally disparate and musically contrasting time periods. Labyrinths have been an important part of humanity’s cultural landscape for thousands of years; from the Ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur to the intriguing stories of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco. Our overwhelming desire to find patterns and ‘the hidden truth’ is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the subversive and complex vistas of music. Formed in 1995, Orchestra of the Swan is a British chamber orchestra which, under the artistic direction of David Le Page, is passionate about audience inclusivity and blurring the lines between genres, through its adventurous and accessible programming.
de Falla, Poulenc, Bacarisse: Harpsichord Concertos / Marquez
IBS Classical
CD
$17.99May 28, 2021
The composer of the Stabat Mater presented in this sound recording was musically educated in Malaga Cathedral at the end of the first third of the 19th century. The musical chapel of the citys first tempo had already suffered the onslaught of the yellow fever of 1803 and the French invasion during the Napoleonic invasion (1808\-1814), and had yet to receive the lethal blows of the successive disentailment measures of Mendizábal (1836), Espartero (1841) and Madoz (1854). However, what seemed to put an end to the stable ensemble to solemnise cathedral liturgies was paradoxically giving way to a paradigm shift. The everyday music of the cathedrals would be reduced to a minimum thanks to the resources established in the Concordat of 1851 signed between Pope Pius IX and Queen Elizabeth II. Hence, the drastic mutilation of the stable staffs in the cathedrals favoured what would quickly become a common and frequent practice, i.e. the ex profeso hiring of instrumental and vocal troops for certain solemnities and festivities, among which those related to Holy Week and its natural period of spiritual preparation, namely Lent, were particularly noteworthy.
A highly fashionable instrument in the 18th c., C.P.E. Bach used the flute in his compositions throughout his life. His works for the instrument, including the complete sonatas for flute featured on this 2CD set, frequently betray the influence of Friedrich II (Frederick the Great), yet the distinctive traits – surprising twists, sensitivity, expressiveness and new compositional approaches – of a composer as great as C.P.E. Bach often surface. Dorothea Seel plays a copy of a late-Baroque Transverse flute; Keyboardist Christoph Hammer on period fortepiano provides the accompaniment.
Flutist Roberto Fabbriciani continues his releases dedicated to the flute repertoire of single composers with works by Belgian composer Henri Pousseur (1929-2009). Previous releases on Mode featured Aldo Clementi and Bruno Maderna. As with the preceding Clementi and Maderna releases, this Pousseur release marks the first time Pousseur’s works for flute have been collected in one recording. It is important to note that Fabbriciani had a long working relationship with the composer. The series of Flexions was composed in 1979 for the performance examinations at the Conservatory in Liège, where Pousseur had been director for 3 years. It aims to introduce students to the diversity of post-tonal harmonic materials without discarding any contact with tradition and the harmonic qualities of the standard repertoire. Two pieces belong to the category of open or mobile form works. The score of Éclipticare (2001) is a proposal to be elaborated (completed). Fabbriciani has made two different versions, including extended playing techniques prominent in the contemporary flute repertoire but largely unused by Pousseur in his written scores. Éclipticare builds a kind of bridge to Zeus jouer de flûtes (2006), a score that is co-signed Pousseur-Fabbriciani for good reasons. Pousseur provided the tape (Hymne à Zeus ornothologue, extracted from the eight Études paraboliques, 1972) as well as a “plan of action” indicating the specific time-spans and the choice of instrument to be used according to the tessitura (from bass-flute to piccolo). All the other details remained in Fabbriciani’s hands. This type of collaboration had long been part of Pousseur’s practice and is also the outcome of his firm belief in the social and human importance of sharing. In addition to the flute repertoire, this release also includes Pousseur’s Scambi for electronic tape, composed in 1957 and realized by Pousseur at the Studio di Fonologia in Milan at the invitation of Luciano Berio.
This double album is a tribute of the contemporary music world to the great Roberto Fabbriciani, one of the most important musicians of our time, who, in addition to having established himself as an international performer, has been the undisputed pioneer of avant-garde and experimental music in the last decades. A sort of standing ovation in the form of music dedicated to him by some great composers of our century, and this album finally is a significant reference. Starting with names such as Ennio Morricone, Salvatore Sciarrino and Brian Ferneyhough, then reaching some younger artists from the Italian compositional panorama, through the use of almost all writing techniques. A must for the lovers of this genre.
Jarvlepp: Flights Of Fancy / Seck, Mortimore, Friedmanm, Saxart
Navona
CD
$16.99Nov 13, 2020
Composer Jan Järvlepp’s FLIGHTS OF FANCY is available now through Navona Records. Fusing European and American musical traditions, the album pairs the excitement of rock and jazz rhythms with classical orchestral and chamber music forms. Turning his back on the avant-garde 20th century modernism he was trained in at the University of California, San Diego, Järvlepp’s focus has shifted to a postmodern, popular-music influenced style borrowing from a variety of cultures’ traditional music. Pierrot Solaire opens the album with an unusual combination of flute, violin, bass, percussion, and piano. Harnessing the early 20th century angst of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Järvlepp set out to compose a piece that was the mirror opposite of Schoenberg’s; teasingly subtitled “an antidote for anxiety-filled old German music,” the piece recombines popular and folk music to create a lively, energetic, and highly rhythmic piece. Trio. No. 2 captures the unique and often-neglected timbre of the piccolo playing in its lower register. Combined with rapidly bowed string harmonics, the piece is developed into three “flights of fancy”— Järvlepp’s term for flamboyant piccolo solos. The three movements place the piccolo in different musical contexts; the second movement features plucked cello and lyrical viola melodies, while the third takes on an aggressive rock music attitude. Tarantella marries contemporary popular music styles with a baroque tarantella. In keeping with postmodernism’s approach of reimagining historical tradition rather than discarding it, this piece features previously unheard combinations of the old and the new. Overture was composed in 1999 as a Laidlaw Foundation commission for the Ayorama Wind Quintet. Taking cues from the grandeur of Beethoven, Järvlepp employs loud, dramatic chords and memorable melodic phrases to create something wholly his own.
Dodgson: Chamber Music, Vol. 5 – Music for Winds II
Toccata
CD
$20.99Feb 07, 2020
This fifth album in the Toccata Classics survey of the chamber music of London-born Stephen Dodgson (1924-2013) offers a second installment of his many works for woodwinds, as well as a duo for the unusual combination of horn and harp. Much of it brings Dodgson's sense of fun to the fore, often through rhythmic mischief or an insouciance that recalls Poulenc. It can have a spiky vivacity that suggests Janácek, too, and a hint of Baroque formality - but it also has that particularly English strain of lyricism that suggests the impermanence of beauty.
Ransom Wilson has long been recognized internationally as one of the greatest flutists of his generation. After graduation from the Julliard School in 1973, he spent a year in Paris as a private student of Jean-Pierre Rampal. As a flute soloist, he has appeared in concert with some of the greatest orchestras and artists of our time, including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony, Frederica von Stade, Jessye Norman, Thomas Hampson, Susan Graham, Dolora Zajick, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Hilary Hahn, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Sir James Galway, and many others. Francois Dumont is a prizewinner of the most prestigious international competitions: the Queen Elisabeth Competition, the Chopin Competition, the Cleveland International Competition in the United States and the Clara Haskil Competition in Switzerland. In 2012, he received the prize of Revelation de la Critique Musicale francaise. Born in 1985 in Lyon, Francois Dumont worked with Pascale Imbert, Chrystel Saussac and Herve Billaut before being admitted at the age of fourteen to the Conservatoire National Superior of Music and Dance of Paris in the class of Bruno Rigutto. With Virginie Constant and Philippe Aiche, he is a member of the Trio Elegiaque.
Poulenc: Aubade - Le bal masqué - Flute Sonata - Sextet / Bebbington, McDonough, Williams, Latham-Koenig, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Resonus Classics
CD
$18.99Jun 04, 2021
In this second album in his French series, pianist Mark Bebbington is joined by baritone Roderick Williams and flautist Emer McDonough alongside the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jan Latham-Koening in a further program of music by Francis Poulenc. Featuring some of Poulenc’s most characteristic works, the program begins with his 1929 piano concerto Aubade originally written with a choreographed ballet element for a private fancy-dress party. The following year saw the composer set Surrealist poems by his friend Max Jacob in his work Le Bal Masqué, which Poulenc described as a ‘secular cantata’. Written in 1956 the Flute Sonata was described by the composer himself as being ‘simple but subtle’, while completing the album is the 1931 Sextet for piano and wind quintet.
Andreas Blau and his orchestral colleagues of the Berliner Philharmoniker are to be admired for discovering the treasure that is Anton Hoffmeister's Flute Quartets, and they play them superbly well, while placing Hoffmeister's output in close proximity to Mozart and Haydn, and in the vicinity of early Beethoven. The solo parts are evidently tailor-made for the flute, and their virtuoso passages seem modeled on cadenzas from Mozart piano concertos. Their musical sensitivity, evident enjoyment and great orchestral experience ensure the recordings do not just document the artistry of so-called minor masters, but are a valuable addition to our view of the brilliant epoch of Viennese classicism.
