(++++) BEING AMERICAN

Samuel Barber: String Quartet No. 1; Wynton Marsalis: At the Octoroon Balls; John Williams: With Malice Toward None; Erich Wolfgang Korngold: String Quartet No. 3. Calidore String Quartet (Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violins; Jeremy Berry, viola; Estelle Choi, cello). Signum Classics. $19.99. 

Ken Ueno: Wavelengths; …a.m…; I am the uncle who sees past lives; Phase Patterns of Likeness Slightly Off. New Focus Recordings. $18.99.

     Just what it means to be an American is a topic that has been debated now for 250-plus years; and if the debate seems unusually strident nowadays, that is only because the relatively young nation has a comparatively short memory. In musical circles, the semiquincentennial of the United States happens to coincide with the increasing frequency of idiosyncratic concert and recorded programming, wherein performers mix and match pieces of music based on their own highly personal notions of what gives a presentation coherence and (one hopes) meaning for an audience. When a program is convincingly assembled and well-performed, it can be effective even when, objectively speaking, it is something of a mismatch, whereas when the works do not really relate well to each other, the grouping really reaches out only to listeners who happen to share the performers’ specific notion of appropriateness of the combination. In the case of the new Signum Classics release by the Calidore Quartet, the intriguing combination of string quartets by Barber and Korngold and the excellence of the playing carry the weight of a CD that otherwise does not quite hang together well enough to live up to its title of “American Tapestry.” Still, this is certainly a well-woven and thoughtful program. Samuel Barber’s String Quartet No. 1 is his one completed work in the form: he made only a few sketches for a second. The piece is best-known for Barber’s orchestral arrangement of its middle movement as the very popular Adagio for Strings. Contextualized in its original form and position, the movement proves to be a strong contrast with the other two: the first movement is expansive and much more “modern” in musical language (for the 1930s), while the third is very short and emphatically conclusive. The work as a whole mixes nostalgic, lyrical elements with overtly up-to-date ones for its time period; the extent to which that reflects something particularly “American” is, however, a matter of opinion. In any case, Barber’s quartet complements Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3, a work from the mid-1940s, in interesting ways. Korngold also melds lyrical and strident elements, but his overall language is less tonal, more acerbic, more strongly chromatic than Barber’s – despite Korngold’s use in the third of the work’s four movements of the love theme from one of his film scores, for The Sea Wolf (1941). An attractively variegated work whose individual elements sound largely disconnected from each other, Korngold’s quartet works its way toward an upbeat and tonal conclusion that, thanks to the Calidore Quartet’s attentiveness to the music’s many moods, comes across to very fine effect. The Korngold and Barber quartets, taken together, seem to point to an America that is disjointed, multifaceted and more than a touch uncertain about itself and its place in the world – which, come to think of it, is a pretty good conclusion. The other two pieces on this CD are more overtly illustrative of specifics than are those by Barber and Korngold. The Calidore Quartet plays the three inner movements from Wynton Marsalis’ seven-movement At the Octoroon Balls (whose title refers to Creole social/romantic rituals). Jazz (which is a strongly American form) mixes here with hymnlike and songful material, and there is considerable well-conceived scene-painting throughout – notably in Hellbound Highball, a movement depicting a Hades-bound train whose intermittent stops and starts require intricate collaborative playing that the performers manage with apparent ease. The Marsalis material is fascinating on its own – the complete suite would likely be even more so – but its particular form of impressionistic writing does not fit especially well with the works by Barber and Korngold. Finally – although not placed last on the CD, which would have been a better decision – the Calidore Quartet offers the short, warm and heartfelt With Malice Toward None by John Williams. This is the Lincoln theme that Williams wrote for Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film about one of the few figures in American history whose positive reputation seems immune to rethinking and reconsideration. Placing this piece at the disc’s end would have given the whole CD an ultimately more-hopeful feeling than it receives by having the Korngold quartet as its final piece, but perhaps that is part of the point the Calidore Quartet wants to make here: that America does possess warmth and goodness (which it all too often martyrs), but that the meaning and meaningfulness of the nation are far from sunnily optimistic. Ultimately, what works and does not work for individual listeners in this compilation will be a matter of personal taste, but for any audience, the highly impressive individual and ensemble playing of the performers will stand out and will invite contemplation of the extent to which the works chosen for this disc do or do not encapsulate the American experience. 

     American musical life in the 21^st century is no less variegated than that of the 20^th, when all the works performed by the Calidore Quartet except the one by Williams were written. But contemporary American composers such as Ken Ueno (born 1970) very often create music using techniques that distance themselves from any specific geographical location and focus on sound production that is as universal as it is off-putting to those more interested in traditional forms and/or instruments. A (+++) New Focus Recordings CD of four Ueno works, performed by the composer and members of a group called The Up:Strike (sic) Project, treads the boundary between music and noise in a way that will be familiar to anyone acquainted with today’s compositional techniques and the instrumentation used to bring conceptualizations into auditory reality. Wavelengths (2019) is for a solo vibraphone on which speakers have been placed to emit sine tones that expand the notes being played. It is one of those extension-of-technique works that so many modern composers favor in looking for ways to expand instrumental capabilities beyond those normally heard. It is followed on the CD by …a.m… (sic, period and ellipses included), a 2002 piece for percussion quartet that opens with white noise (a sound often heard in avant-garde material), moves into individual instrumental strikes, then eventually leads to cacophony until it ends with the sounds of tuned metal pipes. I am the uncle who sees past lives (2024) uses Ueno’s own vocals – extended, amplified and otherwise pulled and pushed beyond what the human “throat instrument” can produce on its own – along with electronics that produce the vague feeling of a forest or jungle setting. And Phase Patterns of Likeness Slightly Off, a 2023 work that is another percussion-quartet piece, intermingles four vibraphones in wholly nonthematic material that swells and subsides, joins and separates in ways that intermittently unite the performers and maintain them in thoroughly disconnected trajectories. All four of these works are quite extended as sound-pattern-based pieces go – ranging in length from more than 12 minutes to more than 20 – and all are aurally immersive for listeners inclined to desire the sound worlds that Ueno creates and explores. This Ueno-focused recording is emphatically not a CD for a general audience, but it is every bit as American in its way and its orientation as is the disc in which the Calidore Quartet uses its acoustic instruments to bring forth the sonic environments created and explored by Barber, Korngold, Marsalis and Williams.

(++++) COMBINED CELEBRATIONS

Idil Biret: Schwetzingen Festival 14/15 May 1999. IBA. $42.99 (4 CDs). 

     As celebratory Idil Biret releases go, this one has special provenance. Naxos’ extensive and long-running Idil Biret Archives recordings include a series of earlier performances by the Turkish pianist, a series focused on Beethoven, a group offering concertos, a solo-focused sequence, and various one-off boxed sets. This four-CD recording fits into that last category and is also a single-composer-focused release, being a celebration of Frédéric Chopin on the 150^th anniversary of his death – an occasion for which Biret performed not one but two entire Chopin programs at the Schwetzingen Festival in Germany. 

     The nature of these performances makes this a celebration as much of Biret herself as of Chopin. The first night’s works were scheduled to be played by Anatol Ugorski (1942-2023), but the Russian-born German pianist withdrew at the very last minute, and the festival organizers asked if perhaps Biret could play something suitable on May 14, 1999, in addition to what she was already scheduled to perform on May 15. Biret more than rose to the challenge: she played the exact program that Ugorski was supposed to offer, then went on the next night to do hers as originally planned. It is those two nights of Chopin performances that are offered to listeners here. 

     In 1999, Biret (born 1941) was scarcely inexperienced with Chopin: she had been the first pianist ever to record the composer’s complete works for solo piano and for piano with orchestra. Nevertheless, presenting two two-hour all-Chopin recitals on two consecutive nights was a substantial achievement by any measure. And this release shows just how well Biret handled the challenge. 

     Being above all a thoughtful performer, Biret always brought a personal quality to Chopin’s music, never allowing it to wallow in emotion or become merely maudlin. This is immediately apparent in the first half of the May 14 recital, which includes 12 Mazurkas and the Polonaise-Fantaisie. The three comparatively straightforward groups of Mazurkas, Opp. 17, 30 and 33, are often neatly individuated by Biret, who pays close attention to the works’ rhythms as well as Chopin’s use of repetition as a primary building block. The Polonaise-Fantaisie then takes listeners in a very different direction, with Biret on the one hand clarifying the polonaise-derived meter and rhythm while, on the other, focusing on the fantasia elements that give the work its overall character and primary impact. She is especially attentive, to very fine effect, to the work’s central, lyrical section. The second half of the May 14 program is wholly devoted to Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 58, plus three encores. All three Chopin piano sonatas are in minor keys – No. 1 in C minor, No. 2 in B-flat minor, and No. 3 in B minor. And his other sonata, for cello and piano, is in G minor. This consistent choice of minor tonalities for sonatas indicates something about the commonality of the works’ emotional canvases, and Biret is clearly aware of this – and of the fact that the two middle movements in this four-movement work, which are in major keys, help balance the darker and more emotive first and fourth movements. Biret’s performance is expansive – she tends toward slower tempos in most of the music on this recording, although only rarely does a section drag – and manages to convey the sonata’s emotional heft without losing sight of its elements of quietude and serenity. Her three encores complement the earlier material and are all well-presented: Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2; Etude, Op. 25, No. 11; and Mazurka, Op. 63, No. 3. 

     Biret’s May 15 recital, the one she was originally scheduled to play at the 1999 Schwetzingen Festival, is a more-varied exploration of the musical forms in which Chopin expressed himself. Here the first part of the program includes Rondo à la mazur, Op. 5; Polonaise, Op. 71, No. 2; Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise; Waltzes, Op. 64, No. 2 and Op. 18; and Tarantella, Op. 43. The second half consists of Mazurkas, Op. 53, No. 3 and Op. 59, Nos. 1-3; Ecossaises, Op. 72; Prelude, Op. 45; and Scherzo, Op. 54. Then there are three encores, and these are particularly interesting. The first is expected in this context: Chopin’s Etude, Op. 25, No. 12. But the second is, surprisingly, the Kreisler/Rachmaninoff Liebesleid, and the third is a work by a composer whose music Biret almost never performed: it is Alkan’s Chemin de fer, which Biret manages with aplomb even though it is a bit outside her comfort zone. This is perhaps the first piece of music based on a train journey, and it is full of scurrying and imitative elements that make for a very impressive pianistic display – and in this case Biret leans wholeheartedly into the sheer virtuosity that Alkan’s piece invites a virtuoso to demonstrate. Hearing this music and the Liebesleid, two works so different from the Chopin material that dominates this recording and that was the reason for being of the 1999 Schwetzingen Festival, gives a fuller picture of Biret’s high level of skill at this point in her career and shows that, her considerable expertise with Chopin aside, she was highly adept at presenting piano works of all sorts at pretty much any time. 

     This IBA release concludes with some bonus material that has nothing to do with the Schwetzingen Festival but that further displays Biret’s approach to Chopin: the Impromptus, Opp. 29, 36, 51 and 66, recorded at a November 1984 concert in Munich. These readings, 15 years earlier than the ones from Schwetzingen, evince the same careful attention to detail, firm grasp of structure, and elegance of technique that Biret displays in the Schwetzingen material and, indeed, puts forth in practically all of the many Idil Biret Archives recordings. For fans of the Turkish pianist, lovers of Chopin, and admirers of sensitive pianism proffered with finely honed technique, this four-CD set offers plenty of enjoyment and much to celebrate.

(++++) BETWEEN THERE AND HERE

Ferdinand Ries: Piano Quartet in F Minor; Hummel: Piano Quartet in G; Schubert: Adagio and Rondo Concertante. Van Swieten Society (Heleen Hulst, violin; Elisabeth Smalt, viola; Mátyás Virág, cello; Bart van Oort, fortepiano). Brilliant Classics. $12.99. 

     Transitional figures get no respect, or at least not enough of it. Ferdinand Ries and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, well-known and popular in their lifetimes, quickly fell out of favor as the years went on and came to be remembered mostly for their associations with musical giants: Hummel with Mozart, Ries with Beethoven. Although it is certainly true that Ries and Hummel produced music with a strong Classical bent and only a modicum of Romanticism, this should not invalidate the value of their works, taken on their own terms: certainly not Classical, perhaps not Romantic, they deserve a label better than “transitional,” which makes it sound as if they do not quite fit into any particular era or musical classification. 

     Recordings such as the Van Swieten Society’s new Brilliant Classics release titled “Early Romantic Piano Quartets” may not do much to rehabilitate Ries and Hummel’s sense of not quite belonging to a specific time period, but they do a great deal to show just how fine these composers’ music is on its own terms and how unfair it is to neglect pieces such as these simply because they do not quite fit into specifically identified and generally accepted musical eras – which are, after all, defined more by consensus than by objectivity. 

     Interestingly, the excellence of these performances contains within itself a clue to the persistent neglect of much music of these composers: the Van Swieten Society plays on authentic period instruments (a 1771 violin, 1820 viola and c. 1700 cello, with Bart van Oort’s use of an 1825 fortepiano being especially noteworthy), and the result is a sound world that differs both from that of Baroque and Classical times and from the still-to-come, more-intense Romantic era. This CD offers an immersive audio experience that would largely be lost by hearing these quartets on modern instruments: it is not one to which most of today’s performers, accustomed as they are to modern instruments, have ready access. So the performance characteristics of this music, in addition to the music itself, work against its enthusiastic acceptance. 

     Be all that as it may, the worthiness of these quartets is clear throughout this disc, and especially apparent in the longest work here, Ries’ Piano Quartet in F Minor. This is a serious and comparatively large-scale work from 1808 with an especially weighty first movement. It is distinguished by exceptionally well-balanced writing for all four instruments: the notion of chamber music as a kind of fellowship of performers is strong here, with Ries at pains to find ways to bring out the individual characteristics of each instrument while remaining focused on the ensemble as a unified whole throughout all three movements. The considerable heft of the first movement, which is longer than the other two together, is nicely balanced by a brief second movement that contains a Mozart piano-sonata quotation and by a finale that lightens the overall mood considerably while retaining an underlying feeling of spaciousness. 

     The two-movement Hummel Piano Quartet in G is quite differently conceived. Undated but apparently written at about the same time as Ries’ quartet or a few years later, Hummel’s keeps the piano in the forefront almost throughout: he was himself a pianist of considerable talent, well thought of especially for the clarity of his playing, and wrote this work for his own performances. The strings here are not so much subservient as they are placed in the role of tutti to the piano’s soloistic material: the quartet has something of the flavor of a small piano concerto. Its two-movement structure was common in Hummel’s time in what we now think of as salon works, and its effect is essentially that of a small-ensemble “concerto” designed for intimate performances – a fairly unusual approach by later standards and a further indicator of the extent to which Hummel and his always well-made music were very much of their specific time period and, as a result, have only recently been rediscovered so they can be enjoyed on their own terms. 

     The two-movement “salon” format is also one that Schubert uses in his Adagio and Rondo Concertante, a work that shows just how thin the line is between so-called transitional composers and ones such as Schubert who are labeled as Romantics. This Schubert piece dates to 1816, putting it in the same time period as the works by Ries and Hummel – although it is worth noting that Schubert was just 19 when he created it. This piece fits the “salon music” description better than does Hummel’s, since “salon” tends to point to lighter and less consequential works. Schubert’s is definitely light if never actually frothy, and resembles Hummel’s two-movement quartet in its piano emphasis: the concerto-like element is equally strong in both works, and Schubert actually includes tutti and solo designations within the quartet. Unlike Hummel, Schubert never wrote a full-fledged piano concerto – and also unlike Hummel, Schubert is regarded as a Romantic composer on the basis of his numerous expressive songs and the strong emotional elements of some of his symphonies and other instrumental works. What this performance – indeed, this entire recording – makes abundantly clear is that musical time periods are far less absolute than academia tends to indicate, and there is enough overlap among composers and compositions in “transitional” times so that we should be wary of neglecting well-made and convincing music just because it does not seem to fit neatly into a specific, ultimately arbitrary system of categorization.

(++++) ALL TOGETHER NOW

Beethoven: Complete String Quartets and Große Fuge. Calidore String Quartet (Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violins; Jeremy Barry, viola; Estelle Choi, cello). Signum Classics. $79.99 (9 CDs). 

     It has taken a couple of years and listeners’ willingness to cope with a somewhat quixotic release schedule, but at last it is possible to obtain an integral set of the Beethoven string quartets with the Calidore String Quartet. And the wait has been more than worthwhile – although those who bought the individual releases of the late, middle and early quartets (produced in that order, hence “quixotic”) will not receive any bonuses from this nine-CD Signum Classics release and will therefore have no choice but to pass it along to someone who deserves a first-rate compilation of this music and does not yet have one. (All right, there is a choice: not to buy the complete set at all. But that seems churlish, especially since the price is a bargain compared with the $102 that the three separate releases cost when they initially appeared.) 

     This compilation, thankfully, presents the quartets in the usual early-middle-late sequence, making it easy to follow Beethoven’s progress from early to middle and late compositional periods – although, as often in Beethoven’s works, the numbering of specific pieces is not always straightforward: the six Op. 18 quartets, for example, were composed in the sequence 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 6. But whether one chooses to listen to them in that order or in the 1-through-6 sequence given here, what becomes clear quickly is how meticulously the Calidore String Quartet shapes the early quartets, and how much sensitivity they show to the strong influences of Mozart and Haydn within the music. Although simple (if scarcely simplistic) by comparison with the middle and late quartets, the six early ones are packed with Beethovenian stylistic elements that coexist with the approaches that he inherited from other composers of the time. Thus, although No. 1 in F contains themes closely resembling ones used in a Haydn quartet and Mozart violin sonata, the performers here rightly focus on the emotional centrality of the slow movement (Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato, a revision by Beethoven of the original Adagio molto). No. 2 in G, the most Haydnesque of these quartets, is played with appropriate grace and a slight tinge of formality – although here too the Adagio cantabile slow movement (which, as with No. 1, is Beethoven’s replacement of an earlier version) has extra weight and is actually the work’s longest component. The earliest quartet, No. 3 in D, is gentle and lyrical throughout, its thematic elements clear and the individual instruments’ roles nicely highlighted. No. 4 in C minor is essentially monothematic and thus puts extra pressure on performers to highlight resemblances among movements as well as to differentiate the forms in which the basic theme reappears. The C minor key invites intensity and urgency, but at this stage of Beethoven’s development those need to be held somewhat in check, and the Calidore players recognize this: they keep the quartet within the overall boundaries of Haydn and Mozart, albeit intensified, and avoid the temptation to overplay or over-emotionalize the music even though they allow its frequently stormy character to come through clearly – resulting, ultimately, in a genuinely thrilling prestissimo coda in the finale. No. 5 in A is the strongest Mozart tribute in Beethoven’s early quartets: it is modeled on Mozart’s quartet K. 464 in the same key. Especially well-handled here is the Andante cantabile, a theme and variations that stands in for the slow movement. No. 6 in B-flat, which has a considerable minor-key feeling despite its home key being in the major, contains not only an Adagio non troppo slow movement but also an Adagio introduction to the La Malinconia finale – a movement that Beethoven insisted be played “with the greatest delicacy.” The Calidore Quartet obliges with a performance that remains sensitive throughout to contrasts of mood: certainly melancholy elements are present, but there is also a quick and light dancelike section, and the performers explore all the material with care, fine intonation, and a sure sense of style. 

     The stylistic sensitivity is equal in the performers’ handling of the middle quartets (the three of Op. 59 plus Opp. 74 and 95); but here the Calidore Quartet brings an extra element to the music through its tempo choices. Nuance and detail are apparent throughout the readings, but are offered within a framework that, more often than not, makes a strong effort to adhere to Beethoven’s suggested speeds – which many other performers consider too fast to allow the music the breadth that it increasingly needs in middle-period and later Beethoven. The Calidore players manage to show that tempo concerns are generally overblown, and indeed that Beethoven knew exactly what he was looking for when choosing speed indications. The opening Allegro of Op. 59, No. 1, and the concluding Allegro molto of Op. 59, No. 3, to cite two examples, are played at or close to Beethoven’s metronome indications, and the movements not only work well but also show just how revolutionary the “Razumovsky” quartets were in their time. In fact, at this pace and with this precision, the quartets have an impact that makes them, despite their familiarity nowadays, sound new again. 

     This is not to say that these performances are invariably on the fast side. They are not, even if they are often quicker than those of other ensembles. The third-movement Allegretto of Op. 59, No. 2, for example, is paced quickly but not overly so, and here the players do especially well in emphasizing the music’s attractive syncopations. And the Andante con moto quasi allegretto second movement of Op. 59, No. 3, although it moves a bit too quickly for a sense of dreaminess, is effective thanks to finely honed dynamic contrasts and excellently accented ensemble passages. 

     The slower movements of the middle quartets are attentively handled throughout, if perhaps not always quite as convincingly as the speedier ones. The Adagio molto e mesto of Op. 59, No. 1, and Molto adagio of Op. 59, No. 2, are suitably tender but not always emotionally deep, although the emotive first-violin climax in No. 1 glows with greater intensity than the earlier part of the movement. Interestingly, the Adagio ma non troppo second movement of Op. 74 (“Harp”) seems a bit too slow to sustain well – but it does, thanks to highly lyrical playing that does not overstep into too-Romantic excess. Then, in the notoriously difficult-to-fathom Op. 95 (“Serioso”), the outer movements are outstanding, packed with intense drive while still possessing occasional flickers of soon-extinguished cantabile material: this is a performance that fully highlights the emotional as well as technical complexity of the work. The middle movements, however, are not quite as convincing: the peculiarly marked third movement, Allegro assai vivace, ma serioso, is actually a bit on the slow side, rendering its mixture of forms (a kind of march/dance) less apparent. Still, the technical skill of the Calidore String Quartet and its members’ attentiveness to Beethoven’s intentions and frequent mood changes mean that, as a whole, the handling of the middle quartets is as successful as is that of the earlier ones. 

     The late quartets shine, too. This is very difficult music both to understand and to play, but these performers have clearly thought about it with great care. Their doing so leads them to an unusual approach to the Op. 130 quartet (No. 13): instead of performing the piece as it is usually heard and appending the Grosse Fuge (Op. 133) afterwards, this recording uses the Grosse Fuge itself as the final movement of the quartet – as Beethoven originally intended – and appends the replacement finale that he created after being convinced that the Grosse Fuge was just too much for performers and audiences to handle as a quartet conclusion. Few performers present Op. 130 this way, and whether it “works” for listeners will be a matter of taste and opinion. On the one hand, it can certainly be argued that the Grosse Fuge is in fact more than the music can really handle. On the other hand, the performance of the Grosse Fuge here is a highlight of the entire Calidore cycle: it is played with tremendous precision, and its lines come across so clearly that its structural complexity seems both perfectly apt and absolutely necessary to make its musical points. But if this excellent rendition does not settle the no doubt impossible-to-settle argument over whether the Grosse Fuge works better on its own or as the capstone for Op. 130, it is worth noting that the Cavatina in Op. 130, as gorgeous a movement as Beethoven ever wrote, is in its own way as effective and emotionally enthralling here as is the Grosse Fuge. 

     In the rest of the late quartets, the most-engaging elements are generally in the variation-based slow movements, whose lyricism flows forth abundantly and always with admirable attentiveness from the performers that translates into deep involvement for listeners. A few of the faster movements, on the other hand, can be nitpicked, including one within Op. 130 itself: the fourth movement, just before the Cavatina, sounds a bit too heavy and perhaps even a little hesitant. Elsewhere, there is a touch too much speed, notably in the middle of the Scherzando vivace of Op. 127. And there is a very occasional veer toward the flaccid, if not quite the ponderous, as in the Alla marcia of Op. 132, which is a little mannered. But these are nitpicks and not criticisms of the performers’ always-well-thought-out approach to the late quartets and, indeed, to this entire cycle. The Calidore thoughtfulness, the sheer technical prowess of each performer, and the group’s remarkably meticulous ensemble playing make this quartet cycle a joy to hear and to revisit again and again. It is by any standards a top-notch set of readings of some of the most important string quartets ever written. And it is a set that, again and again, proves just how engaging, even enthralling, this music can be when presented by players whose understanding of and emotional connection with Beethoven’s quartets is as deep as their playing is skilled.