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La leggenda di Vittore e Corona nei codici del medioevo / InUnum Ensemble
Tactus · Nov 2021CD$21.99 -
REMBRANDT!
Chopin / Ivo Pogorelich
Ivo Pogorelich has a special relationship with the piano music of the Polish Romantic composer Frédéric Chopin. It is Chopin, after all, whom he has to thank for his international breakthrough. When, at the age of 22, Pogorelich took part in the 1980 Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, his exceptional playing caused an immediate sensation. Martha Argerich, who was on the jury, described him as a “genius”. Since that time, Pogorelich has been increasingly committed, on recording and in concert, to an image of Chopin that is far from the commonplace cliché of the brilliant and pleasing composer of salon music. Now Pogorelich once again offers completely new insights into Chopin’s world and the soul within the sound in what is in fact his fifth Chopin album, but the first for more than twenty years. He has selected works from the 1840s, the last decade of the Polish master’s life. These include the Nocturnes op. 48 no. 1 and op. 62 no. 2, the Fantasy op. 49 and Chopin’s third and last Piano Sonata, op. 58.
What Pogorelich admires in these works is Chopin’s ability to make the piano a gateway to the soul: “Chopin delivers an open invitation to penetrate human psychology. It’s a specific invitation to continually seek out and explore every possibility that the piano has to offer. That’s a never-ending process, and it will continue to challenge new generations of artists in the future too.”
The Croatian-born pianist traces a path in this recital that starts with the small form, continues by way of the brilliant Fantasy and finally reaches the large-scale, four-movement sonata form. In Pogorelich’s hands, despite their magical lyricism, the two Nocturnes have a gripping sense of tension and drama. The Fantasy in F minor, op. 49 is marked by a sombre mood of conflict, yet at the same time it reflects the improvisational skill for which Chopin was celebrated. With the Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, op. 58, the composer not merely bids farewell to this genre, with all its rich tradition. The work also demonstrates his efforts to create a new kind of sonata. And with Ivo Pogorelich this much-performed and popular piano work is transformed into an exciting new encounter with Frédéric Chopin.
REVIEW:
After a 20-year hiatus from the recording studio as regards Chopin, Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich (b. 1958) returns with an hour of deeply-thought, if eternally controversial, interpretations of some standard, late-Chopin repertory.
Pogorelich claims that “art is cruel,” that it often violently confronts our conventions and our complacency. Even if one does not subscribe to Antonin Artaud’s credo of art’s “theater of cruelty,” we must acknowledge that Pogorelich softens the blows with a wonderfully warm sonority and clarity of line.
If one is willing to concede that “depth of expression” compensates for or justifies hyperbolic slowness, then Pogorelich’s Fantasy in F Minor (1841) will appear a miracle of sustained intimacy, given its full three-minutes’ length beyond that of Claudio Arrau. The grim, martial opening will soon cede to national, Polish impulses in aristocratic contours, in mazurka and polonaise rhythms. Pogorelich becomes mesmerized by his own poetic filigree, so the musical thread loses a sense of dramatic continuity. Again, the luxury of the arpeggios and runs, high and low, mixed together with declamatory bass chords, proves haunting. In the middle section, Lento sostenuto, Pogorelich finds a drawn-out, poetic balance of improvisatory and ballade-like narrative. The last pages become a postlude or epilogue, very slow and deliberate, strumming their way into a vaporous coda.
Pogorelich’s way with Chopin last, published Nocturne in E (1846) feels better suited to his grand leisure: marked Lento, dolce sostenuto, the melodic line can bear the stretched, serpentine extension it receives, more like Berlioz than Chopin. The secondary theme in ascending, bass runs achieves C-sharp Minor and a series of syncopations that articulate Chopin’s advanced sense of polyphony. Pogorelich makes these rhythmic impulses more lyrical than their accustomed wont. We feel significantly alerted to Chopin’s trills and moving bass line, as the piece eventually assumes a modified rondo format. The music ends, or rather collapses, into the tonic and evaporates.
The last of Chopin’s three piano sonatas, this in B Minor (1844), receives the most improvisatory treatment in the program. The opening, Allegro maestoso, acquires a searching gravitas, alternately martial and nostalgic. Pogorelich milks the secondary theme in D, breaking its dreamy phrases to contrast with the quicksilver runs that provide a coda to the disparate fragments. That the movement ends in the tonic major seems artificial here, another spliced-on, poetic shard.
So far as improvisation occurs, the Scherzo: Molto vivace in E-flat Major from Pogorelich really proves the berries. He invests a liquid urgency into its eighth-note runs, while the chordal, B Major section projects reflective poise. Doubtless, all of Pogorelich’s slow tempos have been awaiting the B Major Largo movement, which now drags out a long, chain-link series of nocturnal thoughts in E Major. If the playing were not so intrinsically lyric, the progress would resemble a sweet dirge with tolling bells. The last movement, Finale: Presto non tanto, assuming the listener’s patience has endured, moves with a hard-won (after a lingering, high dominant 7th chord) gallop, a bit marcato for my taste, but at least moving with decisiveness, especially in the brilliant runs. The secondary theme in the relative B Major, hurls a sense of national pride at us, its left hand’s singing in the manner of a liberated etude. Pogorelich’s sonority gains the heroic high ground at last, thundering to a firm, B Major coda.
-- Audaud.com (Gary Lemco)
I Wonder As I Wander / Newby, Middleton
When deciding on the repertoire for his début disc, James Newby’s first choice fell on An die ferne Geliebte, songs that he had been performing ever since the beginning of his career. But Beethoven’s song cycle – and perhaps even more so the quasi-operatic Adelaide – also sets a tone for the entire disc, that of longing and of wanting to be elsewhere, near the distant beloved. These are emotions that Schubert, perhaps more than any other composer, has plumbed in depth, and Newby went on to select five of his songs that in various ways depict the restlessness and loneliness of the eternal wanderer. Mahler is another composer who knew something about longing – for instance that it can be deadly, which he demonstrated with his Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz, in which a soldier awaits execution after trying to desert to his homeland while the piano imitates the muffled rolling of drums. The military theme continues in the high-strung Revelge, as a young soldier marches towards his death, thinking about his sweetheart with ever-greater desperation. The final song by Mahler, Urlicht, expresses the anguish and pain of earthly life, and the longing for Heaven and, in effect, death. Framing this programme with five folk song arrangements by Benjamin Britten, James Newby and Joseph Middleton explore Man’s never-ending search (geographical or psychological) for that distant object of desire: who, what or wherever it may be.
GIACHES DE WERT NONO LIBRO DE MADRIGALI
Ponchielli: Complete Organ Music
OM SHANTI OM
OM SHANTI OM
Mozart: L'Enlevement du Serail
THANK YOU
Galuppi: Sei Sonate A Tre A Due Violini E Basso Continuo
GALUPPI 6 Trio Sonatas • Accademia dei Solinghi • DYNAMIC 694 (54:05)
Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi wrote his six trio sonatas, according to Danilo Prefumo’s notes, in 1760, and with their homophonic textures, relatively simple melodic patterns diced into relatively short, often repeated phrases, and their division into three movements each (fast-slow-fast), they look forward to the Classical era rather than back toward the Baroque, despite their being composed in the venerable genre of the trio sonata (it’s a case of new wine in old bottles rather than old wine in new bottles). William S. Newman treated Galuppi’s works (primarily his keyboard sonatas) in his book on the Classical era rather than in his volume on the Baroque: He deemed Galuppi a preeminent pre-Classical composer. The sonatas surely aren’t without affecting sentiment, as the First Sonata’s slow movement or especially the sighs from the Second Sonata’s corresponding movement show (in addition, in the Second Sonata, to the dialog pitting the two violins against the harpsichord). The first movement of the Second Sonata bustles with a kind of energy that even Antonio Vivaldi’s sharply chiseled concerto subjects don’t always evince. It may not be surprising to find all these concertos written in the major mode (in this case, A, F, D, G, B?, and E) in light of Newman’s estimate that Galuppi wrote more than 80 percent of his sonatas in major.
In general, the sonatas’ first movements crackle (many listeners, cueing a random track, might relatively easily identify it as a first movement or a finale); the second movements, as noted above, include sensitive turns of phrase and harmonic subtleties (some even recalling Mozart, though Newman dismisses the suggestion of a direct influence on the later composer); the finales, though often marked Allegro , frequently glide elegantly rather than drive forward (with occasional exceptions, like the finale of the Fifth Sonata, the jaunty figuration of which spans both manners). Prefumo notes the title given the Sixth Sonata’s slow movement, Dialogo tra Pasquino e Marforio , perhaps referring to two Roman “talking statues.” In any case, this brief movement, subtitled Recitativo instrumentato , features passages that Galuppi, as a noted opera composer, may have delighted to transfer to this instrumental genre; the sonata’s finale also bears a title, in this case, Ritornello , though the device hardly suggests the one by the same name that characterized Vivaldi’s concertos. The Accademia dei Solinghi (Claudio Adriani playing an Andrea Guarneri violin from 1675, Franco Simeoni playing a violin made in 2007 by Franco Simeoni, Alessandro Peiretti playing an anonymous late 18th-century cello, and Rita Peiretti playing a harpsichord made by Davide Peiretti in 1986) endows these sonatas with a brusque energy that brings to vivid life Charles Burney’s remarks, after he’d encountered Galuppi’s music in Italy, about the composer’s youthful imagination. Dynamic has provided a close up portrait of the ensemble, yet surrounds the instruments with enough reverberation to fuse their crunchy textures into a pleasingly mellifluous amalgam. On the basis of the sonatas’ lively and ingratiating melodic imagination and of the energetic and sympathetic performances by the Accademia, Dynamic’s release should appeal more widely than to specialists.
FANFARE: Robert Maxham
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For some centuries Venice was one of the main centres of music-making in Italy. In the early 18th century Vivaldi was the key figure in the music scene, composing numerous operas, sacred works and instrumental pieces. After his death in 1741 his place was taken by Baldassare Galuppi, who soon became the most fashionable Italian master. His popularity was such that pieces by other composers were sold as written by Galuppi. One example is a setting of the Dixit Dominus which was purchased by the court in Dresden as a composition by Galuppi. Only fairly recently the true identity of the composer was discovered: Antonio Vivaldi.
Galuppi was born in Burano which explains his nickname 'Buranello'. His father was a violinist, who worked as a barber for a living. Galuppi's main teacher was Antonio Lotti. The English journalist Charles Burney visited Galuppi in 1770 and wrote: "Signor Galuppi was a scholar of the famous Lotti, and very early taken notice as a good harpsichord player, and a genius in composition. (...) He certainly merits all that can be done for him, being one of the few remaining original geniuses of the best school perhaps that Italy ever saw. His compositions are always ingenious and natural, and I may add, that he is a good contrapuntist, and a friend to poetry."
Galuppi has mainly become famous as a composer of operas, both serious and comic. His output in this genre is huge. In addition his work-list includes a large number of serenatas, oratorios and liturgical music. The largest part of his instrumental music is for keyboard. His oeuvre for instrumental ensemble is relatively limited: eight concertos for harpsichord and strings, seven concerti a quattro and the six trio sonatas which are the subject of this disc. They probably date from around 1760; they were not printed but have been preserved in a manuscript which is kept in the library of the University of Uppsala.
The judgement of Charles Burney that Galuppi was a "good contrapuntist" is affirmed by these sonatas which are written in the galant idiom. They are also an expression of the ideal of naturalness which was propagated by the Italian violin virtuoso and composer Giuseppe Tartini. All the sonatas are in three movements: fast - slow - fast. Although the two violins are basically treated on an equal footing, in several movements the first violin dominates, like the the first and last from the Sonata No. 1 in A and in the largo from the Sonata No. 3 in D. The adagio from the Sonata No. 2 in F is notable for its expression, partly through the use of general pauses. One of the most exuberant and technically brilliant movements is the closing allegro from the Sonata No. 4 in G.
The Sonata No. 6 in E has a remarkable middle movement, which is called Dialogo tra Pasquino e Marforio, in the form of a recitative. This is explained in the liner-notes: "Pasquinio and Marforio are names still used today in Rome for two statutes [=statues] from the Roman age, on which in past centuries the inhabitants of the Eternal City used to place mocking epigraphs and messages (called 'Pasquinate') referring to the establishment or public personalities. The statues were also called 'talking statues'; in Rome there were no fewer than six statues of this type, though Pasquino and Marforio were the most famous. Galuppi's short recitative may then be a playful allusion to some fact or event witnessed at the time of composition, or it might bear cryptic references to his time which, at the moment, we cannot clarify". This can only become clearer if we knew for sure the exact date and place of composition.
These trio sonatas are late specimens of a genre soon to disappear to make way for trios in which all parts were treated strictly equally, like the string trio. The Accademia dei Solinghi delivers good performances which may be a little less polished than we are used to hearing from the best ensembles of today. I have greatly enjoyed this disc, though, and if you decide to purchase it you certainly won't be disappointed. Music and performance make this recording well worth investigating.
-- Johan van Veen, MusicWeb International
Dark Matters - Carillon Music of Stephen Rush / Tiffany Ng
Trailblazing a path for the carillon in the 21st Century, Tiffany Ng commands towers of bells that ring across great distances. On Dark Matters, Ng masterfully helms the carillon works of composer Stephen Rush. These works and Ng’s playing possess a kind of magical cacophony that is in equal parts powerful, intimate, and entrancing. Since Stephen Rush’s debut carillon work Three Etudes reshaped the soundscape of carillon composition in 1987, he has steadily fashioned new campanological sounds in partnership with trailblazing carillonists like Margo Halsted and Neil Thornock. When Halsted premiered Six Treatments for Carillon in 2002, they launched a tradition of carillon with live electronics at the University of Michigan that flourishes to this day. In 2013, Dark Matters invited Rush to attend to time, space, and chance on a vast scale. Through the visceral experience of music, movement, and space, this piece leads into the unknown, questioning the origin of life, coincidence and inevitability, macro and micro, the stars and the elements, the instant and the eternal. As an oeuvre, Rush’s carillon music is singular in style, compelling in its driving rhythmic effects, and pushes the technical boundaries of the instrument while remaining idiomatically true to it. Ng recorded this album in collaboration with Rush, Jason Corey, Roger Arnett, Jessica Glynn, and Matias Vilaplana. A “virtuoso” (HKSNA) in command of a range of expression from “eerie sonance” (Diapason) to “jumpy athleticism” (Chicago Classical Review), Tiffany K. Ng, Ph.D., is assistant professor of music and university carillonist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Thompson: Requiem / Hayes, Philadelphia Singers
Listen to the Naxos Podcast episode on this release to learn more!
Randall Thompson’s choral works retain the affection of American choral singers and conductors alike. The Requiem is his masterpiece, written in response to the loss of close friends and colleagues. Using a wide-ranging selection of Biblical verses, it takes the form of a dramatic dialogue between two choirs, a "chorus of mourners" and a "chorus of the faithful", concerning eternal life. Recorded here for the first time in its complete form, this Requiem is an emotional and dramatically intense journey of conflict and resolution, and entirely unique within American music history and the requiem tradition as a whole.
REVIEW:
The performance is very well done by The Philadelphia Singers, a professional choir that after 43 years disbanded in 2015, the year after this recording was made. Although it’s an often strange and imperfect work, we’re fortunate to have the recording, as it fills an important gap in Thompson’s recorded catalog and gives a first-class opportunity to experience aspects of his compositional style that we don’t hear anywhere else in his output.
-- ClassicsToday.com (David Vernier)
The Philadelphia Singers, under the tireless, polished leadership of David Hayes, sustain an impressively high level of musicianship over the course of this long and demanding unaccompanied piece. Thompson’s Requiem is revealed here as a major work, unique and masterful, by an important American voice of the last century. I highly recommend it.
-- Opera News
Un - Canaja Brass Quintet
Shakespeare: The Two Noble Kinsmen
‘This hand shall never more come near thee with such friendship.' How long is forever? When the imprisoned Palamon and Arcite vow eternal friendship, they don’t expect that anything will come between them. But then from their cell window they see the beautiful Emilia, and their priorities take a sudden and violent turn. In this late romance, Fletcher and Shakespeare examine love in all its fluid and complex forms. Barrie Rutter, recipient of the 2003 Sam Wanamaker Award, directs his first play since stepping down as Artistic Director of Northern Broadsides. Inspired by the play’s Morris language and references, The Two Noble Kinsmen is set in pastoral ‘Merrie England’ and brought to life with original music composed by acclaimed folk musician Eliza Carthy, and dance choreographed by Ewan Wardrop.
Review
Running at a tight two hours 15 minutes, this tragicomedy still squeezes in a lot of Shakespearean tropes: a tyrant king, a last-minute death, and a young woman driven to madness by love...Barrie Rutter’s direction keeps the play together. Coupled with Jessica Worrall’s design, which leaves the grass-covered stage looking like an enchanted forest and the characters leaping between jewel-toned block colours and fringed dance costumes, the production is both lighthearted and light on its feet, with choreographer Ewan Wardrop’s work particularly standing out. Francesca Mills has great comic timing as the jailer’s daughter, as do Paul Stocker and Bryan Dick when they bounce off each other as Palamon and Arcite. (The Guardian)
Riley: Dark Queen Mantra / Del Sol String Quartet
For the Del Sol Quartet, this album is a culmination - and also the start of an ongoing musical journey. Terry Riley doesn't limit his music within a final double-bar but allows it to keep on growing - he's already composed more music for us to play together. As a quartet, we've found new energy and growth through the xperience of performing Terry's quartets off-book, by memory. As musicians, we've found an inspiring example - Terry has the strength to follow his own path balanced with the humility and curiosity of an eternal student. For our 25th anniversary festival, we are focusing on Terry's music and honored that Terry and Gyan will be joining us. Like so many worthwhile endeavors, this album began with af riendship. Del Sol violist Charlton Lee first met guitarist Gyan while playing in an ensemble led by the composer/bassist Gavin Bryars. ''I'd been wanting to find more opportunities to play with Gyan ever since we met,'' Charlton explains. ''And with Terry's 80th birthday on the horizon it seemed a perfect time to commission a new piece for all of us to play together.'' For the other dimension of this album, we had long been aware of Stefano Scodanibbio's awesome abilities as a trailblazing double-bass virtuoso, we had our first chance to perform his music thanks to Gyan. Gyan curated a memorial concert celebrating Stefano's music at The Stone in New York City and invited us to participate.
REVIEW:
The late-life creativity of Terry Riley is cause for celebration in troubled times, and this release makes a fine place to start exploring it. Dark Queen Mantra is flavored by Spanish idioms, but is in no way a neoclassical work. Mas Lugares (su madrigali di Monteverdi) by Italian Stefano Scodanibbio, makes an unusually good pairing with Riley: it stands in the same relationship to Monteverdi as Riley does to his Spanish models. The entire program shows how the San Francisco scene that the Kronos Quartet helped nurture has remained vital and continues to develop. Recommended, and not only for admirers of Riley’s work.
– All Music Guide (James Mannheim)
Richard Wagner: Gotterdammerung
Saxton: Epic of Gilgamesh & The Resurrection of the Soldiers
SEARCH WITHIN
Wagner: Siegfried (London, 1959)
La leggenda di Vittore e Corona nei codici del medioevo / InUnum Ensemble
The recording of “La Leggenda di Vittore e Corona” focuses on the musical-liturgical repertoire that the ancient Venetian medieval tradition named after the two proto-martyrs. The source (Antifonario Marciano, Archivio di Stato di Venezia, 14th century) sings in the form of the minor liturgy of the Vespers the different moments of the Passio involving Vittore until he joined Corona in the martyrdom, reaching eternal glory. Far from representing only a local cult, the legend of Vittore and Corona is fully part of the history of Christianity and, in particular, of the defenseless yet determined struggle for the freedom of faith, thought and conscience. The style between the Gregorian and the Aquileian rite of the Marcian vespers (first performance in modern times) is very well accompanied by that of the polyphonic pieces taken from European codes of the same period, underlining the salient moments of the legend; the original alternation of the voices and medieval instruments between concordant monody and polyphonic dialogue connotes the performance of the InUnum Ensemble enhancing the narrative.
