Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Kodály: Concerto
for Orchestra. Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Jakub Hrůša. PentaTone.
$15.99 (SACD).
Monica Houghton: Andean Suite; The Twelve Causes
from the Circle of Becoming; Wilderness Portraits—Three Places in Nevada; Stay,
Shadow; Three Songs without Words; Epigram; Corpo Sonoro; Sky Signs. Navona. $14.99.
Simon Andrews: Violin Dialogues I and II; And that
moment when the bird sings; For the earth is hollow and I have touched the sky;
My dove, my coney; The heart has narrow banks; Abiquiu Trio. Navona. $14.99.
Although they were friends, fellow
gatherers of folk music, and fellow ethnomusicologists, Bartók and Kodály by
and large wrote very different works – but their interests came together when
each created a work called Concerto for
Orchestra. Both were after the same thing: virtuoso treatment of all
instruments and sections of the orchestra, exploring individual and sectional
communicative potential through writing that required performers to give their
best at all times. But beyond that, the works are very different, with Kodály’s
essentially being a 20th-century update of the Baroque concerto
grosso, while Bartók’s much longer work is closer to a symphony, both structurally
and in terms of its emotional progress. Each work is in five movements,
although in Kodály’s case this is more a matter of being in five sections that
are played straight through, giving the effect of a single movement. Kodály’s Concerto for Orchestra has the overall
feeling of an extended dance with folk elements, an impression reinforced by
the work’s repeated alternation of slow and fast sections, much as occurs in
many folk dances of Hungary and elsewhere. There is a feeling of small groups
of instruments being played against the overall orchestra in concertino vs. ripieno style, and there is considerable use of counterpoint –
which reinforces the impression that this is in some ways a much-updated
Baroque work. Nevertheless, Kodály’s concerto, which dates to 1939-40, is
nowhere near as popular as Bartók’s, which is slightly later (1944). Bartók’s
five broadly conceived movements, with their very strong virtuosic elements,
their memorable themes, and their overall sense of progress from darkness into
light, are captivating – and Bartók’s absorption of Hungarian folk music into
the overall symphonic structure proves neater than Kodály’s folk-music
elements. A very fine new PentaTone recording of the two concertos, featuring
the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Jakub Hrůša, provides a good
opportunity to compare and contrast the works, both of which are played with
great enthusiasm and considerable sensitivity to their ethnic roots. Kodály’s
concerto comes through here as a very serious work, Bartók’s as one that allows
humor (for instance, in the form of quotations from other composers’ music) to
help leaven its basically serious progress. The orchestra’s virtuosity is
evident throughout both pieces, and if Hrůša’s excellent sense of style serves
to showcase the reasons for Bartók’s music’s enduring popularity, it also
offers listeners a chance to hear Kodály’s concerto given its due as an equally
well-constructed work, if a somewhat more distanced and therefore not as emotionally
compelling a piece. This is a pairing that would be welcome more often if
performances would always be at this level: the significant similarities and
even stronger differences between these two concertos are quite fascinating to
consider and explore.
The communication involves smaller groups
of instruments – and, sometimes, voices – on two new (+++) CDs from Navona, one
featuring the music of Monica Houghton and the other focusing on works by Simon
Andrews. Much of Houghton’s music, like that of Bartók and Kodály, has folk
influences and impressionistically reflects Houghton’s travels, although not so
directly as do the works of the Impressionists. Much of her writing is tonal,
but she incorporates various contemporary attitudes and techniques, including
the use of non-Western material. The nicely varied, four-movement Andean Suite, for cello (Dmitri Atapine)
and piano (Hyeyeon Park), includes impressions of and folk tunes from Peru. The Twelve Causes from the Circle of
Becoming, for solo piano (James Winn), intended as a musical reflection of
paintings relating to the Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Life, has something of a
“New Age-y” feeling about it, contrasting with dissonant moments. Two trios – Wilderness Portraits: Three Places in
Nevada, for violin (Stephanie Sant Ambrogio), cello (Atapine), and piano
(Winn), and Sky Signs, for violin
(Stephen Warner), piano (Carolyn Gadiel Warner), and saxophone (James Umble) –
mostly offer episodes of quiet drifting, sounding more like background music
than portrayals of or reactions to specific parts of the natural world. Epigram, for standard quartet scoring (Takako
Masame and Sae Shiragami, violins; Lisa Boyko, viola; Linda Atherton, cello) is
intended as a response to and commentary on Beethoven’s last quartet. However,
it is a stretch to relate Houghton’s unprepared-for (and thus modern-sounding)
dissonances, use of harmonics, and unexpected instrumental entries into even
vaguely Beethovenian thinking. The three remaining works on this disc are
inspired by poetry, but two are strictly instrumental. They are Three Songs without Words for flute
(Mary Kay Robinson) and guitar (Don Better), which has a rather minimalist
sound because the quiet juxtaposition of the instruments; and Corpo Sonoro for piano (Halida Dinova),
a somewhat more substantial four-movement work whose pervasive stop-and-start
motion wears thin rather quickly. And then there is one piece that goes beyond
the instrumental by including voice: Stay,
Shadow, for soprano (Sandra Simon), flute (Robinson), viola (Lynne Ramsey),
and piano (Alijca Basinska). This is a
setting of a sonnet in Spanish by 17th-century poet and composer Sor
Juana Inez de la Cruz, and it includes some music attributed to her as well as
her words. Like much of the music on this disc, the work is rather evanescent,
the instruments tending to float serenely and quietly while the singer declaims
the words. The eight works here are collectively a generous helping of
Houghton’s music – the CD runs more than an hour – and will please listeners
already enamored of her compositional style. Those not familiar with her music
may, however, find a certain similarity of blandness among many of the
compositions.
The Andrews CD also offers a fair sampling
of that composer’s music – here too, about an hour of material. There are two
pieces here using voice: My dove, my coney for soprano (Celeste Godin), oboe (Andrew Price), cello (Aron
Zelkowicz), and piano (Andrews himself), and The heart has narrow banks for soprano (Godin) with piano
(Andrews). The first of these sets a poem by W.H. Auden, the second one by
Emily Dickinson. Both settings use a kind of Sprechstimme that has the primary effect of erasing the tremendous
differences of thought and sensibility between the two poems, with the
Dickinson setting’s acerbity seeming particularly at odds with the words. The
remaining material here communicates strictly with instruments. Violin Dialogues I and II (with Joanna
Kurkowicz on violin and Andrews on piano) has one section with the instruments
in conflict and eventually coming together, followed by one in which they seem
basically in accord – but calling the back-and-forth conversational, in
traditional chamber-music style, would be quite a stretch. This is an extended
work, lasting more than 16 minutes, that does not really have enough to say to
sustain its length. Half that length and more musically and instrumentally
interesting, And that moment when the
bird sings is written for clarinet (Doris Hall-Gulati), two violins (Gregory
Vitale and Christine Vitale), viola (Kenneth Stalberg), and cello (Aron
Zelkowicz) – with Andrews conducting the chamber group. The composer’s
combinatorial prowess is the most intriguing element here: the various sounds
of the instruments (including some that push the limits of ranges, in typically
contemporary fashion) are interesting to hear, even if the musical material
itself is thin. The four contrasting movements of For the earth is hollow and I have touched the sky, for violin
(Michael Jamanis), cello (Sara Male), and piano (Xun Pan), offer some pleasant
contrasts not only of sound but also of tempo, although some of the gestures –
such as the chordal piano opening of the second movement and the brutal pizzicati at the start of the third –
are overdone and rather clichéd. The CD ends with a somewhat impressionistic
work, Abiquiu Trio for clarinet
(Doris Hall-Gulati), violin (Simon Maurer) and piano (Pan). But although
inspired by scenes in New Mexico, this work is nothing like a Houghton piece
such as Andean Suite. Instead,
Andrews uses impressions gleaned from his visit to explore his own inner
responses, doing so especially effectively in the very slow and broad opening
of the second movement. Like Houghton, Andrews is a composer of some skill
whose work is inevitably well-crafted and will be of considerable interest to
audiences already familiar with his style or ones interested in hearing some of
the instrumental methods through which contemporary composers continue to seek
their own forms of expressiveness.
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