This is the first installment in the Pacifica Quartet's highly anticipated, four-volume CD survey of the complete Shostakovich string quartets: The Soviet Experience: String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich and his Contemporaries. The Soviet Experience is the first Shostakovich quartet cycle to include works by other important composers of the Soviet era, adding variety and perspective to the listening experience. This superbly performed series of audiophile recordings, produced and engineered by multiple Grammy Award winner Judith Sherman, will appeal to everyone interested in great Russian music of the 20th century. It's also a great value: each two-CD installment is priced as a single CD.

REVIEW:

Cedille certainly produces some of the smartest “concept” albums in the classical music business today, because the concept always seems to work musically. Now the Pacifica Quartet is one of the best chamber ensembles out there, as its Mendelssohn recordings for this same label attest. Even so, there’s no dearth of fine Shostakovich cycles, from the Borodin Quartet to the Emerson. These performances, every bit as fine as those, would be excellent by themselves, but they do risk getting lost in the discographic shuffle. So it was an inspired idea to pair them in this series with other important works in the same medium by Shostakovich’s contemporaries. I’m not sure if this adds up to a “Soviet Experience”, whatever that is, but it does make for some great listening.

The four Shostakovich quartets offered here constitute the heart of the cycle, culminating in the incredibly popular (amazing because musically it’s very sad) Eighth Quartet. In this latter work, the Pacifica Quartet finds a perfect balance between technical polish and raw intensity, nowhere more so than in the ferocious second movement. In Quartet No. 5, with its complex outer movements, the players pace the music with an unerring feeling for tension and relaxation. Even the slender Seventh, Shostakovich’s shortest quartet, has an unusual measure of cogency and expressive depth.

Miaskovsky’s Thirteenth Quartet, his last, is a splendid work: conservative to be sure, but so beautifully written. The scherzo, marked “Presto fantastico”, displays a vast quantity of color and texture, but then the entire work belies the notion that the quartet medium tends toward the monochrome. The thematic invention is also surprisingly arresting for this composer; some of the symphonies seem bland in comparison. Once again, it would be difficult to imagine a finer performance, and the engineering allows the players’ attractive sonority and well-balanced ensemble work to speak with total naturalness. A great start to a very promising series.

-- ClassicToday.com (David Hurwitz)

My colleague Victor Carr Jr. succinctly described what Schumann's three violin sonatas sound like in his review of the splendid Ara Malikian/Serouj Kradjian recording on Hänssler Classics. He rightly noted that these works are infrequently recorded as a cycle, and that alone works to the advantage of this release from violinist Jennifer Koh and her trusty piano partner Reiko Uchida.

Fortunately, their sensitive musicianship and technical aplomb warrant serious consideration. They emphasize intimacy and clarity, favoring tempos that are neither too fast nor too slow for what the music expresses. For example, they toss the A minor sonata finale's toccata-like motives back and forth in a relaxed, lilting manner that generates its own momentum--and needless to say, totally differs from the Kremer/Argerich "shock and awe" approach. The big D minor sonata's largely pizzicato slow movement stands out for the uniform precision with which the artists balance chords in similar registers, although the outer movements' symphonic dimensions benefit more from the slightly faster tempos, wider dynamic compass, and kinetic drive that keep Isabelle Faust and Slike Avenhaus (CPO) at the top of my reference list.

Don't force me to choose between Cedille, Hänssler, and CPO in the posthumous A minor, but at least let me acknowledge the additional suppleness and flexibility Uchida brings to the difficult piano part. I also should mention that Koh and Uchida dedicate their fine work on this disc to the memory of pianist Edward Aldwell, a moving and appropriate gesture.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

"Over the years, the pianist Jorge Federico Osorio has garnered extraordinary praise. Osorio’s interest in wrongly neglected repertoire continues on [this] recording, which explores salon music written around the beginning of the last century by four Mexican composers: Manuel Ponce, Ricardo Castro, Felipe Villanueva, and José Rolón.

"I suspect that even the purists will be impressed and moved by many of these gentle and quirky works—the four Ponce works, the Castro Mazurka and Barcarolle, and the half-dozen or so Villanueva and Castro waltzes deserve to be singled out.

"I have never heard a Çedille recording that deserved less than a perfect score in the sound engineering department, and this one is no exception. In sum, a delightful recording that confirms Osorio’s outstanding artistry."

--FANFARE (Radu A. Lelutiu)

Pianist Jorge Federico Osorio, praised by The New York Times for “the sweep and freshness of his readings,” offers a richly pictorial recital on his first-ever recording of Russian masterworks for solo piano. Mussorgsky’s original piano setting of his popular Pictures at an Exhibition anchors a program that includes Prokofiev’s Sixth Sonata and Romeo and Juliet Before Parting, plus Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue No. 24 in D minor. ‘Russian Recital’, the pianist’s sixth Cedille Records album, joins a distinguished discography that includes releases on several different labels.

REVIEW:

Jorge Federico Osorio is a fine artist and he deserves the opportunity to venture outside the Spanish and Latin American repertoire on which he has built his reputation on disc. This Russian recital is well-planned, and by and large quite successful. In Prokofiev’s Sixth Sonata, you won’t hear the fleetness and steel that Matti Raekallio (Ondine) brings to the piece, or Richter’s heightened textural definition between right hand and left, particularly in the daredevil finale, but taken on its own this is an intelligent and affecting performance in which the work stands out all the more for not being lumped in with the other “War” sonatas. 

Romeo and Juliet Before Parting, in its piano arrangement, almost never fails to please, and it doesn’t here. The last and grandest of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, the D minor, also benefits from being heard as a stand-alone work. At nearly twelve minutes in this by-no-means unusually slow performance, the piece is as long as several Scriabin sonatas and other independent piano pieces, and its stature shows under the inexorable tread of Osorio’s fingers.

Osorio’s promenade though Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is remarkable for its naturalness and coherence. Much of its success arises through effective pacing, particularly in the concluding Great Gate of Kiev, with its massive chordal writing perfectly laid out to achieve the grandest possible effect. Prior to that Osorio achieves plenty of the necessary lightness (and virtuosity) in Tuileries, the Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells, and Limoges. Bydlo, the oxcart, lumbers along but never drags. Ultimately perhaps the best thing that can be said about this version is that it always sounds like real piano music, and not a piano reduction of an orchestral work.

The only issue I can see with this very well-engineered production is that there are now so many recordings of all of this music available that it’s difficult to offer an unqualified recommendation to collectors, many of whom will already have multiple versions. As is so often the case with Cedille’s productions, the programming is thoughtful and different enough from everything else out there to make this release distinctive. On the other hand, and especially when it comes to Pictures, there are many, many versions available that are equally fine (or perhaps more imaginative in one respect or another), starting with Richter’s Sofia recital and continuing with (more recently) Bronfman (Sony), Osborne (Hyperion), and if you want something really different, Pogorelich (DG). None of this, however, diminishes Osorio’s genuinely enjoyable achievement here. So if you’ve got room, feel free to give it a shot.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEW:

If you have 76 minutes to spare for some rare, interesting, and vastly enjoyable piano duet repertoire, consider this release. Georges Onslow's two sonatas bristle with invention and virtuosity, and ought to attract duetists looking for substantial concert fare beyond the ubiquitous Mozart sonatas and Schubert F minor Fantasy. Some of the music's more harmonically adventurous episodes and dramatic build-ups might represent a missing link between Weber and Chopin. The Balakirev suite's fervent momentum and irresistible tunes also warrant more frequent performances. Three selections from Reger's Burlesques reveal a lighter, more humorous side of a composer not especially known for, well, lightness and humor! The 17-year-old Wagner's Polonaise is a charming piece of fluff that bears not one iota of the mature composer's genius. By contrast, Grieg's familiar, unpretentious idiom and subtle keyboard writing makes me regret that the Buccheri/Boldrey duo chose only two of his Norwegian Dances. While the sound quality of the original analog 1978 and 1985 recordings is only fair to middling, the pianists' invigorating spirit and excellent ensemble values come through loud and clear. Recommended. 

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Cedille Records have reissued a disc of Romantic Music for Piano Four-Hands that first appeared on two separate LPs from 1978 and 1985. The sound engineers have digitally re-mastered the reel-to-reel tapes from the original recording sessions at North Park University, Chicago. The selection of Romantic works from Reger, Wagner, Liszt, Grieg, Balakirev and two from Onslow is most imaginative and one that seems unique.

Following their meeting as students at North Park University in Chicago piano duettists Elizabeth Buccheri and Richard Boldrey were active on the recital platform and in the broadcasting studio as the Buccheri-Boldrey piano duo in the 1970s and 1980s.

Up to the end of the 19th century Georges Onslow was held in the highest esteem. Sometimes nicknamed the “ French Beethoven”, he was particularly admired in Germany, Austria and England where he was regularly placed in the front rank of composers alongside Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. In fact people declared that Onslow was the only worthy successor to Beethoven. Soon after his death his music fell into obscurity and up 1984, the bicentennial of his birth, he remained virtually unknown.

Commencing the disc is Onslow’s Sonata No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 7 for piano four-hands, composed it seems in 1815. The opening movement Allegro espressivo is carefree and jovial somewhat reminiscent of an overture to a Rossini opera. Tender and passionate, the Romanza must surely be a depiction of a torrid love affair. The Finale: Agitato is high-stepping and exuberant. Briskly played by Buccheri and Boldrey the pace hardly lets up.

Max Reger’s three pieces are taken from his set of Six Burlesques, Op. 58. Determined and urgent No. 4 Schnell und grotesk contains a slower central section. There is light and vivacious playing in the No. 5 Äusserst schnell und flüchtig with this variegated score having two calmer sections. In the short final piece No. 6 So lebhaft und übermütig als nur möglich I found Buccheri and Boldrey’s interpretation forthright and rumbustious.

It may be a surprise to many that Richard Wagner wrote for the piano at all. Among his handful of piano works some are now lost or destroyed. The Polonaise in D major is an early work originally composed for two-hands but he also made this revision for four-hands. Influenced by the spirit of the dance one notices the strong dotted rhythms. Reminding me at times of the quality of a comic opera this is rather inconsequential and light-hearted stuff. Nevertheless, Buccheri and Boldrey play with an assured joie de vivre.

Franz Liszt wrote his Grand Valse di Bravura, RV209 in 1836 originally as a solo piano piece. From Liszt’s early period this is a sparkling salon effort in dance form. Typically virtuosic and brilliant in style Buccheri and Boldrey’s interpretation conveys significant appeal. In the coda the weight and intensity of the playing increases in the rush to the finishing-line.

Grieg’s set of 4 Norwegian Dances, Op. 35 were especially written for four-hand piano. Here Grieg was inspired by Lindeman’s Older and Newer Folk-Dance Music. Seven years later Grieg recast them for two-hand piano solo. There is also a popular version for orchestra made by Hans Sitt. Sadly here Buccheri and Boldrey have only recorded No. 2 and No. 3 - both tuneful and memorable.

The influential Russian composer and teacher Mily Balakirev wrote relatively few scores. His early Islamey an ‘ Oriental Fantasy’ still remains popular. Less known is the Suite for Piano Four-Hands a late work completed in 1908. Buccheri and Boldrey are spirited in the Polonaise, gentle and comforting in the Chansonette and lively in the appealing Scherzo. I detected one or two examples of untidy playing in this tricky score but nothing major to worry about.

The final score Onslow’s Sonata No.2 in F Minor, Op. 22 a companion to the earlier opus 7 score was composed in 1823. The first movement marked Allegro moderato e patetico is highly virtuosic played with vigour and spirit. Light and dance-like the Minuetto ( Moderato) contains short episodes of increased weight and vitality. I found the final movement Largo - Allegro espressivo sad and affecting. At times the themes were suggestive of Beethoven sonatas. From 2:29 Buccheri and Boldrey shift into a brisker and more energetic gear.

The re-mastered sound quality is to a high quality and the booklet notes provide all the basic information needed. On the front cover of the booklet the copy of the Turner oil painting Music Party, East Cowes Castle (c.1835) from the Tate Collection, London really catches the eye. There is so much to enjoy in this delightful Cedille reissue of Romantic music for piano four hands.

-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

RHAPSODIC MUSINGS • Jennifer Koh (vn) • ÇEDILLE 113 (52:00)


SALONEN Lachen Verlernt. CARTER Four Lauds. THOMAS Pulsar. ZORN Goetia


& A video by Tal Rosner


Rumor has it that there’s a big chunk of the classical music listening public that is afraid of contemporary music. When it’s played with the passion and conviction that violinist Jennifer Koh generates on behalf of these three 21st-century scores (not excluding Elliott Carter’s Four Lauds , which were composed between 1984 and 2000), the skeptics have nothing to fear. She displays impeccable technique and a flawless tonal range regardless of their degree of difficulty, and more important, uncovers the lyrical impulse at the music’s core.


Even so, I think the disc’s title, borrowed from Carter, understates the nature of the music somewhat. None of these works quite suit the state of absorption in thought or dreamy abstraction that my dictionary applies to musing, though rhapsodic they may be. True, Augusta Read Thomas’s Pulsar does resolve its dramatic thrusts, swoops, and soaring with a meditative conclusion. And Carter’s Four Lauds —“Statement—Remembering Aaron” (Copland), “Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi,” “Rhapsodic Musings,” and “Fantasy”—maintain recognizable classical proportions amid their flamboyant gestures. Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Lachen Verlernt takes its title from a line in Albert Giraud’s sequence of poems, Pierrot Lunaire (in Otto Hartleben’s German translation from the original French, “Mein Lachen/Hab ich verlernt!”—I have unlearned [or forgotten] all my laughter!). The music, however, owes nothing to Schoenberg as it accelerates, chaconne-like, from an introductory lament to a fantasia of impulsive double-stops and sizzling twists of phrase. (Tal Rosner’s accompanying CD-ROM video of geometric and graphically altered imagery choreographed to Lachen Verlernt is a pleasant but extraneous bonus.)


The eight movements of John Zorn’s Goetia provide—perhaps predictably, given his participation in free jazz, thrash rock, and other extravagant musical genres—the most aggressive events and make the most treacherous technical demands on the violinist. The title is derived from the Greek word for sorcery, and relates to the Middle Ages practice of conjuring demons through elaborate spells and numerological systems. In this case, Zorn has devised a sequence of 277 pitches that remain the same in each movement, but whose character changes according to shifts in phrasing, tempo, dynamics, and attack. But, as program booklet annotator Paul Griffiths suggests, the bristling pizzicatos, slashing multi-stops, and moto perpetuo passages, for all their “demonic” intensity, may simply remind us of how the fiddle has long been identified as the devil’s own instrument.


Jennifer Koh is a hell of a violinist (sorry, couldn’t resist), and this is a most impressive recital.


FANFARE: Art Lange

BRAHMS / LISZT / GRIEG / CHOPIN: Piano Music

Multi-award winning guitarist Denis Azabagic invites listeners into a realm where world, folk, and classical music intersect on Out of Africa...and Around the Word, the Bosnia-born, Chicago-based virtuoso’s first solo album on Cedille Records. Thomas weaves together strands of African singing styles, scales and rhythms, while paying homage to African string instruments, such as the kora and the oud.

REVIEW:

Acclaimed guitarist Denis Azabagic’s newest CD,  Out of Africa , features attractive works by some of today’s leading guitarist/composers. Bulgarian Atanas Ourkouzounov’s contribution is a captivating series of Variations on Pozaspa li iagodo? (Are you sleeping, Strawberry?). The rhythmically driven, harmonically inventive first variation comes as a startling surprise after the gentle simplicity of the opening statement. A slow, minor-tinged variation follows, with interspersed harmonics dotting the sustained soundscape. Variation three combines flowing figures with a recap of the first variation’s hectic pace, helped along by sharp accents and forceful dynamics. Next, a partly muted, subtly dissonant episode gives way to an invigorating half-Bulgarian, half-Greek Finale.

As revealed in the booklet notes, Vojislav Ivanovic’s Café Pieces were undertaken as a lark but, be that as it may, the results far surpass their frivolous beginnings: heard as a group they comprise a beautiful suite of music in the South American style, filled with lovely melodies, exciting rhythms, and humor. At one point, Tango Café (the third of the set) seems to quote the Russian/Gypsy song Ochi chyornye (Dark Eyes), but that may be coincidental: in all other respects, it’s a pitch perfect homage to Astor Piazzolla. The mildly melancholy Nostalgia , a tremolo study, offers guitarists an appealing alternative to Tarrega’s ubiquitous Recuerdos de la Alhambra.

Azabagic plays Carlos Rafael Rivera’s Canción more than a minute faster than various YouTube performances, but with no diminution in sentiment or liquidity of phrasing. For such a short piece—1:35 as played here—that’s a significant difference, almost twice as fast as the others.
REVIEW:

In his synopsis of his  Blues and 7 Variations , Dusan Bogdanovi? explains that “The seeming incongruity of idioms and compositional styles” reflects his interest “in developing a widely based musical world.” That global perspective is immediately apparent in the 13-bar (instead of the traditional 12) Blues at the heart of the piece, cast in 9/8, a meter more common to the Balkans than the American South. Bogdanovi?’s self-described “virtuoso set of variations” calls for great speed, fluency, and panache, attributes Azabagic has in spades; I’m guessing that this stunning performance will prove a benchmark for years to come.

Alan Thomas conceived his suite Out of Africa as a series of impressions inspired by African “styles of singing … additive rhythms, irregular metric groupings, and pentatonic or pandiatonic scales.” Besides being subliminally linked in this way, the various movements together paint a musical portrait of idealized daily life. Call at Sunrise welcomes the dawn with a catchy tune “presented in canon that gradually develops into a vibrant ostinato and vocalic melody” (Thomas). A joyous Morning Dance follows, and as the sun attains its Zenith, the sound of the oud is heard in the land: Azabagic convincingly imitates the characteristic microtonal sound by playing on a detuned string. I don’t know if Thomas consulted the Arabic maqam system of modes as he composed the music, but either way it’s a compelling bit of orientalism. After a last festive Evening Dance , the tender (and tenderly played) Cradle Song brings the suite to a quiet close. All told, Azabagic’s idiomatic, technically flawless performances of this colorful repertoire should be required listening for guitar lovers everywhere.

FANFARE: Robert Schulslaper

NOTABLE WOMEN • Lincoln Trio • CEDILLE 126 (67:20)


AUERBACH Piano Trio. GARROP Seven. HIGDON Piano Trio. SCHWENDINGER C’e La Luna Questa Sera? THOMAS Moon Jig. TOWER Trio Cavany


The Lincoln Trio is touring the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia with the selections played on this compact disc. Of the six women composers whose works they chose to record, two are very well known and their music is often played by symphony orchestras and chamber groups. Jennifer Higdon has won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy, while Joan Tower, who has been composing for more than 50 years, is widely accepted as one of this country’s most important living composers. Still, a recording that holds only compositions by women is highly unusual. Higdon and Tower have made fine contributions in any case and their music deserves to be in everyone’s collection. Higdon’s Piano Trio has two movements, titled “Pale Yellow” and “Fiery Red.” Anyone who has ever painted will enjoy the evocation of these very different colors. The yellow has a great deal of white in it and its music as played by the Lincoln Trio is lyrical and tuneful with pastel values. The red, on the other hand, is all but too hot to handle. Its dissonance is controlled savagery. There is another recording of this piece on Naxos, but it was made live and the sound is not nearly as clear and present as on the Cedille disc.


Tower is represented by her trio cleverly called Cavany. It was co-commissioned by the La Jolla Music Festival in California, the Virginia Arts Festival, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York. Since it was a three-way co-commission, it has a three-note motif. It sounds simple but it actually requires considerable virtuosity from each of the able players. The resulting music is accessible and has already started to enter the repertoire.


Lesser-known composers on this CD include the wildly inventive, Russian-born Lera Auerbach, who now composes in New York City. Stacy Garrop’s Seven was written in memory of her father. Laura Elise Schwendinger’s C’e La Luna Questa Sera? makes the listener wonder if it will be safe to walk in the moonlight, while Augusta Read Thomas’s Moon Jig is an invitation to dance into the night.


This compact disc was produced and engineered by Grammy Award-winner Judith Sherman. The sound is clear, the balances seem natural, and the sound of the trio is close to what you would hear if you were listening to them play in a small hall with good acoustics. This is the premiere recording of the works by Tower and Schwendinger. The Lincoln Trio plays all these pieces with exquisite taste, so this disc would be an important addition to any library.


FANFARE: Maria Nockin

MESSIAEN Visions de l’Amen. DEBUSSY En Blanc et noir • Ursula Oppens, Jerome Lowenthal (pn) • ÇEDILLE CDR 90000 119 (60:51)


In 1941, Olivier Messiaen was released from Görlitz prison camp, where he had been taken following the fall of France in the Second World War. Visions de l’Amen for two pianos was his first large work after this. The listener will search in vain for any shred of a reaction to the war in this music: Messiaen was inhabiting an intellectual and spiritual space far removed from the ravages of war. It was premiered in Paris in 1943 by the composer and his brilliant 19-year-old pupil, and eventual wife, Yvonne Loriod. Her part—taken by Ursula Oppens on the current disc—“has the rhythmic difficulties, the bunches of chords, everything concerned with speed, allure, and quality of sound”; his had “the principal melody, the thematic elements, everything demanding emotion and power.” So Messiaen wrote in the preface to the score.


Messiaen offers seven meditations on various theological subjects, somewhat tenuously linked by the idea of “Amens,” much as he was to do in his next great cycle, Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus , where another difficult-to-translate word, regard , is used to provide cohesion to the 20 meditations on the birth of Christ. In Visions de l’Amen , the first piece represents an act of creation—no less than the Creation of the Universe—while the last describes the final Consummation. The second and fifth illustrate the adoration of God by cosmic and celestial creatures; the third and sixth describe the suffering of Jesus and of humanity; the central fourth piece is about desire “in its highest spiritual sense,” as the composer put it.


A considerable degree of cohesion over these disparate pieces is achieved by the use of a single theme, the theme of Creation, in four sequences of chords. This provides the material for most of the seven movements. As he was to do with Vingt Regards , Messiaen allots the first movement to a statement of the theme. In this case, over 39 measures, it is played five times by Lowenthal while Oppens contributes metrically complex, bell-like music (“bells shivering in the Light,” as the composer put it). The opening, pianissimo , is wonderfully evocative. The low chords of Creation, deep inside the piano, are barely more than a cosmic growl, Oppens and Lowenthal drawing in the listener compellingly. This opening Amen of Creation is one long crescendo and the players sculpt the increasing dynamics with complete conviction so that the apparently abrupt cut-off is surprising, even on repeated listening.


Jerome Lowenthal observes in his CD notes that, on its first performance, Visions de l’Amen aroused immediate enthusiasm in some and annoyance in others, and it is in pieces like the fourth movement, Amen of Desire , that the possibly annoyed listener is tested the most. Messiaen has two themes of Desire, the first somewhat sweet, the second extraordinarily saccharine, if vigorous. Yet it is essential that we remember that Messiaen was completely sincere and unironic in this writing. It places a huge burden on the performers, who have to play with complete conviction if all parties are not to collapse in laughter. Paul Griffiths in his book Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time describes this second theme as “[moving] through ever splashier paroxysms of cheapened harmony” and it is to their credit that Oppens and Lowenthal pull this movement off triumphantly.


If the first movement is a composed crescendo, the last, Amen of the Consummation , is a more or less continuous fortissimo . It is a tour de force in this recording: Lowenthal hammers out the Creation theme in the middle register while Oppens manages seemingly superhuman feats in the extreme upper and lower registers simultaneously, peal upon peal of bells pouring out. And, not content with starting this movement seemingly flat-out, both players are able to summon even more energy for the final measures, which are awe-inspiring.


Turning to the fine performance by Katia and Marielle Labèque on Erato, still sounding very good, it is clearly a recording one could live with very happily (as one has). However, the newcomer has the edge in terms of sheer weight of sound. That fuller sound picture emphasizes the intensity of Oppens’ and Lowenthal’s reading, which really takes no hostages. When the sustain pedal is finally released to cut off the huge reverberation of the final chords of the work, one realizes that the attention has been held for 46 minutes through the sheer conviction of all (composer and players) concerned.


Rather than provide more Messiaen, Cedille has opted for Debussy’s two-piano work En Blanc et noir (In White and Black). The link here is that Debussy wrote this music in the France of the First World War. If you’ll look in vain for references to war in Messiaen’s music, here there are a number of allusions, more or less elliptical, to it. The middle of three movements, Lent, Sombre , opens very somberly, and Oppens’ and Lowenthal’s performance brings out all the subsequent mercurial, shadowy shifts of mood and harmony. Their reading of En Blanc et noir is warmer than some—entirely to the advantage of the music—entirely clear and recommendable.


Ursula Oppens turns in a performance of the Messiaen whose “speed, allure, and quality of sound” are impeccable while providing a large amount of “emotion and power” as well, while Jerome Lowenthal is no less compelling in his performance. It’s a shame that Cedille provides only 10 seconds to recover from Visions de l’Amen before the Debussy breaks in, but this is a trivial cavil, faced with such a commanding and excellent disc.


FANFARE: Jeremy Marchant


What a great idea to pair two major 20th-century French two-piano works, both composed in wartime. More importantly, Ursula Oppens and Jerome Lowenthal prove an inspired pair, pianistically speaking. Throughout Visions de l'Amen's seven movements the pianists navigate the composer's tricky rhythms and frequently thick textural hurdles with impressive ensemble exactitude, uninhibited dynamism, and cogent organization of melodic and decorative elements. One good example of this can be found in the third movement, Amen de l'Agonie de Jésus, where, in the Bien modéré section, the second piano's fortissimo tune is perfectly contoured against the first piano's chords in the same register (left-hand forte, right-hand mezzo-forte). Similarly, the duo's long-lined animation and textural diversity in the seventh movement prevents the music from sounding long-winded and from bogging down.

Oppens commands the first piano part's big chords and wide leaps with the utmost solidity, definition, and rhythmic focus, and always knows when to dominate and pull back. Lowenthal has all of the good tunes (as well as the bad ones; I still cannot get through the second piano's sickly sweet fourth-movement solo without wincing), and he relishes accents more than certain of his discographical competitors. He also allows himself freedom in solo passages when expressively appropriate, such as in his ever-so-slight yet heart-quickening accelerandos under certain crescendos in the second movement.

In contrast to the lean and streamlined profile characterizing the Kontarsky brothers' reference recording of Debussy's En blanc et noir, Oppens and Lowenthal opt for full and generous sonorities, even when playing quietly. Although they seemingly employ as little sustain pedal as possible, a mellifluous yet strong legato quality emerges from massive chords, rapid bass-register rumblings, and fleeting flourishes. Who said you can't be impressionistic and clear at the same time? Save for slightly congested climaxes, the full-bodied engineering is excellent. Lowenthal's superb, highly informative annotations add further value to this desirable release.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEW:

Cedille has made a good decision in choosing this program to launch its new mid-price FOUNDation imprint. First, Menotti's Mass proves surprisingly engrossing and substantial, and, not surprisingly, full of beautiful melodic material and operatic-style passages and movements. Never having heard this work before, and being very familiar with the operas, I was expecting something more clever and catchy than profound. Well, what Menotti gives us is not exactly profound, but it's undeniably lovely and often very powerful, and the music, an intriguing stylistic mix, is weighty and thoroughly developed enough to give the textual/liturgical material its due.

Although originality is not much in evidence--Fauré, the Debussy of Pelléas, and Tchaikovsky's character effects in the ballets are never far away, nor are the film-music, plot-action orchestral devices--Menotti nevertheless knows how to write a very good theatre piece that at once successfully captures the significance of the Mass (and each of its movements) as a sacred, spiritual experience.

He's fortunate here to have some very fine soloists--not a weak link in this group--and an absolutely first-rate choir and conductor (Menotti sanctioned this performance and attended the rehearsals and concert from which this recording was made). The choir sopranos and tenors are worthy of special mention for their gorgeous tone and uninhibited ease in the upper-register passages. This is currently the only available recording of Menotti's Mass--a puzzle, given its immediately appealing character and standard performing forces--but the performances are excellent, and the sound, from a Chicago concert in 1982, is remarkably good thanks to expert remastering by engineer Bill Maylone.

Vierne's Messe solennelle is more stylistically and thematically cohesive than the Menotti, but it's anything but subtle; written for choir and two organs, it assumes a large performing space, large choral forces, and a room-filling organ sound. This performance, from a 1988 concert at a Chicago church, satisfies Vierne's requirements--including the support of two magnificent organs (whose specifications are thoughtfully included in the liner notes)--and makes a solid impression.

The William Ferris Chorale again makes a fine sound but seems less comfortable with the performing space and with the demands of coordinating organ and vocal parts. But in spite of the few out-of-sync moments, the overall performance is the kind that would leave an audience enthralled, especially regarding the big climaxes, rich tutti choral textures, and the visceral impact of the organ sound (very well recorded). In all, this proves not only an engaging program, but, particularly in the case of the Menotti, a welcome and important addition to the choral catalog. Warmly recommended. [1/11/2007]

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

REVIEW:

Well, here we go again. Just a few issues back (Fanfare 27:6) I was reviewing an Albany Symphony miscellany in which by far the most interesting piece was the Second Symphony of Robert Kurka, making its first appearance on CD after languishing in oblivion for decades since its release in 1961 on a Louisville LP. In that review, I recounted the sad circumstances of Kurka’s short life: his death from leukemia in 1957 at age thirty-six, just as his music was beginning to engender widespread attention in auspicious circles. Then, of course, I went on to advocate a more comprehensive survey of his work, etc. Now, just a few months later, arrives a new, all-Kurka CD, courtesy of Cedille, the Chicago-based company whose mission seems to include highlighting the work of lesser-known composers from that part of the country. (It was Cedille that released Kurka’s last, largest, and best-known work, an opera, The Good Soldier Schweik—see Fanfare 26:1—in 2002.) Kurka was born and raised in the large Czech community of Cicero, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

Although Kurka’s current reputation—such as it is—rests chiefly on Schweik, the opera suggests a direction in which the composer may have been going, but it is not really representative of the music he had been writing up to that time. Kurka is one of those composers with such a strongly individual voice that his music is instantly recognizable as his own. The most obvious influence on his style is Prokofiev, whose musical fingerprints are often clearly apparent. However, equally obvious is Kurka’s fascination with clashing major and minor thirds. This mitigates Prokofiev’s looming presence somewhat, while giving Kurka’s music a superficially American sound, leading some commentators to describe his style as “jazz-influenced.” However, there is an obsessive quality to Kurka’s attraction to this modal ambiguity that makes it seem more personal than a “national” trait. Take these two factors and distill them into the rhythmically vigorous, exuberantly optimistic generic language of American symphonic music of the 1950s and you have a good idea of “the Kurka sound”—except for one rather ineffable element: a most distinctive melodic/harmonic synthesis that is startling at first encounter and unforgettable forever after. (Two examples of this phenomenon found on the recording at hand: Symphony No. 2, third movement, second theme; Serenade, first movement, second theme.)

As with all composers whose lives have ended prematurely, one wonders what further accomplishments might have lain before him, in what directions his style might have evolved. Of course, such speculation is idle and fruitless. However, on the basis of what he did accomplish, Kurka stands as one of the leading contributors to the American orchestral repertoire of the 1950s, an enormously fertile decade for American composers. (I can cite more than 25 American symphonies composed during that one decade that qualify as works of the highest merit.)

The earliest work on this CD is called Music for Orchestra, and dates from 1949, although it was not heard until June 2003, when Kalmar and the Grant Park Orchestra performed it in conjunction with this recording. Predating the emergence of Kurka’s personal voice, it is a tight-fisted work in one movement of about 15 minutes duration. Far more fiercely aggressive and dissonant than the composer’s later works, the piece calls to mind the Bartók of, say, The Miraculous Mandarin and the Dance Suite. Although some passages are a little dry and uninteresting, for the most part it is quite compelling, and brilliantly performed here.

Kurka’s Symphony No. 2 dates from 1953. This was the first work of his that I heard, more than 40 years ago, and it made an immediate and powerful impact on me. These two new recordings—the recent Albany SO performance and this even more polished and tightly focused reading with the Grant Park Orchestra—have rekindled my enthusiasm, as they reveal subtle details barely audible on the old LP. As I wrote in the Albany review, Kurka’s Symphony No. 2 falls right into the mainstream style of the mid-century American symphonic genre: “conventionally classical in form, brash and assertive in attitude, propelled by energetic rhythmic syncopations, which are offset by more subdued, nostalgic passages. Fresh and exuberant, it reveals a certain naiveté, both compositionally and emotionally, and the influence of Prokofiev weighs heavily. . . . And yet, from the moment I first heard it, I was struck by both the authenticity of its expression and the strength of its unmistakable personality. . . .”

In four movements, the Serenade for Small Orchestra appeared the year after the symphony, and bears the following opus number. That it is the work of the same composer is unmistakable from the first phrase, although it is, on the whole, a more relaxed, somewhat less driven work. Each movement is associated with familiar lines from the poetry of Walt Whitman, although—as is typical of composers with strong personal styles—the result is far more Kurka than Whitman. This work was also first recorded—a year or two after the symphony—by Robert Whitney and the Louisville Orchestra. Although it always sounded a little lame in their rather scrappy performance, the Serenade sounds fresh and bright in this new recording.

The latest work on the recording, composed the year following the Serenade, is Julius Caesar, subtitled, “Symphonic Epilogue after Shakespeare.” Once again, only by the greatest stretch of imagination might one infer a connection with either Caesar or Shakespeare—but Kurka is everywhere apparent, notwithstanding an especially strong whiff of Prokofiev. The piece is notable, however, for a stronger sense of drama than one notes in the previous works, and a less obviously American flavor. It is also structured quite tightly, so that its nine-minute duration passes by disappointingly quickly.

Featuring little-known music of distinguished merit, meticulously performed and superbly recorded, this recording meets my Want List criteria, as one of the most rewarding releases of the past twelve months. I recommend it strongly and without hesitation to all enthusiasts of mid-20th-century American orchestral music—I’m tempted to offer a money-back guarantee!

--Walter Simmons, FANFARE

"The beautifully produced Çedille album of Jewish cabaret music broke new ground. Yet more depths were revealed in a ravaged culture: modest, entertaining, and humane." -- Paul Ingram, Fanfare

The booklet accompanying this release is so thick that it requires a double jewel case to accommodate it and the single CD it documents. So extensive are the essay, annotations, and bibliography to this production—assumed to have been authored by the New Budapest Orpheum’s director, Philip V. Bohlman, though nowhere is he credited as the author—that I will not even try to summarize their contents, which cover the history, politics, and poetics of Yiddish song in stage, screen, vaudeville, and cabaret. The program of Jewish cabaret songs contained herein complements some of the volumes that appeared in the massive Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, though the composers represented on the current CD were not necessarily transplants to American soil. Of those who enriched the Jewish cabaret literature, some did make it to U.S. shores, notably Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill, and Arnold Schoenberg. But others, such as Viktor Ullmann and Pavel Haas, perished in the Holocaust.

The disc is divided into seven sections: (1) “The Great Ennui on the Eve of Exile,” featuring songs by Edmund Nick and Erich Kästner; (2) “The Exiled Language—Yiddish Songs for Stage and Screen,” featuring unattributed songs, but at least one by Abraham Ellstein; (3) “Transformation of Tradition,” presenting songs by the aforementioned Eisler; (4) “The Poetics of Exile,” offering songs by Kurt Tucholsky, as well as additional songs by Eisler; (5) “Traumas of Inner Exile,” featuring songs by Ullmann; (6) “Nostalgia and Exile,” presenting additional unattributed songs; and (7) “Exile in Reprise,” offering songs by Friedrich Holländer.

The songs were chosen to reflect the various phases of exile—physical, emotional, and psychological—that European Jewry experienced in the period leading up to and during WW II and its immediate aftermath, roughly 1935 to 1945, a period that accounts for the second great exodus of Jews from Europe. Primarily then, these are songs from the smoke-filled nightclubs and entertainment halls of Berlin and other European cities before the rise of Hitler, from the barracks of the concentration camps during the Holocaust, and from the months and years following the liberation. The before, during, and after the Shoah aspects of the recorded material frame and reflect the corresponding attitudes, mindsets, and living conditions of the times—from a song like Elegy in the Forest of Things, expressing a kind of resigned world weariness; to Ellstein’s Deep as Night that tries to deaden the senses to the pain of the outside world with the surrogate internal pain of a longed for love; to the bitter sarcasm of Eisler’s Sweetbread and Whips and Georg Kreisler’s Poisoning Pigeons, a song about spreading arsenic on graham crackers and feeding them to the birds in the park; and finally to I’m an Irrepressible Optimist, a song from the aftermath which cannot erase memories and finds optimism only in the release of death. 

The New Budapest Orpheum Society is an ensemble-in-residence at the University of Chicago. A mixed group of vocalists (Julia Bentley, mezzo-soprano and Stewart Figa, baritone) and instrumentalists (Iordanka Kisslova, violin; Stewart Miller, string bass; Hank Tausend, percussion; and Ilya Levinson, piano), the NBOS performs regularly at Chicago’s universities, synagogues, and cultural institutions, and has also appeared at the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum and the American Academy in Berlin. Philip V. Bohlman is the group’s artistic director; and Ilya Levinson, in addition to her role as pianist, also serves as music director and arranger.

Readers who acquired and enjoyed the three volumes from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music titled “Songs of the American Yiddish Stage” (Naxos 8.559405, 8.559432, and 8.559455) will find much in “Jewish Cabaret in Exile” to their liking. One needn’t necessarily be Jewish, however, to appreciate this material, much of which had its origins in the dives, dance halls, and strip joints of Bertolt Brecht’s, Kurt Weill’s, Lotte Lenya’s, and Marlene Dietrich’s Berlin. Some of it is pretty heady stuff, with the gender-bending sexual stereotyping and absurdist satire of a decadent, Dada-costumed culture on the verge of imploding. Recommended then if you love it. If you don’t, best leave it.
-- Jerry Dubins, Fanfare

Track listing details:

I. The Great Ennui on the Eve of Exile
Edmund Nick (1891–1973) & Erich Kästner (1899–1974)
1 Die möblierte Moral / The Well-Furnished Morals (1:48)
2 Das Wiegenlied väterlicherseite / The Father’s Lullaby (4:49)
3 Die Elegie in Sachen Wald / Elegy in the Forest of Things (3:29)
4 Der Gesang vom verlorenen Sohn / The Song of the Lost Son (5:13)
5 Das Chanson für Hochwohlgeborene / The Chanson for Those Who Are Born Better (2:43)
6 Der Song “man müßte wieder . . .”/ The Song “Once Again One Must . . .” (3:59)

II. The Exiled Language — Yiddish Songs for Stage and Screen
7 Moses Milner (1886–1953): In Cheider / In the Cheder (5:46)
8 Mordechai Gebirtig (1877–1942): Avreml, der Marvikher / Abe, the Pickpocket (5:12)
9 Abraham Ellstein (1907–1963): Tif vi di Nacht / Deep as the Night (3:07)

III. Transformation of Tradition
Hanns Eisler (1898–1962):
From Zeitungsausschnitte, Op. 11 (Newspaper Clippings)
10 Mariechen / Little Marie (1:49)
11 Kriegslied eines Kindes / A Child’s Song of War (2:32)

IV. The Poetics of Exile: Songs by Hanns Eisler and Kurt Tucholsky (1890–1935)
12 Heute zwischen Gestern und Morgen / Today between Yesterday and Tomorrow (2:35)
13 Bügerliche Wohltätigkeit / Civic Charity (3:01)
14 Zuckerbrot und Peitsche / Sweetbread and Whips (2:20)
15 An den deutschen Mond / To the German Moon (2:46)
16 Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit / Unity and Justice and Freedom (1:53)
17 Couplet für die Bier-Abteilung / Couplet for the Beer Department (1:26)

V. Traumas of Inner Exile
Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944)
Three Yiddish Songs (Brezulinka), op. 53 (1944)
18 Berjoskele / The Little Birch (4:18)
19 Margaritkele / Little Margaret (1:37)
20 Ich bin a Maydl in di Yorn / I’m Already a Young Woman (1:30)

VI. Nostalgia and Exile
21 Georg Kreisler (b. 1922): Tauben vergiften / Poisoning Pigeons (2:46)
22 Hermann Leopoldi (1888–1959) and Robert Katscher (1894–1942): Ich bin ein unverbesserlicher Optimist / I’m an Irrepressible Optimist (3:46)
23 Misha Spoliansky (1898–1985) / Marcellus Schiffer (1892–1932): Heute Nacht oder nie / Tonight or Never (3:22)

VII. Exile in Reprise
Friedrich Holländer on Stage and Film
24 Friedrich Holländer (1896–1976): Marianka (2:32)
25 Wenn der Mond, wenn der Mond . . . / If the Moon, If the Moon . . . (3:00) Lyrics by Theobald Tiger (Kurt Tucholsky)

The Avalon String Quartet, “a remarkably fine ensemble” (The Strad), makes its Cedille Records debut with an irresistible and richly varied program of captivating works by Claude Debussy, Benjamin Britten, Osvaldo Golijov, and rising American composer Stacy Garrop. The ensemble presents the world-premiere recording of Garrop’s String Quartet No. 4: Illuminations, a tantalizing, Pictures at an Exhibition-style tour of spectacular illustrations from an ornate medieval manuscript. Debussy’s lush, exotic String Quartet in G minor unfolds through iridescent quasi-orchestral textures. Golijov’s lyrical, deeply moving Tenebrae (Latin for “shadows”), written for the Kronos Quartet, pays tender tribute to the earth, depicted in its remote celestial beauty, haunted by undertones of human discord. Britten’s youthful, energetic Three Divertimenti and Alla Marcia are alluring, rarely recorded studies in inventiveness and perpetual motion.

The Avalon is quartet-in-residence at the Northern Illinois University School of Music. “…an ensemble that invites you — ears, mind, and spirit — into its music.” (Chicago Tribune)

REVIEW:

The folks at Cedille seem to have mastered the art of putting together classical music collections that make good musical sense. Debussy’s String Quartet is, of course, standard fare, and it usually appears in tandem with the Ravel and something else French. Not here. Instead, we have two Britten rarities, the entertaining Three Divertimenti and the lone Alla Marcia (the first of the Divertimenti is also a march, so you can see the logic), a self-described “Pictures at an Exhibition” type piece by Stacy Garrop, and a moving conclusion in the form of Osvaldo Golijov’s single-movement Tenebrae. The entire program provides consistently interesting and entertaining continuous listening, and the sonics are drop-dead gorgeous.

So, for that matter, is the playing of the Avalon String Quartet. The group’s corporate sonority is warm and mellow, but with just a touch of “rosin” in the tone. They attack rhythmic moments such as the scherzo of the Debussy, the Burlesque and the marches in the Britten pieces, and Garrop’s musically impossibly named “Mouth of Hell” with plenty of guts and precision, but no unpleasant hardness in the tone. The slow music is simply luminous. I am not generally a fan of pseudo-religious programmatic stuff such as Garrop offers here, but it’s awfully well done, and the booklet provides well-produced, full-color reproductions of the illustrations from the late medieval Book of Hours that Garrop took as her inspiration. They are exquisite, as is much of Garrop’s writing more generally.

Here, in short, is another excellent program that chamber music fans looking to venture off the beaten path will surely relish.

- ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

Moving music of late-Romantic spirituality by three great 20th-century English composers.

Vaughan Williams Mass in G Minor, Stanford Motets Op. 38, and Parry "Songs of Farewell."