MEANWHILE • eighth blackbird • CEDILLE 90000 (68:28)


MAZZOLI Still Life with Avalanche. HUREL _…à mesure. ETEZADY _from Damaged Goods. HARTKE Meanwhile: Incidental music to imaginary puppet plays. GLASS Music in Similar Motion. ADÈS Catch


Eighth blackbird has always impressed me with their unstoppable combination of fresh taste and virtuosic playing. They’ve gone from strength to strength in their series of albums, and this might well be my favorite. Whether I like all the pieces or not doesn’t really matter: If I did, it probably would mean they weren’t reaching out broadly enough, and what really matters is that the group plays as though it likes them.


Stephen Hartke (b. 1952) contributes the “title track” for the disc, Meanwhile (2007). It’s a micro-suite, referencing a personal re-imagining of Javanese puppet theater, yet I also hear echoes of Stravinsky from L’Histoire du Soldat . Perhaps the most consistently striking thing about the piece, though, is its sound world. It has dazzlingly imaginative percussion writing (the first movement has an insistently groovy hammering of three flexatones, for example). It’s a feast of little sonic plates, served with dizzying speed.


Missy Mazzoli (b.1980) opens the program with her Still Life With Avalanche (2008). She’s perhaps the most visibly successful composer of her generation, and fronts her own indie (all-female) rock band Victoire. The music is fluent and propulsive, but it moves me the least of the works here. The form for the majority of pieces I’ve heard by the composer is a chaconne (with repeating bass line), and even though she livens it here with polytonality, it still feels a little predictable to me. Others, I know, will disagree.


Philippe Hurel (b. 1955) is the most explicitly modernist composer on the program. His … à mesure (1996) feels like a very “post-Boulez” piece, in its evident rigor; its relentless motoric textures; and its sense of a complex undergirding system. But while formalistic, it’s not apparently serial. One hears constant repetition and sequencing of motives; indeed one could even reference minimalism in its obsessive cycling…except for the fact that there also seem to be processes at work that “eat away” at the material to distort it and trip it up (an approach owing something to Ligeti). His involvement with computer music is evident not only in the work’s structural logic but also in the slow drifting harmonies of its conclusion, which have a very “electronic” sound, even though they are all acoustic, emanating from the sextet.


Catch by Thomas Adès (b. 1971) is mercuriality incarnate. In just over nine minutes, the piece runs through a dazzling sequence of states and moods, at times somber, at others frenzied. Things can sound very raw, contrasts can be unnerving, and yet one never doubts the commitment of the composer to the resultant sounds and harmonies. It’s an almost sinister display of precociousness. Along with the Hurel, this is the most crazily virtuosic music on the program.


Philip Glass needs no introduction or explanation by this point. He’s not my favorite minimalist, but his presence on the program as a sort of elder statesman is strangely welcome, and I also salute the blackbirds for their selection of one of the composer’s early (1969), radical, and pathbreaking pieces, from the time when his “absolute” music was perhaps at its height of originality. And Roshanne Etezady (b.1973) is represented by two movements of her Damaged Goods. I’ve enjoyed almost every piece of the composer I’ve encountered, and these are a nice pairing; “About Time” is dark and mournful, while “Eleventh Hour” is a real rhythmic rush and the perfect closer to the program.


Eighth blackbird’s taste is stylistically omnivorous. They tend to avoid any school of composition in favor of real personality and high imagination. The result is a rare mix of substance and entertainment. I did mention that they’re able to negotiate all the subtleties of these different languages with equal virtuosity, didn’t I? Also, I salute them for sticking with the plucky Cedille label, which has been one of Chicago’s greatest cultural ambassadors for a couple of decades now. A wonderful disc.


FANFARE: Robert Carl

The latest entry in Cedille's very worthy African Heritage Symphonic Series offers the most interesting repertoire yet. The four works included here, all by living composers, demonstrate a wide range of styles and compositional techniques that place their respective authors squarely in the mainstream of contemporary music. Whereas earlier issues focused on the process of "assimilation", of artists coming to grips with a musical culture that labeled them outsiders and aliens, and while even here prejudice and stereotyping to some extent determined the career options open to the two older composers (David Baker and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, born in 1931 and 1932 respectively), these works all project the feeling of having been written from the "inside".


The reason for this impression probably results from two factors: increased acceptance of African American composers as writers of "classical music", and probably more importantly, acceptance of African American popular music idioms (especially jazz) into the language of so-called "art" music. Baker's Cello Concerto and Perkinson's Sinfonietta No. 2 make this process very clear. The first work, written for the composer's friend and teacher Janos Starker and commandingly performed by Dutch cellist Katinka Kleijn, remains a gritty and harmonically dense piece in which the soloist communes with various sections of the orchestra in sustained dialog. It's chamber music writ large, its improvisatory feel pointing more powerfully to the composer's extensive jazz credentials than to his facility for more overtly popular elements. On the other hand, Perkinson's piece combines various folk songs with the famous BACH motive to create a Bartókian synthesis quite unlike anything else.


William Banfield's Essay for Orchestra reveals a touch of Sibelius in its accumulation of incident over long-held pedal tones, but its thematic material and interesting orchestral garb, with extensive percussion commentary accompanying all of the other instruments, create a very distinctive impression. The first work on the disc, Michael Abels' Global Warming, refers both to the environmental phenomenon and to the emotionally contrasting idea of improved relations among nations, and the music illustrates this dichotomy beautifully, with an opening (and concluding) evocation of heat and stillness enfolding a dance section in which imitation Irish folk music rubs shoulders with something vaguely Middle Eastern. It's delightful. The Chicago Sinfonietta's amazingly assured performances of this wildly diverse assortment enjoy perfectly balanced, warmly focused recorded sound. This is a very satisfyingly executed project that makes its points in the only way that ultimately matters: by offering excellent interpretations of interesting, thoughtful, and enjoyable music. [2/8/2003]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Review quotes about "Lyric for Strings" by George Walker:

"Deserves to be as popular as the string elegies by Grieg, Faure and Elgar". Classical New Jersey
"Intense, haunting, lyrical beauty" News Journal, Mansfield, OH
"Hushed beauty and passionate intensity" American Record Guide
"A gorgeous find" Cincinnati Enquirer
"A finely crafted and deeply felt piece" Philadelphia Inquirer
"Intensely moving and beautiful" High Fidelity
"It reminds one of Barber's Adagio for Strings, only less sentimental and ultimately, more profound" Baltimore Evening Sun
"A Masterpiece" Fanfare Magazine
"One of the most beautiful pieces ever written" News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware
"A Gem." Baltimore Sun
"As a piece of gentle art . . . it has few peers." Philadelphia Inquirer

MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in e. SCHUMANN Violin Concerto. BEETHOVEN Romances Nos. 1 and 2 • Rachel Barton Pine (vn); Christoph-Mathias Mueller, cond; Göttinger SO • CEDILLE 90000144 (71:20)

Rachel Barton Pine’s new release on Cedille Records contains a pairing of the violin concertos by Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, plus the two short Romances by Ludwig van Beethoven. When Mendelssohn became Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1835, he made his friend Ferdinand David the concertmaster. In a letter dated July 30, 1838, Mendelssohn wrote to him: “I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor runs through my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace.” He worked on it for six years, during which he kept up a regular correspondence about it with the violinist. David premiered it with his orchestra in1845, the last year of the composer’s life.


Barton Pine plays this most familiar piece with quite a distinctive interpretation. Her first movement is light, fast, and dripping with passion. She lets you know she is enjoying the pace as she rises to the challenge. Her blazing bow work and perfectly intoned notes are always impeccably smooth as the fingers of her left hand fly through the movement with seeming ease. The imaginative phrasing of her expressive Andante soars over the orchestra with limpid, poignant beauty. She plays the beginning of the third movement with ardor and the wonderful Finale marked Allegro molto vivace with amazing artistry and technique. As we all know, the most renowned violinists of the 20th and 21st centuries have recorded it so the competition is fierce. Joshua Bell recorded the Concerto for Sony in 2002 with Roger Norrington and the Camerata Salzburg. His performance is tasteful and inviting, but I think it lacks some of Barton Pine’s intensity and excitement. Recording in 1995 on Deutsche Grammophon, Anne Sophie Mutter plays beautifully, but her interpretation lacks some of the individual flair and drama heard on the Cedille disc. A more recent release is Alina Ibragimova’s Hyperion recording, a historically informed performance of the Concerto with Vladimir Jurowski and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Her playing is exciting but she does not have Barton Pine’s depth of understanding. Reaching back into history, there are some great performances by artists such as Henryk Szeryng, but their sound is nowhere near the present state of the art.


Like the Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann’s Concerto has many renditions despite its difficult birth. Although Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim, and Johannes Brahms consigned it to a shelf, by now it has earned a place in the hearts of the music-loving public. Barton Pine plays it with a deep emotional commitment that is palpable throughout her performance. Henryk Szeryng plays it together with the Mendelssohn Concerto on a Mercury Living Presence CD released in 1994. On a Teldec disc, also released in 1994, Gidon Kremer’s rendition of the Violin Concerto is paired with Martha Argerich’s interpretation of Schumann’s Piano Concerto. Known for his individualism, Kremer plays the first and third movements much slower and with greater deliberation than Barton Pine, but his second movement is faster. Barton Pine’s first two movements are slower than Szeryng’s, but she plays the finale faster than either Szeryng or Kremer. All of that pales in comparison to these fine artists’ interpretation of this great but much maligned work. With her judicious use of rubato and a tasteful interpretation, Barton Pine has put her indelible stamp on the Schumann. She has come to love it intensely and she is teaching her fans to love it as well.


The two Beethoven Romances are a charming addition to this excellent disc. Since one is placed between the concertos and the other is at the very end, they add moments of contemplation that allow the listener to fully absorb the untrammelled joy of the Mendelssohn and the deeply compelling lyricism of the Schumann. Christoph-Mathias Mueller and the Göttinger Symphonie of Lower Saxony give stellar performances of the orchestral parts of each work. Except for one slightly muddy note at the very end of the Mendelssohn, the sound on this Cedille recording is brimming with life and it allows you to feel as if seated in the 10th row center of a fine concert hall. I heartily recommend this delightful recording.

FANFARE: Maria Nockin

Cedille Records intends its African Heritage Symphonic Series as a follow-up to CBS Records' Black Composers Series from the 1970s, and I'm happy to say Volume 1 makes for a strong start. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), chiefly remembered for his cantata based on Longfellow's Hiawatha, actually was British-born, and his music is understandably more European sounding than that of his African American colleagues, though in some cases you can hear instances of traditionally African harmonic modulations. Thus, the Danse Nègre from the African Suite (1898) sounds sort of like Vaughan-Williams' The Wasps spiced up by Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. Dvorak is a composer who comes to mind again in the Petite Suite de Concert (1910), where Coleridge-Taylor exhibits the same qualities of tunefulness, rhythmic fluency, and sparkling orchestration as the Czech master.


William Grant Still (1895-1978) greatly admired Coleridge-Taylor, but he also was heavily influenced by the great jazz musicians of his time, in particular W.C. Handy, known as the "Father of the Blues". It's the sound of the blues that opens Still's Symphony No. 1, and to hear it in full symphonic dress immediately calls to mind George Gershwin (both composers knew each other's music). Various forms of jazz and blues permeate the symphony, yet Still constructs his work according to classic symphonic principles, and the result is a highly original, thought-provoking, and ultimately enjoyable creation.


From the African diaspora, we turn to the motherland for the music of Fela Sowande (1906-87). Sowande's Africa Suite (1930) utilizes traditional melodies of his native Nigeria, allowing us to hear the actual modes and rhythms of Africa presented in European orchestral timbres--a hybrid that works thanks to conductor Paul Freeman's rhythmic exactitude and to enthusiastic playing by the Chicago Sinfonietta. Freeman and his band give vibrant performances of the Coleridge-Taylor works as well, and show a far less self-conscious demeanor in the Still Symphony than Neeme Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, playing with much more relaxed authenticity and "cool". Cedille's recording is a model of three-dimensional realism, making this disc both a sonic and musical treasure.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

Four-time Grammy-winning sextet, Eighth Blackbird (8BB), "one of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet" (Chicago Tribune), presents the world premiere recording of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang's composition as explanation, based on Gertrude Stein's seminal 1926 lecture of the same name. Called "Super Chamber Music" by David Lang, this multidisciplinary work incorporates elements of chamber music, theater, and performance art; it has the groundbreaking ensemble not only performing the music, but also speaking and singing Stein's text.

For the performance, the 8BB players committed themselves to a rigorous education process, including lessons in acting, diction, and the art of theater. Musical America praised 8BB's live performance of Lang's work as "every bit as witty, circular, and self-referential as Stein's own prose; it's rare, not to mention utterly satisfying, to hear a work that so completely embodies it's text. To invoke Stein, one suspects Composition as Explanation will be a work of our time for many times to come."

In 2016, 8BB asked David Lang to propose a project that they could perform at the Chicago Arts Club in conjunction with the Club's centennial year. In his research, Lang discovered that Stein had spoken at the Club in 1934; this led him to employ Stein's text as the basis for the piece.

VIVALDI: Vocal and Instrumental Works

The electrifying Pacifica Trio is back with the highly anticipated third installment of their acclaimed Soviet Experience series. This release focuses on Shostakovich’s string quartets of the 196s, Nos. 9-12. Ranging from a balanced neoclassical form to an unpredictable riot of tonal and atonal themes, these quartet s rank among the finest of Shostakovich’s later works. The adventurous String Quartet No. 6 of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Shostakovich’s friend and colleague, provides another vantage point to view this period in Soviet history. (“The playing is nothing short of phenomenal, bringing new dimensions of interpretative depth and a subtle fusion of intensity and clarity. . . . When the series is complete, it looks set to be the one to own.” The Telegraph, London)

TCHAIKOVSKY: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 3

Mary Elizabeth Bowden, praised for her “splendid, brilliant” artistry (Gramophone), celebrates the narrative power of the trumpet with "Storyteller: Contemporary Concertos for Trumpet." Bowden is joined by the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra and conductor Allen Tinkham in a collection of new concertos that redefine the trumpet’s voice in modern classical music. This recording, a testament to Bowden’s commitment to expanding the trumpet repertoire, features world premiere recordings of works by James M. Stephenson, Clarice V. Assad, Vivian Fung, Tyson Gholston Davis, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Reena Esmail, showcasing the richness and versatility of contemporary classical trumpet music.

SONGS OF THE ROMANTIC AGE

SONGS OF THE CLASSICAL AGE

Conducted by Christopher Bell, Chicago’s Grant Park Chorus, “as fine a symphony chorus as any to be found anywhere in the nation” (Chicago Tribune), makes its a cappella CD debut with an all-American program of eight imaginative, moving, and sometimes whimsical works written between 1975 and 25, including four world-premiere recordings. Premieres include Abbie Betinis’s Toward Sunshine, Toward Freedom: Songs of Smaller Creatures. Lee Kesselman’s Buzzings: Three Pieces about Bees offers vignettes based on Emily Dickinson poems. Paul Crabtree’s Five Romantic Miniatures is a set of affectionate tributes to characters from The Simpsons animated TV series. The chorus made its commercial recording debut performing with the Grant Park Orchestra on the 211 Cedille Records release The Pulitzer Project, which attracted international attention. Chicago’s New City said the CD “spectacularly showcased” the chorus’s “remarkable transparency and flexibility.”

SOLER: Harpsichord Sonatas, Vol. II

Gaudete Brass, a quintet devoted to presenting serious brass chamber music and commissioning new works, brings a fresh perspective to music of John Corigliano with an inventive album of brass works by the prolific American composer and his protégés. “The excellent Gaudete Brass” (Gramophone) honors Corigliano, winner of Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Pulitzer Prize, with world-premiere recordings of his groundbreaking Fanfares to Music for on- and off-stage brass choirs, his stately Antiphon for double brass quintet, and a new arrangement of the Rossini-esque Overture from his popular Gazebo Dances. Gaudete commissioned the title track, Steven Bryant’s sevenfive, in honor of Corigliano’s 75th birthday, and the numbers seven and five figure prominently in its musical architecture. David Sampson’s boisterous Entrance opens the program, while his surprisingly restrained Still is luxuriously lyrical. Jonathan Newman’s Prayers of Steel evokes the Midwest landscapes in Carl Sandburg’s poetry. Jeremy Howard Beck’s ROAR exploits the brasses’ ability to do just that. Conrad Winslow’s The Record of a Lost Tribe summons an imaginary, bygone civilization. All works except Entrance receive their world-premiere recordings on the album.