Recent Releases No. 67 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

Tractus. Arvo Pärt: Littlemore Tractus; Greater Antiphons I-VII; Cantique des degrés; Sequentia; L’abbé Agathon;These Words…; Veni creator; Vater unser. Maria Listra, soprano; Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir; Tallinn Chamber Orchestra; Tönu Kaljuste, conductor. ECM New Series 2800 485 9166

Recorded in Tallinn’s Methodist Church last year, Tractus extends the line of Arvo Pärt albums on the ECM label that began with Tabula rasa in 1984, the recording which first brought Pärt’s music to widespread awareness. I was in graduate school back then, working weekends as a security guard at a factory. Late one night as I drove from the main plant to check on an off-site location while listening to classical music on WOSU-FM, they played music from that album, which featured not only classical violinist Gidon Kremer but also jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. I was transfixed by Pårt’s music, becoming an immediate fan. I purchased the CD that very week and went on to acquire dozens more over the next four decades – and have never been disappointed. This latest Pärt album, Tractus, features an emphasis on works for choir and chamber orchestra, although there are also compositions for the orchestra alone as well as one for soprano and orchestra. The texts (all of which are included in the CD booklet) are all based on scriptural, liturgical, or other traditional Christian texts. Although there are passages where the music exhibits some drama, it is for the most part reflective and inward-looking, very much in keeping with the spiritual focus of the texts. The sound quality is warm, spacious, and inviting. This is an album to treasure.

Lise Davidsen: Christmas from Norway. Adolphe Adam: O Helge natt (O Holy Night in Swedish); Humperdinck: Weihnachten; Franz Xaver Gruber/Josef Mohr: Silent Night; Gustaf Nordqvist/Edvard Evers: Jul, jul, strålande jul; Deilig er Jorden (trad. folk tune, lyrics by Bernhard Severin Ingemann); Mitt Herte Alltid Vanker (trad. folk tune, lyrics by Hans Adolph Brorson); Julvisa (No. 4 from Viisi joululaulua Op. 1 by Sibelius, lyrics by Zachris Topelius); Bach: Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring (lyrics by Martin Janus); Reger: Maria Wiegenlied (lyrics by Martin Boelitz); Bach/Gounod: Ave Maria; Hugo Wolf: Schlafendes Jesuskind (lyrics by Eduard Mörike); The First Noël(trad.); John Francis Wade: O Come All Ye Faithful; Adam: O Holy Night. Lise Davidsen, soprano; Norwegian Soloists’ Choir (conductor, Simon Arlasjö); Norwegian National Opera Children’s Choir (conductor, Edle Stray-Pedersen); Norwegian Radio Orchestra; Christian Eggen, conductor. Decca 485 4358

 

“Christmas is how I got into music,” explains the Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen (b. 1987), one of the foremost opera stars of our day, “we listened to all kinds of music: choral music, popular music, and the Norwegian songs I sing on this album.” She remembers Christmas services at her hometown church in Stokke: “I remember getting my first solo there, and when I was older, singing O Holy Night for the first time. I was still singing it there on Christmas Eve in my late twenties, well into my career. They were happy I kept going back but for me it was an essential part of the spirit of Christmas.” She concludes her liner booklet note by remarking, “For Scandinavians, Christmas is the white light we need in the middle of a long winter. Perhaps that’s why we embrace it. And we really do embrace it.” She opens and closes the album with O Holy Night, first in Swedish and then in English – reflecting the special place that song holds in her memory of Christmas. What sets this album apart from many other Christmas albums  -- beyond just the wondrous quality of Davidsen’s voice, that is – is the variety of music. This is not just your typical collection of popular carols. Moreover, the musical settings vary; some with orchestra, some with choir, some with children’s choir. Even if, like me, you already have a number of Christmas albums in your collection, you really ought to give this one serious consideration.

Miracle of Miracles: Music for Hanukkah. Trad., arr. Robert Applebaum: Oh Chanukah/Y'Mei Hachanukah; Trad., arr. Steve Barnett: S’vivon; Trad., arr. Mark Zuckerman: O, ir kleyne likhtelekh; Gerald Cohen: Chanukah Lights: Applebaum: Haneirot Halalu; Trad., arr.  Elliott Z. Levine): Al HaNisim; Trad., arr. Applebaum): Al Hanisim; Joshua Fishbein: Al Hanisim (For the Miracles); Daniel Tunkel: from Hallel Cantata - I. Hal’luyah! (Psalm 113); II. B’tzeit Yisrael (Psalm 114); III. Adonai Z’charanu (Psalm 115, vv. 12-18); VI. Hodu (Psalm 118, vv. 1-4); Trad., arr. Applebaum): Maoz Tzur; Levine: Lo V’Chayil; Vladimir Heyfetz (Arr. Zuckerman): Fayer, fayer; Samuel E. Goldfarb (arr. Applebaum): Funky Dreidl (I Had a Little Dreidl); Mikhl Gelbart (Arr. Zuckerman): I am a Little Dreydl (Ikh bin a kleyner Dreydl); Jonathan M. Miller: Biy’mey Mattityahu; Chaim Parchi (arr. Joshua Jacobson): Aleih Neiri; Stacy Garrop: Lo Yisa Goy. Chicago a cappella. Cedille CDR 9000022

 

Over the years I have accumulated a number of Christmas recordings – so many, in fact, that a few years ago I felt compelled to cull through them, decide which one I really wanted to keep, and take the rest in for trade. I took quite a few in go the store for trade, but still have more left than I will ever play over the holidays. Some of those Christmas CDs were sent to me for review over the years – but in all my years of being a reviewer (roughly 35, counting my time at both The $ensible Sound and now at Classical Candor), I was never sent one single Hanukkah CD for review until this one recently arrived in my mailbox. Miracle of miracles indeed! But receiving this disc after all that time made me stop and wonder why I had never been sent – or even really noticed, to be honest (of course, the fact that I am not Jewish is obviously a factor) any Hanukkah CDs before. Fortunately, in the liner booklet, Jonathan Miller, Chicago a cappella artistic director emeritus, at least partially answered my question: “Why, you might ask, aren’t there more albums of Hanukkah music like this? Finding the music is a big part of the challenge. It’s hard to locate works that meet all of our criteria: superb musical craftsmanship, a Hanukkah text, and a setting for a cappella mixed choir… Jewish choral music is a recent phenomenon, begun in earnest only about 200 years ago in Berlin, so there’s a simple quantity issue: we have much less repertoire to peruse than in other choral traditions. Given all of this, we are especially grateful for the composers and arrangers whose persistence and skill have given us the works found here.”

So what do we have here? Chicago a cappella is an ensemble of ten singers from among the Chicago area’s most accomplished classically trained choral singers and soloists. The group was originally founded in 1993 and has performed a wide variety of music, ranging from the Renaissance to the 21^st century. Miracle of Miracles features a collection of songs from more than 25 years of the ensemble’s performances, arranged into a single program that replays the story of Hanukkah, from celebrations of the holiday itself through to its candles, miracles, religious observances, and traditional food and games. The music and the texts include a mix of both biblical and modern Hebrew, as well as Yiddish elements (and English) intertwined with American jazz and popular styles. The vocal styles and expressions represented on this album aim to capture fully the traditions of Hanukkah across the Diaspora and Jewish history. It’s a fascinating collection. One need not be Jewish to enjoy the skill and enthusiasm that these singers bring to these remarkable songs, such as the three versions of Al Hanisim or the energetic dreydl songs, perhaps the kinds of songs that might be most likely to strike a note of familiarity with some non-Jewish listeners. The liner notes include notes and texts for all of the compositions, and the engineering by Cedille’s audio wizard Bill Maylone is excellent as always, making this a fine production in every aspect, well worth a listen regardless of your faith or lack thereof.

Anna Lapwood: Luna (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

James Newton Howard: Flying (from “Peter Pan”); Olivia Belli: Grain Moon; Chopin: Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2; Kristina Arakelyan: Dreamland; Dario Marianelli; Dawn (from “Pride and Prejudice”); Hans Zimmer: Stay (from “Interstellar”); Bach & Gounod: Ave Maria: Glass: Mad Rush; Ghislaine Reece-Trapp: In Paradisum; Ēriks Ešenvalds & Sara Teasdale: Stars; Kristina Arakelyan: Star Fantasy; Max Richter: On the Nature of Daylight; Florence Price: An Elf on a Moonbeam; Ludovico Einaudi: Experience; Debussy: Clair de Lune. Anna Lapwood, organ and conductor; Pembroke College Chapel Choir. Sony Classical 19658831402

I have followed the young British musician Anna Lapwood (b. 1995) on Twitter (now known as “X” since its takeover by a notorious right-wing ultrabillionaire) for quite some time. Her posts there show her to be a charming and unpretentious artist, devoted not only to her craft, but also to helping other musicians, especially young musicians, express themselves through music. She is skilled not only as an organist, but as a conductor and broadcaster. Inn 2021, for example, she appeared at the BBC Proms both as a presenter for BBC Television and as soloist in the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony. In 2016, when she was just 21, she was appointed Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, where in 2018 she established the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir for girls aged 11 to 18. She has become quite the ambassador for classical music through her outreach on social media (she’s known worldwide as “the TikTok organist”), her midnight sessions at the Royal Albert Hall, and her numerous concerts and personal appearances. In 2021, she released an organ recording for the Signum Classics label titled Images; you can find our review here. Now it is 2023, and she has a new recording out for a new label, Sony Classical, titled Luna.

 

While Luna featured a program consisting of established classical compositions, highlighted by a couple of larger-scale works, Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin arranged for organ by Erwin Wiersinga and Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes in an arrangement by Lapwood herself, the program for Luna is more varied. There are some traditional “classical” pieces for piano arranged for organ, some tunes from movies soundtracks, and among other things, even a couple of compositions not for organ, but for choir. Of the inspiration for this album, Lapwood writes, “one of the highlights of my year is the time I spend teaching music in Zambia. I love it for the people, the music, and the laughter, but I also always look forward to the first time I see the Zambian night sky again… You look up and it’s just completely full of stars, more stars than you ever thought possibly existed – bright stars, dull stars; some sparkling, some static; some glowing orbs and others dots smaller than pinpricks. With this album, I’m imagining that as we stare at the sky our minds can almost take us there, travelling through the night sky and exploring individual stars with their unique personalities and characteristics.”

Although the music is indeed varied in origin, the album seems to have an overall flow and consistency of sound – there are no abrupt shifts of mood, no jarring sonorities. That said, neither are the selections similar enough that they all sound the same as Lapwood makes her way from one to another. Highlights include the Chopin Nocturne, which is the kind of music you would not think of as a candidate for being played on the organ. Lapwood recalls learning the piece as a young piano student and then later teaching her own piano students to play. Of transcribing it for organ, she observes that “as with all transcriptions, there is an interesting decision-making process, exploring whether to try to make it as close as possible to the original, or to re-conceive it as an organ piece. In this case, I decided to go with the latter, experimenting with the huge variety of solo sounds this organ has to offer to give each section of melody its own unique character.”  Whatever her method, the end result is simply beautiful. Another highlight, the longest track on the album (6:47), is much different in style and mood from the Chopin. Stay, from the Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for the film Interstellar, is less about melody and more about raw feeling.

 

Lapwood supplies notes on each of the selections, and it is from these notes that we learn the interesting fact that the energetic Philip Glass piece Mad Rush, another highlight of the album, was not originally composed for the piano, as it has often been recorded (including by Glass himself), but for the organ. “Glass wrote the piece in 1978, on and for the organ of St. John the Divine, New York,” Lapwood explains. “It was written for the Dalai Llama’s first public address in North America in 1979. The organizers were expecting a large number of people so they asked Glass to write a piece of indeterminate length that could be played while the congregation was arriving.” If you are familiar with Mad Rushfrom one of its piano recordings, hearing the original organ version should give you an added appreciation for its simple elegance and energy.

 

The two tracks that include the voices of the Pembroke College Chapel Choir are also both quite captivating and worthy of special mention. Stars, by the Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds (b. 1977) sets a poem by the late American poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1993). (Speaking of Ešenvalds, there is an absolutely gorgeous album of his choral music that was engineered by none other than John Atkinson of Stereophile magazine fame. Both musically and sonically it is simply superb; you can read our review here). The ethereal sounds of tuned wine glasses mixed with the sound or the organ and the choir give a celestial glow to the sound of this track, which is rife with otherworldly overtones. The other piece featuring the chorus, On the Nature of Daylight by the German-born British composer Max Richter (b. 1966), has no text, but combines their voices with the sound of the organ in a gently meditative blend that is at once calming and hopeful. Lapwood writes of this piece that “it feels particularly special to be including this piece on the album as it brings together the two sides of who I am as a musician: playing the organ but also working with the amazing choirs at Pembroke.”

The album closes with another piece for piano that Lapwood has transcribed for the organ, Debussy’s popular Clair de Lune. “As with the Chopin,” she explains, “I had to make choice: be as loyal as possible to the original, or reimagine it as an organ piece? Once again, I decided on the latter, using it as an opportunity to explore the huge variety of soft, delicate colours the organ has to offer.” As she did with the Chopin, in transcribing the Debussy, she has created something most lovely, certainly a fitting way to end an album titled Luna. It’s an album that is fresh, fun, and full of light and life – well worth a listen.

Recent Releases No. 65 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

Sommernachtskonzert 2023. Bizet: Carmen Suite No. 1; L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera); Lili Boulanger: D'un matin de printemps; Berlioz: Le Corsaire Overture, Op. 21, H. 01 Gounod: Sapho, Act III, No. 19 - Ô ma lyre immortelle; Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, M. 57b      ; Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila, Op. 47 - Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix: Ravel: Boléro, M. 81; Johann Strauss II: Wiener Blut, Op. 354. Elīna Garanča, mezzo-soprano; Vienna Philharmonic; Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Sony Classics 19658818969

The Summer Night Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic was held this year on June 8th, 2023. It is an annual open-air event that has been held since 2008, something of a complement to the famous New Year’s concerts with their much older tradition. Musically, these summer concerts are far more interesting than their winter counterparts, presenting as they typically do a more varied program than the mostly Strauss waltzes and such that are heard in January in the  gilded Musikverein. As you can see from the above program listing, the summer concert is more musically substantial, and because it is summer, the park of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna is the outdoor setting for the concert, allowing for a far larger audience to attend. 

Like the New Year’s concert, the Summer Concert is led bya top-flight conductor – Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2023, following in the footsteps of Georges Prêtre, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Harding, and Andris Nelsons. Also like the New Year’s Concert, the event is televised worldwide (PBS carries it in the USA) and is made available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and – obviously – CD.  To be perfectly honest, I would think most folks would prefer to see a video version of this concert rather than merely to listen to the CD. Don’t get me wrong, though; it’s an excellent release, a well-recorded concert CD of a substantial and highly entertaining musical program, well-performed, and even the CD booklet is well-done – but the concert really is something you might want to see as well as hear if you get the chance.  

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: Original Soundtrack Recording (50^th Anniversary Special Edition). The Vince Guaraldi Quintet (Vince Guaraldi, piano and voice; Seward McCain, bass; Mike Clark; drums; Tom Harrell, trumpet and brass arrangement; Chuck Bennett, trombone). Lee Mendelson Film Productions LM02302 

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving premiered on CBS television  on November 23, 1973. This was the tenth Peanuts special, and earlier that summer, Vince Guaraldi had entered the studio with his fellow musicians to work on the score. Jazz fans might recognize the names of Tom Harrell, who would go on to become a legendary trumpeter on the New York scene, and Mike Clark, who toured with Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters band in the 1970s and who, along with Dave Garibaldi, the drummer for the Bay area group Tower of Power, became well-known for their driving, powerful style of drumming. (As a side note, Clark and Garibaldi have teamed together with the noted drummers Greg Errico [Sly and The Family Stone], Lenny White [Return to Forever], and Greg Shrieve [Santana] on a series of YouTube videos called Stick People, which features in-depth interviews with other musicians. You can see their first episode here.) 

Also recognizable to most people of a certain age should be the general style and some of the musical themes included in the program. Although not quite as endearing as the music for the A Charlie Brown Christmas special from 1965 – who can ever forget “Christmas Time Is Here?” – the Thanksgiving music has an upbeat, feel-good, jazzy energy to it that makes for some engaging listening. With Harrell’s contributions (plus a little help from an unidentified guitar player) adding extra color and pizazz to Guaraldi’s tunes, the net result is an album that swings from start to finish – and that is something for which to be thankful this holiday season.

Gounod: Faust, highlights (CD review)

Nicolai Gedda, Victoria de los Angeles; Andre Cluytens, Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus. EMI Classics for Pleasure 0946 3 93376 2.

The most striking things about this classic, 1958 recording of the opera Faust by Charles Gounod (1818-1893) are its energy and drive. It is quite possibly the liveliest production of the work you’re likely to hear.

Andre Cluytens directs the Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus with a vigor and enthusiasm one seldom encounters in any opera recording, let alone this one, and Nicolai Gedda as the ill-advised Faust and Victoria de los Angeles as the naive heroine Marguerite are equally brilliant, particularly de los Angeles. Moreover, Boris Christoff as Mephistopheles is wonderfully sinister, cackling away like the demented demon he is, and catching fire, no doubt, from the conductor.

For an older recording, the sound is remarkably vivid, too, with good clarity, depth, and stage presence, if not a lot of heft or warmth. It comes off a little forward and wiry, and I would liked to have heard a little more deep bass, especially from the organ, and maybe a touch more ambient bloom. But voices project well, so I shouldn’t complain when the performance is mainly about voice, anyway.

Although this single disc of highlights runs to some seventy-five minutes, for those listeners wanting the complete opera, EMI have also issued the three-disc set in their “Great Recordings of the Century” series. Still, for about five or six bucks, it’s hard to pass up this truncated release because, well, for one, the opera is a bit corny and sentimental by today’s standards and a highlights disc still does it justice; and, two, even if you’re just mildly interested in it, you won’t have expended much to satisfy your curiosity.

JJP