(++++) ERAS IN CONTRAST

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Ailbhe McDonagh: The Irish Four Seasons. Lynda O’Connor, violin; Anamus conducted by David Brophy. AVIE. $19.99.

Ives: Piano Sonata No. 1; Three-Page Sonata; Bernhard Gander: Peter Parker. Joonas Ahonen, piano. BIS. $21.99 (SACD).

Kris Bowers: For a Younger Self; Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1. Charles Yang, violin; American Youth Symphony conducted by Carlos Izcaray. Orchid Classics. $16.99.

Music for Brass and Percussion by Tom Pierson, Milton Babbitt, David Felder, Iannis Xenakis, Charles Ives, Jon Nelson, Dimas Sedicias, Dámaso Pérez Prado, Giovanni Gabrieli, and Brian McWhorter (“boiled jar”). Metalofonico conducted by Jon Nelson. New Focus Recordings. $16.99.

     It is a longstanding practice in concert design to juxtapose well-known works that have long since gained audience acceptance with new ones that listeners have previously heard rarely, if at all. The thinking is that although people may not wish to pay to listen to music that they may or may not enjoy, they will be willing to hear something new if they get to experience the tried-and-true at the same concert. This program design can be quite carefully managed – for instance, placing a known piece first, a new one second, then having intermission, and then offering another familiar work for the concert’s second half. The idea is that even people uninterested in the new material will probably show up for the first half of the concert to experience the work they already know and enjoy, and are unlikely to walk out on the new piece when the event’s second half is still to come. If the little-known or unknown work fits in some way with whatever is well-known, this approach can be quite effective, providing insights into similar or contrasting handling of musical material and hopefully giving the new music a chance to be heard more than once (it is notoriously difficult for new works to receive a second concert performance).

     This approach to live concerts has been less common when it comes to recordings, but in recent years has gained increasing acceptance in the recorded-music field as well. How well it works continues to depend on the skill with which disparate works are put together for presentation on the same CD (although the matter is more complex with regard to digital-only releases, which make it super-simple for people to skip a work they do not know or wish to experience). One of the earliest and most-effective recorded juxtapositions has been that of Vivaldi’s ever-popular The Four Seasons with Ástor Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (“The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” the “port city” – hence the work’s title). Piazzolla’s work was actually conceived as four different pieces, one dating to 1965 and three to 1969, and it was not until Russian film composer Leonid Desyatnikov cleverly rearranged and fine-tuned the four from 1996 to 1998, increasing their parallels to Vivaldi’s concertos, that Piazzolla’s music began its ascent to the popularity it enjoys today. Recorded pairings of the Vivaldi and Piazzolla works are no longer surprising at all – and a new AVIE release seeks the same sort of prominence-through-juxtaposition for the world première of The Irish Four Seasons by Ailbhe McDonagh (born 1982). McDonagh’s parallels with Vivaldi are quite deliberate: her movement sequence of Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter is the same as Vivaldi’s (Piazzolla’s begins with Summer), and she specifically looks for Irish-inflected material inspired by Vivaldi’s music. The four movements of the new work are Earrach (Spring), Samhradh (Summer), Fómhar (Autumn), and Geimhreadh (Winter). Unlike Vivaldi’s set of four three-movement concertos (actually Nos. 1-4 of his Op. 8, Il cimento dell' armonia e dell' inventione), McDonagh’s work consists of four single movements: Spring is surprisingly gentle and lyrical, lacking the get-up-and-go usually associated with the season of growth after chill; Summer is considerably more Vivaldi-ish both thematically and in its effervescence; Autumn has a pleasantly dancelike quality that does reflect Vivaldi, but with a particularly distinct Irish accent; and Winter, whose opening stasis directly parallels Vivaldi’s handling of the same season, later returns to the lyricism of Spring before concluding in a very speedy 40-second burst of intensity and enthusiasm. The Irish Four Seasons proves to be a pleasant, comparatively unassuming work, well-crafted and neatly paying tribute to Vivaldi while asserting its own national origin to rather good effect. It deserves further hearings but will probably do best when juxtaposed, as on this recording, with the Vivaldi original. Lynda O’Connor plays the McDonagh stylishly and with enthusiasm, nicely accompanied by a string ensemble that she formed herself and that bears the rather odd name of Anamus (which sounds exactly like “animus,” that surely not being the intent of the moniker). It should not be construed as churlish to note that O’Connor’s and Anamus’ handling of Vivaldi’s original set of concertos is even better than what they offer in the McDonagh piece: sensitive, filled with elegant touches (from the clarity of individual notes to the many instances of well-thought-out ornamentation), and emotive without being inappropriately Romantic in sound or pacing. It is, in fact, a splendid performance that makes this disc well worth owning for the Vivaldi alone – thus increasing the chance that the McDonagh work will be heard more frequently, which appears to be the whole point.

     A fascinating BIS recording featuring Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen partakes in an unusual way of a form of juxtaposition known among television producers as the “hammock.” This involves scheduling two well-known, popular 30-minute programs, typically so-called “situation comedies,” with a separation of 30 minutes between them – and using the middle 30 minutes for a new, untried show. The idea is that people will tune in to watch the first popular program and stay put for the second, being introduced to the new material out of a kind of laziness – that is, an unwillingness to switch to some other channel for a relatively brief 30-minute period. Less common today than in the days when there were fewer available TV channels and programs, the “hammock” concept still survives in some circumstances, and is used cleverly in the Ahonen disc. Here the composer provides the “hammock” effect even though the specific works do not, since neither Ives’ Piano Sonata No. 1 nor his Three-Page Sonata can be thought of as highly popular and well-known – certainly not by comparison with the “Concord” sonata. Nevertheless, Ives himself is a known quantity and an endlessly fascinating one, so listeners predisposed to hear his music and experience some of it that is less frequently performed will presumably be sufficiently attracted to this disc to stay put for Peter Parker by Bernhard Gander (born 1969). As it turns out, the recording is a thoroughgoing success: Ahonen appears to have no difficulty with the considerable complexity of these Ives sonatas – which are almost on par with the technical enormity of the “Concord” – and seems to have a genuinely good time putting across Gander’s very contemporary work, which dates to 2004 and is a kind of Impressionistic and pianistically up-to-date presentation of the comings and goings of comic-book hero Spider-Man and his alter ego, whose name the work bears. Anyone who does not know the Marvel Comics icon will have difficulty figuring out what all the swoops and zips and full-keyboard antics and note clusters and arpeggios and odd pauses are supposed to refer to, and even listeners who do know the Spider-Man milieu may be hard-pressed to figure out all the referents. But anyone intrigued by up-to-the-minute piano compositions and performances will find Peter Parker an exhilarating experience and Ahonen’s playing completely engaging. Gander’s work, though, takes up just 11 of the disc’s 61 minutes – and thankfully, the focus on Ives is every bit as involving and impressive as is the handling of Peter Parker. Indeed, Ahonen’s playing is so good and these two Ives sonatas are so involved and involving that it is hard to understand why the works are not heard more frequently – except perhaps for their formidable technical difficulties, which Ahonen surmounts with apparent effortlessness. Piano Sonata No. 1 proves to have almost the same expansive scale as the “Concord,” and offers a fascinating object lesson in Ives’ penchant for interweaving hymn tunes and their straightforward harmonies into movements that are rhythmically complex, often highly dissonant, and bordering on atonality (and at times crossing the border). Some of the hymns that recur almost throughout the sonata remain quite well-known today, notably Bringing In the Sheaves. Others are less familiar, and in one case will bring today’s listeners some inappropriate and unintended bursts of humor: O Happy Day is now more widely known as the humorous drinking song How Dry I Am. Ahonen nevertheless plays all the music forthrightly, as Ives intended, and the result is a first-rate performance of a large-scale and highly impressive sonata whose neglect is demonstrably unfair. Ahonen also does a fine job with the Three-Page Sonata, so called because it was written by Ives on, yes, three pages. Small-scale but scarcely simple, the work – like the “Concord” – has an optional part for an instrument other than the piano, in this case the celesta, which Ahonen uses to good effect. Ives’ usual complexity shows here through material that ranges from a statement of the notes making up the name BACH to the use of the so-called Westminster chimes that sound not only in England but also in innumerable clocks in the United States. This is, in totality, a remarkably effective and interesting recording that shows just how winning a combination of material from very different musical time periods can be when thoughtfully presented.

     The juxtaposition of works on a new Orchid Classics CD featuring the American Youth Symphony under Carlos Izcaray is less obvious and more rarefied. A more-appropriate pairing of a work with For a Younger Self by Kris Bowers (born 1989) would have been something like Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben. This is not to say that Bowers’ modest symphonic piece shares Strauss’ grandiosity or that this orchestra would necessarily be a good one to handle the Strauss – but in terms of the programmatic intent of Bowers, there is more in common with Strauss than with Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1. Bowers composes for films and TV, and he brings some of the sensibility honed in those media to For a Younger Self, which is conceived as a journey of self-exploration by a protagonist represented by solo violinist Charles Yang. The three-movement work is not quite a symphony, not quite a violin concerto. From the start, it dips into and out of contrasting musical and emotional spaces: Bowers presses ahead with driving, usually dissonant and percussion-heavy sections that he alternates with more-lyrical, more-emotional material seated firmly in the expressive mode of films – which is to say that these sections tug at the heartstrings in thoroughly predictable ways. The entire second movement, marked Larghetto (Gently), swoons and pleads in its extended solo passages, then evokes quicksilver emotional changes (accentuated by brass outbursts) for purposes of contrast. It sounds quite fine – Bowers certainly knows how to write for an orchestra – but is emotionally obvious (those harp arpeggios!) and vapid. The brief finale is filled with a kind of perpetuum mobile fiddle playing that produces a feeling of bounce and brightness, accentuated by snare drum and cymbal emphases that add to the impression of rushing toward an upbeat conclusion that indeed arrives quickly and with a final speed-up. For a Younger Self is fun to hear in many ways, but it is entirely a surface-level work that sounds as if it could be a warm-up for Bowers to enter the concert-hall field in the future – on its own, it really does not have much to say. And it does not meld particularly well with Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 (1906), originally written for 15 instruments and heard here in a 1935 arrangement for full orchestra. This is early Schoenberg (his Op.9), best known for its extensive use of quartal harmony (built on perfect fourths); it is a one-movement work in five distinct sections. The structural care, well-considered use of dissonance, and effective contrasts among the work’s segments keep it engaging throughout – if not always “easy” for listeners, even a century-plus after its composition. The complexity underlying the Schoenberg serves to highlight the comparatively simplistic approach of Bowers’ piece – and while the Schoenberg is played very well indeed, it is not really enough by itself to justify owning a (+++) CD on which it is offered as the secondary piece. For what it is worth, the disc is a short one – 48 minutes – and would have had room for Ein Heldenleben rather than the Schoenberg if those involved in the project had been thinking in that direction.

     An even more extreme assemblage of material from very different eras – consisting of compositions written during a period of more than 400 years – appears on a New Focus Recordings release featuring trumpeter Jon Nelson (born 1956) and an ensemble that includes brass, percussion and electric guitar. And if that sounds like a thoroughly weird instrumental combination for a work by Giovanni Gabrieli (1558-1613) – well, it is. Yet the arrangement by Louis Hanzlik of Gabrieli’s Canzona No. 25 is actually respectful and quite effective as heard here – a pleasant surprise indeed. From the Steeples and the Mountains by Charles Ives (1874-1954) does not come across quite as well, but Fanfare for Double Brass Sextet by Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) is very well-played indeed, although musically not fully convincing. The longest work on the CD is Music for a Solemn Occasion by Tom Pierson (born 1954), a work written for a wedding rather than anything funereal – this is a piece whose highly dissonant opening chords lead to an extended exploration of sonorities rather than a focus on emotional depth. In all, there are 13 works here, two of them by Brazilian composer Dimas Sedicias (1930-2002): Raymond My Friend, for tuba solo and notable for the extreme low notes with which it opens; and Metalofonico, which starts with a shrill whistle and immediately becomes a riotous proclamation of dance music (the CD concludes with a third Sedicias item, Tuba Out Take). One other composer is heard more than once: David Felder (born 1953), whose Incendio (an arrangement of a work originally for chamber choir) progresses gently at first, then becomes strongly chordal; and Shredder, a more-dramatic work built over timpani. Also on the CD are Khal Perr by Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), a work of complex and constantly shifting soundscapes; the very bright and thoroughly engaging Mambo #5 (arranged for winds by Nelson) by Dámaso Pérez Prado (1916-1989); Nelson’s own Insomnio, built on the sounds of a drum set and featuring strong contrasts between outgoing and quiet material; and Lucre Iota by Brian McWhorter (born 1975) writing as “boiled jar” – this being a self-consciously avant-garde work that uses mechanistic raucousness to establish its bona fides with audiences inclined to present themselves as an “in” crowd. To the extent that anything ties together this disparate material, it is the skillful playing of Nelson and his ensemble: the CD is certainly attractive from an aural perspective for those who fancy brass combinations and recombinations. But this (+++) mixed bag of a disc, despite being likely to appeal to enthusiasts for brass music, is not particularly effective in blending and contrasting works from very different time periods, written in very different styles, by composers of widely varying predilections. It will likely be most attractive to brass and percussion players who can appreciate the nuances of the scoring and arrangements of the various pieces, and can imagine themselves as part of the ensemble delivering these enthusiastic renditions of highly varied material.