Fausto Mesolella: Live at Alcatraz (XRCD review)

Fausto Mesolella, guitar and loop pedal; Ferdinanda Ghidelli, pedal steel. Master Music/JVC XRCD24-NT017.

It's an expensive proposition; remasterings such as this one always are. I suspect that the current album might appeal to one or more of four kinds of people: (1) lovers of guitar music; (2) fans of guitarist Fausto Mesolella; (3) folks who simply enjoy pop/jazz musical arrangements; or (4) audiophiles bent on obtaining the best possible recordings for their collection.

In the case of Fausto Mesolella: Live at Alcatraz, I would further speculate that it's the fourth option that might attract the most attention, since there is already a plethora of guitar music and pop/jazz music at much more reasonable prices and since Mr. Mesolella isn't exactly a household name. But as a purely sonic treat, this JVC XRCD24 isn't bad.

Italian guitarist, composer, arranger, and producer Fausto Mesolella began playing professionally in 1969, winning awards, performing solo as well as with a number of bands, making recordings, and working in his own studio. Here, he plays guitar and loop pedal while accompanied on some of the tracks by Ferdinanda Ghidelli on pedal steel guitar.

Incidentally, the Alcatraz of the album's title does not refer to Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay or the famous federal prison once located there. This Alcatraz is a school in Italy. Disappointing, I know.

On this live recording, Mesolella plays mostly a fusion of pop and jazz, as I noted above. Mesolella's style is tight yet flexible, providing solid realizations of many old favorite numbers. He never showboats but presents the music with faithfully, with feeling, and on occasion with much intensity. While he may not display quite the virtuosity we find in some celebrated classical guitarists, the music hardly demands it.

Here's a rundown on the program:
1. Mesolella: "Sonatina Improvvisata D'Inizio Estate"
2. Rota: "Ai Giochi Addio" (from Romeo and Juliet)
3. Capurro/di Capua: "O Sole Mio"
4. Piazzolla: "Libertango"
5. Lennon: "Imagine"
6. Bottrell/Jackson: "Black or White"
7. Newton: "Amazing Grace"
8. Mesolella: "La Principessa"
9. Arlen: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

Fausto Mesolella

If there is any downside to all of this, beyond the relatively high price of the remastered album, it's that there isn't a lot of it at only forty-four minutes. And, for me, there's the business of the live recording, which I don't care for but which I understand many other listeners do. Be that as it may, let me reflect on a few of my favorite selections.

The first track, the "Sonatina Improvvisata D'Inizio Estate," is a good example of what's to come. Mesolella's playing is fluid and light, the music wafting over one as airily as a spring breeze. If you're a fan of Franco Zefferilli's Romeo and Juliet, you'll probably enjoy Mesolella's performance of the love theme Nino Rota wrote for the film. It's lovely, breezy, lilting, and enchanting. Although "O Sole Mio" and Piazzolla's tango come off a bit too sentimentally for me, Mesolella's version of John Lennon's "Imagine" appears sweet and appealing without being too cloying. And so it goes. The pedal steel in "Amazing Grace" sounds wonderful in its rich resonance, and Mesolella's version of Harold Arlen's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" may leave you in tears. A fine album; I just wish there were more of it.

A final note on the album's presentation: JVC have packaged the disc in a beautiful, glossy, hard Digipak-type case, with the disc fastened to the inside back and booklet notes bound to the inside. It's unfortunate, though, that whoever translated the notes from Italian into English did such a slapdash job of it. Most of it seems as though an automated translation program did the writing, which is sometimes downright hard to decipher.

Fausto Mesolella recorded the album live at the University of Alcatraz, Santa Cristina di Gubbio, Italy, in August 2013. Producers Kazuo Kiuchi and Shizuo Nomiyama and engineer Tohru Kotetsu at the JVC Mastering Center, Japan, remastered the original analogue tape in February 2016, using XRCD processing, JVC's K2-24bit AD converter, and a digital K2 rubidium clock.

OK, so the first thing we have to get out of the way is the whole subject of live recording. Yes, there is no doubt a certain spontaneity involved in performing in front of an audience, a greater feeling of informality, naturalness, and ease. And for some listeners there is the fun of almost being in the crowd listening to the performance. Nevertheless, it comes with its own burdens: There is always audience noise, and there is the inevitable applause, which erupts before and after every number. For me, it becomes tiresome. For other listeners, it probably adds to the charm of the experience.

Beyond the noise, the album sounds terrific. The guitar rings out loud and clear, its vibrations resonating throughout the room in with light, realistic, natural bloom. It is, in short, one of the best guitar recordings I've ever heard. Of course, to obtain such a healthy sound, the engineers have miked the instrument rather closely, so it probably isn't a good idea to play the music too loudly. At the right level, though, this can be some of the best audiophile material available.

You can find JVC products at any number of on-line marketplaces, but you'll find some of the best prices at Elusive Disc: http://www.elusivedisc.com/

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click on the forward arrow:

Rattle Conducts Britten (CD review)

Sir Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. EMI CZS 5 73983 2 (2-disc set).

When many of us think of twentieth-century English composer and pianist Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), no doubt what first leaps to mind are his most-popular pieces: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, the Spring Symphony, and the War Requiem or his operas Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, and The Turn of the Screw. To supplement these standard items, this two-disc rerelease from Sir Simon Rattle (when he was conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) and EMI (now Warner Classics) presents a collection of the composer's early work as well as several pieces from his final period. Much of it is lesser-known material, and I cannot admit to liking all of it equally, but it is certainly a worthy adjunct to the composer's more-famous compositions, and EMI recorded it splendidly.

EMI arranged the selections on the discs to accommodate a comfortable concert program rather than offering the music in any chronological order. It begins with An American Overture, which never got performed in Britten's lifetime and only surfaced shortly after his death in 1976. Rattle premiered it with the CBSO in 1983. Next is Ballad of Heroes, a solemn cantata for voice, chorus, and orchestra written in 1939, commemorating the British heroes who fell in the Spanish Civil War. The Diversions for piano and orchestra is a more conventional set of variations, although for Britten typically stark. Praise We Great Men is another late work, incomplete at the composer's death and never played until 1985. Britten based it on a poem by Edith Sitwell. Concluding disc one is probably the most familiar music of this round, the Suite on English Folk Tunes: "A time there was..." from 1974. Although Britten used some melodies from Percy Grainger and dedicated it to the earlier champion of English folk tunes, the tendency of the pieces is more serious than most of the things Granger came up with.

Sir Simon Rattle

Disc Two begins again with an overture, Canadian Carnival from 1939, a series of dances that are among the lightest and easiest listening of the album's fare. The Quatre Chansons Francaises are notable for being among Britten's earliest works, dating from 1928 when the composer was only fourteen. And I liked A Scottish Ballad quite a bit, perhaps because it comes down via more traditional lines than the rest of Britten's output.

The program concludes with probably the best-known composition in the whole set, the melancholy Sinfonia da Requiem from 1940, which has a fascinating history, being originally commissioned by Japan to honor one of their dynasties. When the Japanese found that the Requiem had Christian implications, they rejected it, causing a rift that lasted until 1956 when Britten conducted a broadcast performance of the work in Tokyo. I suspect World War II didn't help them reconcile their differences too soon, either.

Anyway, Sir Simon and his City of Birmingham players perform all of the music earnestly and affectionately, EMI recording it between 1982 and 1991. The Sinfonia da Requiem may be of special interest to audiophiles because it contains the biggest drum strokes, the widest dynamic range, and the strongest impact of any of the pieces represented.

Throughout the recordings one is aware of a realistic stage depth and generally excellent orchestral imaging. There is some congestion, however, at louder climaxes, but it is not excessive enough for most listeners to notice, especially not by those folks concentrating on the music itself. I can easily recommend the set to adventurous music lovers and serious Britten enthusiasts alike, especially now that a few years have gone by, and many retail sites are offering it at a ridiculously low price.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click on the forward arrow:

Lara Downes: America Again (CD review)

Lara Downes, piano. Sono Luminus DSL-92207.

To say that Lara Downes plays the piano is the same as saying Claude Monet painted landscapes. The French impressionist artist Monet's use of color and light created pictures not only of rare beauty but of rare insight. In a similar fashion, American pianist Lara Downes creates poetic musical sketches of times, places, and people that transcend mere notes and draw us into a world of nuanced sounds and feelings. She forces us to see and hear old tunes in a new light.

On her current album, "America Again," Ms. Downes takes her inspiration from a poem by the American poet Langston Hughes, "Let America Be America Again." Written in the depths of the Great Depression, the poem criticizes an American Dream never realized by a good number of its citizens and then conveys hope that the Dream may eventually come true for everybody. As Ms. Downes writes, "...we are living again in troubled times. The rifts and rivalries that divide us as a nation seem to run deeper than ever. But still, we dreamers keep dreaming our dream."

So, "America Again" is an album of hope, an uplifting desire that we will all come together soon enough and shoulder our mutual responsibility to help one another. Like the Hughes poem, the album is a tribute to the men and women of America who have worked so hard over the years to help America achieve its potential, its Dream.

Lara Downes is a Steinway artist whose work exhibits an exceptionally poetic and dramatic presence, easily sustained in this new album. Born in San Francisco of Caribbean and Russian heritage, Ms. Downes began piano lessons at age four. Since making concert debuts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Salle Gaveau, Ms. Downes continues to perform on the world's leading stages, including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and Lincoln Center. She impresses one with her imagination, lyricism, and straightforward, unadorned virtuosity.

Most classical-music listeners will recognize many if not all of the names on Ms. Downes's program. The album contains twenty-one tracks and involves over sixty-six minutes of music. Here is a list of the selections:

Morton Gould: "American Caprice"
Lou Harrison: "Waltz in C," "Hesitation Waltz," and "Waltz in A"
Traditional: "Shenandoah"
Amy Beach: "From Blackbird Hills"
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: "Deep River"
Dan Visconti: "Nocturne" from "Lonesome Roads"
Ernest Bloch: "At Sea"
George Gershwin: "I Loves You, Porgy"
Angelica Negron: "Sueno Recurrente"
Leonard Bernstein: "Anniversary for Stephen Sondheim"
David Sanford: "Promise"
Howard Hanson: "Slumber Song"
Scott Joplin: "Gladiolus Rag"
Irving Berlin: "Blue Skies"
Florence Price: "Fantasie Negre"
Aaron Copland: "Sentimental Melody"
Duke Ellington: "Melancholia"
Roy Harris: "Li'l Boy Named David"
Harold Arlen: "Over the Rainbow"

Lara Downes

While I shall not try to cover everything, I will tell you about a few of the tracks I liked best. The opening number, Morton Gould's "American Caprice," for example, sets the tone with its sweet, jazzy playfulness, yet Ms. Downes always keeps it within the bounds of serious music. Lou Harrison's little waltzes are wistful, lilting, romantic, nostalgic, and endlessly charming. We all know the traditional American tune "Shenandoah," and Ms. Downes brings to it an added picturesqueness, a truly impressionistic approach.

Under Lara Downes's sure-handed guidance, each song takes on its own character, no matter how familiar the material. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's take on spirituals, "Deep River," is poignant and touching; Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" (in an arrangement by Nina Simone) never sounded more heartfelt; Howard Hanson's waltz-lullaby "Slumber Time" sounds appropriately dreamy but never overtly sentimental; Joplin's "Gladiolus Rag" doesn't jump off the tracks with its early jazz-time verve but remains firmly rooted in the American spirit of aspiration, ambition, and accomplishment. And so it goes, every selection begging one to listen to it again and again. It's a quite magical album.

Producer Dan Merceruio and engineer Daniel Shores recorded the music at Sono Luminus Studios, Boyce, Virginia in March 2016. For the technical minded, they made it with Merging Technologies Horus, mastered with Merging Technologies Hapi, and recorded in DXD at 24 bit, 352.8kHZ in Auro-3D 9.1 Immersive Audio using Legacy Audio Speakers. No, I haven't any idea what all that means, either, but the result is extra rich, remarkably clean, and very realistic sound.

Like all of the discs I've reviewed from Sono Luminus, this one sounds excellent. The piano is almost literally in the room with us, ringing out clearly yet opulently, with just the right amount of ambient hall resonance to enrich its nature. Insofar as audiophile piano music goes, it's a treasure.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click on the forward arrow: