Joep Beving: Liminal (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Beving: Through the Looking-Glass; Ida; Arcadia; From Where One Hears the Willow Speak; Wild Renaissance; Elysium; When Humans Do Algorythms; Incantation in B-flat Minor; Sfumato; Play; Heterotopia; Immanence; Ghostly Chicken. Joep Beving, piano, electronics. Deutsche Grammophon 486 8427

When I went back to look at the review we published back in 2022 of one of Beving’s previous releases, the fascinating Hermetism (the review of which you can read here), I was surprised to find that the post with the Hermetism review also included a review of a book by the esteemed music critic Alex Ross, who, sadly enough, recently left his post as classical music critic for The New Yorker. Read the review, read his book… Anyway, back to Dutch composer and pianist Joep Beving (b. 1976). He was interested in music in his youth, studied the piano, but an injury to his wrist forced him to give up serious piano study. Instead, he wound up studying public policy and ended up with a career in the advertising business, but his musical talent enabled him to work his way into composing jingles and background music for commercials. In 2010, he composed the soundtrack for a short film; then in 2015, he not only scored another short film, but he also released his first album, titled Solipsism.

 

Fast-forward to 2026 and we have Liminal, Beving’s most recent release for Deutsche Grammophon. Like the music on Hermetism, the music on Liminal is a collection of tunes that hover in that space somewhere between modern classical and New Age. According to Beving, “the album moves between two sides. Sometimes, I try to shape and refine sound into its purest form. Other times, the music seems to flow on its own, shifting, fading, and returning to silence as if guided by something natural. It’s less about structure and more about connection, resonance, and change, closer to ecology than architecture.” The majority of the music is on the contemplative end of the spectrum, but there is always an underlying feeling of motion and energy – the music never feels static or repetitive. The tune When Humans Do Algorythms, in fact, is quite lively and bouncy in its own way. Two especially engaging compositions are Arcadia and Wild Renaissance (you can find a YouTube video of the latter here). For those willing to explore music beyond the standard classical repertoire, but don’t want to be assaulted by dissonance, I humbly recommend this lovely album.

Korngold & Barber Violin Concertos (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Korngold: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35; Barber: Violin Concerto, Op. 14. Paul Huang, violinist; Jun Märkl, conductor; London Philharmonic Orchestra. Naïve V8121

On a whim I typed into Google Gemini, “The Barber and Korngold Violin Concertos are sentimental.” The surprisingly lengthy response I got was something along the lines of, “that’s a fair criticism, but these works are actually very soundly constructed.” Say what you want about the perils of AI (and I would probably agree), but sometimes our electronic assistants soberly reflect real tendencies of human beings. In this case, Gemini reasonably assumed I was being negative, because that’s how the term frequently gets used nowadays. When I replied that I meant “sentimental” as a compliment, and was praising these works’ fervent emotional expression, it confirmed that this indeed was long the primary definition, eclipsed since the early 20th century by pejorative connotations. If you dig even a little into these concertos’ reception histories, you will soon find more than enough to justify Gemini’s defensive pose. Or just observe how often reviewers praise a performance of Romantic repertoire because it ‘avoids dipping into sentimentality.’

 

Who do such critics think they’re trying to reassure? Surely not the performers and audiences who have long treasured these concertos, even as the music was being panned for flouting modernist sensibilities they scarcely shared. In other words, I think your average listener enjoys them precisely because they are so heartfelt and melodically memorable…and yes, because they remind them of the film scores some critics also like to trash. So, by this measure, performances that embody sentimentality may just strike a chord with a wide swath of people. Thus reoriented, I can tell you that Paul Huang’s interpretations here with Jun Märkl and the LPO actually do avoid much of this sentimentality, but maybe that’s not what the music really needs.

 

If Huang’s intention was to establish a distinctive sound, he succeeds. Especially in the Korngold. The soloists in what I would consider to be its benchmark performances (Shaham, Heifetz, and Perlman, in that order) each adopt fuller, more lush tones that capture a certain Hollywood wistfulness. By contrast, Huang’s rendition gleams with sharper edges. I wouldn’t say that he ducks the lyrical themes and climactic points, exactly, but they do come across differently in his hands. Compare, for instance, his middle movement with Heifetz’s on RCA (LM 1782). Huang is bright and clear, while Heifetz silkily weaves a web of nostalgia or some other dreamlike state. The one elicits respect, the other, love. Huang’s finale similarly undersells the music’s inherent warmth by accentuating some percussive aspects on top of his preference for cooler precision. I kept thinking how adroit he would be in Bartók. He should make those concertos a future project.

 

Huang’s Barber Concerto carries some of these same tendencies but lies closer to the mean. The melodic lines, particularly in the first movement, are nice and expansive. But we’re still missing a last 10% expressively. The climactic tutti is a good example, and here for the first time I’ll implicate Märkl, who holds back the orchestra just a bit. Poise and clarity are everywhere to be found both here and in the following section. Torrid virtuosity brings the performance to a satisfying close. There is a certain radiance overall. But while I can hear everything uncommonly well, I don’t always feel everything as much as I want to. Those critics so worried about dipping into sentimentality (both in these concertos and elsewhere) should be at least as worried about dipping into sterility. Somehow, they hardly ever are.

 

Nonetheless, I do actually recommend this recording. While it isn’t my preferred take on these beloved works, it is an incisive one that provides a credible foil to what we’re used to. It is smart and certainly effective after its fashion; I admire that in this case. So, if you have room in your collection for multiple Korngold and Barber Concerto releases, by all means go ahead, scoop this up, and listen to it occasionally. But if you’re in the market for one trusty take and no more, it's still gotta be Shaham's pairing on DG (439 886-2).

Recent Releases No. 82 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

Mahler: Symphony No. 5. Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra; Sir Donald Runnicles, conductor. Reference Recordings FR-763SACD

Mahler is one of those composers who looms almost larger than life in the world of classical music – and beyond. Even those without much knowledge of his actual music seem to have heard of him, making him a kind of cultural touchstone, a name to be dropped in casual conversation to establish one’s credentials as a hip intellectual. His symphonies are grand, powerful, colorful, tender, expressive, intimate – the listener can find all manner of emotional and musical expression within Mahler’s world. His Fifth Symphony is a prime example of Mahler’s range of expression, with its opening funeral march, agitated second movement, the tender Adagietto third movement, and rollicking finale. Mahler’s music demands excellent engineering, and as expected, Reference Recordings once again delivers just that. But what about performance? The orchestra is not exactly a household name. However, we reviewed their previous release, also under the baton of Maestro Runnicles, and found it to be quite worthy of recommendation (you can see that review of the Beethoven piano concertos here). Runnicles has the orchestra in fine form; combined with the excellent engineering, you can listen right into the heart of the music. The Adagietto is a bit on the slow side (10:05) but does not feel overly sentimentalized. Overall, this is a fine performance in top-notch sound that will stay on my shelf along with other favorite accounts such as Bernstein (DG), Haenchen (Pentatone), Abravanel (Vanguard), Abbado (DG). and Boulez (DG). Mahler fans would do well to give it an audition.

 

Victor Le Masne: Ravel Recomposed. Ravel: Boléro; Le Jardin Féerique (from Ma Mére l’Oye ballet, M. 35); Assez Vif, Trés Rhythmé; Jeux D’Eau, M. 30); Il Est Bon, L’Enfant. Il Est Sage (from L’Enfant et Les Sortiléges, M. 71); Mouvement de Menuet (from Sonatine, M. 40); Pavane pour une Infante Défunte, M. 19; Adagio Assai (from Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83); Chanson Hébraïque (from Chant Populaires, M. A17); Le Gibet (from Gaspard de la Nuit, M. 55); Une Barque sur l’Océan (from Miroirs, M. 43); Lever du Jour (from Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, M. 57B). Victor Le Masne, conductor, Fender Rhodes, synthesizers, piano, kalimba, drums; Christine & The Queens, vocals, lyrics (on Boléro); Adrian Edeline, guitar; Scoring Berlin, ensemble, choir; Julius Asal, piano; Colette, lyrics (on Il Est Bon, L’Enfant. Il Est Sage); Laurent Vernerey, bass; Camille Thomas, cello. Deutsche Grammophon 4867530

Those readers who have been following Classical Candor for a long time may well be familiar with the concept of a composer’s works somehow being “recomposed” by another composer. “Now, hold on just a minute, Karl,” I can already hear some of you muttering amongst yourselves, “of course I’m familiar with this concept, a prime example being what Ravel himself did with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, taking a piano suite and recomposing it into a beloved orchestral score.” Well, you certainly have a point, and if we give the matter a bit more thought, we might come to realize that Ravel never claimed to have “recomposed’ the music of Mussorgsky, but rather merely to have orchestrated it: i.e., taken a Mussorgsky work written for the piano and arranged it for orchestra. A more convincing case for the concept of recomposition can be made for what German-born British composer Max Richter (b. 1966) has done with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Richter says that he discarded about 75% of Vivaldi’s original score when coming up with his recomposed version for solo violin, synthesizer, and chamber orchestra; however, the new version retains much of the flavor of the original. We have reviewed three different recordings of Richter’s delightful composition – or recomposition – over the years: the original version, with Richter on synthesizer, Daniel Hope on violin, and Andre De Ridder conducting the Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin (you can read John Puccio's 2014 review here); an “original instruments” version, this time with Richter playing a vintage Moog synthesizer and solo violinist Elena Urioste and the Chineke! Orchestra playing on gut strings (that 2022 review can be found here); and a recording by French-born violinist Etienne Gara and the Los Angeles-based chamber group Delirium Musicum (you can read that 2023 review here). And along similar lines, we also reviewed an instance of a famous composition being not recomposed, but rather “remixed,” in the case of Gabriel Prokofiev (b.1975), grandson of Sergei, who along with conductor Yaniv Segal and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales present a version of the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth reimagined for electronics and orchestra (you can find that review here).

Perhaps it was the widespread name recognition of Ravel’s Boléro that led to that composition being chosen as the first track on this release; unfortunately, however, Le Masne’s recomposition, which turns it into a melodramatic vocal piece featuring Christine & The Queens, retains the melody but loses all of the building tension which makes Boléro interesting in the first place. It’s the weakest track on the album, not a good way to kick things off. Things get better with the succeeding tracks, with the movements from the String Quartet, Sonatine, and Piano Concerto working especially well in in their arrangements for synths. Devoted fans of Ravel’s music might find these renditions of Ravel’s music of interest, but those new to Ravel would do better to listen to his music in its original settings first. Be forewarned that several of the cuts feature prominent levels of bass – it might be best not to turn the volume up right away.