Oct 12, 2022

New Releases, No. 37

By Karl W. Nehring

Weather Systems I: A Hard Rain. (CD1) Cage: 27’10.554” for a percussionist; Stockhausen: Zyklus; Feldman: The King of Denmark; Wuorinen: Janissary Music; (CD2) Helmut Lachenmann: Intérieur I; William Hibbard: Parsons’ Piece; Kurt Schwitters: Ursonata. Steven Schick, percussion; Sharokh Yadegari, electronics composer and performer (on Ursonata). Islandia Music Records  IMR011.

Steven Schick (b.1954) is one of the world’s leading percussion virtuosos. He is also a composer and conductor as well as a professor of music (UC San Diego) who has been instrumental in commissioning new works by contemporary composers. Like many albums released over the past couple of years, A Hard Rain is an album that has been shaped in significant measure by the COVID-19 pandemic, as Schick explains in his revealing liner notes, wherein he explains how he came to choose these particular pieces and how some of them have particularly poignant meaning for him. As you night have noticed from the header above, the album is designated Weather Systems I, implying that that there may be more such releases to follow. According to Schick, “Weather Systems is a muti-part set of recordings of the percussion music that has been most meaningful to me, to be made as I age through my 60’s, 70’s, and perhaps 80’s. Though ‘Weather Systems I: A Hard Rain,” as the first installment, presents the foundationalist modernist works for solo percussion, the entire set of Weather Systems recordings will represent music composed over more than a hundred years and will feature a diverse set of com posers and points of view.” The end result is a fascinating album that highlights musical instruments that we tend to take for granted – instruments that are struck, shaken, rubbed, and which range in pitch from treble to bass and in volume from whisper-soft to thunderously loud. Moreover, the final composition, Kurt Schwitters’s Ursonata (1922-32) features the human voice as you have never heard it before. You might find it a bit strange or even offputting for the first few minutes, but just keep listening and there is a good chance y9u will find yourself utterly spellbound. Although A Hard Rain is admittedly out of the classical mainstream, there is plenty here on these two well-recorded discs to stimulate the musical imagination.

James M. Stephenson: Symphony No. 3 “Visions.” Vladimir Kulenovic, Lake Forest Symphony. Cedille 3014 (digital release).

Although Stephenson’s symphony is an excellent work, this review is a bittersweet one, for reasons I shall reveal presently. Let me first explain that although this release is available only digitally at the Cedille website ( https://www.cedillerecords.org ), because at the time I expressed interest in auditioning it I did not yet have an internet connection with bandwidth sufficient for streaming high-res audio, the good folks at Cedille were kind enough to send me a CD copy to use for review purposes. As John Puccio has pointed in the past, Cedille has a top-tier engineering team that knows how to capture realistic orchestral sound; I certainly had no complaints about the CD sound and would be confident that if you are able to stream it at CD quality or above, you will not be disappointed in the sound. More importantly, no matter what level of streaming quality you are able to access, you will hear a colorful, energetic, and attractive symphony. Indeed, Stephenson set out to write a symphony that would appeal to serious, musically informed listeners (the kind that read Classical Candor). In his program note for this symphony, he explained that the symphony’s subtitle, “Visions,” derives from images he kept in mind as he composed the work: “I would literally close my eyes and imagine myself sitting there, in the performance space. I would then only write music that I could envision getting colleagues, patrons, conductors, and young versions of myself at the edge of their seats, eager to play and experience.”

The music is tonal and tuneful right from the outset. The opening movement bustles with high spirits and is then followed by an adagio that calms things down somewhat while still retaining a feeling of energy and enthusiasm. The third movement, marked Vivo scherzando, at times has a jazz-like feeling. It is – unusually for a scherzo – the longest movement of the four. The finale starts off moodily but by the end builds up a full head of steam for a big finish with brass and percussion making a joyful noise. All in all, it is quite an enjoyable work, my only reservation being that at times I found myself wishing that Stephenson would have backed off a little on the scoring – not quite so many instruments playing all at once, perhaps some silence once in a while. As the late Colin Chapman of Lotus fame advised about automobile chassis engineering: “add lightness.” But my goodness, don’t let my petty quibble put you off – this is a colorful, enjoyable symphony. But now for the sad part. After more than 60 years of operation as a professional orchestra, the Lake Forest Symphony, based in Lake County, Illinois, just north of Chicago, ceased operations in 2020 because of funding shortfalls. Such a loss…

Christian Colberg: Talking to Myself. Rude; Six Rounds; 1977; Ibiza; That; Funk; Jump and Echo; The Balcony; Bach It Up; Hmmm; Sleep My Child. Available digitally at Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and Tidal, or as CD or USB at https://www.christiancolberg.com).

Christian Colberg is a Puerto Rican violist, violinist, and composer who currently serves as the principal violist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. As this album proves, he is also blessed with chops on percussion plus a vivid imagination and a fully-developed sense of fun. His backstory is fascinating, At age four, he auditioned on the violin for none other than the great Pablo Casals and was invited to be in the immortal cellist’s music for youth program. At 16, Colberg left Puerto Rico with no money and went to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. After graduating, an audition for the Baltimore Symphony appeared - but, on viola - an instrument he really didn't know. After listening to all the other applicants practice, he figured out how to play it well enough to get through the audition, and in the end, won his first professional audition on an instrument h didn't play. He was so broke that he had to ask the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for a loan to buy a viola, the same viola he plays today.

On Talking to Myself, Colberg composed all the music, plays all the instruments (his wife, Amy Taylor, plays the alto flute on one track), and did the engineering (which sounds just fine for a studio recording – also, the mixing and mastering was handled by an experienced pro, Matthew Lutthans). The music covers a wide range of styles and moods – jazz, blues, rock, but filtered through the strings of Colberg’s instruments, primarily his viola, violin, and occasional cello, plus the seasoning of acoustic and electronic percussion. Another influence shows up in the longest cut, titled That, in which Colberg’s love for the music of India reveals itself. On his website, he recounts a memory that explains both the feeling of the tune and the origin of its title: “My grandfather played records all day… His tastes in music spanned the globe. By the time I was five, I had heard the world. One sunny day (when is it not sunny in Puerto Rico?), when I was four, he put on a record that changed my life – "West meets East" by Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar. When I heard what was coming out of the record player, I said – “I have to play THAT.” From that moment, I knew I was a musician and nothing else would do. Truth be told, I meant I wanted to play the sitar ("that"), however, I’m not sure if there was even one single sitar in Puerto Rico at the time – so a violin had to do. I hit the ground running and dedicated myself to the instrument.” To my ears, That is six minutes of musical bliss that brings back memories of and pays tribute to both late musical masters, Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin. The final track is also quite moving, titled Sleep My Child, Sleep. Taylor’s flute plays a haunting melody while Colberg provides accompaniment on his viola. Christian Colberg’s Talking to Myself is quirky but fun, well worth an audition by those who value imagination and musical dexterity.

Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1-7; Tapiola Op. 112; Three Late Fragments. Klaus Mäkelä, Oslo Philharmonic. Decca 455 2256 (4 CDs).

The young Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä (b. 1996) caused quite a stir earlier this year when Decca released this set of then complete Sibelius symphonies conducted by a relatively unknown young man in his mid-twenties. The sheer audacity! The cheek! As usual, there were mixed reactions, with some reviewers just not being able to get past Mäkelä’s age and perceived lack of credentials, others lavishing heady praise on an outstanding new release. In any event, given the musical importance of the Sibelius symphonies, it is certainly exciting to see a new release of a complete set on a major label, no matter the age of the conductor (perhaps Decca could have avoided some of the critical nitpicking by not featuring cover and liner photos that so effectively highlight Mäkelä’s youthful appearance). In the classical music world we take almost for granted that there have been prodigies who have shown incredible musical talent as performers and/or composers at a young age (e.g., Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Hilary Hahn), so why not be willing to accept the idea of a conducting prodigy, which Maestro Mäkelä certainly seems to be. He became interested in conducting at the age of 12 while singing in the choir, of the Finnish National Opera and later studied conducting at the Sibelius Academy. At the age of 21 he first conducted the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and was shortly thereafter named its Principal Guest Conductor. In 2018, he guest-conducted the Oslo Philharmonic, and soon thereafter he was named as its Chief Conductor starting with the 2020-21 season. Since then, he has also been named Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris starting in 2021. On top of that, he haws been appointed as an artistic partner of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from 2022 to 2027, when he will then become its next Chief Conductor. Clearly, he is either prodigiously talented or else his manager is a Jedi master.

Not that surprisingly, the (spoiler alert!) overall high musical quality of this release is in a significant sense yet another product of the coronavirus pandemic, which hit during Mäkelä’s inaugural year with the Oslo Philharmonic. They had planned to explore Sibelius’s symphonies during a nine-month period, but then the pandemic and its restrictions hit. Mäkelä and the orchestra wound up focusing solely on the music of Sibelius during the spring of 2021. The liner notes offer this explanation: “We played, played and then recorded,” says Mäkelä. “Sibelius’s music, like that of any composer, is a language you have to learn, and the circumstances under which we recorded actually played to our advantage.” Mäkelä goes on to explain that pandemic rules requiring the orchestra members to maintain social distancing during the recording sessions, which led to “deep listening” in his musicians.

The end result is a fine set of these wonderful works. Surely, most classical lovers will already own other recordings of many of Sibelius’s symphonies, perhaps even one or more complete sets such as this. Many will have favored recordings of individual symphonies or Tapiola that they will prefer over Mäkelä’s. I, for example, would never want to part with the Maazel/ Vienna recording of No. 4, and I prefer the Vanska/Lahti version of No. 6. Others would no doubt have other preferences. My “keeper” box set has been the Vanska/Lahti on BIS; however, as good as the engineering is on that set, the Decca team has surpassed it. The sound is smooth, clear, and natural. No, I’ve not heard every Sibelius set out there, but I’ve heard a number of them, and a whole bunch of individual releases – this set has the best overall sound I’ve yet encountered.

Finally, this set includes some music that will be new to even the most ardent Sibelius fans, Three Late Fragments. His last completed work was Tapiola, which is included in this set, but as Nordic music scholar Andrew Mellor explains in the liner notes, “but there was mo9re music in side Sibelius – just. Three fragments of orchestral music discovered am9ng the composer’s late manuscripts may or may not have been intended as part of an Eighth Symphony. But they do suggest Sibelius was attempting to pick up some of the sparse, frayed linguistic threads from Tapiola and struggling to knit them coherently together – aware, perhaps, that the piece had assumed the role of a creative farewell by default. Mäkelä’s take on these fragments is that “Sibelius was reading scores and listening to the radio a lot in his last decades. He realized how different the European avantgarde was starting to sound. Perhaps he couldn’t react on the level he would have liked. The fragments suggest a completely new language that he just couldn’t sustain – or maybe didn’t want to.” Not for nothing are these three compositions called fragments; they time out at 1:41, 0:17, and 1:43. Quite brief, but quite fascinating. With excellent performances, superb engineering, and some truly rare music, this is a set worthy of consideration by Sibelius fans.

KWN

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Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa