Miklos Perenyi, Britten/Bach/Ligeti, Music for Unaccompanied Cello

An hour of unaccompanied cello? It could be painful in certain hands or with a lackluster program. Thankfully that is far from the case on Miklos Perenyi's Britten Bach Ligeti
(ECM New Series B0016483-02). That is thanks to the artistry of Maestro Perenyi and the well-conceived, well-paced program.

Benjamin Britten's Third Suite, Opus 87 (1971) starts things off brightly, with a diverse series of bravura virtuosi miniatures that gives full scope to the excellence of Perenyi's artistry without descending to the status of mere showpieces. It also alludes to J. S. Bach at the beginning, so setting the stage for the Suite VI in D Major that follows. The Suites for Unaccompanied Cello are some of Bach's most interesting writing, given the challenge of working around his usual complex contrapuntality through the limitations of what can be done with four strings. Of course the music is extraordinarily memorable and Perenyi's ringing tone and impeccable expressive technique allow the music to stand out as it deserves. Perenyi puts himself into the character of every movement as an actor playing a number of distinct parts in a play: jaunty, contemplative, tender, majestic in turn accordingly.

Ending with Gyorgi Ligeti's Sonata (1948-53) is another solid programmatic move, since the contrast of baroque masterpiece and contemporary masterpiece freshens the ears and heightens attention. This is a short but seemingly difficult piece to play well and Perenyi triumphs by phrasing the whole so that the musical logic does not get distracted by what could be abruptly contrasting changes in articulation and executive mode. He heightens also the double-pronged contrast wrapped into the two short movements of the work: a singing, lyrical quality and an exciting dynamic aspect. To this end he gives forth with a truly gorgeous, clarion tone at times, and an empassioned expressivity at other times.

The hour goes quickly. In the end it is a testament to Miklos Perenyi's fine artistry and a fascinating glimpse into three different takes on the cello alone, an aural centerpiece unveiling the sheer beauty of the instrument in the right hands.

Grazyna Bacewicz's Violin Concertos Nos. 1, 3, 7: Modern Works By A Composer We Should Know Better

Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969), Polish composer of the last century, not well known in the States, returns (see September 13, 2011 posting) to our blog with an additional volume of Violin Concertos (Chandos 10533) as played by Joanna Kurkowicz and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Lukasz Borowicz conducting. This time out it's the 1st (1937), 3rd (1948) and 7th (1965) concerto, plus an orchestral overture from 1943.

Kurkowicz's playing can be poised and lyrical or firey and tempestuous as needed, the orchestral sound and execution are very good and Maestro Borowicz conducts with elan and authority.

As with the previous volume, the works span the length of her career. The seventh shows the most modern leanings and chromatic intensity, the third a lyrical modernism contrasted with chromatic-diatonic fire--with a very dance-like final movement--and the first showing a more neo-classical style, though expanded harmonically and melodically, and always fully Bacewiczian in sound. The debt to Stravinsky is sometimes apparent; other times, there is a definite originality that makes her stand out.

Taken together the two volumes of violin concertos are a revelation. Here is a composer we should NOT miss--and here are performances that give us many reasons why.

She orchestrates well but the solo violin is nearly always the central focus.

Recommended.

Carolin Widmann Alexander Lonquich, Schubert Fantasie / Rondo / Sonate

After a near-lifetime of listening to particular works by Franz Schubert, it strikes me that his brilliancy is something we shall probably never experience again on this earth. At least not quite like this. His melodic-harmonic genius, his feeling for development, are and perhaps always will be unparalleled. That of course is not to say that others have not and will not do other brilliant things, but there is a purity of intent in Schubert's best works that one can only marvel at, and if you are like me, experience as a high point of musical life.

These thoughts cross my mind as I listen to a new recording of Schubert works for violin and piano by Carolin Widmann (violin) and Alexander Lonquich (piano). The Fantasie D-Dur / Rondo h-Moll / Sonate A-Dur (ECM CD B0016487-02) recording by the duo is as brilliant as are the works, as is Schubert. Widmann and Lonquich are hardly self-effacing in their treatment of these three pieces; they revel in the passionately expressed interpretation that brings out the architecture and poeticism of the works while simultaneously showing the performers' considerable musicianship and togetherness. Their brilliance is put brilliantly to the service of Schubert's brilliance.

The "Fantasie" and its haunting opening theme is marked by passionate bravado in the violin and some extraordinary execution of the surrounding piano cascades. The "Rondo" has a stately yet quite subtle brio to it in Widmann and Lonquich's hands. The "Sonata" has a bittersweet quality that the duo brings out beautifully. Schubert uses some themes, as in the opening movement, that echo strains of Austrian popular music, yet are brilliantly transformed and developed throughout. Widmann and Lonquich's bring out the contrasting thematic moods with playing exemplifying sympathetic and loving attention to the music at hand.

This is wonderful Schubert, ravishingly performed. I surely will return to this recording time and again as a beautiful example of poetic and spirited performances of the works. A triumph!

MC Maguire, Nothing Left to Destroy

Mixology, MC style, has come of age as an avant art form. It's come quite a distance from the disco days when a dj could get a couple of recordings going in synch and augment one finished production with another, or with the same disc on a second turntable. Not to take away from those days and the subsequent early development. It could be cleverly done. But it wasn't art. Not then. Today you have DJ Spooky and other sophisticated mixologists who aspire and sometimes attain the status of composer, even "serious" composer.

MC Maguire, with the aid of his CPU (read computer) has most assuredly catapulted over the top of dance music to create two full length concertos on Nothing Left to Destroy (Innova 813). It's a melange of collage materials, acoustic, natural, electronic, noise, music as a kind of orchestra pitted against violinist Benjamin Bowman for "The Discofication of the Mongols" and against flautist Douglas Stewart for "S'Wonderful (That the Man I Love Watches Over Me)."

These are madcap juxtipositions of the aural kitchen sink avec soloist. The first piece starts with a "slower" quasi-modal tonal centered violin part and a soundscape that ever-transforms in virtuoso sound manipulation sequences. It gets more and more frenetic as it goes along, more and more there is the CPU orchestra as contrarian, even antagonist to the soloist. It's a fascinating listen.

The piece for flute and CPU bears some relation, now covert, now somewhat overt, to some old pop standards (hence the title). It is busy and turbulent, with the beauty of the flute part making itself known over the trashcan aesthetics of the CPU virtual orchestra.

The music may come out of a DJ stance, but its principal forbear I suppose you could say is John Cage and his live and tape manipulated collage pieces consisting of various prerecorded "found objects"--in his 1950's electronic mix pieces, and in the second phase, with live collaging beginning notably with "Variations IV." But I suppose you could also say John Cage (aided by his often-assistant David Tudor) was the first MC!

What counts in the end is the finished work--the two pieces presented for us on this disk. They are noisy, chaotic, anarchic but not formless. And in their own way they are beautiful.

Recommended for the Gyro Gearloose in everybody. Welcome to the future?

Sofia Gubaidulina, Canticle of the Sun, Kremerata Baltica, Riga Chamber Choir

Sofia Gubaidulina is one of the originals of our era. A new release comes to us from ECM this week, confirming and extending that idea. Canticle of the Sun (ECM New Series B0016445-02) presents the title work as performed by the Riga Chamber Choir, Maris Sirmais conducting, with Nicolas Altstaedt as cello soloist plus two percussion and celesta. The disk also features the world premiere recording of "The Lyre of Orpheus" with Gidon Kremer as violin soloist, Marta Sudraba, cello soloist and the Kremerata Baltica.

Both works are substantial, well performed and sound terrific.

Gubaidulina makes a music with much space, ethereal headzone quietude and her own kind of tutti confluence. All the hallmarks of her mature style coexist in both works/performances: "Orpheus," a kind of meditative orchestral piece with prominent violin and cello solo parts; "Canticle," a choral essay combining echoes of Orthodox chant and post-serial expressivity, the old and the new. Ms. Gubaidulina so deftly interweaves such things in her best work. This is part of what makes her one of those great new Eastern European composers to my mind, contemporary in the most current sense.

It is an enthralling set of performances of music that helps define the world we are in.

Axiom: Society of Composers, Inc., An Anthology of New Music

Axiom (Navona 5856) is the 26th volume of the Society of Composers, Inc. CD anthology series. It consists of six diverse compositions by six composers from around the world. You may not be familiar with the composers (I certainly wasn't with most of them) and in part that is the point, to introduce music by composers who deserve a hearing. So there are works by Michael Boyd, Joo Won Park, Israel Neuman, Liviu Marinescu, Jay C. Batzner, and Peter Van Zandt Lane.

There are electro-acoustic soundscapes, pieces for conventional instruments and electronics, pure electronic music and a chamber work. All are worth hearing. If this is a gauge of where new music is today, it shows that there is a multi-stylistic eclecticism prevailing. This of course doesn't contradict my experience of surveying the music being recorded and listened to over the last decade, and in many ways that has been true of the overall situation in the last 100 years. New styles coexist with older ones, composers work in any number of directions in any given synchronous "now".

Perhaps though we have today a world where no one style dominates as the main innovative force, such as serialism did in the '50s of last century, or late romanticism did in, say, the '10s. We live in the present, necessarily. Someday music historians may look back and identify a style trend happening right now as what was important for the era. It is not clear on the ground if that will be so and, if so, what that will be. Certainly not in terms of this anthology. The works represented here do not show a marked tendency to incorporate non-formalist vernacular into the modernism the works espouse, for example. We've seen that can be a factor in the music heard lately in other circles. This hardly matters in terms of the music presented in this anthology. It is well-wrought and advanced music in the best sense. Whether it represents the most viable trends in composition world-wide is probably moot. It's interesting music, after all, and what more should we expect?

Recommended.

Javier Perianes, Noches en los Jardines de Espana (Nights in the Gardens of Spain) and Solo Piano Works

Pianist Javier Perianes, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Josep Pons collaborate for a beautiful version of Noches en los Jardines de Espana (Nights in the Gardens of Spain) (Harmonia Mundi) for piano and orchestra. Maestro Perianes gives us a rather delightful selection of de Falla's solo piano works as well. The end result is top-notch de Falla, played with luminous transparency, with the Spanish element and the interpretive impressionist element balanced well.

The Jardin orchestral work in this performance is filled with the perfume of the flowers, the fresh but sultry feel of a tranquil space in time in the season of full blooming, with the magic of the night and its reveries. It is a very sensuous and not-too-romantic version, which to me most closely approximates de Falla's intentions and reveals the work in all its originality.

The piano solo pieces are marvelous companions to the main work. They too have shimmer and a very Spanish melodic and rhythmic element. The works cover a broad spectrum of de Falla's career, from the rather early but highly evocative 1906-09 "Cuatro piezas espanolas" to the 1935 "Pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas".

Javier Perianes seems an ideal de Falla interpreter. And this is some of de Falla's most spellbinding music. Highly recommended.