As a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, here is a small part of the deeply meaningful music from her funeral service at Westminster Abbey this morning, which also included new works from Sir James MacMillan and the Master of the King’s Music Judith Weir.
Two English works, by Sir Hubert Parry and Vaughan Williams, are included below. My Soul There Is A Country is the first of six Songs Of Farewell by Parry, for unaccompanied choir, written towards the end of the First World War.
O taste and see is a short motet that Vaughan Williams completed in 1953 for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It is a short and beautiful piece:
Harmony is the first album from Swedish producer Sebastian Fronda under his new Slumberville alias. Fronda has been making music for more than two decades, labelled as one of Sweden’s hip hop pioneers, and has established a strong live presence in the Nordic countries with more than 500 shows.
Slumberville is intended as a moniker under which he can make lo-fi music, dipping into his hip hop sensibilities but making room for samples and appropriations from a number of musical forms. For Harmony, he ‘Google-watched’ a number of different places around the world, such as Paraná River, assembling a set of travelcards to document his findings in musical form.
What’s the music like?
Slumberville veers towards the horizontal in his approach on this album, but there are some enjoyably quirky moments that keep the listener guessing. For The Win is quite spiky, with its staccato cello, while Chinatown plays loosely with an Oriental melody.
The most enjoyable track is Paraná River, with a couple of winsome melodies over a low slung bass and endearing hip hop beat, but a close second to this is the singalong What A Great Feeling, with its dreamy optimism. Fronda’s musical humour ensures there are plenty of wry smiles throughout.
Does it all work?
It does, largely – though some of the ideas here could be more fully developed into more tracks double the length. This is a compliment to the humour and subtle inspiration that runs through these tracks and their source material.
Is it recommended?
It is. Slumberville has made a diverting, quirky album that is a good deal of fun. It has endearing, light humour, and its beats have a spring in their step that lightens the mood.
Collisions is so-named because it is the coming together of a musical trio. Tom Hodge, Ollie Howell and Ciaran Morahan are the three musicians in question, and each brings a different skill-set. Hodge is a film composer whose connections include Max Cooper and Floex, Howell is a composer and drummer, while Morahan is described as a ‘post-rock composer’, whose output includes work with Codes In The Clouds and VLMV.
What’s the music like?
There are two elements to the collaboration album – ‘Collisions’ tracks and ‘Motions’. The former set the scene and the sonic perspectives, while the latter offer free-form musical explorations, allowing Hodge’s piano and clarinet and Howell’s drums to work their magic largely unfiltered. This works particularly well. While the Collisions have a curious order (beginning with the spacious II then moving through I, III and IV), they are ideally paced. II offers a big panorama, with concrete heavy drums and spacey synths, while I is a really good blend of subtle, brushed drums and with a thoughtfully probing piano line, before bringing in a sonorous clarinet. III has a similar profile, though this time the piano is given more space to air its thoughts.
Does it all work?
Yes – and the three artists have managed to get the ideal blend of musical events and time for reflection. Collisions is in effect two genres – an underlying ambience, but with carefully thought out ideas above them that bring positive energy and vibrant colours.
Is it recommended?
Yes – enthusiastically. Collisions will reward those who enjoy musical ambience of a wider scope, such as Erland Cooper, or those who enjoy the chattering electronics of an artist such as Max Cooper, who has close connections here. Get it and revel in the musical inspiration.
Maria Marica (above centre), won the 2022 George Enescu International Competition Violin Section after a Final in which she performed the Violin Concerto in D major Op. 77 by Brahms. The violinist also received a special award from the IMK Vienna Association, represented by jury member Igor Petrushevski: a concert as a soloist with the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 2023 in Prague.
Maria Marica will perform, together with cellist Benjamin Kruithof – who won the cello section of the Enescu Competition – the Double Concerto in A minor Op.102, also by Brahms. The Violin Final of the Enescu Competition took place on Tuesday 13 September at the Romanian Athenaeum. Romanian violinist Ștefan Aprodu was second, with Frenchman Grégoire Torossian third. The audience enthusiastically embraced the three orchestral concerts in which soloists performed some beloved violin works.
Alexander Tcherepnin Arabesque Op.11/5 (1921)a; Violin Sonata in F major Op.14 (1921)b; Romance WoO7a (1922)a; Élégie Op.43 (1927)a Ivan Tcherepnin Cadenzas in Transition (1963)c; Pensamiento (1996)d Nikolai Tcherepnin Poème lyrique Op.9 (1900)a; Andante and Finale Op. posth (1943)a
Live performances on c9 February 1997, d3 January 2002, aApril 18/19, 2019, b27 July 2021
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Toccata Classics’s Next imprint continues its enterprising schedule with a release of chamber music by three generations of the Tcherepnin musical dynasty, thereby illustrating the stylistic differences between them while also a degree of continuity across almost a century of music.
What’s the music like?
Nikolai Tcherepnin (1872-1945) may best be remembered as teacher (not least of Prokofiev) and conductor (including the first season of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes), but he left a sizable output across the broad range of genres. Cannily representative of either end of his creativity, Poème Lyrique exudes a demonstrably fin-de-siècle Romanticism in its emotional flights of fancy within an already heightened expressive context, while Andante and Finale finds the aging composer looking back with affection – just a little tinged with regret – to an era four decades passed. If the former piece admits of impressionist elements, the latter looks to the full-blooded manner of Russia’s ‘silver age’ in its bracing energy and ultimate extroversion.
Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) left a representative body of chamber music, not least for violin and piano – the brief Romance evincing a wistful lyrism that becomes darker and more ambiguous in the Élégie, having found its more capricious outlet in the Arabesque (fifth in a set of five). Much the most substantial of these works, the Violin Sonata comes after the First Piano Concerto and before three sets of songs to Sergei Gorodetzky (as recorded on Toccata TOCC0537). Its three concise movements proceed from an Allegro moderato whose agitation is redolent of Prokofiev, via a Larghetto whose pensive initial bars for piano build to a climax of real eloquence, to a Vivace whose capering dialogue makes its way to an affirmative close.
Ivan Tcherepnin (1943-98) may have left a less tangible legacy than his predecessors, owing largely to his activities earlier being focussed on electronic and installation media. Not that the brief Pensamiento is other than alluring with its interplay between flute and piano, which are joined by clarinet for Cadenzas in Transition. Written while the composer was still in his teens, this ranges freely across textures and moods without ever arriving at a destination – a trajectory which is most likely embodied in its title. Certainly, the contributions of Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin and Ian Greitzer, alongside that of Donald Berman, make the strongest case for a piece that is disconcertingly formless or teasingly improvisatory according to taste.
Does it all work?
Almost always. It has been said that the Tcherepnin’s tended to be reactive in their musical idioms instead of setting the pace for others, but that would be to overlook the distinctiveness of Alexander’s output in particular – a legacy such as deserves to reclaim at least some of the standing it enjoyed in the mid-20th century. Those of Nikolai and especially Ivan can only be reassessed when more of their larger pieces are available. Neither performances nor recording leave anything to be desired, as is equally true of David Witten’s comprehensive booklet notes.
Is it recommended?
Yes, and hopefully Toccata will be issuing more from this source. Nikolai’s later ballets and symphonic poems, or Ivan’s Grawemeyer Award-winning Double Concerto would be a good place to start – while not forgetting the latter’s sons, Stefan and Sergei, are also composers.
Arcana.fm 