The passing away of Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016), one of the most performed Finnish composers after Sibelius, left a deep void in the field of Finnish contemporary music. This new album by cellist Tanja Tetzlaff and pianist Gunilla Süssmann includes Rautavaara’s rarely heard works written for cello and piano. The cornerstone of Rautavaara’s cello chamber music are the three sonatas. The earliest of the sonatas was written in 1969 and contains Baroque influences. Prior to this, the composer had already written Two Preludes and Fugues for cello and piano in 1955 firmly rooted in the Neo-Classical tradition as a young student. Soon after completing his solo cello sonata, the composer started writing his Neo-Romantic Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1. However, the work was left unfinished and completed almost 30 years later, in 2001. Cello Sonata No. 2, completed in 1991, is much different in style, more modern and edgy, but based on a work written for a cello music competition in 1975. Polska (1977) for two cellos and piano is based on a folk tune from Rantasalmi. The origin of this work is connected to the genesis of Rautavaara’s first published opus, Fiddlers (Pelimannit) from the early 1950s. Song of My Heart (Sydämeni laulu) is the composer’s transcription from an aria included in his opera Aleksis Kivi (1995–96). In 2000, Rautavaara arranged the piece for cello, and fittingly for this funereal piece dedicated it to the memory of Estonian composer Lepo Sumera.

REVIEW:

As a mind-blowing display of technical accomplishment, I can only offer my congratulations to Tanja Tetzlaff who has a gorgeous Guadagnini cello of 1776 and an outstanding long-term piano partner in Gunilla Sussmann. Very good recorded quality and most highly recommended.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.


This is a stunning disc. Rautavaara continues to operate at the peak of his form, despite suffering a serious heart attack in mid-composition of Book of Visions that kept him hospitalized for six months. It's a remarkable work in four movements (or "tales") lasting some 40 minutes. Each tale has a tantalizing title (Night, Fire, Love, and Fate) vague enough to leave the specifics to the listener's imagination, but full of musical possibilities that Rautavaara seizes with relish. You might call this new work a "Four Lemminkäinen Legends" for the new millennium, since as always that indefinable Finnish sensibility is quite audibly present but is always expressed in the composer's own personal idiom. The music is gorgeous: evocative, mysterious, luminously scored, and extremely well-crafted--and it practically goes without saying that dedicatee Mikko Franck does a spectacular job conducting this premiere. This is a major statement, make no mistake.

Rautavaara's First Symphony has often been revised, from a four-movement original, down to two movements, and back up to the present three, which, as the composer notes, provides a more balanced sequence than previously. It was written when Prokofiev and Shostakovich were major influences, but with the passing of time the lyricism of the first movement now seems fully characteristic of Rautavaara. Adagio Celeste is yet another example (there are many in Rautavaara) of how music based on a 12-note theme can still be very beautiful and approachable. In this regard he recalls Swiss composer Frank Martin. It's a lovely work scored for small orchestra (the "string orchestra" designation on the tray card is incorrect). Once again the performances of this work and the symphony are all that anyone could ask, and the sonics, whether in stereo or multichannel formats, are fully up to the quality of the interpretations. A knockout, not to be missed!

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Aulis Sallinen and his slightly older contemporary Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928) are currently the grand old men of Finnish music and have been taking turns in the limelight for some time. Sallinen had an opera performed at Covent Garden in the 1980s, while Rautavaara’s breakthrough work, his seventh symphony, Angel of Light, came in 1994. They have each written eight symphonies – and it is as important for a Nordic composer to get beyond seven, because Sibelius didn’t, as it is for one in the German tradition to reach nine, because Beethoven did. A box of Rautavaara’s symphonies came out in 2009 (review) and one of Sallinen’s in 2011. Sallinen has a wide stylistic range, with dance music and jazz at one end and hard-edged modernism at the other. His music is predominantly tonal: he can write lyrically and rhythmically. Sometimes his idiom seems like a slightly more astringent version of Benjamin Britten, and there are occasional reminiscences of other composers. But he has his own flavour, which you learn to recognize.

Now we have a complete set of Sallinen’s Chamber Music series. These are not actually works of chamber music but works for chamber orchestra, all but the first for one or more solo instruments with a string orchestra. They are therefore direct successors to Hindemith’s Kammermusik series, though unlike those works these were written over a period of over thirty years. A more distant ancestor would be Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. The solo parts mostly eschew virtuosity. The works are mostly in a single movement, though often in several sections and they are of moderate length, so the whole set – assuming Sallinen does not intend to add to it – fits onto two CDs. Although some of them have been recorded before this is the first complete set.

Chamber Music I begins in a haze from which fragments emerge leading to a melody which climbs out of clinging textures. It achieves some rhythmic definition featuring Scotch snaps before withdrawing into the mist. There is a serene coda with a beautiful tune. This is the nearest to modernism of the whole set.

Chamber Music II features an alto flute as soloist, which immediately leads one to ask why this lovely instrument is not used more often as a concerto soloist. After an exploratory opening this becomes a gentle dance. A middle section has an extended solo, not really a cadenza, and a slow polonaise. There is a short, quick finale. Of all these works this reminded me most of Britten: it could almost be the flute concerto he did not get round to writing.

After this gentle work, Chamber Music III is a riot. The title is suggestive but there is no formal programme. It is a dialogue between solo cello – enchantingly played by Arto Noras – and string orchestra in which the soloist tries to teach the orchestra some jolly dance tunes – Sallinen played in a dance band in his youth. The orchestra is at first uncomprehending but gets the knack of it but by then the soloist has moved on. I particularly enjoyed the tango section. Later, an accompanied cadenza leads to a moto perpetuo which is repeatedly interrupted before suddenly fading out.

In contrast, Chamber Music IV is a rather sombre and questioning piano concerto in four short movements. It goes back via an earlier version to a solo cello work which was the original Elegy for Sebastian Knight. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov which apparently inspired Sallinen, but not having read it I can’t explore how. The idiom here struck me as rather like Hindemith but with sudden and disconcerting pauses. I liked this work a lot: it is limpid and lyrical and with a strange wondering beauty. The piano part is not virtuosic and indeed is often in single notes.

Chamber Music V is also a piano concerto, this time based on an earlier version in which the solo instrument was an accordion, and also related to another work titled Barabbas Dialogues. This is a melancholy work with an opening featuring trills which reminded me of Scriabin’s tenth piano sonata. Indeed, something of the flickering texture of that work appears here, and builds up an atmosphere of great anxiety with repeated notes and rhythms. There are momentary reminiscences of works as disparate as Scriabin’s last two sonatas, Bach, and the Spanish music of Albeniz and Granados. In a slow middle section there is a suggestion of jazz. The final section starts as a toccata but ends in doubt and uncertainty. It is a strange and haunting work.

Chamber Music VI is for solo string quartet and string orchestra, the same combination which Elgar used in his Introduction and Allegro and also Schoenberg in one of his reworkings of a baroque concerto. Sallinen’s piece is not like either. It is titled 3 invitations au voyage but the implied reference to Baudelaire’s poem or Duparc’s setting thereof is not borne out by anything I can hear. Imagine the string writing of Sibelius tinged with Bartók, though this cannot really convey the character of this music, which also has a yearning chromaticism which is all Sallinen’s own. Towards the end the mood lifts but the sense of tension remains. It is an eloquent, poignant work.

Chamber Music VII features a solo wind quintet, here, as in the previous work, played by an established group. It is a cheerful work, rather in the French tradition of Poulenc and his contemporaries. Each wind instrument gets a chance to shine. I particularly enjoyed the oboe of Nahoko Kinoshita and the clarinet of Gocho Prakov. There are some quiet, contemplative passage but these are graceful rather than poignant. It is an attractive work though perhaps too episodic to be wholly coherent.

Chamber Music VIII is another cello concerto. It is a much more serious work than Chamber Music III. It is subtitled The Trees, All Their Green, which was the title of a volume of poems by Paavo Haavikko, who also wrote the plays on which two of Sallinen’s operas were based. He died just as Sallinen was beginning work on this piece. The solo cello is the protagonist throughout and weaves a lyrical but anguished and intense line. Arto Noras is as superbly expressive here as he was witty and playful in Chamber music III.

I hope I have given a sense of the expressive range and variety of these eight works. I had already started exploring Sallinen’s symphonies, thanks to the complete set I mentioned, and have been very glad to get to know this series as well. The performances under both Ville Matvejeff and Ralf Gothóni are accomplished and the soloists play with great commitment and style. The recording is clear and unobtrusive, and there is a helpful sleeve-note, in English and Finnish only. We owe a debt to the Finnish Music Foundation which sponsored these recordings.

– MusicWeb International (Stephen Barber)

XENAKIS Phlegra. Anaktoria. Dhipli Zyla. Waarg. VARÈSE Octandre. ROMITELLI Mediterraneo I & II • Stefan Asbury, cond; Asko Ens; Marieke Koster (mez) • STRADIVARIUS 33871 (72:34) Live: Milan 11/6/2005


GERVASONI Meta della ripa. MANZONI Ode. Sembianti. WEBERN Passacaglia • Lothar Koenigs, cond; RAI Natl SO • STRADIVARIUS 33872 (69:16) Live: Milan 11/4/2006


Thanks to the cost-cutting and absence of commercial considerations that occur as more orchestras, ensembles, artists, and in this case festivals issue their own recordings or find new outlets for them, audiences now have an increased opportunity to experience more unusual repertory, especially contemporary music. The Milan Music Festival has specialized in the latter since 1991, and these two concert recordings—Volume 2 featuring the Xenakis, Volume 3 the Gervasoni, et al.—show how they are frequently able to establish helpful thematic, stylistic, or conceptual connections between familiar and lesser-known works in their programming.


The Netherlands’s Asko Ensemble, featured in Vol. 2, has a long history of exceptional performances of 20th- and 21st-century works (see its large and impressive catalog of recordings at askoschoenberg.nl), and by anchoring its concert with Edgard Varèse’s Octandre , it focuses the listener’s attention on the variety of ways in which kindred composers Iannis Xenakis and Fausto Romitelli construct surprising tonal environments out of sometimes subtle, sometimes extravagant timbral and textural resources. The four Xenakis selections wisely reflect different periods, and thus distinct characteristics, from his career. Dhipli Zyla (1952), the earliest, is a contrapuntal dance for violin and cello, showing Bartók’s influence on the composer’s use of Greek folk material, while Phlegra (1975), for 11 instruments, suggests a Stravinsky-like rhythmic lilt and an almost slapstick humor to the ever-more-insistent harmonic disorientation. The harsh juxtaposition of colors swells and recedes in Anaktoria (1969), while the separate layers of activity in Waarg (1988), like isolated lines drawn in the air, twist and blend in the wind. Heard together, they are good preparation for Romitelli’s Mediterraneo (1992). Divided into two parts, the first sets contrasting qualities in instrumental groups against each other—sliding strings, resonating chimes, sustained wind tones—as if the sounds were reaching out from a common nucleus; the second part, including mezzo-soprano Marieke Koster’s intonation of an elliptical text by the French poet Paul Valéry, is equally dense but more compact, implying a nevertheless vague tonal center toward which the pitches are now drawn.


Though placed at the end of Vol. 3, Anton Webern’s richly textured, lyrically abstracted Passacaglia (1909) conceptually sets the stage for the music of Stefano Gervasoni and Giacomo Manzoni, whose works imaginatively reorganize the orchestra into patterns of colors rather than instrumental sections. The shimmering motives and static but evocative sonorities in Gervasoni’s Meta della ripa (2002–03) may seem reminiscent of some spectral strategies, but the fluctuating events, alternately chilly and heated, form a cohesive, gradually emerging drama. Likewise, Manzoni’s two compositions are full of shifting textures and dynamics creating dramatic tension, but obtained through unpredictable, partially indeterminate, devices. In Ode (1982), the orchestral material is divided into five “tracks” that progress horizontally in and out of sync with each other, although the blend of sounds is altogether natural and convincing. Sembianti (2003) is a kind of Enigma Variations , with parts of the composition dedicated to friends, using pitch motives derived from their names, mixing in solos from all sections of the orchestra, and inserting free rhythmic episodes—less of a storytelling enigma, however, à la Elgar, than a structural one.


Both the Asko Ensemble and the RAI National Orchestra make a strong case for the new music as well as the more familiar items they are presenting. Recommended to adventurous listeners.


FANFARE: Art Lange

Clinically speaking, Mark Applebaum does not suffer from any mental disorders. It's not for want of trying though! On this his 9th Innova release, he attempts to illustrate psychological disorders in sound. Asylum takes the form of a bipolar octet, an obsessive-compulsive trio, a narcoleptic quartet, an attention-deficit hyperactive quintet, a paranoid flutist, a catatonic horn player, an anti-social guitarist, a narcissistic contrabassist, a dependent violist and a Tourette's octet.

The music of this contemporary composer hits many of the right buttons for me. It is well crafted, it has a discernible shape, and it is expressed in a confident and original voice. Because of the sleek appeal of the music, it was not surprising to read that Wojciech Kilar is primarily known as a film composer, with over 100 scores to his credit, mostly in the Polish film industry, but also for such well-known Western movies as Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, and Jane Campion’s Portrait of a Lady. His style in those scores, as well as the music on this CD, is essentially post-Romantic, with strong doses of minimalism and Eastern liturgical music (think Górecki and Pärt).

At the heart of this program is the 1997 Piano Concerto. The work is in three movements, but it is otherwise unconventionally constructed, beginning with a dreamy Andante that is large in scope but gentle in impact. With its metrical regularity and repeated melodic patterns, this is the most overtly minimalist music on the CD. The middle movement is slower still, and shares a Brahmsian melodic quality with the juggernaut-like final movement. Malicki has a firm control over the deceptively simple sounding solo part. The opening work, Bogurodzica, is the most harmonically advanced, with dissonant outbursts of choral writing for this setting of an ancient Polish hymn. It opens and closes with the beating of drums, alluding to a martial atmosphere. The work shares the composer’s predilection for extreme dynamic contrasts with the other two works on the program, and opens so quietly that you might be tempted to crank up the volume, which will put you at the risk of ear damage a few moments later.

Siwa Mgla (“Grey Mist”) and Koscielec are both tone poems, and are the pieces most like “movie music” on the program. Neither work is without merit and even beauty. Siwa Mgla is most compelling when the solo baritone enters, due in no small part to the richly expressive voice of Wieslaw Ochman. In Koscielec (named for a mountain in the Tatra range of Southern Poland), however, the bombast finally overwhelms any subtlety, in a score that would probably work well for a mass-market sci-fi flick.

I have long admired the work of Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic. This is a great Eastern European orchestra, showing off an impressive combination of virtuosity and passion. Both orchestra and conductor contribute immensely to the appeal of Kilar’s music, to which they sound intensely committed.

FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

Many young violinists' debut CDs come and go without making much of a mark, oftentimes less because the performers are untalented as because their repertoire failed to stand out in a crowded field. Another disc of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, or Kreisler has to be truly outstanding to stand out.
Daniel Hope scores on both of these points: he and his collaborators give excellent performances, and he (and, presumably, his teachers, managers, and label executives) chose a program which cannot help but stand out from the pack. The danger in such a program--lesser-known contemporary works--is failing to live up to the technical and interpretive challenges. Hope needn't worry.
A child prodigy, Hope was just 21 when this program was recorded, and he had already had the opportunity to discuss the Schnittke and Takemitsu works with their composers. The performances here are indeed excellent, and Hope has no difficulty distinguishing himself from his peers.
REVIEWS:
International Record Review (3/00, p.77) - "...cannily programmed and thoughtfully executed..."

Duration: c. 29 minutesFormat: 64-page piano / 20-page recorderFor me, as for many children, the first musical instrument was the recorder. My father brought one home for me when I was three. Through playing the recorder, I learned to read music to a decent standard at an early age, which was very helpful. Although I ranged across a multitude a woodwind instruments before going on to become a composer, I never stopped playing the recorder. So, in 2009, when Leanne Nichols of the Hong Kong City Chamber Orchestra asked me to write a concerto for Michala Petri, I was very happy to take on the commission. My only problem was that I was doing a lot of travelling at the time, but I soon found a way around this. I took two recorders with me everywhere. One was a soprano (descant) instrument;the other was a digital recorder. Whenever I was able to find the time, I would try out ideas for the concerto and make recordings, building up an archive that I could refer back to. My favourite location for this strange activity was the church of Furnas on the little island of São Miguel, in the Azores. I was in there for several hours and recorded a lot of new material, all of which eventually found its way into the piece. I met Michala for the first time in Hong Kong about a week before the premiere of Concerto Incantato. I told her that when she arrived on the scene as a child wonder recorder player, in the 1970s, I determined absolutely not go head to head with her in the recorder world. She is a few years younger than me and my mind was almost made up already, but she influenced my choic eof career markedly, nudging me towards composing, rather than performing. I won’t say I’ve never looked back, but when I hear Michala playing, I think I made the right decision.   [Richard Harvey]

Let's start with the "filler", because it's a very interesting one. Rautavaara's The Fiddlers originally was composed as a piano suite, as played here, and later arranged for string orchestra. For this performance, a fine one by Paavali Jumppanen, Pekka Kuusisto offers solo violin versions of the original folk tunes that Rautavaara selected for his suite. The result is fascinating; the tunes are about what you'd expect--robust, folk-fiddle melodies--but Rautavaara extracts a vast amount of variety and emotional nuance from them, using the basic material in often surprising ways. Check out the second tune, Kopsin Jonas, for example, as it enters evocatively in the bass over a swirling treble ostinato. Great stuff!

Rautavaara has composed very little for violin and piano, or (in the case of Variétude) for solo violin. There are mostly occasional works, but they are no less finely crafted for that. The excitingly brief Dithyrambos and Notturno e danza deliver what their titles suggest, while the other pieces are all nostalgic mood-pieces, often very beautiful. The major work here is Lost Landscapes, a four-movement violin sonata in all but name, with each movement offering a portrait of one of the composer's youthful haunts: Tanglewood, Ascona, Rainergasse 11, Vienna, and West 23rd Street, NY.

Kuusisto, as we have every reason to expect, plays very well, with plenty of color in his tone; and as already suggested, Jumppanen also does an excellent job, whether as accompanist or taking over the spotlight. The sonics are generally excellent, well balanced, and perhaps just a bit bright in the violin's upper register. Ondine's Rautavaara recordings really are major additions to the contemporary music scene. This one is no exception.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Augusta Read Thomas : Two Thoughts About the Piano (2017)For solo pianoDuration: c. 5 minutesFormat: 24-page scoreTWO THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PIANO was inspired by - and is a response to - Elliott Carter's Caténaires from his Two Thoughts About the Piano. My work is entirely original and does not quote from or share music in common with Mr. Carter’s work.

Louis Glass (1864-1936) began his career as a pianist, but illness forced his retirement from active concertizing and his focus turned toward composing. His six symphonies clearly occupy the center of his oeuvre. Early influences of Schumann, Gade and Grieg soon yielded to influence from Ce´sar Franck. Glass also displays strong influence emanating from Bruckner, very unusual during this generation and beyond the borders of German-speaking Europe. CPO's new Glass Complete Symphonies, Vol. 1, features his idyllic Forest Symphony No. 3 and the Summer Life orchestral suite.

Augusta read thomas :rainbow bridge to paradise (2016)For Solo ViolaDuration: c. 4½ minutesFormat: 8-page A4 saddle stitched sheet musicAlso available for solo violin (NMP1043) and solo cello (NMP1045)“Rainbow Bridge to Paradise starts at the very bottom note of the cello, in the deep, rich, elegant tones of the instrument and traverses to the very bright, clear, clean, optimistic top register of the instrument. This music’s vibrant, expressive and distinct ‘picture’ is one of an ascent from earth to paradise across a colorful bridge.” Augusta Read Thomas