Schubert:
Piano Quintet in A, “Trout”; Hummel: Piano Quintet in C, Op. 114a. I Musicanti (Zsolt-Tilhamér Visontay, violin; Robert
Smissen, viola; Richard Harwood, cello; Leon Bosch, double bass and director);
Peter Donohoe, piano. SOMM. $18.99.
Smetana:
String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life” (orchestrated by George Szell); Beethoven:
Piano Sonata No. 29, “Hammerklavier” (orchestrated by Felix Weingartner). The Orchestra Now conducted by Leon Botstein. AVIE.
$19.99.
Christopher
Tyler Nickel: Suite for 2 Oboes & 2 Cor Anglais; Symphony for Flute Choir. Roger Cole and Karin Walsh, oboes; Beth Orson and
Eric Marks, cor anglais; Sarah Jackson, piccolo; Christie Reside, Rosanne
Wieringa, Laura Vanek, and Paul Hung, flutes; Anne-Elise Keefer, alto flute;
Paolo Bortolussi, bass flute; Clyde Mitchell, conductor. AVIE. $19.99.
Alexis
Lamb: Murmuration; Bill Clark: Moiré; Carlo Nicolau: Espejismos; Ljova: On the
Street Where I Live; Matthew Welch: Variasi Ombak; Dennis Tobenski: Starfish at
Pescadero. Percussia (Ingrid Gordon
and Frank Cassara, percussion; Margaret Lancaster, flute; Susan Jolles, harp;
Ljova, violin and fadolin; Melissa Fogerty, soprano). Neuma Records. $15.
Sometimes a change in the expected makeup of a musical ensemble can
create a startlingly effective work – no matter what the reason for the
atypical instrumental lineup may have been. Schubert’s marvelous “Trout”
Quintet is a perfect example of this: the elimination of the expected second
violin and use instead of a double bass gives this gorgeously flowing,
eternally fascinating music an aural quality all its own. The double bass does
not actually deepen the sound of the chamber group – instead, thanks to
Schubert’s gift of melodiousness, it anchors the remaining instruments in a way
that the cello alone cannot do, and it provides a sense of heft to the
proceedings without ever making anything sound heavy or overdone. It happens to
be the bass player Leon Bosch who is the moving force behind the ensemble
called I Musicanti, and it is no surprise that his participation in the “Trout”
is superb – but what ultimately matters here (and Bosch is clearly aware of
this) is that this is still chamber music, a work in which all five players
give and take, meld and diverge, for the sake of a totality that is greater
than the sum of their individual parts. The excellent SOMM recording of the
“Trout,” in which individual lines come through just as clearly as do ensemble
passages, showcases the way in which instrumental combinations, in and of
themselves, can be significant contributors to a work’s effect. And of course
Schubert was not the only one to use this particular instrumental grouping. The
“Trout” – which happens to be Schubert’s first mature chamber work – was
explicitly written to use the same grouping as Hummel’s Op. 87 Piano Quintet.
And, interestingly enough, Hummel returned to this chamber ensemble in 1829 (a
year after Schubert’s death), after he had written his “Grand Military Septet,”
Op. 114, for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, cello, double bass and piano.
Hummel – a veteran arranger and rearranger of his own music as well as that of
many others – created a version of Op. 114 for the same instruments he had used
in Op. 87. It is this version, numbered as Op. 114a, that is paired with the
“Trout” here – and, surprisingly, this is the first recording of Op. 114a. The members
of I Musicanti do the Hummel full justice, and it proves to be a fascinatingly un-military work in many ways. Far from
a collection of martial tunes (despite its brisk call-to-arms opening), the
quintet is highly expressive and leans heavily on the skill of the pianist to
bring forth its emotive content. Notably, the third movement, marked Menuetto but clearly a well-proportioned
scherzo, suddenly and unexpectedly ends pianissimo
– and Hummel then wraps up the fourth and final movement by recalling the
conclusion of the third, giving this supposedly military material a distinctly
quiet and unanticipated ending. In the Hummel as in the Schubert, the double
bass provides an anchor that moors the music in some unusual and very effective
ways – and gives listeners an attractive sound world that is no mere gimmick
but a genuine alternative to the usual makeup of a piano quintet.
Hummel was scarcely the first or only composer whose arrangements
amounted to rethinkings of material by wrapping it in different guise. There
have been some surprising and revelatory transcriptions of works that are
sometimes familiar in their original form, sometimes less so. Two examples are
paired on a fascinating AVIE disc featuring Leon Botstein and The Orchestra
Now. The first work is Smetana’s String
Quartet No. 1, “From My Life,” in the sensitive and idiomatic – but rarely
heard – arrangement by George Szell. A conductor known for precision and
attention to detail, Szell as arranger displays the same characteristics. A
composer and composition teacher until he devoted himself full-time to
conducting, Szell had a well-honed sense of appropriate sonorities for the deep
emotions packed into Smetana’s 1875 work, which concludes with the composer’s
heartfelt lament for (and eventual acceptance of) the deafness that he suffered
late in life. Szell made the arrangement in 1939-1940 and recorded it with the
NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1941, but it has not often been heard since then.
Botstein takes the full measure of the music without forcing any over-the-top
emotionalism into it. All four movements have distinct personal qualities, from
youth and happiness and optimism through delight in dance to a beautiful
celebration of love for the woman who would become Smetana’s wife (and who died
of tuberculosis at age 32) – and then, in the finale, Szell aptly displays the
tragic elements of Smetana’s later life, and Botstein presents the music with
sensitivity and an excellent sense of balance between the earlier part of the
movement (which is folklike and upbeat) and the later part (in which tragedy,
including deafness, dominates). Szell’s sensitive musical thinking is mirrored
in Botstein’s well-balanced performance, and the orchestra plays feelingly
without overdoing emotions that both Smetana and Szell were at pains to keep
manageable. The Smetana/Szell transcription is paired with Felix Weingartner’s
1925 orchestration of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier
sonata (actually one of two that Beethoven labeled that way, but the only one
to which the title stuck). Remarkably, Weingartner’s orchestration, which he
recorded in 1930 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, was most listeners’
first exposure to the sonata: the first commercial recording of the original
piano version, played by Artur Schnabel, was not released until five years
later. Weingartner was not the first to detect multiple symphonic elements in
the Hammerklavier and to have a
feeling that the piano was somehow inadequate for the full expression of
Beethoven’s intent and thoughts. To that end, Weingartner does not so much
rethink the sonata as bring out the beyond-the-piano elements that he detected
in it. The orchestration is less subtle than Szell’s of the Smetana quartet,
more overtly symphonic in orientation, and highly convincing on its own even
when it gives somewhat short shrift to some of the subtleties and delicacies –
in the Scherzo, for example – within
what is generally a large-scale and grand sonata. The huge third movement comes
across particularly effectively here: Botstein and the orchestra take the Adagio sostenuto tempo indication quite
seriously and allow the expansiveness of the music to emerge and grow ever more
extensive. The extremely complex fugal finale is nicely arranged by Weingartner
to highlight individual sections through careful use of specific instrumental
sections at specific points (muted strings in one section, strong brass accents
elsewhere, and so forth). The overall sense of this transcription is that it is
a personalized one, being Weingartner’s “take” on the Hammerklavier rather than merely an attempt to arrange it for a
large ensemble. In contrast, Szell – working with a Smetana original that is
far more inward-looking than the Hammerklavier
– seems concerned with reproducing, in a controlled way, the emotional
environment around which Smetana initially built his quartet. The
transcriptions are as different as the pieces transcribed, yet both communicate
remarkably effectively and enhance the accessibility and enjoyment of the works
as originally written.
Instrumental choice is also a big part of the attraction of music by
Christopher Tyler Nickel (born 1978) on another AVIE release. Both the pieces
here date to 2017 and both are woodwind-focused, but the specific instrumental
complements that Nickel chooses give the works very different characteristics –
and character. The Suite for 2 Oboes
& 2 Cor Anglais is a secular work with a strong religious gloss: each
of its four movements takes its title from traditional Christian liturgy (Kyrie, Dies Irae, Lacrimosa, Gloria). To
some extent, the music is representational – of the feelings associated with
each of the titles if not the specific words used in the church. The
combination of oboes and cor anglais gives the work an almost-but-not-quite
monochromatic sound, full of subtle aural variations created by differentiation
of what are essentially very similar instruments (the oboe is pitched in C, the
larger cor anglais in F). Nickel creates flowing lines throughout the work,
resulting in a certain sense of sameness among the movements even though their
underlying inspirational material is quite different. The halting and suitably
sad third movement is particularly effective, its liturgical underpinnings
clear even for listeners not familiar with them. And the bright, bubbly finale
makes its points very directly and without any necessary referent, sacred or
secular. The work will appeal strongly to oboe and cor anglais players and
audiences familiar with its underlying inspiration, although it will likely
come across as a bit overextended and tonally bland for others. The Symphony for Flute Choir, although also
in four movements, is a very different and significantly larger work. Lacking
the underlying programmatic (or at least semi-programmatic) foundations of the
suite, this is a very large-scale work indeed, and it is reasonable to wonder,
before hearing it, whether so much material can be carried effectively by a flutes-only
ensemble. For the most part, somewhat surprisingly, the answer is yes. Nickel
writes for flutes very well, idiomatically, and with clarity for the
instruments’ various ranges. He does not engage in common contemporary practices
such as range extension and technique alteration to keep the music interesting
– instead, he essentially creates a fairly traditional symphonic canvas and
uses flutes rather than a wider range of instruments to bring it to life. Flutes
actually take the melodic lead in quite a lot of orchestral works, so hearing
them in that role here is scarcely unexpected – but having them then carry through
developmental material, sections of varying form and structure, and
emotionalism of all sorts, is unusual and genuinely intriguing. The episodic
first movement of the symphony does sprawl a bit too much, but the more-compact
second, which features call-and-response elements, comes across quite well. The
third movement wants to convey more emotion than is actually does – it is
pretty enough but scarcely profound. The finale has plenty of bounce and
joviality despite being, in form, rather scattered and disconnected. As a
whole, this is a (+++) disc that is filled with interesting elements and some
genuinely creative musical thinking – plus a willingness to experiment with
pulling wind instruments into venues larger than those they usually occupy. For
performers on these instruments, the CD will be something of a must-have and
will be endlessly fascinating. For audiences at large, though, it is of greater
interest for what it tries to do than for what it actually accomplishes.
The interplay of instruments and interweaving of their sounds is also at
the heart of a Neuma Records CD featuring the ensemble Percussia. The disc
takes its title, Murmuration, from a
three-movement Alexis Lamb work that is based on bird flight but simply sounds
like a pleasant concatenation of differing timbres and forms of musical-note
generation. It is pleasant rather than deep music, nicely displaying various
instruments’ sounds in juxtaposition without making too many aural demands of
listeners. Bill Clark’s Moiré, also in
three movements, is more rhythmically emphatic but somewhat analogously blends
instrumental sounds for the sake of the blending rather than to evoke any
feelings in particular. Carlo Nicolau’s extended single-movement Espejismos, here arranged by Percussia, features
both regular and irregular dance rhythms and some interesting and extended displays
of flute virtuosity. On the Street Where
I Live, written by Percussia member Ljova (who plays the viola and
six-stringed fadolin), is a four-movement work filled with resonance personal
to the composer. For a general audience, it is somewhat combinatorial and
unfocused, rhythmically varied (and often rhythmically uncertain) and veering
from lyricism to dissonant intensity unpredictably. Matthew Welch’s four-movement
Variasi Ombak is a mixed-genre piece
that sometimes juxtaposes very different harmonic worlds and sometimes
superimposes one on another. It is interesting intellectually but not musically
very convincing, and seems to run out of melodic ideas rather quickly,
thereafter essentially substituting coloration. The six-movement song cycle Starfish at Pescadero, by Dennis
Tobenski, concludes the disc by adding a soprano voice to the unusual
instrumental mixture heard elsewhere on the CD. Melissa Fogerty sings the songs
well, but her voice is almost a distraction from the underlying instrumentation
– for example, in the second song, Cliffs
and coves are also gold, the vocal material is distinctly less interesting
than its accompaniment. The words for the cycle, by Idris Anderson, are not
especially evocative of distinct feelings and emotions, and the vocal settings
are unexceptional. The result is a set of songs in which the unsung material
sounds considerably more distinctive than the vocal elements – perhaps especially
so in the fourth song, I’m being silly on
our walk up the beach. In all, this is a (+++) disc that features many
interesting elements and some genuinely intriguing aural mixtures – the
composers use the instrumental availabilities in widely varying ways. None of
the music comes across as especially memorable in and of itself, though –
although the pieces by Nicolau and Lamb are worth rehearing from time to time.
