Higdon: Duo Duel; Concerto for Orchestra (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Matthew Strauss, Svet Stoyanov, percussion; Houston Symphony conducted by Robert Spano. Naxos American Classics 8.559913

The American composer Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for her Violin Concerto, the same year she was awarded a Grammy for her Percussion Concerto. She has since gone on to collect two more Grammy awards, in 2018 for her Viola Concerto and in 2020 for her Harp Concerto. (Hmmm, I seem to detect a pattern here. It looks as though a concerto from Ms. Higdon might be a pretty safe bet…) As our own John Puccio noted of her music in his review of one of her earlier compositions, “ Unlike so many late twentieth-century composers, Ms. Higdon believes in writing real tunes, melodies, rather than simply inventing new soundscapes.” This new release from Naxos features two energetic works for orchestra that offer further evidence for John’s praise of the composer’s artistry. Both are in fact concertos – one for percussion instruments and orchestra, the other, like the widely known one by Bartók, for orchestra “solo.” And yes, these concertos by composer Higdon prove to be very safe bets indeed.

 

Higdon begins her CD booklet essay introducing the first of the two works on this release, Duo Duel, with these startling words: “This concerto contains 41,973 notes…” before continuing more conventionally, “…and is dedicated to the two percussionists who inspired it, Svet Stoyanov and Matthew Strauss. Composition started mid-February 2020 and was completed by 11 June 2020.” (By the way, I did some quick math and estimated that assuming she took weekends off, she would have had to average around 451 notes per day. Phew!) But it is in her next paragraph concerning Duo Duel where Higdon has some really interesting things to say about her composition, things of which the listener to this recording would otherwise be completely unawares: “Both soloists stand at the front of the stage, one on each side. The solo instruments are pitched percussion instruments (as opposed to non-pitched, such as drums). The soloists play vibraphone (which they share), marimba (which they also share), crotales (small metal discs with a high pitch), and a total of six timpani (three for each player). They frequently stand very close together to play the same instrument. Two-thirds of the concerto features the keyboard percussion instruments, and the final one-third features the timpani.” 

This was a case where reading the liner notes not only gave me an insight into a particular composition, (after all, that’s what liner notes are supposed to do), but also made me realize that Higdon was conceiving of her work as something to be played by live musicians in a concert hall where their duel could be seen in all its vivid three-dimensional glory as the two percussionists moved around the stage striking their various instruments, at times even playing side-by-side. As per my usual practice I had listened to this release several times before reading the notes, and I must confess that although I thoroughly enjoyed the music, which is colorful and energetic, with the prominent percussion adding some extra excitement, I never quite understood the “duel” implied by the title. It just didn’t sound like a percussion duel – nothing like the dueling tympani in Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4, for example, which is the sort of sound the title Duo Duel had led me to expect. But when I read Higdon’s notes, it suddenly hit mt that this was music played by live musicians in real space, and had I seen them in the concert hall rather than merely heard them through my speakers – as wonderful as my Legacy Audio Focus SEs might be – there are elements of a live performance that microphones cannot capture. Still, I do not mean to sound discouraging: Duo Duel is a lively, colorful, exciting new composition that is well worth an audition. You can get a sense of what a live performance would be like from this promotional video from Naxos, which you can watch here.

But wait – there’s more!

 

The American conductor Robert Spano (b. 1961) actually recorded Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra previously, with the Atlanta Symphony for the late, lamented Telarc label on a CD that was released in January, 2007. Curiously enough, on that release, the work also took second billing, to a tone poem titled City Scape. (I had hoped to do a quick A/B listening session with the two recordings to compare the sonics but could not lay my hands on the Telarc, which must be hiding in a box somewhere, alas.) The Telarc was a fine release for which I wrote a positive review for The $ensible Sound magazine back when it first came out. 

 

As in Duo Duel, percussion features prominently throughout, bringing a strong sense of continuity to the album as a whole. Like Bartók’s well-known work of the same name, Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra consists of five movements. In her notes, she reflects on the fact that “surprisingly, the first movement was the last to be composed. It took writing the other four movements to create a clear picture of what was needed to start the virtuosic tour-de-force.” Of the work as a whole, she explains, “the Concerto for Orchestra is truly a concerto in that it requires virtuosity from the principal players, the individual sections and the whole orchestra.” The work truly is a virtuosic tour-de-force; moreover, Spano clearly believes in it – enough to record it twice, and his enthusiasm clearly inspires the Houston players. Especially for those who enjoy giving their audio systems a good workout, this new release is highly recommended.

Time for Three: Letters for the Future (CD review)

Puts: Contact; Higdon: Concerto 4-3. Time for Three (Charles Yang, violin; Nick Kendall, violin; Ranaan Meyer, double bass), Xian Zhang, The Philadelphia Orchestra. Deutsche Grammophon B0035748-02.

By Karl W. Nehring

This album came to me as a combination of the known (composer Jennifer Higdon and The Philadelphia Orchestra) and the unknown (composer Kevin Puts, conductor Xian Zhang, and the performers known collectively as Time for Three). Having never heard anything by Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) that I didn’t like, and having great admiration for the venerable Philadelphia Orchestra, I felt reasonably confident that this release was going to be worth listening to, although I really did have no idea what kinds of sounds might emanate from my speakers the first time I hit the play button on the remote.

Much to my surprise, the first few notes of Contact by American composer Kevin Puts (b. 1972) were not instrumental, but vocal. Puts, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his first opera, Silent Night, explains in the liner notes that “Contact, a concerto in four movements, begins with Time for Three singing a wordless refrain. The piece’s four movements – ‘The Call,’ ‘Codes, ‘Contact,’ and ‘Convivium’ – tell a story that I hope transcends abstract musical expression. Could the refrain at the opening of the concerto be a message from Earth, sent into space? Could the Morse-code-like rhythms of the scherzo suggest radio transmissions, wave signals, etc.? The word ‘contact’ has gained new resonance during these years of isolation, and it is my hope that our concerto will be heard as an expression of earning for this fundamental human need.” As I listened to the piece over multiple sessions, I discovered that the concerto gives the musicians of Time for Three plenty of opportunity to display their musicianship, whether it be fancy fiddling as in the energetic first movement or the middle Eastern sounding melodies of the final movement, where Time for Three also add to the mood with some more wordless singing during the final minute. The orchestra provides solid support throughout, especially so in the third movement, Contact, a haunting and mysterious slow movement, the longest of the four, wherein the Philadelphia woodwinds and brass provide washes of color that enhance the splendor of the sound. The seamless transition to the energy of the final movement is simply remarkable, while the ending of the concerto demonstrates that Puts apparently knows how to end a composition just right – neither making it suddenly become overly dramatic nor letting it simply die out. Yep, just right.

Fellow American composer Jennifer Higdon is also a Pulitzer Prize winner, having been awarded that honor in 2010 for her Violin Concerto, the same year she was awarded a Grammy for her Percussion Concerto. She has since gone on to collect two more Grammy awards, in 2018 for her Viola Concerto and in 2020 for her Harp Concerto. (Hmmm, I seem to detect a pattern here. It looks as though a concerto from Ms. Higdon might be a pretty safe bet…) As I mentioned above, I have listened to a number of releases of her music, and always enjoyed them. As our own John Puccio noted of her music in his review of one of her earlier compositions, “ Unlike so many late twentieth-century composers, Ms. Higdon believes in writing real tunes, melodies, rather than simply inventing new soundscapes.”

Of her approach to her new Concerto 4-3, Higdon writes, “I knew the Time for Three Guys before we had the chance to work together; we crossed paths at Curtis, where I taught, and I often heard them jamming in Rittenhouse Square. When I got the call from the Philadelphia Orchestra to write them a concerto, I was thrilled and knew exactly what to compose: a work that would show off the joy that they express in their music. Concerto 4-3 is a three-movement concerto with an optional cadenza between the first and second movements. Each movement title refers to rivers that run through the Smoky Mountains: ‘The Shallows,’ ‘Little River,’ and ‘Roaring Smokies.’ The concerto embraces a traditionally classical approach with elements of bluegrass being incorporated into the fabric of the piece. All occurring within a tonal, 21st Century American style.” Although I hardly expect to hear Tim White introducing Time for Three on “Song of the Mountains” anytime soon to play this concerto, you really can hear little threads of bluegrass that are woven into the piece here and there. What you can really hear, though, is energy and enthusiasm, both in the playing and even in the music itself, which at times truly does seem to evoke the whirling and swirling and bubbling motion of rivers as their waters wend their way determinedly downstream. There are also passages of great tenderness, such as the vocalization near the end of the first movement that leads into the lyrical instrumental passages with which the second movement begins.

Engineer Adam Abeshouse has done an excellent job of balancing the sound so that the solo instruments stand out but never seem larger than life. Throughout both concertos your ears are most likely first to be captured by the sound of the two violins, but as you listen more, you may well begin also to appreciate the contributions of the double bass – at times being plucked, sounding like a jazz bass, at other times being bowed, producing more of a singing quality, and more often than not making a significant contribution to the music even though notes from the double bass do not have the penetrating power that those from the violins possess. From the opening measures of the Puts through the closing measures of the Higdon, Letters for the Future is an engaging release that demonstrates that serious, high-quality, contemporary classical music can be highly entertaining, accessible, and enjoyable.

KWN

Theofanidis: Rainbow Body (CD review)

Works by Theofanidis, Barber, Copland, and Higdon. Robert Spano, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Telarc CD-80596.

In 2001, when the Atlanta Symphony's then-new conductor Robert Spano took over the orchestra, he selected for this 2003 release four American works, two old and two newer. Frankly, the two newer compositions pale by comparison to the older pieces, but at least they bring a modicum of fresh, new light to an otherwise drab contemporary musical scene.

The two classics are Samuel Barber's Symphony No. 1 (all right, perhaps not an all-out classic, but a fine older work, dating from 1936), and Aaron Copland's Suite from Appalachian Spring, 1944, definitely a classic. Interestingly, it's the Copland piece that sounds the most inventive and the most inspired, and Spano imbues it with a soft, bucolic charm. If the Atlanta Symphony doesn't always sound as smooth and refined as we have more recently heard them, we might perhaps attribute the concern to Maestro Spano's having just taken the reins.

The two newer works are, first, Christopher Theofanidis's Rainbow Body, which the composer says he wrote while inspired by his listening to the music of medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Be that as it may, the piece is mostly moody and atmospheric, building leisurely and incrementally, he says, to the "lingering reverberations one might hear in an old cathedral." Fair enough, although on first listening it left me singularly unimpressed. Subsequent listening has proven kinder, so maybe I'm getting to used to it. Still, I wouldn't consider it a future classic in the league of the Barber and Copland pieces.

Robert Spano

The second newer work on the disc is more immediately accessible, Jennifer Higdon's Blue Cathedral. Do you see a thematic element working here with both Higdon and Theofanidis dealing with cathedrals? The Curtis Institute of Music commissioned Ms. Higdon to write the music for their seventy-fifth anniversary. Her idea was to use a cathedral as a metaphor for learning, a new beginning, a place of knowledge, a doorway to another world. Indeed, the music does convey the feeling of a large open cathedral, and in some passages it effectively paints the tone picture of a house of worship and education. I quite enjoyed the music and Spano's handling of it. Both newer pieces are brief at about twelve or thirteen minutes each, yet I doubt we'd want them any longer.

Telarc's sound is characteristically open and airy, with pretty good inner detail and a wide stereo spread. Uncharacteristically, however, the sound appears a bit underpowered in the bass and slightly hard in the upper midrange. No matter. Looking at it optimistically, the music doesn't require much bass, except for some of the more bombastic sections of the Barber symphony, and the upper midrange hardness helps clarify the definition.

Overall, I can't say the album entirely appealed to me, but the Copland and Higdon performances are worthy of repeat listening.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Higdon: The Singing Rooms (CD review)

Also, Singleton: PraiseMaker; Scriabin: The Poem of Ecstasy. Jennifer Koh, violin; Robert Spano, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Telarc TEL-32630.

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

Composer Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) must feel as though it's her wedding day. In the past month she has had world-première recordings of her works debuted on two major record labels, DG and Telarc. Since we're dealing with the Telarc album at the moment, here's the lineup: Alexander Scriabin's The Poem of Ecstasy is the "old"; Higdon's The Singing Rooms is the "new"; Alvin Singleton's PraiseMaker is the "borrowed"; and the album cover is mainly the "blue." Or close enough.

The program begins with Jennifer Higdon's The Singing Rooms, which the reader should not confuse with Jim Morrison's The Singing Doors. Violinist Jennifer Koh originally requested Higdon write The Singing Rooms, a concerto for violin, chorus, and orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra subsequently commissioned it, premiering it in 2008. Telarc here offer the first recording of it, with, appropriately, Ms. Koh as the soloist.

A lonely violin opens and closes the Higdon music, the chorus entering for its often quietly melancholy statements. Unlike so many late twentieth-century composers, Ms. Higdon believes in writing real tunes, melodies, rather than simply inventing new soundscapes. In The Singing Rooms she uses seven of the poems of a colleague, Jeanne Minahan. Higdon arranged the poems in a dramatic sequence "like rooms in a house," each with its own emotional response. The music has a lightly lilting, semisweet quality about it, creating lingering wisps of sweetly pensive contemplation. Jennifer Koh's violin playing conveys the varying atmospheric moods of the music, with the chorus and orchestra under Robert Spano continuously furnishing a cushy reassurance that all is well, even though the actual words of the poetry may escape the listener. Is any of it memorable or of lasting importance? Who knows. Only time will tell. Certainly, it is enchanting for the moment.

Alvin Singleton (b. 1940) wrote PraiseMaker for chorus and orchestra in the late Nineties, getting a live première in 1998, with this Telarc rendering its first recording. He sets his work to an original text by poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker Susan Konguell. It is music of mostly restrained rejoicing, and its many contrasts, with occasional outbursts, make it an apt companion to the Higdon work, especially as it also begins and ends in a lonely, somewhat melancholy place. Neither the Higdon nor the Singleton piece is music you'll probably find yourself humming around the house afterwards, however. Most of it seems like a series of hushed, lyrical tone exercises, with the Singleton work sneaking up on you in progressively unexpected ways.

Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) debuted his well-known Poem of Ecstasy for orchestra in 1908. Maestro Spano's reading is colorful, sensual, and downright sexy. Spano draws comparisons to the music of Debussy in its lush textures, expansive themes, and long expressive lines. Hedonistic old Romantic that I am, I enjoyed it more than I did the Higdon or Singleton pieces, but that's just me.

The sound, which Telarc recorded in March of 2009, is fairly soft and distant, and while that may fit most of the music on the disc, it doesn't always provide the best acoustic for one's understanding of the words of the chorus. The midrange loses a good deal of transparency, as though one were listening from the back of an auditorium. Still, it's soothing enough, even if it sounds misty or cloudy at times. In the Higdon and Singleton music, there are few opportunities for the famous Telarc bass drum to make itself known, and, again due to the nature of the music, not a lot of chance for displaying a wide dynamic range or impact. Nevertheless, the Singleton piece in particular does have fine parts for brass and percussion, which stand out, and then in the Scriabin, with its greater orchestral range, the sound is better in most areas, if still a bit too soft and distant for my liking.

JJP

Higdon & Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos (CD review)

Hilary Hahn, violin; Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. DG 028947787778.

For readers who missed my early review of this disc, I thought it best to repost it.

When somebody writes a piece of serious music just for you, you'd do well to show your appreciation. In the case of violinist Hilary Hahn, one of her old music professors, Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon, wrote and dedicated a violin concerto especially for her, and Ms. Hahn returned the favor in this world-première recording of it.

Ms. Hahn pairs the Higdon Violin Concerto with the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in part to do something she's done before--compare and contrast music from two different eras--and, no doubt, to hedge her bets by giving potential buyers a popular warhorse to help sell the album. In any case, the two works make fascinating listening.

The program begins with Higdon's Violin Concerto, for which the composer won a 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Ms. Higdon titled the first movement "1726," which seems pretty mystifying until you understand that she gave it that title because it's the street address of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she first met Ms. Hahn. Fair enough. The movement begins with a hauntingly lithe, almost spooky, little introduction that leads to a lusher, almost Romantic melody, which in turn gives way to a lively, vibrant tune, accompanied by a good deal of percussion. That's quite a lot to cram into a single movement, but in the end the movement is more or less a traditional Allegro with modern trimmings, arresting at least in part and ending the way it came in.

The composer patterned the slow second movement, which she titled "Chaconni," after the Baroque chaconne, a musical form based on continuous variations in a series of chords. It's a pleasant moment of repose, reminiscent of the music of English composer Frederick Delius in its sweetly flowing rhythms.

The final movement, titled "Fly Forward," is the easiest to figure out. Ms. Higdon is urging her former pupil to even greater heights of musical interpretation and exploration. It's the most-ambitious part of the Concerto, and Ms. Hahn handles it with her usual virtuosity.

I wasn't entirely sure how Ms. Hahn would handle the rather brawny, muscular Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, however. Not that I should have worried, as she is fully capable of meeting any challenge, the Tchaikovsky being no different from any other. While her reading is a tad disappointing in overall bravura, it is a thoughtful one. For instance, you might find her performance more sensitive than that of some of her rivals. Indeed, in the familiar opening movement she and maestro Vasily Petrenko seem determined not to leave an audience breathless with excitement but, instead, captivated by flavor and atmosphere. Then they evoke an appropriate degree of Russian melancholy in the Andante and close the show with a big, spirited Finale, as though they were saving all their energy for the last rounds. All's well that ends well.

DG's sound is warm and full, not always as transparent as it could be during full orchestral segments but serving the soloist and individual instruments well enough. The engineers at DG always do up wide dynamics well, too, and this is no exception. Still, the overall focus is slightly soft and one dimensional, with the bass somewhat light. Fortunately, the abundance of delicate, tinkly sounds in the Hidgon piece come through nicely, and they are perhaps the highlight of the disc's sonics.

JJP