Gyorgy Kurtag, Complete String Quartets, Quatuor Molinari

When it's a matter of deserving living high modernist composers, Gyorgy Kurtag (b. 1926) belongs up there though he does not always get his due. Enough of his music, happily, has seen the light of day in the recorded medium that we can gauge his merits regardless.

Today's selection is a good example. His Complete String Quartets (ATMA Classique ACD2 2705) comes to us in a major new recording by Quatuor Molinari.  His quartet work is sufficiently terse and concentrated that the entire output fits on a single disk, covering the period from 1959 through 2009. Like Webern, Kurtag does not provide a single superfluous note. His complex and highly colored string language is as dense and purposeful as it is memorable and alive.

Quatuor Molinari presents the works in chronological order and puts in all the precision and expressivity the works demand. You can hear a progressive movement beyond serialism to something more intensely personal.

The "Quartet No. 1, Op. 1" (1959) was a breakthrough from a frustrating period of blockage. He transcended it by working with only two or three notes at a time. There results a music of great intensity.

The "Hommage a Andreas Milhaly, Twelve Microludes, Op. 13" (1977-78), uses quotations and an even more terse approach to create the twelve miniatures. "Officium breve in memorium Andreae Szervansky, op. 28" gives us a radical brevity of 15 movements in three minutes.

The "Aus der Ferne III" (1991) and V (1999) are from a series of  tributes to the music publisher Alfred Schlee, who among other things heroically kept numerous modern music scores out of the hands of the Nazis (and sure destruction) in WWII. They show an increasing freedom of language, notably cello pedal tones and "literal" depictive expressions.

"Hommage a Jacob Obrecht" (2004-05) pays tribute to composer Jacob Bali and his fondness for Renaissance polyphony with a deft conflation of early music with the modern.

"Six Moments Musicaux, Op. 44" (2005) is a major mature work via six brief but impactful expressions.

Finally "Arioso" (2009) pays tribute to Walter Levin and the LaSalle Quartet, who staunchly advocated new music composers for more then 40 years. The music is "in the manner of Alban Berg."

And that concludes the program. By concentrating on just the Quartets and presenting them chronologically Quatuor Molinari gives us pinpoint insights into the development of Kurtag's music from a terse rigor to a profoundly free but no less terse expressivity.

These are beautiful performances of significant works. The release is a must for high modernists. And a fitting last post for 2016. Onward!

David Rakowski, Stolen Moments, Sarah Bob, Amy Briggs, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose

Stolen Moments (BMOP Sound 1048) gives us two recent works of a modern and rhythmically very lively cast by David Rakowski (b. 1958), a  pupil of Milton Babbitt who has gone on to develop a very abstracted yet melodically-harmonically communicative style, not Serialist per se so much as post-Serialist and eclectically beyond category.

The title work (2008/2010) is almost a concerto for piano and orchestra but in the end gives the orchestra as much or more of a say in the musical pathways that fit together so intricately well. The idea was to take elements of modern jazz and reframe them in new music terms. Pianist Sarah Bob does a fine job with her complex piano part. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project under Gil Rose handles its part with its usual impeccable sense of form and detail.

The same could certainly be said of the "Piano Concerto No. 2" (2011) and its even more complex and demanding modernist sprawl of jagged abstractions and beautifully communicative down-to-earth contrasting phraseology. Amy Briggs tackles her part heroically well, providing the essential high energy level so important to this work's successful performance.

We come out of this program with a rabid appreciation of David Rakowski as a high modernist who can and does incorporate some so-called vernacular elements for two brilliant cocktails of flavor and color.

It is yet another ravishing release in the BMOP series. Very much recommended.

Janacek, String Quartets Nos. 1- 2, Quartetto Energie Nove

I regard Leos Janacek's String Quartets Nos. 1-2 (RSI 7708) as old friends. My first exposure to these tabula rasa gems was on an old Czech LP and until forced relocation last July and the loss of most of my LPs it admirably took its place in the listening rotation. The new World Premiere recording of the Barenreiter Critical Edition by the Quartetto Energie Nove has been filling my ears for several weeks and though I first preferred that old Czech version I am getting quite fond of this new one.

Included as a bonus is Jarmil Burhauser's arrangement for string quartet of the solo piano opus "On An Overgrown Path" (Book One) and I must say it gives the Janacek (1854-1928)  lover something "new" for quartet. If you didn't already know the piece you would not suspect it was not originally meant for the quartet. All sounds right in Burhauser's arrangement.

The String Quartets are primo Janacek, giving us a good deal of that uncanny combination of modernism, Eastern European folk strains, and an enormous memorability as only Janacek and his thematic brilliance can pull off.

Quartetto Energie Nove excels in a sort of folk brio, an almost Gypsy-like interpretation of the music at key points. They bring out that element remarkably well and though perhaps my old LP sometimes brought the sheer beauty of some passages out more so than Quartetto Energie Nove, after a few hearings it is the latter's approach that in the end sounds right to me.

This is a performance that will be hard to top. The addition of "On An Overgrown Path" makes the release all that much more appealing.

There are no quartets quite like this and Quartetto Energie Nove give us beautiful readings of the new Critical Edition. Don't hesitate!

Ustvolskaya, Silvestrov, Kancheli, Works for Piano and Orchestra, Elisaveta Blumina, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra

Today's offering is a fascinating mix of Works for Piano and Orchestra (Grand Piano GP 678) by three modern Russian composers, Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006), Valentine Silvestrov (b. 1937) and Giya Kancheli (b. 1935). Elisaveta Blumina does the honors with the various piano solo parts; Thomas Sanderling leads the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Altogether they make a convincing case for the four works represented here.

Perhaps the most astonishing of all of them is Ustvolskaya's "Concerto for Piano, String Orchestra and Timpani," written in 1946 in her last year at the Leningrad Conservatory. It is a highly dramatic, highly engaging work not nearly as brash and dissonant as her later piano works were to be, but stunning in its beautiful severity. Regular readers may recall that I reviewed another version of this work, by pianist Patricia Hast and Ensemble Galina/Peter Leopold this past October 17 on these pages. That recording also included a rare chamber orchestra version of Beethoven's "Piano Concerto No. 2." The Hast Ustvolskaya may have a slight edge over the Blumina here, but of course the present disk is an all Russian, all modern affair so I would say both are indispensable.

Moving along then we have Silvestrov's "Four Postludes" (2004) next up on the current program. It is a first recording of some mostly very quiet, enchanting postmodern fare. Though it is not specifically named as a nocturnal, it surely has that sort of uncanny atmosphere.

The Kancheli work, "Sio for String Orchestra, Piano and Percussion" (1998), also a First Recording, gives us a kind of folk hymn as the principal theme. Quietude is interrupted with outbursts of contrasting diatonics and somewhat more strident modern flourishes. The tender and the almost brutal alternate with quite vividly depictive tone color painting. It is imaginative and expressive in an original way, somehow very Russian at that.

Finally we get the short concluding "Hymn 2001" by Silvestrov. This is unabashed lyricism with a pronounced romantic bent, nearly Mahleresque, yet with profound modern touches.

So that is the size of this very worthwhile, contentful release. Both Blumina and Sanderling/Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra put a good deal of care and commitment into the realizations. The results are quite exemplary. Bravo!

Pierre de Manchicourt, Missa Reges terrae, The Choir of St. Luke in the Fields, David Shuler

The art of imitative counterpoint in the right hands is labyrinthine and multi-refracted, a kind of minimalism that never quite repeats in its fullness and ever-overlapping movement, yet is build upon shifting repetitive blocks of sound. A master of the classic form of imitative counterpoint is one Pierre de Manchicourt (c.1510-1564), who thrived as a principal composer of the Franco-Flemish School of the second third of the 16th century. Perhaps because his style of composing was considered old fashioned in his last years (cf. Bach) his music has largely languished in obscurity until today.

Missa Reges terrae (MSR Classics 1632), a full disk of his choral works nicely performed by the Choir of St. Luke in the Fields under David Shuler, gives us a vivid snapshot of the brilliant interlocking style of Manchicourt which includes the World Premiere of the title piece as well as a number of equally appealing shorter works.

The performances are bracing, pinpont realizations of the music, hauntingly beautiful and glowingly soundstaged.

If we are at last able to hear Pierre de Manchicourt with open ears, it is because the times are right for his music at last. It has emerged from the archival darkness of 500 years to assume its rightful place in our musical pantheon.

Highly recommended!

Peteris Vasks, String Quartets 2 & 5, Spikeru String Quartet

Peteris Vasks (b, 1946) a Latvian (Russian Soviet) composer of stature creates music he hopes will console and inspire the downtrodden--the ill, the poor, the harassed and harried among us. In that he does with music what perhaps his Baptist minister father did with words. The liner notes quote the composer at some length and give us a clear vision of the man. That rings true of the music on this, the Spikeru String Quartet's recording of his String Quartets 2 & 5 (Wergo 7329 2).

The music is mostly tonal, but also aleatoric and ultra-modern in brief passages that depict chaos and evil, beautifully folk-like and lyrical all at once.

The Quartet No. 5 begins with complex multi-stops and a dramatic folk-hymn feeling. It blossoms forth into a spectacular sonic harmonic world, then almost Beethovenesque in its dramatic, nearly breathtaking unfolding. The second movement begins in hushed sadness, fragile, lyric, and stays there for the whole. There is a healing quality here, yes.

Quartet No. 2 is a moving quasi-pastoral work subtitled "Summer Tunes." There is a seriously moving movement representing the coming into bloom, a gentle movement of bird song (first as if heard from a distance, then nearer) and a final elegaic conclusion of sadness and hope.

These beautiful works make one want to hear the other quartets at once, thanks to the Spikeru's loving attention to every detail of the music and the sheer persuasiveness of the works themselves.

Highly recommended.

The Stanford Legacy, Stanford, Clarke, Ireland, Martin Outram, Julian Rolton

Several weeks ago we explored the choral music of Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924). Today we light upon the chamber element of the nearly forgotten composer, with three sonatas for viola and piano by Stanford and two of his illustrious pupils.

The Stanford Legacy (Nimbus Alliance 6334) showcases Martin Outram and Julian Rolton on viola and piano, respectively, and their strong, earthy interpretive acumen on display for the three substantial compositions that make up the program.

These Late Romantic-Early Modern sonatas are powerfully charged with depth of feeling but not of sentiment. Each has complex thematic virtuoso unfoldings that sound fresh, never cliched. This is music not designed as superficial salon baubles, but rather as earnestly serious fare for connoisseurs.

Stanford's influence as a teacher of composition was an important part of his legacy. He taught Bridge, Holst, Bliss, Vaughan Williams and, especially relevant for this album, Rebecca Clarke and John Ireland.

The Stanford sonata represented here was originally written for clarinet and piano in 1903 and was arranged for the viola as solo instrument by Henry Waldo Warner with the composer's approval in 1914. It shows obliquely Stanford's indebtedness to Brahms but with its own inventive thematic developmental path.

The Rebecca Clarke sonata gives us a rewarding view of the budding confidence of the composer and violist in 1919, who wrote over 100 works before marriage in 1944 put an end to it. There are whimsical passages, a rhapsodic depth and a hint of modernism in her chromaticism and sometimes harmonically advanced vocabulary.

John Ireland's First Violin Sonata of 1908 (revised in 1917 and again in 1944) in its re-arrangement for viola by Outram concludes the program with adventuresome fare that though often rhapsodic like the others has a strong pull towards post-romanticism while retaining a very lyric stance.

Outram and Rolton go a long ways to give us an expressively deep reading of these three sonatas. In the end we return to these works with real pleasure.

I imagine all modern era Anglophiles will be drawn positively to this album. Yet it will please anyone looking for late romantic chamber music of stature.

Bravo.