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