(+++) VOICES AND MORE

Rhona Clarke: Choral Music. State Choir Latvija conducted by Māris Sirmais. Métier. $18.99.

Jonathan Östlund: Vocal and Instrumental Music. Divine Art. $27.99 (2 CDs).

James Cook: Excerpts from “Abishag” and “Jane the Quene.” Joanna Songi, soprano; Roberto Abate, tenor; Adam Green, baritone; Paul McKenzie, piano. Diversions. $13.99.

Frederic Hand: Music for Guitar. Frederic Hand, guitar; Lesley Hand, vocals. ReEntrant. $16.99.

     Topics and sounds of the past remain fascinating to contemporary composers, perhaps especially so in the field of vocal music. And top-notch vocal ensembles are as expert at bringing modern compositions to vivid life as they are in singing older material. The first-rate, smooth-voiced State Choir Latvija shows this clearly on a new Métier CD devoted to works by Rhona Clarke (born 1958). And Clarke’s choice of material is equally clear in showing how composers of today continue to interpret and reinterpret some material that has fascinated musicians for many centuries. From the opening crescendo of the first piece on the disc, O Vis Aeternitatis (2020), Clarke proves herself adept at writing for massed voices that are declaiming Latin texts with emotional engagement as appropriate in the 21^st century as in the far more traditionally religious times hundreds of years ago. Indeed, Clarke’s Two Marian Anthems (2007) use texts that listeners familiar with older vocal music will know well: Regina Caeli and Salve Regina. However, this does not mean that Clarke always handles the texts in the expected manner. This is especially true, for instance, in Ave Atque Vale (2017), whose opening (and later repeated) drum stroke sets a surprising, distinctly funereal tone that emphasizes the latter part of the title phrase, “Hail and Farewell.” On the other hand, the Three Carols on Medieval Texts (2014) are set with the light transparency that would be expected, aside from a few unanticipated dips into gloom in the central Lullay, my Liking (the other two are Glad and Blithe and Make we Merry). The most-extended work on this CD is a Requiem (2020) that is not as extensive as most works of its type but still includes 20 minutes of heartfelt and particularly elegantly set versions of Introit, Lux Aeterna, Pie Jesu and In Paradisum. The combination of evanescence and earthiness in this work fits the topic particularly well. The five remaining pieces on the disc are shorter, self-contained, and generally more secular. They are The Kiss (2008), A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day (1991), Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep (2006), The Old Woman (2016), and Rorate Caeli (1994). In all cases, Clarke’s settings fit the words well and allow the texts to come through clearly; and the fine pacing and clarity of the choir under Māris Sirmais show the music in its best and most-effective light.

     Modern choral music, no matter how well composed and performed, is something of a specialty item – and a new two-CD release on the Divine Art label, featuring the music of Jonathan Östlund (born 1975), is even more so. That is because there is such a large amount of material here – a true wealth of music for those already familiar with and interested in this composer, but an overwhelming offering for most potential listeners. The discs contain nearly two-and-a-quarter hours of material, and it is of all types: choral, vocal, chamber, and orchestral. Sorting through all of this music, much less listening to it in the order presented (the sequence is essentially arbitrary), is a lot to ask of an audience; and the attempt to bracket the material by sandwiching it between the brief Imago Theme at the start of the first disc and Imago Theme 2 at the end of the second is not particularly useful. To the extent that there is any connection among these disparate works, it lies in the way that Östlund uses and pays tribute to the past – a way quite different from that used by Clarke. For one thing, Östlund frequently makes use of Impressionistic techniques, employing instruments and voices to emotive effects that are intended to elucidate scenes including La Neige de Noël, Turquoise Spring, Night of June, and Zephyr. For another thing, Östlund deliberately quotes from, paraphrases or creates fantasias or variations on specific music of the past, from Bach’s Komm süßer Tod, Komm selge Ruh to Reger’s Mariä Wiegenlied. This element of Östlund’s approach is most clearly on display in the seven-movement Bouquet (Suite for Two Clarinets), which is a set of fantasias – on a Swedish folk song, Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5, and Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, plus The Last Rose of Summer, two parts of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Tchaikovsky’s June. The mixing of classical and folk music works well, thanks to the specific items chosen by Östlund and his way of delving into their expressive potential. And in fact, a great many of the pieces heard here are inviting and pleasant to listen to, staying firmly in a tonal universe and paying respectful tribute to music of the past from a wide variety of sources, including several from Östlund’s native Sweden. Listeners unfamiliar with Östlund may be pleasantly surprised at the accessibility of his works and the consistent quality with which he produces them. And all the performances, by a very large number of soloists and ensembles, are engaging and effective. Nevertheless, this is a great deal of material by a single contemporary composer, and one whose sensibilities tend not to vary much from piece to piece. Therefore, for most audiences, this recording will be far more enjoyable in small doses than as a start-to-finish experience.

     The experience is more or less opposite, at least temporally, on a Diversions CD featuring excerpts from two operas by James Cook (born 1963). This entire disc runs just half an hour – which will whet the appetite of listeners who are favorably inclined toward contemporary opera composition, but will be more than enough for those less interested in it. Cook’s music is testimony to the continuing interest of some modern composers in the potential intensity and over-the-top melodramatic possibilities of opera, a form once memorably described by Franco Zeffirelli as “a planet where the muses work together, join hands and celebrate all the arts.” The operas Abishag and Jane the Quene, however, are scarcely celebratory. The title character in Abishag is a young woman assigned to the Biblical King David to lie next to him and give him body heat, since in his old age nothing else could warm him. She was not his concubine but was regarded as one by some in the palace, the result being intrigue that, in the book of Kings, led to the assassination of one of David’s sons. The three excerpts from Abishag are the opening and closing scenes and the brief David’s Liebestod, all arranged for voice and piano. The opening is suitably dramatic, the closing suitably quiescent, and David’s Liebestod is simply suitable to its topic. Jane the Quene is about Lady Jane Grey, England’s “Nine Days’ Queen” in the 16^th century. This too is a story of intrigue and family drama, and one that does not end well for the title character. The two excerpts on the CD are Gentle Mr. Aylmer, the reference being to an English bishop who tutored Jane, and Love’s Farewell, which is as gentle and wistful as would be expected from its title. There is not enough material on this disc to judge the worth of the two operas themselves, but there is enough to show that Cook knows how to handle various vocal ranges and typical-for-the-stage operatic concerns.

     The voice is expected in an opera recording, of course, but certainly not in one of guitar music. Yet there are three voice-and-guitar works on a CD on the ReEntrant label that features the music and playing of Frederic Hand (born 1947). These pieces – The Poet’s Eye, I Am, and There Is a Splendor – are nicely sung, or rather sung-and-declaimed – by Lesley Hand; and the unusual circumstance of classical-style writing for voice and guitar (as opposed to standard folksongs in which the guitarist does the singing) proves interesting, if not really more emotionally appealing than the rest of the CD, which is for guitar alone. The other works here are called Renewal, Ballade for Astor Piazzolla, The Passionate Pilgrim, Romantic Etude, A Waltz for Maurice, Simple Gifts, Trilogy, Late One Night, and Cooper Lake. Among them, Simple Gifts – Hand’s very perky arrangement of the simple Shaker tune well-known from Copland’s Appalachian Spring – is surprising in its counterintuitive approach to the material. A Waltz for Maurice is counterintuitive as well: it is scarcely danceable and is more of a reminiscence than anything else. Everything on the CD is brief, Trilogy being the longest piece because it is in three movements – marked Moderato, Gently, and Allegro. This work, whose final movement is the most interesting-sounding of the three, and Late One Night are the earliest works on the disc, dating to 1977. Renewal, Ballade for Astor Piazzolla, and The Passionate Pilgrim are the most recent pieces, dating to 2021. The gentleness of Renewal at the disc’s opening is reflected at the CD’s conclusion in Cooper Lake, a contemplative piece in which the guitar sings gently of peace. Hand plays his own music with considerable feeling and, not surprisingly, technique that matches the works perfectly, since he wrote them for himself to perform. Other classical guitarists will be especially enamored of this disc, in which the emotional capacity of the guitar is well-explored and is used to create a wide variety of moods and feelings. Non-guitarists will likely find less of interest here, although every work is at least intermittently interesting – this is another of those CDs that is better heard in several listening sessions than in a single start-to-finish one.