Recent Releases No. 50 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

György Ligeti: Complete Works for a cappella Choir. (CD1) Hey, Youth!; Mrs. Pápai; Couple Dances from Kállô; Songs from Màtraszentimre; Solitude; Ejszaka – Reggel; Easter; The Three Kings of Bethlehem; Choir Song after Goethe; Choral; The Seamstresses; In a Strange Land; The Fugitive; On the Side of a High Cliff; Four Wedding Dances; Wedding Song; Songs from Inakttelke; (CD2) Hartobàgy; Burial at Sea; Dawn; Buryat Harvest Song; Great Times; Dawn Is Breaking; Winter; Two Choirs on Poems by Bàlint Balassa; Orbàn; The Woman and the Soldier; Two Canons; Lux Aeterna; Hungarian Etudes after Poems by Sàndor Weöres; Three Fantasies after Friedrich Holderlin. Yuval Weinberg, SWR Vokalensemble. SWR Classic SWR1912BCD

 

The late Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) is probably most remembered for his contribution to the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which used his choral piece Lux Aeterna to great effect to give a sense of the spiritual dimension of the cosmos. Interestingly, DG once followed a similar idea when they released a recording in which William Steinberg’s scintillating performance of Holst’s The Planets was followed by Lux Aeterna. As Buzz Lightyear would say, “to infinity and beyond!” If, like me, you are most familiar with the music of Ligeti primarily from his instrumental work, perhaps from one of the box sets such as Clear and Cloudy from DG or The Ligeti Project from Teldec, and especially if like me your exposure to Ligeti’s choral music has been confined to Lux Aeterna, you might view the prospect of a two-CD set of Ligeti choral works with some sense of trepidation, wondering what kind of strange harmonies and dissonances you might run into over the next couple of hours or so. Not really knowing what to expect when I popped the first of the two CDs into the drawer of my player and hit the PLAY button. However, it was a bit of an anticlimax a few seconds later when the sounds that came out of my speakers were “normal” choral sounds – no dissonances or other otherworldly sounding vocal effects; instead, Hey Youth! the first track, turned out to be a lively, energetic piece that was immediately appealing and attractive. And so it continued throughout most of both discs, with Lux Aeterna itself being the only real outlier, the rest of the program, although varied in harmony and rhythm, sounding much more conventional than avant-garde (although the Hölderlin Fantasiesdo get bit harmonically adventurous in spots).

The liner notes point out that “with the exception of the Latin “Lux aeterna” (1966) and “Three fantasias based on Friedrich Hölderlin” (1982) Ligeti exclusively on setting Hungarian poetry to music… Ligeti did not only realise the respective contents programmatically but focussed especially on particular phonetic sound sequences, rhythms, intonations and accentuations of the Hungarian language… you do not have to understand the words in order to experience the choral works as music that is rich in tone colours, rhythmically concise and extremely expressive.” To that list of adjectives I would add “entertaining,” which this release certainly is. The mathematically inclined have no doubt deduced that 2023 marks the 100^th anniversary of Ligeti’s birth. This noteworthy release is a fine way to honor that occasion; let’s hope for more Ligeti as the year rolls on.

 

Margaret Bonds: Credo (text: W.E.B. Du Bois, ed. Rollo Dilworth); Simon Bore the Cross (text: Langston Hughes, ed. & arr. Malcolm J. Merriweather). Janinah Burnett, soprano; Dashon Burton, bass-baritone; The Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra; Malcolm J. Merriweather, conductor. AVIE AV2589

 

It is always interesting to come across music by a composer previously unknown to you. Composer and pianist Margaret Bonds (1913-1972) grew up in a musically rich environment in Chicago. In fact, in high school she studied piano and composition under the tutelage of Florence Price (1857-1953), another female African-American composer who has recently begun to be recognized. In 1934, Bonds became the first Black soloist to play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performing – what else? – Price’s Piano Concerto in D Minor. However, because of her race, life was not easy for her. Although she was able to earn her B.M. and M.M. degrees from Northwestern University, she was not allowed to live on campus. After unsuccessfully trying to start a music academy in Chicago, she moved to New York in 1939, where she worked in musical theater. Here, she immersed herself in the world of musical theatre and became an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance. She also wrote song for singers such as Leontyne Price and Betty Allen, then most famous being the spiritual, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand” for Ms. Price. Having been inspired by a Langton Hughes poem during her time at Northwestern, she was able to meet and strike up a close friendship with the poet during her time in New York. After Hughes’s death, Bonds moved to Los Angeles in 1967. During her lifetime she wrote over 200 compositions, but of these, only 75 scores survive; furthermore, only 47 were published during her lifetime.

The two works on this recording both date from the final decade of her life, and neither was performed in its entirety during her lifetime. She had premiered a piano/vocal version of Credo in in 1967, but then Hughes died, she moved to California, and it was not until a year after her death that excerpts of an orchestrated version were performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, with a complete performance following a year later. We now have this impassioned performance by New York’s Dessoff Choirs and Orchestra with soloists Janinah Burnett and Dashon Burton, all under the direction of conductor Malcolm J. Merriweather. The text by W.E.B. Du Bois is straightforward and forceful. It makes a plea for freedom and dignity that is if anything – sadly enough – even more relevant today than it was when first written. Powerful words, powerful music, given an appropriately robust performance and recording. It is hard to imagine anyone listening to this music and not being moved. Simon Bore the Cross is also powerful in its musical appeal, although its text, based on Passion poetry by Langston Hughes, may not have quite the impact for some people that Credo carries. Still, it is an impressive performance. Kudos to AVIE for including full texts of both compositions; photos of Price, Du Bois, and Hughes; and information about the performers. In all aspects, this is an admirable, recommendable release.