Telemann: Concerto for strings
and basso continuo, TWV 43:E2; Concerto for viola, strings and basso continuo,
TWV 51:G9; Concerto for flute, strings and basso continuo, TWV 51:D2; Quantz:
Concerto for flute, strings and basso continuo, QV 5:45; Concerto for two
flutes, strings and basso continuo, QV 6:8a. Claire Guimond and Alexa
Raine-Wright, flutes; Jean-Louis Blouin, viola; Arion Baroque Orchestra
conducted by Alexander Weimann. Early-music.com. $16.99.
Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No.
1; Gubaidulina: In tempus praesens. Simone Lamsma, violin; Netherlands
Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Gaffigan and Reinbert de Leeuw.
Challenge Classics. $18.99 (SACD).
Ravel: Jeux d’eau; Sonatine;
Miroirs; Gaspard de la nuit; Pavane pour une infante défunte. Stewart
Goodyear, piano. Orchid Classics. $13.99.
Ives: A Symphony—New England
Holidays; Central Park in the Dark; Orchestral Set No. 1—Three Places in New
England; The Unanswered Question. Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Sir. Andrew Davis. Chandos. $19.99 (SACD).
Sometimes the combination of
material in a concert or on a CD makes the totality of the listening experience
particularly interesting – a kind of “whole greater than the sum of its parts”
situation, musically speaking. This is the case with the new Arion Baroque
Orchestra recording of works by Telemann and Quantz on the Early-music.com
label. This orchestra, conducted by Alexander Weimann (who also plays the
harpsichord), is reliably excellent in performances that are closely attentive
to period style and instrumental performance techniques. And the ensemble
certainly has plenty of works to choose from among Telemann’s vast outpouring
of music in all forms and Quantz’s flute-focused pieces. There is nothing
especially outstanding in any single work here: all are very well-constructed
and provide ample virtuoso opportunities for the performers (soloists and
ensemble alike), with the two-flute concerto by Quantz perhaps the most
interesting piece by virtue of being the only one in a minor key (G minor).
What stands out here, however, is not so much the individual works as the
combination of them. Telemann and Quantz were contemporaries and worked in
similar late-Baroque style, but their handling of themes and harmonies differs
in interesting ways, and the differences in their use of the flute are
particularly distinctive: Quantz was a famed flute virtuoso and clearly expects
a great deal of flute soloists, while Telemann is more concerned with blending
the flute with the strings and having it stand out as first among equals. The
three works featuring flute are intriguingly combined here with one using a
solo viola – and therefore having considerable warmth and a feeling of greater
depth than many Baroque works for string soloists (those being principally
violin). And it was clever to include here one concerto that is only for
strings, which gives the Arion players a chance to shine on their own and
showcase the individual virtuosity that, in the other works, is largely at the
service of the soloists. This is a beautifully played disc featuring very-well-made
music that is distinguished not only by its innate quality but also by the way
the individual works fit into the overall conception of a CD whose content has
clearly been very carefully thought out for maximum effectiveness.
The juxtaposition of the
Russian/Soviet violin concertos on a new Challenge Classics SACD is similarly
thoughtful and equally successful. Some 60 years separate the two concertos,
the original version of the Shostakovich having been written in 1947-48 and the
Gubaidulina in 2007. But while there have been changes, arguably advances, in
musical language between one and the other, there are surprising resonances of
expression and emotion that make the two, heard one after the other, into a
striking duality. Shostakovich’s first concerto is also his first or second use
of the DSCH motif, referring to himself, that was to become increasingly
prominent in his later works. And it is music that echoes or pays homage to
that of several other composers: Elgar (cello concerto) in the first movement,
Beethoven (“fate” motif) in the third, Stravinsky (Petrouchka) in the fourth. Yet the work has an undeniably
individual stamp, and indeed ushers in a series of pieces in which
Shostakovich’s music became more and more personal and self-referential.
Written for David Oistrakh and later modified by him in collaboration with the
composer, this concerto offers four movements of specific musical types:
nocturne, scherzo, passacaglia and burlesque. Intensity, sometimes to a demonic
extent, dominates after the expansive and expressive first movement. The second
is an angular, vehement dance; the third is portentous in its use of both the
“fate” motif and the DSCH motto; and the finale’s surface appearance of
devil-may-care abandon may well belie a more serious purpose in the same way as
does the finale of the Fifth Symphony. The challenge for performers – one to
which Simone Lamsma and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under
James Gaffigan rise commendably – is to maintain the concerto’s overall flow
while allowing the distinctive elements of each movement to come forth clearly.
This performance is both warm and biting, heartfelt and driven. As such it
nicely complements Lamsma’s reading of Sofia Gubaidulina’s second concerto,
this time in a live rather than studio recording, one in which the orchestra is
conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. Gubaidulina called her first violin concerto
“Offertorium” and labeled her second “In Tempus Praesens.” Like Shostakovich, Gubaidulina
had a specific violinist in mind when writing her second concerto: Anne-Sophie
Mutter, who has been an indefatigable advocate of the work since giving its
première. Lamsma’s reading
shows that this music rises above the for-one-violinist-only perspective. The
music, which unfolds in a single movement lasting half an hour, resembles that
of Shostakovich in its lurching from silence and solemnity to violent and
unpredictable outbursts. But the five episodes of Gubaidulina’s concerto come
across as spiritual challenges facing humanity at large, or perhaps an Everyman
character, rather than ones as personal as those that Shostakovich encountered.
Gubaidulina’s orchestration is dark – omitting violins in the orchestra – and
highly colored, including harpsichord, celesta, harps, Wagner tubas and a
gigantic tam-tam. The music is intricate and powerful, and if it somewhat
overreaches at times and sometimes seems rather overdone in its sheer
intensity, it nevertheless comes across as impressive both for its virtuosic
requirements (the solo violin plays almost continuously throughout) and for the
theatricality of the demands it makes of the audience. As a companion to the
Shostakovich concerto, Gubaidulina’s work is even more interesting than on its
own.
This is not to say
that it is necessary to mix composers in order to create effectively contrasted
performances. Pianist Stewart Goodyear plays only Ravel on a new Orchid
Classics CD, but the works themselves are varied enough and different enough in
effect to make the disc a nice combination of moods. Opening with the directly
impressionistic Jeux d’eau (1901),
Goodyear then offers the pleasant (if rather inconsequential) Sonatine, presented with a pleasant lilt
and a kind of salon-music overview that fits the material quite well. Miroirs, finished at about the same time
as Sonatine (1905), is a
significantly more substantial piece, technically very difficult and at the
same time highly evocative of everything from sadness to ocean waves to bells. Giving
the piece a sense of forward movement despite its basically unconnected,
suite-like structure, is difficult, but Goodyear does so, and in the process
shows a very different and strongly contrasted side of Ravel in comparison to
that heard earlier on this release. Then Goodyear offers another technically
very demanding and complex suite, Gaspard
de la nuit (1908). The first movement of this work, Ondine, is actually reminiscent of Jeux de l’eau, a parallel of which Goodyear is clearly aware – to
good effect. Le gibet is taken at a
rather fast tempo here, although it is no less eerily atmospheric for all that,
the distant bell sounds setting the mood effectively. Scarbo, on the other hand, is if anything slightly slower than
usual, with Goodyear handling the work’s repeated notes and double climax in
first-rate fashion that evokes a nightmarish mood quite different from that in Le gibet. Goodyear concludes this
recital with the earliest work on the disc, Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899), which returns listeners to the
atmospheric world of Jeux de l’eau and complements the peculiarities of Gaspard de la nuit by providing a strong
contrast that shows both the diversity of Ravel’s piano music and the ways in
which his characteristic approaches persist through works of very different
types.
In a similar vein on a
Chandos SACD, Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra showcase
both the similarities among variegated Ives works and the differences that make
the pieces distinctive. Ives wrote four numbered symphonies, and he also used
the word “symphony” to describe New
England Holidays, whose movements, however, can be and often are played as
individual pieces (an approach of which Ives approved). This work shows Ives’
version of impressionism, which is as different as can be from that of Ravel.
The whole piece gives impressions of scenes associated with four specific American
holidays. Washington’s Birthday, for
example, evokes cold and a dreary winter through dissonant whole-tone chords,
then uses dissonance differently to portray a jostling crowd during a barn
dance, while Decoration Day opens with
music that clearly reflects meditation and memory and then moves into specific
tunes evoking the solemnity of a cemetery (including Taps). The third movement, The
Fourth of July, features quotations from various patriotic songs, while the
finale, Thanksgiving and Forefathers’
Day, offers sounds of a Puritan past through music that Ives originally
composed for a church service. Davis treats the work with seriousness and a
kind of universality that comes across surprisingly well, considering the
uniquely American nature of the holidays that Ives here celebrates. In fact,
the Melbourne players show equal sensitivity toward Three Places in New England, although those places are about as
distant from Australia as they can be. The orchestra and conductor have clearly
tapped into a layer of underlying meaning in Ives that is superimposed on his
distinctive national (if not nationalistic) music-making. Ives intends to have
listeners experience the three places by hearing the music representing them –
again, in this respect he is creating an impressionistic work – and if the folk
tunes through which Ives communicates may not be well-known to the Melbourne
players, the piece’s attempt to present an accessible and forthright display of
old-fashioned American ideals and patriotism clearly resonates with the
performers and conductor. The remainder of the recording features two works
that might have been presented more effectively if heard one after the other,
as they sometimes are with the titles A Contemplation of Nothing Serious and A Contemplation of a Serious Matter.
However, with their more-common titles of Central Park in the Dark and The
Unanswered Question, they are frequently played as entirely unrelated
pieces, and are used here as shorter works that, first, separate the longer
ones; and, second, conclude the recording with one of Ives’ most innovative and
still-impressive feats of thoughtfulness and scoring (trumpet, flute quartet
and strings). Central Park in the Dark offers sounds of the night,
sounds of a city street, sounds of competitive pianos – it is music, for sure,
but also a work showcasing the noises of the city in Ives’ time. The
Unanswered Question, on the other hand, has sounds that seem to come from
another world and from a timeless realm, its contrast with the down-home
earthiness of much other Ives music apparent from start to finish. Ives was
himself a fascinating musical mixture of the crude and sophisticated, the tonal
and the polytonal, the 19th century and the avant-garde of the 20th.
This recording manages to show many of his sides and, in so doing, leaves an
impression of a single composer made of a great many parts that are potentially
conflicting but that in actuality add up to a highly complex whole.
No comments:
Post a Comment