Schoenberg: Verklärte
Nacht; String Quartet No. 1; Four Canons. Fred Sherry String Quartet and
Sextet. Naxos. $9.99.
Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos.
1 and 2; Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 for Violin and Piano; Sonata for Two Violins;
Sonata for Violin Solo; Five Melodies for Violin and Piano. James Ehnes,
violin; Amy Schwartz Moretti, violin; Andrew Armstrong, piano; BBC Philharmonic
conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. Chandos. $37.99 (2 CDs).
Peter Maxwell Davies: Strathclyde
Concertos Nos. 5 and 6. James Clark, violin; Catherine Marwood, viola;
David Nicholson, flute; Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Peter Maxell
Davies. Naxos. $9.99.
Philip Glass: Concerto for
Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra; John Rutter: Suite Antique; Jean Françaix:
Concerto pour Clavecin et Ensemble Instrumental. Christopher D. Lewis,
harpsichord; John McMurtery, flute; West Side Chamber Orchestra conducted by
Kevin Mallon. Naxos. $9.99.
Howard Blake: Wind Concertos.
Jaime Martin, flute; Andrew Marriner, clarinet; Gustavo Núñez, bassoon; Academy of St. Martin
in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Marriner. PentaTone. $19.99 (SACD).
Dimitar Nenov: Piano Music.
Viktor Valkov, piano. Grand Piano. $16.99.
Stopping By: American Songs.
Kyle Bielfield, tenor; Lachlan Glen, piano; Michael Samis, cello. Delos.
$16.99.
I Am in Need of Music: Songs on
Poems by Elizabeth Bishop. Suzie LeBlanc, soprano; Blue Engine String
Quartet; Elizabeth Bishop Players conducted by Dinuk Wijeratne. CMC. $16.99
(CD+DVD).
Vittorio Grigòlo:
Ave Maria. Vittorio Grigòlo,
tenor; Francesca Dego, violin; I Pueri Cantores della Cappella Musicale Pontificia
detta Sistina and Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta conducted by Fabio Cerroni. Sony.
$12.99.
Van-Anh Vanessa Vo:
Three-Mountain Pass. Innova. $14.99.
The definition of “modern
music” starts for many listeners with Arnold Schoenberg, even though
Schoenberg’s works date back all the way to the end of the 19th
century. And this raises the interesting question of just what it means to be
“modern,” as opposed to “contemporary,” which is simply a synonym for “of
today.” The two notions do tend to blend and blur, but certainly “modern” in
classical music has a great deal to do with a work’s sound, which is why
Schoenberg’s music is still classified that way well over a century after much
of it was written. Verklärte
Nacht, for example, dates to 1899, and was considered by the composer to be
the first tone poem ever written for chamber ensemble. It retains hints of
modernity even for 21st-century ears, although it is certainly less
dissonant and more wedded to tonality than many later Schoenberg works. In the
fine Naxos performance by cellist Fred Sherry and other skilled interpreters,
both this work and the technically similar and even more extended String Quartet No. 1 (1904-05) show both
their roots in Romanticism and the way Schoenberg, even when in his 20s, was
starting to move beyond it to create a new language that remains “modern” in
sound even today. Four Canons (taken
from Thirty Canons, 1905-1949) shows
the composer reaching further into the realms he was later to explore in
considerable and often controversial detail.
Prokofiev’s explorations
were wide-ranging, too, and his sound also retains significant Romantic
elements while still having the tinge of modernity about it, both through the
composer’s handling of dissonance and through the sardonic wit heard frequently
in his music. James Ehnes’ excellent survey of the composer’s complete
solo-violin works showcases music both straightforward (the first concerto) and
masterly (the second), and provides an opportunity to hear some comparative
rarities (the two-violin sonata and the one for solo violin). The performances
here are exemplary precisely because Ehnes does not insist on a strictly “modern-sounding” interpretation of
Prokofiev’s violin works, allowing their angularity and rhythmic complexity to
coexist side-by-side with their post-Romantic themes and their general
adherence to traditional musical forms. Abetted in the two sonatas for violin
and piano by excellent readings by Andrew Armstrong, and complemented with sure
skill by Amy Schwartz Moretti in the two-violin sonata, Ehnes turns in soloist-focused
performances that are nevertheless clearly designed to maintain the balance
between his own elements and those of the other musicians. Gianandrea Noseda
and the BBC Philharmonic get the nuances of accompaniment just right, stepping
to the fore or merging into the background as appropriate and with a fine sense
of collaboration. This very well-recorded two-CD Chandos set equally displays
the skill of Ehnes as a performer and Prokofiev as a composer true to his own
vision while at the same time redolent of the times in which he wrote.
The times are far more
recent for Peter Maxwell Davies (born 1934) and his Strathclyde Concertos, two of which he conducts with sensitivity
and aplomb on a new Naxos CD (actually a re-release of a 1993 Collins Classics
recording). Davies’ musical language, like that of Prokofiev, looks back as
well as forward, and his structure for these concertos is fairly traditional:
each is in three movements, although the tempos of the movements are not always
in accord with what one would expect. Still, the sound of the works has both
“modern” elements and distinctly old-fashioned ones. No. 5 was inspired by
Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for
violin and viola, although it uses those two solo instruments in very different
ways, while No. 6, for flute and orchestra, is distinctively scored and combines
a Classical-era lightness and transparency of sound with a modern handling of
the orchestra and of the balance between ensemble and solo instrument. Davies
has a fine sense of how his works should sound and considerable skill at
bringing the sound out – he is in fact a fine conductor of works other than his
own. And the soloists all handle their roles with skill and careful
involvement. These pieces sound in some ways less “modern” than those of Schoenberg and Prokofiev, even though
both of Davies’ date to as recently as 1991. So this CD again raises the
question of just what a “modern” sound is.
Another fine Naxos disc
makes the question even more complex. Philip Glass (born 1937) is one composer
whose distinctive style and sound would surely be designated as “modern” by
supporters and detractors alike. But Glass is quite capable of putting his
sonic and compositional approaches at the service of forms with a very long
history indeed, as he does in his Concerto
for Harpsichord and Chamber Orchestra. No one could possibly mistake this
for a Bach harpsichord concerto, yet its three movements (which are numbered
rather than bearing tempo indications) fit broadly within the framework of
sensibilities that are hundreds of years old – although the approach to the
writing, and indeed to the harpsichord itself, is undeniably modern. The
situation is much the same in Suite
Antique by John Rutter (born 1945): here too an old form, dating to the
Baroque, and an old instrument, the harpsichord, are at the service of a work
that quite deliberately mixes the “antique” and the new – for example, containing
both an Ostinato movement and a “jazz waltz.”
Matters are somewhat more complex, though, in the case of Jean Françaix’ Concerto pour Clavecin et Ensemble Instrumental, because Françaix (1912-1997) takes Baroque models
more seriously as a framework for modern reinterpretation than do Glass and
Rutter – this harpsichord concerto does not view Bach’s time as a jumping-off
point but as an era that still has something to say to today’s listeners. As a
result, the Françaix work has
about it a stronger sense of neo-classicism (or neo-Baroque-ism) than do the
Glass and Rutter pieces, even though it dates from essentially the same time
period. The inescapable conclusion is that “modern” sound means different
things to different composers – or to the same composer under different
circumstances.
Furthermore, the whole issue
of what is “modern” is somewhat fraught with confusion, as is clear from a
PentaTone SACD bearing the overly cute title “The Barber of Neville.” The title
reflects the fact that composer Howard Blake (born 1938) and conductor Sir
Neville Marriner use the same barber, and it was the barber who introduced the
two and thus set this recording in motion. Be that as it may, what is of
greater interest here is the way Blake, who is primarily a film composer,
interprets “modern” sound. Essentially, he ignores the notion – in favor of
producing approachable, pleasant music that is of no great consequence and is
not highly innovative, but that is undeniably enjoyable to hear in a way that
the works of many more self-consciously avant-garde composers are not. Of the
four works on this disc, the Flute Concerto (1996), Bassoon Concerto (2009) and
Serenade for Wind Octet (1990) all stray very little from classical models and
all provide a pleasing mixture of virtuosic display and nicely structured (if
scarcely innovative) ensemble material. The Clarinet Concerto (1984/2011) is
somewhat different in its use of programmatic material (the three movements are
“Invocation,” “Ceremony” and “Round Dance”), but is musically more of the same.
The sameness is quite easy on the ears, and the very well-played and
well-recorded disc earns a (+++) rating even though the music is on the
forgettable side.
The Grand Piano release of
music by Dimitar Nenov also gets a (+++) rating, again because the music itself
is interesting but not highly distinctive even when it is performed by as
high-quality a pianist as Viktor Valkov, who approaches it with fervor and
understanding. Nenov (1901-1953), a fine pianist and noted pedagogue at the
Sofia Conservatoire, ran afoul of the Communist regime installed in Bulgaria in
1944, with the eventual result that an apparatchik had virtually all recorded
performances by Nenov destroyed. The personal tragedy of the composer did not
prevent his music from surviving, though, and one of his works – Toccata (1939), whose chromaticism and
sense of building to a climax are quite attractive – is still heard from time
to time. It appears on this CD, as does the more-interesting Theme and Variations in F sharp minor
(1932), in which Nenov shows a firm grasp of variation form as well as the
ability to write a work requiring considerable virtuosity. How “modern” Nenov’s
music sounds depends largely on which work one is hearing. Cinema Suite (1924-25) is sufficiently dissonant and technically
demanding to sound “modern” even today, but other pieces here – Miniatures (1945), Dance (a 1941 essay in folk music), Etude No. 1 (1931), and Etude
No. 2 (1932) – all have the
feeling of miniatures with little that is “modern” about them. The latest work
on the CD – Fairy Tale and Dance
(1947, another folk-music piece) – is Nenov’s final piano composition and yet another
miniature, well put together but not particularly distinctive. Valkov’s very
impressive pianism stays with the listener after the end of this recording in a
way that the music itself does not.
Part of what makes classical
music “modern” in sound seems to be the willingness of composers and performers
to blur the lines between musical genres, as seen clearly in two recent (+++)
vocal releases featuring tenor Kyle Bielfield and soprano Suzie LeBlanc,
respectively. Delos’ Bielfield disc, the singer’s first recording, includes a wide
variety of American songs from some composers considered classical (Carter,
Copland), some deemed popular (Foster, Berlin), and some who straddle both
worlds (notably Bernstein). There are three separate settings of the poem that
gives the disc its title, Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
– by Barber, Rorem and John Woods Duke (1899-1994). And there are works here
ranging from “Beautiful Dreamer” to “Simple Gifts.” The disc is a potpourri
designed to showcase Bielfield’s pleasant but not particularly distinguished
voice, the overall presentation sounding “modern” not because of anything
specific in the music but because of the singer’s willingness to tackle vocal works
in a variety of fields that are usually seen as separate. Somewhat similarly,
the CMC disc featuring LeBlanc focuses on a particular poet, Elizabeth Bishop,
rather than a specific style – although in this case all the composers are
modern (Alasdair MacLean, John Plant, Emily Doolittle and Christos Hatzis). LeBlanc
has a clear, pleasant voice and pronounces and accentuates the words well. None
of the music stands out especially from the rest structurally or in
effectiveness – all the settings are well done but not very striking. Whether
there are many listeners interested in LeBlanc, in Bishop and in these four
composers is an open question – the CD would seem to be designed for a very
limited audience. The bonus DVD, a 36-minute video called Walking with EB, makes the production even more of a narrowly targeted
one.
A third new vocal disc, Ave Maria from tenor Vittorio Grigòlo on Sony, deliberately reaches
into the past – the musical one and the singer’s own – but also includes
distinctly modern elements that are nevertheless redolent of earlier times.
Grigòlo (born 1977) was a
chorister with the Sistine Chapel Choir in the Vatican from ages 11 to 14, and
this disc is in many ways his return to his past. That means the music includes
a number of inevitable works – the Ave
Maria of Schubert, Ave verum corpus
of Mozart, Verdi’s Ingemisco and Franck’s
Panis angelicus – plus traditional sacred
music and pieces by church composers. But it also contains four pieces by
choirmasters whom Grigòlo
personally knew during his time in the choir, Cardinal Domenico Bartolucci and
Padre Giovanni Maria Catena. These are “modern” works that in sound are
anything but contemporary, their uplifting intent clear throughout and their
obeisance to church and musical tradition complete. There is a single secular
piece on the CD – Offenbach’s orchestral version of La Sérénade de Schubert
– but everything else is intended to showcase Grigòlo’s background and the
intensely religious experience of serving in the Sistine Chapel Choir. Grigòlo has a very fine tenor voice and
is quite clearly involved deeply in this music of beauty, serenity and
religious expression. However, the CD will be a bit much for many listeners,
particularly those who are not Catholic, to take, since even the most recently
composed music here fits so seamlessly into the older works that the disc has a
feeling of sameness approaching monotony. For most listeners, this will be a
(+++) CD, although those who are strongly religious or who especially enjoy
Grigòlo’s voice will delight in
it – and it seems to be targeted precisely at them.
But at whom is Three-Mountain Pass targeted? This (+++)
Innova recording is a genuine curiosity, again blurring the classical and
popular boundaries but this time blurring a variety of others as well. Van-Anh
Vanessa Vo, whose name is sometimes spelled with a variety of accents and
sometimes without, is a virtuoso on the Vietnamese đàn tranh, a 16-string
zither. She is also a composer: she wrote the CD’s title work. And she is an
arranger: the oddest track on the disc is her arrangement of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3. She performs most of
the tracks alone, but is accompanied on one called Green River Delta by the Kronos Quartet – and the sonic environment
for this piece is peculiar and fascinating. The music itself, though, is mostly
just peculiar to Western ears, and not terribly interesting despite the quite
obvious skill with which it is played. It is hard to know what to call a CD
like this, which is neither classical nor pop, not exactly “world music” and
not really a production focused on an artist – although it is clearly an
artistic showcase. The sound of the đàn tranh tends to wear thin after a while,
and even though the disc lasts only 46 minutes, it seems longer. It is
impossible not to admire the skill with which Van-Anh Vanessa Vo performs, but
it is not so easy to enjoy hearing her at such length. This is one music CD
that, oddly, might have been better as a DVD, since visual elements would have
made the somewhat monotonous sound of the music more interesting. Certainly the
disc sounds “modern” because of the way it combines so many elements and refuses
to be confined to a single form of music, but it is nevertheless a CD whose
potential appeal it is difficult to pin down – as is often the case with
“modern” music and the recordings that capture it.