Hovhaness has found a strong advocate in Gerard Schwarz, and about time too. This prolific and at times prolix composer's music, with its expressively limited mixture of bell sounds, modal and Eastern harmonies, and simple counterpoint, can sound naïve and even irritating in large doses. What is so often missing from many performances is committed playing, giving the music the strength, beauty, and confidence that so often makes all the difference between "getting through the notes" and the quality of response that these pieces need and deserve. This disc, all premiere recordings, does the latter, and even if you dislike Hovhaness you might well be impressed by the results.

Khrimian Hairig is a short, pretty work for solo trumpet and strings much like the composer's Prayer of St. Gregory. It makes a very nice program opener even though it tells us nothing especially new. That certainly isn't true of the larger works. The Guitar Concerto must be numbered among the more successful works in its genre. It has all of the composer's hallmark fingerprints, but it also reveals an astutely judged understanding of how to pit such a weak-toned instrument against a large orchestra. In terms of color, texture, and contrast, the music is wholly beguiling and never overstays its welcome.

The same holds true for Symphony No. 60. At a bit more than half an hour, this is a long work for Hovhaness, but the inclusion of some American folk music makes an interesting contrast with his usual Eastern modes, while the four movements once again offer an unusually broad range of contrast and sonority. Best of all, the entire program is extremely well played, from guitarist David Leisner on up. This isn't difficult music technically, but it must never sound tired or lazy, and here it doesn't. The disc offers what in effect is an entire mini-concert--overture, concerto, and symphony--and you can listen to the whole thing straight through without fear of monotony. Sensitive and coherent notes by the late composer's wife add to the overall appeal, as does the excellent sound, particularly in the difficult-to-balance Guitar Concerto.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

FELDMAN String Quartet (1979) ? Group for Contemporary Music ? NAXOS 8.559190 (78:35)


The Group for Contemporary Music made several CDs of American music for Koch in the early 1990s, the above being one of them. Now here it is, reappearing as part of Naxos?s ?American Classics? series. I expect one of Fanfare ?s resident Feldman specialists covered it back then?I think Mike Silverton was doing it in those days?but I have been unable to locate any review. According to the CD information, this was a world premiere recording.


Although not to be confused with his monumentally long second string quartet, this late work of Feldman?s still runs for almost 80 minutes. (Well, it doesn?t exactly run .) Readers unfamiliar with this composer?s music but interested in experimenting at the low Naxos price should dispense with any normal idea of the passing of time. Feldman?s work unfolds at a snail?s pace, with the result that every musical incident is examined in minute, close-up detail. Imagine walking down your garden path to the mailbox; now imagine doing it on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass, taking over an hour to complete the journey. You would know a heck of a lot more about the nature of your garden path by the end of it.


Of course, it?s not entirely as simple as that. Feldman understood the big picture, form-wise: the apparent randomness of the sounds he dwells on in his own good time is kept in balance by a fierce musical intelligence. These sounds include rocking motifs, chords, and often even single notes, usually separated by moments of complete silence. Feldman requests the quartet to play without vibrato and, most of the time, using mutes. Much of the material consists of high harmonics. It is nearly all pianissimo or softer, except for some sudden loud interruptions?for example, at 26:00 and 33:30 respectively. (The Eastern-bloc composer Kancheli appears to have known his Feldman. Unheralded fortes are a fingerprint of his as well.) As the work progresses, earlier motifs or textures are revisited and developed, providing at least an unconscious sense of structure. In the end, the painstaking process undertaken together by the composer, the performers, and the listener creates a unique, mesmerizing context where sudden shifts of emphasis are almost seismic. The forte s mentioned above seem earth shattering. The occasional consonant harmony, unnoticed in another context, becomes pure balm. The slightest rhythmic acceleration feels like panic. High, quiet harmonics from the solo violin assume the cloak of unbearable loneliness.


For those readers already conversant with Feldman?s world, it need only be said that this performance seems to me as good as it could possibly be. (I don?t have access to a score.) The internal balance is finely judged, and all four members of the group must have spent many hours in meditation to be so at home in this time span. By the way, the stalwart players are Benjamin Hudson and Carol Zeavin, violins; Lois Martin, viola; and Joshua Gordon, cello. Recorded sound is first-rate. One can only hope Naxos will reissue the other recordings in the Koch series, particularly those of Wolpe and Wuorinen.


Morton Feldman?s mind worked in a manner unlike that of any other composer. This fact alone makes him important and his music riveting.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott

EXPLORE AMERICA

My symphonic suite Roundings was commissioned by the Amarillo Symphony to celebrate it's 75th anniversary. The suite was premiered movement-by-movement throughout the anniversary season, and it received it's first complete performance on 8th April, 2000, by the Amarillo Symphony under the baton of it's music director, James Setapen. The Prologue, "Hymn to the Earth" sets the stage for all that follows. A disarmingly simple piece, it consists entirely of slow chords which move in whole steps. These chords set up relationships which are explored in each of the following movements. Windmill depicts the motions of the wind, the wheel and pump which harness the wind, as well as a calling out for water. Oil Well has a main theme the shape of which constantly reaches for successively deeper pitches, mirroring the actions of an oil rig Sounds such as iron pipe and chains add to the description of drilling. The middle section suggests the upward flow of oil once the oil-bearing layer has been reached Locomotive commemorates the importance of the coming of the railroad to the establishment of a community in inland portions of the United States. The music describes the sound one hears at the depot as a passenger train approaches, comes to a halt, empties it's passengers and cargo, then departs, slipping into the distance. Lariat paints a picture of an old cow herder bragging of his skills with the rope to his younger colleagues, as fragments of cowboy songs, and eventually two complete songs, are sung around the campfire. Plow quotes an old Presbyterian hymn tune, entitled Dresden ("We plow the fields"). It also utilizes the celebrated Dresden Amen. The movement presents three statements of the hymn tune, each varied from the other. The second statement portrays the repetitive physical labor of plowing, and the final statement uses expanding and contracting instrumental voices, as well as the recorded sound of an old tractor, to illustrate the coming of mechanized farming. My Cello Sonata was written in 1996 and premiered on 14th March, 1997 by the Fischer Duo, for whose 25th wedding anniversary it was commissioned. It has subsequently been championed by the Lopez/Parr-Scanlin Duo, who performed it on a tour of the eastern U.S. before the present recording.

Naxos' exciting and important American Classics series now includes music of the present day, in this case three recent works by Philip Glass. The Violin Concerto, a work that (surprisingly) adheres to classical conventions, lures us in with beautiful, seductive harmonies. Glass relies both on his trademark arpeggiated technique (sounding in the first movement somewhat like Vivaldi's "Winter" concerto) and on his favorite harmonic progressions to suggest a sustained melodic line. In the first two movements Glass' carefully timed harmonic and rhythmic shifts keep you in a happy daze. He breaks the mood in the finale, however, leaving the soloist to practice arpeggios at length until the quiet, serene coda steals in. Adele Anthony, who plays with the kind of skill and grace we would expect in a Mozart concerto, brings off Glass' work with consummate, convincing musicianship. Company (music for Becket's prose) for string orchestra is in four movements, characterized by stimulating changes in time signature and rhythm. The Prelude and Dance from Akhnaten, Glass' third opera, sound exceedingly repetitious without the opera's spoken dramatic narrative, but of course, this won't bother committed Glass fans who will find much to cherish in this recording. Newcomers, too, will enjoy this tuneful if unchallenging music, which benefits from the characterful playing of the Ulster Orchestra under Takuo Yuasa's keen leadership. The sound is excellent. Another home-run from Naxos.--Victor Carr, ClassicsToday.com

Howard Hanson wrote most of the solo piano music on this disc early in his career, before he became the first American to win the Prix de Rome in 1921, and before his forty-year tenure as director of the Eastman School of Music. Though he later focused on orchestral writing in emulation of Respighi, his teacher in Rome, Hanson's piano music intimately defines the romantic and popular character of his work. Hanson's music is emotionally yearning, tuneful Americana.
Critically acclaimed American pianist Thomas Labé has researched Hanson's music extensively, which was necessary, as many of Hanson's scores are unpublished. His labor informs his virtuosic playing with keen insight in these performances, five out of eight of which are world premiere recordings.

2 CDs with over 2 hours of music Illuminating essay by Stephen Johnson Illustrated with photographsWell over half a century after his death, Bela Bart k is held up as one of the twentieth century' great musical moderni.

Selection includes An Introduction to Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande.
This CD contains an original commentary and analysis of this work, written by Thomson Smillie and narrated by David Timson.

Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams—it is my prediction that, 50 years from now, it will be the last composer’s music that is played most frequently. I am not sure that Adams is the “best” composer of the three (frankly, Reich’s work is more interesting to me), but he is the one who has motivated the most performers to program and record his work. For example, apart from Alsop, three other conductors have recorded Short Ride (de Waart on Nonesuch, Rattle on EMI, and Mosko on Chandos), and there are alternative recordings on Nonesuch of the other three works as well. The Nonesuch discs are important documents, but not necessarily the last word. Despite their explicit or implicit approval by the composer, they can and will be bettered, as time goes on. Consider The Wound-Dresser. I remember being impressed by this work when Nonesuch released the CD with baritone Sanford Sylvan, and the composer conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—I still was in graduate school, and various commentators were quick to draw parallels between Walt Whitman’s injured and dying boys and the current victims of the AIDS epidemic. There’s nothing wrong with Sylvan and Adams, but I find Gunn and Alsop more moving—almost too much so, as the text’s homoaffective subtext is moved closer to the foreground. (It strikes me now that the vocal line at “Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested” could have been written by Stephen Sondheim.)

Alsop makes a good case for Short Ride and for the Berceuse élégiaque. The latter work is an arrangement for chamber orchestra of a work by Ferrucio Busoni—a fact that is not mentioned anywhere in Naxos’s documentation, shamefully enough. Adams, in his Nonesuch recording, is a little more weird and abrasive than Alsop in Shaker Loops—to good effect. All in all, the availability of the Nonesuch recordings does not make this Naxos release superfluous. Alsop is a fine conductor, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra plays well for her, and then there’s that Naxos price! If you’ve been curious about Adams’s music, but have not been willing to pay Nonesuch prices to hear it, here are four of Adams’s best works in competitive performances at a fraction of the cost.

Raymond Tuttle, FANFARE

This selection includes an explanatory commentary of this opera, written
by Thomson Smillie and narrated by David Timson.

Art & Music: Caravaggio - Music of His Time

Classical Music

Classical Music

GIULIANI: Flute and Guitar Duets

CALDARA: Missa Dolorosa / Stabat Mater / Sinfonias in G and

SCHOENBERG: Verklarte Nacht / Chamber Symphony No. 2

HAYDN: Symphonies, Vol. 22 (Nos. 13, 36 / Sinfonia Concertan

BERG, A.: Violin Concerto / 3 Pieces from the Lyric Suite /

Oh Flanders Free: Music of the Flemish Renaissance

REVIEW:

It's a mystery why David Diamond has not been generally acclaimed as one of the top handful of American symphonists. His Third Symphony has everything: good tunes, terrific orchestration, tight construction, and a satisfying form. Its beauties are numerous and immediately appealing, from the zesty rhythmic kick of its first and third movements to the lovely writing for harp and piano in the second movement, all grounded in a slow finale of ineffable purity and gentleness. Of course, it's that slow finale that probably seals the symphony's doom in terms of its chances for live performance, but there's no reason we can't enjoy it at home in this excellently played and recorded performance (here getting new lease on life from Naxos after its first appearance on Delos).

The two couplings at first might look to have a certain outward resemblance in that they both enshrine spiritual subjects, but they couldn't sound more different. Psalm (1936) is vintage early Diamond, a slow-fast-slow piece that bespeaks a certain French flavor (Ravel is never far away from Diamond's quiet music). Kaddish (1987), on the other hand, is an elegiac apotheosis of the modes of synagogue chant. It's beautifully played by Janos Starker, and altogether this collection represents a fine tribute to a still underrated major composer.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

TCHAIKOVSKY: Songs (Complete), Vol. 2

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 6

Henry Cowell was one of the most remarkable figures in American music. A startlingly innovative composer, an inimitable piano virtuoso who outraged or delighted his audiences, a brilliant writer, teacher, lecturer and organizer, Cowell almost single-handedly laid the foundations for American compositional life. This second Continuum Portrait of Cowell’s music ( Volume 1 is available on Naxos 8559192) includes further examples of his most experimental piano pieces, calling for strumming and plucking the strings, as well as using forearms to produce tone clusters. Other compositions fuse Asian and Western idioms in striking new blends. Yet, however advanced his ideas, or multifaceted his output, Cowell’s music remains immediately accessible.

REVIEW:

This is even more fascinating than the first volume. As previously, there is both commitment and panache from the performers and a decent recording. A well-documented and worthy addition to the American Classics series. Cowell was a prolific composer who wrote twenty symphonies and much else besides. Hopefully Naxos will give us the opportunity to explore his music further.

-- Patrick C Waller, MusicWeb

BACH, J.S.: Concertos for Two, Three and Four Harpsichords

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro (Highlights)

This disc contains narration by David Timson, which was written by Thomson
Smillie. Excerpts from the Naxos recording of "The Magic Flute" (Naxos 8-660030/31) are used in this recording to illustrate passages from Smillies's text.

This album was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Awards for Best Classical
Album and Best Orchestral Performance.

The Mass in C minor reflects Mozart's current preoccupation with the music of Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach, explored with the encouragement of Baron van Swieten, an important patron. The work is scored for pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets and timpani, with three trombones, strings and organ continuo. After a brief orchestral introduction, the four vocal sections enter in contrapuntal imitation and the movement continues in the monumental and generally conservative style that the Salzburg Archbishop would certainly have discouraged. The soprano soloist introduces the florid Italianate Christe eleison and the contrapuntal choral texture is resumed with the return of the Kyrie. The Gloria opens in affirmative C major, leading almost at once to energetic fugal writing, relaxing momentarily at the words pax hominibus bonae voluntatis (peace to men of good will). Laudamus te is in F major, marked Allegro aperto. It is scored for solo soprano, oboes, horns and strings and is in operatic style. Trombones and bassoons return for the A minor Adagio of Gratias agimus tibi, now with a five-part choir. To this the D minor Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, scored for strings and two soprano soloists, offers an immediate contrast. In Salzburg the second soprano would presumably have been sung by one of the castrati employed by the court musical establishment. There is a return to a more traditional Baroque style in the solid dotted rhythms of the G minor Qui tollis peccata mundi, for two four-part choirs with the full orchestra. The two soprano soloists are joined by a solo tenor for the E minor setting of Quoniam tu solus Dominus, scored without trombones or horns. The solo voices enter in energetic contrapuntal imitation, over which the spirit of Handel seems to loom, seen through a Mozartian prism. There is a brief C major choral Adagio for the words Jesu Christe, before the splendid formal Baroque fugal setting of Cum Sancto Spiritu, in the same key. The unfinished Credo starts with a movement for five-part choir, scored without trombones.

COSTE: Guitar Works, Vol. 1

Hearing Gabrieli's music live is a uniquely transporting aural experience. A recent Pittsburgh Symphony Concert conducted by Mariss Jansons featured three brass choirs placed on the stage and in the left and right balconies, creating marvelous spatial effects. It occurred to me that this would be the perfect music to demonstrate the surround sound capabilities of SACD and DVD Audio. While this new Naxos recording utilizes neither of those technologies, it's pretty impressive on its own, presenting Gabrieli's antiphonal constructions in vivid, three dimensional sound, recorded in London's All Hallows Church. Volume 3 begins with the Canzona in Echo Duodecimi Toni a 10 (1597), which uses two five-part choirs to create some marvelously imaginative echo effects (a favorite device of baroque composers).


Canzona X of 1615 is one of the more extensive works in this collection, full of spectacular flourishes and elaborate polyphonic passages. Spectacular in another way is the minor mode Canzona Quarti Toni, with its challenging writing for 15 voices in three choirs (mostly in the alto and bass registers). All 13 selections receive splendid performances by the London Symphony Orchestra Brass, a truly world-class ensemble that plays with ringing tone, beautifully blended sonority, and immaculate clarity. Eric Crees, who prepared new editions of Gabrieli's works for this series, conducts with scholarly authority, sparked by evangelical fervor. If you avoided all those "hip" brass ensemble discs in the 80s and 90s, give this a try. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com