Submitted September 2000

Those expecting the grandeur of Sibelius’s great symphonies or his sweeping tone poems will be disappointed by this collection of modest, sometimes understated works for solo piano. The violin, not the piano, was Sibelius’s instrument of choice and these works do lack that languid moodiness found in his more well-known works that can only be provided by the fullness of strings (and the underscoring of the woodwinds). Indeed, Sibelius went out of his way to keep these five works out of circulation during his lifetime for fear they might diminish the impact of his greater works. Though clearly Romantic in temperament, these piano pieces have echoes mostly of Germanic influences, principally the staid even-temperedness of Brahms. Also present here are Chopinesque maneuvers, mostly the way that the writing for the left hand and writing for the right hand neatly balance out one another, never conflicting nor outdoing one another (as opposed to his symphonies and tone poems which doggedly explore the lower registers).This, however, may be a performance trait of Kyoko Tabe. Her touch is delicate and considered, and my suspicion that the lack of Sibelius’s distinct romanticism in these works come from the works themselves and not Ms. Tabe’s take on them. As usual, the Chandos sound is on the mark, leaning more toward warmth than sharpness.

Aaron Copland wrote very little chamber music in his career and much of it was written more toward the end of his life than the beginning. Threnody I and II and Duo for Flute and Piano were written in the early 1970s and Vocalise is a 1972 reworking of a 1928 piece for high voice and piano. Only As It Fell Upon a Day, a 1928 work, is performed here unembellished. Fans of Copland’s more mature programmatic works (Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, et. al.) will not find much that is familiar here. Copland’s distinct lyricism does appear now and then, as in Threnody II, but more as an afterthought than anything else. By the 1970s the composer was moving his lyrical romanticism into more esoteric (i.e. atonal) realms. Curiously Copland’s As It Fell Upon a Day (of 1923) for soprano, flute, and clarinet, is brash, almost Schoenbergian, but here is actually nicely done (Jayne West is the warm-voiced soprano). But there is otherwise very little to offend on this disc, which may be part of its problem. Nothing jumps, nothing surprises, everything played rather flatly and safely. Only Copland’s Vocalise might jar. The performances mitigate anything truly original in the writing of both composers, but especially in Arthur Foote’s music. His At Dusk (1923) is a good example. It’s polite and inoffensive and derivative of Faure with nothing particularly “American” about it and it isn’t helped by the recording studio’s muted sonics. Jayne West’s voice is expertly captured, but the flute in Foote’s Nocturne and Scherzo is over-miked and is too shrill (and catch the undermiking of the cello in Foote’s At Dusk). Only the archivist or historian will find something on this release of interest. The rest of us can move on.

Leifur Porarinsson (1934-1998) is an Icelandic composer whose musical vision—to judge by this disc—easily matches anything being done in any of the Scandinavian countries. His music is technically accomplished but is decidedly Postmodern in both spirit and execution. Few elements of Romanticism can be found in his writing beyond the occasional nod to modern jazz or popular music (especially his Symphony 2). Even then, those moments are nuanced by Porarinsson’s attention to the work’s overall tone and momentum. If anything, his orchestration and his attention to thematic development resembles that of Leif Segerstam; his stylistic diversity is reminiscent of Alfred Schnittke. But Porarinsson’s not a polystylist quite. This has to do with the proximity of Iceland to America (and the fact that Schnittke wasn’t raised on American jazz). But don’t get the impression that Porarinsson is a jazz composer. He was merely influenced by jazz composers, especially Miles Davis. That said, the performance values here are very high. The Icelandic Symphony Orchestra is quite adept at Porarinsson’s difficult music and the sonics are excellent, especially for Symphony 2. The soloist in the Violin Concerto is Sigrun Edvaldsdottir whose approach is both confident and aggressive; she seems absolutely fearless. Also on this disc is a 14 minute radio interview with the composer, but it’s in Icelandic. However, there is enough good music here for those with a taste for Postmodernism to make this disc a worthwhile addition to anyone’s library.

Threnody Ensemble is composed of Dave Cerf and Eirk Hoversten or guitar and Dominque Davison on cello to make something of a New Age/Postromantic musical trio. As the CD booklet says, their music is neither classical nor “popular”, at least in any traditional definition of those terms. Instead, the group tries to mix Western and non-Western idioms to create a new kind of music. Well, maybe. What emerges here will be seen (especially by classical guitar aficionados) as something very definitely in the New Age vein, something that Michael Hedges might do on a sleepy afternoon. As for non-traditional Western idioms, you really won’t find anything like Indian, Balinese, Chinese, or Japanese music here. In all three of the ThaRoman (formerly Valerie White) pieces here, the guitars pluck along casually, underscored by a very somnambulistic cello. However, much of this music is also improvisational. But odd notes will be struck (intentionally or unintentionally, it’s hard to tell) and everyone scrambles to incorporate them, dodge them, or ignore them entirely. This happens in ThaRoman (formerly Valerie White) Parts I and III. And in Part II, there is an unexplained (and perhaps uncalled for) Rumba that bursts in for a bar or two then quickly fades, never to be heard from again. Thematically, this music isn’t terribly ambitious or even memorable. Typical of New Albion productions, though, this release has excellent sonics. However, if it’s a cozy warmth you are looking for, pick any Windham Hill record of the 1980s.

George Crumb’s creative vision takes a great deal, at least in execution, from the prepared piano pieces of John Cage as well as a devotion to purely spatial nature of sound common to Morton Feldman (who had Cage as a teacher). Also found in Crumb’s works are the surprise-attacks common to George Antheil and when Crumb pushes his instruments, his music comes close to the strains and shrieks found in Hans-Werner Henze. But you would never recognize any of the aforementioned composers in Crumb’s music. Even so, Crumb’s music is still an acquired taste. The catalog lists a number of Crumb’s works still in print and the three works here can be found in other collections, though it’s doubtful that there are better performances than these. Most representative of Crumb’s maturity is his Music for a Summer Evening (Macrocosmos III) of 1974. It’s a calculated, slowly paced hodge-podge of the interplay of two amplified pianos and various percussion instruments. Piano strings are plucked, strummed, pounded (as in Cage) with bells, chimes, gong-sounds wiggling just underneath. A Little Suite for Christmas – A.D. 1979 has a program based on the Nativity, but is in actuality an atonal canticle straight from the Second Viennese School. Crumb, though, knows (as both Feldman and Cage knew) how to make chaos cohere. His pure intonations, dissonant or not, whirl around like snowflakes, each one distinct and each one brief. This is Crumb’s major strength. His works aren’t long; they don’t overstay their welcome. But, as mentioned above, his is an acquired taste.

This disc contains the complete chamber music for clarinet that Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy wrote, which might sound like a lot, but it isn’t. He only wrote three pieces, Concert Piece for Clarinet, Basset horn and Pianoforte (Opus 113), Sonata for Clarinet and Piano and Concert Piece for Clarinet, Basset horn and Pianoforte (Opus 114). But what extraordinary pieces they are. Indeed, the catalog lists at least ten CD releases of the Opus 114 alone. The Opus 114 is a subtly complex tapestry of interweaving themes and melodies traded off equally by the clarinet (Dieter Klocker) and the basset horn (Luigi Magistrelli). In fact, this work is often used as a show piece for students of the clarinet. It was written for clarinet virtuoso Heinrich Joseph Baermann (1784-1847) and his son Carl Baermann, who was no slouch either. Both concert pieces bare Mendelssohn’s distinctive fluid lyricism, but they depend on their structures, indeed their whole execution, on principles Mozart advocated. Nothing innovative here, just excellent music, excellently performed. Also here is a work by Carl Baermann (1811-1885), his Duo Concertant for Two Clarinets and Piano. It’s a surprisingly non-derivative piece. Though it’s not terribly complicated, it calls for superior coordination and timing on behalf of the soloists, Dieter Klocker and Sandra Arnold. Sound quality is excellent if somewhat biased toward softness.

As a Belgian composer whose maturity spans the first half of the 21 st century, Jean Rogister (1879-1964) made his reputation not from his musical works, but from a long career as music teacher. His instrument was the viola (like Hindemith) and his strengths lie in his understanding of the harmonic as well as melodic uses of all the stringed instruments taken altogether. He’s a die-hard Romantic and fans of British string music (Moeran, Bax, Delius to some degree, and John Ireland) will like Rogister’s music a great deal. This British influence is easily seen in Lamento et Allegro energico, although the energico is more of a walk across a British meadow on a sunny day. The main work here is the Suite pour Orchestre a cordes et flute en sol mineur, that allows Marc Grauwels’ flute flesh out some of the more dry spots in the actual writing itself. Grauwels’ flute, technique, however, betrays either lack of confidence or unfamiliarity with the material. Since Rogister’s music isn’t particularly difficult, it remains a mystery why the flute wavers so much (the miking could also be the culprit). Overall, the playing of the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie is quite sympathetic to Rogister’s music and the sound has an intimacy to it that prevents the strings from becoming shrill. Still, the music itself is unexceptional, the playing rather de rigueur for string ensembles.

Nino Rota (1911-1979) will probably always be known as the composer of music to The Godfather (1971) and of the earlier Italian film masterpiece, La dolce vita (1963). That will be a shame because, as this disc demonstrates, Rota was highly inventive and had actually mastered all the “schools” of 20 th century music—from neoromanticism to postmodernism—particularly those trends that infected Italian composers (at least every composer except Respighi). You’ll find more of the easy-going romantic in these chamber works, with hints here and there of Rota’s grasp of non-traditional modes of expression bordering on atonality as in the wonderful Trio for Flute, Violin and Piano (of 1958), a playful work that pushes the flute into realms into which only Toru Takamitsu has ventured. In fact, while all the works on this release have traditional structures for trios and sonatas pre-dating Mozart, Rota always conjures a 20 th century uneasiness as well as moments of extreme beauty where a solo instrument will simply “sing” on its own (the viola in Sonata for Viola and Piano of 1935). The Ensemble Nino Rota has clearly mastered the music of their namesake and the Chandos sound has never sounded fuller or more intimate.

Anton Webern (1883-1945) has often been overshadowed by the figure of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) in the advancements of serialism or other kinds of twelve-tone-based music. But Webern’s free-spiritedness (something Schoenberg never had) most clearly shows up in a great many contemporary composers (Alfred Schnittke and Toru Takemitsu come to mind easiest) and it shows up on this disc, a collection of Webern’s chamber works, all of which are surprisingly bright and lucid, even if they are intellectually challenging. Five Movements for String Quartet which begins the disc and the String Quartet opus 28 which ends the disc are cogent expressions of Webern’s even-temperedness; nothing blasts, nothing blares here. Certainly nothing broods. Indeed, what emerges in this music is Webern’s strongly meditative nature, something that will influence both John Cage and his famous pupil Morton Feldman later on. And in Webern’s String Trio you’ll hear ideas Shostakovich will expand upon in his own string quartets. The performance level on these works is quite good. But be warned: these are “live” recordings. The miking of the instruments is quite close and can be blunt at times. And you’ll hear at least two noticeable coughs in the background. But don’t let those little intrusions turn you away from the pleasures of the music on this release.

In the twentieth century, chamber works have often been the domain of more personal or private musical expression wherein the composer can play with motifs unfamiliar to them and experiment with tonalities that their broader-canvassed works don’t (or can’t) contain. This is true of Bartok and Shostakovich; it is certainly true of Aaron Copland. In Copland’s case, however, more weakness than strengths appear in his chamber music. And in the hands of a less adept ensemble, these weaknesses can become glaring. This is all too evident in Movement for String Quartet where the young composer struggles with sustaining clear Bergian motifs even as the composer’s penchant for melodiousness wants to emerge. Two Pieces for String Quartet (1928) hints of the more expansive Romantic to come in Copland, but the roughness of the playing occasionally pushes the work’s indigenous lyricism into an unpleasant shrillness. The Quartet for Piano and Strings (1950) is the only mature work on this disc, but the Vanbrugh Quartet has trouble at several important junctures and the conflicting notes simply jar (especially in the first movement, about half-way through). Worse, the overall sonics are biased toward the high end (always risky when you’ve only have strings). But the overall impression one gets when listening to this disc is that the Vanbrugh Quartet is simply unfamiliar with this music.

Soldaten (or Soldiers) by Manfred Gurlitt (1890-1973), a three act opera in a decidedly conservative vein (more Wagner and Strauss than Schoenberg and Berg) was composed in the late 1920s (no date is given for its exact composition) as a protest against the predations of the officer class of the ruling aristocracy (and, by extension, the Nazis, who were on the rise at the time). This opera and one other caused Gurlitt his citizenship, forcing him into exile (but he went to Japan, of all places, and spent World War II there). The opera, here rendered in a heart-warming performance, is an easy-going affair of recitatives, chaconnes, and thematically charged lamentos to evoke sympathy for those reduced to poverty by the soldier class of Germany. The roles require no vocal gymnastics, nor are there any dry, spoken passages with no underscoring music. Gurlitt knew how to move a story along melodically, allowing no element to get lost in grandiosity (i.e. Wagner). Soldaten is understated, with fine performances by Michael Burt as Herr Wesener and Michelle Breedt as Frau Wesener who try to keep their daughter Marie, played by Claudia Barainsky, out of trouble with a predatory paramour, Desportes, played by Thomas Harper. Manfred Gurlitt might have been a minor voice in German opera in this century, but his music definitely deserves attention..

This is Volume 5 of MDG’s ongoing series of the complete piano music of John Cage (1912-1992). The grand irony for most composers is that they never live to see either their fame grow or their influence felt. This series—and this particular disc—highlights Cage’s influence on much of postmodern American music (especially piano music) but especially the music of Morton Feldman. Feldman has his own distinct voice, but he got from Cage his sense of suspended time and his knack for surprising (and unpredictable) tonalities. Of course, the student can also influence the teacher, as in Cage’s 1989 composition called Two. Only Cage’s predilection for thematic cogency and tonal fluidity prevents it from sounding like a disjointed Feldman work for two pianos. Exceptional here is A Book of Music, a 1944 composition for prepared piano that seems to anticipate some of Alan Hovhaness and much of Lou Harrison. It’s unpredictable and never overstays its welcome. Experience 1, of 1944, is a heartbreaking homage to Satie, played only on the white keys, itself strangely innovative. Music for Two (1984/87) has each note framed in specific phased structures with the actual piano strings bowed with fish line or wire to establish contrasting underlying textures. Pianists Josef Christof and Steffen Schleiermacher play with extraordinary care and exhibit a clear fondness for this music. Cage, however, isn’t for everyone. Still, this series should become the high watermark for John Cage’s piano music.

These are works for cello and piano by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) and Joaquin Nin (1879-1949). Maya Beiser is the cellist and Anthony de Mare in the pianist. These are not strictly duets, nor are they pure sonatas where the piano is only meant to underscore the cello, though some of of Nin’s writing does recall Bach, especially in Cuatro Cometarios. Nin was of de Falla’s generation of Spanish composers, but he rarely abandoned European modes in his writing. Piazzolla was clearly the more inventive, influenced by a wide range of Latin American elements. However, both Piazzola and Nin drew from folk material from their ancient Latin cultures, especially tangos, and this is what we have on this disc. Sad to say that the performances aren’t as crisp as they could be nor are the sound values consistent. Pianist de Mare fairs well in Chants d’Espange but elements of his right hand enunciation seem week in Adios Nonino. The piano is altogether submerged in both La Mufa and Ave Maria. But that could be attributable to studio ambience and not the pianist’s fault. The middle registers of the cello, which is admittedly a limited instrument, also tend to get fuzzy, as in the opening work, Oblivion by Piazzolla. These are not technically difficult works, but the performers needed a bit more attention to detail as well as more precise transitions (as in Cuatro Comentarios) where the cello seems absolutely lazy.

The two works on this release are relatively easy-going affairs that attempt, with a some success, at melding various aspects of popular music, as Imants Kalins’s “Rock” Symphony and bizarre instrumentation, the “garbage” in Jan Jarvlepp’s Garbage Concerto. The music is quite interesting to listen to, but whether these works hold up over time, as anyone’s guess. The problem here, and it seems to be a problem with most hybrid genres, is one of miking. Jarvlepp’s Garbage Concerto (1996) makes use of metal cans, glass jars, plastic bottles, hubcaps and the like. This isn’t Edgar Varese or Frank Zappa; the music is tightly controlled, thoroughly tonal. But the miking on the solo instruments tends to be distant, as in the slower, mellower second movement of the Garbage Concerto. Clearly the engineers, more used to recording standard orchestras with a handful of strategically placed microphones, didn’t know how to mike glass bottles or hubcaps. Sometimes they’re too close; other times they’re quite a bit further away. (The orchestra’s settings, however, are right on the mark.) This happens in “rock” symphonies, “rock” operas, and no one’s gotten it right yet. Imants Kalnins “Rock” Symphony (his Symphony #4) is a much better recording. It’s more of a minimalist affair in which Philip Glass and John Adams emerge as clear sources for inspiration for the composer. These works are congenial and fun but require some fiddling with the volume settings while you listen.

More Reviews Click Here.

Back to Paul Cook's Science Fiction Web Site