Weinberg, Flute Concertos Nos. 1 and 2, etc., Claudia Stein, Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra, David Robert Coleman

As we become more and more familiar with the considerable collated opus of Weinberg's music his stature grows. Is he up there with Prokofiev and Shostakovich? Well, he is his own muse and impressive, very impressive. The new release of his Flute Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (Naxos 8.573931) (1963, 1987) is a case in point. The title works, the "12 Pieces for Flute and Orchestra" (1947, arr. 1983), and the "5 Pieces for Flute and Piano" (1947) all seem and feel substantial.

Flautist Claudia Stein gives us ravishing tone and eloquent delivery for all of this. Conductor David Robert Coleman sends the Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra through the maze of execution with a sure-handedness to which they respond in kind, and pianist Elisavata Blumina does her part with thoughtful grace.

The music is in earnest both as flute showcase and as MUSIC and in the process there is triumph to be heard. Far from there being a dropping off, this album contains further gems polished and sparkling. In the process we get the "Complete Works for Flute" as I gather from the liners. Good-o.

All the music was initially conceived by Weinberg for  flute virtuoso Alexander Korneyev and the combination of singing flute part and symphonic splendor (as applicable) puts the entire opus collection as of a piece in many ways.

In the end the music and the performances are superior fare and should be of interest to Weinberg fans, modernists, and those attracted to flute showcases of the 20th century. Strongly recommended!

Alexander Moyzes, Dances from Slovakia, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ondrej Lenard

Following on the heels of Naxos' release of the ten symphonies of Alexander Moyzes (1906-1984) is this album of Dances from Slovakia (Naxos 8.5554777) and other works addressing in part the composer's (successful) search for a national folk identity. The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava) under Ondrej Lenard do a convincing job realizing the scores with local flair and charm--and the audio is first rate.

This is neither rabidly Modern fare nor is it overly Romantic, but instead exemplifies Symphonic Nationalism as one might imagine it in a Slovakian vein. Moyzes we found in the previous symphony series was thoroughly grounded in orchestral writing and the three compositions presented in this follow-up give us another angle on his ways.

"Down the River Vah, Op. 26" (1935/45) is the more depictive and descriptive of the three as the title suggests. It is evocative and exuberant music perhaps better heard than described.

"Dances from Gemer, Op. 51" (1955) and "Pohronic Dances, Op. 43" (1950) burst over with folkloric melody and dance rhythms but too get a full symphonic-orchestral treatment that shows us Moyzes' keen musicality once again.

Both dance suites come in part out of Moyzes' involvement with the Slavic Folk Artistic Ensemble (SL'UK) and their music. The material he wrote for the ensemble finds its way to orchestral-symphonic realms in "Dances from Gemer," which extends, is inspired by and composes anew themes related to traditional folk music from the Gemer Region of Southern Slovakia. A cimbalom is a welcome part of the orchestra for this suite. Timpani and percussion are used effectively in bringing out the lively rhythms. I am glad for that (since I was trained as a classical percussionist among other things). Excitement has a part to play. I like this one quite well!

Similarly "Pohronie Dances" comes out of music originally composed for SL'UK, based on Central Slovakian styles along the Hron River, adapting the "highwayman's dance," "maiden's dance" "woodsmen's dance" and the dance of "merry village people."

We are treated to some fine music here, well played. Anyone with an interest in musical Nationalism in the region will be pleased to have and hear this, but then it should appeal to anyone who would like some lively fare. Recommended.

Daniel Lentz, Ending(s), Twilight String Orchestra, Nicholas Deyoe, Fahad Siadat

If you have been listening to New Music with a capital /N/ for a number of decades chances are you know and appreciate Daniel Lentz. His minimalist works have made an impression and today he keeps on, only the newer music has a "beyond" quality. And so today we consider a new release example, a two-orchestral work program dubbed after one of the works,  Ending(s) (New World 80815-2).

The Twliight String Orchestra under conductor Nicholas Deyoe take care of performances with contemporary expressive clarity and a flourish. The two works are "Continental Divide" (2003) and "Ending(s)" (2018). the latter spotlighting nicely tenor Fahad Siadat.

This is not music in some Minimalist pocket any longer, and in truth Lentz has always been a distinct voice whether in or out of any particular genre, in my experience. By now the music is firmly tonal, less repetitive than perhaps Radically Tonal or rhapsodically Ambient Tonal in a kind of lyric nutshell. Both works hang together so that listening to them in sequence is akin to a single integrated experience.

Midway into the "Ending(s)" work tenor Siadat enters and we commence a nice sort of concluding climactic overdrive, a pastoral-lyrical intensity that affirms a Modern Romantic sensibility. Yet there are complexities that the music itself heard without knowing the background only hints at. To quote the liners, "Who else but Lentz would think to combine two Japanese haiku with a section of the Requiem Mass and a description of how an atom bomb explodes?" Indeed.

The liner notes to the album also detail a stylistic plethora and complexity of biographical experience that interested parties should definitely read. Suffice to say he is not easily pegged.

This later phase of his music makes an effective escape from the rigorous strictures of orthodox Minimalism yet keeps the supercharged nature of expression that marked (and marks)  that form of music at its best.

It is music that stands up well with a lot of listens and it is not unpleasing in the process. New Music with another wrinkle? Here you go. Recommended.

Pauline Kim Harris, Heroine, Reimagining Bach and Ockeghem

Today we savor more of the "old in the new," the Modern in the early, the re-imagining and aural re-staging of the past into New Music.  We consider today Heroine (Sono Luminous 92235), an Ambient New Music foray into Bach's Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D minor ("Ambient Chaconne") and Ockeghem's "Deo Gratias" ("Deo") for violin and electronics, all composed by Harris and Spencer Topel.

Where these two works go are into a spacey ambient place. Part of the roots are in the old Fripp and Eno classics, part are firmly in the Early Music past, parts just speak directly to me (us) as contemporary cosmicalities.

The violin part is central--sometimes incorporated simultaneously into the electronics haze, sometimes standing apart in a solo-versus-collective "orchestral" backdrop sense. Delay-echo can play a contrapuntal role esp in "Deo" and/or it can embellish the main line.

In the music of "Ambient Chaconne" live and pre-recorded violin join together with electronics. The work begins as earlier recompositions of the original Bach work with foundational transcriptions of passages from the original and weaves all of them together in a carpet of ambiance, as "structural underpinnings," "small dissociated fragments" and as extremes of "extended passages of sounded or silent materials." It sounds as simultaneously and linearly a microscopic reconstruction of the inside of the music, ethereal and movingly memorable.

"Deo" takes Johannes Ockeghem's remarkable 36-part cannon from "Deo Gratias" and extends the contrapuntal nexus to nearly infinite levels so that in the end it becomes a simultaneous burst of musical light most beautiful to hear and behold.

The music comes out of Kim's profound experience appreciating the tending to afflicted loved ones and experiencing loss in the widest senses from illness, whether physical or via mental illness, depression or addiction, or from growing distrust and general malaise in a growingly destabilized world. The music sounds to me as an antidote to all the suffering implied in our times and no doubt Harris and Topel mean it as such. It is a kind of tribute to the ministering angels of healing we experience for self or others when the world or our bodies seem at odds with life as we mean it to live, or anyway that is my interpretation of the notes she has penned for us in the liners.

In the all and all of it this is music you can grow into and occupy like living room furniture, or so it seems to me. It is not easy-chair ears (as Ives called it) that are developed so much as an organic living reconstruction, an internal dwelling inside fragments and wholes of earlier music as a way of being and hearing. It is delightful, majestic, and cosmic fare. I do recommend it for its spacious girth. Hear-hear!

John McCabe Plays Dominico Scarlatti, Muzio Clementi Keyboard Sonatas

There are times when life does not appear ideal but then there is a release that takes you to the happier land of music. Today there is some joy for me in such a one, John McCabe (1939-2015) playing the Keyboard Sonatas (Divine Art 21231 2-CDs) of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and Muzio Clementi (1752-1832).

The pairing of composers and performer is not entirely predictable yet when you listen you feel that this coupling was meant to be. Two composers who added between the two of them much to our keyboard sonata riches and a pianist (composer, conductor) who graced our current world so abundantly and artistically, the experience has magic and there is wonderful piano music to hear indeed.

I cut my eye-teeth on Scarlatti via Fernando Valenti's copious set as played on harpsichord (Westminster), so that hearing these twelve Sonatas by a pianist who brings a firmly idiomatic and poetic, singing approach to them is a pleasant shock of recognition, as old friends become somehow very new. As played on piano by McCabe they sound so...almost Modern and...ethnic if you will pardon the phrase, since everything is ethnic in a way?! The playfully dancing Spanish-Italian flavor of the music comes across so vibrantly here that one can only give thanks to hear them!

And as to the Muzio Clementi the three sonatas op. 50 no. 3, op. 33 no 2, op. 40 no 3 plus the "Monferrine" come at us with very pleasing delivery, on time, a beautiful time indeed. The performances are focused and passionate in a rare blend of performative combustion.

The music was recorded in 1981 around the time of the author's 42nd birthday and were meant for release on the then brand new classical label Hyperion. They come out here on Divine Art in full fidelity and with a marvelously spontaneous flourish on the part of McCabe.

The whole set is a stunner and well worth having. McCabe with his fingers sings, we mentally and musically dance along and we are all the better for it. Strongly recommended for the repertoire and performances! Bra-vo!

Messiaen, L'Ascension, Orchestral Works of the '30s and '80s, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Paavo Jarvi

On today's CD (Alpha 548) we have three orchestral works by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) from the 1930s and one from the 1980s. Paavo Jarvi most ably and dynamically directs the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich for the duration of the program.

Early Messiaen is a world apart from anything that preceded him, even at times that which followed, namely his later works. I was happily introduced to his music years ago by way of a recording of his "Turangalila-Symphonie" of 1948, a remarkable work in so many aspects but also in part very much a model recapping of his first period (that aside from his fascinating incorporation of "popular" melodics that almost sound like music hall pieces from another planet!) .

Much of the charm and original daring of that work is contained in microcosm in the three early works we hear on this program, "Le Tombeau Resplendissant"  (1931) for a rhythmic-melodic asymmetry and vibrancy, "Les Offrandes Oubliees"  (1930) for its supernatural, otherworldly chorale sort of sound with a remarkable Modern harmonic movement that was all his own.  Interestingly that motion is echoed in the 1989 "Un Sourire" (spelled by a well-developed, contrasting birdcall-like set of interjections).

Finally "L'Ascension" (1932-33) begins with another such chorale, beautifully orchestrated for brass and other instruments in a block of pristine sound initially unprecedented in modernity outside of Messiaen himself. This the first of four movements sets us up for what follows. Restlessly then sublimely unfolding whole-tone melodic chains of linking sound follow and we proceed happily further from there for surely one of his greatest early endeavors.

The appearance of tonal light so pronounced in Debussy and Ravel takes on further luminosity in "L'Ascension." Messiaen matched himself for the refracted light sound he was so endowed to produce but in my opinion never quite surpassed himself either. It is a true revelation to hear this early masterwork in the hands of Paavo Jarvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich. And so I unhesitatingly call this one to your attention.

Jarvi and the Zurich orchestra give us carefully executed and often rousing renditions of the works, which afford us a catbird's seat view of the early (and later) brilliance of this supreme master of Modern music.The volume is a great place for the Messiaen acolyte to start and a worthy addition to the Messiaen lover's collection. Essential.

Mahler, Orchestral Songs, The Organ Transcriptions, David John Pike, David Briggs

Some ideas are good ones and one such is Mahler's Orchestral Songs: The Organ Transcriptions (Analekta 2 9180). In the series of baritone-organ versions of the songs as performed admirably by David John Pike (baritone) and David Briggs (organ) we get another way to experience the music.

And what a block of music it is: the "Songs of a Wayfarer," "Songs on the Death of Children," the "Rickert-Lieder" and one from "The Boy's Magic Horn." These are some cornerstones of Mahler's art and in the orchestral versions they sing out in unforgettable fashion, so much so that it takes some getting re-acclimation to hear these organ versions.

At first I very much missed the orchestrations, and too the somewhat cavernous ambiance of the cathedral in this recording was a definite contrast to the relative crispness of what one hears in Mahler's originals. But then too David John Pike is remarkable as baritone in the vocal role and Maestro Briggs turns in a flawless performance with lots of spirit. And in time I focused on that and all was well.

Some of these songs are key to grasping the folk element in Mahler and by hearing the vocal line in a kind of new bold relief we can take all that in from another angle. And of course we must accustom ourselves to the correspondence of organ stops to orchestration. All that takes a few listens, or it did for me at any rate.

All told if you love this music in its orchestra incarnation we have yet another way to appreciate it all. Organ aficionados will be fascinated and Pike's vocal performances are nothing less than heroic. But then Briggs rises to the occasion as well.

Happily recommended for those who already know the music and love it. And for those who revel in the organ-baritone sonance potential. Here's a new and happy way to hear Mahler at his best.