Hearth: Music for Winter Holidays. Miró Quartet (Daniel Ching and William Fedkenheuer, violins; John Largess, viola; Joshua Gindele, cello). Pentatone. $17.99.
Michael Hersch: Medea. Sarah Maria Sun, soprano; Schola Heidelberg and Ensemble Musikfabrik conducted by Bas Wiegers. New Focus Recordings. $18.99.
An intriguing way of turning the seasonal non-seasonal, or at least attempting to do so, is to rethink familiar tunes that are usually known for their vocals and to eliminate the verbiage – then reimagine the music, to a greater or lesser extent. That is essentially what 15 contemporary composers have done for a Pentatone CD called Hearth, on which the Miró Quartet performs newly composed (or re-composed) versions of mostly well-known material for Christmas, Chanukah, and other wintry celebrations. The composers warmed to their task in a variety of interesting ways. For example, In Dulci Jubilo really sounds like a composition for string quartet, complete with introduction and main thematic section, in Clarice Assad’s arrangement. The First Noël gets a straightforward and broadly conceived treatment from Kevin Puts, and Jingle Bells surprises with pervasive pizzicati in Michi Wiancko’s interpretation. Some composers use traditional material as a jumping-off point, as Reena Esmail does with the Appalachian carol, I Wonder as I Wander, into which she introduces material from her Hindustani background. And in the most extreme example of interpreting/reinterpreting seasonal offerings, Hyung-ki Joo presents an original composition called Songs of Christmas Past that is not only the longest work on the CD, running eight-and-a-half minutes, but also the one that draws on the most sources, ranging from Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky and Handel (including, seemingly inevitably, retaining vocal elements from the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Messiah, a work that is not about Christmas). Joo’s pastiche is, perhaps inevitably, overdone to the point of amusement and self-parody, which is certainly not its intent; but if it misfires, at least it does so in what may be considered the holiday spirit. Other treatments here are a touch more questionable, such as Joel Love’s handling of Silent Night, the gentlest and in many ways most beautifully simple of well-known carols, which here opens with some unseemly dissonance before settling down; and Karl Mitze’s Deck the Halls, which proffers some good-ol’-mountain-fiddlin’ that is unsettling and somewhat more high-spirited than it really needs to be (although it remains suitably good-natured throughout). Also here are Jewish contributions: Sam Lipman’s handling of the traditional hymn Ma’oz Tzur and Gabriel Kahane’s version of Halfspent (Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming), both being darker and more deeply serious than most of the rest of the material on the disc. Anna Clyne’s original composition Mother’s Lullaby is another strongly emotive offering, its dissonances redolent of sorrow. Other works here are In the Bleak Midwinter, arranged by Alex Berko, with an overall sound that is chilly indeed; Wexford Carol in a pleasantly engaging version from Jeff Scott; O Come, All Ye Faithful, given a somewhat bleak sound by Michael Begay; Dejlig er Den Himmel Blå (Oh How Beautiful the Sky), as arranged with perhaps a touch too much aural complexity by Paola Prestini; and We Three (based on We Three Kings) by Derrick Skye, also reimagined in somewhat overdone fashion. Taken as a whole, this set of 15 non-vocal rethinkings of familiar winter-holiday vocal works offers many pleasantries and, from start to finish, first-rate quartet playing – even though the whole project does not really rise above (or, more accurately, go beyond) its seasonal origins. Listeners are unlikely to trot out the disc throughout the year; it works best for audiences familiar with the underlying material and interested in something a bit out of the ordinary to hear during bleak and/or celebratory wintertime.
At any time of year, bleakness is paramount in the ancient tale of Medea, and words seem absolutely necessary to convey the tragedy and horror of her story. The love-and-betrayal theme seems ideally suited for opera and has in fact led to quite a few such stage works, including ones by Charpentier, Cherubini, Pacini, Milhaud and others. Michael Hersch (born 1971) created his own one-act take on the story in 2022, and it is now available as a New Focus Recordings release. The work is short – three-quarters of an hour – but packed with intensity of emotion, extreme dissonance of sound, and philosophical content of a very contemporary sort. Hersch includes a chorus as well as a single soloist in the role of Medea, but the choral material is not that of a traditional “Greek chorus.” Instead of moving the story ahead or taking an objective overview, the choral singers upbraid and judge Medea, who in her turn seeks not so much to escape judgment as to have her horrific actions be seen in the context that she chooses. Librettist Stephanie Fleischmann gives the story multiple modern psychological twists, using the tale to have Medea look inward and consider fate, vengeance and brutality (as usual in versions of the story, her murdered children have no voice, literally or figuratively, in the retelling). The vocal elements are paramount throughout Hersch’s work, but his determinedly contemporary auditory soundscape provides the setting against which Sarah Maria Sun displays Medea’s thoughts and feelings. Much of the vocalizing is difficult to separate from the instrumental material, with the words set in a typical modern fashion that uses them as much for their sound as for their meaning – and with the solo voice forced, again and again, to compete with a sonic onslaught intended to reflect the intensity and drama of the story and as a result tending to absorb Sun’s vocalizing into a greater whole. It is unsurprising, given the thoroughly modern treatment of the tale and Hersch’s equally up-to-date handling both of vocal settings and of instrumental material, that the opera’s conclusion is inconclusive – just what the audience is supposed to take from this version of the Medea story is a matter of individual interpretation. The nature of the story, the libretto, the setting, and the musical approach is such that the recording will be of strictly limited appeal – even more so than is the case with opera in general, which is a niche within the classical-music genre (itself nowadays a niche within the music world). Much of Hersch’s work is difficult to listen to because of its insistent modernity of sound, while much of Fleishmann’s libretto is so determined to be thoughtfully provocative that it becomes overly insistent on its own meaningfulness. But what this work does demonstrate, if nothing else, is that the Medea legend certainly continues to have room for contemporary relevance and resonance – and ambiguity of meaning.
No comments:
Post a Comment