Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Doing my usual bit of online research for re-released recordings, I found these CDs in their former incarnation as credited to the ‘Orchestra of the Old Fairfield Academy’. This band was founded in 1985 by Thomas Crawford, and changed its name to the American Classical Orchestra in 1999. Formed from leading period instrument performers in the New York metropolitan area this is a highly regarded orchestra, and positive commentary on these concerto recordings reflects the excellent quality which you can expect throughout this usefully packaged set. All but one of the wind soloists are members of the orchestra, and very good they are too.

This is a period instrument orchestra, so the sound is accordingly fairly gentle, though by no means hair-shirt. The upper strings are perhaps a little thinner than with a conventional modern orchestra, but with what sounds like gut strings and a minimal use of vibrato this is to be expected. In fact the sound is nicely rounded, almost sumptuous at times, and by no means cold. All of the orchestral instruments are listed at the back of the booklet, with makers’ names both modern and ancient, the modern instruments being replicas of early examples.

Eric Hoeprich is the only soloist not listed as an orchestral member, and indeed, I see him often enough wandering around the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in his capacity as teacher, so this is no surprise. Far from saving the best until last, CD 1 of this set has some of the finest performances here, and the warm tones of Hoeprich’s basset horn or basset clarinet make for a lovely opening. The Clarinet Concerto in A major, K622 is one of Mozart’s late masterpieces – indeed his last major work, and is given a supremely sensitive if un-extrovert performance on this recording. The choice for using a basset horn is based on the instrument owned by the work’s dedicatee, Anton Stadler. This instrument has a lower range than a conventional clarinet, and the version here uses fairly recently discovered historical references to create as accurate as possible a reproduction of Stadler’s solo, right down to the creation of a new instrument replicating that shown in an engraving from a concert programme from 1794. The extra low sonorities do indeed make for an extra layer of sonority and richness which can be quite unexpected. Either way, it is a recording to cherish as well as one to put alongside old favourites for comparison.

From last to first, the Bassoon Concerto in B flat major K191 was Mozart’s first wind concerto, and despite inhabiting the gallant style of composers senior to Mozart the work is ambitious and technically demanding to soloists even today. Denis Godburn’s instrument has a soft and rounded tone whose warmth is both attractive and distinctive, and the recording is mercifully free of key rattle. Oboe soloist Marc Schachman wrote the booklet notes for this first disc, and he goes into some detail on the origins of the Oboe Concerto in C major K314, which we also hear on disc 2 in a version for flute. Historical mystery and obscurity aside, this is yet another excellent performance, with perhaps only an over-long cadenza to momentarily knock the some of the pace and energy from the first movement. The period oboe has a slightly broader, less sinewy resonance than the modern instrument, and this milder tone again makes for an attractive listen.

CD 2 is given over entirely to the flute concertos, of which the Flute Concerto in G major, K313 is arguably the finest. Sandra Miller plays a traverso flute from the period, which has a tone more akin to a recorder than the modern power-flutes we hear in orchestras these days. Unlike a recorder however, the horizontal blowing hole allows for greater flexibility of dynamics, colour and tuning, and Miller’s nicely centred tone rings out over the orchestra with fine projection and excellent intonation, making one wonder why Mozart had such an apparent loathing for the things. The Adagio non troppo central movement is a particular treat, the solo line topping the string texture while also being enveloped in it in a friendly meeting of musical lines and textures. As previously mentioned, the Flute Concerto in D major K314 is a fairly straight transposition of the Oboe Concerto in C major, if anything being given even more lightness and bounce in the flute version of the opening Allegro aperto. Indeed, the flute version shaves nearly two minutes from the oboe version, though this is partly down to cadenzas, all written or improvised by the soloists on these recordings. The Concerto for Flute and Harp K299 is justly popular, though I am sure this has as much to do with the wonderful sonorities created by this combination of instruments as with the actual musical material. Once again the soloists are beautifully balanced in the recording, and well matched even though there are no surviving usable pedal harps from Mozart’s time. The instrument used here must come close to what he would have expected to hear, with a marvellous transparency and gentle articulation and resonance played with fine musicality by Victoria Drake.

CD 3 covers pretty much all of Mozart’s surviving work for horn and orchestra. As far as absolute completeness goes we only appear to be missing the fragment left of a Horn Concerto K494a, and for that matter the Andante for flute and orchestra K315, but this is of little importance. What we do have are some useful notes by Robert D. Levin, which explains which works were written for whom, and how the score of K370b came to be re-united with itself after having been cut into pieces by Mozart’s son Carl. These performances on a natural horn do not bear comparison with the famous recordings made by the more beefy tones of legendary valve instrument players such as Dennis Brain or Alan Civil. The best period recordings I know are those of Anthony Halstead with Christopher Hogwood on Decca, which are admittedly more lively and characterful than these. R.J. Kelly’s tone is nicely rounded, and as to be expected from a well behaved classical natural horn, fairly restrained. The recording seems to emphasise the ‘damped’ nature of the instrument however, and there isn’t a great deal of contrast in the tone from one phrase or movement to the next. The famous quartet of concertos is K412, K417, K447 and K495, in addition to which we are given a version of a Horn Concerto in E flat major K370b/371 completed by Robert D. Levin in 1993. This was in the process of re-arrangement after Mozart had discovered that his soloist, Joseph Leutgeb, was unable to play the lowest notes at the grand age of 59 due to his loss of teeth. Levin has sorted out the confusion brought about by work done on the piece by Franz Xaver Süssmayr after Mozart’s death, and in any case restored the Mozart’s original intentions, “today’s hornist [not being] bound by Leutgeb’s lack of teeth.” The final track on the CD is the original conception of the Rondo K412, with the addition of faux-operatic vocalisations by Eric Dillner, expounding Mozart’s ‘sardonic dialogue’ as directed at Leutgeb, annotated throughout the score. This bit of fun is of little more than novelty value, and thank goodness the text is given with translation in the booklet. That Mozart, he was a naughty boy...

With technical assuredness and musical sensitivity from a fine set of period music specialist soloists this has to be pretty much the top of the heap when it comes to an authentic/historically informed collection of Mozart’s complete wind concertos. I’ve done a trawl for significant competition, but none of the ‘complete’ sets available seem to be on original instruments. Individual CDs can be found which do provide more impact from the music, and for those willing to spend a little more and do some searching around the Decca/L’Oiseau Lyre Academy of Ancient Music directed by Christopher Hogwood do ultimately provide more satisfaction and depth of quality in general, though these American competitors do come very close indeed. There are one or two moments of very minor orchestral scrappiness in some of the accompaniments with the American Chamber Orchestra, but nothing which will offend even professionally tuned ears too much. The horn concertos are perhaps the least inspiring of the set and more serviceable than magical, but with plenty of scholarly work invested in the preparation of all of these performances there is always plenty of fascination in hearing what must be close to what Mozart’s audiences should have heard at the time.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

MY FAVORITE THINGS • Stephen Hough (pn) • NIMBUS 2540 (63:07)


MACDOWELL Hexentanz. CHOPIN (arr. Liszt) The Maiden’s Wish. QUILTER (arr. Hough) Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal. The Fuchsia Tree. DOHNÁNYI Capriccio in f. PADEREWSKI Minuet in G. Nocturne. SCHLOZER Etude in A?. GABRILOVICH Melodie in E. Caprice-Burlesque. RODGERS (arr. Hough) The Sound of Music: My Favorite Things. WOODFORDE-FINDEN (arr. Hough) Kashmiri Love Song. FRIEDMAN Music Box. SAINT-SAËNS (arr. Godowsky) Carnival of the Animals: The Swan. ROSENTHAL Papillons. GODOWSKY Java Suite: The Gardens of Buitenzorg. LEVITZKI Waltz. PALMGREN En route. MOSKOWSKI Morceaux: Siciliano. Caprice espagnole


The superb British pianist Stephen Hough is no stranger to contemporary music. He is a composer himself. And yet this collection of bon-bons is unapologetically old-fashioned, or to put somewhat less pejoratively, quaint. These pieces are of the sort that appeared as encores on solo programs generations ago. Of course, this is not intended as a challenging recital; they don’t all have to be. Many of the works are transcriptions made by concert pianists, such as Liszt, Godowsky, and Hough himself, or original compositions from such giants of the fin de siècle golden age of pianism as Paderewski, Gabrilovich, Rosenthal, Friedman, and Godowsky again, and so there is no little razzle dazzle here. Lots of notes! And yet Hough’s playing is lovely rather than showy, with great finesse, delectably shaped phrases, and a celebration of pretty melodies. Nimbus gives us warm and colorful sound. If this material appeals to you, you are not going to get a better presentation than we have here. A bit of candy now and again won’t kill you.


FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco settled in California in the 1940s. Like many another musician cast adrift by the fascism that held sway in Europe from the 1930s to the mid-1940s he found a niche in the artistic life of the States. Hollywood embraced his music for films although none of the great films featured his work – he did however score several of the Lassie films. He moved in the same stratosphere as Heifetz and Piatigorsky; indeed the former commissioned his The Prophets Violin Concerto (No. 2 of 3) and then went on to record it (RCA); as did Perlman.

Among the operas, concertos, oratorios and solo piano music (Naxos, Somm SOMMCD 032) there are two guitar concertos, a serenade for guitar and orchestra, a concerto for two guitars and orchestra and many pieces of chamber music involving the instrument. The first concerto was written partly in Mussolini's Italy and partly in America. If the middle of the three movements of the op. 99 First Concerto sometimes drifts close to Tatiana's Letter Song it is delectable sentimental stuff. The flanking movements are sanguine and proud. They will certainly appeal to anyone who likes Rodrigo's Aranjuez. It's a lovely concerto and well worth tracking down in this very generously timed disc. I hope there is a volume 2 with the Second Concerto, the Serenade and the Concerto for two guitars.

Golondrinas (Swallows) suggests a relaxed saunter along the corniche - a summer evening with the swallows of the title diving and soaring. It's a virtuoso piece as is the eager and bustling La Primavera. The Platero suggests a delicate spray of lilies. The Rondo has some of the aristocratic elegance of the finale of the op. 99 concerto. The three movement op. 133 Suite is a work of beguiling emotional suggestion. This enchanting disc ends with the three movement op. 143 Guitar Quintet. The writing is full of interest with some incidental echoes of Ravel and of Russian nationalism. Again it is cheerful, subtly allusive, dynamic, poetic, playful and at times sweetly eerie. Unlike the much younger Brouwer this music has no truck with dissonance. Its milieu is impressionistic poetry. The string quartet writing is most inventive and by no means a dull stooge to the guitar.

After you have rifled Rodrigo's guitar treasury you must try this. This composer is no Rodrigo epigone but his music shares the Spanish composer’s mood and gift for beguiling invention. You can add this composer's name to that of Manuel Ponce as someone whose guitar music needs to be explored. By the way, do not overlook Ponce's Concerto del Sur for guitar and orchestra. Like so much else from that era including these works by Castelnuovo-Tedesco - it was written for Segovia – recorded by him and also by Alfredo Moreno with Enrique Batiz.

These recordings were originally issued in 2004 on MusicMasters. I hope that there is more to come and if not that Nimbus might find funding for a collection of this composer's concertante works for guitar. It's that good.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

It’s fantastic!

George Antheil was, probably, his own worst enemy. Having taken Paris by storm, both as composer and virtuoso pianist, he failed, unlike Stravinsky, to moderate his language and adopt the neo–classical style which came into vogue during his stay. However, when Copland arrived in France, to study, he said that “… George had all Paris by the ear". It was probably Ezra Pound’s call that Antheil was "possibly the first American–born musician to be taken seriously" and regarding him as the great Messiah of a 'New Music' which coloured the composer’s attitude. From our historical position, the fact that he failed to move with the times is no longer seen as a problem. True, some still find it difficult to equate Antheil’s early works with the more sober works he wrote after his return to the USA, but a man has to eat, and with a wife and son to support he had to work. The later works are, certainly, more conventional than the pieces from his Paris years, but there are still many fine pieces to be found, both in his concert music and operas as well as his music for film. I particularly like his score for Edward Dmytryk’s The Sniper (1952) and Ben Hecht’s Angels Over Broadway (1940). I cannot help but mention that before returning permanently to America, Antheil wrote a detective story, Death In the Dark, which was edited and published T.S. Eliot. The plot concerns the murder of a concert agent!
 
Antheil visited America in 1927 to display his musical wares to an unsuspecting American public and this is what it heard! He wrote the Jazz Symphony for Paul Whiteman’s second Experiment in Modern Music concert of December 1925 – the first, held on 12 February 1924, had introduced Rhapsody in Blue to the world. For some reason it wasn’t given in that show and the Carnegie Hall concert of 1927 was its premiere, when it was done by W.C. Handy’s Orchestra with the composer as piano soloist. Antheil revised the score of the Jazz Symphony in 1955 and made it a much less spectacular and exciting work. Hearing it in its original form is a revelation, for it is wild and exuberant, great fun and it’s easy to understand that it received an ovation when it was given in Carnegie Hall, at this concert. This is an excellent performance, hard-driven, up-front and in-yer-face, hysterical and brilliantly realised. It’s worth buying the disk for this piece alone.
 
Antheil’s two Violin Sonatas were written for Ezra Pound’s mistress, Olga Rudge. The second is fascinating for it contains a part for drum, supposedly written for Pound to play. As it stands, it starts as a wild ride for the two instruments, then the piano launches into an almost insane cadenza. After this the drum takes over the accompaniment for the rest of the work. As with most of the other music recorded on this disk, it’s a wild, typical 1920s piece, but the performance here is a bit too polite. I once turned pages for a performance of this work given by Thomas Halpern and Yvar Mikhashoff and they threw all caution to the wind, giving a marvellously showy and fantastically over-the-top performance – just what the work needs. All that kind of extrovert display is missing here. A real shame, given the music-making of the couplings.
 
The short 1 ^st String Quartet is a very compelling work, cogently written, well laid out for the instruments, and it’s much more mainstream European music than the other works recorded here. The performance, by the Mendelssohn Quartet, is strong and forthright.
 
The Ballet Mécanique made Antheil’s name and confirmed his status as ‘The Bad Boy of Music’ - the title of his autobiography which is well worth a read. It caused a riot at its premiere in Paris and Aaron Copland wrote to Israel Citkowitz, “… the boy is a genius. Need I add that he has yet to write a work which shows it.” At Carnegie Hall, Copland, together with Colin McPhee, was one of the pianists in the performance of the Ballet where, again, it caused a riot. In 1952 Antheil revised the score, but all this did was to water down a fascinating score into a less-than-interesting one. Here it is, in all its 1920s gaudy splendour, colossal, noisy, outrageous, a tough listen – without a doubt – but a rewarding one. Anyone who heard, either in the hall, or on the radio, the weak performance given at the 2009 BBC Proms won’t know what’s hit them when they hear this! It’s fantastic!
 
Great performances, in general, brilliantly bright sound, good notes all go to making this indispensable to anyone interested in American music and the musical experiments of the 1920s.
 
-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

This is a reissue of Shumsky's analogue recording of over 30 years ago - released by Musicmasters (ASV) in 1979. The first thing to say unequivocally is how good the sound is for all that. It's certainly more 'restricted' than we might want now: less spacious and reverberant but in no sense claustrophobic. Although one would want such a reduction in sound-stage to concentrate our listening on the instrument, there is nevertheless a certain distance between microphone and violin. This has the result of seeming to capture a 'limited' performance, as much as a concentrated one.
 
Then, let's be grateful that there is now such an accessible and pleasing recording by Shumsky (1917-2000), one of the legendary violinists from the last century. His famed meticulousness and attempt at perfection is unlikely to fail to inspire. At the same time it may come across as a little too perfect, too much of an intention to do due homage to this great music at the expense of expressiveness. Contrast the approach taken in the interpretation of Rachel Podger (Channel Classics 24982), for example, where latitude works consistently well with a conviction that Bach's notes are sacrosanct.
 
It's almost as though Shumsky sees each movement as a problem to be solved, a hill to be climbed. Then he unobtrusively demonstrates how the expertise in whose tradition he knows he is squarely placed has solved it. The andante from the second (A minor) Sonata [CD.2 tr.11], for instance, is deliberate and paced - not that it lacks all life. But, perhaps, that such life is in a glass case close by.
 
On the other hand, when this measured and considered exposition is followed by the allegro, Shumsky's precision and self-denial win us straight back over … "I may be in a great tradition, I may be ultra-competent to the tips of my smallest fingernail", he seems to be saying, "but I will not flaunt it. It's all in the service of something greater. And something which we all implicitly know is greater without any need for self-promotion or exaggeration." This is most welcome. The point is further made in the way the very next movement (of the third Partita's preludio [CD.2. tr. 13]) exudes authority. The order on these CDs is G minor Sonata, D minor Partita, C major Sonata; B minor Partita, A minor Sonata, E major Partita. Yet it's an unselfconscious authority, and a quiet and generous authority that comes as much from love of the music as from gesture. Again, that's as it should be.
 
Shumsky's tone, intonation and attack are considered and contained. There is nothing wild or wayward. Yet, knowing what we do now about period instruments, the unnamed violin played throughout seems a little less (a little 'thinner') than the essence of all violins everywhere, which we might otherwise expect. But this is standard for the time and should not put us off. Just that it might not be expected. In other words, this recording is not a shining, slightly echoing and ultra-forward one, in which one can almost hear the varnish on the violin vibrate. But it nevertheless makes us listen to the music itself, and its player.
 
Were this recording being contemplated today, Shumsky might have taken some of his tempi differently… less contrast between fast and slow movements, for example, in order to heighten the tension. As it is, we tend to consider Shumsky's conception perhaps a little didactic and demonstrative in the best senses of those words. Not lacking in life, but as a result never really 'driving' the work in ways we have become used to in the last few years. He has, perhaps, a less overt awareness of the work's overall conception. Is more concerned with the particularities of each portion thereof.
 
To put it equally positively, for all Shumsky's preference for few and superbly-crafted recordings, this account of the pinnacle of the solo violinist's repertoire runs the risk, perhaps, of being thought 'exemplary', understated, even - on first hearing. Until you realise that its very neutrality is a completely legitimate way of bringing out the work's magnitude. It won't be everyone's favourite interpretation precisely because at least some measure of excitement, bravura or brilliance has now become the norm. But as an account that exemplifies the best and most solid from another age, it has a lot going for it.
 
-- Mark Seale, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

JOPLIN Complete Rags, Marches, Waltzes • William Albright, (pn) • NIMBUS 2546/8 (3 CDs: 211:40)


William Albright was a major figure in the ragtime revival, along with his friend and colleague in academia, William Bolcom. Together they recorded music of Joplin and James P. Johnson; separately, each composed and played many rags on his own, which they sent to the other for amusement and comment. These were recorded as well, though Albright’s album of his own rags is sadly no longer in print. It’s a pity, as he was a fine pianist with a strong technique, and a fine sense of style. That technique and especially the style are on display in this fine set of Joplin’s rags, marches, and waltzes, recorded over a four-day period in 1989 for the defunct MusicMasters label.


No collection of Joplin, of course, can claim to be truly complete. Some rags almost certainly went unpublished, and it is believed others might have been published under pseudonyms. What we have are 49 works definitely by Joplin or composed by him in collaboration with others. They span The Crush Collision March of 1896 to the Magnetic Rag of 1914, his last composition before tertiary syphilis killed him. A third and separate category is formed of doubtful attributions, rags that would have been credited to Joplin at the height of his evanescent fame, much in the spirit that French and Dutch music publishers in the final quarter of the 18th century produced far more string quartets and symphonies by Haydn than Haydn ever wrote. None of these apocrypha are offered here, save one, a curious piece, the Silver Swan Rag , included on stylistic grounds. Discovered in 1970, and twice performed on piano rolls from the 1914–1915 period, it is credited to Joplin, but shows some notable flaws of compositional technique. Albright surmises in his liner notes that it was probably an early work, held back for years, but we’ll likely never know why Joplin would have chosen to record it, if he did, since other, finer works of his were at his fingertips.


Albright avoids an anachronistic, speed demon approach that would be more appropriate to latterday stride pianists such as James P. Johnson or Willie “The Lion” Smith. Nor does he break heavily in such pieces as The Entertainer or the beautiful Weeping Willow for nostalgia addicts. Rhythmically firm, he avoids sudden shifts of tempo, preferring to maintain a steady pace or subtly accelerate through the four strains of a standard rag. His dynamic palette is broad, though he applies variation sparingly once again. Clarity of touch does not preclude beauty of tone, as The Cascades shows. Albright takes obvious enjoyment in the music he is playing.


Potential buyers might want to note that this is not “purist” Joplin, though it is perhaps all the more authentic for not exactly following the published scores. Like an earlier Joplin enthusiast and performer, “Knocky” Parker, Albright sometimes improvises or alters—though always more tastefully than the erratic Parker, who devalued these works by sometimes coining his own additional melodic lines. Albright’s most frequent type of change is the double-dotting of the thematic content, something he applies for example to the B section of Easy Winners , instead of playing it straight as written. Elsewhere, he may perform chords off the beat instead of the written figurations on it, as in the B section of The Maple Leaf Rag ; or strum a figure before the introductory chords to the A section repeat, as in The Entertainer ; or vary the repeat of a few D section chords in a blues direction, as in Elite Syncopations . The results are a matter of brief, tasteful highlights, and typical of the way rags were lightly embellished (by all reports) during and after Joplin’s lifetime.


With good notes by Albright and fine sound, it’s great to see this recording rereleased by a major classical label. Hopefully, it will bring new attention to both the composer and pianist—and maybe lead to Albright’s performance of his own rags showing up once again. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Classical Music

"From a seemingly unlikely source comes a project that must be rated a serious contender for record of the year. Charles Bruffy and the Kansas City Chorale...take on Rakhmaninov's sizable Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom with wonderful results. The chorus is everywhere remarkable, especially the basses, who prove fearless in approaching low-lying notes tailor-made for cavernous Russian basses."

-- New York Times

-----------------------

Another disc of absolutely stunning quality from the Kansas City Chorale and their clearly inspirational conductor Charles Bruffy. I have written elsewhere of the extraordinary control and tonal blend that this choir achieves and those qualities are amply on display here. But to think that technique is a substitute for passion and power would be quite wrong because they are present in abundance too.
 
Although far from rare in the CD catalogues now, Rachmaninov’s two great settings of the Russian Liturgy; the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom Op.31 and the All-night Vigil Op.37 still come as something of a surprise to listeners brought up on Brief-Encounter Piano Concertos. Both these settings are big pieces; the work currently under review running to over an hour and a half. As an opus it sits with Isle of the Dead and the Piano Concerto No.3 before and the first sets of Piano Preludes and Études-Tableaux afterwards. So this can be seen as being central in a period of great musical fertility. I am far from being expert on the subtleties of the way in which the Russian liturgy is set. But from my position of textual ignorance this is quite glorious. Other recordings I have heard have always been performed by Eastern European choirs recorded in cavernous basilicas where the great booming resonance adds to the religious theatricality implicit in the music. Prior to listening to this recording I have to admit that I wondered if a small professional choir from the Midwest United States would be able to emulate this sound-world. I need not have worried – again I cannot speak about how idiomatic their Russian pronunciation is – but the fervour and ecstatic quality to the singing is all I could have hoped for. Normally, the choir consists of just 24 voices split into four even groups. Wisely I think, for this recording, they have drafted in an additional three bass voices as well as having the extensive Protodeacon solos taken by Father Andre Papkov who is a long-time expert in the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. Also, the three recordings I have heard by the choir have each been made in a different Kansas Church. It sounds as if the present venue for this recording has been chosen to mimic the longer resonance mentioned above. Whether that is a function of the venue or the engineering or both I think it is a wise choice and one that works very well. My other concern was the scale of the choir. The composition was conceived with the Moscow Synodal Choir in mind. This comprised 50 boys and 30 men – not far off three times the size of the choir here and significantly with no women’s voices. I am sure that for some the all-male choir would be authentically essential but when the upper parts are sung with the purity and sheer tonal beauty as they are here it’s a trade-off I am happy to make. Also, there is no lack of power when the music requires.
 
I find it very hard to select movements let alone moments in this performance that are highlights – the inspiration and execution run at a high level throughout. One thought I would share is the brilliance with which the choir adapt their internal balance between sections. Take the very opening of the first disc, over the calls to prayer from the Deacon and Celebrant the choir intone ‘Lord have mercy’ – Papkov’s sepulchral bass is supremely evocative but it is the blend of the main choir that amazes me every time I return to it. It grows from the lower lines – a prayer gradually ascending from the depths of darkness and doubt. As the higher voices are gradually added there is a glorious unfurling and widening of the choral range yet nothing is forced there is a natural evolution that is hypnotically compelling. Or try the second movement Bless the Lord, O My Soul. Here it is the alto line which carries the melody initially. The way the sopranos create a halo of light around the lead line and the bass provides the firmest and deepest of supports is breathtaking. The engineering and production by Nimbus’s unnamed team is exemplary – the atmosphere for this kind of work perfectly captured and the voices of the soloists placed ideally within the main choral group. The resonance of the St. John’s Centre in Kansas is clearly present without blurring detail. Part of the theatricality of this music is when great waves of choral exalting wash and blur over the succeeding wave – try 1:30 into the Little Liturgy (track 3) and you will hear what I mean.
 
It is not a mode of listening to music that I often promote – but this is such a life-enhancing, spirit-lifting disc that listened to in the quiet of an evening in a room with the lights turned down it is heaven on earth as far as I am concerned. I have been listening to a sequence of Nimbus discs recently and it has struck me how consistently high their production and presentation values are. A case in point with this disc; a superbly performed disc of fascinating repertoire, supported by discreetly excellent engineering. But this is aided and supported by presentation that includes a really excellent essay by Vladimir Morosan who is an expert on Rachmaninov’s sacred choral music. I am sure I am not alone in finding that part of the whole home-listening experience is having a good detailed liner-note to read to complement the performance. Now here I’m getting into rather more retentive issues; I do like the fact that Nimbus print their booklets on high quality paper! I know it does not really matter a jot but I appreciate it! A tiny quirk though; I wonder why the text was given in English only? A transliteration at least would have helped the non-Russian-speaking listener keep a closer track on where exactly we were in the liturgy at any given moment.
 
There are several fine other recordings available but this pair of discs will grace any collection. For those with an interest in sacred music or just choral singing of the very highest order this is a most beautiful if not essential recording.
 
-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

At what point does a recording become ‘historic’? Anyone remembering some of the very earliest and sometimes highly dodgy period instrument recordings with young Harnoncourt and others in the 1960s and 1970s might approach this kind of early authentic instrument project with some trepidation. The 1980s was a boom period for period performance recordings, and the symphonies of Beethoven were and still are something of a pinnacle for any orchestra. The Hanover Band was one of if not the earliest to record a complete cycle on authentic instruments, alongside Roger Norrington’s Beethoven cycle with the London Classical Players originally on EMI Classics Reflexe from 1987-1989 and now available on Virgin Classics (see review). Also from the 1980s comes Christopher Hogwood with The Academy of Ancient Music on Decca’s L’Oiseau Lyre label. In fact, the experience with these and Roy Goodman’s Hanover Band is by no means the hair-shirt one you might expect. We’ve come a long way since 1983, but this pioneering bunch of musicians can still speak to us even from all those years back in the 20^th century.
 
Criticism has been levelled at these recordings in the past for their excess of resonance, and indeed the church acoustic used is a major feature in each. The Nimbus label used ‘ambisonic’ recording techniques, and these CDs are labelled as being UHJ encoded. I’ve become something of a fan of SACD of late, but have seldom heard any of the Nimbus releases actually de-coded and presumably heard as they were originally intended. The stereo effect is always good enough, and I must admit to having a soft spot for the old Nimbus releases with their single ‘soundfield’ microphone technique. These Beethoven symphonies are quite a rich listening experience, but the first disc with Symphonies 1 and 2 suffers most from acoustic ‘smoke’ around the sound, and the timpani are also rather boomy compared to the rest of the recordings, which were made in All Saints Tooting rather than St. Giles, Cripplegate. What you do notice almost immediately is the relative softness of the winds against the strings. True, period winds are softer than modern instruments where string instruments are still almost exactly the same, metal as opposed to gut strings aside. The beginning of the Symphony No. 1 does immediately show up this contrast though, the needle sharp daring of Beethoven’s pizzicato opening in the strings accompanied by a mellow band of woodwinds and horns who are somewhere ‘way over there’.
 
The quirky qualities in the recording are something you can get used to, and one has to accept that you just won’t hear absolutely everything. Having tried to get used to John Eliot Gardiner’s Archiv recording from the 1990s with the Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique I can also report that being able to hear absolutely everything is not necessarily always the Holy Grail when it comes to Beethoven symphonies. Gardiner is pretty much the reference in these works when it comes to period instrument recordings, but these can also be something of a rough ride as well – rather uncompromising in some ways, to the extent that I’ve not played them much, and certainly haven’t trawled them out when referencing modern instrument recordings. Goodman’s Hanover Band is a little softer edged, not so much in the performances but certainly in recordings which you can listen to for longer periods without feeling you are constantly having to feel ‘impressed’. I’m afraid the first two symphonies are a bit too ‘far out’ as recordings to be regarded as truly successful, Listen to those upward scales in the winds in the final section of the last movement of the Symphony No. 1 and you have to strain sometimes to make out what’s going on. The opening of the Symphony No. 2 also reveals some strain in intonation in some wind sections, and the strings can be shown to be a bit scrappy when exposed. There is a great deal of verve and excitement in the performances and I can find much to enjoy in them, but in isolation they wouldn’t receive much of a recommendation.
 
A few years later, a different location, and everything snaps into crisper focus with the Symphony No. 3. The drums are played with harder sticks and are much better in proportion, the winds and brass are still backed up a bit, but cut through the strings more effectively and have a better definition. This is the kind of recording which brought the value of period instruments to the fore, with lither textures, a more chamber-music footprint on the score when compared to the likes of the Berlin Philharmonic, and a set of timbres which revealed the music in unexpected and refreshing ways. Not everything is perfect, but the sense of expectancy and discovery outweigh occasional weaknesses and the mild foibles of the recording. There are delights everywhere, from the weight of the Marcia funebre to the squirty natural horns in the Scherzo and massive tumult mixed with big holes of Haydnesque strangeness of the Finale, you can imagine something of what the crowds must made of it all the first time it was played. An attack of newness had indeed broken out, and the Symphony No. 3 is magnificent and extraordinary in this recording. The Symphony No. 4 is more neo-classical and optimistic in its outlook, but this performances scholarly examination of dynamics, tempo and articulation makes it another bracing listen. The Adagio in particular is something of a trot with a long-legged steed than a real slow movement, but I like it, and the musical narrative of all of these movements is a path to savour. Some slightly sour violin moments on occasion take a little away from good wind solos, but again the sum is greater than the parts, and this is a performance which would hopefully still grab wild applause even today.
 
The Symphony No. 5 is always going to be a crucial work, and I’m not entirely convinced by the opening here in this, another one of the earliest recorded in the set. Sustained notes in the strings are undecided whether to vibrato or not, and the lead violin is distractingly up-front. If you can stand back from this a bit, there are good horn moments and the pace and drama are all there, but that string mix is troubling throughout. The extreme contrast between really quite close and fairly distant instruments also makes ensemble coherence that much more difficult. There is still plenty of good playing here and some remarkable moments, such as the hushed and surreal opening to the final Allegro, but real enjoyment is something of an uphill struggle in this case. The Symphony No. 6 is a good deal more entertaining though the generalised sound and large acoustic fights against the detail and chamber-music aspect of the playing in the tuttis. This is a strange set of contradictions, but what I mean is that it sounds more symphonic and grander than it needs to or perhaps even should be. This is however not a small-scale performance, and the dynamic shading is as well observed and constructed as one could hope for, with the antiphonally placed violins a nice touch which adds to the sense of openness in the music, if making headphone listening a tad disorientating at times. The muted strings in the Szene am Bach are lovely, and those exquisite harmonic changes later on are very nicely turned. Lyrical expressiveness turns out to be a strong feature of the Hanover Band as well as their punchy rhythmic drive as the peasant’s merrymaking moves into a fearsomely potent Sturm. The joyful song is gorgeous, though the accompanying figures in the strings are sometimes a bit over-present. In all, this is a Pastoral which can be relished.
 
The last three symphonies are all from 1988, the last phase of recording, and less prone to the troublesome sense of danger which inhabits some of the earliest. The lyrical against dramatic qualities in this symphony work very well in this case, with the wind sonorities having sufficient impact to steer the harmonic pace. That funeral-march Allegretto moves forward with a satisfying momentum, and builds towards some tremendous sonorities. The swiftly urgent Presto crackles with energy, and has to be topped by the Allegro con brio and is, though the greater extremes of volume result in some less usual acoustic effects, some of the wind notes being heard more through their reflection than from the original attack. The Symphony No. 8 is also very good, with plenty of theatricality through its lighter textures. Roy Goodman manages some nice moments of ritardando as well, heightening certain expressive corners to great effect. This is sunny but also seriously weighty music making, creating an eighth which is imposing as well as generously warm hearted and boisterous.
 
If I appear to skim a little over these last symphonies it is only because they are less problematic in terms of performance and recording quality than some of the others. Not without their usual minor momentary problems, I’m still happy to endorse them without going into minute detail. The monster Symphony No. 9 does however demand greater attention. Ambitious music demands scale and stature, and the recording here does rise to the challenge, providing decent enough balance and filling the acoustic better than in some cases. There does appear to be some spot miking now, so for instance the horns pop up in your left ear more closely than previous experience would lead you to expect. The bass section is less powerful in the balance which is a shame, as a firm bottom is something you really need to carry this work properly. The first movement is good enough, though its vast canvas sometimes lacks clear direction – perhaps as much an artefact of Beethoven’s deafness as Goodman’s leadership. The Molto vivace second movement extends a vaguely unsettling feeling that we’re hearing a product of encroaching madness as well as genius. The music is driven on with a consistency of pace and within fairly narrow expressive parameters, giving the mind little chance to hook itself onto moments which are normally pointed out with greater expressive contrast. I remember one of my lecturers at the RAM pointing out what a ‘bad’ piece of music the 9^th Symphony was, and I think hearing this version makes me realise what he meant for the first time. It’s truly eccentric and not less than crazy, but all done so gloriously and with such daring panache that we’re all left agape with a kind of awe of disbelief – we can’t really ‘get’ it, so it must be wonderful.
 
Well, there are wonderful things about Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, but this is one of those recordings which challenges preconceptions and forces a re-evaluation. The final Presto-Allegro assai throws down the gauntlet one last time, making the low strings ‘sing’ that recitatief before the vocal entry, and this is done with great declamatory style here. With a relatively hectic pace established, the first quiet entry of that famous tune takes us more by surprise. It pops out like a sketchy doodle. We all know what it’s going to grow into, but in this case it has a good deal of work needed before achieving adulthood – an effect I admire. As for the singers, Michael George is a bit jowly in tone colour in the solo but is a fine bass, and the members of the quartet blend well enough together. The choir is very fine, but perhaps a little recessed in the sound. More recent research has the Allegro assai vivace a good deal swifter than we get it here, and it sounds bizarre now to go back to that now discredited tempo of one beat per half bar rather than one beat per bar – twice as fast in effect. Being used to John Eliot Gardiner’s generally faster tempi makes the first choral Freude, schöner, Götterfunken sound a bit clunky by comparison, and the rhythmic emphases enhance the vertical rather than the horizontal, although there are some remarkable moments. The brass in general tends to sound a bit isolated, and doesn’t mould too well into the general orchestral picture, but this is still a performance which leaves an exhaustingly intense and powerful impression.
 
This is indeed a ‘historical’ recording, in the sense of its being a milestone – or at the very least part of a significant moment in recording history, when the period instrument movement came of age and proved itself capable of challenging the old order of symphonic orchestras. There is much to be enjoyed in this cycle, and much which frustrates. I don’t think by any standard it can make a claim to be anyone’s first choice for a set of Beethoven’s symphonies, but that’s no longer the point with this recording and probably never was. This is a version which can live next to your box sets by Karajan or anyone else, and be brought out when you feel the need for a change of sonority and a different angle on familiar music. To be frank, I hadn’t expected it to have stood the test of time as well as it has. We have indeed moved on, and performance techniques, instruments and aspects of interpretation have all been refined and adjusted as the years have progressed. Just as with modern instrument recordings, there is no one option with period instrument versions of these symphonies. Roy Goodman/Monica Huggett and The Hanover Band can however still make a splash.
 
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International [11/2011]

Classical Music

Classical Music

One of the great 20th century philosophers and authors, Colin Wilson reads excerpts from his most famous and thought provoking works in this release from Nimbus Records. Outside, published in 1956 was welcomed with instant international acclaim - a critical study of men who feel themselvecs too intelligent or sensitive for the "rat race" of modern civilization. In The Essential Colin Wilson, he presents what he considers to be his best works, the "essence of the essence".

Classical Music

A winner.

This is, in race horse parlance, another Nimbus ex MusicMasters production. The recordings are now, amazingly, over twenty years old but they certainly bear the new and somewhat austere, though evocative, livery well.

Music for the Theatre dates from 1925 and owed its genesis to a Koussevitzky commission. The composer took incidental music for a projected play and utilised it for the new work. There are five movements with the Prologue, and its brisk quasi-reveille calls, setting the scene with its quiescent material that leads inexorably to a jazzy and luminous coda. The muted trumpet and clarinet that haunt the Dance suggest a post-Ragtime sensibility and Hot Dance music rather than the Jazz that Copland suggested. It certainly has more of a tightly rhythmic New York feel than the more curvaceous insinuation of a Chicago beat. In the warmly lyric Interlude the cor anglais is the star and this ushers in a cheeky Burlesque where the trombone's cocky call over a walking bass adds greatly to the fun. The finale revisits the first and third movements and adds some restful stasis to end a happy, snappy work, tautly and sympathetically played by the forces of the Orchestra of St. Luke's under Dennis Russell Davies.

Quiet City is naturally better known but again trumpet and cor anglais are to the fore. Stephen Taylor is the cor anglais player here and I assume he was in Music for the Theatre as well. He and trumpeter Chris Gekker play with fine tone and measured cantilena. The strings turn lush when needed; no astringent aspersions are cast. Music for Movies dates from 1942 - the quartet of compositions is presented chronologically. This is a vital, energising piece of work, one of his breeziest and zestiest. It flies kites for serious composers and film music, whilst ensuring that colour, rhythmic flair, localised characterisation, and convincing orchestration are all surely realised. To end we have the Clarinet Concerto. It's not such an odd bedfellow as it may seem, especially when the playing is so consonant and William Blount so highly effective a soloist.

Of course you will have your own Numero Uno to play against each of these four recordings. Probably you'd go for Bernstein, Levi or Litton in Music for Theatre, or Copland himself (or Marriner - excellent) in Quiet City. The composer or Slatkin are probably best for Music for Movies and you have a whole Appalachia full of choices with the Concerto, according to how jazzy or straight you want it - Goodman, Meyer, Stoltzman - best with Tilson Thomas on the rostrum - or maybe Drucker - and there are plenty more.

As a single disc however this one, excellently recorded, finely played, and well annotated (by Vivian Perlis) is a winner.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Essential listening.

Samuel Barber wrote his Piano Concerto for John Browning (1933-2003) who gave the première at the inaugural celebrations for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York in 1962. The work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and has become the most frequently performed American Piano Concerto – Browning himself gave about 400 performances of the work. He also recorded it twice – in 1964, with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra for CBS. The first is on Sony Essential Classics SBK87948, coupled with the Violin Concerto with Isaac Stern and the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. He returned to it in 1991 with Leonard Slatkin and the St Louis Symphony (for BMG/RCA Red Seal). This latter brought Browning his first Grammy award. The present disk, when it appeared on MusicMasters in 1993 earned him his second for “Best Classical Instrumental Soloist without Orchestra”. In 1994 Browning partnered Cheryl Studer and Thomas Hampson in a complete recording of Barber’s complete songs on Deutsche Grammophon 435 867–2. Thus we can see that if ever a pianist was immersed in Barber’s piano works Browning was the man.

Barber’s piano music covers his whole career and the styles of the pieces employ almost as many different languages. Take his masterpiece for the instrument – the Sonata. Commissioned by Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the League of Composers it is a tersely and cogently argued work. It employed twelve note technique, but never loses sight of tonality. It was premièred by Vladimir Horowitz. It’s a tour de force of piano writing and is a ferociously difficult work both to play and to listen to. It gives little respite to both performer and listener and needs repeated hearings to get to grips with its language. Horowitz recorded the work in 1950 on RCA Victor: 60377-2-RG coupled with Kabalevsky’s 3rd and Prokofiev’s 7th Sonatas. This is the touchstone by which all pianists must be measured. Browning plays this complex work to the manner born. Perhaps his performance is not as idiomatic as that by Horowitz but, like van Cliburn, he has his own ideas on how the music should be interpreted. Although he doesn’t quite make it his own – Horowitz can rest easy here – he makes a very persuasive case for the work and this is a superb performance.

The next biggest piece is the set of four Excursions – Barber’s first major piano work. They are based on old American songs and musical vernacular: the first movement is a kind of boogie–woogie, the second a blues, the third uses The Streets of Laredo as its melodic idea and the last is a square dance. Although lighter in texture and feel they are no less virtuosic than the Sonata. These are delightful pieces, unpretentious and easy–going and Browning is totally at home with them, making them sing and bringing out a little nostalgia as well. Delicious stuff.

The late Ballade was written for the Van Cliburn competition. It’s a hot-house affair which owes more than a little to the highly flavoured music of Scriabin. The composer packs a lot into a short playing time. Interlude I is a surprisingly big piece with big ambitions. Considering its early compositional date it is surprisingly mature and well wrought. Finally, the Nocturne, another Browning première of a piece by Barber. It’s a highly decorated work, full of filigree work. Browning has said that perhaps it is more of a homage to Chopin than Field. Certainly there is more of the former in its keyboard layout than the latter.

There’s little that can be said of this recital except that is essential listening and the performances are as committed as one could hope for. Browning’s was a major talent which was heard all too infrequently outside the USA so we must be grateful for his recordings. His major competitor is Daniel Pollack (Naxos 8.550992) and he gives all the works here plus the Three Sketches (1923/1924) and an arrangement for solo piano of the ballet suite Souvenirs. His disk is worth having for these two extra pieces but it cannot be considered as a sole choice for this music when this collection is so good. This is well worth having on the shelf both as a reminder of a great pianist and as an example of some of the most refined piano music to come out of America in the 20th century.

-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

HOVHANESS Lousadzak. 1 Symphony No. 2, “Mysterious Mountain.” HARRISON Symphony No. 2, “Elegiac” • Dennis Russell Davies, cond; Keith Jarrett (pn); 1 American Composers O • NIMBUS 2512 (67:00)


This is a reissue of a recording originally released on the Music Masters label in 1989. It brings together the music of two composers who, as Tim Page’s program notes point out, first came to public attention as kindred spirits, linked together with John Cage, interestingly enough. Readers may be aware that Lou Harrison was one of the composer-critics whom Virgil Thomson ushered in as associates to the New York Herald Tribune during the mid 1940s. This was the period when Alan Hovhaness, until then an impoverished eccentric struggling to gain attention in the Boston area, attempted to cast his lot in the broader arena of New York City, after having essentially been ridiculed out of Tanglewood by Aaron Copland and his coterie. Both Thomson and Harrison were among the first with access to an influential forum of opinion to champion Hovhaness’s music, and their enthusiastic advocacy contributed significantly to establishing his early reputation. Of course, as the years passed, each of these figures—stubborn individualists themselves—proceeded in his own personal direction, and each ended his career at quite a different point from the others on the American compositional matrix.


Lousadzak , composed in 1944, is certainly one of the most unusual piano concertos ever written (neither a single chord nor sequence of octaves appears in the piano part). The music assigned to the solo instrument imitates a number of Armenian folk instruments, especially those in the dulcimer family, while the string ensemble plays the role of a folk orchestra, providing an accompaniment of primitive polyphony. Both Harrison and Cage were present at the work’s New York premiere, and evidently it really took the audience by surprise. Harrison later recalled that it “was the closest I’ve ever been to one of those renowned artistic riots.” From the standpoint of some six decades later, when Hovhaness is no longer alive, having left behind a legacy of hundreds upon hundreds more compositions, Lousadzak stands as one of his indisputable masterpieces. Somehow the work evokes—as its name, meaning “the coming of light,” implies—a haunting and mysterious sense of the beginning of time. It also has a real sense of drama—not drama in the romantic, climactic sense, but a gradual accumulation of passion and intensity as the work unfolds. No one who has written off Hovhaness after having heard only the over-inflated, endlessly soporific compositions of his later years should fail to acquaint himself with this important representation of one of the composer’s most fertile periods. One is hard-pressed to name another work of his that is as consistently compelling and inspired.


That a pianist with the varied interests and talents—not to mention the distinguished reputation—of Keith Jarrett turned his attention to Lousadzak has served to attract the notice of listeners unlikely otherwise to have encountered such a work. And Jarrett’s performance has much to recommend it. But there are also aspects of his reading that I find wrong-headed. The ethnomusical context from which this work derives is one of individual improvisation alternating with passages in which the ensemble comes to the fore. The improvisational passages tend to be rhythmically free and rhapsodic (an approach of which Jarrett—in other contexts—is a consummate master). Though thoroughly notated, Lousadzak emulates this style, and should be performed in a manner that is in keeping with it. But for some reason Jarrett approaches this profoundly non-virtuosic music as if trying to press it into service as some sort of technical showpiece, with overly driven, frenetically rushed tempos. Conductor Davies seems of the same mind as Jarrett, constantly pressing the piece forward, squaring off its phrase rhythms, and sacrificing much of its depth and subtlety. A performance that better captures the work’s spirit was released in 2005 on the Black Box label (see Fanfare 29:3), featuring pianist Martin Berkofsky. Although the Russian Globalis Symphony Orchestra lacks the precision and refinement of the American Composers Orchestra, pianist Berkofsky evinces a deeper understanding of the mode of expression represented by Hovhaness’s work.


“Mysterious Mountain” has loomed as Hovhaness’s best-known and most popular composition ever since it first appeared on recording during the late 1950s. (The fact that this work is identified as Symphony No. 2 should not be taken to mean that it was the second symphony Hovhaness composed. In fact, it was not given this appellation until a number of years after it was composed. To summarize briefly, toward the middle of his career, Hovhaness revised, retitled, destroyed, or partially or completely recast many of his compositions, leaving “holes” in his opus number listings and, in some cases, his numbering of symphonies. He would often “plug up” these “holes” with works composed either earlier or later than the numberings would suggest.) The great success of “Mysterious Mountain,” composed in its final form in 1955 (although portions date back to the 1930s), can be attributed to two factors: (1) Just two or three years after its completion, Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra recorded it for RCA Victor; (2) It is a beautifully tranquil and euphonious work in a neo-ecclesiastical vein almost entirely devoid of harmonic dissonance. Readers may be interested to learn that in a letter written in May 1961, the composer wrote, “As to my ‘Mysterious Mountain’ my feelings are mixed—I am happy it is popular but I have written much better music and it is a very impersonal work, in which I omit my deeper searching.”


The Reiner/Chicago recording set a performance standard for “Mysterious Mountain” that is hard to surpass, although even that performance is marred by a blemish or two. But its overall pacing and phrasing seem little short of ideal. By now there have been at least half a dozen recorded performances of this work. Most tend to take the first movement, Andante con moto, at tempos much faster than Reiner’s 7:25. Of them, Davies’s 5:09 may be the fastest. Andante con moto is a very vague tempo indication, leaving much room for interpretation, even more than most such designations. The expressive content of the music must be the determinant, and at Davies’s tempo, this quintessentially tranquil movement sounds brusque and rushed—clearly against the grain of the music. The more actively polyphonic second movement, which happens to be my favorite, is done magnificently. The mysterious opening of the third movement is again disconcertingly hasty, while the remainder of the movement proceeds lovingly, the pure, consonant harmony exquisitely in tune.


It is perhaps not too much of a stretch to observe that the “Elegiac” Symphony plays a similar role within Lou Harrison’s œuvre that “Mysterious Mountain” plays in Hovhaness’s: that is, they both attempt to integrate the spirit, as well as some of the exotic usages, of Eastern music within a Western symphonic context. This makes Harrison’s piece, in particular, especially unusual. A large work (longer than both Hovhaness pieces together), the “Elegiac” Symphony comprises five movements, and reportedly occupied Harrison intermittently from 1942 until 1975. Perhaps its dedication to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky accounts for the symphonic approach. Harrison’s familiar fingerprints—modal melodies of somewhat Balinese cast presented in unison or with a heterophonic or simple polyphonic treatment—are clearly evident (especially in movements 1, 3, and 5), but are here expanded to symphonic proportions—not solely a matter of duration, but also of a certain grandeur of both gesture and sonority. This very aspect of the work may alienate some of the composer’s more extreme admirers, while others are likely to find it all the more appealing for the same reason. The symphony is scored for a large orchestra, which is approached with considerable subtlety and delicacy—especially the use of the tack piano, a specialty of the composer, somewhat related to Cage’s “prepared piano.” The three odd-numbered movements—entitled “Tears of the Angel Israfel,” “Tears of the Angel Israfel II,” and “The Sweetness of Epicurus” respectively—are indeed “elegiac,” but not in the highly personal, Samuel Barber-like sense, but rather, in a more abstract, cosmic, contemplative sense, conveying a feeling of serene acceptance. The last movement is especially warm and poignant, concluding the work with deep, heartfelt beauty. The second movement, Allegro, poco presto, is scherzo-like and more Western in style, with some chromaticism, although gamelan-like effects clearly identify the composer. The fourth movement, “Praises for Michael the Archangel,” presents a stark contrast. Its harsh, aggressive harmonic dissonance and 12-tone material remind us that at one point Harrison studied with Arnold Schoenberg. Altogether, Harrison’s Symphony No. 2 serves as an excellent introduction to, and consolidation of, the many facets of this unique composer, presented in a fashion accessible to the more traditionally oriented listener.


FANFARE: Walter Simmons

Classical Music