Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, “Trout”; Hummel: Piano Quintet in C, Op. 114a. I Musicanti (Zsolt-Tilhamér Visontay, violin; Robert Smissen, viola; Richard Harwood, cello; Leon Bosch, double bass and director); Peter Donohoe, piano. SOMM. $18.99.
Smetana: String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life” (orchestrated by George Szell); Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29, “Hammerklavier” (orchestrated by Felix Weingartner). The Orchestra Now conducted by Leon Botstein. AVIE. $19.99.
Christopher Tyler Nickel: Suite for 2 Oboes & 2 Cor Anglais; Symphony for Flute Choir. Roger Cole and Karin Walsh, oboes; Beth Orson and Eric Marks, cor anglais; Sarah Jackson, piccolo; Christie Reside, Rosanne Wieringa, Laura Vanek, and Paul Hung, flutes; Anne-Elise Keefer, alto flute; Paolo Bortolussi, bass flute; Clyde Mitchell, conductor. AVIE. $19.99.
Alexis Lamb: Murmuration; Bill Clark: Moiré; Carlo Nicolau: Espejismos; Ljova: On the Street Where I Live; Matthew Welch: Variasi Ombak; Dennis Tobenski: Starfish at Pescadero. Percussia (Ingrid Gordon and Frank Cassara, percussion; Margaret Lancaster, flute; Susan Jolles, harp; Ljova, violin and fadolin; Melissa Fogerty, soprano). Neuma Records. $15.
Sometimes a change in the expected makeup of a musical ensemble can create a startlingly effective work – no matter what the reason for the atypical instrumental lineup may have been. Schubert’s marvelous “Trout” Quintet is a perfect example of this: the elimination of the expected second violin and use instead of a double bass gives this gorgeously flowing, eternally fascinating music an aural quality all its own. The double bass does not actually deepen the sound of the chamber group – instead, thanks to Schubert’s gift of melodiousness, it anchors the remaining instruments in a way that the cello alone cannot do, and it provides a sense of heft to the proceedings without ever making anything sound heavy or overdone. It happens to be the bass player Leon Bosch who is the moving force behind the ensemble called I Musicanti, and it is no surprise that his participation in the “Trout” is superb – but what ultimately matters here (and Bosch is clearly aware of this) is that this is still chamber music, a work in which all five players give and take, meld and diverge, for the sake of a totality that is greater than the sum of their individual parts. The excellent SOMM recording of the “Trout,” in which individual lines come through just as clearly as do ensemble passages, showcases the way in which instrumental combinations, in and of themselves, can be significant contributors to a work’s effect. And of course Schubert was not the only one to use this particular instrumental grouping. The “Trout” – which happens to be Schubert’s first mature chamber work – was explicitly written to use the same grouping as Hummel’s Op. 87 Piano Quintet. And, interestingly enough, Hummel returned to this chamber ensemble in 1829 (a year after Schubert’s death), after he had written his “Grand Military Septet,” Op. 114, for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, cello, double bass and piano. Hummel – a veteran arranger and rearranger of his own music as well as that of many others – created a version of Op. 114 for the same instruments he had used in Op. 87. It is this version, numbered as Op. 114a, that is paired with the “Trout” here – and, surprisingly, this is the first recording of Op. 114a. The members of I Musicanti do the Hummel full justice, and it proves to be a fascinatingly un-military work in many ways. Far from a collection of martial tunes (despite its brisk call-to-arms opening), the quintet is highly expressive and leans heavily on the skill of the pianist to bring forth its emotive content. Notably, the third movement, marked Menuetto but clearly a well-proportioned scherzo, suddenly and unexpectedly ends pianissimo – and Hummel then wraps up the fourth and final movement by recalling the conclusion of the third, giving this supposedly military material a distinctly quiet and unanticipated ending. In the Hummel as in the Schubert, the double bass provides an anchor that moors the music in some unusual and very effective ways – and gives listeners an attractive sound world that is no mere gimmick but a genuine alternative to the usual makeup of a piano quintet.
Hummel was scarcely the first or only composer whose arrangements amounted to rethinkings of material by wrapping it in different guise. There have been some surprising and revelatory transcriptions of works that are sometimes familiar in their original form, sometimes less so. Two examples are paired on a fascinating AVIE disc featuring Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now. The first work is Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1, “From My Life,” in the sensitive and idiomatic – but rarely heard – arrangement by George Szell. A conductor known for precision and attention to detail, Szell as arranger displays the same characteristics. A composer and composition teacher until he devoted himself full-time to conducting, Szell had a well-honed sense of appropriate sonorities for the deep emotions packed into Smetana’s 1875 work, which concludes with the composer’s heartfelt lament for (and eventual acceptance of) the deafness that he suffered late in life. Szell made the arrangement in 1939-1940 and recorded it with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1941, but it has not often been heard since then. Botstein takes the full measure of the music without forcing any over-the-top emotionalism into it. All four movements have distinct personal qualities, from youth and happiness and optimism through delight in dance to a beautiful celebration of love for the woman who would become Smetana’s wife (and who died of tuberculosis at age 32) – and then, in the finale, Szell aptly displays the tragic elements of Smetana’s later life, and Botstein presents the music with sensitivity and an excellent sense of balance between the earlier part of the movement (which is folklike and upbeat) and the later part (in which tragedy, including deafness, dominates). Szell’s sensitive musical thinking is mirrored in Botstein’s well-balanced performance, and the orchestra plays feelingly without overdoing emotions that both Smetana and Szell were at pains to keep manageable. The Smetana/Szell transcription is paired with Felix Weingartner’s 1925 orchestration of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata (actually one of two that Beethoven labeled that way, but the only one to which the title stuck). Remarkably, Weingartner’s orchestration, which he recorded in 1930 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, was most listeners’ first exposure to the sonata: the first commercial recording of the original piano version, played by Artur Schnabel, was not released until five years later. Weingartner was not the first to detect multiple symphonic elements in the Hammerklavier and to have a feeling that the piano was somehow inadequate for the full expression of Beethoven’s intent and thoughts. To that end, Weingartner does not so much rethink the sonata as bring out the beyond-the-piano elements that he detected in it. The orchestration is less subtle than Szell’s of the Smetana quartet, more overtly symphonic in orientation, and highly convincing on its own even when it gives somewhat short shrift to some of the subtleties and delicacies – in the Scherzo, for example – within what is generally a large-scale and grand sonata. The huge third movement comes across particularly effectively here: Botstein and the orchestra take the Adagio sostenuto tempo indication quite seriously and allow the expansiveness of the music to emerge and grow ever more extensive. The extremely complex fugal finale is nicely arranged by Weingartner to highlight individual sections through careful use of specific instrumental sections at specific points (muted strings in one section, strong brass accents elsewhere, and so forth). The overall sense of this transcription is that it is a personalized one, being Weingartner’s “take” on the Hammerklavier rather than merely an attempt to arrange it for a large ensemble. In contrast, Szell – working with a Smetana original that is far more inward-looking than the Hammerklavier – seems concerned with reproducing, in a controlled way, the emotional environment around which Smetana initially built his quartet. The transcriptions are as different as the pieces transcribed, yet both communicate remarkably effectively and enhance the accessibility and enjoyment of the works as originally written.
Instrumental choice is also a big part of the attraction of music by Christopher Tyler Nickel (born 1978) on another AVIE release. Both the pieces here date to 2017 and both are woodwind-focused, but the specific instrumental complements that Nickel chooses give the works very different characteristics – and character. The Suite for 2 Oboes & 2 Cor Anglais is a secular work with a strong religious gloss: each of its four movements takes its title from traditional Christian liturgy (Kyrie, Dies Irae, Lacrimosa, Gloria). To some extent, the music is representational – of the feelings associated with each of the titles if not the specific words used in the church. The combination of oboes and cor anglais gives the work an almost-but-not-quite monochromatic sound, full of subtle aural variations created by differentiation of what are essentially very similar instruments (the oboe is pitched in C, the larger cor anglais in F). Nickel creates flowing lines throughout the work, resulting in a certain sense of sameness among the movements even though their underlying inspirational material is quite different. The halting and suitably sad third movement is particularly effective, its liturgical underpinnings clear even for listeners not familiar with them. And the bright, bubbly finale makes its points very directly and without any necessary referent, sacred or secular. The work will appeal strongly to oboe and cor anglais players and audiences familiar with its underlying inspiration, although it will likely come across as a bit overextended and tonally bland for others. The Symphony for Flute Choir, although also in four movements, is a very different and significantly larger work. Lacking the underlying programmatic (or at least semi-programmatic) foundations of the suite, this is a very large-scale work indeed, and it is reasonable to wonder, before hearing it, whether so much material can be carried effectively by a flutes-only ensemble. For the most part, somewhat surprisingly, the answer is yes. Nickel writes for flutes very well, idiomatically, and with clarity for the instruments’ various ranges. He does not engage in common contemporary practices such as range extension and technique alteration to keep the music interesting – instead, he essentially creates a fairly traditional symphonic canvas and uses flutes rather than a wider range of instruments to bring it to life. Flutes actually take the melodic lead in quite a lot of orchestral works, so hearing them in that role here is scarcely unexpected – but having them then carry through developmental material, sections of varying form and structure, and emotionalism of all sorts, is unusual and genuinely intriguing. The episodic first movement of the symphony does sprawl a bit too much, but the more-compact second, which features call-and-response elements, comes across quite well. The third movement wants to convey more emotion than is actually does – it is pretty enough but scarcely profound. The finale has plenty of bounce and joviality despite being, in form, rather scattered and disconnected. As a whole, this is a (+++) disc that is filled with interesting elements and some genuinely creative musical thinking – plus a willingness to experiment with pulling wind instruments into venues larger than those they usually occupy. For performers on these instruments, the CD will be something of a must-have and will be endlessly fascinating. For audiences at large, though, it is of greater interest for what it tries to do than for what it actually accomplishes.
The interplay of instruments and interweaving of their sounds is also at the heart of a Neuma Records CD featuring the ensemble Percussia. The disc takes its title, Murmuration, from a three-movement Alexis Lamb work that is based on bird flight but simply sounds like a pleasant concatenation of differing timbres and forms of musical-note generation. It is pleasant rather than deep music, nicely displaying various instruments’ sounds in juxtaposition without making too many aural demands of listeners. Bill Clark’s Moiré, also in three movements, is more rhythmically emphatic but somewhat analogously blends instrumental sounds for the sake of the blending rather than to evoke any feelings in particular. Carlo Nicolau’s extended single-movement Espejismos, here arranged by Percussia, features both regular and irregular dance rhythms and some interesting and extended displays of flute virtuosity. On the Street Where I Live, written by Percussia member Ljova (who plays the viola and six-stringed fadolin), is a four-movement work filled with resonance personal to the composer. For a general audience, it is somewhat combinatorial and unfocused, rhythmically varied (and often rhythmically uncertain) and veering from lyricism to dissonant intensity unpredictably. Matthew Welch’s four-movement Variasi Ombak is a mixed-genre piece that sometimes juxtaposes very different harmonic worlds and sometimes superimposes one on another. It is interesting intellectually but not musically very convincing, and seems to run out of melodic ideas rather quickly, thereafter essentially substituting coloration. The six-movement song cycle Starfish at Pescadero, by Dennis Tobenski, concludes the disc by adding a soprano voice to the unusual instrumental mixture heard elsewhere on the CD. Melissa Fogerty sings the songs well, but her voice is almost a distraction from the underlying instrumentation – for example, in the second song, Cliffs and coves are also gold, the vocal material is distinctly less interesting than its accompaniment. The words for the cycle, by Idris Anderson, are not especially evocative of distinct feelings and emotions, and the vocal settings are unexceptional. The result is a set of songs in which the unsung material sounds considerably more distinctive than the vocal elements – perhaps especially so in the fourth song, I’m being silly on our walk up the beach. In all, this is a (+++) disc that features many interesting elements and some genuinely intriguing aural mixtures – the composers use the instrumental availabilities in widely varying ways. None of the music comes across as especially memorable in and of itself, though – although the pieces by Nicolau and Lamb are worth rehearing from time to time.
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