(++++) STRINGS, SUMPTUOUS AND POINTED

Elsa Barraine: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2; Song-Koï—Le Fleuve rouge; Les Tziganes. Orchestre National de France conducted by Cristian Mǎcelaru. Warner Classics. $17.75. 

Eric Chasalow: Music for Strings. New Focus Recordings. $20.99. 

     Virtually unknown today, Elsa Barraine (1910-1999) was something of a phenomenon in the early-to-mid-20^th century: a student at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine, winner of top prizes there for harmony (1925) and counterpoint and fugue (1927), and winner of the Grand Prix de Rome composition prize (1929). It would be facile, if currently fashionable, to charge the neglect of her music to her gender, and there is undoubtedly some truth to that assertion. After all, she has a distinctive compositional voice firmly grounded in tonality but using dissonance regularly and unhesitatingly, and her juxtapositions of rhythmic angularity with lyrical warmth are impressive and somewhat reminiscent of the work of Paul Dukas, with whom she studied. But there may well be non-gender-related reasons that her works are not often heard. On the basis of a very well-played new Warner Classics recording of Barraine’s two symphonies and two shorter works, it seems possible that the neglect of her music is tied at least in part to her tendency to smooth the rough edges of her music’s sounds, especially its string sounds, during an era when dissonance had become more pronounced and insistent. Barraine also seems, at least on the basis of this recording, to produce more-effective work in shorter forms than in longer and more-elaborate ones. Her Symphony No. 1 (1931) is interestingly structured, with each of its three movements starting with a slow introduction before moving to a significantly brisker tempo. Taken as a whole, the first movement is strongly contrasted between its more-deliberate and faster material; the second features references to Beethoven’s 1795 song Adelaide in the brass; and the third, although containing dance elements, is rather sober, if not wholly humorless, in Cristian Mǎcelaru’s carefully modulated performance. Barraine’s Symphony No. 2 (1938) bears the title Voïna, Russian for “war,” and was created on the cusp of World War II – but although its three movements seem to move from overt conflict in the first to bereavement in the second (which is designated Marche funèbre) to some level of optimism in the third (and shortest), the overall impression is too subtle (and in Mǎcelaru’s reading too string-focused) for the piece to be an effective commentary on the incipient hostilities. Both the symphonies are very well-made: Barraine’s skill with orchestration is, indeed, their most notable characteristic. And it may be that some of the comparative communicative weaknesses of the symphonies come from Mǎcelaru’s interpretations, abetted by the very warm and smoothly flowing strings of Orchestre National de France. But at least as heard here, the symphonies are less than gripping emotionally and, all in all, less impressive than the shorter works that surround them on the CD. The first of those is a set of eight brief variations for orchestra called Song-Koï—Le Fleuve rouge, dating to 1945 and focusing on a river that runs from China’s Yunnan province to the sea near Hanoi, Vietnam. The work traces – again, as with the symphonies, subtly rather than with clarity – the river’s course, its variations bearing labels identifying specific portions of its length that are not communicated directly through the music itself. The word “red” in the title appears to reflect Barraine’s admiration for the Communists leading the struggle for Vietnam’s independence from China: Barraine was a strong advocate of left-wing causes and, at the time she wrote this work, had just survived her intense involvement in the French Resistance against the Nazis. Barraine’s river portrait, although it is more atmospheric than overtly pictorial, is notable, like her symphonies, for its careful instrumentation and close attention to the contrasting sounds of instrumental sections. The strongly rhythmic La ville de Son-Phong and Le retour des pavillons noirs are especially effective. Very engaging in a different way is the last work on this disc, Les Tziganes (1959), wherein the string writing is highly virtuosic and the gypsy flavor indicated by the title is, if never strongly delineated, communicated with care and subtlety. Indeed, “subtle” is an adjective that applies again and again to Barraine’s music, which may simply be a touch too careful and emotionally reserved to gain a solid foothold amid other, more-direct works of its time period. Still, it has a great deal to recommend it and is more than deserving of at least occasional revival, and hopefully the high quality of this beautifully played disc will bring it to new audiences. 

     Strings are used much more sparingly and acerbically in the chamber music by Eric Chasalow on a (+++) New Focus Recordings release. Although Chasalow’s lifetime overlaps significantly with Barraine’s, the two approach string writing from very different angles. Chasalow (born 1955) is avowedly seeking a hyper-modern sound, as is apparent even in the two longest works on the disc, both of which use a traditional instrumental complement: Second Quartet (played by the Lydian Quartet) and String Sextet (played by the same ensemble plus violist Sam Kelder and cellist Hannah Collins). Just how different from more-traditional classical models Chasalow wants to be is shown by the fact that the Second Quartet not only exists in the 15-minute version on this CD but also has an hour-long form designed for gallery performance. Fifteen minutes will be plenty for many hearers, though: the one-movement work has the usual avant-garde-style mixture of angularity, disjointedness, harmonics, strong volume contrasts, and other characteristics familiar from countless works from the same aesthetic. The extended quiet stasis midway through the piece eventually gives way to matters that chug along much more feverishly, at least for a time. In the three-movement String Sextet, Chasalow first takes a bit of Brahms and creates a distinctly non-Brahmsian, devoid-of-warmth sound from it, then proceeds to a second movement marked “beautifully imperfect” and a finale labeled “asymmetrical march,” appearing to enjoy the evocative verbiage as much as the associated sounds, which are thoroughly atonal and combinatorially unsurprising. The other works on the disc are shorter and somewhat more focused. The Wings That Bear the Night Away is for solo violin (Mari Kimura) and fixed media – yes, Chasalow employs electroacoustic methods from time to time, and here also shows his fondness for microtonality – and is based on the fatal flight of Icarus. Third Piano Trio: Rock Hill Variations (played by Clara Lyon on violin, Collins on cello, and Steven Beck on piano) is dedicated to Aaron Copland – not the Copland well-known for folkloristic and accessible works but the Copland whose more-caustic music is less frequently performed – and contrasts quickly darting material with somewhat longer (but not lyrical) lines. The Snow Man and Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock, based on Wallace Stevens poems, require cellist David Russell to recite and sing as well as play, all while engaging with electronics that envelop everything in a cloud of sound whose bearing upon the words is less than apparent. The CD concludes with To the Edge and Back, a flute-and-piano work here arranged by violinist Julia Glenn and played by her and pianist Beck. Somewhat less abstruse and more lighthearted than the other music on the CD, this piece plays the instruments nicely against each other and manages to make several comparison-and-contrast points without overstaying its welcome: running less than five minutes, it is the shortest work on the disc. Audiences predisposed to enjoy self-assertive avant-garde expressiveness showcasing strings and their interactions with other instruments and electronics will enjoy the Chasalow works here, although the pieces are not really very differentiated in any stylistic sense from those by other composers who employ analogous techniques for many of the same expressive purposes.

(+++) INSTRUMENTALLY SPEAKING

Music for Guitar by Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Adès and James Dillon. Sean Shibe, guitar. Pentatone. $18.75. 

Pluto Bell: A Moment or Two; Nicholas Deyoe: Lullaby; Scott Wollschleger: trace-escape-horizon. Michael Jones, percussion. New Focus Recordings. $20.99. 

     Guitar music by non-guitarists has the potential, like music written for other instruments by composers who do not play those instruments, to present significant interpretative difficulties for performers – but is equally likely to provide unexpected insights into the instrument’s evocative and technical capabilities. All these elements are present in Sean Shibe’s recital of never-before-recorded 21^st-century guitar works on the Pentatone label. Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022) took suggestions for Beyond the White Hand: Construction with Guitar Player (2014) from his good friend, master guitarist Julian Bream, much as other composers have requested ideas for their works from virtuoso performers. But also like earlier composers, Birtwistle did not accept all of Bream’s ideas, utilizing only ones that he felt would enhance what Birtwistle as composer was trying to express. This piece is the most-extended work on the CD, and it explores a very large variety of guitar expressions and technical challenges. It is essentially a fantasia, with wide-ranging explorations of moods and forms that all derive, ultimately, from a short piece that Birtwistle had written previously, Guitar and White Hand – a work, based on a Picasso painting, that is also recorded here and that provides an intriguing chance to hear the foundation of a much grander musical edifice. Shibe explores these pieces, both longer and shorter, with sure-handed skill and respect for the multiplicity of moods and wide-ranging use of the guitar (including as a percussion instrument) that Birtwistle requires. Five Birtwistle miniatures supplement and complement the “white hand” material: Sleep Song, Je sui aussi, and three pieces arranged for guitar by Forbes Henderson – Oockooing Bird, Berceuse de Jeanne, and Sad Song. These are thoughtful and introspective works, all but the moderate-tempo Je sui aussi being slow-paced. Shibe dwells lovingly on their quiet warmth and overall sense of restfulness, and if they are somewhat emotionally monochromatic, they do contrast nicely with the more-expansive and wide-ranging “white hand” material. In their turn, the two pieces here by Thomas Adès (born 1971) contrast well with Birtwistle’s. Adès Forgotten Dances (2023) is a set of six movements: Overture, Berceuse, Courante, Barcarolle, Carillon de Ville, and Vesper. The resemblance to a Baroque suite is clear and intentional, but there is more here, with each movement bearing either a subtitle or, in the case of the third, fifth and sixth, a reference to an earlier composer (Max Ernst, Hector Berlioz and Henry Purcell, respectively). These dance forms are of course not forgotten so much as neglected, at least as dances: they are familiar enough to audiences accustomed to Baroque music so that Adès’ handling of them as guitar pieces will be intriguing. They do not in fact sit particularly well on the instrument, requiring Shibe to cope with high harmonics, to extend (or seem to extend) the guitar’s range, to make a single guitar sound like two, and otherwise to exploit as well as explore the instrument’s capabilities. They have more sense of experimentation than rhythmic danceability about them, being draped in a kind of intellectual garment that makes them perhaps more suitable for guitarists’ listening pleasure than for that of a more-general audience. The Berceuse, for example, is quite different from Birtwistle’s Berceuse de Jeanne: Adès’ is scarcely restful, being harmonically unsettled and lullaby-like only in the very general sense of its tempo – which, however, varies quite a bit. Shibe is respectful throughout of Adès’ methods and aims, handling Forgotten Dances as a frequently challenging exploration of sonorities. Separately, Shibe offers a kind of palate cleanser by Adès: Habanera from “The Exterminating Angel” (2016), which shares with the dance-based suite a penchant for ignoring the expected rhythm of its designated name but which is in some ways more interesting than the elements of Forgotten Dances because of its strong contrasts of volume as well as technique. The arrangement of the CD is an odd one – grouping the composers’ works would have been more congenial than presenting them as is done here, in the sequence Adès-Birtwistle-Adès-Birtwistle – but the disc eventually makes its way to a single piece by a third composer. This is 12 Caprices (2025) by James Dillon (born 1950). These zip by in a total of only 10½ minutes, producing a sense of epigrammatic micro-miniaturization, with each little piece offering a sound snippet and then disappearing. Intellectually interesting if never emotionally engaging, they offer a clear contrast to the more-expansive material from Birtwistle and Adès and give Shibe further chances to show his solicitous handling of composers’ very different approaches to the guitar. The CD is really for guitar fanciers (and players) rather than a general audience – nothing on it bears repeated hearings for strictly musical-enjoyment purposes – but it stands as a convincing example of the different ways guitar music is being composed in the 21^st century and of the skill that Shibe brings to his performances of it. 

     Lullaby and lullaby-like music attracts quite a few contemporary composers, including some who create music for instruments not usually associated with restfulness. The guitar may have a clear ability to enhance relaxation, but one would not expect that to be the case for a percussion complement. But Nicholas Deyoe seeks to provide quietude through percussion in Lullaby (2011), an extended (12½ -minute) sonic exploration using drums, wood blocks, glockenspiel and cymbals. As performed by Michael Jones on a New Focus Recordings release, the work is suitably restrained and played with attention to some unusual elements in its scoring, notably the use of the drums to provide melodic material. The fact that the piece goes on and on contributes to its intentionally soporific nature, and like the guitar works played by Sean Shibe, Deyoe’s seems to be directed more at performers than at a general listening audience. Indeed, that is the case for all three solo-percussionist works that Jones plays: Deyoe’s is actually the shortest of them. Pluto Bell’s A Moment or Two (2021) runs nearly 14 minutes and explores pitched percussion of various types: bells, bowls, bars (of a glockenspiel) and more. It is a textural rather than melodic or harmonic work, inviting listeners to engage with subtle distinctions in sound production and sound quality – matters likely of considerable interest to Jones’ fellow percussionists if not necessarily to a broader set of listeners. But neither Bell’s piece nor Deyoe’s demands as much attention and involvement as Scott Wollschleger’s trace-escape-horizon (2023-2024), one of those avant-garde works whose composer seems to think the elimination of capital letters in the title is somehow meaningful. This is an exceptionally extended piece, lasting more than 36 minutes, yet like much minimalist music of the Philip Glass type, it is hypnotic by intent rather than exploratory of sonorities, melodies or harmonies. Everything Wollschleger does is handled with economy of sound and unwillingness to allow the instruments to produce extended passages of clear interrelatedness. Instead, there are sections devoted to trills, oscillations, pitch suspension, and, probably inevitably, white noise; the result is a generalized and perpetual feeling of stasis within a floating soundcloud. Percussion tends to be thought of as emphatic even when not particularly loud, but Wollschleger seems determined to go against type by requiring mostly gentle, soft, subtly intertwined sound production that takes Ligeti-style “interstellar” music several steps beyond, into a realm of perpetual evanescence. As delicate background material, trace-escape-horizon seems to have a function to fulfill, but it is as difficult for non-performers to listen to attentively as it would be for a performer to focus for its very extended duration on the miniscule modifications of aural quality that it demands throughout. Jones manages the tiny intricacies of the work, and the requirements of the other pieces on the disc, with unerring and unending skill, but to what non-performative end is unlikely to be clear to anybody encountering these pieces from a perspective other than that of a committed percussion player.

(++++) THE FLOW’S THE THING

Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2. Christian Zacharias, piano and conducting Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. MDG Preziosa. $24.99 (SACD). 

     Sometimes a labor of love can be as much labor as love. That seems to have been the case with these recordings of Chopin’s piano concertos featuring Christian Zacharias – based on the unusually engaging and informative program note about them by Werner Dabringhaus (the “D” in MDG, “Musikproduction Dabringhaus und Grimm”). These performances date to 2003 (Concerto No. 2) and 2004 (Concerto No. 1), and are now being made available on MDG Preziosa, a kind of “archive” label within the firm. 

     Anybody who believes that classical-music recording is mostly just a matter of microphone placement and fiddling with a few knobs or volume-and-balance adjusters here and there, then letting the musicians play as usual, will be disabused of that notion by reading Dabringhaus’ account of the complexities of these particular recordings, which delve into everything from the inability to use control-area air conditioning to the necessity of rearranging instruments in order to capture sound accurately within a theater setting that was not designed for orchestral performances – all of this after being initially unable to locate the recording venue because of map imprecision. A well-told tale of events that are amusing and worthy of recollection in hindsight but were surely quite frustrating when initially endured, Dabringhaus’ reminiscences provide greater context than listeners usually get when it comes to considering just how a particular recording came to be. 

     None of this would matter much, of course, if the performances did not turn out to have been worth the effort to capture them more than 20 years ago – and to remaster them for release now in SACD form. Thankfully, though, Christian Zacharias’ sensitivity to Chopin, both as pianist and as conductor of Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (of which he became artistic director in 2000), makes this a very worthwhile release that does not require audiences to know anything about its provenance in order to involve them deeply in the high-quality interpretations. 

     Chopin did not much want to write for orchestra – he did so only about half a dozen times – and it has long been observed that these concertos are lacking in their orchestral accompaniment, which is mostly accompaniment rather than genuine interplay between soloist and ensemble. Nevertheless, the works endure and continue to provide great listening enjoyment thanks to their many manifest charms. Zacharias is quite sensitive to this: his impeccable pianism melds well with a conducting style that treats the 40-or-so orchestral players as collaborators to a somewhat greater extent than the music is typically thought to allow. This becomes clear immediately in the very expansive opening of the first movement of Concerto No. 1 – a movement that is half the length of the entire concerto and significantly longer than any other in either of these works. Zacharias conceives its four minutes of introductory material on a grand scale, taking a genuine Allegro maestoso tempo with an emphasis on the second word. This leads to a grandiose piano entry and a performance that thereafter keeps the soloist in the dominant position that Chopin envisioned but that does not allow the orchestra to fade entirely into subservience. It is a winning and impressive way of handling the material, helping to turn the work into something more closely approximating a Romantic-era concerto rather than a solo-piano work with occasional accompaniment by other instruments. After this large-scale opening, it is lyricism that dominates the always-lovely second movement, with Zacharias allowing the music to unfold at a deliberate pace without ever dragging or appearing on the verge of becoming stale. Expressive warmth dominates without ever becoming cloying – and the result is a very strong contrast when the brisk finale sweeps away the rampant emotionalism in a bright and bouncy krakowiak that gives Zacharias plenty of opportunities to show off his nimble finger work. 

     Concerto No. 2 (actually written shortly before No. 1) gets equally sensitive and thoughtful treatment. The concertos are structurally very similar, but Zacharias is sensitive to numerous subtle ways in which they differ. The opening movement of No. 2, for example, is approached with less sense of grand scale, and its lyricism rather than anything portentous comes to the fore. Concerto No. 2 is considerably shorter than No. 1 but places equal emphasis on its first and longest movement. Here Zacharias makes less of an attempt to balance solo and orchestral roles, allowing the free flow of pianistic virtuosity to stay in the forefront of a rather one-sided musical conversation. Zacharias’ playing here is more forceful and intense, more overtly display-oriented, than in the opening of Concerto No. 1, although he is still at pains to bring forth the lyrical beauties of the music. The second movement, even more heartfelt than the slow movement of Concerto No. 1, is pervaded by decorative delicacy that Zacharias offers with admirable clarity of individual notes within the many cascades. And the concluding mazurka exudes charm and a pleasant sense of wavelike motion as its themes unfold and intermingle. Zacharias the pianist expertly balances the more strongly chordal passages with the lighter, shimmering ones, and if the orchestra has little of significance to contribute, Zacharias the conductor does make sure that the ensemble material is presented with style and rhythmic flair. This is, all in all, a highly pleasing release that, the exigencies of recording notwithstanding, comes across as demonstrating that, in this case, love’s labor is scarcely lost, even two decades after these sounds were first captured.

(+++) IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SOUND

Music for Winds and Voice by Ornette Coleman, Oliver Nelson, Eric Dolphy and Jeff Lederer. Mary LaRose, vocal soloist; Jeff Lederer, clarinet; Wildebeest Quintet (Michael Gentile, flute; Mike McGuiness, clarinet; Katie Scheele, oboe; Sara Schoenbeck, bassoon; Nathan Koci, horn). Little (i) Music. $10. 

Lei Lang: Six Seasons—Instrumentation Lab. Charles Deluga and Lei Lang, live DSP; Stephen Drury, piano; members of Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, loadbang, and [nec]shivaree. New Focus Recordings. $24.99 (2 CDs). 

     The way music “should” sound is not always clear. Modern instruments and modern tunings produce effects very different from those employed in times past, and modern performance techniques – vibrato on strings, flutter tonguing on winds, and so forth – have also changed over time. Inherent performance expectations change as well: for example, the improvisational elements that are foundational in jazz have made their way into concert-hall music as well, taking the classical-music world well beyond traditional score modifications such as rubato. Elements of both the jazz and classical worlds intersect on a new CD from clarinetist/saxophonist Jeff Lederer (born 1962) – offered on his own label and including more than a touch of the electronic. The result is music both instrumental and vocal that will not likely reach a wide audience but that should intrigue, even fascinate listeners to whom works by Ornette Coleman, Oliver Nelson and Eric Dolphy already speak. Coleman’s Forms and Sounds, here rather unnecessarily presented as tracks separated by other material, has a strongly electronic aural quality along with some improvised bassoon material. Dolphy’s Woodwind Sextet, mvt 2 mixes enhancements with some very pure instrumental elements, notably in the flute. But most of the material on the disc comes from Nelson: Images, Lem and Aide, Nocturne, There’s a Yearnin’ and Three Seconds, all arranged to include electronically modified vocals (the adjective is “enhanced” for those predisposed to enjoy such modifications). Listeners who know and enjoy the music of Coleman, Nelson and Dolphy – these works or others – will find the differing sound of the arrangements here intriguing, and the entire involvement of a woodwind quintet casts a blanket of sound over the material that differs from what is usually heard. Enjoyment of specific tracks will be a matter of personal preference, but There’s a Yearnin’ and Three Seconds come across particularly well thanks to the clarity of Mary LaRose’s vocal delivery and the attractive differences between the two tracks’ rhythms. Also of considerable interest here is a work by Lederer himself, which has the intriguingly overdone title Cruxifiction (not a word). Arranged for winds and electronics, the piece has a haunting quality that does go on for too long – nine-and-a-half minutes – but that brings forth an interesting instrumental mixture of acoustic and electronic material whose varied pacing, from very slow to very quick, combines to good effect in some respects even though, in others, an underlying repetitive element simply becomes irritating. All the music here is well-played and presented with a sense of commitment to the composers’ forms and their communicative objectives. Heard simply as a sequence of intermingled sounds of varying types and points of origin, the pieces will be worthwhile experiences for audiences that gravitate to mixed genres and interpretation/reinterpretation of established composers’ works. 

     And speaking of intermingled sounds, they are very much the point of a very extended work called Six Seasons by Lei Liang (born 1972). New Focus Recordings offers the two-hour piece on two CDs, the first (Solos) lasting an hour and a quarter, the second (Ensemble) taking up the remaining time. Rather than being continuous, Six Seasons consists of a series of short works, ranging in length from less than one minute to more than 10. Most are not music in a traditional sense – the opening Prelude, for example, starts with the call of a beluga whale, followed by electronic-keyboard chords. The following items include a baritone solo featuring indrawn breath that sounds like an extended scream of pain, a trumpet-and-trombone item that sounds like percussion, and then pieces for piano, harp, bassoon, ensemble, trumpet, voice, trombone, bass clarinet, piano, cello, and electric guitar. The point made again and again is that he instruments do not sound like what listeners will expect them to sound like: Liang explores soundscapes that insist on being something beyond the “merely” aural, reaching out to – well, what they reach out to is far from clear. The sounds emanating from all the instruments are altered, filtered, overlaid, switched, expanded or contracted, and generally transformed into something recognizable as sound but not in terms of its point(s) or instrument(s) of origin. Liang’s idea involves taking ocean sounds (recorded off the coast of Alaska) and mingling them with highly modified instrumental sounds and extended performance techniques in order to produce a sense of immersion – presumably within the ocean, although this is never made explicitly clear, with some sections sounding more as if they are transporting listeners to the innards of a toilet bowl or the workings of a thunderstorm’s clouds. Both animal calls and instrumental sounds are occasionally intelligible, but their clarity comes within a sonic environment designed to distort perception and undermine the reasons for being of animals, instruments, and performers. The first part of Six Seasons ends with two pieces labeled Postlude, one sounding like gentle rain interrupted by a crash and the other like a small shriek with tiny bits of piano sprinkled on it. Liang’s determination to be perceived as extremely avant-garde is everywhere apparent, and the notion that only the cognoscenti can possibly appreciate the depth and richness of his tone-and-noise painting pervades  the project. The second, “ensemble” part of Six Seasons is entirely for grouped instruments and consists, unsurprisingly, of six elements – which share their titles with six of the parts of the “solo” material. However, it is not always apparent that there are multiple instruments involved in these items, since the alterations worked in the “solo” material are also used in the “ensemble” elements, and the intentionally extensive electronic manipulation does an excellent job of concealing the source of whatever is being modified. The primary difference in the “ensemble” segments is length: they are much longer than the individual pieces in the “solo” realm. But they produce exactly the same impressions by using exactly the same methods of distortion, overlay, extension, textural modification, and so forth. Two hours of this is a lot of it, and if Liang was looking to reach an extremely rarefied audience and take listeners on a long, long journey to realms whose connection with any traditional notion of music is obscure at best, he has certainly succeeded. Six Seasons demonstrates, if any such demonstration is still necessary in the 21^st century, that contemporary composers are quite as capable as slightly less-recent ones of producing material that will be extremely off-putting to the vast majority of potential listeners while making a tiny subgroup of fans feel as if its members are part of an inner circle of auditory superiority.