HAHN Piano Quartet No. 3. SCHMITT Hasards. DUBOIS Piano Quartet • Ames Pn Qrt • SONO LUMINUS 92141 (73:20)


Reynaldo Hahn (1874–1947) and Florent Schmitt (1870–1958) are names relatively familiar, but I have to admit that if I hadn’t had a recent encounter with Théodore Dubois (1837–1934) in Fanfare 34:6, he’d be a new acquaintance to me among these three composers. Granted, the one piece by which he was represented on that disc of horn trios by Brahms and Holbrooke was his very short Trio cantabile , but the piece struck me at the time as being in a very romantic, sentimentalized salon style that reminded me a bit of some of the music by the slightly later Cécile Chaminade and Reynaldo Hahn.


Here we find Dubois not only represented by one of his large-scale works, his Piano Quartet in A Minor, spanning nearly 35 minutes, but also joined at the hip on this CD by one of the composers his music reminded me of, Hahn, and by one of the composers he taught, Schmitt. All three of course were French (Hahn by naturalization), and all three lived long-enough lives (Dubois died at 97) to overlap the Impressionists, Les Apaches, La Jeune France, and Les Six.


Adrian Corleonis reviewed an earlier recording of Schmitt’s Hasards in 33:1, mischievously describing it as “a grotesque olla podrida of ostensible charm goosed by raspberries, tender feints guyed by truculence, the fun gestures of Les Six appropriated by a dogged, busy, belated sensibility.” I’m not sure I know what some of that means, but Hasards (Chances or Ventures) is a four-movement suite for piano quartet that reveals Schmitt’s lighter side with quirky movement titles and equally eccentric rhythms and harmonies that occasionally sound as if Milhaud’s Ox on the Roof ( Le Boeuf sur le toit ) has fallen off the roof.


Hahn’s Piano Quartet in G Major has had at least one previous recording by an ensemble calling itself Room Music. Originally issued on a full-priced Hyperion disc containing a collection of the composer’s chamber works, it’s now available on the label’s mid-priced Helios line. I reviewed it in 27:6, describing Hahn’s music as a trip down Proust’s memory lane, a melancholic ode to nostalgia and guilty pleasures.


The Ames Piano Quartet is the resident chamber ensemble at Iowa State University and has been active for a number of years. Collectors may recall the ensemble’s recordings on the Dorian label, including the piano quartets of Brahms, Dvo?ák, and Fauré. If this were the first and only recording of Hahn’s G-Major Piano Quartet, I’d give it an unconditional “buy” recommendation. But comparing the Ames to Room Music, I can’t help but feel that the Roomies are more sensitive to Hahn’s scented-handkerchief temperament, though I’ll admit that the Ames’s playing in the Andante movement manages to send me reaching for a hankie of my own. But what really favors Room Music is the recording. Hyperion provides a very transparent and atmospheric acoustic for the Room’s players, while the current Sono Luminus acoustic is a bit congested and opaque.


I can’t make a similar comparison between the Ames’s Schmitt and the Stanislas Quartet’s Timpani CD that Corleonis reviewed, because I haven’t heard it. So that leaves the Dubois, which, interestingly, has also had another recording but, unfortunately, one I’ve not heard either. It’s on Atma with an ensemble calling itself Trio Hochelaga. If nothing else, that CD has an advantage in being dedicated exclusively to works by Dubois, which, based on my previous encounter with his Trio cantabile and now this A-Minor Piano Quartet, I would say are well worth getting to know.


To give you some idea of how conservative Dubois was for his time, he was nearly 70 when he wrote this quartet, which would place its composition around 1907 or thereabouts. By then, he’d already joined forces with Saint-Saëns to deny Ravel the Grand Prix. If it’s any consolation to Ravel fans, that impolitic move proved Dubois’s undoing, for it caused such a scandal, it came to be known as l’affaire Ravel . Punishment was swift; Dubois was dismissed from his position as director of the conservatory and replaced by Fauré. Dubois’s career in academia was over, but he continued to compose prolifically right up to the end of his very long life.


Any resentment of the man’s illiberalism that might be harbored is quickly dispelled by his meltingly beautiful music. There aren’t that many piano quartets in the literature to begin with, and Dubois’s contribution to the genre is a stunning one that can easily stand beside those of Fauré. His musical temperament, at least insofar as this piano quartet is concerned, is not as delicate or fragile as Hahn’s, and the Ames Piano Quartet projects the work with a good deal of thrust in the outer movements and an aching nostalgia in the Andante molto espressivo.


When dealing with composers whose music is not that well known or often recorded, it’s always tough to decide whether it’s more desirable to have a disc devoted exclusively to the works of a single composer or one that offers a program of similar works by a clutch of closely related composers. I wouldn’t want to part with Room Music’s disc, which offers an all-Hahn program. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to part with this Ames disc either, mainly for the Dubois piano quartet of which I have no other version. Whatever your inclinations may be, the Ames Piano Quartet provides well over an hour’s worth of exquisite music impeccably played. So, strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

The six-person Baltimore Consort is one of the oldest early-music ensembles still on the performing scene. It employs a relatively small number of instruments at any time and produces a varied, sometimes intimate, result. This works well with some of the more expressive songs on this new release that features countertenor José Lemos, who sounds remarkably like a dark-voiced mezzo. (He’s listed as a full member on the album, but is described as a guest artist on its Web site.) The pieces are varied in subject and tone, from the usual digs at cuckolds to a couple displaying the religious triumphalism that followed in the wake of Castile’s historical ascension.

The program is one the Baltimore Consort has been performing for several years, mixing simple, popular songs and dances from the three monotheistic religious cultures that occupied the Iberian peninsula before the conclusion of the Reconquista in 1492. Much of the content is necessarily anonymous, and much else credited by tradition to arrangers, as in the dances drawn from Diego Ortiz’s Trattado de Glosas . Several selections are frequently played in concert by early-music ensembles, such as “Cucú, cucú, cucucú” (with some lovely tone here from recorder specialist Mindy Rosenfeld), Ortiz’s Italian-influenced “Recercada segunda,” and de la Torre’s “Danza Alta,” which if memory serves, I first heard live at a Terpsichore concert while recording it for Minnesota Public Radio in the early 1980s. “Ríu, ríu, chiu” is another perennial favorite, as is “Oy comamos y bebamos.” It all adds up to an exciting, strongly folk-flavored concert, varied in timbre, tempo, and expressive mood from moment to moment, though always played with the expertise one might expect from this group of musicians.

Some listeners may flinch at the near-rock bass line established (but quickly abandoned) by “Calabaça, no sé, buen amor,” or the full, strummed guitar chords and syncopated vocal line in “Tu madre cuando te parió” that come close to modern popular music. The Baltimore Consort may be engaging in a little épater le bourgeois in these cases, or it may just be offering proofs of concept—that rock rhythms do on occasion reproduce much older folk ones, and that the casual speech rhythms of Spanish folk song bridge popular music across the centuries. Regardless, if you can accept and enjoy what you hear, fine and well. In any case, with full bilingual texts and translations, and good if general notes, this one’s definitely recommended.

FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Baltimore Consort.

Prepare to be musically transported by A Change of Worlds, the latest release from Ensemble Galilei and Sono Luminus. Through the unique combination of old Irish tunes, traditional American folk melodies, and inspired original selections, A Change of Worlds transcends a myriad of musical genres.

Comprised of very talented and capable members who are both classically trained and traditional musicians, Ensemble Galilei brilliantly melds a wealth of technical capability with an abiding passion for ancient music. Through their infectious improvisational energy, the vibrancy of this ensemble captivates the listener, from the downbeat of the first tune, to the final chord on the album.

All of the music recorded for this CD is part of First Person: Seeing America – a collaboration between Ensemble Galilei and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The multi-disciplinary project includes photographs from the Met, poetry and prose about America, and the music of Ensemble Galilei, and premiered in New York in October of 2010. It will tour through 2015.

Sarah Schuster Ericsson has been harpist of both the Baltimore Symphony and the Boston Symphony orchestras. Here she offers a pleasantly varied program within the rubric identified by the collection’s title. Most noteworthy is the 1961 sonata by American composer Nicolas Flagello. Although he wrote three pieces for harp solo, the sonata is by far the best known, appearing frequently on recitals and at competitions. In fact, this is the third recording of the work currently available on CD. Typical of his music, but atypical of conventional works for harp, Flagello’s sonata is dramatic and serious in tone overall, although leavened by a lovely, melancholy waltz-like slow movement, and a briskly exuberant finale. Ericsson’s approach to the work is richly expansive, in striking contrast to Erica Goodman’s meticulously precise, unsentimental reading (BIS 319). Some of Flagello’s works can benefit from an expansive approach: For a piece like the Harp Sonata, with dense textures and some rhythmic complexity, a broader approach can allow details to blossom, while a tighter, more metronomic approach can force those details “under the rug,” so to speak. On the other hand, taking expansiveness to an extreme can drain rhythmic energy, and cause the work to lose focus.

In general Ericsson’s performances are gracious and tasteful, if a trifle hesitant and reserved. Probably the best-known work on the program is the sonata by Paul Hindemith. Ericsson offers an appealing performance of this uncharacteristically warm and lyrical piece. Alfredo Casella (1883–1947), an Italian contemporary of Bartók and Stravinsky, was celebrated as a modernist during the early years of the 20th century, but most of his work has faded from view. His Harp Sonata, composed during World War II, pursues a gentle neoclassicism somewhat similar to the music of Gian-Francesco Malipiero, another contemporary of Casella’s, as well as a fellow countryman. From today’s perspective Casella’s sonata is a solid, attractive work with the slightly archaic flavor characteristic of the Mediterranean neoclassicists. Germaine Tailleferre is remembered today chiefly as the woman among the early French modernists known as Les Six. Her music leans toward a light-hearted cheerfulness that does not appeal to me. Her sonata is the least interesting item on the program. Pierick Houdy, a Breton composer who has spent most of his prolific career in Canada, is still active at 80, as far as I know, although he returned to France in his later years. His wife is a harpist, and he composed his sonata with her in mind. It is a pleasantly melodic, untroubled and untroubling work—another staple of the contemporary harp repertoire.

All in all, this is an ingratiating program, excellently played, and expertly recorded. I suspect that it will please most connoisseurs and enthusiasts of the harp.

FANFARE: Walter Simmons

“Let me invite you to listen to this potpourri of favorite musical stories spotlighting some of the rich contributions from American immigrants and other countries. Laden with cultural pride, they celebrate people like my Scottish friend Stuart, who capped a fulfilling international career with retirement to Cape Cod but never forgot his roots–and would sing the old song I Belong to Glasgow, at the drop of a hat.

"I Lift My Lamp pays musical homage to his Glaswegian pride—and the pride of so many other immigrants for their homelands. In a conversation between old and new, it honors living, community traditions not set in stone. Influenced by my work with storyteller Ken Burns, I feature vintage immigrant songs and dances from my Pittsburgh childhood, later life in Boston and travels–my own arrangements of American standards, lesser-known gems, and imported and homegrown creations, from countryside to Tin Pan Alley...” (Jacqueline Schwab)

REVIEWS:

Beyond performances that are engaged and expressive, what distinguishes I Lift My Lamp is its programme. On this sixty-five-minute collection, pianist Jacqueline Schwab presents songs from numerous countries, some familiar and some not but all performed with deep feeling. As the songs are associated with the American immigrant experience, many are filled with longing for the countries left behind.

This isn’t the first time Schwab, a graduate of Boston’s New England Conservatory who lived for many years at Cape Cod before returning to Boston, has given her attention to such material; in fact, much of her career has been devoted to projects celebrating the American experience in one form or another...None of the material was written by her, but the songs feel no less like personal expressions in her hands.

Dances and ballads consistently alternate, with examples of each coming from various parts of the world and Schwab executing them all with equal attention to detail and tone. Adding to the release’s appeal, in-depth liner notes presenting background for each composition were written for it by Stephanie Smith, one-time Archives Director of the Smithsonian Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Many of these tunes—what Twain called “remembrancers,” apparently—were written long ago, but the feelings they express and the message they impart transcend time and resonate afresh in Schwab’s inspired readings.

-- Textura

Matei Varga writes: “To paraphrase Tolstoy, all happy memories feel more or less the same; but the unhappy times are experienced differently by each one of us. We’ve all had some really tough weeks, which sometimes turned into months, and (with a bit of bad luck) into years… I like to think that “off” years help us grow and prepare for the beautiful things that will undoubtedly come our way (I am an optimist at heart), but living through dark times is a complicated process.

The year 2020 was complicated indeed. The world was put on hold and we hardly remember what we did in February, or May, or September… Many suffered from isolation and the inability to socialize - and they probably prefer to think back to 2020 as a year that never happened… I, on the other hand, felt liberated by the lack of schedules, appointments and the pressure to be productive - that horrid word which is killing our souls, slowly but surely. Instead I embraced seclusion and enjoyed the time off which was forced upon us. Yes, I did miss performing in front of a live audience and traveling to beautiful places, but I found that staying home, with my piano, offered me a better view towards my inner self and a chance to experience the joy of a new discovery. That was for me the Cuban master Ernesto Lecuona…Two years later, the pandemic isn’t over and neither is the collective anxiety- but at least I can offer you this very personal recording, which I hope will take your mind away from current realities. This is music’s most phenomenal power- to bring joy when we really need it!...”

REVIEW:

The Year That Never Was in Romanian pianist Matei Varga’s title here is 2020; he writes of how he came to embrace the COVID-era isolation and explored the work of Ernesto Lecuona, a composer about whom he had previously known little. The output of Cuban composer Lecuona is sometimes categorized as salon music, and while it includes a few classical hits like the opening Andalucía (from the Suite española), much of his large production of some 600 works remains little explored. Here, the excerpts from the Danzas cubanas del siglo XIX and Danzas Afro-Cubanas will be worth the price of admission for Lecuona fans. He wants to expand the notion of salon music to include some of its predecessors, not only Chopin but going back as far as Domenico Scarlatti. That pandemic seems to have produced a boomlet in recordings of salon music, which is probably understandable, and Varga’s release is a novel take on the idea.

-- AllMuic.com (James Manheim)

“I am really excited about our upcoming release of Aerial on Sono Luminus this year! The album was originally released in 2014 on Deutsche Grammophon and now the journey of the album continues with Sono Luminus in a remastered version by their very own Daniel Shores. The orchestra piece Aeriality is at the center of the album which also features Into Second Self, Ró, Tactility, Trajectories and Shades of Silence. It was quite a personal journey to record these pieces in Iceland, working with long time collaborators such as the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Caput Ensemble and Nordic Affect. It is such a joy to continue the collaboration with Sono Luminus that we have grown for many years now with releases of, now, all my portrait albums to date! The new release of Aerial will also feature percussion quartet Aura performed by the LA Percussion Quartet.” (Anna Þorvaldsdóttir)

REVIEW:

The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir has emerged as one of the most talented Nordic composers in recent years. Her voice is quite different from that of other contemporary composers, and thankfully her orchestral music has become widely performed and recorded by the leading orchestras world-wide and acclaimed by reviewers and the musical public alike.

The opening work on this disc - Into-Second Self - is for seven brass instruments and percussion. It opens with rumbling, whistling effects as if we are in a dark threatening tunnel, creating an atmospheric roar of sound with the percussion generating what is like an ancient Celtic chant on the horns and trombones. This is heard in an unearthly harmony by evoking sounds of aircraft and loud thuds on the drums, a shimmering of bells becoming increasingly loud then settles into silence.

Written for flute, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, two violins, viola and cello, Rö, opens with a jangle on percussion and piano chords aided by the bass clarinet and the strings harmony. We hear sudden noises against the wind of the flute and bass clarinet with a hint of an idea on the wind against the loud disharmony on the percussion - all broken by a bagpipe-like noise and a twanging idea, all of which creates a world of mystery, yet is brought to a terrible halt with thuds on the keyboard before a slow descent into quiet.

Under the baton of Ilan Volkov, Aeriality opens with a loud chord from the orchestra offering exciting harmony, and the entry of the piano is heard against strings and woodwind babbling in a dynamic pulse - as if we are hearing the movement of great bodies in space, or on the earth - is this the cosmos? There is a constant flow of sound and dissonance with occasional noises and murmuring on the strings, growing steadily louder with roars from the brass and a shrill woodwind theme emerge together in a great potent idea leading to a low-pitched drone of noise against a twitter of woodwind invoking birds calling out in the wind, yet the sudden crashes on the percussion are like chains breaking against rocks then disappear into silence.

Tactility opens with a mysterious hovering sound on harp and percussion and a dull throbbing sound, yet the harp hints at Japanese music, interrupted by thuds on the drums, and a rustling sound pattering away in the background, then we hear the effect of the wind blowing against the window ending with an inflection on the harp.

Composed for piano and electronics, Trajectories opens with a stirring rise in noise and an enormous build in tension with chimes of momentous chords on the piano, lending the impression of ‘something trying to escape’, all in dreadful harmonies, dissonance and a ripple of piano chords repeated amid the chime of a clock, rippling and tapping on the keyboard and an all-powerful throbbing noise before suddenly dying away.

The composer uses an ensemble of baroque instruments for her Shades of Silence, which opens with high shrill notes on strings, creating an amazing acoustic effect enhanced by the pizzicato strings in rising and falling dissonance, of sharply brutal music on the harpsichord that strangely creates an almost magical effect.

Aura, the final piece here, written for four percussionists, starts with an eerie atmosphere of a strange whispering ringing on the percussion with a chiming xylophone and ringing tubular bells, creating an amazingly catatonic effect, against a rustling, loud throbbing noise ‘like whales in the sea.’ For anyone unaware of this young Icelandic composer, this disc will prove an enlightening experience, and can only whet one’s appetite for her more recent compositions. Thorvaldsdottir herself was responsible for the engineering on four of the seven recordings, adding another credit to her talents; the sound quality is splendidly ambient throughout.

-- MusicWeb International (Gregor Tassie)

If you would, coax your mind back to a time when you believed ducking your head beneath the covers was ample defense against the bogeyman. Do you remember, in the haze of half-sleep, seeing something or someone in your room that didn’t belong? As you breathlessly flicked on the light, you were relieved to find it was only a chair lopsided with laundry, or a vacuum propped against the doorframe. That faint halo of light, surrounding this once sinister and now innocuous object, that is the penumbra – that permeable border between light and dark. This is the space where Enigma lives.

We’ve all been living in an in-between of sorts for the last year, haven’t we? Nothing quite as poetic as the blend of blinding light and unfathomable dark one encounters with an eclipse, an early touchstone for this composition it is worth noting. But we’ve done quite a bit of living in the grey area, which is maybe broader than we thought. The thing is, traveling to Virginia to record this album was in some ways the first glint of hope on the horizon...well...that there was still a horizon.

This album is the result of a multi-year alchemy between the singular writing of composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the playing of three-time GRAMMY nominees Spektral Quartet. The first string quartet composed by Thorvaldsdottir, Enigma is simultaneously colossal and introspective, moving between heart-wrenching chord progressions and the scrapes and clicks of extended string techniques. A piece of profound emotional magnitude, Enigma provokes considerations of our relationship to the vast cosmos that surrounds us – and the infinite universe within.

REVIEWS:

“[Enigma] sounds like no string quartet you’ve ever heard... It’s wonderful work.”

-- Washington Post (Anne Midgette)

“After many years of performing these works in recitals, we wanted to record them—not as two separate sets but as a confluence of dance-inspired music influenced by two distinct regions and cultures. We chose to travel back and forth between duo and solo, interweaving Balkan dances and tango nuevo in the way we have done in live performances.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, which continues at the time we write these words, we’ve repeatedly found ourselves performing for audiences virtually, separated from one another by the computer screen and yet connected to one another by that same screen. In recording this album we sought to bring some of the live concert experience to the listener.

The track order, tempos, pacing between selections, the improvisatory nature of some of the phrasing, dynamics, articulations, and embellishments, were elements in our process that we felt could contribute to providing some of the live concert feeling that we’ve all been missing during periods of lockdown. This music is especially close to each of us: The tangos were composed for me (Zachary) to play, and like the sonatas of the Italian violinist-composers of the Baroque Era, these compositions provide an environment for exploration, an invitation to embrace improvisation as part of the process… The Balkan Dances are a musical reflection of the cultural influences in my (Mina’s) childhood, in what was then Yugoslavia. Certain rhythms, melodic fragments, and harmonic progressions conjure visceral memories from traveling throughout the rich cultural landscapes across the region, and of singing and dancing traditional songs in several dialects as a child and music student...” (Mina Gajić & Zachary Carrettin)

REVIEW:

Who would have expected two directors of the Boulder Bach Festival to come up with such a novel composer pairing and (more importantly) to bring it off supremely well? Their program mixes and matches violin/piano tangos by Ray Granlund and the Seven Balkan Dances for piano solo by Marko Tajcevic.

One might describe Granlund’s approach to the tango genre as that of a kinder, gentler, and less edgy Astor Piazzolla. To be sure, Granlund can whip up energy when it suits him. Tango Peregrino, for example, starts off in lyrical territory that wouldn’t be foreign to a Chick Corea ballad, yet a strong rhythmic impetus soon kicks in, complete with emphatic accents and slashing slides from Zachary Carrettin’s violin. Granlund’s compact Tangometria defies conventional dancing in its deft use of mixed uneven meters, while Tango du joli printemps lovingly transports an original Poulenc melody from Paris to Buenos Aires, with a second overdubbed violin line joining in the dance.

Tajcevic’s brief Balkan Dances succinctly make their vivid musical points, helped by the gusto and verve characterizing Mina Gajic’s wonderful rhythmic élan. Despite the disc’s relative brief playing time (38 and a half minutes), adventurous listeners will not feel shortchanged.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

Includes work(s) by Antonio Vivaldi. Soloist: Jean Guillou.

This selection was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

Selections recorded June 1994 and January 1995.

Traditional Music Of Nova Scotia And Cape Breton - The Robin

Founded in 1980 to perform the instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time, The Baltimore Consort has explored early English, Scottish, and French popular music, focusing on the relationship between folk and courtly art song, and dance. Their interest in early music of English/Scottish heritage has also led them to delve into the rich trove of traditional music preserved in North America.

There are hundreds of references to music in the works of Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s music can be placed into three general categories: Incidental Music- The individual titles of incidental music in Shakespeare’s works are never named but the directions “music here,” “music begins,” “music for dancing,” etc. are provided. Literary References- Shakespeare refers to the music, music theory, and instruments of the time within the text of his works. A humorous example is found in the names of the musicians Peter confronts in Romeo and Juliet: Hugh Rebec, Simon Catling and James Soundpost. Songs- Specific songs are included for performance in the text of Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare authored the lyrics to some of these songs but also incorporated popular songs known to his contemporary audiences. The plays did not include notation of the tunes of these songs. However, we are certain that Robert Johnson’s settings for “Full Fathom Five” and “Where the Bee Sucks” are the same as when originally performed in The Tempest. Johnson is well documented as Shakespeare’s composer.

For the other songs on the recording we are using the earliest surviving versions – both published and from manuscript – which are contemporary with Shakespeare’s productions. These include, “It Was a Lover and his Lasse,” “Farewell, Dear Love,” “When Griping Grief,” “Gravedigger’s Song,” and “Willow Song.”

REVIEWS:

A very pleasurable late-evening hour can be spent in the company of these musicians.

– MusicWeb International

This gem of an album played with historical performance accuracy and 21st century pizzazz is a revealing and often toe-tapping thing to treasure.

– Rafael's Music Notes (Rafael de Acha)

With most of the songs in the one- to three-minute range (only three exceed four minutes), changes happen fast, the recording never staying in one place for long. As enjoyable as the songs are, the album’s foremost pleasures derive from the interactions between the players and the rich timbral contrasts between their instruments. Often the full ensemble performs, but arrangements vary, with instruments combined in different combinations and number (e.g., “Cuckolds All a-Row” played by cittern alone; voice accompanied by lute for “Willow Song”); the album also benefits from the inclusion of both vocal and instrumental tracks, with a satisfying balance achieved between them.

– Textura