Music by William Byrd, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Richard Dering, Salomone Rossi, Leonora Duarte, Alfonso Ferrabosco I, and Enric de Paris (‘Enrrique’). Sonnambula (Jude Ziliak and Toma Iliev, violins; Elizabeth Weinfield and Amy Domingues, tenor viols; Matt Zucker, bass viol; James Kennerley, harpsichord and tenor); directed by Elizabeth Weinfield. AVIE. $19.99.
Project Encore, Volume 2. Timothy McAllister, alto and soprano saxophone; Liz Ames, piano. Neuma Records. $15.
The urge to connect the unconnected is strong in many musical circles, even if the connections have little or nothing to do with the music itself. Suffice it to say that the new AVIE recording by the excellent period-instrument ensemble Sonnambula offers works that have essentially nothing in common except for the performers’ obvious affection for and devotion to them. But apparently calling this CD “a bunch of pieces from various eras that we really enjoy playing and hope listeners will like to hear” is a bit too straightforward (and inelegantly phrased). So the disc is titled “Passing Fancy: Beauty in a Moment of Chaos,” and the underlying notion is that even though these works were written in entirely different time periods and musical eras (as early as 1460, as late as 1694), they are connected through the tribulations of their composers, who needed to hide their inner selves in one way or another. This is a pretty tortured form of connectedness that quickly shows itself entirely irrelevant to the works on display here, all of which have considerable charm and are written with understanding and skill – whether the composers’ reputations have lasted or have long since been effaced by time. Really, the attractiveness of this disc lies wholly in the chance to hear some excellent period-instrument playing of pieces that, in most cases, listeners will not have heard before – there is certainly a wealth of musical material from all time periods that remains to be explored and revivified, and the members of Sonnambula assuredly do their part with their classy handling of all the music here. The best-known composer on this disc, by far, is William Byrd (c. 1540-1623), heard in two works, The Bells and My Lady Nevell’s Ground – which appear not one after the other but at two different places on the CD, one of many ways of drawing attention to the “personal likes” thinking that is the real foundation of this disc. Leonora Duarte (1610-1678) is also heard in works –three of them – separated by others: Sinfonia No. 5 and, later, Sinfonia No. 4, and eventually Sinfonia No. 7. The two pieces here by Richard Dering (c. 1580-1630) are Fantasia No. 6 and, later, Fantasia No. 4. The four by Salomone Rossi (c. 1570-1630) are Gagliarda detta La Norsina, Sinfonia a 5, the fascinating Elohim Hashivenu (Psalm 80), and Sonata undecima detta La Scatola. The on-disc separation of these offerings is particularly unfortunate, since Rossi’s distinctive style is especially worthy of exploration, and hearing the four pieces – including his setting in Hebrew of Psalm 80 – would serve as a notable introduction to this little-known figure. The three remaining composers on the disc are represented a single work each. In Nomine a 5 by Alfonso Ferrabosco I (1543-1588) appears midway through the recital; the overture to Céphale et Procris by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665-1729), the latest-composed work offered here, opens the recording; and Mi querer tanto vos quiere by the entirely obscure Enric de Paris (fl. 1460s), the earliest-composed piece on the disc and the only one other than Rossi’s Psalm 80 to call for a voice, serves as the CD’s conclusion. The musical choices are highly personal, even idiosyncratic, and the arrangement of pieces on the disc does not invite exploration of the composers’ worlds, even when more than one piece by the same person is included. So the recording’s raison d’être is, in reality, simply to show how skillfully the members of Sonnambula handle works from various eras in historically informed performances that thoroughly explore the charms of each piece. For aficionados of high-quality small-ensemble playing of mostly unfamiliar repertoire, the disc will prove quite enjoyable; for listeners hoping for somewhat stronger connections among the pieces offered here, the disc will indeed turn out to be just a passing fancy.
What connects the 17 works on a new Neuma Records CD featuring saxophonist Timothy McAllister is comparatively straightforward: McAllister commissioned all the pieces, all are by contemporary composers, and all have lengths in the “encore” range – about two to not quite seven minutes. So the title Project Encore makes sense, the disc’s “Volume 2” designation resulting from this being the second McAllister CD of its type, the first having appeared in 2022. Thus, this whole CD is in effect an encore – and this encore-to-an-encore actually contains a work called Encore, by Chihchun Chi-sun Lee, so the purpose of the whole project is about as clear as it can be. Not surprisingly when it comes to material by today’s composers, the music blurs and often oversteps boundaries, with some works clearly in the classical tradition, others drawing on jazz, some mixing genres, some focusing on virtuosity as is common in “encore” offerings, some going against that tide by emphasizing lyricism. The disc as a whole is a showcase for McAllister, whose fine breath control and sensitive exploration of the saxophone’s expressive capabilities make all the music worth hearing even though, in truth, most of the material is on the thin side and unlikely to entice listeners into repeated rehearings. A few pieces do stand out, though. Wynton Marsalis’ Book Book Nova, which opens the disc, is in three interwoven parts and shows Marsalis’ skill in chamber music – not his usual field. Adam Silverman’s McAllister’s Ceilidh does a fine job of capturing the rhythms of an Irish/Scottish reel and is redolent throughout of Gaelic folk music. Jennifer Higdon’s Line and Andrew Bishop’s The Spaces Between explore instrumental sonorities to good effect in very different ways. Ellen Rowe’s Lost and Found features highly attractive warmth of sound and expression and is almost-lyrical throughout. John Christopher Wineglass’ Wild Rhapsody! deserves the exclamation point in its title: it begins innocently enough, but becomes increasingly complex halfway through and retains a brash attitude to the end. And speaking of attitude, some of these works display a typical-for-contemporary-music determination to assert sociopolitical concerns, with titles including Dreams of a Better Tomorrow, Coda for World Peace, and Mutually Assured Destruction – although the last of these, by Sean Hickey, is unusual in that it actually does have some musical meaning: much of it sounds as if the instruments are attacking each other almost to the point of, well, mutually assured destruction. In truth, McAllister and pianist Liz Ames are far more companionable than they are hostile, both holding forth in their own spheres of influence and each complementing and effectively supporting the other. There is much that is pleasant in these encore-like pieces, if not much that is profound, and the disc will certainly be enjoyable for saxophone players seeking repertoire expansion – and for everyday listeners who enjoy the saxophone’s sound and will welcome the opportunity to find out how some of today’s composers choose to make use of it.
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