Erika Fox, Paths, Goldfield Ensemble

Composer Erika Fox (b. 1936) has all the newness, has the sort of "sound of surprise" that we expect and hope for in New Music Modernism. She was an important part of the London and European New Music scene in the '70s through the '90s and has amassed a catalog of some 52 works. That here in the later '10s of the Millennium she has been neglected and virtually forgotten in many ways is partially rectified by a new and rather exciting release of her music entitled Paths (NMC D254), as heroically and movingly performed by the Goldfield Ensemble.

The five substantial and even brilliant compositions performed for us on the CD take a bit of concentration to assimilate fully and that is only natural with such nicely detailed music. There is a sort of lyrical High Modernism consistently at work on each of the pieces, but other things as well. In the liners Katre Romano, Artistic Director of Goldfield Productions, calls the music "bold, feisty, uncompromising and uncommonly fresh." She notes the influences of the composer's upbringing that we can hear in the works at hand--Eastern European classical music plus "Hasidic Music, liturgical chant" and "modal ancient melodic lines reminiscent of Eastern European folk music."

We listen to the program in sequence and Erika Fox's own special world opens up to us with impact and expressive mystery. Richard Baker conducts the larger version of the Goldfield Ensemble and soloists on the dramatic end-pieces "Paths Where the Mourners Tread" and "Cafe Warsaw 1944."

In between are smaller chamber gems, "Quasi una Cadenza," "On Visiting Stravinsky's Grave at San Michele," and "Malinconia Militaire."

Everything has mass and weight; there are no superficial or facile byways. As Romano poignantly states in the liners, there is not so much a matter of development in the New Music language she so adroitly takes on as her own. It is more a matter of endless invention, or variations that have an organic connection with what came before but most assuredly do not directly comment on any of it. It means that the listener is given a continual tabula rasa yet everything is profoundly joined as in eloquent speech.

It is a most enjoyable and enlightening program. Erika Fox is a real treasure and I recommend you hear this by all means!

Havergal Brian, Symphonies Nos. 7 and 16, New Russia State Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Walker

The oscillating paradox of English composer Havergal Brian (1876-1972) gives the music listener-historian one of the more unusual examples of 20th century compositional life and style possibilities. Most importantly he has a great deal to offer the modern listener. He lived a long and prolific lifespan as a composer, producing an astounding 25 symphonies, the first batch gargantuan and rather sprawling, the later somewhat more compact but all in an English Late Romantic realm that sounded nothing like Wagner or Richard Strauss yet shared in their penchant for the big sound, the big canvas of orchestral colors.

That he continued to produced original and inventive symphonic work through most of the 20th century and preserved and developed a working anachronistic style that continued to evolve in his individualistic hands is something uniquely fascinating and impressive in its very own way. And we hear his music as both of and alien to the general time in which we live. We experience a kind of oscillation of time and place as we listen.

The Brian symphonic program at hand gives us a varied and intriguing sample of his output, played convincingly and bracingly by the New Russia State Symphony Orchestra under Alexander Walker.

There is (quite naturally) as one listens to these offerings (Naxos 8.573959) no doubt that we are dealing with more of an English than a German or French sensibility.  The rustic English countryside and the warm and congenially apportioned pub seem more present than some Teutonic or Gallic place-music version of things. At the same time it is music that points to itself so we should not focus exclusively on the local tendencies that are happily there. It is pure music in the end after all.

The "Symphony No. 7 in C Major" (1948) as the liners tell us, is the last of the long and ample early symphonies, with a large orchestra, filling up nearly 40 minutes with its four movements. It is based on Goethe's autobiographical writing on his student days. Yet on first listen it is not entirely necessary to come to grips with the programmatic content here because it is expressive Brian first and foremost, secondarily programmatic.

"The Tinker's Wedding Overture" (1948) gives us in some ways the opposite sort of work--a short and light-hearted piece based on the J.M. Synge comedic play of the same name.

Then we are in some ways set squarely in-between these two polar opposites with his "Symphony No. 16" (1960), thematically centered upon Ancient Greece and the Persian Wars.

This hour program reminds those already familiar how there is unfailing art and craftsmanship in virtually everything Brian wrote and that, surely with these three at any rate, and most likely with the entire corpus of later works but I cannot yet vouch for them all, there is no sign of flagging in his mid-later period. If you do not mind that Brian bypasses prevailing styles of the  period concerned, if you do not expect any traces of the New Music or even progressive music scene that existed in the world in which Brian lived, you will be I think happily situated as you hear and rehear this music. It is not of its time. Yet it is timeful, it is current within itself surely.

The volume also serves as an admirable introduction to Brian for those not familiar.

Excellent example of Brian, well done! Very recommended.

Bacewicz, Piano Music, Morta Grigaliunaite

Those of us especially outside of the local clime (Poland) of composer Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) may have missed her music when she lived (I was at any rate too young) but since her passing we gradually have come to know it and appreciate it, thanks to the international interest her music has produced in the later years of the 20th Century and the first decades of the new Millennium.

I for one have missed her output for the pianoforte until now. This welcome Piano Music (Piano Classics 10183) volume as played with conviction and drama by Morta Grigaliunaite fills the gap with something seemingly definitive.

Like the many varied Bacewicz compositions we can hear nowadays for the full gamut of configurations she wrote for, we find in the program at hand always a concentric universe of applied musical invention of a high caliber.

The seven single or multiple movement works on this program remind us how sincere, how authentic her music sounds to us today, or at least that is what hits me listening now. The concluding work on the program, her "Piano Sonata No. 2"  in lots of ways sums up her musical and especially her pianistic identity. The musicality of it all puts us in mind of the lineage of Modernism to which she belongs, so we do hear the genetic relation of Bacewicz with Stravinsky the Neo-Classical and Expression-Modernist, and then too the related ways of Prokofiev, Bartok, Kodaly Janacek... in many ways the local, folk focal is never entirely removed from the expressions at hand, but so is the Modern piano tradition as it grew out of later Romantic poets of the ivories, Schubert to Chopin. There is a backbone of pianistic tradition that holds it all grandly upright (so to speak), and then of course it thrives still in this music because of the original ways of Ms. Bacewicz.

The interplay of piano tradition and Modern expression is truly in the end quite present and poignant in this music. This is first-rate Bacewicz and that in turn makes for some of the most important music by women, or I dare say for that matters any composers of the last century.

Dig in and listen to "Little Triptych," "Concert Krakowiak," the "Children's Suite," "Two Etudes for Double Notes," "Ten Concert Etudes," "Trois pieces caracteristiques" and the "Piano Sonata No. 2." Every work is worth hearing and original in subtle ways. You get fiery and sensitive performances of music we all should take to heart.

Bravo!

J. William Greene, Buxtehude at Lynchburg, Free Compositions and Choral Preludes

My gradually unfolding, happy interaction with classical organ music has been rather informal, with a follow-the-nose intuitiveness that started with an early and happy experience hearing a well attuned and well played cathedral organ in my childhood as a regular member of the St. Anthony Parish in Butler, NJ. And it in the most general terms was an organ world when I was a kid--for example down at the seashore there were mighty organs playing in the beachfront hotels and I listened eagerly. Bach works were my first serious interest as far as organ recordings went. And from there I followed threads that made sense backwards to Buxtehude and farther afield and then also forward to the French School from Franck to Messiaen (see last Monday's post here for a little more on that).

I had piano lessons as a kid and later as well, and we had a piano at home that I played upon as a student of the instrument and someone musically inclined alike. I would also goof around on the Farfisas and Hammond B-3s that were in some of the rock and jazz-rock bands I was in from 7th grade on, but I never had the pleasure to have organ instruction or take a course on organ literature and histor,y etc. It just did not come up in my education--and not through a lack on interest.

So when I read in the liners to J. William Greene's Buxtehude at Lynchburg (Pro Organo CD 7170) that Greene in the title is paying homage to an old 1967 E. Power Biggs Columbia LP Buxtehude at Luneburg, I simultaneously regret missing out on this icon of recorded vinyl and appreciate being tipped into the organ lore of which I no doubt have many serious ellipses and gaps--and if I am ever to be thumbing through a stack of used LPs in a thrift store again I will look out for the album, surely.

All that may seem a lot to preface this review article with, but anyone who reads these columns regularly knows that of course part of my engagement with the music is as a person and so I feel it sometimes somewhat illuminating that I recount my involvement in the history of the appreciation of music I have lived through for as near a lifetime as anyone--though I hope with much more to go!

Back to the subject at hand however. The subtitle of this fine CD is Free Compositions and Chorale Preludes of Dieterich Buxtehude. That says it all if you already know it all, but for those of us who do not, the liners give helpful fleshings out. So the Choral Preludes were meant to introduce artfully the specific German chorale that the congregation was then to sing in the service at that point. As the notes suggest, the preludes are remarkably ornate at times, contrapuntally elegant and brilliant, Buxtehude at his finest.

There is poignant content and exceptional linear variety in the Praeludium, Toccatas, Passacaglias, Fugues, and Canzonas we hear in the course of the program. J. William Greene is meticulous to a fault yet as spirited as we might hope for. The recording is crisp and clear in aural staging, and the Taylor and Boody organ of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynchburg (of the title), Virginia is ruggedly traditional-sounding and just right to bring out nicely the voicings Buxtehude specifies.

All-in-all this is the Buxtehude we revel in if we give the music a chance. It is exemplary in its unpretentious down-to-the-bone performance wonders and it sounds great. So I recommend it very highly. I will treasure this one. I hope you will too.

Derek Bermel, Migrations, Luciana Souza, Ted Nash, Derek Bermel, Julliard Jazz Orchestra, Albany Symphony, David Alan Miller

While the name of US composer Derek Bermel (b. 1967) may be new to me, the music on his album Migrations (Naxos 8.559871) has a New Music-Modern Jazz tang that rings true in a local sort of way, that he takes on certain style clusters known in USA musical channels and makes them his own in ways that please and intrigue. There is familiarity, then, but newness in equal turns.

The title work "Migrations" is quite au courant as it deals with the movement of populations, as would-be refugees, as emigrants, a situation we have experienced only too directly in the refugee crisis in Syria in the past decade and then especially in the Trump Presidency in the US the situation of refugees seeking political asylum, most notably emigrants from Central America. The "Migrations" work themes itself around such large-scale people movements.

Notably on the cover of the CD (pictured above) is a painting by Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) entitled The Migration Series, Panel No. 3: from every southern town migrants left by the hundreds to travel north (1940-41). This in part forms the pictoral foundation for the music, the later of which was commissioned by Wynton Marsalis for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Concert Series. The cycle of some 60 paintings by Lawrence comes to grips with the movement of Afro-Americans from the Rural South to the Industrial North and so too does Bermel's five movement work. And so thematic parallels have local historical bases that we can think of with the overlapping of repetitions and non-repetitions in various ways. Now is of course not then, but there are ominous intertwinings we can sense when we follow present events.

The work itself features the well situated Julliard Jazz Orchestra (along with the Albany Symphony, all conducted by David Allen Miller) with soloists Ted Nash on soprano and alto sax, and Bermel himself on clarinet. The music is a kind of ambitious Modern Big Band Jazz that hearkens to the innovative stances of George Russell, Gil Evans and perhaps Claire Fischer, and takes the art further into personal territory. It is a work that increasingly strikes you as having some profundity the more one listens. Masterful and invigorating! Cutting edge!

From there we go to two works that involve more New Music an orientation, with the Albany Symphony and soprano Luciana Souza in the songful Portugal-oriented "Mar de Setembro" based on a poem by Eugenio de Andrade. It is exceedingly beautiful music, harmonic-melodic in ways that seem as Brazilian as Modern, more lyrical than strident.

"A Shout, A Whisper and a Trace" brings us to a fully Modern orchestral zone of vibrant sound color, with an infectiously and rhythmically dancing, folksy, almost Coplandesque-meets-Stravinsky opening that quickly turns bi-total. It is all most delightful in its very own way.

Because my personal life has at times lately become trying I have within the ongoing chaos ended up listening to this album much more than I might have ordinarily as a first go of things. After maybe ten listens I must say I thoroughly appreciate this one in ways that a long exposure helps create. It is important, beautiful, expressive music, all of it. And it is very well performed. Grab it!

SWR VokalEnsemble, Japan, Works for Choir, Toshio Hosokawa, Toru Takemitsu, Michio Mamiya, Jo Kondo; Marcus Creed, Conductor

Modern choral music of Japan is not something I have been much exposed to, so this SWR Vokal Ensemble album simply entitled Japan, Works for Choir (SWR Classic 19079CD), is enlightening me and giving me much to consider.

A wealth of possibilities for vocal ensemble are explored, all in some kind of Modern realm, though not programmatically or formulaically so. It shows us that Japanese composers, like their contemporary equivalents across the globe, can express the local as well as the universal, in song and in ensemble atmospherics, with complex tonalities and vibrant artistic outbursts, and with folk-like song expressions that hearken back while nevertheless by framing remain squarely in the present.

You who know something of the national music of Japan will recognize at least one celebrated traditional melody in arrangement for chorus. Besides that there are chant-like gatherings, floating harmonic extravagances, instrumental-like vocaleses and a kind of potpourri of possibilities that continually intrigue as one gets familiar with it all with repeated listens.

A run down of every work would perhaps overwhelm and it is better with so much and so varied a palette to let oneself be surprised and pleased within an unfolding real-time frame.

Nonetheless for your information we get to hear Toshio Hosokawa's "The Lotusflower Doth Languish," Toru Takemitsu's "Wind Horse," "Cherry Blossoms," "Wings." and "Small Sky," Michio Mamiya "Composition for Chorus No. 1," and Jo Kondo's "Motet Under the Rose."

This is music that has categorical importance, is performed with care and subtle ease, and affords a tantalizing glimpse into a local genre we at least in the "West" have gotten far less exposure to than we should.

Gladly and sincerely recommended.

Messiaen Meditations sur le Mystere de la Sainte Trinite, Tom Winpenny

Organist Tom Winpenny has been doing a fine job performing some of the principal Messiaen organ works for Naxos (type his name in the search box above to find relevant reviews). Now he takes on rather heroically the Meditations sur le Mystere de la Sainte Trinite (Naxos 8.573979). It is a later work that began in 1967 with a series of improvisations Messiaen devised and reworked in celebration of the rebuilt organ at La Trinite Cathedral, taking final form in 1969. He had been organist at this Paris cathedral, to give it its full name the Eglise de la Sainte Trinity, since 1931 so this was indeed a momentous occasion no doubt to him.

It is a masterpiece of mystery in ways so imaginative that it virtually gives us a guide to the innovative Messiaen spiritual organ oeuvre--a summing up and a leaping forward all at once.

The nine sections all work together to create a magic that is Messiaen's alone. No other master before or for that matter since has captured so incredibly inventive a series of rovings and spiritual penetrations.

Tom Winpenny gives us the kind of dynamic thrust and absolute sonic command that makes of this work a structurally yet highly aesthetically hammer-beamed object where the supports are not just structurally needed (to extend a metaphor); they are an integral part of the luster of the finished work of art, essential to its nature and beauty at once.

What is memorable about this music is quite clearly within the performance-command of Tom Winpenny. I've heard performances that may equal this one, but none that in my opinion surpass this one. An iconic work, performed with true conviction and careful elation. A winner in every way. Highly recommended.

And with this music is a melodic-harmonic brilliance like you will look for in vain in other organ music. It is one of the works that makes it plain that Messiaen has a special brand of Modernism, of brilliance and clarity like no other before or after, yet too he is spiritual in ways nobody else approaches as well.

This is essential!