Brahms:
Sonata No. 1 for Clarinet or Viola and Piano; Meine Lieder, Op. 106, No. 4;
Intermezzo in B minor, Op. 119, No. 1; Intermezzo in A, Op. 118, No. 2; Wie
Melodien zieht es mir, Op. 105, No. 1; Gerald Finzi: Five Bagatelles. Helen Habershon, clarinet; John Lenehan, piano.
Divine Art. $18.99.
Robin
Stevens: Music for Cello and Piano.
Nicholas Trygstad, cello; David Jones, piano. Divine Art. $18.99.
Music
for Violin and Piano by Bernstein, Solano, Piazzolla, Khachaturian, Gardel,
Still, Granados, Rimsky-Korsakov, Albéniz, and
Coleridge-Taylor. Aisha Syed Castro,
violin; Martin Labazevitch, piano. Divine Art. $18.99.
Three recent and very different Divine Art recordings manage to show,
singly and together, the extent to which the piano – combined with another
instrument, whether string or wind – can produce highly personalized recitals
of works that sometimes contrast strongly, sometimes seem to exist in parallel,
and sometimes seem to be combined in a basically arbitrary way. Exceptionally
high-quality playing is a characteristic of all the recordings and is in fact a
major reason for listeners to consider owning them. The music offered, however,
in the mixtures in which it is presented, tends to be of less interest than the
skill of the performers playing it.
Thus, the exemplary presentation of clarinet-and-piano works by Helen
Habershon and John Lenehan is impressive and engaging from start to finish. But
the choice of pieces to offer in this recital is simply strange. Brahms’ Op.
120 sonatas for clarinet (or viola) and piano have always been seen as a pair,
including by the composer himself, and while there is certainly no mandate to
perform both of them, it is hard to understand why a listener would want a disc
that offers only No. 1 – and why performers would want to take this work out of
its context as the first piece of two. This might be understandable if
Habershon or Lenehan had discovered a piece of worth comparable to that of the
Brahms sonata and wanted listeners to have a chance to compare and contrast the
works. But that is not the case at all. Instead, the performers offer four
Lenehan arrangements of late Brahms music that was not written or intended for
this instrumental duo; and while Lenehan does a fine job crafting versions of
these pieces that are effective in clarinet-and-piano guise, there simply seems
to be no reason for doing so beyond being capable of this form of creativity.
Again, everything is well-played, but to what purpose? The musical waters are
further muddied by the other material on the disc that was written originally for clarinet and piano: Five Bagatelles by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956). These are very
pleasant, very nicely made, very minor and very evanescent pieces, more like a
set of five encores than anything substantial. They fall squarely into the
“light music” category, which is a perfectly respectable place to be; but they
simply do not fit with the Brahms sonata and the four arrangement oddities
transformed by Lenehan from Brahms’ originals. Interestingly, since the entire
CD runs just 53 minutes, there would have been plenty of room on it to include
both Brahms Op. 120 sonatas and still keep the Finzi and Brahms-arrangement
material as, perhaps, curtain raisers and encores. The decision not to do this
indicates that the selection of music here is quite deliberate and is in
service of – well, what, exactly, is not quite clear. The disc is worth hearing
for the quality of the playing but is disappointingly arbitrary in the specific
material that Habershon and Lenehan choose to present.
Matters of repertoire are considerably clearer on a cello-and-piano disc
featuring Nicholas Trygstad and David Jones: the entire CD is devoted to music
of Robin Stevens (born 1958). This is a disc of generous length – 78 minutes; and
that raises the question of what sort of audience is expected to want this
amount of chamber music by this single composer. This is not to say that
Stevens’ cello-and-piano music (or solo-cello music, some of which is also
included here) is uninteresting. In fact, much of it is quite listenable and
seems genuinely to have things to say. On the other hand, a number of the
pieces here are trifles, not all that different conceptually from the Five Bagatelles of fellow British
composer Finzi, although Stevens’ harmonic language is more distinctly modern
(if not, in and of itself, more distinctive). Eleven of the dozen works on this
CD were created in the 21st century; all are world première recordings. And so the question is raised again:
for whom is the disc intended? It begins with by far the most substantial
composition offered here: Sonata
Romantica (2019), an extended (indeed, somewhat overextended) 27-minute
foray into expressiveness that is in fact Romantic in some ways while being
post-Romantic in others and pseudo-Romantic in still others. There is a lot of
material here, and Stevens is determined to present all of it with seriousness
– which is how Trygstad and Jones perform it. The earnestness is undoubted, but
the work as a whole is a bit “much of a muchness,” interesting to hear once but
not the sort of piece to which listeners are likely to return again and again. Indeed,
Stevens is more effective and often more expressive when he creates in miniature.
No other piece on the CD lasts as long as seven minutes, and nine works or
movements are less than two minutes long. Two of those nine do not last even 60
seconds. They are movements of the earliest work here, Three Epigrams (1994), which immediately follows the sprawling Sonata Romantica and provides the strongest
possible contrast to it. The epigrams are designated “Foreboding,” “Gentle
Lament,” and “Clockwork Toy,” and their straightforward simplicity is winning,
as is Stevens’ willingness here to make small points and then simply stop. The
remaining pieces on the CD are of various types. Carried on a Whimsy (2016/2020), for solo cello, is followed by Three Character Pieces (2004/2021) –
another triple helping of brief, focused cello-and-piano works. Sospiri (2016) for solo cello sighs
appropriately; On the Wild Side
(2018/2020) for cello and piano is actually fairly well-behaved; A Probing Exchange (2016) for solo cello
is short and amusing. This is followed by the five-short-movement Balmoral Suite (2017) for cello and
piano – yet another collection of effective little pieces, this one with a
strong family orientation that is well-described by the movement titles: “The
Family Gathers,” “Grandpa Hankers for the Past,” “A Graceful Beauty,” “Enter Great-Grandpa,”
and “Rough and Tumble in the Nursery.” Stevens is particularly adept at
encapsulating the portraits of family members of various ages, with the final
and shortest movement providing a suitably upbeat and enthusiastic conclusion. This
suite would have made a fine conclusion to the CD, but there are still four
pieces to come. One for solo cello, complete with ellipsis in its title, is Much Ado About …? (2016). It is a short
character piece, not unlike several others here, but is a standalone rather
than part of a suite. Say Yes to Life
(2005), for cello and piano, is somewhat more substantial (five-and-a-half
minutes) and more serious, if not exactly deep; Unfailing Stream (2016), for solo cello, is even longer (this is
the almost-seven-minute work), and it is sincere and involving, if perhaps a
bit overstated. The disc concludes in appropriately lighthearted form with A Birthday Trifle (2018) for cello and
piano, which shows in less than two minutes just how skillfully Stevens writes
for these instruments and just how neatly he can keep matters on the lighter
side when he is not trying a touch too hard to be important and expressively
earnest. Many listeners will find material to enjoy on this disc, although its
totality will likely be a bit much for most.
If the diversity of material on the Stevens disc showcases the
composer’s interests and predilections, the hodgepodge offered by violinist
Aisha Syed Castro and pianist Martin Labazevitch strictly reflects the
performers’ concerns. That is, it reflects those of Castro (born 1989), who is
clearly the driving force behind this recording. She is a violinist of
considerable feeling, one quite unashamed of wearing her heart on her
instrument’s sleeve, and one as comfortable with melodious pop-style music as
with melodious classical pieces. Of the 13 works on this disc, 12 are
essentially encores, pieces to display Castro’s technique at spinning musical
stories and, from time to time, allowing her to offer virtuosity for its own
sake. The extent to which the CD’s arrangement is capricious – or, more
accurately, highly personal, based on Castro’s predilections – is shown by her
inclusion of three separate excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, which are the first,
ninth and 11th works on the disc. Her interest in this theater music
is obvious; her lack of interest in any cohesiveness in presenting it is
equally clear. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with this: the CD is a
showcase for Castro (with Labazevitch backing her up ably and suitably
unobtrusively), and the idea is clearly to appeal to listeners interested in
some fine violin playing and not overly concerned about the repertoire on
display. Certainly Castro has an eclectic taste in short, not-especially-deep
music. There is a little here from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and from Khachaturian’s Gayaneh. There are Kreisler’s arrangements of a Granados Spanish
dance and a tango by Albéniz (Kreisler also did the
Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement). There is an arrangement by pianist Labazevitch of
the traditional Aisha’s Prayer,
clearly chosen because the title reflects the violinist’s name. And there is
one piece here that is slightly more than an encore: the three-movement Suite for Violin and Piano by William
Grant Still, which appears midway through the recording and provides a welcome
chance to hear Castro perform music of somewhat greater length and depth than
is offered on the rest of the CD. There are some less-familiar pieces here to
complement the better-known ones, and everything is handled with assured style
and a strong sense of Castro’s personal engagement with the material. The disc
is not really very satisfying on a musical basis, but it will appeal to
listeners already familiar with Castro and to those whose enjoyment comes more
from engaging with very well-done performances than from what specifically is
performed.
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