December's IRR reviews

December’s International Record Review is out now and again features reviews I’ve written. Here’s what I was sent this month:

American Serenade - Rachel Kolly d’Alba

Gershwin/Bernstein/Waxman (Warner Classics 2564 65765-7)

“If the career to date of Swiss violinist Rachel Kolly d’Alba proves anything, it’s that it is possible (thankfully) to enter the field playing something other than standard rep and warhorse concerti. American Serenade is her third album for Warner Classics... [It] explores the cross-contamination of “high” and “low” art inherent in American culture.”

Russian String Quartets – Leipziger Streichquartett

Afanasiev/Borodin/Rachmaninov/Rimsky-Korsakov (MDG307 1758-2)

“The familiar nestles among the obscure in the Leipziger Strechquartett’s album of Russian quartets. Borodin’s evergreen example is mirrored at the programme’s start by a work from a man (Afanasiev) geographically far removed from the heart of Russia’s nineteenth century musical renaissance, providing a glimpse of the artistic inspirations of the time.”

Wolfgang Rihm – Complete works for violin and piano

Tianwa Yang & Nicholas Rimmer (Naxos 8.572730)

“Yang and Rimmer prove to be outstanding guides to Rihm’s fiercely focused music. They are alert to every tiny change in dynamic and texture, to every finely weighed gesture that Rihm sets out. Their strengths are immediately apparent in Phantom und Eskapade, a piece completed in 1994 for Anne-Sophie Mutter and bearing one of Rihm’s typically opaque titles. Rimmer’s wonderfully precise touch illuminates the questioning opening and continues to alternate delicacy with barbed urgency throughout this enigmatic piece.”  

Sinfini Music: More of the same?

The launch of new Universal’s shiny new classical music magazine Sinfini Music has prompted a number of posts across the classical blogosphere and provoked predictable responses from certain quarters. Norman Lebrecht, a contributor to SM, heralds its arrival with an enthusiasm that suggests a moment of epoch defining import, comparable with the discovery of America and the invention of cheese. Popular blogger Opera Chic has also been recruited and, if her post on the subject is anything to go by, we can look forward to a quotient of modern ironic jurno shtick and associated megalolz.

Elsewhere, Overgrown Path plots the new site’s coordinates at a lat and long of dumb and dumber, and indeed, first impressions aren’t great. There are well worn (out?) features such as celebrity interviews (Joanna Lumley’s classical faves is one worth missing), guides to recordings of familiar classics (all the choices on their Beethoven 5 feature are Universal titles, but hey ho), and even a naff cartoon. In fairness, there are some worthwhile items that you won’t find in the pages of Gramophone, such as Paul Morley’s stinging views of the Classical Brits and Gramophone Awards.

There’s the question of how much editorial independence is really possible when the main backer has such a vested interest in the market, but I wonder if the real story is that Universal is fed up of waiting for the traditional print media to master the online forum and has decided to step in. Efforts from various review magazines have tended to amount to little more than digital adverts for their own physical editions, and Universal must realise that there's a world of potential coverage that's currently being left to them dang bloggers. But is this really a new new way of funding music journalism or a worrying intervention in a field that should be valueing independence above all else? Time will tell, but for now it looks like (content-wise, at least) it might just be more of the same.

Exstatica at the BBC

Pietro Aretino, author of mucky Renaissance verse

I’d never been to a classical concert that sported an “18+” rating. Have now.  

"The publicity promised “sexually explicit material”. The red-tinted specs handed out at the door suggested we might be set for the lurid excesses of a ’70s exploitation flick. In the event, the BBC Concert Orchestra’s Exstatica proved to be a fairly sober exploration of ecstasy in music. Aside from some mucky verse and an excitable soprano, it was all pretty tame – educational even, with Radio 3’s Christopher Cook keeping his live commentary strictly informative."

Read my full review at Classical Source.

Recent reviews for IRR

In recent months I've been contributing to International Record Review, the monthly magazine that does what it says on the cover. Here’s a flavour of what I've been sent this month:

Léon Boëllmann: Chamber Music – Trio Parnassus (MDG 303 1755-2)

“The two substantial chamber works here – the Piano Quintet of around 1890 and the Piano Trio of 1895 – reveal Boëllmann’s talent for superbly woven structures that flow effortlessly between ideas. His ear for clarity and delicacy also impresses – never is the balance between instruments upset by bombast or overscoring...

“Like the music of so many of history’s short-lived composer, it all left me wondering what might have become of Léon Boëllmann had he managed a few more decades.”

Kurtág/Ligeti – Kim Kashkashian – Music for Viola  (ECM New Series 2240)

“Economy is key [to Kurtág]: nothing more than necessary is said. Often a wandering line suffices, always coloured with great delicacy by Kashkashian; harmony, when evoked, is spare and purposeful. Kashkashian excels at fine modulations of unconventional tone.”

November's new releases

A selection of November’s new classical releases that caught Devil’s Trill’s eye:

String music

Naxos presents Asian music for string quartet; Bach and Kurtag music for cello (Genuin); Andre Navarra's take on Bach's Cello Suites (Phaia); The first volume of the Belcea Quartet's Beethoven cycle (Zig Zag Terretories); Beethoven's quartets and sonatas arranged for string orchestra (C-avi); Brahms's Piano and Clarinet Quintets withe the Tokyo Quartet (Harmonia Mundi); The great cello and orchestra works by Britten and Prokofiev, from Daniel Muller-Schott (Orfeo); Kate Chruscicka's self published second album of violin favourites; Mario Brunello plays Dvorak's Cello Concerto (EMI); Cello sonatas by Enescu (Saphir); The art of violinist Christian Ferras (DG); Ever wondered what the Franck Violin Sonata sounds like on double bass? (Centaur); Violinist Simon Goldberg's commercial recordings 1932-51 (Music & Arts); Heifetz encores, vol.2 (Naxos); More Hindemith quartets (Naxos); Gidon Kremer anniverary DVD (Euroarts); Kremer's complete Piazzolla recordings (Nonesuch); Yehudi Menuhin and Paul Coker live (Doron); Tetzlaff and Vogt play Mozart (Ondine); Itzhak Perlman - Songs and dances for the soul (Sony); You wait ages for a Reger Violin Concerto (Ondine) ... And then two come along at once (CPO); Tasmin Little plays Respighi and Strauss (Chandos); The Takacs Quartet and Ralph Kirshbaum plays Schubert's Quintet (Hyperion); Twentieth century music for string quartet (ERP); Britten conducts Rostropovch on DVD (ICA); Max Richter reimagines the Four Seasons (DG). 

Contemporary music

Boulez's Marteau sans maitre at budget price (DG); John Cage's Communication (Neos); A portrait of Celemens Gadenstatter (Col Legno); A Philip Glass flute recital (OMM); Glass remixed (OMM); A Knussen collection, including the Violin Concerto (NMC); Music for viola by Georges Lentz (Timpani); Peter Maxwell Davies's Sxith Symphony reissued (Naxos); Late and unknown rolls by Nancarrow (Wergo); Michael Nyman's String Quartets (NM Records);  4CDs of Rautavaara's choral works (Ondine); Violin music by Wolfgang Rihm (Naxos); Salvatore Sciarrino's Macbeth (Col Legno).

Everything else 

Richter's Well Tempered Clavier resurfaces (Melodiya); Cecilia Bartoli's haloween outfit? (Decca); An avalanche of Beethoven from Daniel Barenboim (Decca); Bargain box of Klemperer's Beethoven (EMI); The piano music of Dinu Lipatti (Avie); A near complete collection of Borodin's music (Brilliant); Alfred Cortot anniversary edition (EMI); Denk and MTT explore the music of some American Mavericks (Avie); More Lutoslawski from Edward Gardner (Chandos); Poulenc's complete works (EMI); Orchestral music by Soviet composer Vissarion Shebalin (Toccata); Andris Nelsons and the CBSO play SHostakovich's Leningrad Symphony (Orfeo); Does this mean Melodiya is reissuing Rozdestvesnky's Shostakovich cycle?;  100th anniversary box set of the Rite of Spring features six different performances (Decca).

Beyond the blizzard of meaning

"The music’s skeletal textures now begin to fill rapidly, tension rises, and the dreaded thing finally happens: the secret police arrive, audibly climbing the stairs (figures 46-7) and bursting in through the door on a triumphant crescendo. In a brilliant alienative stroke, Shostakovich switches the two-note motto around in the upper orchestra like torch-beams while the NKVD move grimly through the darkened apartment in the guise of the vigil theme, growled out on tubas ad bass clarinet – an uncanny parallel to Orwell’s similar use of the nursery rhyme ‘Oranges and Lemons’ in the arrest scene in Nineteen Eighty-Four."

Ian MacDonald, The New Shostakovich (London: Fourth Estate, 1990), p112-113.  

I was reminded of this description of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony during yesterday’s performance of the Third Symphony of another twentieth century great, Sibelius, given by Osmo Vänskä and the London Philharmonic at the Royal Festival Hall. MacDonald’s Shostakovich seems to compose only to narrate, and the descriptions of the music fall back continuously on a blizzard extra-musical visualisations. Dig too deep for ‘meaning’, though, and we can lose sight of what music does, fundamentally, which is move vertically and horizontally in a language all of its own.

Vänskä’s Sibelius offers an alternative route to musical fulfilment. He looks beyond the Romantic notion of sounds being analogous to feelings and images. His music-making is all about the notes – the way they fall on top of and beside one another. Suddenly, rhythm and harmony can be appreciated in their own right, rather than as codes and signs. To ask what the music ‘means’ becomes as futile as searching for the meaning of rivers and mountains.

Natasha Paremski, the skydiving pianist

Well, have you ever seen a concert pianist jump out a plane before? Me neither. Natasha Paremski is a breath of fresh air though, and her performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto (a piece I’m thoroughly sick of) this week, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, convinced me that it might be worth hearing again, if played quite this well:

“[Paremski] rattled through it as though it was the most fun a girl could have, shrugging her shoulders and swaying in sympathy with the music’s ebb and flow. Paremski wasn’t inclined towards broadness or weight, instead ditching the pomposity to elevate the sparkling delight of Tchaikovsky’s writing. Her touch on the sustaining pedal was feather-light (even with outrageously high heels) and the delicacy of her soft playing was remarkable for its control.”

Dead good, then. That extract comes from my Classical Source review of the concert that also included Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain and a biting performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, complete with gritted-teeth finale rammed home by conductor Andrew Litton.

Glass's complete Quartets in London



Philip Glass, having a good think



Philip Glass’s cycle of five string quartets has been amassing performances and recordings in the last few years, even though Glass himself hasn’t composed a numbered quartet since the early 1990s. This week’s upcoming Smith Quartet concert cycle caught Devil’s Trill’s eye – a rare opportunity to hear the set live. More details at St. John's Smith Square’s website.

New classical releases for October

Here’s a selection of new classical releases for the month of October:

String music

Decca reissue Gidon Kremer's Bach Concertos; Bartok, Eotvos and Ligeti violin concertos from Patricia Kopatchinskaja (Naive); The Tokyo Quartet's Beethoven cycle (Sony); Rachel Kolly D'alba - American Serenade (Warner); Leonid Kogan plays Brahms and Khachaturian concertos in London (Guild); Zino Francescatti plays Brahms live in Germany (Hanssler); Paul and Huw Watkins plays British works for cello and piano (Chandos); Delius and Grieg - complete works for cello (Nimbus); Helene Grimaud and Sol Gabetta team up for Duo (DG); Melos Quartet 1979 recordings (Hanssler); Thomas Ades and Steven Isserlis - Lieux Retrouves (Hyperion); Gidon Kremer's Hommage to Glenn Gould (Nonesuch); Lawson Trio - Long Way Home (Prima Facie); Alina Ibragimova plays Mendelssohn's two violin concertos (Hyperion); YuJeong Lee plays Prokofiev (Solo Musica); Arabella Steinbacher plays Prokofiev's violin concertos (Pentatone); Janine Jansen - Prokofiev (Decca); The Julliard Quartet plays Brahms and Schubert (Sony); Shostakovich Quartet 3, 4 and 7 from Meta4 (Hanssler); Igntaz Waghalter's violin music (Naxos); Weinberg's chamber music from the Borodin Quartet (Melodiya). 

Contemporary  music

John Cage's Indeterminacy in German (Oehms); John Cage's instrumental music (MDG); Da Lontano - trombonist Mike Svoboda plays Cage, Stockhausen, Scelsi and Nono (Wergo); Glass - The Passion of Ramakrishna (OMM); London Sinfonietta - New Music Show (London Sinfonietta); Kaija Saariaho - Trios (Ondine); Boris Tishchenko - Marina (Nothern Flowers); Mark Anthony Turnage collection (London Philharmonic).

Everything else

A big EMI box celebrating the late Maurice André; Daniel-Ben Pienaar plays Beethoven's Diabelli Variations (Avie); A box of Beethoven from Rudolf Serkin (Sony); Gardiner's period Beethoven (SDG); Rattle's Vienna Beethoven cycle gets a budget reissue (EMI); Perlman plays and conducts Beethoven (Euroarts DVD); New Chopin collection from Maurizio Pollini (DG); Lang Lang - the Chopin album (Sony); Alfred Cortot - 40 CD anniversary colelction (EMI); Jean Efflam Bavouzet's Debussy in one 5 disc set (Chandos); The next installment of Jose Serebrier's Dvorak symphony cycle (Warner); Great concerto performances from Emil Gilels (Sony); Glenn Gould - The Schwarztopf Tapes (Sony); Michelangeli - early recordings (Naxos); Heifetz plays Chausson and Franck (IDI); Svetlanov conducts Kalinnikov (Melodiya); Gergiev's Mahler cycle (LSO Live); Dudamel's LA Mahler 8 (DG DVD); Period Mahler with the OAE (Signum); Murray Perahia - The first forty years (Sony); Poulenc - The complete works (EMI); Mark Minkowski conducts Schubert's complete symphonies (Naive); The "near complete" works of Shostakovich (Brilliant); Historic Sibelius performances conducted by Robert Kajanus (Naxos); Solti - The Legacy (Decca).                   

John Cage meets Stewart Lee

John Cage:  Indeterminacy

Stewart Lee, Tania Chen, Steve Beresford, Alan Tomlinson

Battersea Arts Centre, September 23 2012

Stewart Lee, Tania Chen and Steve Beresford

 

Even now, a century after his birth, John Cage’s art feels brilliantly fresh. I say art, because although you’ll see him described as a composer, his exploration of sound was genuinely genre busting, exploding the idea of what music could be. While his European contemporaries were dryly dictating the terms of a new avant-garde order, Cage charted the outer limits of music with a wide eyed wonder, seeing all that was remarkable in the commonplace and the overlooked. And we’re still travelling in his wake, astounded that his big ideas could have been expressed quite so pithily.

While much of the archaeology of high modernism has been brushed aside, people flock to John Cage as to no other twentieth century experimentalist, revelling in the humour at the heart of his output. Cage’s works dare us to giggle, either in joy or disbelief. And so it seems natural that a comedian should have taken quite so strongly to Cage’s work; that’s just what stand-up Stewart Lee has done, locating Cage’s natural wit with his own laconic delivery for this touring event, caught by Devil’s Trill at Battersea Arts Centre.

Lee takes the role of the reader – originally performed by Cage – in Indeterminacy, a series of autobiographical one minute stories read at random to an accompaniment of improvised noise. Cage’s tales are expertly turned – sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and occasionally baffling – but their length determines the delivery, having to last one minute no matter how many words they contain. The composer’s friends and colleagues are brilliantly drawn: the almost chronically unimpressed David Tudor; the existential disappointment of Morton Feldman; the gnomic wisdom of Dr. Suzuki. They all sound great fun. Lee’s deadpan, almost bored style only heightens the comedy. The slow retort of mushroom expert Guy Nearing, on having his mistake picked up by the young Cage (“There are so many.....Latin names.....rolling around in my head.....that sometimes.....the wrong one comes out”) could have been written for Lee.

And then there are flashes of the philosophy of Cage’s world view. He recalls a juke box playing at a swimming pool: “I noticed that the music accompanied the swimmers, though they didn’t hear it”. And so the improvisations of Tania Chen and Steve Beresford, played mostly on musical toys, form an apparently random but often eerily synchronous counterpoint to the text. Sometimes they obscure it, rendering Lee’s commentary a different brand of noise.  

Before all of this, Beresford and Chen take to two pianos to improvise wildly. On this occasion, their first improvisation ranged widely and recalled two other great American mavericks - Charles Ives and Conlon Nancarrow; their second was a terser, frantic affair. Cage’s fascination for extending instrumental techniques is demonstrated by Alan Tomlinson, following the composer’s diverse instructions in the Solo for sliding trombone – only some of which involve the mouthpiece. Tomlinson raised hoots of delight from the Battersea audience as he barked through his instrument like an angry dog, and that’s what Cage-the-comic would have wanted.