Wolfgang Korngold, Das Lied der Liebe

Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) might have been one of the greatest composers last century. But somehow things went wrong. He was a prodigy who wrote some wonderful music as a youngster and was off to a good start when the rise of the Nazis made it impossible to stay in Europe. Like so many others he managed to escape to the Untied States. But the teaching that sustained many of the composer-exiles alluded him, it seems. There he embarked on a successful go as a Hollywood film music composer. Much of it was practically successful but undistinguished, save for his soundtrack for "Robin Hood." The serious music he wrote while in exile I have not heard so I am not a good judge, but nothing at this phase stands out.

Nonetheless we still get to hear some of his music in new recordings. Right now we have a new and painstakingly enthusiastic volume of his 1931 operetta, Das Lied der Liebe (Rondeau 6167), which features very decent vocal soloists and Musikalische Komodie Leipzig conducted by Stefan Klingele.

The orchestration shows the sure hand of a master and the pacing is bracing and lively.  However most all the thematic material is based on the Waltz Strauss folks, He reworks the music a fair amount, adds vocal lines most of the time. It is a delightful light-hearted but of fluff. I find myself responding to it almost against my will. This is not work exactly worthy of Korngold, but it no doubt gave him popular recognition. It sparkles in its own way. Since the New Year is often deemed the time for Strauss waltzes, this supplies that need in interesting and sophisticated ways.

If you are Korngold fanatic you should have this. Similarly if you like the idea of an operetta based on Strauss, all the better for you. For the rest of us there my not seem to be sufficient reasons to own this. Try and hear some of the music if you can however. It is quite well done.

Transient Canvas, Wired, Amy Advocat, Matt Sharrock

A duo of bass clarinet and marimba is a most unusual thing. But if you think of it beyond the initial surprise, there is a sonorous logic to it. It is not like we haven't heard the combination before. So we have the New-England based duo Transient Canvas and their latest album Wired (New Focus Recordings 218). Amy Advocat plays the bass clarinet, Matt Sharrock the marimba. They are joined by what sounds like ambient electro-acoustics now and again but principally it is these two holding forth nicely in a series of some seven Contemporary New Music compositions.

Sometimes there are patterns to the music that repeat, more in the manner of an Alberti Bass at times, though not exactly, just in the way the pattern grounds the music in something that is then a launching ahead into not-repetitive elements layering into the pattern. There is a flirtation with Minimalism without necessarily a consummation, if you will pardon the turn of phrase. At the same time there are vaguely world-jazz-rock elements (which in a way is another way of saying "not-quite-Alberti"?)

So we get a virtuoso duo series of performances that are always geared toward the aims and objectives of each composition rather than sensation for its own sake, so to speak. The music is consistently absorbing, not perhaps at the cutting edge of the avant extreme, but ever musical and worthy of hearing. The names of the composers may not necessarily ring a bell for you, but this is not amateur hour either. So we hear Kirsten Volness, Peter Van Zandt Lane, David Ibbett, Lainie Fefferman, Rudolf Rojahn, Mischa Salkind-Pearl, and Dan VanHassel.

You who like the sound of these instruments and/or like chamber realms of the contemporary a little bit off the beaten track, this is good bet! Transient Canvas is a happy listen!

Severine Ballon, Inconnaissance

This is not the very first album of extended techniques solo cello I have reviewed. But it is among the very, very best. I speak of Severine Ballon's Inconnaissance (2016-18). These are some eight compositions that have come out of her extensive improvisational immersion in the cello as a virtually infinite sound producing agent, so to say. Spending 2015 as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard helped allow her to convert her improvisational experience into compositional forays. These results come out of the three productive years that have followed on the heels of her residency.

The liners to the CD explain that Ballon was after a sort of general simplicity of concept for each piece, a way of playing that then gets extended outwards so that the listener grasps each episode as a structural endeavor but then of course with aural exceptionality. Bowing, understandably, is key to the sound production entailed. Equally of course what the right hand does is also key. So for example harmonics are produced with a certain action, etc. All this is properly considered for each work with inspiration but also with a consistency internally for each..

And in the end that simplicity brings us to each segmental composition as a special thing, a unified time and place of performance, as Aristotle might have remarked were he around now and into New Music. This is music of a certain consistency, rather than of a "make a sound, make a different sound" sensibility. Nothing wrong with either way of course but Ms. Ballon distinguishes herself as more of the "same" than the "difference" approach. Yet this is not Minimalism, not at all.

And too the realm of expression is the all-in-all, and so too there is a kind of straddling of the performativity of Free Improv with the significant-form goals of New Music High Modernism.

It works and works well. You will find this out I think if you listen closely a few times. Ms. Ballon is very worthy of your attention. I am impressed with and happy to experience Inconnaissance. You who adventure into new sounds I suspect would be too. Very recommended. For those that dare.

Peteris Vasks, Laudate Dominum, Latvian Radio Choir, Sinfonietta Riga, Sigvards Klava

Peteris Vasks (b. 1946) is Latvian, like Part is Estonian. That is, each takes some essence from his musical culture and does something original with it. The music contained on Laudate Dominum (Ondine ODE 1 302-2) shows this most clearly. It contains five recent (2011-2016) Vask works, four for choir and orchestra, and one for choir and organ. Sigvards Klava directs the Latvian Radio Choir, Sinfonetta Riga and Ilze Reine on organ in this program of tonal, expressive and sometimes seemingly somewhat somber music. As the liner notes put it, he "confirms the existence of the vertical spiritual axis that defies storming, breathless materialism. Born from suffering...[it] always grows to prevail, to celebrate and bring the light of hope."

In that way there is something of the influence of choral music past. Without imitating the sound of a Latvian choral origin it nevertheless points to it in its minor modal diatonic meditative tonal cast. The gentle suspensions and long-lined hushed meditative mold of the music at times is irresistible, in some ways showing a Modernism we hear in Faure choral music and beyond, yet not precisely so much as preciently, that he makes the roots point to him. In the end, in the last work "The Fruit of Silence" (2013) we feel a resolution into a simple lingering major chord peacefulness that has been denied us quite until this end, and it works for our need for a closure and we happily get that. But not before some of the storming and the urgency of the previous works, "Da pacem, Domine" (2016), "Mein Herr in mein Gott" (2016), "Laudate Dominum" (2016) and "Prayer (Lord Open Our Eyes)" (2011).

We hear the reaching upwards of Palestrina, of Des Prez, of Bach and Handel, without the contrapuntal ornateness, but rather a pared-down essentialism that floats like clouds slowly passing above us in a light wind.

Yet the music has a clearness, a clarity not at all cloud-like but nonetheless hovering above. It is singular, it is beautiful, it is not quite like any other and so is before us, above us, behind us in its honest sincerity. It there is a feel of time and past upon us in the present, it is in that a continuity in a Modern world, a place such as where we live today.

And so I must recommend this to you who seek out the new in New Music. It is ravishing. Peteris Vasks is special and we hear why on this album, very much so.

Wolfgang Rihm, Lichtzwang, Music for Violin and Orchestra 1, Tianwa Yang, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Christoph-Mathias Mueller

Here in the Western World it is Christmas Eve as I write these words. Yet before I turn on Handel and the rest I wanted to first say something about a very nice new release I have been hearing lately. I speak of a new one of the compositions of an increasingly vital living figure in New Music, Wolfgang Rihm (b. 1952). It is the soaring violin of Tianwa Yang along with the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz conducted by Christoph-Mathias Mueller. They give us (happily) Rihm's Music for Violin and Orchestra I, Lichtzwang (Naxos 8.573812). It is significant New Music fare, for those that look for the higher realms of expression today.

This is music to sink into, to hear again and so on over a long series of listens, and then to get with it. There are three concerted works, moody and atmospheric. They are the title work, Lichtzwang (In Memoriam Paul Celan) (1975-76), "Dritte Musik" (1993) and "Gedicht des Malers" (2014).

Rihm is a High Modernist with his own set of ears. His music promises to keep you interested. This first volume of the violin-orchestra works gives us much to fascinate and stimulate. The performances will grab you too. So buy a present for yourself!

Franz Schubert, Symphonies 1 & 6, B'Rock Orchestra, Rene Jacobs

Schubert was one of those composers, needless to say, that did so much in such a relatively short life that we are still trying to catch up with all of it. There is always more to focus into again and again, and then things we might be neglecting. Like how many know his operatic music? This Friday morning I am happy to report in on the first volume of a new edition of the complete (9) symphonies of Schubert, as played with care and zeal by the B'Rock Orchestra under Rene Jacobs (Pentatone 5186 707). To this end we get to hear their go at his Symphonies 1 & 6.

And truly, that is a good place to start, with the classically crisp simplicity of the first and the breakthrough post-Beethovenian awesomeness of the sixth. Very good place based on what we have here, versions that are neither too "Classical" (Peter Maag?) nor too "Romantic" (think of some of the German titan conductors?). Instead we have a somewhat jolly version of the first and its simple elegance, and a very focused and virtuosic version of the 6th, beautifully energetic and three dimensional, a very best version, up there among the very best in my mind.

Based on a run-through of the liners to this inaugural volume I can report back that: 1) B'Rock Orchestra is dedicated to a "pure" musical experience regardless of what music they might cover, which goes from the Baroque onwards. Whatever the work, they espouse the original instrument ethos, and you hear that in this case. 2) Rene Jacobs goes about his Schubert as a labor of love. He describes his exposure to the Master as a youth via the lieder. And now of course the symphonies are a true love as well with him. Should we have it any other way? He notes the virtues of following Schubert's performance instructions as sacrosanct, for example the actual tempo indications, and so the better for our ears to hear it as Franz intended we do!

If you have not delved into the Schubert orchestral world this is a good place to start. And these versions are as good as any, pristine, mirthful at times, true-to-form, with a joie de vivre that brings it all very much to life here. Even those who have these symphonies would profit from the fresh hearing. I smile and say, maybe take a listen, why not? I very much approve. This one rollicks. It rocks!

Nathan Davis, Hagoromo, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, etc.

I tend to be reassured when certain configurations endure. Piano trios, string quartets, works for orchestra and choral units with soloists, operas, cantatas, etc., in other words the various em-parcelments, the various genres. They are like the fruit cake we received this time of the year from my aunt, em-parceled and delivered I think by United Parcel, with brown paper and tied with string as packages were then. It was reassuring, somehow. Not that I shy away from unusual alternate configurations like Henry Brandt's flute orchestra, but a little continuity can be a fine thing.

This morning I turn to such a grouping, an operatic work for the crack chamber outfit known as the International Contemporary Ensemble, plus the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, contralto Katalin Karolyi and tenor Peter Tantsits, under the direction of Nicholus DeMaison. All this for Nathan Davis' intriguing Neo-Quasi-Asian and Modernist resonance Hagoromo (Tundra-New Focus Recordings TUN009). The fact that it is an opera is reassuring, but then too it is innovative in what it does and how it transforms an unexpected source quite readily and absorbingly.

I covered Nathan Davis' music with ICE previously on these pages. See the posting from February 15, 2016. For additional International Contemporary Ensemble album discussions, see posts from September 1, 2015, February 27, 2017, April 15, 2017, August 3, 2018, and this just-passed December 14, 2018.

The work was recorded live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival.  It was commission by ICE and is designated a "dance opera." The performance situation calls for choreography for two dancers and puppetry. The libretto was written by Brendan Pelsue.

Hagoromo takes its name and story line from the 500-year-old Japanese Noh drama by the same name. It concerns a swan maiden and a fisherman. The latter finds the former's feathered cloak and wishes to keep it. Negotiations with the swan maiden ensue and in the end  there is the return of the raiment to the swan maiden and the subsequent rise of a mutual affection between them.

A lively vaguely Asian percussion singularity and an alto flute in harmonics mode begins the work mysteriously and the very pronounced resonance of the work is established. The work falls naturally into the performative of soloists and chorus and the instrumental parts too seem natural. Yet all of it has an almost ritual primality at times, as definite echoes of the Noh music from the original.  At the same time in varying degrees there is a High Modernity of harmonic-melodic intent. All this works quite well for a result very intriguing and worthwhile.

It all falls most nicely onto the ears. The youth chorus gives the sound quality a heightened mythical aura as does the orchestration as well. It is most lovely music! Nathan Davis is a natural! Brilliant!