Brahms: Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 for Clarinet or Viola and Piano; Schumann: Märchenbilder. Christian Euler, viola; Paul Ravinius, piano. MDG Scene. $24.99 (SACD).
BAN: Stories of Censorship. Apollo Chamber Players (Matthew J. Detrick and Anabel Ramirez, violins; Aria Cheregosha, viola; Matthew Dudzik, cello). Azica. $15.99.
Even when the specific tale being told is unspecified, there are musical works that seem to speak directly, as narratives, to listeners – and all three on an MDG Scene release featuring Christian Euler and Paul Ravinius are among them. The emotional intensity and unflagging beauty of Brahms’ two Op. 120 clarinet sonatas make them directly communicative both in their original versions and in the composer’s modifications of them for viola – with which Brahms himself was not entirely satisfied. Taking a cue from the composer’s displeasure at his own alterations of the clarinet part for viola, Christian Euler returns to the original version of the sonatas and plays that version on his instrument – providing an intriguing window into the ways in which Brahms’ viola adaptation was or was not an apt transcription. In truth, this is mostly an academic exercise, since the modifications made by Brahms were not terribly extensive and served mainly to simplify performance on the viola and take advantage of the ways in which its mellow sound differs from the clarinet’s despite the two instruments’ largely overlapping ranges. Still, the chance to hear the sonatas this way is welcome, and Paul Ravinius’ use of a 1901 Steinway with an elegant, resonant sound adds to the aural pleasure of the recording. The performances are highly expressive and also expansive – indeed, Sonata No. 1 is if anything a touch too broadly conceived, its opening Allegro appassionato emphasizing the second word of the tempo indication more than the first. Still, gracefulness is there in abundance in the third-movement Allegretto grazioso. And the opening Allegro amabile of Sonata No. 2 is as warm and loving as can be. It is interesting that Brahms, in these last of his chamber works, was so successful at blurring the sound of keys that are usually very different that the first sonata’s F minor and the second’s E-flat major emerge from the same emotional space – telling, as it were, two aspects of the same story. Between the Brahms sonatas, Euler and Ravinius offer Schumann’s four-movement Märchenbilder, a work that, despite its overall title, illustrates no specific fairy tales. The broad, if brief, opening movement sounds here like a prologue, with the quicker middle movements having well-differentiated characteristics that override the similarities of their tempo markings (Lebhaft, lively, and Rausch, quickly). And the gentle meandering of the fourth and longest movement, although it is melancholischem enough, also glows with warmth that conveys a sense of a story’s satisfactory conclusion, if not necessarily a forthright “happily ever after” ending.
The stories are more overt, more aware and more argumentative on a new Azica CD featuring Apollo Chamber Players – but the music itself, with its strong societal focus and real-world-issues impetus, is less effective in making points beyond the obvious. Half of the eight works here include spoken material intended to display and highlight the tales being told – or, more accurately, the points being made through presentation of those tales. Forms of censorship and repression are the foundational areas explored by all the composers. Thus, The Book of Names by Marty Regan, narrated by George Takei, tells of Japanese-American internment – including that of Takei and his family – during World War II, and on the severe difficulties of rebuilding shattered lives after the war. The specificity of the text is only part of the point, with the piece intended to argue that today’s sociopolitical challenges flow naturally from the thinking that led to the internment camps and could potentially lead in a similar direction again, if indeed it has not already done so. Interestingly, Regan’s piece is given twice, the second time in a non-narrated string-quartet version that ends the CD and actually communicates emotive pathos more effectively than does the narrated version, if with less pinpoint focus of reference. Jasmine Barnes and Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton focus on African-Americans in history and literature in their Revise? The title refers to revisionist history, and the narration by “spoken word poet” Mouton and eight-voice choir unsurprisingly incorporates spirituals, hip-hop and other material associated with African-Americans into a work of extended social commentary. There is also a narrator in Quantopia/The Thought Police by Paul D. Miller (AKA DJ Spooky), with the string quartet and electronics backing up verbiage taken from George Orwell – all in the name of resisting contemporary promulgation of “fake news” as amplified by social media. There is also narration, including pre-recorded audio, in Sis Çani/Fog Bell by Erberk Eryilmaz. The work is intended as a rallying cry against authoritarianism and censorship, and to that end incorporates words by Turkish statesman Kamal Ataturk. The three remaining pieces on this (+++) CD try to make their points without using words to direct audiences in what to think about and how to respond. BAN by Allison Loggins-Hall addresses book censorship by rather cleverly forcing instruments into silence and by using “stomp box” sounds of books being slammed. String Quartet No. 6: Firewall by Mark Buller fully explores string-quartet capabilities without the addition of other instruments or vocal material, using a prelude and four brief movements to explore themes raised by four well-known fictional works. Familiarity with the novels is essential for the music to have its intended effect, although it is well-made when heard simply as music and without a specified gloss of meaning. And Arman (Hope) by Hamayoun Sakhi incorporates the lutelike rubab (played by the composer) and Indian hand drums (tabla, played by Rajvinder Singh) into a work inspired by Afghanistan’s turmoils and incorporating some traditional Afghan music – all with a more-positive orientation than the disc’s narrated works seek, although without musically suggesting any sort of naïveté about the myriad challenges of war and postwar recovery. It is somewhat ironic, in light of the overarching notion of advocacy underpinning this release, that the narrated storytelling material, for all its sincerity, is less worthy of multiple hearings than are the nonverbal works – which seem, as music so often does, to have more to say even when the specificity of what they are saying is comparatively lacking.
No comments:
Post a Comment