Benjamin Broening, Recombinant Nocturnes for Two Performers on Pianos, Duo Runedako

Benjamin Broening gives us in his work Recombinant Nocturnes (Innova 784) a long series of meditative, spacious, night reveries for two performers on one, two and four pianos and a subtle use of electronics. His music has something in common with mid-to-later Messiaen and George Crumb in its use of gently repeating, transforming, non-insistent motives surrounded by sustain-pedaled luminous darkness in expressive pianistic sound and cavernous pedal resonance.

Duo Runedako performs the work with sensitive and dynamically brilliant execution. Ruth Neville and Daniel Koppelman work as one with results that charm the ear. There are 13 noctural emissions in all and they vary from the quietly mysterious, with quasi-Asian inside-the-piano dampening punctuations, to the dramatically powerful. This is the music of night magic, of exotically perfumed flowerings in unseen glades.

It is music of beauty performed with sureness, with poetic conviction and gestural grace.

This is well-worth having! It is music of special appeal.

Andrew Violette, Sonata for the Creation of the World, For Solo Organ

Andrew Violette wrote a monstrously long work for organ, Sonata for the Creation of the World. He performed it last year at the Baptist Temple in Brooklyn, NY. It was recorded and can now be had as a three-CD set on Composers Concordance Records (COMCON6). It begins with some long drones and held chordal blocks, gets moving somewhere around midway with sonorities that show a lineage with Messiaen's celebrated music for the instrument, and then concludes with a lengthy chromatic/diatonic movement that has a chorale feeling to it, though it does not break readily into smaller phrase lengths but rather gives out with harmonic progressions that seem almost infinite. The melodic content becomes more ornate as it progresses and it does have a kind of mystic feeling to it suitable to the genre and programmatic content.

At three full CDs this is a huge amount of music to digest. I've spent nearly a month listing to each section rather intently and in the end I still have not wrapped my ears around the whole. There's so much of it and it would be quite difficult to listen to the whole thing in one stitting. I never did, anyway. The final movement can be downright tiring on the ears.

I come away from it with a feeling that there are parts that appeal to me (the first four movements) and parts that do not because they do not seem entirely coherent and/or digestible (the very long final movement). It will certainly interest diehard collectors and appreciators of the organ repertoire. Whether on listening repeatedly they will become convinced that the whole is cohesive, coherent and justifies its colossal sprawl I do not know. I will leave that up to them. As for me, I may stick to the earlier, shorter movements.

Gene Pritsker, "William James's Varieties of Religious Experience" Chamber Opera, 2012

Chamber opera has the advantage of immediacy but of course does away with the "grand" spectacle of a full production. In many ways the chamber format is the ideal medium for Gene Pritsker's William James's Varieties of Religious Experience, the recording of which will be officially released in several weeks (Composers Concordance 007) (but would appear to be available already on the internet, at least as a download). I say ideal because it is a dramatisation and operatic treatment of a lecture given by the American philosopher William James in the early days of the last century. The lecture itself was meant for a small attentive audience and the testimony it quotes from at length describes first hand a number of different lived religious experiences; the intimate nature of the lecture and the disclosures seem best suited for the smaller chamber opera situation.

The nearest contemporary work analogous to Pritsker's Experiences would be to me Michael Nyman's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat, like Experiences a one-act chamber opera, in this case based on a well received book by neurologist Oliver Sacks describing a rather different set of lived experiences.

Experiences builds around a chamber ensemble of two electric guitars (Gene Pritsker and Greg Baker), cello (Dan Barrett) and contrabass (Larry Goldman). An announcer and a narrator (as William James) take on spoken parts. The four testimonials are sung by Marc Molomot, Lynn Norris, Chanda Rule and Charles Coleman, respectively.

As is often the case with Gene Pritsker's music, the stylistic range is broad and the synthesis effective. Like his offshoot work VRE Suite (which I reviewed some time ago on my Gapplegate Guitar site
(http://gapplegateguitar.blogspot.com)
there is a contemporary rock element present in the interlocking parts for two guitars. Then there is the contemporary classical element in the cello & contrabass parts, an operatic and a gospel element in the vocal parts.

All this comes together nicely and memorably in the work.

It is yet another convincing example of Gene Pritsker's originality and distinctiveness as a composer. It should interest and delight those who seek the "new" in new music. This is indeed new!

Charles Koechlin, Les Heures Persian, for Piano Solo, Ralph van Raat

Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) was a maverick. While the cutting-edge music of France was the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel, Koechlin went beyond into a territory few occupied at the time, and none like he did. His Les heures persannes, in the version for solo piano, was written between 1916-19. The 16 pieces have a modern bite to them, a more complex and pan-tonal harmonic-melodicism than the impressionists, and a broader dynamic from very soft to fire-drill ultra fortissimo.

Pianist Ralph van Raat has recorded the cycle, which is great because it is available on Naxos (8.572473) at their budget price.

Van Raat gives us a sensitive yet turbulent reading, lingering over the hushed mysteries and driving with passion in the edgier sections.

This is first-rate Koechlin and it is first-rate Ralph van Raat.

Xavier Montsalvatge, Canciones & Conciertos

Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002) does not ring many bells among modern classical listeners over here in the States. Why his music has not been exported very much I do not know. I only know that I too am not very familiar with his music. So when I had a chance to review the disk produced for the centennial of his birth, Canciones & Conciertos (Hanssler Classics 98.642), I readily accepted. It is a full disk of orchestral songs and concertos. The NDR Radiophilharmonie takes the virtual stage here, Celso Antunes conducting.

From the evidence of this music, Montsalvatge has a somewhat eclectic stylistic range that he occupies with grace. Often prominent is his use of the rhythms and tonalities of his native Spain--Catalonia, to be specific. There is an element of neo-classicism a la Stravinsky present in the "Poema concertante," the "Cinco canciones negras" and "A la espanola," the latter a brief movement from his "Tres danzas concertantes." There is much to like in these three pieces. Rachel Barton Pine handles the solo violin part elegantly for the first work; mezzo-soprano Lucia Duchonova convinces on the song suite.

The final work, "Concerto breve" combines romantic bravura with Spanish rhythms and a touch of the modern harmonic tang. Jenny Lin does a good job with her impassioned pianism, and there are passages that delight the listener with well crafted melodic turns, stirring orchestral tuttis and lyrical atmospheric quietude. The occasional Rachmaninovian piano bombasts to me mar what otherwise is some very interesting, captivating music.

So there is my take. This shows us a very good compositional craftsman with intimations of brilliance. The music is well played and there is little doubt that here we have a modern Spanish composer who deserves to be heard more often.

Fretwork, Bach's Goldberg Variations Arranged for a Consort of Viols

The sheer truth of the matter is that Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, like many of his other keyboard works, has such brilliant part writing that it readily lends itself to arrangement for different instrumental combinations. That is brought home forcibly with Richard Boothby's version for a consort of viols, performed movingly by the group Fretwork for I believe a 2-CD set (my download review copy is 90-minutes of wonderful Bach) on Harmonia Mundi. There have been versions of other Bach works for expanded instrumentation, his "Art of the Fugue" and "Musical Offering" come to mind as especially well done in previous years. This Fretwork recording earns a top position as one of the most distinctive of them all.

The special early music archaicism of the consort gives this music a radical new resonance, bringing out the parts in colorful pastels and throwing in relief the distinctive intertwining of part with part.

It convinces me that Bach's architectural keyboard counterpoint retains and even increases its brilliance if arranged for the right sort of instruments and played with expressive care, which is certainly the case here.

It is a joyous experience. Bach adepts and general music lovers will find this recording a sweet revelation I would think. I did.

Howard Hanson Symphony No. 6, Symphony No. 7, Seattle Symphony, Schwarz

Howard Hanson (1896-1981), American composer, came into his most original incarnation in his later years. His Symphony No. 6 (1968), Lumen in Christo (1974) and Symphony No. 7 "A Sea Symphony" (1977) mark out a Late Romanticism that was wholly his own.

Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Chorale give us some nicely done interpretations of all three works on their final volume of his complete symphonic cycle (Naxos 8.559704).

The Sixth has an extended sonority that stands out for its orchestrational brilliance, expanded tonality, thematic dramatics and effective use of the percussion section. Lumen in Christo has some beautifully contemplative passages for chorale and orchestra, flowing, a waystation into Hanson's mature contemplation of the mysteries of his belief and faith, beautifully sung and played under Schwarz's masterful evocation. The Seventh is the symphonic farewell, a symphony of the sea. Hanson works out an encompassing and original harmonic-melodic sequencing, initially stating a thematic cell with quiet juxtipositions of fifths that ultimately deviate like waves breaking their symmetrical linearity, with waves of gradual crescendo and decrescendo for chorale and orchestra that give us a mimesis of the ebb and flow of the sea, of the tides in their ceaseless action. It is a very poetic and moving work.

Those who don't know Howard Hanson's music would do well to start here. Schwarz and the massed forces of the Seattle Symphony give us a modern but romantically empassioned reading of the works in fine sonic spendor. A very fitting capstone to Schwarz's symphonic cycle and well recommended.