Recent Releases, No. 32 (CD reviews)

By Karl W. Nehring

LYS: Mari Samuelsen
Program includes: (1) Meredi: White Flowers Take Their Bath; (2) Dobinka Tabakova: Nocturne (arr. for violin & piano); (3) Hannah Peel: Signals; (4) Caroline Shaw: The Orangery; The Beech Tree; (5) Laura Masotto: Sol Levante; (6) Margaret Hermant: Lightwell; (7) Hildegard of Bingen: O vis eternitatis (arr. by Tormod Tvete Vik); (8) Beyoncé: Halo; (9) Lera Auerbach: Adagio sognando; (10) Hildur Guðnadóttir: Baer (arr. by Max Knoth); (11) Hannah Peel: Reverie (arr. for solo violin, strings, & electronics); (12) Hania Rani: La Luce; (13) Clarice Jensen: Love Abounds in Everything; (14) Anna Meredith: Midi (Arr. for solo Violin & electronics). Mari Samuelsen, violin; with support on the tracks indicated by Hania Rani, piano (12); Dobrawa Czecher, solo cello (12); Margaret Hermant, harp, violin, electronics (6); Fabien Leisure, electronics (6); Meredi, electronics (1); Clarice Jensen, electronics, cello, and artistic director (13); American Contemporary Music Ensemble (Ben Russell, violin; Laura Lutzke, violin; Isabel Hagen, viola; Paul Wiancko, cello) (13); Anna Meredith, electronics (14); Hannah Peel, electronics (3); 11; Erland Cooper, programming (11); Julien Quentin, piano (2, 9); Scoring Berlin (1, 3-7, 8, 10-12); Jonathan Stackhammer, conductor (1, 3-7, 6-8, 12). Deutsche Grammophon 486 2096.

Mari Samuelsen’s previous album for DG, titled simply “Mari,” was a 2-CD affair featuring a generous helping of work by contemporary composers plus a couple of works by Bach. You can read my review of that album here: https://classicalcandor.blogspot.com/2019/09/mari-cd-review.html Although it I must confess that it never occurred to me at the time, in the light of familiarizing myself with her new album it is now glaringly obvious that all the composers were male. To help restore some balance to the universe, all of the music on LYS (“light”) is the work of female composers; moreover, with the obvious exception of Hildegard, all are contemporary composers. As you can see, then, Ms. Samuelsen is vitally interested in presenting new music to the classical music listening public.

Do not fear, however, for all of the music on this album is quite listenable. There is nothing here that is dissonant or aurally challenging. On the contrary, this is music that is uplifting, hopeful, and engaging. Several of the composers provide brief notes about their compositions, this excerpt from Laura Masotto effectively capturing the spirit of the entire program: “Sol Levante was composed while holding in mind Mari’s discography and the way she plays the violin… While composing, I felt I wanted her and the string quartet to enjoy playing this piece, to have fun.” That sense of fun comes through not just on Marotto’s piece, but throughout the 52-minute recording. To hear such vibrant music from young musicians – players and composers alike – makes me feel confident about the future of what we still cling to calling “classical” music. Whatever you might choose to call it, it’s in good hands, folks.

Solus et una: Amit Peled
Bach: Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major for Violincello Solo, BWV 1010; Suite No. 5 in C Minor for Violincello Solo, BWV 1013; Brahms: Symphony No. 3 – Andante (arr. by Konstantin Blagojevic for eight cellos and piano)*. Amit Peled, cello; *Mount Vernon Virtuosi Cello Gang (Nick Pascucci, Natalia Vilchis, Lindsey Choung, Amit Peled, Mairéad Flory, Kyle Victor, Jiaoyang Xu, Álvaro Vázquez Osa, cellos); *Allison Freeman, piano. CTM Classics 95269 15090.  

This is yet another of those recordings arising from the pandemic. Israeli-American cellist Peled (b. 1973) says of this recording that it “is a reflection on my musical journey during the COVID-19 pandemic. As my mentor Boris Pergamenschikov wrote: ‘The Bach Cello Suites is music that cleanses the soul, especially if you ply it just for yourself, preferably without any audience.” As with many of us cellists, I found myself spending a lot of time with the Bach Suites in my home studio during the long months of the lockdown. The two suites that attracted me the most were the fourth suite in E-flat Major, which represents triumph, daring, and heroism – all the qualities I found myself searching for while trying to make sense of the artistic dryness that we all experienced at the beginning of the pandemic. And in contrast, the monumental fifth suite in C Minor, which bubbled up in me about a year into the lockdown when questions about supernatural power, God, love, religion and a search for belonging to something bigger than just us here on earth emerged in me – all the elements one finds in that almost religious most philosophical suite.”

With so many recordings of the complete set of Bach cello suites available by so many celebrated cellists – in many cases, multiple sets by celebrated artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, for example, who has no fewer than three fine sets available to choose from – what is the appeal of a single CD from a less well-known artist that contains only two of the six suites? First of all, not everyone needs to have a recording of all six suites, at least not at first (after becoming familiar with this glorious music by means of this splendid release, they may well decide to take the plunge. If they really want to jump in deep, besides picking up a recording of the complete set, they might also want to take a look at British cellist Steven Isserlis’s recent book about the Bach cello suites).

Second of all, Solus et una (“alone and together”) is in itself a splendid introduction to the suites, with Peled delivering heartfelt performances that are captured in excellent sound. I did a quick comparison of Eled’s performance  of No. 5 with Janos Starker’s venerable version on Mercury Living Presence and concluded that Eled’s version held its own. Again, for the listener new to classical music (or at least to the cello suites of Bach), Solus et una would certainly be a fine place to start.

Finally, Esed offers listeners a bonus: “As an encore track, I have included on this release the one piece that I was able to record during the lockdown with my dear cello students. Teaching during the pandemic, both online and in person, has been a source of hope, comfort and inspiration. Moreover, being able to make music with other people and with my own students was a real musical climax. For me, there’s nothing better to conclude this musical journey than the music of Brahms with its beauty of line and intimacy.” After the intensity of the Bach, the Brahms provides a relaxing change of pace. The sound quality is also different, with the instruments being more distant, the cellos blending into each other and the piano seeming to be a bit too far off in the distance to be completely effective musically. With the cellos not providing the treble parts that the violins would have provided in the original orchestral score, I had hoped the piano would have provided more of that sense, but the arrangement and engineering did not allow me to hear what I had hoped to hear. Still, as Esed writes, there does come through a sense of that Brahmsian beauty of line, even if it sounds a bit muffled. Perhaps I should not quibble about a bonus track recorded by students. All in all, this is a noteworthy release that is an excellent introduction to the wondrous world of the Bach cello suites.     

Enfolding
Scott Wollschleger: Outside Only Sound; Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti: with eyes the color of time. Eli Spindel, Brooklyn String Orchestra. New Focus FCR331.

Although there is nothing about the music on this release that is dissonant or “in-your face” (quite the opposite, actually), I will point out at the outset of this review that this is a CD that is not like to appeal to a broad swath of classical music lovers. However, there are some who may well find it fascinating, so for you folks (you know who you are, or at least I hope you will if you read on for a few more minutes), let me do my best to give you a quick thumbnail of these two compostions. The liner notes are quite skimpy, almost nonexistent, but if you are interested, you can find out more about the music at newfocusrecordings.com.  

There you will discover that “Scott Wollschleger’s Outside Only Sound was written upon request from the String Orchestra of Brooklyn to facilitate performance under lockdown restrictions. Wollschleger was asked to write a work that would require only a few minutes of rehearsal and could be performed outside. His answer was to write a work where each player is like an insect in a swarm; making sounds independently that are coordinated in accordance with time stamps in the score to create a mass of sound that moves in waves across the fourteen and half minute score. Bells, triangles, string harmonics, scratch tones, and cymbals merge with the sounds of an outdoor park, replete with laughing voices and the backing up signal of a truck. By the time the work is finished, one can sense the transformation of the public space into something shared and contemplative.” Well, for pretty much the first three minutes, the predominant sounds on the recording are ambient sounds, e.g., traffic noise, people talking, and so forth, with the instrumental sounds being way in the background. The instrumental sounds move to the foreground for the next nine minutes or so, but never really establish much in the way of melody, not that the sounds are in any way offensive. With about two minutes left, the background sounds begin to take back over. The whole effect is dreamlike, perhaps best enjoyed on headphones.

Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti’s with eyes the color of time, which was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music, is said to be inspired by a series of works on display at The Contemporary Museum (Spalding House) in Honolulu. Although the notes on the lable’s website describe it as a nine-movement piece, there are only eight movements/tracks on the CD. Go figure. But while Wollschleger’s composition was recorded live in a park (and sounds like it, as described above), with eyes the color of time was recorded in a studio and although still not abounding with melody in the traditional sense, sounds more like composed music.  The composer is able to evoke a variety of moods and sounds from the assembled strings and percussion, especially in the final two movements, titled “mahina” and “enfolding,” which are both more than seven minutes in duration. The latter movement in particular is quite spellbinding, closing the program on a seemingly metaphysical plane evoked by haunting sounds that lead the mind of the listener inevitably inward. No, this is not an album for everyone, but there are certainly some who will find it fascinating.

KWN