(++++) LYRICAL OVERFLOW

Puccini: Orchestral Music. Sinfonia of London conducted by John Wilson. Chandos. $21.99 (SACD). 

     It is an interesting curiosity of Puccini’s oeuvre that even his very modest production of non-operatic music ties consistently to his operas. Seemingly unable to let a good, strongly emotional tune appear solely in instrumental guise, Puccini again and again incorporated non-operatic material into his operas, creating new and stage-centered  settings for works originally intended for the concert hall. 

     John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London showcase this characteristic clearly, albeit somewhat confusingly from an organizational perspective, on an excellent Chandos disc that focuses on early Puccini works that were not originally intended for incorporation into stage productions – except for those that were. Hence some of the confusion, which, however, matters less than the gorgeous melodic flow, brimming with emotional intensity, that characterizes nearly everything that Puccini created for any venue. 

     Most of the pieces here tie into Puccini’s first three operas – Le villi, Edgar, and Manon Lescaut – whether or not originally intended for those works. Preludio sinfonico, the first piece on the disc, is an exception, although it does have an operatic tie-in of its own, being largely modeled on the Act I Prelude to Lohengrin. Puccini tends to be thought of as diametrically opposed to Wagner in musical sensibilities, but in fact Wagner was one of his early influences. Preludio sinfonico has a decidedly hymnlike quality in several places, reflecting not only a Lohengrin esthetic but also Puccini’s own predilection for sentimentally lyrical material in quasi-religious guise. 

     Capriccio sinfonico, the second work heard here, was Puccini’s graduation piece at the Milan Conservatory and a source of material for not one but two operas: Edgar and Puccini’s fourth and most-famous stage work, La bohème. Wagner’s influence shows in Capriccio sinfonico to a limited extent, but the expressions of yearning and anguish already have over-the-top elements characteristic of Puccini’s later music and readily associated with his operatic worldview. The piece is followed on this CD by two short works written for and used within Le villi: the work’s Prelude, which is an exercise in serenity with faint echoes of Wagner’s Parsifal, and “Witches’ Sabbath” music called La tregenda that is an effective (and unusual-for-Puccini) tarantella and is certainly dramatic, if not exactly demonic. 

     Wilson and the Sinfonia of London next offer some curiosities completed by hands other than Puccini’s after apparently being abandoned: a Scherzo, a Trio, and an oddly named Adagetto (no, not Adagietto) whose tempo marking is actually Largo. What is mainly intriguing about these small works is how Puccini incorporated parts of them into his operas: a theme from the Scherzo into Le villi, the Adagetto into Edgar, and the melody of the Trio into, of all things, Madama Butterfly. 

     The somewhat scattershot organization of this SACD next leads it to two excerpts from Manon Lescaut rather than, more logically, Edgar. These are the Prelude to the four-act version of the opera – music dropped when Puccini created a three-act revision – and an Intermezzo heard between the second and third act and permeated by passion, yearning and the emotional extremism characteristic not only of this opera but also of most of Puccini’s work. 

     The Manon Lescaut material is followed on the disc by pieces originally written for string quartet and adapted by Wilson for string orchestra. The first of them is Crisantemi, an elegy for Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, written after his death in 1890 and, yes, subsequently incorporated into an opera: it appears in two different places in Manon Lescaut, aptly reflecting the melodramatic tragedy of the stage work. Next on the disc are Tre minuetti, well-balanced 19^th-century ventures into 18^th-century dance that are more emotive than was usual for minuets in their heyday. Music from all three appears in Manon Lescaut, which is set in the 18^th century, and it is the theme of the second piece that actually opens the opera. 

     It is only at the conclusion of the disc that Wilson presents material taken directly from Edgar: the Preludio to the first act, which Puccini discarded when creating the opera’s final version, and the Preludio to the third act, which the composer retained and which effectively mixes sorrow, yearning and lyricism in a combination that was already characteristic of Puccini early in his career and was to become thoroughly identified with him over time. The sequencing of this recording makes it even more of a hodgepodge than does the music itself, but Wilson and the Sinfonia of London deliver such engaging and beautifully played performances of the works here – all in absolutely first-rate sound – that the confusing order of presentation and the oddities of Puccini’s use and reuse of instrumental material in various stage productions are less significant than the enjoyment of immersion in the composer’s consistent warmth and ever-present sentimentality.

(++++) MIXING THEN WITH NOW

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Violin Concerto; Dvořák: Violin Concerto; Curtis Stewart: The Famous People—46.2 F. Harper. Gil Shaham, violin; Virginia Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eric Jacobsen. Canary Classics. $21.99. 

Sarah Genevieve Burghart Rice: 3 Songs; The Hardscrabble; Murmurs from Limbo. Duo Cortona; Nittany Winds conducted by Tonya Mitchell-Spradlin; Thea Lobo, mezzo-soprano; Jordan Rutter-Covatto, countertenor; David Stambler, saxophone; Renée Vogen, horn; Sean Kennedy, tuba; Lee Hinkle, percussion; Taylor Shea, viola; Kathryn Hilton, conductor. Neuma Records. $15. 

     The way composers come to terms with the past, both personal and societal, varies greatly over time and based on each composer’s individual concerns and predilections. But the desire to explore the past and find ways to interpret it in the present – whatever “present” a composer may be living in – is a consistent one. Gil Shaham and Eric Jacobsen intriguingly explore three composers’ approaches to understanding, accepting and integrating past and present on a new CD from Canary Classics, the label that Shaham founded in 2003/2004. The G minor Violin Concerto by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, which dates to 1912, the final year of the composer’s short life (1875-1912), deserves to be far better known than it is; indeed, it would be more than worthwhile if this first-rate recording inspires additional performances. Cast in the usual three movements and packed with Romantic sensibilities and great warmth of orchestration, the concerto is highly virtuosic but subsumes its technical demands within a pervasive aura of expressiveness. It is also a very American concerto: when it was commissioned, Coleridge-Taylor was asked to include Yankee Doodle and the spiritual Keep Me from Sinking Down in it, and he incorporated other spiritual and American-influenced material into the work. Shaham plays the concerto with tremendous engagement and sensitivity, exploring its rhythms and emotional peaks and valleys with care and with first-rate support from the Virginia Symphony Orchestra under Jacobsen. Shaham’s playing is impressive throughout, with his first-movement cadenza and the conclusion of that movement especially noteworthy. The concerto is something of a throwback to the Romantic era in approach and emotional content, but no more so than other works of the early 20^th century – and its undoubted effectiveness transcends its time, making its comparative neglect something of a puzzle. Dvořák’s Violin Concerto exists in much the same communicative space despite its much earlier date (1879-1880). Its half-hour length is about the same as that of the Coleridge-Taylor concerto, but its inspiration comes more from Dvořák’s Bohemian roots than from anything in the “new world,” even though other Dvořák works contain notable American elements. The sumptuousness of the orchestral accompaniment in Dvořák’s concerto is as notable as the beauty of its solo-violin material, and Shaham and Jacobsen effectively balance the solo and tutti material – as does the sound engineering, which is particularly well-handled. The exceptional sweetness of the central Adagio ma non troppo is a highlight of a very well-crafted performance that carefully explores the manifest beauties of the entire concerto. The concertos are followed on the disc by a Dvořák-focused encore of sorts, from a suite called The Famous People by Curtis Stewart (born 1980). Stewart’s piece is a rethinking of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances with a rather overdone attempt to connect them to African-American leaders – the one on this disc being based on Dvořák’s Op. 46, No. 2, and intended to honor abolitionist Frances Harper. This sort of overt forcing of the past into the present in ways not inherent in the music constitutes more of a political statement than a musical one. It detracts rather than adds to the effectiveness of the music itself – which is interesting on its own and which effectively delves into some expressive violin extremes that Stewart, himself a violinist, creates to good effect, and that Shaham plumbs with skill. The sociopolitical gloss of the music matters a great deal more to Stewart than it will likely matter to audiences hearing the music on its own terms – and indeed, the piece stands well on its own, not needing any force-fed “connectedness” to come across as interesting and engaging. 

     Contemporary composers do not necessarily adopt or adapt the past with intensity and seriousness. Wry humor sometimes supplies a gateway of its own, as in The Hardscrabble by Sarah Genevieve Burghart Rice. This is an odd and amusing five-movement suite whose underlying conceit is that the composer we know as Handel was actually a monumental fraud: he was a “grossly obese bolt-merchant” known as Händel (with the umlaut), who obtained some excellent music from a real composer named Hamdle as the price of releasing Hamdle from indentured servitude. The incompetence and strictly profit-driven orientation of “Händel” then led to a variety of presentation mistakes in the underlying music, resulting in bizarre arrangements and strange sounds and material that in no way made musical or artistic sense but that served the usurper well by bringing him material success. The whole scenario is created with tongue very firmly in cheek, and the Nittany Winds under Tonya Mitchell-Spradlin submit the entirety of the resulting mess to carefully assembled auditory reality on a new Neuma Records CD. A good deal of the material is quite obvious, being less satire and more in the nature of sarcasm; and the 22-minute suite does go on rather too long for the points it has to make. But there is a lot of genuinely amusing material in it, including some unexpected “mishandling” of the real-world Handel (as well as a good deal of the expected sort); and the concluding Non sequitur movement in fact does follow from the preceding four and leads to a suitably overstated and cacophonous conclusion. The Hardscrabble is the high point of this (+++) disc, whose other two works are both vocally focused, both far more serious, and both less creative than is the rather snide suite for winds. 3 Songs groups settings of unsurprising and rather unoriginal words about community, mutual support, the difficulties of marginalized life, and so forth. The verbiage is strictly self-referencing avant-garde material (“you’ve never/ opened a ramshackle triage/ to dress her torn,/ clot-smear brain”), and the vocal settings are unexceptional, although some of the instrumental accompaniment is interestingly conceived. Murmurs from Limbo is more intriguing because, in its own way, it looks to the past and brings it into the future: the words are from Middle English poets who are considering death and its implications for faith and bodily nonexistence. This is in some ways the flip side of the not-to-be-taken-seriously material in The Hardscrabble, and the use of a countertenor as well as a mezzo-soprano gives the material an apt tie-in to the time period in which the words were written. But the overtly and overly avant-garde accompaniment of the verbiage undermines the effectiveness of the writers’ exploration of belief, resurrection, and disappearance from the world of the living: the mixture of old and new here is overdone and aurally formulaic, with the result that Murmurs from Limbo simply sounds like one of innumerable modern compositions asserting its own meaningfulness while never really coming to terms with the foundational thinking upon which it is built. Sarah Genevieve Burghart Rice turns out to have less to say about the end of one’s earthly life and the possibility of something beyond it than did the poets of 800 years ago. The CD as a whole is at its best when it takes itself least seriously – and recognizes that our modern era’s flaws are perhaps not so different from those of Handel’s time. Or Händel’s.

(++++) SYMPHONIC SUMMIT

Bruckner: Symphony No. 8, 1890 version. Philharmonie Festiva conducted by Gerd Schaller. Profil. $20.99. 

     Gerd Schaller is indisputably one of today’s preeminent Bruckner conductors. Schaller has gone so far as to complete Bruckner’s almost-finished Symphony No. 9 and to record it in four-movement form – twice. On a new Profil release, Schaller fully displays his knowledge and understanding of Bruckner through a live performance of the 1890 edition of Bruckner’s Eighth – the final version of Bruckner’s final completed symphony. 

     The performance is special from the start of the first movement: there is a feeling of anticipation from the very beginning. Philharmonie Festiva, which Schaller founded in 2008, is a very finely honed orchestra, warm and full-throated but still precise in sectional balance. Schaller displays a finely honed sense of proportion in this movement, knowing how to build to the series of mini-climaxes so crucial to Bruckner's structure while holding enough in reserve for the greater overall climaxes still to come: this is a symphony that builds inexorably (and despite some sense of meandering here and there) to its finale. The first movement has rhythmic solidity throughout in this reading. The horns should be singled out for the strength and warmth of their sound, coupled with an unerring ability to fade into the overall orchestral texture when their front-and-center presence is not required. This is a performance rich in details, not just one of massed sound – for instance, the trumpets' dotted rhythms are handled with excellent clarity. What comes through to an exceptional degree here is the strong and near-constant lyrical flow, which is even more prevalent than the movement’s dramatic episodes. The final two minutes, which move from broad strength to the quiet ending that Bruckner created specifically for this version of the symphony, are especially well-proportioned and seem to invite anticipation of what comes next. 

     What does come next is a movement with the same tempo indication, Allegro moderato, but a completely different feeling. This Scherzo is forthright and without the rhythmic variations and ambiguity of the first movement. Evenness of pacing predominates, with Schaller's evident care to balance the string and wind/brass sections everywhere apparent. The Trio reintroduces some of the ambiguousness and mysterious feeling of the first movement: its quiet portions have a questioning feeling about them. So this central section comes across as an atmospheric interlude – until the return of the Scherzo quickly reestablishes the initial mood of striding forthrightness, in which the clarity of the timpani is especially welcome. 

     Just as the first two movements of Bruckner’s Eighth form a contrasting pair with the same tempo designation, so do the third and fourth movements, both of which are designated Feierlich (“Solemnly”). The full marking of the third movement is Feierlich langsam, doch nicht schleppend (“Solemnly, slowly, but not sluggishly”), and Schaller has an intuitive (or perhaps well-studied) understanding of just what this means. As in the first movement, this one has an initial feeling of anticipation, as if building toward still-to-be-discovered climactic elements. But here gentleness is paramount, with harp emphases providing a degree of evanescence that is soon succeeded by ever-greater warmth of feeling. The movement swells and subsides repeatedly, and Schaller manages to ensure that it nevertheless retains forward momentum. The strings' sweetness is especially noticeable – and notable. This movement unfolds at considerable length – it is the longest of the four in this performance – but its progress seems entirely natural, and indeed inevitable, as it builds from section to section, louder and softer dynamics alternating as if an epic story is unfolding, being told with intermittent climactic passages. Recurring episodes of delicacy, with individual instrumental touches here and there, contrast strongly with tutti sections, each seeming complete in itself but also emerging as part of a larger narrative – Schaller again keeps the forward momentum clear throughout. The eventual triumphal passage with cymbal clashes seems to have brought matters to a head, but at that point there are still four minutes of the movement to go, and Schaller makes sure they are not a letdown, presenting them with unflagging momentum and the same attentiveness to detail so clearly in evidence earlier. And the quiet ending, which parallels that of the first movement, is handled to fine effect. As a result, these final minutes of the third movement become in effect a gently propulsive coda and, simultaneously, an introduction to a finale that eventually will produce the broadest and strongest possible climactic conclusion. 

     That finale rushes in forcefully but without inappropriate speed – its full tempo indication is Feierlich, nicht schnell (“Solemn, not quick”). Here the strings immediately establish a stronger, more propulsive forward pace than in the third movement, abetted by timpani and brass exclamations that announce grandeur to come by providing a sample of it from the outset. The characteristically episodic nature of the movement is carefully managed to show the ways in which individual segments fit together into a larger whole – indeed, this careful assembly of material is a primary characteristic of Schaller's approach throughout this performance. Attentiveness to minute details is another key element of this reading, which means horn rhythms are painstakingly accurate, legato string passages flow with elegance, and woodwind touches are just pointed and piquant enough. Yet it is the massed sound that makes the strongest impression as the movement continues, showing how Bruckner is assembling smaller building blocks into the imposing edifice that the finale eventually becomes. By its midpoint, the movement has already come across so forcefully that it is difficult to know where it still has to go. But Schaller continues meticulously pacing the succeeding portions of the finale so that they mount upon each other, gradually shining more and more light on Bruckner's plan to pull everything together in a conclusive triumph whose individual elements, including some that have appeared to wander, are very complex indeed – but whose overall effect is brilliantly apparent, even straightforward, in its presentation of accumulated motifs, rhythms, thematic material and orchestral elements. Schaller and his orchestra deliver a fully satisfying and thoroughly dramatic conclusion that shows through clearly as the climax toward which all the earlier elements of the symphony have been tending. The result is a fully satisfying, beautifully proportioned and excellently played Bruckner Eighth that showcases the high quality of Philharmonie Festiva and the depth of Schaller's understanding of this multifaceted symphony and of Bruckner himself as its creator.

(++++) BEYOND THE ACCORDION

Ástor Piazzolla: Bandoneón Concerto “Aconcagua”; Tres Tangos Sinfónicos; Oblivion. Klaudiusz Baran, bandoneón; Czestochowa Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adam Klocek. Brilliant Classics. $14.99. 

     Frequently mentioned in the same breath as the much more widely known and more frequently played accordion, the bandoneón shares the more-common instrument’s underlying hand-operated, free-reed design but is capable of a great deal more expressiveness and emotional versatility – as is apparent in the many works written for it by Ástor Piazzolla (1921-1992), including the fascinating selection on a new Brilliant Classics CD featuring Klaudiusz Baran and the Czestochowa Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under Adam Klocek. Preeminent among these pieces and among bandoneón works in general is Piazzolla’s 1979 Bandoneón Concerto for solo instrument, strings and percussion, which provides many intriguing reminders of the fact that the bandoneón is actually of German origin: this button organ was invented by Heinrich Band in the 1840s and later brought to South America, with which it has ever since been associated. 

     Piazzolla’s thorough absorption of classical-music tropes into works for the bandoneón, an instrument previously thought of as more appropriate for folk and popular music, is everywhere apparent in the Bandoneón Concerto and helps explain why Piazzolla’s publisher, Aldo Pagani, attached the title “Aconcagua” to the work, acclaiming the concerto as the peak of Piazzolla’s oeuvre and therefore deserving of a title referring to the highest mountain peak in South America. The emotive range of the concerto is exceptional, and the integration of the solo instrument with various orchestral ones is handled with consummate skill and aural sensitivity that is as fascinating today as it was when the work was first performed. The dual-cadenza first movement juxtaposes dance-hall-like elements with concert-hall lyricism and impressive virtuosity throughout. The tonal blending and instrumental sensitivity of the second movement are highlights of the whole concerto, with the merging of bandoneón and harp especially noteworthy and sonically surprising in the reflective capabilities of each instrument for the other. And the finale, which explores the tango in multiple guises while demanding virtuosity even exceeding that needed for the first movement, is fascinating in displaying the variegated moods of which the tango form is capable, managing to sound danceable almost throughout while also delving into film-music-like material: the finale’s main theme was originally used by Piazzolla in music he wrote for a movie called Con alma y vida. Indeed, the tango – Piazzolla’s calling card – permeates the Bandoneón Concerto, but the work rises above the dance form, or rather displays, with considerable elegance, the transformative power that Piazzolla brings to the traditional dance, all the while showcasing the emotional range and virtuosic proclivities that he demands of the bandoneón and that Baran delivers from start to finish with assurance and consummate skill. 

     Piazzolla’s Tres Tangos Sinfónicos (1963) are less impressive than the concerto but serve a very different purpose. They are, collectively, a summation of the composer’s approach to what is now always called tango nuevo, a form with which Piazzolla is intimately identified and one that, in truth, he invented. Each of the three tangos blends traditional Argentine tango rhythms with European harmonic and chromatic elements well-known in the concert hall – and with some flavoring of American jazz thrown in for additional piquancy from time to time. The pervasive tango rhythm unites these three pieces, while their related but well-differentiated emotional compass distinguishes each of them from the others. And here too the intermingling of instruments – notably bandoneón with solo violin in several passages of surpassing beauty and emotional impact – is handled to very fine effect, both compositionally and in this performance. 

     This CD concludes with one of Piazzolla’s best-known works, and one that, like the theme of the third movement of the Bandoneón Concerto, is film-related: Oblivion, which Piazzolla wrote in 1982 and which was used in the 1984 Italian film Enrico IV. The piece is simple in structure, harmonically consistent (in C minor), and short (64 bars, about four minutes). Although nominally a tango (actually using the related milonga rhythm), Oblivion partakes of concert-hall (essentially French) Impressionism as well. Its slow pace, straightforward melodies, and yearning character tie it closely to the world of film music; its interesting orchestration (bandoneón, strings and bells) showcases Piazzolla’s skill at blending and contrasting instrumental sounds. Although it has been arranged for various instrumental groupings, Oblivion remains most effective in its original form, with the very finely balanced reading by Baran and Klocek likely making listeners wish the piece had gone on even longer. Or if not the piece, the CD: the biggest issue with this disc is that it lasts a mere 44 minutes, which is enough to showcase the composer’s and performers’ skills but scarcely sufficient time for a full display of the special world of the bandoneón as Piazzolla wrote for it.