Kudos for a Contributor!

 by Karl Nehring

Our own Ryan Ross has recently received the Music Library Association’s Eva Judd O’Meara Award for the best review published in MLA’s journal Notes. Ryan’s review was of the book Vaughan Williams and His World, Byron Adams and Daniel M. Grimley, eds. (Princeton University Press). The award letter from the MLA declares: “The Music Library Association’s Publications Awards Committee’s recommendation stated that your review presents a sophisticated and nuanced critique of the volume. They note that you thoughtfully challenge what he identifies as several ahistorical and ideologically driven assumptions concerning both Vaughan Williams’s political outlook and his relationship to musical modernism. In terms of structure, the committee declares that it is substantial in both length and depth, distinguished by prose that is clear, elegant, and free from fashionable jargon. They write that your command of the field renders you an especially qualified commentator, enabling you to identify inaccuracies, omissions, and interpretive missteps that might elude a less knowledgeable critic.” We at Classical Candor congratulate Ryan for his achievement and are grateful to have such a knowledgeable and accomplished contributor on our staff.  (You can read more about Ryan in his biographical information below – simply scroll down your screen.)

Avril Coleridge-Taylor: Piano Concerto & Orchestral Works (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Samantha Ege, pianist; John Andrews, conductor; BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Resonus RES10374

In her liner notes for this recording, Leah Broad describes Avril Coleridge-Taylor’s struggles to make headway as a composer. “Never be discouraged by criticism even if it means waiting years to gain real recognition,” the ambitious daughter of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor apparently told herself, working up the resolve not to quit “because some critics have written scathing remarks” about what she considered to be her “masterpiece.” This masterpiece is not named. But if it was one of most works recorded here, I’m inclined to count myself among her critics. Truth be told, it’s just another instance in a recurring pattern: feeling sympathy for a neglected composer’s difficulties while being pressured by overzealous advocates to overrate the music on account of them. Broad claims that Coleridge-Taylor had a “powerful and unique voice,” and that maybe this music “will speak better to twenty-first century listeners than to her contemporaries.” But what seems truly powerful—and what probably speaks most to contemporary listeners—is Coleridge-Taylor’s plight as an artist trying to succeed in a white male world. It is a plight that elicits well-deserved sympathy. Yet once we submit her music to scrutiny apart from this sympathy, we are forced to admit that her detractors probably had a point.

The main problem is that Coleridge-Taylor has some appealing materials but poorly sustains them over extended spans. Her efforts come off better when she doesn’t have to do this—when we have melodies and not much else. The best example on this disc is the four-minute Valse Caprice. It consists of a strong main theme (with a nice tag motive!), a couple of contrasting themes in the middle, and a reprise of the initial theme. For this piece Coleridge-Taylor adopts a late-Romantic ballet style entirely appropriate to the task. A bit of excessive harping on the second middle theme right before the A-theme reprise is a minor flaw, but overall this is solid stuff.

However, the other short selections here are not cast in an assumed ballet idiom, and some begin to betray issues that are more fully visible in the larger works. Coleridge-Taylor’s natural tendency is toward simple, square-cut themes. Unfortunately, once these have been stated and lightly varied, they usually exhaust their potential quickly. This is especially clear in the Sussex Landscape set. The second and third numbers succeed largely because they are short—two to three minutes—and rely on one or two ideas with minimal need for connection or development. But the first number runs close to six minutes, and here we begin to notice the afore-mentioned weaknesses. It opens with a frail theme built around a prominent half-cadence, an idea that is then tediously belabored, particularly given how rarely the music strays from the tonic. Bland variations on this opening gesture occupy nearly the entire span of the piece, while the contrasting ideas introduced in the middle are too close in flavor to offer meaningful relief.

The two In Memoriam miniatures tell a similar story. The second operates well enough simply because it is the shortest item on the disc, and little happens in its approximately 2 minutes beyond straightforward exposition of material. The other, In Memoriam – to the R.A.F., runs about four and a half minutes and feels at least a minute too long. Once again, Coleridge-Taylor overworks a slender main theme in the outer sections—especially at the outset—in ways that it ill tolerates. The lovely clarinet counter-melody in the middle stands out largely because it is comparatively spared such treatment.

In most of the longer works the seams are obvious. Coleridge-Taylor’s predilections for half-cadences and monotonous thematic sameness within a constricted tonic framework persist, but are now compounded by stalling devices: timpani-led tutti interruptions (resembling attempts to kick-start an engine) and cadenza-like passages that appear whenever the music seems to run out of forward momentum. In To April, the compulsive half-cadenzing seems to go on forever, so that we’re actually thankful for the harp passage that follows, despite the choppy continuity. Following this is a nice-ish theme that gets repeated with little variation. It was barely good enough to state once. The Comet Prelude (inspired by an airplane ride) goes on for even longer—almost 11 minutes. Perhaps the piece would have earned its genre title more if it were shorter, and the gentle secondary theme in the middle didn’t completely wear out its welcome. Curiously, From the Hills presents a step up from the other extended compositions here. It is not entirely free from their issues, but it does manage them more effectively. The sudden adoption of an English pastoral style seems to make a difference, as the nature of the content itself slightly eases Coleridge-Taylor’s difficulties in treating it.

With the Piano Concerto we are back in a stock late-Romantic idiom, close to Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff. Such stylistic conservatism lies at the center of several critiques of Coleridge-Taylor I have seen, but they miss the point. The workmanship is what is objectionable here, not the style. All of the problems already identified factor in, though the first two movements contain some genuinely pleasant material. What sinks the concerto most of all is its finale. A wisp of a theme opens the movement and is forced to do absurdly heavy labor for more than two minutes. An almost equally insubstantial secondary idea follows in an extended cadenza-like area before the opening gesture returns prior to a sweepingly climactic peroration. But the materials are too slight, and the connective tissue too feeble, for the structure to hold. The result is almost painful to listen to. It is hard to imagine anyone with a genuine critical capacity hearing it without wincing.

I’m not a formalist: I often rail against formalism. But while I listen to this music it makes me a formalist almost against my will. When basic elements of compositional craft are missing or compromised, this deficit comes to define the musical experience. Which brings us back to the nature of the overall project. Toward the end of the liner notes we’re told the following: “[Leah] is the founder of Unheard Heritage, a project with John Andrews and Resonus Classics to record great, forgotten music for new audiences. This is the project’s second disc...” I’m sorry, but “great music?” If I agree that it should have been recorded, I nonetheless strongly object to the idea that it’s great. Why the frequent overclaiming with ventures like these? I think we know why, and the reasons ultimately have little to do with the music itself. I acknowledge that Avril Coleridge-Taylor struggled to overcome obstacles she ought not to have faced. But this does not mean that she wasn’t in the end someone whose compositional ambitions (including an obvious wish to follow in her father’s footsteps) ran ahead of her abilities. Both things can be true, and no amount of pie‑in‑the‑sky advocacy will persuade me to pretend otherwise.

Recent Releases No. 80 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

Víkingur Ólafsson: Opus 109. Bach: Prelude in E Major, BWV 854; Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 27 in E Minor, Op. 90; Bach: Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830; Schubert: Piano Sonata in E minor, D566; Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109; Bach: French Suite No. 6 in E, BWV 817: Sarabande. Víkingur Ólafsson, piano. Deutsche Grammophon 486 7411

 

We have reviewed several previous releases from the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson (b. 1984) here at Classical Candor, each of them having some sort of unusual twist that set it apart from the standard piano recording. On Bach: Works and Reworks (DG 4837769) we got not only a piano recital but the sound of the piano combined with other (often electronic) instruments; on Debussy-Rameau (DG 479 7701), the pianist explored connections between two composers separated by a century-and-a-half; his Philip Glass album (DG  479 6918) included an arrangement a piano etude for piano quintet; and his Reflections album (DG 00289 483 9222) was a reimagining of his Debussy-Rameau album, this time with Ólafsson on piano accompanied by other musicians (with some electronic manipulation of sonic textures). This latest release is a straightforward piano recital without any added instruments or electronic manipulation. The pianist includes a liner note essay in which he explains his somewhat unusual program, which he assembled for a combination of musical and personal reasons. Although the album is titled Opus 109, the Bach Partita No. 6 seems to come across as the centerpiece. Ólafsson plays lyrically and expressively throughout; if the idea of Bach, Schubert, and Beethoven played together on the same program is an appealing one, then Opus 109 is warmly recommended. 

 

Close. Steve Tibbetts: We Begin, Pt. 1; We Begin, Pt. 2; We Begin, Pt. 3; Away, Pt. 1; Away, Pt. 2; Away, Pt. 3; Remember, Pt. 1; Remember, Pt. 2; Somewhere, Pt. 1; Somewhere, Pt. 2; Somewhere, Pt. 3; Anywhere; Everywhere, Pt. 1; Everywhere, Pt. 2; Everywhere, Pt. 3; Everywhere, Pt. 4; Everywhere, Pt. 5; Remember and; Remember and Wish; We End. Steve Tibbetts, guitar, percussion, piano; Marc Anderson, percussion, gongs, handpan, loops; JT Bates, drums. ECM 2858

 

Wisconsin-born, Minnesota-based guitarist Steve Tibbetts (b. 1954) has been recording his imaginative music since the mid-1970s. He released his self-titled first album in 1976 on the tiny independent Frammis label, which was followed in 1980 by YR, also on Frammis. YR marked his first collaboration with percussionist Marc Anderson, a collaboration that continues to this day. In 1982, the pair spent three days in Oslo recording the album Northern Song for producer Manfred Eicher’s ECM label, the label for which Tibbetts has since recorded seven more albums. In 2022, we reviewed his ECM release titled Hellbound Train, a two-CD sampling of tracks from his first seven ECM releases. I felt certain that I must have reviewed his previous release, Life Of, but when I checked, I discovered that much to my surprise, that this May 2018 album had been released several months before I ever started writing for Classical Candor. (It turned out my first contribution was an October 2018 review of Walton’s Viola Concerto.) As on his previous album, Tibbetts here plays plenty of moody 12-string, but also does some plugging in. The presence of both percussionists provides a steady rumbling pulse throughout the album; the net effect being one of reflection and quiet mystery. The cover photo is of a backyard at night; the liner photo is the same backyard in daylight. The music on the disc falls somewhere between. “Music is a twilight language,” Tibbetts affirms. “The job is to translate some shadow into sound.” 

 

Transcription as Translation. Smetana: String Quartet No. 1 “From My Life” (orch. George Szell); Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29, Op. 106 “Hammerklavier” (orch. Felix Weingartner). The Orchestra Now; Leon Botstein, conductor. AVIE AV2822

 

The late American conductor Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) made a much-heralded recording of a transcription he made of Beethoven’s Op. 131 string quartet with the Vienna Philharmonic – but for strings only. When it comes to transcribing piano works for full orchestra, perhaps the most noteworthy example is Ravel’s transcription of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. On this release from AVIE, we get two transcriptions for orchestra made by orchestral conductors. The first, by George Szell, takes Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 from an intimate piece of chamber music and makes it into something of an orchestral showpiece. According to the liner notes, Szell made his arrangement in 1939-40, soon after his arrival in the United States, and conducted it at his debut with the orchestra in 1944 and several times thereafter. It’s a pleasant enough listening experience, if not particularly memorable. Fans of the Smetana quartet may find this performance of interest to gain some additional insight. The Weingartner transcription of the “Hammerklavier,” on the other hand, comes across as less successful. The music never seems to catch fire; something seems to have been lost in translation. To be fair to Maestro Botstein and the orchestra, however, the original sonata is a daunting challenge for even the finest of pianists, so to expect an orchestral transcription to succeed in captivating an audience is – to be candid – in all likelihood an exercise in wishful thinking.