Life Stories brings together soprano Claire Booth and pianist J�ms Coleman in a vibrant program exploring the borderland between classical song and cabaret. At it's center is Zo� Martlew's Hotel Babylon, a contemporary cycle written for Booth: seven sharply drawn character studies that trace a playful yet unsettling journey through temptation, vice and redemption. Blending cabaret, expressionism, tango and baroque echoes, Martlew's music creates a modern counterpart to Schoenberg's Brettl-Lieder, reimagined for the 21st century. Surrounding this new work is a constellation of composers who also navigate the everyday and the existential through song. Gershwin's The Man I Love and I Got Rhythm offer melodic clarity and bittersweet simplicity; Eisler's Hollywooder Liederbuch excerpts deliver intimate, politically charged reflections from the composer's American exile; and Poulenc's Banalit�s reveals profound emotion beneath it's surface wit and elegance. Earl Wild's piano transcriptions of Gershwin bring Romantic virtuosity into dialogue with the album's lyrical core. The program concludes with Thomas Ad�s' Life Story, a candid, fragmented setting of Tennessee Williams that mirrors the fragile human connections running through the disc. Together, these works form a compelling portrait of storytelling in song-by turns ironic, tender, biting, and deeply humane.

ECCLES The Judgment of Paris & • Christian Curnyn (hpd, 1–3 cond); Roderick Williams ( Mercury ); Benjamin Hulett ( Paris ); Susan Bickley ( Juno, mez 3 ); Claire Booth ( Pallas Athena, sop 2 ); Lucy Crowe ( Venus, sop 1 ); Richard Sweeney (gtr, archlute); 1–3 Emilia Benjamin (b vl); 1–3 early op company • CHANDOS 759 (62:13 Text and Translation)


& Restless in Thought; 1 Love’s but the frailty of the Mind; 2 I Burn, I burn 3


The Judgment of Paris , the tale of the famed competition between three Olympian goddesses that led to the Trojan War, was itself the subject of a competition. In 1700, a group of English nobility offered up a libretto by the famous William Congreve for competitive setting. Four composers were selected from those who replied to this ad in the London Gazette:


Several Persons of Quality having, for the Encouragement of MUSICK Advanced 200 Guineas, to be distributed in 4 Prizes, the First of 100, the Second of 50, the Third of 30 and the Fourth of 20 Guineas, to such Masters as shall be adjudged to compose the best; this is therefore to give Notice, that those who intend to put in for the Prizes, are to repair to Jacob Tonson at Grays-Inn-Gate before Easter-Day next, where they may be further Informed.


All four completed works were presented on stage individually, in events that, according to Congreve, a social snob of the first water, were “crammed with beauties and beaux, not one scrub being admitted.” This was followed by all four Judgments being offered as a single evening’s entertainment, with subscribers choosing the order of winners. John Weldon, organist of New College, Oxford and a former pupil of Purcell’s, scored something of an upset victory, having little previous theatrical experience. Eccles, the favorite, musical director for the Lincoln’s Inn Fields company and one of the king’s 24 musicians-in-ordinary, came in second, ahead of Daniel Purcell, the late composer’s younger brother. Placing last was Gottfried Finger, a Moravian composer and viol-player who a few professional musicians felt made the best showing of all. According to Roger North, James II’s attorney general and an inveterate concertgoer, Finger complained, perhaps unreasonably, that he had hoped to be “judged by men, and not by boys.” Sadly, his Judgment of Paris is lost, though all three of the others have survived; they were presented in 1989 at Proms concerts, where Eccles was given the palm. I can’t speak to the versions of Weldon or Daniel Purcell, though a bundled recording of all three works would have made for some fine comparisons. In any case, the opera of Eccles is by no means easily dismissed. Choral pieces are handled with distinction. Melodies are usually unadorned, and not infrequently possess a popular cast. The work is technically assured, rhythmically varied, and theatrically alive.


The judgment section of the piece, following the exposition, supplies a good illustration of the composer’s gifts. In it, Eccles differentiates among the three goddesses who seek the golden apple from Paris, providing each with a distinctive ritornello and brief, introductory song. Juno receives a majestic march; Pallas Athena, a graceful chaconne, whose accented second beat seems to sweep all before it; Venus, a minor-key sarabande that utilizes two recorders and a flute in the melodic line to emphasize what the period perceived as femininity. (At least she comes off better than in Tannhäuser .) Congreve shrewdly leaves out all efforts at bribery up to this point, however, leading to confusion in the mind of Paris, and a second, intensified round of presentations by the deific trio. In the fey “Let Ambition fire thy Mind,” Juno delivers a darkly martial, minor-key piece. She promises to Paris the delights of ruling an empire without toil or care. (The concluding verse, given to the divided chorus, with the violins running semiquaver figures, is especially effective.) The theme itself proved catchy enough upon publication to survive as a popular solo fiddle tune of the day. Boswell wrote of his almost obsessive affection for it. Ironically, a friend of mine who was part-timing as a Celtic fiddler once asked me if I knew why an old piece he played was given the odd name of “Let Ambition fire thy Mind.” After that, “Hark, hark! the glorious Voice of War” seems a small step down in energy and character, though it grants Pallas the first appearance of trumpets in the opera, alla battaglia . Venus restores an edge to the competition with “Nature fram’d thee sure for Loving,” a haunting minor key tune whose sensuous intimacy proves Handel wasn’t the only one capable of musically ravishing an English Baroque audience.


The recording concludes with three “mad songs.” These were very popular on London stages at the time, involving a female singer whose unrequited or suddenly terminated love leads to insanity. This chaotic madness is then revealed in a series of rhetorically balanced and logically contoured poems. I confess to little love for the genre, as you might guess from my remarks, but these three of Eccles are at least pleasant, if unmemorable. I find the best of the lot to be “I burn, I burn, my Brain consumes to Ashes,” and that’s at least in part due to its performer, Susan Bickley. If this recording were to offer its own golden apple to one of its three female soloists for articulation, tone, and dramatic interpretation, she would win, hands down. Bickley is one of those mezzos who shade up to a soprano, and her upper range is bright and ringingly glorious in its sound. Claire Booth’s slightly dull tone is not always well supported, and though she enunciates well, I find her far too restrained in lines that brim over with ardor for and joy in war. Lucy Crowe’s sweet tone and refined phrasing makes her an excellent choice for Venus, though, and if she’s rushed a bit in the opera, there’s more expressiveness in her mad song, “Restless in Thought disturb’d in Mind.”


The rest of the cast is top notch. Benjamin Hulett displays an attractive lyric tenor voice, notable for its sensitive deployment of color in “O Ravishing Delight.” Baritone Roderick Williams does a particularly fine job with the phrasing of his only song, “Fear not, Mortal, none shall harm thee.” This is my first exposure to the early opera company, an ensemble of 22 performers; effectively 18, if you disregard the brief appearance of the four trumpets. They deploy two bass violins and a bass viol instead of cellos and double basses on this release, along with a lowered A pitch of 392 Hz. The resulting sound is mellow, if not dark, vitiated by a few rushed tempo choices, notably Venus’s second song. Balance between singers and orchestra is good, with excellent choices for continuo.


It’s great to have this major work by Eccles easily available on disc. Perhaps we can now get the other two extant versions of the opera, as well—or possibly his opera Semele , set to another text by Congreve. Regardless, there’s much to enjoy, here.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Percy Grainger was an extraordinary human being and musician- a precocious pianist, colorful composer and world traveller, a peculiarly passionate and emotive eccentric whose fertile mind produced an expansive oeuvre of original and inventive works. Above all Grainger is best known for his most enduring musical endeavor- his exploration and dissemination of folk music. With this release, soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn, who have spent decades delving into Grainger’s folk music output, document their fascination with the multifaceted firebrand, and bring his alluring music to a wider audience. Grainger’s success resulted in multiple versions of his folk song settings, for orchestra, wind band, chamber ensemble and choir. But it’s perhaps his versions for voice and piano that are the most characteristic, bringing out Grainger’s own highly individual style at the keyboard. Claire’s and Christopher’s survey, one of the most comprehensive available on the market today, offers a variety of transcriptions of songs found in collections from the British Isles as well as discoveries Grainger heard as he roamed throughout the field. The album concludes with Grainger’s most celebrated piece, English Country Gardens, in which Claire makes a cameo appearance on piano, joining Christopher in a rousing duet.



REVIEWS:

They beautifully manage the contrasts between simplicity and immense sophistication that all these songs regularly provide; it makes a really engaging sequence.

– Guardian (UK)

This disc affords tremendous pleasure; it’s well recorded and intelligently annotated, too. Warmly recommended.

– Fanfare

This new release is the sixth volume in a series profiling the work of Augusta Read Thomas. Called “a true virtuoso composer” by The New Yorker, Augusta Read Thomas is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she has become one of the most recognized figures of American music. Performers on this album include the Parker Quartet, Third Coast Percussion, Spektral Quartet, violinist Nathan Giem, Aurora Orchestra, Nathan Cole, and Clair Booth.

Purity of Sound and Perfect Craftsmanship Marked Anton Webern's Journey from His Intensely Expressive Early Songs Through to the New Perspectives Cultivated in His Opp. 23 and 25 Settings. Webern 'Rehabilitated the Power of Sound' and in So Doing Broke New Ground in the Bagatelles for String Quartet and in the String Quartet, Op. 28. This Recording, Completing Mr. Craft's Second Webern Cycle, Is Rounded Off with the Powerful Cantata, Op. 29 and Webern's 1923 Arrangement of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, Op. 9. Throughout His Career, Robert Craft (B. 1923) Has Conducted Symphonic, Orchestral, Operatic and Large Ensemble Performances, Including World Premiere Works By Leading 20th C. Composers. His Many Recordings of Music By Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern Recordings for the Naxos Label Have Received Critical Acclaim, Up to and Including Grammy Award Nominations.

WEBERN Ricercata from Bach’s “Musical Offering.” 5 2 Songs, op. 19. 4,6 5 Movements for String Orchestra. 6 2 Songs, op. 8. 1,5 5 Pieces for Orchestra, op. 10. 6 4 Songs, op. 13. 1,5 6 Songs, op. 14. 1,5 5 Sacred Songs, op. 15. 1,5 Das Augenlicht. 4,6 Variations for Orchestra. 5 Second Cantata 2,3,4,6 • Robert Craft, cond; Tony Arnold (sop); 1 Claire Booth (sop); 2 David Wilson-Johnson (bs); 3 Simon Joly Ch; 4 20th Century Classics Ens; 5 Philharmonia O 6 • NAXOS 8.557531 (79:32)


Craft was the first to record Webern’s “complete” works, back in the 1950s. His four- LP monaural Columbia album was a revelation—and a tribute to the commercial daring of Columbia’s Goddard Lieberson. Although there had been four or five earlier recordings of single Webern works, Craft’s set joined only one other Webern piece in the 1957 Schwann catalogs. It was to remain available for more than two decades, until succeeded by Boulez’s stereo remake in 1979, dubbed—at the last minute—Vol. 1 because a trove of previously unknown works had been discovered. While the stereo LPs were a great improvement, both for their sound quality and their performances, the latter were due to the singers and players more than to the conductor. Webern had gained respect—indeed, had become the guru of musical academia—and musicians were leaning how to perform his works. The learning curve continued well into the CD era; an appropriate punctuation being the 1992 appearance of a superb Webern disc by the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra (nla). Now everyone could play Webern (if not yet sing him), not just the avant-garde specialists. Listeners of my generation learned Webern from that first Craft set, and we are forever in his debt. If he could not then convince us of the music’s beauty, he drew our attention and piqued our interest.


The Twentieth Century Classics Ensemble is a group contracted for Craft’s recordings, its players handpicked by cellist Fred Sherry. Personnel listings for each piece show it to include the best of free-lance American musicians—I am almost afraid to name some, for fear of slighting equally superb colleagues: Charles Neidlich, William Purvis, Paul Neubauer, and Sherry are so well known that I don’t even need to list their instruments. Soprano Arnold, professor of voice at SUNY Buffalo, is a renowned new-music specialist; she sings Webern with glorious panache. These recordings were made during 2007 and 2008—the Philharmonia sessions at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio No. 1, the American ones at SUNY Purchase, New York, and at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City. The solo songs (at SUNY) are clean and clear, but the chorus (at Abbey Road) is set in a reverberant acoustic that denies us the exact words, even with libretto in hand. As usual with Naxos, librettos are posted on the Internet, but the texts of Das Augenlicht and of the Second Cantata are missing.


One of the pleasures of any Craft release is reading his feisty, superbly informed, damn-the-torpedoes program notes. As usual, he insists that these performances are the only correct ones: “[W]e can blame the failure to understand this piece [the op. 30 Variations] on the ignoring of Webern’s admonition to follow his metronomic markings. The present recording is the first attempt to play the work at metronomic speed. Thus, the DGG [Abbado? Boulez?] trudges along at about 116 for the fast pulsation, as against the required 160, and continues at nearly the same 116 for the slow beat.” In addition to his chutzpah, Craft is usually right. Despite that statement, Craft’s Webern performances are generally softer and more listener-friendly than either Abbado’s sophisticated, highly polished renditions or Boulez’s careful but often stolid performances. Although dubbed the BBC Singers, Boulez’s chorus is also directed by Simon Joly; with the Webern œuvre now doubled, Boulez’s DG recordings fill six CDs and are currently distributed only in a complete set. For the op. 30 Variations , however, I recommend the vibrant, superbly recorded performance by Jac van Steen on a surround-sound SACD, MDG 901 1425.


FANFARE: James H. North