(+++) CULTURES IN FOCUS

A Ukrainian Wedding. Cappella Romana conducted by Nadia Tarnawsky. Cappella Records. $17.99.

Carl Teike: Marches, Volume 1. The Royal Swedish Navy Band conducted  by Alexander Hanson. Naxos. $19.99.

     Music is sometimes described as a universal language, but the reality is that it comes with so many dialects and accents that it can often be the entry point to understanding of a particular culture – based on instruments used, forms employed, purposes for which the music is designed, the overall sound of the material, and much more. Cappella Romana’s A Ukrainian Wedding release is a good case in point: this is a brief (45-minute) presentation of no fewer than 26 wedding-focused songs presented in five sections called “The engagement,” “Invitation to the wedding,” “Preparing the korovai [wedding bread],” “Preparing the bride,” and “The morning of the wedding.” Nadia Tarnawsky not only leads the singers (specifically, the female members of Cappella Romana) but also carries listeners through the proceedings, providing fascinating booklet notes on Ukrainian wedding customs. The enclosures also include all the songs’ original texts, in Ukrainian and transliteration, plus English translations – plenty of material to imbue this project with a feeling of connection to the culture in which the music originated and where it still flourishes. The songs are small encapsulations (mostly only lasting a minute or so, some even less than a minute) of Ukrainian wedding traditions. Despite the brevity of individual pieces, the ceremony itself, as Tarnawsky points out, traditionally lasts at least a week; the music is thus a series of punctuation points rather than the accompaniment to a single focused ceremony that is typical in Western weddings. Some of the songs are antiphonal, some unison choral, some in call-and-response mode. All are harmonically straightforward, but there are audible differences between the ones associated with wedding preparations and those used during the actual wedding ceremony. The 12 included in the section called “The morning of the wedding” have religious themes that are broadly familiar even if the specifics of the music are not: “God, come to us,” “Hail, Mary,” “O Most Holy Virgin Mother,” and even “Psalm 127” (“Blessed are all who fear the Lord,/ Who walk in His ways”). The purity and clarity of the women’s voices are outstanding throughout, and the emotional distinctions between the more-secular wedding-preparation material and the sacred music are communicated very effectively. Certainly this is not a recording that will be universally appealing, nor is it intended to be: it is an offering of insight into the beauty and cultural depth of one aspect of Ukrainian life, a doorway to understanding as well as a chance to experience one of life’s major milestones as it is celebrated in a realm that may be largely unfamiliar to listeners but that is filled with its own plenteous portion of beauty, charm and solemnity.

     The cultural elements of the marches of Carl Teike (1864-1922) are less obvious and may be more of a surprise to listeners who consider themselves already quite well acquainted with the march form. Teike’s marches do not bear comparison with those of, say, Sousa or Tchaikovsky, because they emerged from a different tradition – and one that is now less than familiar to many audiences. In Teike’s time, German marches were strictly separated into concert, street and overtly military types (the last category essentially being “parade marches” and not necessarily aggressive). Teike served for a time in a military band (and later in the police force in Potsdam), and all his marches on a Naxos CD featuring The Royal Swedish Navy Band under Alexander Hanson have a distinct parade-ground feel to them. The first two pieces on this 17-item disc essentially encapsulate Teike’s overall march production: Prinz-Albrecht-Marsch was the first one he composed, and Alte Kameraden was and remains his best-known work – indeed, it is one of the most popular marches of all in some regions, comparable in its fame to some by Sousa. Yet no one hearing this very well-played CD would deem Teike a “march king” in the Sousa sense: Teike’s works are self-limited to the street and parade ground, being very well-made but generally foursquare structurally, and scored with care and skill but without showing any particular affinity for unusual use of instruments (much less for expansion of the traditional complement of the military band). Interestingly enough, the single offering on this disc that is not a march – a waltz-rondo intriguingly called Nur ein Versuch (“Just an Attempt” or “Just a Test”) – shows that Teike did have interests and capabilities beyond those of the traditional march, and could write works at somewhat greater length when he was disposed to do so (Nur ein Versuch lasts seven minutes, more than twice as long as most other pieces here). There are plans for further releases of Teike’s music, and it will be interesting to find out the extent to which he brought creativity to non-march material while also gaining insight into the specific cultural milieu within which he produced works in the form with which he is most closely identified.