Nikoghayos Tigranian, Armenian Dances, Mugam Arrangements, Mikael Ayrapetyan

I was lucky when I was a freshman in high school many years ago to happen upon a Hovhaness LP that intrigued me. One of the works was very much in an Armenian mode and I loved it. It led me to explore Armenian folk music records, more music by Hovhaness and eventually other Armenian composers from the homeland. So it was a most fortunate intersection for me. And now there is a new album of piano solo works by Nikoghayos Tigranian (1856-1951) that includes Armenian Folk Dances and Mugam Arrangements (Grand Piano 798), all in a World Premiere recording. Pianist Mikael Ayrapetyan gives us rhapsodic and dynamic readings of the some 16 works on the album spanning Tigranian's output from 1894 through 1935.

This is a wonderful set of works that dwells decidedly in Armenian folk mode territory yet also comes across with the expressivity of 20th century art music. The liners inform us that Tigranian was among the important first generation of Armenian composers and folk song collectors that included Komitas Vardapet, who for me is the more familiar name among them. They set about preserving folk songs and dances in a systematic way and through their own compositional talents set the stage for an classical Armenian local style that of course stays with us today.

Anyone who knows and loves the very special Armenian take on Middle Eastern harmonic and otherwise minor-moded presence will find this music rather irresistible, I would think. There is a good hour of music that maintains a high level of contentful intensity throughout, beginning with the 11 Armenian Folk Dances from 1935 and on through some very worthy opuses that are in fact the Mugum Arrangements alluded to in the title--the "Bayati Kurd, Op. 2" of 1894,  "Bayati-Shiraz, Op. 3" of 1896, and the piano versions of the 1897 "Heydari, Op. 5," and the 1899 "Shakhnaz, Op. 6," and then finally the 1907 "Nouruz Arabi, Op. 10."

The music is first-rate and well performed. Anyone who loves the Armenian tinge will welcome this. Those not familiar with what that means will find this a very good introduction to it as well. Recommended with a big smile.

Jasper String Quartet, The Kernis Project: Debussy, String Quartets by Aaron Jay Kernis and Claude Debussy

In the world we believe we are a part of there is never a last word, ideally, on the music we hold dear to ourselves, nor is there ever an end to the ongoing addition of works that come to be part of our personal recognitions, our "things we ever like" shopping list on any given day. Auspiciously both are present on a very rewarding listen by the Jasper String Quartet, via an album entitled The Kernis Project: Debussy (Sono Luminus DSL-92233). On it we hear a new take on an older classic and a new music to be taken hold of, a new-old and a new-new.

To untangle the poetic web of word images it needs to be said that this album gives us the Jasper Quartet's very fine readings of "String Quartet No. 3, 'River,'" by Aaron Jay Kernis and Claude Debussy's "String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10." No doubt most will know the Debussy. On the other hand the Kernis Quartet will doubtless be something new, as it enjoys a pre-eminent Jasper focus after they had commissioned it and it has had a chance to mature in their hands since its completion in 2015.

The Jasper Quartet's enthusiasm for Kernis is long standing. They have covered the earlier quartets in several volumes, to critical and popular acclaim. I must make a note of hearing those but at any rate this Kernis Third has a great deal of substance and depth. It is filled with melodic-harmonic complexities, rich shades in the manner of the deepest-of-the deep quartets from Beethoven on. It is a Quartet's Quartet and clearly the Jasper Quartet has meshed with its maze of details in an intensity of commitment and scope that brings to us directly the brilliance of the work. On a continuum is is tonal but complexly so, like parts of the Bartok opus perhaps, but a bit less obviously Modern and then again not altogether removed from the performance partner quartet on this program.

So it is fitting that the Kernis is presented along with the Debussy, for they are in no way unrelated to one another in their lyric color and expressive dash. The Jasper approach to the pizzicato parts in the Debussy is as wonderful as I have heard, and there is a real sweetness and passion to this reading that puts it something closer to the Budapest Quartet's classic LP performance than a more Minimal-Modern brusqueness that one can also hear these days, sometimes quite nicely so. The Jasper Quartet uncovers a high level of lyric feeling without going Romantic in the end and so all the better. It sounds as a reading of our time and fits a nice space in the spectrum of possible contemporary performances.

In sum there is a great deal to digest, to explore, to learn from and to enjoy on this program. The Jasper Quartet is among the very best such groups working today and they bring us a sterling Kernis and a heartening Debussy. You cannot lose here in that there is so much good happening you are bound to be pleased I think. Give it an earful.

Mark Andre, HIJ, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Mariano Chiacchiarini, SWR Vokalensemble, Markus Creed, SWR Experimentalstudio

Mark Andre did not show up so much on my radar previously yet after living with the music on HIJ (Wergo 7379-2) for a week I must say he lives very much in my head now. The entire album is filled by "hij 1" and "hij 2," the first for symphony orchestra and the second for a vocal ensemble and electronics.

The two works together make a dramatic statement in the best of High Modernist tradition. The works sprawl through space in soundscaped ways with blocks of cluster-chords rubbing up against more percussive noise as a sparing counter-stimulant. There are longish passages of whispering quietude that pave the way for or put punctuation on the bands of floating and evolving prisms of sound.

The composition diptych title is meant to be an acronym for the Scandinavian greeting "hej," a phrase deliberately everyday, even banal. Yet too the title stands for the interjection "Help, Jesus" or more specifically "Hilfe Jesu." So the whole is meant to be a cry to God for help which naturally contradicts the idea of the everyday.

All that comes together for an extended two-pronged spinning of an aural world not quite like any other, though there is Feldman and perhaps Stockhausen as precursors in the floating islands of sound idea.

Everything takes place as if we are in some alternate universe and yet of course this is music of OUR time and space. This is one of those New Music recordings that should stand out as important to our present-day world I believe. I would put it among the "you should hear this first" albums of late if you want to commune with the Modernist present. It's a goodie.

Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, Vernacular

Icelandic cellist Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir takes us on a New Music journey, an adventure into the solo cello as, yes, an extended technique vehicle, as that along with more conventional articulations, all put together in a series of four compositions by composers not familiar to me, in a program that provokes deep listening and some reflective thought, all this on the album entitled Vernacular (Sono Luminus 92229).

The liners begin with Saeunn giving us a sort of encapsulization about what she is hearing in her overall lifeway. A teacher fairly early on noted how sensitive she was to "textures and harmonic overtones,"  and Saeunn goes on to muse that perhaps this has to do with the Icelandic language's wealth of unvoiced consonants. Very interesting, this! The language is old, it naturally adapts to a changing world and so she reflects New Music does the same. The composers of these solo pieces similar to Ms. Thorsteinsdottir grew up speaking Icelandic and like her have spent some considerable time abroad.

That is all so clearly put that it forms a crucial backdrop for what we hear on this intriguing album. Give Saeunn full credit for making each of these compositions quite articulate and syntactically fluid, even subject to an inner feeling of combined logic and expressivity. Every one of the works challenges the cellist to make a discourse out of what might in lesser hands sound like sound-after-sound.

We may have in the last 100 years come all manner of ways to get to this exact punctum in time where we hear the four compositions that make up Vernacular. What matters is not at this point to me the specifics of that "everywhere-at-once" journey though the thickets and open fields of Modernity. It is that this punctum is a coming together with a coherency formed of Ms. Thorsteinsdottir's engagement with her own evolving and shifting world, a place that makes room for the new yet articulates the new out of an overarching way to look at things that is at once unique and comprehensibly available to us all if we can but listen closely.

So we hear in succession "Afterquake" by Pall Ragnar Palsson, "48 Images of the Moon" by Puridur Jonsdottir, "O" by Halldor Smarason, and "Solitaire" by Haflidi Hallgrimsson. I will not attempt to separate out each in some analytical descriptors because frankly I experience this album as a whole and it connotes to me as it does as one long art-gesture. That of course does not mean that all is simply one-thinged. You hear it all and you feel each part is a significant step to the whole expression.

And so it goes in a happy way. Ms. Thorsteinsdottir impresses greatly and the composers feed her with a fully art-drenched musical expression that allows her to shine forth exceptionally well.

Very exciting and a rare thing is this. Be prepared for immersion to appreciate fully Vernacular. There is no point in engaging with this music unless you allow complete surrender to it. Then all becomes very well indeed. So go ahead!

Simone Kermes, Mio Caro Handel, Amici Veneziani

It is decisively certain I feel as I begin my morning write-up today. That is because I feel happily confident that soprano Simone Kermes and the chamber ensemble Amici Veneziani give us state-of-the-art readings of arias by George Frideric Handel on Mio Caro Handel (SONY Classical 19073861772). As a Handel follower myself this is a wonderful thing to me. Yet even if there is a chance you might not be that thoroughly into Handel this recording I believe would bring you to a place where you got it completely. That is if you opened yourself to this album as it plays out.

A listen to the first track will give you something of what makes the recording wonderful in microcosm. From Rinaldo we hear the literally tempestuous "Furie terribili." The tempo is maddenly, delightfully quick, the brio is almost incredibly rousing and Ms. Kermes charges forth with only a bit of vibrato and lots of genuine fire. Wow!

The rest of the album lives up to the promise of the opener. There is no vestige of affective overkill yet it is not in the least bit perfunctory. It is in fact exemplary Modern Early Music performance practice--where the continuo is crisp and timbrally rich, and the soprano-instrumental blend is without a trace of scooping sentimentality or overstuffing, nor is it in the least bit cold. Simone hits every note with chiming clearness, a sweetness and an elegant grace, with total control and a subtle employment of vibrato in terminal points or for lyric emphasis without the least bit of a wobble. Her long and fluid melismas are a thing to behold, too. If you have an ear and it is ever present in every listen you make, which it is the nature to be the case if it is there at all, then you will appreciate the true musicality of Simone Kermes' every move here. So I hope.

As the title suggests there is love for Handel in this music. One feels that strongly. And if one also loves Handel's ways (as I do), all the happier a confluence is this collection. From the beautifully tender to the boisterously awesome, the arias are wide-ranging, not always obvious and touch upon the fine subtleties and the bold contrasts that comprise Simone Kermes and Amici Veneziani's fine art.

Some 15 arias form the program, expressing a Handelian universe of humors and articulations. So we get select gems from Guilio Cesare in Egitto, La Resurrezioni, Serse, Teseo, Rodelinda, Athalia, Saul, and on from there.

The liners give us a heartfelt, loving appreciation of George Frideric's centrality to Simone Kermes' musical and situational well-being. We read and it jibes completely with the aural evidence--the loving care Simone and Amici Veneziani bring to every note on this album. A shout-out of appreciation to concertmaster Boris Bagelman by the way. He and the ensemble shine throughout.

It is about as beautifully right a Handelian recital can be without pulling the earth out of orbit. Kermes loves Handel and that love is true! Truly. We all benefit from this feeling with marvelous music. Do not miss it.

Calder Quartet, Beethoven Hillborg, Two Classic Quartets, One Contemporary

When the very classic joins the modern on a single program, one compares two worlds and gauges the "now" with the "then." Or at least one is invited to do so. This morning I am contemplating a recent CD by the Calder String Quartet, a most lively and accomplished group who present an unusual program in their recent album entitled Beethoven Hillborg (Pentatone 5186718). On it we get an early Beethoven Quartet, the String Quartet in D Major, op. 18 no. 3 (1798-1800), a late one, the Quartet in C-Sharp minor, op. 131 (1826), and then a rather recent work (2006) by Anders Hillborg  (B. 1954), the "Kongsgaard Variations."

What I can say straight off the bat is that the music hangs together as one concert, so to speak, and with repeated listens I have been smiling a good deal as I hear. The Quartet tell us how the music specifically relates together in the liners.

The Beethoven op. 131 of course is one of the most celebrated in the repertoire for good reason. The Calder Quartet has found in performing the complete Beethoven Quartets that the op. 131 overwhelmes them with admiration for how deeply it cuts, how much in the space of just 30 minutes it traverses a very long expanse, as they note "fugal writing, harmonic explorations, passages filled with operatic drama, and a grand set of variations into seven movements."

The earlier Beethoven Op. 18, No. 3 they note is nicely contrasting in its Classical form and stands out for its evocation of sunrise and a journey.

The Hillborg bisects and intersects both Beethovens, because it is a set of variations for one thing, and too because it reflects a tonality, depth and lyricism not at all alien to the Beethoven Quartets here. Perhaps most important is the principal theme of the work, which is stated only at the end. It is the Airetta theme from Beethoven's final piano sonata op. 111, which Hillborg found was actually notated on the label of a California wine he came across. That inspired him. So all the more apt! Everything both fits in with and paves the way for the masterful complexities of Beethoven's Op. 131.

As to the performances, they are warm, very personal and intimate in keeping with the tenor of the music. If you know the old Budapest Quartet recordings of these Beethoven Quartets, it is the Calder Quartet's way too to fall on the warmer side of the performance possibilities. They are enough of the "Old School" to have it that way, yet quite brio too when n called upon and a little less "intemperate" in the way they express the emotional content of the music--so more modern, more in keeping with a crisper structural exegesis of the music that is more what we tend to be about today.

After quite a few listens I must say this is a program that brings a lot of pleasure to me and also nicely reveals something of the chamber music side of Anders Hillborg. The Calder Quartet are impeccable in all the performance details as well as joyfully broad stroked in the happy feeling of making this music together. Everything conspires to bring you a happy, very happy musical time.

Very recommended.

Viktor Kalabis, The Complete Piano Works, Ivo Kahanek

When exploring a new and unexpected release, one question to ask yourself is, "what would change if this was never made?" The answer today is that "in that case I would never know about some very important music in great performance!" That of course tells you that Viktor Kalabis' The Complete Piano Works (Supraphon 4259-2 2-CDs) as performed by Ivo Kahanek has something going for it!

This is a lot of excellent music to live inside and Ivo Kahanek plays it all with the fire it needs. Viktor Kalabis was born in 1923, passed away in 2006, so he was center into the 20th century and his music reflects a personal response to how things were. He was one as the liners tell us who was forced to delay his advanced schooling while the Nazi occupation took place in Czechoslovakia.With the communist takeover of the country in 1948 there were other concerns to be aware of, naturally. The liners make note of the twin poles of Social Realism and Structural Exaggeration from the Second Viennese School, neither of which dominated Kalabis' compositional outlook. Petr Veber rightly sees Kalabis as an original amalgam of the classics plus Janacek. Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev. Hindemith and Martinu. At times the Neo-Classicism and Rites of Stravinsky is a prominent influence and Hindemith can loom large too.

The first disk gives us plenty to absorb in the Piano Sonatas of 1947, 1948 and 1982. Each seems fully formed and very Modern-Expressionist in the best senses. If you knew nothing of Kalabis, this would get your attention no doubt as it did mine. There is much of a pianistic sort, nicely wrought and dynamically exciting. Just these alone give you a Modernist of the first rank, some music that should be more widely performed. In the meantime Kahanek gives us a high benchmark of how one might approach it all.

Disk Two gives us six additional works from the later period, 1967-1999. They reveal different aspects of the composer's interaction with the piano, with the very last works sounding very Stravinskian but not in any actively obvious way. And they are nicely challenging for the performer and thus maintain interest in that way as well.

There is so much to like in this set that I do not hesitate to recommend it to you without reservation. If the piano and the Modern resonate with you, this will no doubt help float your boat this season.