Adam Abeshouse, R.I.P.

 by Karl Nehring

Less than a fortnight ago, I posted a bittersweet “Appreciation and Lament” column that reported on how a group of musicians had gathered in the studio of producer Adam Abeshouse to play for him one last time, for their dear friend was dying from cancer; this was their way of expressing their love and appreciation for his devotion both to his craft and to them. When I wrote that post, which you can find here or in the column to the left, I had no idea that his death would come so soon; sadly, however, Mr. Abeshouse passed away on October 10. Not only has the classical music world lost a great producer and engineer, but we have lost a great human being. You can get a sense of the regard in which he was held in the musical world from this NPR article that announced his death (to be found here). Another perspective on the man can be found in this obituary from the Jewish Telegraph Agency. Finally, there is an obituary (which you can find here) that contains a link to one of those “movies” that are sometimes assembled as tributes to those who have passed away. Consisting of a series of photographs accompanied by a musical soundtrack, these photos give us a sense of the person’s life. In the case of Adam Abeshouse, there are many, many photos – the movie lasts for a good 45 minutes, and is utterly fascinating. Even if you have never heard of the man, you will wind up loving him. 

Please allow me to close with a suggestion. The next time you plan to listen to some music, type “Abeshouse” into the Classical Candor search box to the left of this post and scroll through the many recordings that pop up. Find one that suits your mood, then give it a listen in honor of our fellow human being who was taken from us far too early.  

Brad Mehldau: Formation (Book Review)

by Karl Nehring

Brad Mehldau: Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part One. Equinox Publishing Ltd., Sheffield, UK/Bristol, CT. 2023. 293 pp.

 

The American pianist Brad Mehldau (b. 1970) is best known for his work in the jazz arena, perhaps most widely as the leader of his own trio, but also for his work with other prominent jazz musicians such as guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist Josh Redman. If you really want to hear some peak jazz Mehldau, a good place to start would be his “The Art of the Trio” albums from the 1990s, especially The Art of the Trio III – Songs, which is a captivating listening experience from start to finish, but very hard to find these days, alas, so you might try Vol. IV, Back at the Vanguard, which is also excellent. However, Mehldau’s musical interests are not restricted to jazz alone. For example, he has composed songs and performed recitals with classical singers such as Renee Fleming, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Ian Bostridge. Other examples of his wide musical interests and talents include an album titled Taming the Dragon, on which he plays a variety of electronic synthesizers while paired with drummer/percussionist Mark Giuliana, and an album in which he performs what is essentially a classical piano concerto of his own composition, accompanied by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Our review of that album, titled Variations on a Melancholy Theme, can be found here. Among the other albums of his that we have reviewed previously are the classically-oriented After Bach II (reviewed here) and Après Fauré (reviewed here).

 

His aptly titled musical autobiography Formation: Building a Personal Canon, Part One offers a remarkably – at times shockingly – candid look at the forces and influences that shaped his musical and personal development. “Part One” signifies that in this volume, Mehldau covers how his personal musical canon came to be formed, or as he puts it in his preface, “how that process played out in tandem with my development as a jazz musician throughout the first twenty-six years of my life. In a second book that is underway, I will focus more directly on the canon itself.” Some of the personal details that Mehldau reveals are on the sordid side. As he explains, “there are detailed descriptions of drug and alcohol abuse in this book. I want to stress that although I describe the pleasure of using them, I hope I will have shown that they were a mistaken path, one that injured me and almost took my life. They are a part of my story. I do not know why I survived when close friends of mine did not. Perhaps because of this, I feel an obligation to tell that story honestly. Drugs and alcohol were painkillers which only caused more pain, and I want to underline: they offered no insights musically, in the least.” 

 

As a child, Mehldau of course enjoyed the rock music of the time – Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Rush, Billy Joel – from the latter came his interest in the piano. His first exposure to classical music were a couple of cassettes the family had of Rudolf Serkin playing Beethoven – the 4^th and 5^th Piano Concertos with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra plus another with him playing the “Moonlight,” Pathétique,” and “Appassionata” Sonatas. Later, he would go on to take piano lessons for a teacher who would introduce him to the classical repertoire, beginning with Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin, then soon moving on to Mozart, Brahms, and Bartók. “Brahms was my favorite and Bach pissed me off then – it was just too damn hard. There was just no place to hide. I came around eventually to Bach and he still provides endless edification and nothing short of spiritual nourishment. Beethoven was and is the model for a paradoxical creature, one with a certain willful inspiration. Brahms gives solace and consolation. The three Bs as they’re called – I’m a happy member of that cliché.”

 

Although the book will doubtless appeal more to the jazz fan than to the classical fan, there is much in its pages to appeal to both. To those with an academic background, I would suggest that you might find his discussion of Adorno to be of interest. It’s a fascinating discussion, covering jazz, swing, Brahms, Beethoven, capitalism, totalitarianism, upbeat, downbeat, Black music… all in a few pithy pages. Mehldau gets worked up, Adorno gets skewered, and bebop lives.

If you’re a jazz fan, you really ought to check this book out. Or if you are a classical fan with at least some interest in jazz, well, you might want to give it a look. It’s fascinating story.

Adam Abeshouse: An Appreciation and Lament

by Karl Nehring

While preparing my recent review of Intermezzo, clarinetist Seunghee Lee’s traversal of music by the Italian composer Michele Mangani, I discovered in reading the liner notes that seven of the tracks were edited, mixed, and mastered by Adam Abeshouse. His is a name that I am always glad to see listed on an new release, for Abeshouse is a top-flight engineer; in fact, I have mentioned his name in some of my past reviews (such as this one), acknowledging his role in bringing satisfying sound into my listening room. Looking back through the Classical Candor archives, I can also find Abehouse’s name mentioned numerous times by John Puccio, acknowledging the engineer’s production values (you cans see some examples of John’s reviews here, here, and here).

Imagine, then, the shock and sadness I felt when I came across a link to an NPR story a few days ago about how a group of musicians -- including such well-known figures as Jeremy Denk, Joshua Bell, Garrick Ohlsson, and Simone Dinnerstein – had recently gathered to play for Abeshouse, who has been diagnosed with cancer and whose time on earth is drawing to a close. It is at once heartbreaking to learn of the plight of Mr. Abeshouse, yet at the same time it is heartwarming to witness the love and devotion these musicians have for their dear colleague and friend. 

We at Classical Candor wish to express our appreciation to Mr. Abeshouse for his outstanding service to music, musicians, and music listeners over these many years. We also want to express our lament and regret that his career – and his very life – has been cut short by this cruel, unexpected disease. We also wish to express our admiration and appreciation for those musicians who made the effort to show their love and appreciation for their beloved producer by gathering in his honor to play for him one final time. In the words of the late sage David Crosby, “everybody’s saying ‘music is love’…”

You can find the NPR story here.

Max Richter: In a Landscape (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

They Will Shade Us With Their Wings; Life Study I; A Colour Field (Holocene); Life Study II; And Some Will Fall; Life Study III; The Poetry of Earth (Geophony); Life Study IV; Only Silent Words; Life Study V; Late and Soon;Life Study VI; Andante; Life Study VII; A time mirror (Biophony); Life Study VIII; Love Song (after JE); Life Study IX; Movement, Before All Flowers. Max Richter, electronics, piano, Hammond organ, electronic percussion; Eloisa-Fleur Thorn & Max Baillie, violins; Connie Pharoah, viola; Max Ruisi & Zara Hudson-Kazdaj, cellos; Martin Robertson & Paul Richards, bass clarinets; David Fuest, contrabass clarinet; Martin Williams & Graeme Blevins, tenor saxophones; Gemma Moore, baritone saxophone. Decca 587 5717 

 

In a Landscape is the ninth solo studio album by the German-born British composer and keyboard performer Max Richter (b. 1966). Our first review of a work by Richter appeared more than a decade ago, when Classical Candor’s founder John Puccio posted his review of Richter’s bold “recomposition” of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (you can read John's review here). In 2022, Richter released another version of his Seasons recomposition, this time around one of the main differences being we have (other than Richter) musicians playing on gut strings and period instruments: the sort that Vivaldi would have heard and played in his own time. Also, this time around, Richter plays a vintage Moog analog synthesizer rather than the modern digital synth he had employed on the 2014 release (you can read our review here). Then a year later, we reviewed yet another recording of Richter’s Recomposed Four Seasons, this time performed not by Richter himself, but by the Los Angeles-based chamber ensemble Delirium Musicum. You can read our review of this delightful release, which also includes Philip Glass’s American Four Seasons, here.

 

Of course, there’s more to Max Richter’s music than his reimagining of Vivaldi’s greatest hit. One of his most highly publicized musical endeavors was Sleep, an 8-hour “lullaby for a frenetic world” to which listeners at the few liv performances were encouraged to bring cots, sleeping bags, blankets, etc. it is available as a 4-CD set, on an app, plus there is an abbreviated version, From Sleep, which is available on a soothing yet musically satisfying 1-hour CD (our review is available here). But Richter has not only been interested in making music to lull his listeners into states of quiet passivity; quite the opposite, in fact, as revealed by his releases Voices (reviewed here) and Voices 2 (to be found in this set of reviews) with their focus on human rights, plus his later Exiles, with its title composition inspired by a refugee crisis in Syria that involved many thousands of people fleeing for their lives under desperate circumstances (you can find that review here).

The music on In a Landscape is peaceful, introspective, but not somnolent. Richter says of the album that it is about “reconciling polarities, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living.” It’s his first solo album recorded at Studio Richter Mahr, the minimalist, eco-conscious creative retreat designed and operated by Richter and his wife, visual artist Yulia Mahr. “The whole building is like an instrument,” he says. “There's an element of exploring the capabilities of the building, how all the spaces sound, all the textures, and trying to discover the fingerprint it has.”

 

He kept the creative process decidedly minimal, writing the notation by hand and restricting the arrangements to just a few instruments: string quintet, grand piano, Hammond organ and MiniMoog, plus tape delays, vocoders, and reverbs. As you can see from the header above, the program comprises 20 tracks: ten musical pieces, which range in duration from 8:33 to 2:16, alternating with nine “Life Studies,” brief ambient field recordings that add an aura of intimacy to the proceedings. Richter’s music is relatively simple in structure, but rich in emotional resonance, capable of engaging both the head and heart of the listener. What’s more, the recorded sound is rich and full. My only quibble is the lack of meaningful liner notes. Other than that, In a Landscape is a meditative masterpiece.

Intermezzo: Works of Michele Mangani (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Mangani: Executive; Pagina d’Album; Intermezzo; Astor Piazzolla: Tango Étude No. 3 (Arr. Mangani); Mangani: Love Theme; Dancing Doll; Ave Maria; Tre Danze Latine for Clarinet and Piano – I. Contradanza II. Vals Criolio III. Chorinho; Dreaming; Theme for Clarinet; Andante Malinconico; Souvenir. Seunghee Lee, clarinet; Manhattan Chamber Players; Steven Beck, piano. Musica Solis MS202408

 

As Ry Cooder once sang on his treasurable album Paradise and Lunch (well, not really, but it was awfully close), “oh, I’m a fool for a clarinet.” And yes, folks, I really am. I played the clarinet myself, long ago and not particularly well. However, when played by a skilled clarinetist such as Seunghee Lee, I can hardly imagine a sweeter instrumental sound. Lee, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, but who moved at the age of nine to the Chicago area with her family, presents here an engaging program featuring the music of the Italian composer Michele Mangani (b. 1966), someone whose music that has long held an attraction for the clarinetist, perhaps because Mangani is not only a composer, and a conductor, but also a clarinetist himself. He currently resides in Urbino, Italy.

 

Ms. Lee also has other talents beyond the clarinet. 
She collaborated with the noted author Deepak Chopra on his album and book: HOME: Where Everyone is Welcome, a collection of poems and songs inspired by a diverse group of immigrants. She is also a talented golfer, known as “Sunny Kang,” in the golf world. She has been featured in HK Golfer Magazine and has spoken at TEDx Hong Kong about the surprising similarities between golf and music and the mental challenges of viewing both skills through the lens of a perfectionist. 

 

A good introduction to the music to be found on this release can be found in this video introduction to the album by Ms. Lee herself. In it, she remarks that one of the features of Mangani’s music that draws her to it is that it allows her to feel as though she is able to sing through her clarinet. Indeed, Mangani’s music has an expressive, melodic, sweet quality to it that is entertaining but not cloying. The program is divided roughly into halves; from the opening Executive (a performance of which you can view here) through Ave Maria, Ms. Lee is accompanied by the strings of the Manhattan Chamber Players, while the remainder of the program finds Ms. Lee accompanied by the piano of Steven Beck. Included in the first half of the program is the one composition – Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Étude No. 3 – that is not by Mangani himself, but in his arrangement, it fits right in. A particular highlight of the latter collaboration is Andante Maliconico, with its simple but sincere melody played with a full, rich, steady tone by Ms. Lee. All in all, Intermezzo is one of the most pleasant releases to cross my path in quite some time. Highly recommended to those who love melody.

Anna Clyne: Shorthand (Streaming Review)

by Karl Nehring

Shorthand; Three Sisters; Prince of Clouds; Within Her Arms; Shorthand REDUX. Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Avi Avital, mandolin; Colin Jacobsen, Pekka Kuusisto, violins; The Knights; Eric Jacobsen, conductor. Sony Classics

It seems impossible that it was back in early 2020 when I first became acquainted with the music of British-born composer Anna Clyne, who now resides in the Hudson Valley area of New York
. I can’t remember exactly where or when I first saw her name in print, but not long after that, I mentioned her name to Bill Heck during a phone conversation. To my surprise and delight, Bill responded that he and his wife had attended a concert by the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio, where they had both been greatly impressed by a piece titled Within Her Arms – a piece composed by none other than Anna Clyne. Intrigued, I checked Amazon for a recording, but alas, there was none to be found. However, I was soon able to audition it thanks to YouTube, where I was able to track down a video of a live performance. Like Bill and Mary, I too was greatly impressed. I quickly sent the link to another music-loving friend, who was also impressed. How was this wonderful music not yet available on CD?!

Although Within Her Arms was not yet available on disc back in 2020, a few months later I was able to review a new CD release on the AVIE label that paired the venerable Cello Concerto by Sir Edward Elgar with an invigorating new cello concerto by Ms. Clyne titled Dance, a review you can read here. Then early in 2021 AVIE released an all-Clyne orchestral CD titled Mythologies, a release that left no doubt about Clyne’s distinctive and imaginative compositional voice (you can find that review here).

Well, fast-forward three years to the present day, 2024, and it appears that the time has come for Anna Clyne to be more widely acknowledged as a major contemporary composer with this new release featuring her music being played by the well-known superstar soloists Yo-Yo Ma of Sesame Street fame (just [half] kidding) and mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, supported by the up-and-coming young New York-based chamber orchestra, The Knights. This is certainly an exciting release – but why oh why is there no CD? Call me old-fashioned, but I (and many others) still prefer physical media, thank you. (And don’t tell me about “CD rot,” for the first CD I ever bought, Glenn Gould’s 1981 Goldberg Variations, still plays just fine, thank you.) My fear is that there will be music lovers who will miss out on discovering the remarkable music of this gifted composer simply because they still use CD as their primary source of listening to music. I hope I am wrong – and I will end my rant and return to this rewarding release.

Speaking of the opening composition on the program, Clyne writes, “I wrote Shorthand in 2020 when we were in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic and when I was invited to write a piece for The Knights’ recording project, The Kreutzer Project. I was thrilled to compose this piece as I am a cellist, and I love writing for strings – I can imagine and relate to the physicality of the instruments. Shorthand references two themes from Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano (which inspired Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata): the opening theme, as well as a second theme that Janácek also incorporated in his own String Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata” (also inspired by Tolstoy’s novella). That second Beethoven theme inspires the opening material for Shorthand. The title comes from Tolstoy’s comment that ‘Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance’.” From the opening phrases of Ma’s cello, the emotions do indeed pour forth from this piece, but with sincerity and power, not saccharine and schmaltz. The way The Knights reflect and interact with Ma’s solo part the highlights the beauty of both his playing and Clyne’s writing, both of which are sublime. 

The next work on the program offers a contrasting sonority as the solo instrument shifts from the cello to the mandolin. Clyne writes of her work Three Sisters, which features featuring mandolinist Avi Avital, “in 2016 I was awarded the Hindemith Prize, which provided an opportunity to compose a new work for Avi and string orchestra: Three Sisters. I began work on Three Sisters at an artist retreat in upstate New York in 2017. Alone in a studio in the middle of the woods, dwarfed by a sea of 100-feet pine trees that masked the daylight and harbored the night’s creatures, and situated on an estate littered with haunting stories of ghostly visitations, the music that emerged was itself haunting and ghostly. And so, I fled back home. Saving just a few fragments from my curtailed residence upstate, I continued the work at my home studio in Brooklyn but soon after returning, I had to move apartment unexpectedly. The work was completed in a tiny apartment a little further away from the lights of Manhattan, but which offered something far more beautiful—a rooftop with an unobstructed view of the night sky, decorated with a scattering of jewels on a clear night. And it is the constellation Orion that stared down upon me night after night—the three stars of his belt, the three sisters, shining bright. And so, this work of three portraits unfolded, each portrait sharing the same DNA in varying guises. In addition to my varying whereabouts, the main source of inspiration throughout this journey was Avi’s incredible dexterity and virtuosity, coupled with the tenderness that he brings to the most delicate and sparse of music.” The plucking of the mandolin set against the contrasting sounds of the strings offers a fascinating musical sonority over the work’s three movements, each lasting a little over five minutes, with the movements being cast in the traditional fast-slow-fast concerto arrangement. It’s an utterly delightful work, an unexpected highlight – at least for those of us who never would have expected the mandolin, these days so associated with bluegrass music (sorry, I’m showing my USA provincialism here – but Avi Avital’s playing is completely convincing. Such a wonderful performance of such an enticingly entertaining work this proves to be!

Next on the program is Prince of Clouds, featuring violinists Colin Jacobsen (brother of conductor Eric Jacobsen and a co-director of The Knights) and Pekka Kuusisto. Clyne writes of this work, “originally composed for Jennifer Koh and her mentor at the Curtis Institute of Music, Jaime Laredo, this thread was in the foreground of my imagination as a dialogue between the soloists and ensemble. As a composer, working with such virtuosic, passionate and unique musicians is also another branch of this musical chain. I always imagined this piece having more moments of folk-style-inflections and I’m delighted to have an opportunity to revisit Prince of Clouds with Colin and Pekka.” It’s an intense piece that alternates between lyrical passages and almost violent outbursts from the soloists. Interestingly enough, as I was doing some background research, I ran across a review that John Puccio did of the original recording made back in 2014 by Jennifer Koh and Jaime Laredo, which you can read here.

Within Her Arms is scored for fifteen individual string parts,” explains Clyne, “and the musical material, which begins with a simple A-G-F#-G motif, dances around the ensemble from beginning to end. Weaved into the climax of the piece is the melody from a Taizé prayer, Oh Lord Hear My Prayer. The score includes an outline for where each musician should be positioned on stage, and I orchestrated the music accordingly, so that the musical motifs move around the listener. The score also includes specific indications for unified musical inhalations and exhalations at specific moments in the piece. On October 17th 2008, I was walking up 7th Avenue - just around the corner from Central Park - in New York City, when my father called to share the devastating news that my mother had unexpectedly passed away. For the next few days, the music that forms Within Her Arms poured out of me. Each evening I sat at the piano, in my childhood home, with a candle and a recent photo of her standing on a bridge with a warm smile from a few days before she died. Writing this music allowed me space to reflect on what had happened, and also to find a closeness and peacefulness with her. The title comes from a writing by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh – I found these words in my mother’s very beautiful handwriting during the week following her death. This is my most personal piece of music and I couldn’t imagine a more special group of musicians to record it with.”  It is a composition that is at once calm and intense, swirling with emotion that stirs the soul. The listener can feel longing, but also resolution as the sound of the strings rises and fades. 

The album ends with an abbreviated version of Shorthand, which this time around seems to be the perfect way to follow the emotional tone set by Within Her Arms. There is a sense of looking back with satisfaction toward what has come before, of accepting life’s losses, challenges, and blessings with equanimity. Of course, each lister will have their own reaction to this – or any – music, for such reaction is certainly subjective; however, I feel confident in making the objective judgment that Anna Clyne is a composer whose time has come, and that Shorthand is an album well worth a serious audition. 

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances etc. (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Symphonic Dances, Op. 45; Capriccio on Gypsy Themes ‘Caprice Bohémien’, Op. 12; Scherzo in D minor; The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29. St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Slatkin, conductor. VOX-NX-3042CD

 

How gratifying it is to see Naxos continuing its release of conductor Leonard Slatkin’s traversal of Rachmaninoff’s (that’s the currently accepted English spelling) symphonic music, which he recorded for the budget Vox label back in the 1970s with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. We reviewed the first of these recordings to be released back in February, 2023, a release that contained Symphony No. 2 along with the haunting Vocalise that review can be seen hereMost classical music lovers of a certain age are no doubt familiar with Vox, a budget label that produced some real gems over the years. Even though Vox was a budget label, the sound quality on some of their releases could be excellent, especially those recorded by the production team at Elite Recordings, led by engineer Marc Aubort and producer Joanna Nickrenz. There is an article at the PS Audio website discussing the fine-sounding Ravel box set Vox released in the 1970s that provides some insight into Elite’s recording process, which you can find here. The main sonic drawback back in the LP days of yore was the often-substandard quality of Vox’s vinyl pressings. But in the past few years, there have been some significant advances in digital technology, allowing the good folks at Naxos, who now own the rights to the Vox treasure trove, the opportunity to give us truly elite versions of the Elite recordings.

Appearing on the back cover of these new “Vox Audiophile Edition” versions is a highlighted statement affirming that “The Elite recordings for Vox legendary producers Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz are considered by audiophiles to be among the finest sounding orchestral recordings.” For these reissues, Naxos engineers have taken those tapes from the vaults and carefully prepared these CDs for release, the end product of their labors being what they describe as “new192 kHz / 24-bit high definition transfers of the original Elite Recordings analogue master tapes.” Of course, all that work would not mean much if the performances captured by Aubort and Nickrenz were no great shakes to begin with; however, these Rachmaninoff recordings by Maestro Slatkin and the SLSO were excellent when they were released, and they are excellent now. These new remasterings onto CD allow today’s listeners to fully enjoy the confident, expressive playing of the SLSO under Slatkin’s leadership captured in transparent, dynamic sound that captures the sense of an orchestra playing in a hall. 

 

The major works on the disc are the opening Symphonic Dances and the closing The Isle of the Dead. Slatkin leads the SLSO in a tight, controlled, yet lyrical reading of the former, made even more enjoyable by the transparent quality of the recording, which offers a convincing illusion of hearing an orchestra in a hall. The sound might lack that last bit of power and excitement that Telarc afforded David Zinman and his Baltimore players, but it is still very, very good. I really don’t have much to say about The Isle of the Dead, however; to be honest, although many folks find it to be one of Rachmaninoff’s most moving works, it is a piece that makes no real impression on me and I seldom give it a listen Slatkin’s version sounds just fine, to be sure, but that’s about all I can say. 

However, I will close with great enthusiasm by pointing out that the other two pieces on the program, the Capriccio on Gypsy Themes and especially the brief (4:49) Scherzo in D minor are delightfully tuneful and refreshing romps that remind you how much a master melodist Rachmaninoff could be. The Scherzo is a piece that almost demands that the listener break into a dance step before those brief five minutes pass by. By including these two extra compositions, Naxos has given a CD containing more than 77 minutes of well-recorded, well-performed music both familiar and unfamiliar. Like the other Slatkin/SLSO “Audiophile Edition” VOX releases, this one is well worth seeking out.

Danny Elfman: Percussion Concerto (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Wunderkammer; Percussion Concerto – Triangle/D.S.C.H./Down/Syncopate*; Are You Lost?**. *Colin Currie, percussion; **Kantos Chamber Choir; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta, conductor. Sony Classical 19659889842

 

The composer Danny Elfman (b. 1953) is probably most widely known for his work as a film composer: some of his many notable credits include the soundtracks for The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Good Will Hunting, Batman, Spiderman, Mission Impossible, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In addition to all that, millions of fans owe him a debt of gratitude for composing the theme music that opens The Simpsons. He is also a singer, and in fact led the new wave band Oingo Boingo (1979-1995). As the twenty-first century made its appearance, Elfman began to compose serious classical music including a piano quartet, a percussion quartet, a violin concerto, and a cello concerto – and of course, the compositions on this lively new release from Sony Classics.

 

Elfman (left) relates in the liner notes that he was in London working on a film score just before the COVID-19 pandemic when his manager suggested that he meet with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYOGB), who had expressed an interest in a commission. At first Elfman was skeptical about the idea of a youth orchestra, but after attending a NYOGB concert performance, he recounts, “I was, “to say the least, blown away by how good they were. I decided on the spot that I would indeed find a way to write a piece for them. So I jumped into the composition that’s now called Wunderkammer. My original intention was to create something that was very challenging for them, as I knew they were up for that, and something that would also be fun and exciting for them to dig into, which might feature different instrument sections to give everyone a moment to shine.” Shining here are sections of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as under the baton of JoAnn Falletta (pictured below) they take us on a tour of Elfman’s three “wonder rooms,” which are by turns relatively fast, slow, and fast. The outer movements have a bouncy, loping feel to them, while the middle movement has an element of spookiness lurking about. All three give the players plenty to do – there are even some vocal passages. 

Elfman’s Percussion Concerto has its roots in his travels in West Africa as a teenager, where he began collecting and learning to play balafons (similar to a marimba). Later, in his twenties, he played in Indonesian gamelan ensembles and then built his own wood and metal percussion ensembles for theater performances. He writes that “shortly after the 2017 premiere of my first violin to concerto, I had a chance meeting with percussionist Colin Currie in London. We decided it could be great fun to create a piece together. I was excited to plunge into the challenge of another concerto, while at the same time to really go back to my roots with wood and metal, mallets and sticks and hands. I also knew Colin was an extraordinary musician who would be great to collaborate with.  And I was aware that there that there were far fewer concertos for percussion than for the more obvious instruments like piano, violin, cello, etc., and that meant there were far fewer models to guide me, which made the idea of a percussion concerto far more enticing.” 

Currie (left) gets a chance to strut his stuff right from the get-go, playing a variety of percussion instruments to open the first of the four movements, Triangle. This is followed by D.S.C.H., a movement that manages to capture the feeling of a Shostakovich symphonic movement – that feeling that the Soviet composer is writing celebratory music while nervously fearing for his life. Elfman has penned a worthy tribute here! The third movement, Down, is more down in tempo, more brooding in mood, strings and more reflective percussion from Currie. The energy level picks back up in the finale, Syncopate, in which the temp increases and Currie cuts loose once again, supported energetically by the orchestra, including notably tympani and big bass drum. It’s a fun movement for turning up your stereo and letting your neighbors know you’re home – and syncopated!

After all the fun and energy of the two preceding percussion-oriented pieces, Are You Lost? seems a bit out of place. Elfman mentions that the folks at Sony Classical had suggested that for this recording of Wunderkammer and the Percussion Concerto, he should also include a piece that had never been recorded before. As a result, he decided to recast a movement from a trio he had written for violin, voice, and piano into a composition for choir and full orchestra. Interestingly, the opening notes of are you lost of Are You Lost? echo the opening notes of Syncopate, so perhaps it is not completely out of place after all. Still, it seems tacked on, something of an afterthought. It’s an okay piece; however, it really would have made more sense to place it between rather than after its discmates. 

 Although more extensive liner notes would be welcome, the sonics are impressive and overall, the release is a refreshingly original and bracingly refreshing blast of fresh air. I will admit that when I first auditioned it, I was unimpressed; it took a few sessions for the music to come. To life for me. Once it did, however, I found it to be music that well-crafted and completely satisfying. It’s music that will make you smile. Highly recommended.

Oded Tzur: My Prophet (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring 

Epilogue; Child You; Through a Land Unsown; Renata; My Prophet; Last Bike Ride in Paris. Oded Tzur, tenor saxophone; Nitai Hershkovits, piano; Petros Klampanis, double bass; Cyrano Almeida, drums. ECM 2821 651 4241

 

The Israeli-born New York-based tenor saxophonist Oded Tzur (b. 1984) has developed a distinctive tone and style of playing that gives his music an appeal capable of drawing in listeners who might not typically characterize themselves as jazz fans. Tzur studied Indian classical music; moreover, he was inspired to adapt techniques from masters of Indian instruments to the saxophone, enabling him to play microtones and slide between notes that the instrument would normally produce. This ability adds an extra sense of lyricism to his playing; in addition, much of the time the sound he draws from his instrument makes it seem as though he is somehow simply modulating some primal breath rather than blowing himself – as if he is the conduit, not the ultimate source of the breath, and thus the sound. It’s truly uncanny. 

 

We previously reviewed a recording by the pianist from this ensemble, Nitai Hershkovits, (you can read that review here). His energetic playing is a welcome complement to Tzur’s saxophone stylings, while Klampanis on bass and Almeida on drums provide solid and steady rhythmic support. From the sliding notes of Epilogue (can that really be a tenor sax?) through the bouncing rhythms of Child You, the plaintive call of Through a Land Unsown, the tender portrait of Renata, the heartfelt ode My Prophet, ending with the rowdy Last Bike Ride in Paris, Tzur and his fellow musicians deliver a spellbinding musical experience that should have appeal for a far wider audience than just hardcore jazz fans. 

Weinberg String Quartets, Volume 4 (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

String Quartet No. 6 in E Minor, Op. 35; String Quartet No. 13, Op. 118; String Quartet No. 15, Op. 124. Arcadia Quartet. Chandos CHAN 20281

It’s been over a year since I reviewed the previous installment of this series. On that occasion I suggested something of a dichotomy in Weinberg’s music between works that show an appealing personality, and works lacking it. The quartets on this recording only deepen the impression, with a further divide between early and later styles becoming all the more apparent. They include the Sixth, Thirteenth, and Fifteenth Quartets, which means you’re going to get one fairly tuneful work and two mostly forgettable stretches of dull noodling. I wish he had stuck with his romantic, folk-affiliated phase. 

The Sixth Quartet (1946) is the last that Weinberg completed for approximately a decade. It comprises the same number of movements as its designation, and is the first in the cycle to stretch to as many. I mention this because it curiously foreshadows the Fifteenth Quartet in that its second and third movements are extremely short, spanning just 2-3 minutes each. These quick, punchy movements briefly explore a scherzo-like aesthetic, but we will see with the Fifteenth that nearly every one of its nine movements do so. The lengthier first movement of No. 6 strongly reminds me of Shostakovich, with its mysterious dance-like theme and everything that follows. The same could be said for its fifth and sixth movements, which delve into fugal textures. The finale is ripped straight from DDS, especially its tunes and dramatic accompaniments. I would say that there is less in the Sixth Quartet of what makes Weinberg special than there is in the Fourth. And you know what? That’s fine… because the music is engaging, melodious, and speaks directly to the emotions. 

Your mileage may vary, but I am mostly bored by the Thirteenth (1977) and Fifteenth (1979) Quartets which, truthfully, are the products of a dispiriting decade. The Thirteenth is in one continuous movement that lasts for approximately 15 minutes. You hear the same things here as you do in much other late Weinberg: dour themes of angular profile, dissonant harmonies interspersed with occasional triadic relief, and meandering forms. None of this music is terribly arresting. At least with the Fifteenth Quartet we have short enough movements that uninteresting (or sometimes vaguely interesting) materials do not wear out their welcome. A variety of character states in each movement (yes, a poor variety…but a variety nonetheless) aids listener concentration better than in the Thirteenth. The Shostakovich influence is keen in the Fifteenth Quartet. But as in the Sixteenth, I find the music to be a pale reflection of the mannerisms it borrows from the great Soviet composer’s own late style. 

Not every reader will like this, but as I get older I get increasingly impatient with music I consider to be stuffy. And I find two-thirds of this recording’s compositions to be stuffy, notwithstanding more excellent playing by the Arcadia Quartet. Again, I can handle Shostakovich imitation if the results are engaging. But Shostakovich imitation in combination with unrelenting dreariness quickly diminishes my reasons to stick around any longer than I must. I’ve gradually shaped up to be an Early Weinberg Fan. If this makes me anti-intellectual or anti-modernist, I can live with that.

Pat Metheny: MoonDial (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

MoonDial; La Crosse; Corea/Potter: You’re Everything; Lennon/McCartney: Here, There, and Everywhere; Metheny: We Can’t See It, But It’s There; Falcon Love; Dennis/Adair: Everything Happens to Me/(Bernstein/Sondheim): Somewhere; Traditional: Londonderry Air; Metheny: This Belongs to You; Shõga; Raskin/Mercer: My Love and I; Dennis/Brent: Angel Eyes: Metheny: MoonDial (Epilogue). Pat Metheny, guitar. BMG 964026842

Guitarist Pat Metheny (b.1954) has enjoyed a long and productive career that has taken him to venues large and small all around the globe. In addition to leading his own ensembles, he has played with a veritable who’s who of jazz musicians. He was turned on to jazz at an early age by his older brother Mike (who became a jazz trumpeter) when Mike brought home records by trumpeter Miles Davis and guitarist Wes Montgomery. He began practicing in earnest, honing his skills by sitting in at local venues in the Kansas City area. While still a teenager, Metheny was recruited by vibraphone master Gary Burton to join his group; in addition, at age 18 Metheny became the youngest guitar instructor ever at the University of Miami and then at 19 taught at Berklee. In 1975, with the encouragement of Burton, Metheny made his first recording as a leader, Bright Size Life, for the ECM label. He has made dozens of recordings over the years, both in group and solo settings, to date earning him an impressive 20 Grammy awards; moreover, he is the only artist ever to have won Grammys in 10 different categories.

 

Metheny with his baritone guitar

In 1977, he formed the Pat Metheny Group, which began as a quartet built around the nucleus of Metheny on guitar and the prodigiously gifted keyboard player and composer Lyle Mays (1953-2020). By the time I took my young sons in the fall of 1981 to their first-ever concert, to see the PMG, the original bassist and drummer had been replaced and the group was now a sextet. Over the ensuing decades, Metheny has made some memorable music, never resting on his laurels or being content to play his familiar compositions over and over again, always striving to create something new, pushing himself as a composer and arranger as well as a guitarist. From his earlier albums with his Pat Metheny Group (Still Life Talking and We Live Here are noteworthy examples highlighting his melodic gifts, along with those of his gifted keyboard companion, the late Lyle Mays) through his final album with the group, The Way Up, which is virtually a through-composed symphonic-style piece by Metheny that strains against the limitations of a small jazz ensemble, Metheny followers could sense that he was more than just a guitarist, he was a composer whose chosen instrument was the guitar. 

 

Pikasso guitar

In 2020 he returned to the studio with a new group to release From This Place, a flowingly lyrical album that included some symphonic accompaniment. At 76 minutes, it was an amazing achievement, emphasizing once again Metheny’s gift for composition as well as his prowess on the guitar. In 2021, he released his first overtly classical recording, Road to the Sun, which finds Metheny stepping back as a performer and forward as a composer, penning a solo piece for classical guitarist Jason Vieaux and an ensemble piece for the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. He does perform one composition, however, but not one of his own: Für Alina by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, which Metheny performs on his one-of-a kind custom-made 42-string “Pikasso” guitar. You can read our review of the album here.

Then in 2023 Metheny released Dream Box, an album of primarily lyrical, inward-looking music, most of which he recorded using a hollow-bodied electric guitar (which musicians refer to as a “dream box,” hence the album’s title). Although the guitar might be electric, the sound is smooth and mellow. At the end our review (which you can read here), we mentioned that Metheny was embarking on a solo tour – the Dream Box tour – centered around the music from the album. In March of 2024 I caught his concert in Columbus, Ohio – an amazing evening that saw Metheny perform on 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars, his hollow-body electric as well as other electrics, his 42-string Pikasso, and even his MIDI-controlled, solenoid-driven Orchestrion. At one point during his two-and-a-half-hour performance he brought out the guitar he plays on Moon Dial, which he explained was a six-string baritone nylon-string guitar that had been custom made for him by his friend Linda Manzer. He played several songs on it, which sounded excellent except for one problem. Although the guitar was acoustic, the size of the venue meant that it had to be amplified; unfortunately, the loudspeaker columns had a bass emphasis/resonance that played havoc with the sound of the lower strings of the guitar. 

 

In the MoonDial liner notes, Metheny tells the story of how this particular baritone guitar came to be (it turns out that finding nylon strings capable of handling the unusual tuning he prefers was a challenge), how he came to use it more and more during the Dream Box tour, and how after the first extended part of the tour went to break, he headed to the studio so that he could “capture the magic of this new sound as quickly as possible and build on the immediate experiences of playing it every night for several months while it was all still fresh. The result of this journey is this recording: MoonDial.” You can watch a YouTube video of Metheny discussing the making of the album here.

 

Although the compositions are varied, the prevailing mood is remarkably consistent throughout the album. Yes, there are subtle shifts in melody, rhythm, and harmony, but the whole transcends its parts. If any particular tune stands out from the rest, it might be the Lennon/McCartney tune Here, There, and Everywhere, at least to these boomer ears, but even there, Metheny’s gift for improvisation and the sweet tones of the baritone guitar carry this music far beyond the familiar. As Metheny notes, “the feeling of this record follows the instrument’s nature. The central vibe here is one of resonant contemplation. This guitar allows me to go deep. Deep to a place that I maybe have never quite gotten to before. This is a dusk-to-dawn record, hard-core mellow.”  Hard-core mellow might strike classical music lovers as a strange way to describe music; however, it strikes me as a perfectly apt descriptor of some of the beloved piano music of Debussy. In any event, MoonDial is a beautiful recording, highly recommended to jazz and classical fans alike.

To Tomorrow and Beyond...

by Karl Nehring

Today is July 31, 2024. As we have announced previously, as of this date, Classical Candor will no longer be posting reviews on our regular schedule of two per week, with those reviews appearing every Monday and Thursday morning. However, we are not disappearing completely; we will still be posting reviews from time to time, so we invite you to keep checking the site to see what pops up.

Brahms: Sonatas for Violin (Streaming Review)

by Bill Heck

Sonatas for Piano and Violin: Akiko Suwanai (violin), Evgeni Bozhanov (piano). Decca. Available on most streaming platforms or for download from multiple sources.

One might have several different thoughts when encountering an album like this. First, there are plenty of recordings of the Brahms Sonatas for Violin and Piano; with such mainstream repertoire, someone is sure to ask whether yet another version is really needed. To my mind, though, that question is easy to answer: there's always room for a well-played, well-recorded set. Does this set qualify? Read on for my take.

Another thought is to marvel at the number of superb performers out there in the classical world who are hugely talented but not quite at the “star” (or to use the redundant term, “superstar”) level. Ms. Suwanai, for example, was the youngest winner ever of the Tchaikovsky piano competition in 1990, has had a flourishing concert career since then, and has released several albums well received by critics. Even so, I would wager that many of our readers have never heard her name, much less heard any of her performances. Mr. Bozhanov is even less well-known, but, as demonstrated here, is a very talented musician and has had a strong career of his own. 

One might also wonder about how albums such as this are marketed and sold. This release is on the Decca label, but a search for it on the Decca website comes up empty. (I know, I know: Decca now is part of Universal Music, but I looked - it's not there either.) The album is readily available for download on the usual sites and is available on major streaming platforms (in my case, Qobuz). Interestingly, the album also is available on SACD – but only if sourced from Japan. (The Japan connection makes a certain amount of sense: it appears that Kawai, Japanese manufacturer of pianos, has a tie-in of some sort with Mr. Bozhanov, so I am guessing that Kawai has sponsored the concert tour in which these musicians play all three sonatas. Moreover, that tour has been focused in East Asia.) So far so good, but returning to Decca, it certainly would have been nice if they had provided any information at all on the album, its background, the performers, or anything else related to this release. It's all very confusing.

Johannes Brahms

Fortunately, there’s a little information in an unexpected source: an interview with the musicians that was posted on the Kawai website. (You can read it here.) The interview actually is about the aforementioned concert tour, but close enough; I’ll refer to this interview below.

Now on to the music at hand. It’s more guesswork on my part, but I would wager that many readers are not familiar with much of Brahms’s chamber music. Symphonies, sure; concertos, no doubt; solo piano works, likely enough. But sonatas for violin? Perhaps not so much. Well, these sonatas certainly make the case that this music should indeed be better known. They are lovely and, for the most part, highly personal and even passionate works; moreover, their compositions span a fair segment of Brahms career. The first was composed across the summers of 1878 and 1879; the work shares thematic materials from two of Brahms lieder and the performers discuss it as his most songful of the sonatas. The second was written in the summer of 1886 and is a happy work, composed in a period of great productivity for Brahms. The third was finished in 1888 and is more ambitious in a formal sense than the other two, not to mention longer, with four movements instead of three, almost symphonic in construction according to the performers interview mentioned above.

Akiko Suwanai

Again referring to the interview, Suwanai and Bozhanov, particularly the latter, make much of their approach as being rooted in performances from the early to mid-20th century. (Keep in mind that Brahms died in 1897, which suggests that many performers in the early 20th century would have known him and in some cases would have heard him play his own compositions; they certainly would have heard performances by artists who had played for or with Brahms. Even in mid-century, we are only a generation removed from those with direct contact with Brahms.) But this is where the absence of booklet/liner notes for this album is keenly felt: it's difficult to know exactly what performance characteristics they are talking about. Suwanai and Bozhanov do mention expressiveness, and I certainly would call the performances expressive as opposed to sterile or mechanical. At the same time, there are plenty of other performances that seem expressive as well, in some cases taking more liberties with tempi and tone. I certainly do hear differences between their performances and others that I listened to during the review process, but I did not discern aspects of the playing that were consistently different.

Evgeni Bozhanov

Still, it's those differences that make these performances worth seeking out. I would find it difficult to single out any set as "the best", but I found these consistently engaging without being overly dramatic or going off the rails in search of effect. In particular, the two musicians work very well together, as one might expect given the incredible amount of rehearsal time that they mention as well as their experiences in live performances of the works.

One other aspect worthy of note here is the superb recording itself. By sheer good luck, I’ve been on a very enjoyable hot streak of finding truly excellent recordings lately, meaning excellent in the sonic sense. In this case, my only quibble might be a bit of weight lacking in the lower registers of the piano sound, but overall there is a clear presentation of two performers in real space, giving the illusion that they are in the room with the listener.

In summary then: Despite Decca's marketing non-effort, this album is well worth your time to audition, whether via downloading or streaming. No, it's unlikely to completely replace any other favorite that you might have, but music like this deserves more than one presentation. You also might find it worthwhile to check out other recordings by Ms. Suwanai; I fully intend to do so next.