Harry
Ore: Piano Works based on Eastern and Latvian Folk Tunes. Zhaoyi Long, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.
Villa-Lobos:
Valsa da dor for solo piano; João de Souza Lima: Chorinho for viola and piano;
Osvaldo Lacerda: Appassionato, Cantilena, e Toccata for viola and piano; Ernani
Aguiar: Meloritmas No. 5 for solo viola; Lindembergue Cardoso: Pequeno Estudio
for solo viola; Brenno Blauth: Sonata for viola and piano; Chiquinha Gonzaga:
Lua branca from the operetta “O Forrobodó.” Georgina Isabel Rossi, viola; Silvie Cheng, piano. Navona. $14.99.
Britten:
Eight Folksong Arrangements for High Voice and Harp; Vaughan Williams: Along
the Field; Ivor Gurney: Five Elizabethan Songs; Roger Quilter: Four Songs, Op.
14; Gerald Finzi: Let Us Garlands Bring, Op. 18. Scott Robert Shaw, tenor; Emilie Bastens, harp; Eva
de Vries, violin; Luba Podgayskaya, William Drakett, and James Williams, piano.
Divine Art. $18.99.
Composers can carry listeners to pretty much any geographic area. They
do not have to visit the locations themselves to do so if they study and absorb
a region’s music and culture and then incorporate them into their own
compositional creations. There are nowadays all sorts of overdone worries about
“cultural appropriation” in such circumstances, as if only people from a
particular place can create and/or perform music from or associated with that
place. But again and again, audiences worldwide are enriched by exposure to
music from regions with which they may not be familiar – and it is at best an
academic point to argue, for example, whether Brahms or Bartók is a “better”
composer when it comes to the use of Hungarian melodies and rhythms. Thus, it
will hopefully be possible to enjoy the piano works of Harry Ore (1885-1972) on
an MSR Classics CD without twisting oneself into knots wondering about levels
of “authenticity” associated with them. Ore was Latvian, so the three pieces
here that are derived from Latvian folk tunes draw on his own background. First Rhapsody and Second Rhapsody are both variegated works with nicely contrasting
sections that range from the bright and dancelike to the more-serious and often
surprisingly dissonant. The third Latvian-derived piece, Two Bagatelles, neatly contrasts a short and sweet Adagio cantabile with an even shorter, bright
and very catchy Prestissimo. Zhaoyi
Long plays all the works with enthusiasm and a particularly strong emphasis on
their rhythmic intensity (sometimes, however, bordering on pounding the
keyboard). But the Latvian material makes up less than half of this disc. The
rest draws on Ore’s wide-ranging travel throughout the Orient – to China, the
Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and especially Hong Kong and
Macau, where he eventually settled and lived for more than half a century. Long
plays a fair selection of the music that Ore wrote based on the folk songs and
melodies of these lands. South China
Fantasy: The Lady and the Flowerseller, Op. 17, No. 1 has a clear Oriental
cast to its tunes and rhythms, but its overall impression is that of a pleasant
salon-like miniature. Five South Chinese
Folksongs, Op. 17, No. 2 includes straightforwardly harmonized, rather
foursquare presentations of the melodies, with the delicate scene-painting of The Autumnal Moon as Seen from a Palace
and the amusing stop-and-start motion of The
Hungry Horse Rings the Bell being especially attractive. Two Southern Chinese Melodies, Op. 18,
are quite short and nicely contrasted, the impressionistic A Thunderstorm in Fair Weather seeming, however, to be more of a
gentle spring shower. Macau Lullaby, Op.
19, is quite slow and quiet and lacks any real sense of exoticism within
its tenderness. The most-interesting of these pieces is the four-movement Concert Suite Based on Oriental Music, Op.
23, whose movements draw, respectively, on Japan, South China, the
Philippines, and Indonesia. Here Ore does a fine job of absorbing the nations’
varying musical elements and making them his own through arrangements that
explore but do not exploit the sounds he encountered and lived with during his
travels and residences. The overall impression of the CD is of pleasant, nicely
played salon music with some unusual thematic, harmonic and rhythmic elements –
nothing overly challenging to the ear, but a well-performed recital of
not-quite-trifles that draw effectively on a variety of geographical and
cultural sources.
The specific source is Brazil for the music on a Navona disc featuring
Georgina Isabel Rossi and Silvie Cheng – and that means, not surprisingly, the
inclusion of a work by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). But the solo-piano Valsa da dor is deliberately placed
midway through the disc, as the fourth of seven pieces, so that the recording
essentially revolves around its best-known composer but does not over-emphasize
him. The five-and-a-half-minute piece itself is a nicely harmonized, rather
melancholic dance that sways gently and does not rigidly adhere to any specific
dance rhythm; Cheng plays it with good pacing and fluid rhythm. Villa-Lobos is
the only composer on the CD who will likely be familiar to most listeners. The
disc, which intermingles solo and dual-instrument pieces throughout, opens with
Chorinho for viola and piano by João
de Souza Lima (1898-1982). This is a well-proportioned duet in which the viola
is more lyrical, the piano more acerbic. Next is Appassionato, Cantilena, e Toccata for viola and piano by Osvaldo
Lacerda (1927-2011). The work’s three movements reflect their titles almost too
precisely – not quite to the point of parody, but certainly to that of
precision labeling. Then there is Meloritmas
No. 5 for solo viola by Ernani Aguiar (born 1950). The piece’s three
movements give Rossi ample opportunity to explore the sonic and expressive
capabilities of her instrument and engage with sonorities that run the gamut
from expressive to incisive. The Villa-Lobos solo-piano piece follows, after
which there is Pequeno Estudio for solo
viola by Lindembergue Cardoso (1939-1989). This proves to be a work that
employs silence to the same extent as sound, and that engages more with string
technique than with any particular attempt at audience connection. In contrast,
Sonata for viola and piano by Brenno
Blauth (1931-1993) is in traditional three-movement form and, while scarcely
eschewing modern compositional elements, does seem designed to communicate with
listeners while also giving the performers something of a workout in the outer
movements – this and the Villa-Lobos piece are the most appealing on the disc.
The CD concludes with a two-minute encore in the form of an operetta excerpt
called Lua branca, by Chiquinha
Gonzaga (1847-1936) – arranged by the performers. It has a stronger flavor of
Brazil than anything else on the disc except for the Villa-Lobos item, and
makes for a pleasant conclusion to a recording that gives some insight into
Brazilian composers but less into the influence on them of Brazilian folk or
indigenous material.
The musical flavor is entirely British on a new Divine Art CD featuring tenor Scott Robert Shaw performing no fewer than 30 songs in five cycles, mostly folksong-inspired. Art song is always a specialty item, so it is no surprise that these works are not particularly well-known even though several of their composers certainly are. The disc opens, however, with some less-than-familiar material: Five Elizabethan Songs by Ivor Gurney (1890-1937). Shaw quickly establishes his bona fides with clear pronunciation, accurate accentuation, and warm expression that does not overdo vibrato – the straightforward declamation fits these settings well. The third and shortest song, Under the Greenwood Tree, with its bouncy piano introduction (played by Luba Podgayskaya), is especially pleasant. Each song cycle here gives Shaw a different accompanist. Gurney’s set is followed by Vaughan Williams’ Along the Field, which has eight parts, four of them lasting fewer than 90 seconds each; here the accompaniment is provided by violinist Eva de Vries. The voice-and-violin mixture produces an unusual sonority, and Vaughan Williams’ restraint in use of the instrument means that some of the songs are almost spoken, albeit with singsong delivery. The amount of dissonance in some songs, such as The Half-Moon Westers Low and The Sigh That Heaves the Grass, is somewhat surprising, although not out of keeping in works of this vintage (1927); and the use of the violin is quite nicely proportioned, from its near-absence in some songs to its importance in complementing the voice in Good-Bye and Fancy’s Knell. This cycle contrasts interestingly with Four Songs, Op. 14 by Roger Quilter (1877-1953). Here Shaw’s accompanist is pianist William Drakett, who is particularly sensitive to the scene-setting that is given over to his instrument. A kind of quiet melancholy pervades this cycle, and Shaw nicely conveys the sense of longing underlining the mood. Next on the disc is its most intriguing offering, Britten’s Eight Folksong Arrangements for High Voice and Harp, with Shaw accompanied by Emilie Bastens. Like Vaughan Williams in his voice-and-violin songs, Britten clearly intends the unusual instrumentation of this cycle to contribute significantly to its impact, and so it does: the gently lilting harp envelops the voice throughout without ever competing with it. The songs in which voice and harp seem to go in different directions (Lemady, Bird Scarer’s Song) are especially interesting, but those in which the harp plays an additive emotional role (I Was Lonely and Forlorn, David of the White Rock) are equally effective in a different way. The CD concludes with Let Us Garlands Bring, Op. 18 by Gerald Finzi (1901-1956); here the pianist is James Williams. The mood of these five songs is mostly on the dour side, although Who Is Sylvia and O Mistress Mine, the shortest song settings, offer at least a degree of bright contrast. There is enough similarity among most of the cycles to make this disc a treat for aficionados of folksong-based art song and interpretations in general, and 20th-century British music in particular. Listeners who enjoy the chance to be immersed in this nation’s folk material and this compositional time period will be more than pleased by the disc – and although that means the CD will have only limited appeal, it also indicates that it will be accepted enthusiastically by members of that specific audience.
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