Tango Sensations (CD review)

Alban Berg Quartett. Warner Classics 5577782.

First, one has to understand, as the booklet points out, that there is the "old tango" and there is the "tango nuevo," the "new tango." This is important because it is the old tango music popularized in early twentieth-century Argentina that most people are probably most familiar with. The newer form is less like the dance music heard so commonly in old movies and more like modern concert music, made for performance in refined symphony halls rather than smoky bars and bordellos. Naturally, the Alban Berg Quartett, as refined and modern as they come, opt for the new tango for most of the present recording.

Leading the move in new tango was Argentine tango composer, arranger, and bandoneon player Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), whom some in his country vilified for daring to modify their traditional music. Under Piazzolla, the tango became more stylized, more rhythmically variable, and certainly less danceable. Frankly, one can understand people's feelings; much of Piazzolla's work is hardly recognizable as tango in the traditional sense.

Alban Berg Quartett

Anyway, he's represented on the album by two longer works, the four-movement Tango Sensations, representing "Asleep," "Anxiety," "Awake," and "Fear," about twenty minutes long, and the sweetly melancholic Tristezas para un AA, about thirteen minutes long. Also in the modern mode is Kurt Schwertsik's Adieu Satie, a five-movement, new-tango reworking of melodies evoked by the spirit of French composer and pianist Erik Satie. Representing the old tango we find Eduardo Arolas, Juan Carlos Cobian, and Julio de Caro, each of whom gets a short work played on solo bandoneon.

The Alban Berg Quartet is augmented by Per Arne Glorvigen on bandoneon (an eighteenth-century German variation of the accordion that has become inextricably identified with the Argentine tango) and Alois Posch on double bass. Of course, the Quartet play these things with authority, elegance, and polish, but personally I still prefer the earthier qualities of the old tangos to the ultra sophistication of the more newfangled Piazzolla-type concoctions. Understanding what you're listening for, this is nevertheless a great disc of its kind.

EMI recorded the music in the early 2000's, and Warner Classics more recently rereleased it. The sonics communicate nicely through their clarity and tone, and the disc sounds especially realistic in the layout of the instruments.

JJP

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

Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble: Sing Me Home (CD review)

Yo-Yo Ma, cello; The Silk Road Ensemble. Sony 88875 18101 2.

Silkroad, as you probably know by now, is the nonprofit organization cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded back in 1998 to encourage a multicultural artistic exchange of study and ideas. World Music Central and The Irish Independent described Silkroad as an "arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences around the world" and "an initiative to promote multicultural artistic collaboration." Yo-Yo Ma took his inspiration "from the historical Silk Road trading routes and using the Silk Road as a modern metaphor for sharing and learning across cultures, art forms and disciplines."

Sing Me Home is the seventh album The Silk Road Ensemble have released since 2001, and if you like the kind of ethnic music they perform, you'll no doubt like this latest issue. Its producers describe it as "the companion album to the Morgan Neville documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble, and they call it "the artists' most-personal album to date." Ma says the album is "a tribute to how culture helps us all to meet, connect, and create something new."

The program presents a varied assortment of world music, some of it new, most of it traditional, representing a wide variety of cultures. Here's the playlist:

  1. "Green" ("Vincent's Tune"), featuring Roomful of Teeth
  2. "O'Neill's Cavalry March," featuring Martin Hayes
  3. "Little Birdie," featuring Sarah Jarosz
  4. "Ichichila," featuring Toumani Diabaté and Balla Kouyaté
  5. "Sadila Jana," featuring Black Sea Hotel
  6. "Shingashi Song," featuring Kaoru Watanabe
  7. "Madhoushi," featuring Shujaat Khan
  8. "Wedding," featuring Dima Orsho
  9. "Going Home," featuring Abigail Washburn
10. "Cabaliño," featuring Roberto Comesaña, Anxo Pintos, and Davide Salvado
11. "St. James Infirmary Blues," featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Michael Ward-Bergeman, and Reylon Yount
12. "If You Shall Return...," featuring Bill Frisell
13. "Heart and Soul," featuring Lisa Fischer and Gregory Porter

Yo-Yo Ma

The Silkroad Ensemble varies in size and personnel depending on the nature of the material and the availability of the artists involved. In addition to the featured performers above, the players this time around include Silk Road Ensemble members Kinan Azmeh, Jeffrey Beecher, Mike Block, Shawn Conley, Nicholas Cords, Sandeep Das, Haruka Fujii, Johnny Gandelsman, Joseph Gramley, Colin Jacobsen, Eric Jacobsen, Kayhan Kalhor, Yo-Yo Ma, Jessie Montgomery, Cristina Pato, Shane Shanahan, Mark Suter, Kojiro Umezaki, Wu Man, and Wu Tong, with help from Lisa Fischer, Bill Frisell, Black Sea Hotel, Rhiannon Giddens, Sarah Jarosz, Shujaat Khan, Martin Hayes, Gregory Porter, Roomful of Teeth, Rustica, and Abigail Washington. It's a formidable group.

Because the performers are tops in their field, the music sounds immaculate. More important, they play with an infectious enthusiasm, which combined with the precision of their talents creates an atmosphere of joy throughout the proceedings.

The opening track, "Green: Vincent's Tune," arranged by Wu Man, becomes a little raucous but it's undeniably infectious, too. The following item, "O'Neill's Cavalry March," couldn't be more different, an Irish number, and just as infectious.

And so it goes.

As I say, we get a varied selection of tunes, mostly characterized by string and percussion instruments, with occasional solo and choral vocals. The ensemble's Colin Jacobsen came across "Little Birdie" while listening to a collection by Pete Seeger and loved it. "Ichichila" is another highlight of the program, a song of the Tuareg people; it's delightful.

The flawless precision of the Silk Road Ensemble ensures that every item on hand sounds better than the last. You think, my, wasn't that fun, when along comes another just as good or better. Interestingly, the songs slow down considerably as the program goes on, reaching a dirgelike state by "St. James Infirmary," and end with a sweetly flowing rendition of Hoagy Carmichael's "Heart and Soul" with Lisa Fischer and Gregory Porter. The album offers one newly discovered charm after another.

Producers Johnny Gandelsman, Kevin Killen, and Cristin Canterbury Bagnall and engineers Jody Elff, Kevin Killen, and Xabier Olite recorded the album at MSR Studios and Avatar Studios in New York City, with additional recording at Zone Dolce, NYC, Africa Studio, Bamako, Mali, and Son Natural, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. Sony Music released the disc in 2016.

As with most popular albums, the engineers give us a fairly close perspective, yet it's one that displays a good deal of separation among the instruments and a reasonable amount of depth to the ensemble. Wide dynamics, strong bass, and a warm, smooth frequency balance help to produce a good, natural sound. There is nothing hard, bright, or edgy here, so expect a relaxed listening experience.

JJP

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

Yehudi Menuhin Conducts Mozart (CD review)

Yehudi Menuhin, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Sinfonia Varsovia, English Chamber Orchestra. Virgin 7243 5 61678 2 7 (5-disc set).

I've never been big on recommending sets of anything. More often, one can find individual performances by different conductors that bring more consistent pleasure. Yet occasionally one finds a boxed set of something that has so many outstanding virtues it's hard not to commend. Such is the case with Yehudi Menuhin's 1989-90 recordings of late Mozart symphonies, plus various odds and ends, boxed up on five discs from Virgin Classics. Menuhin (1916-1999) had turned to conducting in his later years, the stress of playing the violin finally becoming too demanding for him. He seemed to have been about as successful at the new endeavor as he was at the old.

The five CD's in this low-priced package include Symphonies Nos. 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, and 41, coupled with the two Flute Concertos, the Flute and Harp Concerto, the Divertimento in D major, KV136, the Serenade in D major, KV239 "Serenata notturna", the Serenade in D major, KV320 "Posthorn," and two marches. Menuhin's own orchestra at the time, the Sinfonia Varsovia, plays the symphonies, the English Chamber Orchestra plays the concertos, and the Orchestra de Chambre de Lausanne plays the serenades.

Yehudi Menuhin

All of the performances are characterized by Menuhin's obvious love and affection for the music. Speeds are zesty but never breathless or out of control. Phrasing is imaginative but never idiosyncratic to the point of distraction. Dynamic contrasts are wide but flexible and never overpowering. These are enthusiastic, quick-footed interpretations that, nevertheless, almost always sound right. What's more, the three small orchestras involved come across light enough to produce as fleet and intimate a sound as the readings demand.

The most obvious comparison I had on hand for a large set of Mozart symphonies by a smallish ensemble was Daniel Barenboim's late Sixties-early Seventies collection of recordings with the English Chamber Orchestra. These recordings have long been among my favorite Mozart, and Menuhin's newer editions, digital or no, do not displace them in my affections. There is the possible exception of No. 41, the "Jupiter," however, which does have a greater forward momentum under Menuhin than under Barenboim. Nevertheless, interestingly enough, I preferred the EMI analogue sonics to those of the newer Virgin renditions. Barenboim's orchestral sound appears more detailed to me and the stage presence has greater depth. Menuhin's orchestra may project more warmth but loses something in overall sparkle, leaning a bit to the top and bottom ends of the spectrum.

Mozart comes in all varieties these days, from small period-instrument presentations to mammoth, full-orchestra treatments, and all of them have their place. One of the best compromises, though, is probably the chamber-orchestra approach, and since Barenboim's EMI set might prove hard to find anymore, Menuhin's set (or the single-disc editions available on Erato) may be a good alternative. Certainly, one can hardly go wrong.

JJP