Carlos Simon: Four Symphonic Works (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Simon: The Block; Tales: A Folklore Symphony; Songs of Separation*; Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra. *J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano; National Symphony Orchestra; Gianandrea Noseda, conductor. National Symphony Orchestra NSO0018 

Carlos Simon (b. 1986), Composer-in-Residence at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, is passionate about engaging in social outreach. Much of his musical output addresses themes that include migration, belonging, and community, with an emphasis on the transatlantic slave trade and the injustices people of African ancestry still face today. His upbringing as the son of a Pentecostal preacher has resulted in his music displaying classical forms in which often can be heard jazz, hip-hop, and gospel influences. Those influences are evident throughout this release, starting with The Block, a brief (6:37) orchestral piece that Simon wrote to capture the feeling of then visual art of the late African American artist Romare Bearden; indeed, the piece has a vibrant, colorful energy about it that immediately grabs your attention. Tales: A Folklore Symphony consists of four movements that Simon gives the fascinating titles: I. Motherboxx Connection, II. Flying Africans, III. Go Down Moses (Let my People Go), IV. John Henry. Simon explains the titles in his booklet notes, but it should be reasonably obvious that they are related to the themes mentioned above. The music itself is colorful -- and dramatic in places, especially in Go Down Moses, the longest movement. 

The Songs of Separation find Simon giving orchestral settings to four brief poems by Rumi – The Garden, Burning Hell, Dance, and We Are All the Same. The first finds the voice being overwhelmed by the orchestra, but the others – especially Burning Hell – are better balanced. The closing Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra is a twenty-minute showpiece for the National Symphony Orchestra to display its virtuosity under the baton of its Music Director, the Italian-born conductor Gianandrea Noseda (b. 1964). There is a strong rhythmic sense throughout, with plenty of percussion and a continual sense of motion. Special note needs to be made of the overall high standard of this release in general. The physical product is sturdy, far superior to the typical CD package. This is a Hybrid-SACD release; I auditioned the standard CD layer, but the disc also includes a high-density stereo layer plus a 5.0 channel surround track that can be played back SACD players. There are informative liner notes about the music and the performers; not only that, the sound quality, with engineering by the renowned experts at Soundmirror, is first-class. This is a superb release in every dimension.

Chamber Works by Frederick Block (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Block: Piano Trio No. 2, Op 26; String Quartet, Op. 23; Suite, Op. 73 (for clarinet and piano); Quintet, Op. 19 (for two violins, viola, cello, and piano). ARC Ensemble (Erika Raum, violin; Marie Bérard, violin; Steven Dann, viola; Thomas Wiebe, cello; Valdepeñas, clarinet; Kevin Ahfat, piano). CHANDOS CHAN 20358

The ARC Ensemble consists of senior faculty from the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto, Canada. They have made a specialty of recovering and recording music that has been suppressed and marginalized under the 20th century’s repressive political regimes, releasing a series of recordings under the heading of “Music in Exile” on the Chandos label, this being the eighth, the others featuring music by composers Alberto Hemsi, Paul Ben-Haim, Jerzy Fitelberg, Szymon Laks, Walter Kaufmann, Robert Müller-Hartmann, and Dmitri Klebanov. This has been an excellent series of releases, several of which it has been our privilege and pleasure to review. You can find our review of their Hemsi release here, the Kaufmann release here, the Klebanov release here, and the Müller-Hartmann release here.

 

Frederick Block (1899-1945) was born in Vienna. His original name was Friedrich Bloch; he changed his name to Block upon his arrival in New York in 1940, where he had fled with his wife to avoid the persecution faced by Jews under the increasing Nazi persecution in Europe. The works on this release were all completed while Block was still in Vienna with the exception of the Suite for Clarinet and Piano, which he completed in 1944,, the year he became ill with a chronic cough and occasional stinging pains that by early in 1945 would be diagnosed as the cancer that would take his life just three months before his forty-sixth birthday and his qualification for American citizenship.

 

Thank goodness the ARC Ensemble has taken the initiative to bring what could have been overlooked music into the recording studio to be captured so that we music lovers might have the opportunity to hear it four ourselves. All four compositions are enjoyable and well worth a listen. The Piano Trio that opens the program has a light, melodic touch throughout its four brief movements, as all three instruments seem to be singing away. Likewise, the String Quartet, which moves along smartly, pleasing to the ear but never smarmy – the final movement grows serious, but never lapses into pretentiousness. The Suite for Clarinet and Piano serves as something of a palette cleanser, the sparkling sounds of the clarinet and piano in mostly brief little movements – entertaining but fleeting. Perhaps Block’s illness prevented him from writing more extended movements. The program then closes with a work back from 1929, the Quintet, the most formal-sounding composition of the four on this release. It’s not unpleasant – it just seems to lack some of the sense of spontaneity of the rest of the music. All in all, however, this is another highly recommendable release from the ARC Ensemble, who are doing a noble service for us all with their “Music in Exile” series of recordings.

Levit / Theilemann / Vienna: Brahms Piano Concertos

Brahms: (CD1) Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15; (CD2) Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83; (CD3) 7 Fantasias, Op. 116; 3 Intermezzi, Op. 117; 6 Piano Pieces, Op. 118; 4 Piano Pieces, Op. 119; Waltz, Op. 39/15 (version for piano 4 hands w/Christian Thielemann). Igor Levit, piano; Wiener Philharmoniker; Christian Thielemann, conductor. Sony Classics 19658897652

Both Bill Heck and Karl Nehring were interested in this release, so here we present both of their viewpoints.

Bill's Take:

When I saw this set as a “new release” on my streaming service (Qobuz), I had  high hopes: Levit is an extraordinary artist, and although I was only vaguely acquainted with Theilemann, the Vienna Philharmonic certainly is a known quantity. But I’ll get right to the point: this set is a disappointment.

The immediately apparent issue was the recorded sound. From the opening notes of the orchestral introduction of the first concerto, I was aghast : the orchestra is playing in a cave, or maybe a subway tunnel. Bass-heavy, bloated midrange, distant – and where are the violins? Sadly, things do not improve when Levitt’s piano joins the party, as the  sound of the instrument is muddled and, worse yet, so obviously mult-miced that rhythmic accents from the left hand seem to come from a completely different space, way off to the side, far from what the right hand is doing, which in turn seems to come from nowhere in particular.

Still, as a dutiful reviewer — and realizing that some readers may not be as bothered by the sound as I — I vowed to stick it out. As expected, Levitt’s playing has much to offer, with moments of great beauty and thoughtfulness. Theilemann and the orchestra chug along well enough, but, at least to my ear, without particular distinction; indeed, for whatever reason they don’t sound particularly engaged and the passion and drama that are inherent in the concerto are hard to find here. Throw in occasional odd, distracting tempo changes from Theilemann and some loss of cohesion between the soloist and orchestra to complete the picture.

All this is just in the first movement of the first concerto. The second movement seemed to me to drag on, even though it clocks in at a relatively quick 13:47. I admit that I was tired of this already, but the music simply was not drawing my attention. And so it went through both concertos.

What about the solo piano pieces, Op. 116 - 119? These are among my favorite works for piano, and Levit offers what I might call introspective readings (in a good sense). I heard imaginative treatments that gave new insights. But here again, the recorded sound gets in the way. For example, in the first intermezzo of Op. 117, notes from the right hand are plastered to the left channel, while the left-hand parts float around somewhere (and are at lower volume than they should be). This channel imbalance was so bad that I had to check the right speaker to make sure that it was functioning.

Of course, all this is in the context of fierce competition, as there are plenty of excellent alternatives for all of these works. (See our Recommended Recordings list for a few examples.) Levit’s playing tempts me to return (via streaming) to the solo pieces in spite of the audio, but sadly there is little else to recommend here.

Karl's Take:

I had looked forward eagerly to this release when I first heard about it, for Levit is a fascinating pianist; indeed, I have been quite favorably impressed by some of his previous recordings. Levit recordings that I have reviewed for Classical Candor include Fantasia (see review here), Encounter (see review here), On DSCH (here), and Tristan (here).  In addition, there was another two-CD release from Levit titled Life that I greatly enjoyed but did not review. It includes music by Busoni, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, and jazz legend Bill Evans. As you can gather from a perusal of my reviews and remarks, I thoroughly enjoyed Levit’s performances on these releases, all of which feature him on solo piano except for one track on Tristan which includes orchestral accompaniment

In physical format, this new release comprises three shiny silver discs, two are devoted to the concertos, the third to music for piano. Having been so impressed by Levit’s previous efforts, I looked forward eagerly to this release, although I must admit that although I am also a fan of the Vianna Philharmonic, I can’t say the same for conductor Christian Thielemann. In any event, to my ears at least, the two concerto discs were a disappointment. The performances just seemed to lack a certain flow – they at times seemed more measured than musical. On top of that, the sound quality came across as surprisingly unconvincing; not aggressively bright or awful, but just not the full, warm sound we would expect to hear from the Vienna Philharmonic. For comparison, I pulled out my old reference Freire/Chailly/Gewandhaus Decca recording, which sounded fresher and more natural in terms of both performance and sound.  On the other hand, the third CD from this new release, with Levit playing late Brahms (joined by Thielemann for a four-hands piece), measures up to the high standards of Levit’s previous solo piano releases.

George Szell Conducts Beethoven Symphonies and Overtures (Remastered)

by Bill Heck

Beethoven: Symphonies 1 – 9, Leonore Overture No 3, Op 72b, Egmont Overture, Op. 84, Coriolan Overture, Op. 62, Overture "King Stephen", Op. 117, Leonore Overture No. 2, Op. 72a, Leonore Overture No. 1, Op. 138, Fidelio, Op. 72: Overture. George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra. Sony Classical    

I am so thrilled with my holiday gift from Sony Classical: another re-release of the Szell/Cleveland Beethoven symphony cycle. 

Wait…whaaat? These recordings have been around in various forms and combinations since the 1960s. Yet another re-release – surely a snoozer for classical music lovers? Not quite: this release brings together in one set all nine remastered recordings, and that makes all the difference. 

Interestingly, the remastering are not brand new; they date to 2018. But, so far as I can find in perusing online music sources, back then they were released as one or two of the symphonies on single CDs on the Epic label, each with a different cover design to confuse buyers, but apparently not in a single collection. (That’s not counting the “George Szell - Complete Columbia Recordings”. That set fills a box that looks like a small suitcase.). Moreover, the various older editions are still available as new in the market, and you will search in vain on the CD labels for any obvious sign of when a particular release was issued. And don’t expect help from Sony: as I write this, using the Sony “artists” section to look for Beethoven symphonies shows only one item: a complete set from 2013!

But finally, we have cover art that says in big letters “The Remastered Stereo Recordings”. (It appears that there was at least one other remastering somewhere along the way, but let’s not get picky….) 

Now it’s worth noting that “remastering” can mean a lot of different things, and often enough it means something really minimal. In this case, though, it’s safe to say that the engineers were turned loose to do some serious work, presumably with the newest and greatest digital tools, and perhaps access to original or early generation master tapes, all doing their best best to bring the sound as close as possible to state of the art. They’ve succeeded. 

Let me use an example to illustrate. I started listening to the seventh symphony in an older version and the sound struck me as familiar from old LPs: a little shrill with wiry upper strings; less than stellar dynamics; slightly bass shy; and rather opaque in details and nuances. Listening was still interesting: the music was coming through and I could tell that this was a fine performance – but that was an intellectual reaction rather than an emotional one. Halfway through, I switched to this newest version, and everything came to life. In particular, I could more easily pick out different instrumental groups, really hearing the parts, while the dynamics just had a little more pop. Suddenly the music was more engaging: a big smile broke out and my attention was fully engaged. Subsequent back-and-forth comparisons with different works yielded similar results.  No, these new versions do not transform these 1960’s recordings to modern sonic spectaculars. But I feel as though I truly heard the music that Szell and the Cleveland forces gave us in the way that it was meant to be heard. 

What about the music itself? For those unfamiliar with the performances from earlier versions, Szell’s Cleveland Beethoven recordings have always been considered classic, touchstones for interpretation of Beethoven’s work. One criticism of Szell’s style has been that his vaunted precision with the Cleveland Orchestra was sometimes obtained at the expense of emotion or feeling. But hearing the difference between these remastered versions and older ones makes me wonder how much negative reaction has been significantly influenced by the sonics of the recordings, whether from the old analog LPs (which I know from experience were generally pretty bad) or digital releases. At least for me, the sonic improvements here do make them more appealing.

You can find boatloads of musical analysis and criticism regarding the music itself and these performances, so I’ll not bore you with further discussion. I’ll just suggest that, whether or not you have heard these performances before, you really need to hear them in these newest versions. 

Note: Available as a 7-CD set, download, or on streaming.