In Ástor Piazzolla’s tango nuevo are all the ingredients of his life – his love from adolescence for Classical music, his fascination with jazz and improvisation and – naturally – the ever-present tango, instilled in him by his father, whom he would immortalize in one of his best-loved works, Adiós NoniNo. + Piazzolla’s life-long quest to rejuvenate the tango caused animosity and even threats from traditionalists in Argentina, and even among his sympathizers there were those who sometimes wondered if what they heard really was a tango. + Piazzolla himself never doubted, and musicians of all backgrounds and genres, from jazz (Gerry Mulligan, Gary Burton, Al Di Meola) and pop (Grace Jones) to classical (Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma) have agreed with him. + On the present recording, the trombonist Christian Lindberg has joined up with his long-time chamber music partner Roland Pöntinen and the young bandoneon player Jens Lundberg in a program that takes in their own arrangements of Piazzolla highlights. + Trio Tangophoria also selected some tango standards which featured in Piazzolla’s repertoire, as well as Christian Lindberg’s own homage to Piazzolla: Midvinter (‘Midwinter’), written for a concert project as a bridge between two of the master’s Four Seasons.

This is the second of a planned series of eight discs promising to trace the development of the trio sonata, the archetypal Baroque chamber form. The first, devoted to music from London Baroque’s home country, was reviewed in Fanfare 28:3 with considerable enthusiasm by Laura Rónai, and by myself elsewhere in a review that largely mirrored my colleague’s findings. Now London Baroque has turned its attention to what was happening during the same period across the English Channel, with equally commendable results.


The ambivalent French attitude to the sonata, an Italian invention, was famously and sardonically expressed in the words of playwright Fontenelle: “Sonate, que me veux-tu” (literally “Sonata, what do you want from me?”). A more balanced view came from the theorist François Raguenet who, although a stern critic of Italian opera, declared that he had “never met with a master in France but what agreed that the Italians knew much better how to turn and vary a trio than the French.” A number of French masters, indeed, sought to integrate the spirit of the Italian sonata, specifically the Corellian sonata, into their own style, among whom François Couperin attempted a fusion that reached a climax in the two sets of L’apothéoses , dedicated respectively to Corelli (1724) and Lully (1725). (Both have already been recorded by London Baroque on BIS CD1275, not reviewed in Fanfare. )


The selection made by London Baroque provides a representative cross section of writing in trio style, taking us chronologically from Lully to Clérambault (one assumes the series will include a second French disc devoted to the 18th century), and managing to include at least one unfamiliar name in the shape of Jean Nicolas Geoffroy (?–1694), a shadowy figure whose obscurity is not helped by the fact that there was more than one composer of that name working in Paris at the time. According to gambist Charles Medlam’s note, his Dialogues were probably originally intended for organ, but they work well enough in this form, if too diffuse to lay any claim to the structural balance of the true trio sonata. Much the same can be said of the little pieces by Louis Couperin, which provide no indication as to instrumentation. Lully’s trios for the ceremony of Le coucher du Roi , performed daily at Versailles by the petits violons , do achieve true equality between the two violins, but, true to form, the Italian-born Lully firmly implanted French style on the music. Although Marais’s Pièces en trio (1692) were the first works to be published in France in trio form, they are in fact a collection of mostly dance movements that following tradition could be arranged in suites. As such, they too bear little relationship to the true trio sonata, preferring to explore the French love of varying sonorities rather than the symmetrical balance of the Italian sonata, an observation that applies equally to the Suite by Gaspard le Roux (1660–1707).


It is only with the next generation that an awareness of the Italian model emerges. François Couperin’s La Superbe is well named, being a majestic work that pays overt homage to Corelli in the suspensions of its opening movement, and the fugal writing of the second, while Jean-Féry Rebel’s tombeau in honor of Lully largely remains loyal to native style, but also betrays Italian leanings in some dazzling solo violin-writing and furious tremolandos in its fourth movement. Most Italianate of all is the work by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, significantly the only one included here to bear the name “sonata.”


With the proviso that, as with the disc of English works, London Baroque’s style of playing manifestly owes more to the 18th than the 17th century, these performances can be thoroughly recommended. The technical expertise, splendid sense of balance between the players, finesse, and spirited approach are by now all familiar assets, while the music is of generally high quality and well worth hearing. The engineering occasionally imparts a glassiness to the violins’s upper register, but is otherwise fine. I look forward to further issues in this interesting series.


FANFARE: Brian Robins

from Daniel Felsenfeld's Liner Notes:

Copland seemed to have two separate sides, the populist and the aesthete. The Sonata for Violin and Piano seems to fall in between the two, being jaunty and full of good tunes, but also based on sophisticated harmonies and unorthodox musical schemes. The piece is dedicated to Lieutenant Harry H. Dunham, a close friend of Copland’s who died in battle, and the date of its première (17th January 1944, with violinist Ruth Posselt and the composer at the piano) shows that war was probably very much on the pacifist Copland’s mind. Cast in three movements with traditional titles (Andante, Lento and Allegretto giusto) this is truly a neo-classical work, but it is also pure Copland; as with everything, he took what he needed of the theoretical conceits, but ultimately composed to his instincts.

Two Pieces for violin and piano, which Copland wrote in the mid 1920s for himself and violinist Samuel Dushkin to play in a Boulanger-sponsored concert in Paris, is a chance to see Copland playing with new ideas, including a new fascination with jazz (this is also the period he was writing his heavily jazz-influenced Piano Concerto). Much of this music would be mined for later scores, but they do hold interest on their own. This is music that is bitonal (in more than one key at once), undoubtedly influenced by Darius Milhaud, whom Copland esteemed highly. In the Ukelele Serenade Copland is having a good time trying to make the fiddle sound like something it is not.

Copland’s piano trio Vitebsk, one of his few "Jewish" works, is here arranged for violin and piano. It is a startling piece, full of wailing dissonances, even using microtones, notes which fall in between the cracks of piano keys, not of the "Western" well-tempered system. It is based on The Dybuk, a Jewish folk-tale, which also fascinated George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein, about spirits and doomed love in a small Hasidic community, and Copland hoped the music would, in his own words, "...reflect the harshness and drama of Jewish life in White Russia." It is, therefore, a lean, almost angry work, with many moods contained in its taut single movement.

Dipping even further into the well of Copland’s juvenilia, Two Preludes for Violin and Piano are attempts to translate poetry into music, as Liszt had done in his tone poems. The poets in whom Copland found inspiration were Witter Bynner and Wallace Stevens, both contemporaneous and American. Here we see the seed of the Copland yet to come, the off-kilter rhythms, the stark harmonies, and the sparseness of texture. The titles offer their own explanations; these are musical moment pieces, composed to a single-focused and specific idea of mood.

Originally scored for flute and piano, Copland’s Duo was re-scored by the composer in 1977 at the request of Robert Mann, the violinist for the Juilliard Quartet and Copland enthusiast. The "all-but" sonata was therefore transcribed into this version, which took a good deal less time than the composition - Copland worked for three years on the Duo, commissioned by William Kinkcaid. The famous flautist wanted something that would work "...like a sonata," and Copland certainly delivered the goods, offering a tightly formed work in three movements. The second movement in particular, the composition of which took most of the three years, evokes, in the composer’s own words "a certain mood that I connect with myself - a rather sad and wistful one, I suppose."

The ballet Rodeo was a divisive moment in Copland’s career, a complete smash hit, and yet the piece that managed to alienate him from much of his community. Copland, they thought, had sold out. Copland even incorporates some memorable American folk-tunes. It is a cowboy romance, full of wranglers and cowgirls, and culminating in a hoedown. The choreography and scenario were by Agnes de Mille, who, on the strength of her work on Rodeo, was hired to choreograph a new musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein called Oklahoma!, and Copland composed dutifully to her vision, though he preferred his idea for a ballet about Ellis Island. The 1942 première at the Metropolitan Opera was an enormous success, with a standing ovation. The suite from the work is one of Copland’s most recognizable achievements, with hundreds of performances and countless wonderful recordings.

Daniel Felsenfeld

Classical Music

In Stockholm during Johan Helmich Roman's lifetime, the recorder was the most common wind instrument, used throughout the social spectrum – including the Royal music establishment. The transverse flute, however, was generally the preserve of the nobility and bourgeosie. That hasn't stopped the celebrated recorder player Dan Laurin from taking up his countryman’s sonatas on his own instrument. With his fellow musicians in Paradiso Musicale, Laurin opts for a justifiably Italianate slant – providing great variety in realizations characterized by bold and striking harmonizations.

The Engegård Quartet, founded in 2006, releases this album as their first on BIS. The group has become one of the most highly regarded ensembles in Norway, and has also gained international acclaim. This release includes three fantastic string quartets: Edvard Grieg’s String Quartet in G minor, Op. 27, Jean Sibelius’ String Quartet in D minor, ‘Voices intimae’, Op. 56, and Olav Anton Thommessen’s Felix Remix (String Quartet No. 4; 2014). The Thommesssen piece included on this disc was premiered by Engegard Quartet in 2014. The work is inspired by Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet, Op. 44 No. 2.

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

Following on the 2015 release of Mozart’s Requiem, Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan has gone on to record the composers Mass in C minor, K427 – the ‘Great Mass’. As the nickname indicates it is a work of unusual proportions for a mass of the Classical period – or would have been so, had Mozart completed it. It is not known for what occasion Mozart intended the work, but a letter to his father Leopold dated 4 January 1783 indicate that he may have committed himself to writing it in connection with his marriage to Constanze and a planned visit to Salzburg. A performance of parts of the Mass did take place in Salzburg in October 1783, with Constanze performing the prominent soprano part. Two years later Mozart reused the music from the Kyrie and Gloria sections in the sacred cantata Davidde penitente, K?469, but the Mass itself was left incomplete. The present performance includes the sections completed by Mozart himself, as well as those sections for which extensive sketches by Mozart provided a basis for completion (by Franz Beyer in 1989). Three of Suzuki’s soloists also took part in the recording of the Requiem, while the Dutch mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen makes her first appearance on BIS, shining in the aria Laudamus te. The disc closes with the celebrated cantata Exsultate, jubilate in which the soprano Carolyn Sampson glitters in the virtuosic solo part. As an appendix to the programme she and the Bach Collegium Japan orchestra also repeats the initial aria, in a less well-known later version with a slightly different text and with flutes replacing the oboes of the original.

In their series of Allan Pettersson’s symphonies, Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra have arrived at the Fourteenth Symphony, completed in 1978 and given its first performance in 1981, one year after the death of the composer.

As several of its predecessors, No. 14 is in one extended movement and is scored for large forces, including an expanded percussion section. But there are also important traits that set it apart.

Pettersson, who had studied twelve-tone composition with René Leibovitz in the early 1950’s, never adopted the technique fully but in the present work the traces are more evident than in his other symphonies.

Included with the new recording is a bonus film produced by Swedish Television after the death of the composer. In the course of the film, here provided with English subtitles, we meet the composer himself, members of his family, colleagues from his time as an orchestral player and musicians such as the violinist Ida Haendel.

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REVIEW:

Granted, this is not always the easiest music to listen to, but as with Pettersson's other symphonies there’s a clear connective thread beneath the tumult that’s easy enough to follow. As for the more austere writing – the start of the fourth movement, for instance – it has a well-defined shape that’s thrown into sharp relief by the forensic, soul-baring sound. The military drum – sans snare – adds terrific bite to the martial interludes; then, without warning, Pettersson lapses into a strange kind of languor, in which pensive pizzicati alternate with a slow, tolling motif. And in the fifth movement the music’s tendency to rasp and grind is leavened by the absorbing, ‘hear-through’ nature of the recording.

Happily, the symphony’s climactic moments – dense and forbidding as they often are – they arrive in a way that’s not at all rhetorical. Again, there’s an evolutionary and organic aspect to Pettersson’s writing that binds everything together in a most convincing fashion. The sheer focus and commitment of these players – not to mention Lindberg’s sure, steadying hand – certainly make for an eventful and challenging ride. There are no easy answers here, no platitudes or false cheer; that said, the finale brings with it a modicum of rest or, perhaps, an air of quiet stoicism.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan)

Violinist Arabella Steinbacher and pianist Robert Kulek continue their vital collaboration together with a new Pentatone release: César Franck’s Sonata for Piano and Violin in A coupled with Richard Strauss’ Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat, Op. 18. While Franck’s violin sonata is epic in character, Strauss’ work is full of jovial energy, hope and anticipation, a stimulating fusion of elements for these musicians. Both artists possess superb technique. Ms. Steinbacher often demonstrates a delicate yet fiery touch in her playing, while Mr. Kulek’s resolute intonation, steadfast tempi and broad dynamics are his trademarks. As has often been heard in their recital performances, this synergistic duo is a partnership of equals at the service of the music they play.

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

What is there to say? The playing, as usual from this group, is terrific, and of course the tunes are great. The only issue is whether or not wind arrangements of famous melodies from these two operas appeals to you in the first place. They were created, obviously, as background music, the sort of thing you might hear at an aristocratic soirée, or in a kiosk stuck in the middle of a park—music for a more gracious age. The remastered sound is fine, but I never listen to quad-turned-into-multichannel productions in surround sound. Experience has taught me that they come across far more naturally in regular stereo. You can’t go wrong here if the repertoire appeals to you.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

There are remarkably few differences, almost none of substance, between the performances on two recently released recordings--this one and another with Micaela Comberti and Colin Tilney on Dorian--of Bach's Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord. (For comments on a third recent set, from Rachel Podger and Trevor Pinnock on Channel Classics, see reviews.) Even the first movement of the first sonata is exactly the same timing for both. Yes, Lucy van Dael's violin, at least in this sonic environment, has a somewhat richer, more resonant lower register (both instruments share the same bright timbre in their upper range), and Bob van Asperen's harpsichord is a bit rounder and warmer of tone than Tilney's. And in general, Comberti and Tilney's tempos are slower, which perhaps gives the impression of a sharper, more deliberate articulation from Tilney's harpsichord. Van Asperen's instrument is recorded slightly more distant than Tilney's, giving more prominence to van Dael's violin, which seems to go counter to Bach's intentions--these in fact are not solo sonatas per se, but trio sonatas in which the upper line of the harpsichord performs in duet with the violin, accompanied by the keyboard's bass line.


Comberti's fast movements at times sound too careful, while van Dael's have an air of frenzy about them that can produce sheer excitement (the Allegro of Sonata No. 2; the two Allegros in No. 4) or nervousness (the final movement of the first sonata), sensations that of course also will vary from listener to listener. There are exceptions: van Dael's slower Adagio in the E major sonata is exquisitely expressed, a lovely rendition of one of Bach's finest "arias", and her dashing final Allegro caps one of the set's highlights. The darker hues of van Dael's violin come into play most prominently in the C minor sonata's slow movements--the sumptuous opening Largo, whose gorgeous melody is the ancestor of "Erbarme dich" from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and in the viola-like register of the Adagio. In contrast, Comberti's faster Largo sounds less like a song and the harpsichord's undulating figures are more noticeable, almost as if the players were consciously working to obliterate any associations with the melody's more famous religious context (there are hints of this in Tilney's detailed liner notes). Even so, Comberti and Tilney's slightly more leisurely Adagio in the same sonata is very effective, especially the rich violin tone, and here you particularly notice and appreciate the benefits to the overall sonority allowed by the Dorian recording's more even balance. Again, however, the more drawn-out final Allegro sounds merely workmanlike in comparison to van Dael's justly spirited rendition.


Two problems are solved in two different ways by the producers of each recording. First, the Sonata No. 6 went through several changes during Bach's lifetime and therefore the question arises as to how to treat the several existing alternative movements. Comberti and Tilney play the generally accepted five-movement version and add the "Cantabile" movement at the end of the disc as a separate track. Van Dael and van Asperen do the same, except that, in the interest of completeness and to fill out the disc's timing, they add three other alternative movements not found on the Dorian disc. Which brings us to the question of timing: the six sonatas are too long for one disc, too short for two. Dorian adds two "rarely played" harpsichord suites while Naxos chooses to skimp a little on the second disc's timing, which even with the added Sonata No. 6 movements comes to only 49:14. However, at Naxos' budget price, this shouldn't present a major concern even for those time-equals-value CD buyers--less is certainly not less in this case.


Needless to say, it's tough to choose a clear winner here--as so often happens, it's more a matter of personal preference, particularly regarding the instrumental balances. Both performances are top notch, cleanly and clearly articulated and characterized by an almost uncannily similar interpretive manner. I tend to prefer van Dael's singing style and richly colored instrument in the slow movements, but I also find Comberti and Tilney's equally weighted interaction provides a powerful richness to the textures that perhaps lends more legitimacy to their interpretation. Anyone for both? [Editor's note: the complete set of six sonatas on either Naxos or Dorian must be purchased in two separate volumes. The above review applies to the complete set although only volume 1 is indicated in the review heading.]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

OCKEGHEM: Missa L'homme arme / JOSQUIN: Memor esto verbi tui

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This album is a unique collaboration between the young Danish composer Kasper Rofelt and accordionist Bjarke Mogensen, to whom all works on this premiere recording were dedicated. From the intimate Nightsongs to the colorful Light Falling, this CD offers both solo and chamber works with a variety of musical characters and idioms. "Bjarke Mogensen is an astonishment on record. Once heard, never forgotten" - the Arts Journal, New York 2011.

Ruders, P.: Guitar Works - Psalmodies Suite / Chaconne / Jar

ALVAREZ / NORHOLD / EICHBERG: Music for Recorder, Saxophone,

Klenau, P. Von: String Quartets Nos. 1-3

The music on this CD confirms the special position of the composer Jorgen Jersild (1913-2004) in Danish music. It is captivating chamber music written over a half-century during which the composer underwent great musical development, but at the same time persisted in his own personal style - from the early works from the 1930s and 1940s to the later string quartet showing US a courageous, mature composer seeking out new musical areas.

Classical Music

John Cage’s vision of the future of music was first shaped by an intense creative period from 1935-1942, when he wrote many of the seminal works of percussion chamber music featured here. When he composed these works, the young Cage was basically the same age as the members of Third Coast Percussion.

This release includes all three of the groundbreaking Constructions. First Construction (in Metal) utilizes dozens of metal instruments which are beaten, scraped and shaken, creating an other worldly mixture of resonant sound unlike any heard before it. Second Construction prominently features one of Cage’s greatest inventions, the prepared piano. Finally, Third Construction brings the greatest degree of complexity and the widest range of instrumental timbres yet, creating one of the first landmark pieces in the percussion chamber music literature.

There are very few recordings of the early works Quartet and Trio.

The surprisingly beautiful sounds of everyday objects come forth in Third Coast Percussion’s recording of Living Room Music, recorded onsite at the futuristic Ford House in Aurora, IL, designed by one of America’s most iconoclastic architects, Bruce Goff, in 1947. Third Coast utilize the house itself as an instrument for the first movement.

Liner notes by Gregory Beyer and David Skidmore.

Classical Music