Recent Releases No. 51 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

Atmospheriques Vol. I. Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Catamorphosis; Missy Mazzoli: Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres); Daniel Bjarnason: From Space I Saw Earth; Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir: Clockworking for Orchestra. Bára Gisladóttir: ÓS. Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Bjarnason (conductor). Sono Luminus DSL-92267

 

One the one hand, Atmospheriques is an appropriate title for this new release from Sono Luninus in that all of the pieces are certainly “atmospheric” in terms of evoking sensory impressions; on the other hand, at least two of the pieces on the album – Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) and Daniel Bjarnason’s From Space I Saw Earth – have ambitions that extend far beyond our home planet’s atmosphere. As violist and music writer Doyle Armbrust writes in the CD booklet: “Despite a bewildering insistence by journalists to characterize music written by those with Icelandic surnames as a monolith, the entries on this tracklist are as singular as hand blown glass. The inclusion of American sonic clairvoyant Missy Mazzoli is a helpful geographic foil here, but there is one element fusing all of these inventions: Your person is about to feel minuscule or massive, by contrast to – or motivated by – these sounds.”

The most ambitious composition is that which begins the program, Catamorphosis by Anna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977). This is a powerful piece that projects both solidity and transparency as it swells and subsides, at times evoking volcanic forces, at other times perhaps the ocean, the shifting of tectonic plates, or whatever your imagination might conjure throughout its 21 spellbinding minutes. We have reviewed a couple of works by this intriguing composer before, one for piano (see review here) and one for string quartet (reviewed here), both of which were interesting but neither of which prepared these ears for the splendor of this new work. Next on the program is the only piece by a non-Icelandic composer, Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) by the American composer Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980), a work that recently received another recording that was recently released on the BIS label as part of an all-Mazzoli disc that we reviewed here. This version under Bjarnason’s baton  is slightly more expansive than the BIS version, making the piece feel grander and more expressive. Spheres is another work that although relatively short in duration at just over nine minutes is grand in the scope of its imaginative scale, evoking a sense of cosmic wonder and mystery.

 

The remaining three compositions are all by Icelandic composers starting with From Space I Saw Earth, conducted by the composer himself, Daniel Bjarnason (b. 1979). The overall impression is something of a blend of the first two pieces, with the sense of the waves of Catamorphosis and the vastness of scale of Sinfonia (of Orbiting Spheres), but of course completely different from those two compositions. Toward the end, Bjarnason employs the percussion section to dramatic effect. The percussion section also plays a significant role in Clockworking for Orchestra by composer and violinist Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (b. 1980), whose beautiful EP of choral music we reviewed here.Clockworking gradually but progressively builds up a sense of urgency by adding percussion to the sound of the orchestra, the rhythm seeming to remind the listener of the urgencies of life. It is a compelling nine minutes of music. Of the final piece on the program, ÓS by composer and double bassist Bára Gisladóttir (b. 1989), Armbrust writes: “is ÓS gasping in air, or desperately exhaling? Whatever your observation, and as with every waypoint on this illusory itinerary, the answer is likely: both.” Hmmm. I’m not sure about the breathing metaphor; however, in light of the fact that the biographical information in the CD booklet states that “her work is generally based on thoughts regarding the approach and concept of sound as a living being,” I guess I can see where Armbrust found his inspiration. In any event, it’s a striking piece, perhaps a soundscape of an alien landscape, forbiddingly attractive over its brief six minutes. 

Kudos to Sono Luminus for putting together an appealing program of contemporary music, recorded in vivid, full-range sound. There is fairly extensive background information provided about the composers, although it would have been useful to have more information about the music itself. There are actually two discs in the package: a standard CD, which is what I auditioned, plus a Blu-ray surround-sound disc that apparently supports several different formats including 5.1 DTS, 9.1 Auro, 2.0 LPCM, and 9.1 Dolby Atmos. If future volumes in this series live up to the high standard set by this release, then we are in for quite a treat indeed!

 

Dominic Miller: Vagabond. All Change; Cruel but Fair; Open Heart; Vaugines; Clandestin; Altea; Mi Viejo; Lone Waltz. Dominic Miller, guitar; Jacob Karlzon, piano/keyboard; Nicolas Fiszman, bass; Ziv Ravitz, drums. ECM 2704 458 9048

 

Dominic Miller (b. 1960) is an Argentina-born guitarist who has long been a member of rock luminary Sting's road band. There is a fascinating in-depth interview with Miller and Sting on Rick Beato’s YouTube channel wherein both musicians pay homage to J.S. Bach, saying that they study and practice his music daily. Like his two previous albums on the ECM label, Vagabond is not at all a rock album, lest any readers worry. His first album for ECM, Silent Light, was a solo guitar outing, accompanied on a few cuts by some subtle percussion, while his second, Absinthe, (reviewed here) featured his acoustic guitar in a quartet setting with the unusual inclusion of bandoneon rather than piano as on this latest release. Once again, you might expect an album recorded by quartet led by a guitarist who composed all of the music to feature high-speed virtuosic guitar solos, but that is not the case here. The music is generally quiet, laid-back, and contemplative, with cooperative interplay among the musicians rather than trading off solos. The cut Mi Viejo(“My Old Man”) is a solo guitar outing of great tenderness; although it is brief at just over two minutes, it obviously carries a great depth of meaning for Miller, which he communicates though the abstract but powerful medium of music. The sound is rich and reverberant in the traditional ECM style. Although this album is brief (around 32 minutes), it is a quiet little treasure, a refuge from the madness, a softly glowing gem.

131 (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Missy Mazzoli: Enthusiasm Strategies; Sean Neukom; 19|20; Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14, op. 131.  Beo String Quartet (Jason Neukom, violin; Andrew Giordano, violin; Sean Neukom, viola; Ryan Ash, cello). NeuKraft Records

 

Beethoven fans will recognize 131 as the opus number of one of the composer’s most beloved creations, his String Quartet in No. 14 in C sharp minor, op. 131, which for most listeners will most likely be the program content that first captures their attention. That certainly seems as though it would be the sole point of giving the album the title 131, n’cest-pas? But as Lee Corso is often heard to exclaim, "not so fast, my friend!" In their liner notes, the Beo Quartet starts off by informing us that 131 is a “Classical Concept Album,” going on to explain that “Our hope is for you to listen to the album in its entirety as if you were in a theatre watching an opera, musical, or motion picture. No matter what style of chamber music we play – the classics, music of living composers, or music inspired by popular genres – we feel that all styles should inform and be informed be one another to help create a story that is unique to Beo.” (A quick aside: kudos to Beo for employing the Oxford comma!) Although listening to a program of music is certain a different kind experience from watching a movie or stage production, further kudos to Beo for making the effort to assemble a program that attempts to present some new music by bringing together new music from the past with new music from the present into one coherent and entertaining whole.  

 

Not long ago we reviewed an album featuring several orchestral works by American composer Missy Mazzoli (see review here), whose brief Enthusiasm Strategies for string quartet opens the program on an energetic if somewhat ambiguous note, for the music seems to convey both optimism and apprehension. Musically, though, it is agreeable and entertaining, an excellent curtain-raiser (to borrow the theatrical analogy). Next up is a work by Beo’s violist, Sean  Neukom, titled 19|20.  The liner notes by Beo violinist Andrew Giordano explain that the work ”derives its title from COVID-19 and 2020 – the event and the year that may have changed the direction of humanity and certainly altered the trajectory of the arts and artists.” His notes further reveal that “it is a four-movement work with additional pre-recorded material, and when performed live, includes video projection and staging.” As you might expect from that description, 19|20 (its four movements are titled I. Screens, II. Masks, III. Deception, IV. Ashes) is a fairly complex, serious-sounding quartet, hardly the sort of thing you would throw on to hum along with while dusting your shelves or watering your plants. But that is not to say it is forbiddingly harsh or unrelentingly dark, which it is not. Would it be more enjoyable to be able to see the video projection and staging? Most likely. But the music can stand on its own. Remember, after all, recordings are not live performances. Even if 19|20 did not have a visual element associated with it, we’d still most likely prefer seeing the Beo Quartet performing the music rather than just hearing them. 

The program then concludes with the ostensible title piece of the album, Beethoven’s beloved String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, op. 131, which he composed in the years 1825-26. Can it really have been almost 200 years ago? Of this piece, Giordano writes, “the culmination of this classical concept album is Beethoven’s powerful and forward-looking Opus 131 quartet, cast in  seven movements and played without pause. The somber and depressive opening fugue of Op. 131 can be heard as grief from all the tragedy depicted in 19|20.” Recordings of this quartet are as numerous as the dandelions in my spring lawn, and devoted fans of Beethoven’s chamber music no doubt have their favorite versions. In my own collection, for example, I have collections of the late quartets by the Emerson, Takács, Tokyo, and Yale quartets. But the point of this release is not for the Beo’s version of Op. 131 to displace any of those other recordings, but rather to put Op. 131 in a fresh context and program it with two modern works in an effort to give the listener not only an opportunity to hear two new compositions but also to hear Op. 131 in a different setting – perhaps then to gain if not a new understanding but at least a refreshed appreciation for Beethoven’s music. 

I auditioned the CD version, but the album is also available for streaming at sources such as Spotify, Amazon, Qobuz, and Apple Music. In terms of sound quality, I did a comparison to the Emerson recording on DG and found the Beo recording on NeuKraft to be warmer and fuller, better balanced tonally, and just more natural-sounding. Overall, then, 131 is a nice-sounding recording of an interesting program of highly original and imaginative music, some of which, believe it or not, dates from nearly 200 years ago – but don’t let that age factor put you off.

Missy Mazzoli: Dark with Excessive Bright (SACD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Missy Mazzoli: Dark with Excessive Bright, Concerto for solo violin and string orchestra*; Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres)**; These Worlds in Us**; Orpheus Undone**; Vespers for Violin (for solo violin with electronic soundtrack); Dark with Excessive Bright (arranged for solo violin and string quintet)***. Peter Herresthal, violin soloist; Bergen Philharmonic/James Gaffigan, conductor; **Arctic Philharmonic/Tim Weiss, conductor; ***Quintet from the Arctic Philharmonic (Oganes Girunyan, violin I; Øyvind Mehus, violin II; Natalya Girunyan, viola; Mary Auner, cello; Ingvild Maria Mehus, double bass);Tim Weiss, conductor. BIS-2572 SACD

 

The title composition of this release by American composer Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980), which opens and closes the program on this BIS SACD (I auditioned the CD layer only) exists in at least three versions. Mazzoli originally composed it as a concerto for double bass and string orchestra. As she explains about the two versions that appear on this recording, “in 2019, at the request of soloist Peter Herresthal, I transformed this piece into a concerto for violin and string orchestra, essentially flipping the original work upside-down… While loosely based in baroque idioms, this piece slips between string techniques from several centuries, all while twisting a pattern of repeated chords beyond recognition. ‘Dark with excessive bright,’ a phrase from Milton’s Paradise Lost, is a surreal and evocative description of God’s robes, written by a blind man. I love the impossibility of this phrase and how perfectly it describes the ghostly, heart-rending sound of strings. In 2019, again at the request of Peter Herresthal, I arranged this piece for soloist and string quintet.” Curiously, Mazzoli’s liner notes state that both arrangements were done in 2019, while the back cover gives the dates for both arrangements as 2021.  My guess is that both are half-correct: 2019 for the violin/string orchestra arrangement and 2021 for the violin/string quintet version. 

In any event, the arrangements for violin and string orchestra and violin and string quintet open and close the program, respectively. The former is intense, brooding, introspective, leaning more to the dark than the bright. The chamber-music scale of the latter arrangement somehow makes the piece much more inviting and involving. Both versions, however, are engrossing in their own way; moreover, having the two different arrangements on the same disc will afford the serious listener the opportunity to ponder the ways in which they differ in terms of both sonority and aesthetic/emotional appeal. Following the opening arrangement of Dark with Excessive Bright on the program comes Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), which Mazzoli describes as “music in the shape of a solar system, a collection of rococo loops that twist around each other within a larger orbit.” That sounds rather imposing, but the music is not as ponderous as all that. Now with a full orchestra making music, we hear more contrasting sonorities, with brass and string sounds whirling and swirling. The next selection, These Worlds in Us, carries on with the whirling and swirling; if anything, even more exuberantly. The title may suggest introspection, but the sound is assertive and outgoing. Mazzoli writes, “this piece is dedicated to my father, who was a soldier during the Vietnam War. I  like the idea that music can reflect painful and blissful sentiments in a single note or gesture, and have sought to create a sound palette that I hope is at once completely new and strangely familiar to the listener.”

When I heard the woodblock at the beginning of the next composition, Orpheus Undone, I immediately flashed to Short Ride in a Fast Machine by John Adams (see an Adams review here), which opens in the same way. But Orpheus Undone is far different from the Adams work. Throughout its two movements it bristles with restless energy. As Mazzoli describes the effect of the piece, “then listener feels Orpheus’s sense of timelessness and alienation, for a moment joining him in what Nietzsche called the hourglass of existence, turning over and over’.”  Next up is the highlight of the album – for these ears at least – a truly captivating work for amplified violin and electronics titled Vespers for Violin. Mazzoli writes of this this work that it “began as a reimagining of my composition Vespers for a New Dark Age. I sampled keyboards, vintage organs, voices and strings from that composition, drenched them in delay and distortion, and reworked them into a piece that can be performed by a soloist.” Her reference to drenching sounds in delay and distortion might tend to scare some potential listeners off, but I hope not, for the end result sounds at times as though Herresthal is performing in a cathedral along with an organ and an ethereal wordless choir. It is an utterly spellbinding performance. 

The program closes as Herresthal’s violin takes the lead once more, this time in the chamber version of the title piece, Dark with Excessive Bright, which in this more intimate arrangement communicates with a captivating intensity throughout its nearly 14 minutes. As we have come to expect from BIS, the engineering is impeccable, which combined with insights from the composer herself about her richly imaginative music – not to mention the virtuosic performances by Herresthal and the his accompanying orchestral and chamber players – make this a highly recommendable release indeed. 

Emily D’Angelo: Enargeia (CD review)

Hildur Guðnadóttir (arr. Jarko Riihimäki): Fólk fær andlit; Hildegard von Bingen (arr. Sarah Kirkland Snider): O virtus sapientae; Missy Mazzoli (arr. Riihimäki): This World Within Me Is too Small; Kirkland Snider: Caritas; Mazzoli: Hello Lord; Mazzoli: You Are the Dust; Kirkland Snider: Dead Friend; Kirkland Snider: Nausicaa; Hildegard von Bingen (arr. Mazzoli): For the Virgin; Mazzoli: A Thousand Tongues; Guðnadóttir (arr. Riihimäki): Lidur; Kirkland Snider: The Lotus Eaters. Emily D’Angelo, mezzo-soprano; Jarkko Riihimäki, das freie orchester Berlin; Kuss Quartett; Matangi Quartet; Wolfgang Fischer, percussion; Rene Flächsenhaar, Mikayel Hakhnazaryan, cello; Frédéric L’Épée, electric guitar; Jonas Niederstadt, glockenspiel; Marc Prietzel, drums; Marion Ravot, harp; Christian Vogel, bass clarinet; Norbert Wahren, double bass. Deuthsche Grammophon 486 0536.

by Karl W. Nehring

Enargeia is the debut album from Canadian mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo (b. 1994). As a glance at the program should tell you, this is hardly the typical debut recital album one would expect to hear from a rising young opera star. Rather than the usual familiar arias by famous operatic composers, she has brought together unfamiliar music by women composers both past and present, arranging them into a varied but coherent program that captivates from start to finish. As she remarks in her liner notes, “the pieces in this program are bound together by the ancient Greek concept of enargeia, whose spirit is found throughout the music of each composer and the texts they have made manifest on the sound waves. Each piece is part of a sonic journey, each track born out of the previous one as the listener is guided through a progression, a cohesive and exploratory listening experience.”

Regarding the composers represented on this album, D’Angelo first encountered the music of Hildegard (1098-1179) while singing in a choir during her youth and was quite taken by what she heard. Of Hildegard, D’Angelo writes that “her belief in music as a heightened communicative mode (is) woven throughout the songs on this album.” Moving ahead to our current time, D’Angelo has included music by the Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, of whom she observes, “creates compostions that evoke otherworldly, multidimensional qualities, which have translated into diverse mediums ranging from scores for film and television to solo recordings. The use of bowed instruments as a drone harkens back to medieval music but seen through a modern, ambient lens.”    The other two composers represented on Enargiea are the Americans Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980), whom D’Angelo credits as being adept at the “crossing of sacred themes and electronic instrumentation,” and Sarah Kirkland Snider (b. 1973), who D’Angelo observes is “known for her direct expression and vivid narrative.”

Although the music is by four different composers, the program is focused and unified. Certainly Ms. D’Angelo’s voice, which is rich and strong and persuasive, brings coherence to the music, along with conviction and great beauty. The songs focus on death, but not in a morbid, obsessive manner (texts are provided). The instrumental accompaniments are generally quite spare, but varied in timbre and texture, at times augmented by electronic effects; however, there is an overall rightness and naturalness to the sound that makes the whole effort sound as though it could be a contemporary version of a song cycle by Mahler, something along the lines of his Kindertotenlieder, or perhaps a scaled-down Das Lied von der Erde. If you are a classical music lover who enjoys that sort of vocal music, you should find Enargeia to be a most fascinating recording. D’Angelo has a truly special voice, the instrumental arrangements are apt and imaginative, and the engineering frames everything well. Brava, Ms. D’Angelo! Your bold vision has brought us something special indeed, and just in time for the holidays.

KWN

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