Category Archives: On record

On Record: Los Angeles Philharmonic / Susanna Mälkki – Steve Reich: Runner / Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (Nonesuch)

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Steve Reich
Runner (2016)
Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (2018)

Los Angeles Philharmonic / Susanna Mälkki

Nonesuch 7559791018 [35’25”]

Producer Dmitriy Lipay, Engineer Alexander Lipay

Recorded 1-4 November 2018 (Music for Ensemble and Orchestra), 6-7 November 2021 (Runner), Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

It is best to let Steve Reich himself tell the story of these two closely related orchestral pieces. Runner, he says, is ‘for a large ensemble of winds, percussion, pianos, and strings.  While the tempo remains more or less constant, there are five movements, played without pause, that are based on different note durations.  First, even sixteenths, then irregularly accented eighths, then a very slowed-down version of the standard bell pattern from Ghana in quarters, fourth a return to the irregularly accented eighths, and finally a return to the sixteenths but now played as pulses by the winds for as long as a breath will comfortably sustain them.  The title was suggested by the rapid opening and my awareness that, like a runner, I would have to pace the piece to reach a successful conclusion.’

Meanwhile its companion, the Music for Ensemble and Orchestra, is in effect Runner 2. It is described by Reich as ‘an extension of the Baroque concerto grosso where there is more than one soloist. Here there are twenty soloists – all regular members of the orchestra, including the first stand strings and winds, as well as two vibraphones and two pianos.  The piece is in five movements, though the tempo never changes, only the note value of the constant pulse in the pianos.  Thus, an arch form: sixteenths, eighths, quarters, eighths, sixteenths.  Music for Ensemble and Orchestra is modelled on my Runner, which has the same five movement form’.

The recording marks the first foray of both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Susanna Mälkki into the music of Reich in recorded form.

What’s the music like?

Reich clearly enjoyed writing these pieces, as he tells David Lang in the liner notes for this release. The quick tempo means that as the starting gun fires, Runner is immediately into its stride with brisk music and rich colours. When the tempo marking halves to become Eighths, and then Quarters, the slower music is beautifully managed through sustained notes, pulling out the tension. The piano and vibraphones come through beautifully here, while the harmonies continue to negotiate new corners and scenery as a runner would do. The feeling persists, though, that Reich is at his happiest in the music of Sixteenths, where the busy conversations of the woodwind and the bell tolls of the vibraphones give the music impressive stature. The piece ends quickly, with one of the composer’s trademark ‘fades’.

Music for Ensemble and Orchestra feels weightier in its own Sixteenths section starts, pianos oscillating and strings gathering in hymn-like unison before the pianos create an impressive grandeur with their sustained low notes. Reich’s command of the orchestra is immensely assured, more so than it was in earlier works such as the Variations for wind, strings and keyboards or The Four Sections, but never losing the luminosity of those works, nor their capacity to pan out into larger spaces.

The Eighths section is the most emotionally powerful music yet, with large scale harmonies that move freely between weighted dissonance and brief consonance, the latter appearing like shafts of light in the music. Quarters brings forward the choirs of woodwind, their distinctive motif alternating with the piano, before the percussive instruments drive Eighths to greater heights, pianos chiming with the vibraphones. In typical Reich fashion the acceleration from Eighths to Sixteenths is both seamless and thrilling, the clarinets pushing to the front as the music gathers itself for the finish. Then just as suddenly – and seamlessly – the bottom drops away and the figures float away like birds on the wing, all treble and no bass.

Does it all work?

It does. The performances from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Susanna Mälkki are of a uniformly high degree, and the writing is subtly complex – meaning that Reich’s workings reward close inspection, but that the overall whole is beautifully realised and works well even in the middle foreground for the listener.

Is it recommended?

Of course. Steve Reich is a composer where nearly every move he makes is captured on record, to our advantage – and this pair of works, representing one of his most recently published chapters, are typically rewarding listening.

Listen

Buy

You can buy this new release at the Presto website. For more on Steve Reich himself, visit the composer’s website

On Record – Gunnar Idenstam & Ola Stinnerbom: A Saami Requiem (Toccata Next)

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Ola Stinnerbom (yoik), Gunnar Idenstam (organ), Henrietta Wallberg (vocalist), Erik Weissglas (guitars), Rafael Sida Huizar (percussion)

Idenstam / Stinnerbom A Saami Requiem

Toccata Next TOCN0017 [63’35”]

Producer Jostein Andersen Engineer Anders Hannus

Live performance 21 September 2019, Studio Acusticum, Pileå, Sweden

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

The enterprising Next imprint of Toccata Classics continues with A Saami Requiem, which   is neither a field recording nor an ethnomusicological construct but more a concept album in which the religious practice of this people is endowed with a distinctly ‘crossover’ twist.

What’s the music like?

As is indicated above, this is not the realization of a burial mass such as those peoples of the Sápmi region (formerly Lapland) would recognize. Instead, Sámi artist and yoik-singer Ola Stinnerbom has collaborated with the Swedish organist Gunnar Idenstam for what results in a fusion of musical styles and cultures that, if hardly new as an underlying concept, conveys much of the ritualistic atmosphere and emotional fervency as might be associated with this practice. The outcome is rarely less than engaging in content and sometimes much more so.

As with a Requiem or comparable funeral service, the present work comprises a number of sections that here fall into three parts. After its sombre organ ‘Entrée’, The Journey continues with a ‘Requiem aeternam’ in which yoik and organ gradually merge towards a ‘Misterioso’ whose percussive backing imparts greater rhythmic freedom. The ensuing ‘Blues Yoik in C’ ventures further into fusion territory – its blues-vamp afforded a rockier twist in ‘Pols Yoik’, then this first part ends with the mesmeric groove of ‘Saajva’ as it heads into the next world.

The Kingdom of Death begins with the longest section, a ‘Mirrored Chorale – Shimmering Yoik’ of no mean expressive subtlety, followed by a ‘Percussion Meditation’ that gradually disrupts the prevailing inwardness. An ensuing ‘Adagio’ restores something of a meditative calm, before ‘Jaamie Ahkka’s Death Yoik’ brings something of an emotional culmination with its free-form interplay of voices against circling organ harmonies and the distant yet unremitting toll of bells – music this evocative certainly creating its own distinct imagery.

The Return duly commences with ‘The Return Voyage’ and another section whose intensive rhythmic profile builds in a dynamic crescendo towards the relative contentment of ‘Back in this World’ and what sounds the closest approximation to a strophic song in this context. The ‘Blues Yoik in E’ that follows admits of overtly rock-like elements through its trenchant beat or vamping interplay of organ and guitar, which the ‘Epilogue and Hymn’ transmutes into a celebration of life overcoming death in what becomes a truly Messiaenic ‘Transports de Joie’.

Does it all work?

Yes, within those stylistic parameters which this piece embraces. Certainly, the combination of Stinnerbom and Idenstam is made the more formidable through the dextrous guitar playing of Erik Weissglas and inventive percussion of Rafael Sida Huizar; to say nothing of Henrietta Wallberg’s starkly otherworldly vocals. Quite who – if, indeed, anyone specific – this project is aimed at remains unclear, though those with a passing interest in more left-field rock bands (not necessarily limited to the 1970s) should find it an absorbing as well as rewarding listen.

Is it recommended?

It is, and not least on account of its amalgamation of traditional with composed music such as leaves a tangible emotional resonance. Idenstam and Stinnerbom’s succinct annotations cover the background to this project and take the listener deftly yet surely through its various stages.

For further information on this release, and to purchase, visit the Toccata Classics website. Click on the names to read more about Ola Stinnerbom, Gunnar Idenstam, Henrietta Wallberg, Erik Weissglas and Rafael Sida Huizar

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On Record – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Domingo Hindoyan – Debussy, Dukas & Roussel (Onyx Classics)

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Debussy Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune L86 (1894); Jeux, L133 (1912)
Dukas La Péri (1911)
Roussel Bacchus et Ariane Op.43 – Suite no.2 (1931)

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Domingo Hindoyan

Onyx Classics ONYX4224 [68’07″’]
Producer Andrew Cornall Engineers Philip Siney, Christopher Tann
Recorded 20-21 January, 24, 25 & 27 February 2022 at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Domingo Hindoyan’s first release as Chief Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is a sequence of French ballet music which stretches across almost three decades, taking in that broad stylistic succession from Impressionism to Neo-Classicism as its remit.

What’s the music like?

Belatedly acknowledged as one of the defining masterpieces from the 20th century, Debussy’s Jeux is more familiar in the concert hall, where its myriad of formal subtleties and expressive nuances can more fully be savoured. Without ever feeling rushed, Hindoyan’s take is an alert and impulsive one – lacking just a last degree of mystery in its opening and closing pages, but with its larger sections maintaining a flexible momentum and those calmer interludes exuding a tangible expectancy. A reading, then, which would rank high on any shortlist of recordings.

Almost two decades on, Roussel’s Bacchus et Ariane ballet inhabits a very different aesthetic. Effectively its second act, the Second Suite is not lacking for any sensual appeal – witness the interplay of violin and viola in its ‘Introduction’ (eloquently rendered by Thelma Handy and Nicholas Bootiman), or mounting fervour of The Kiss then ingratiating poise in Dance of Ariadne and Bacchus. Hindoyan has their measure, duly taking the final Bacchanale at an impetuous if never headlong tempo that builds to an apotheosis of finely controlled abandon.

Although it achieved notoriety via Nijinsky’s choreography (and dancing) in 1912, Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune was fully established as a game-changer in Western music – its opening flute melody (languidly played by Cormac Henry) setting in motion a sequence of episodes whose content is only marginally less remarkable than those seamless transitions between them. Ensuring an unbroken continuity, Hindoyan summons a response of unforced rightness in music whose essence is only made explicit as the last notes resonate into silence.

Finally, to Dukas and La Péri which proved his final work of any real consequence. After its brass delivers a lusty rendering of the Fanfare, the orchestra makes the most of this ‘poème dansé’ – whether in its crepuscular initial stages, the sweeping melody that duly comes to the fore then that orgiastic passage which sets in motion a gradual if unfaltering approach toward the main climax. Suitably uninhibited here, Hindoyan rightly places greatest emphasis on the ensuing postlude – its mingled radiance and regret surely as affecting as any music of this era.

Does it all work?

Yes, in terms of individual works. Hindoyan is evidently at home in this music, and the RLPO clearly relishes playing music not at the forefront of its programmes during recent years. The Roussel seems a little out of context, those ‘symphonic fragments’ from his earlier ballet Le festin de l’araignée would have been more appropriate, with Debussy’s Prélude replaced by Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales for a cohesive selection of French ballet music from just before the First World War. Hopefully Hindoyan will tackle these pieces in due course.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The RLPO’s playing is abetted by the spaciousness and definition of sound obtained from Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall, and Andrew Stewart pens succinctly informative notes. The association between orchestra and conductor looks set to go from strength to strength.

Listen

For more information on this release, and for purchase options, head to the Onyx Classics website. For more on the artists, head to the websites of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and their principal conductor Domingo Hindoyan.

On Record – Bülent Evcil, Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine / Theodore Kuchar – Thomas de Hartmann: Orchestral Music (Toccata Classics)

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Thomas De Hartmann
Koliadky – Noëls Ukrainiens Op.60 (1940)
Une fête en Ukraine Op.62 (1940)
Concierto Andaluz Op.81 (1949)
Symphonie-Poème no.4 Op.90 (1955)

Bülent Evcil (flute), Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine / Theodore Kuchar

Toccata Classics TOCC0633 [65’43″’]
Producer Andriy Mokrytskiy Engineer Oleksii Grytsyshyn
Recorded 11-13 September 2021 at National Philharmonic Hall, Lviv, Ukraine

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics continues its explorations with this release of orchestral music by Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956), his posthumous reputation largely centred on his association with the Armenian philosopher George Gurdjieff but whose own music is well worthy of revival.

What’s the music like?

Although the Noëls Ukrainiens might appear as the descendent of folk-inspired sets by such as Rimsky-Korsakov or Lyadov, de Hartmann seeks rather to evoke the essence of this music than by quoting traditional melodies. The initial Chant spiritual for strings is a pertinent case in point – its textural and expressive restraint characteristic of what follows, notably the more developed final numbers: the chorale-like solemnity of La veille de l’Épiphanie, simmering fervour of Adieu, Koladá and Mussorgskian vigour of Goussak for an effervescent ending.

In his later years de Hartmann tackled the symphonic genre, albeit from a typically personal vantage in his Symphonie-Poèmes. The fourth of these remained unfinished at his death, with only its initial movement fully orchestrated. Over little more than five minutes, it provides a fair encapsulation of the composer’s later thinking – not least through an elaborate and often imaginative orchestration which accentuates formal obliqueness and expressive disjunctions. Intriguing as it is to speculate what came next, this remains a cohesive statement as it stands.

Written for Jean-Pierre Rampal then taken up by equally illustrious flautists such as Marcel Moyse, the Concierto Andaluz packs a considerable amount into its 10 minutes. Whether in the plaintive lyricism of the Entrada y Romanza, the fleet-footed and capricious Scherzino that is Juego – its winsome trio providing for necessary contrast, or the sultry evocation of Cante y Juerga, this is something of a hidden gem from the repertoire of concertante works for flute and deserving of greater exposure. Bülent Evcil leaves no doubt as to his advocacy.

Arranged from an eponymous ballet celebrating Catherine the Great, Une fête en Ukraine is de Hartmann at his most engaging. Not least the festive Ouverture, with its antecedents in the Russian ‘silver age’, or regal eloquence of Fanfare et Sarabande. The final three items are most substantial – the suitably fanciful imaginings of Incantation et danse du Chamane, the plangent modality of Nocturne, then the panache of Danilo Coupor (an English dance popular among Russian nobility in the early 19th century) which brings a scintillating close.

Does it all work?

Pretty much. That all four of these pieces are from de Hartmann’s maturity means that such influences as there were of earlier composers, primarily the melodicism of Tchaikovsky and harmonic innovations of Rimsky, have been subsumed into a more astringent while always eventful idiom. Both the shorter pieces would make attractive additions to a concert, and the larger collections each feature several items that are worth encountering in their own right – maybe as encores to round-off a programme from one of the more enterprising orchestras.

Is it recommended?

Yes, not least with the Lviv National Philharmonic giving of its best under the astute direction of Theodore Kuchar. Unexceptionally fine sound, with exceptionally detailed annotations from John R. Mangan and Evan A. MacCarthy. A follow-up volume of de Hartmann is imminent.

For more information on this release, and for purchase options, head to the Toccata Classics website. More on Thomas de Hartmann can be found here – while you can click on the artist names for more on Bülent Evcil, Theodore Kuchar and the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine

On Record – Orion Weiss: Arc 1: Granados, Janáček & Scriabin (First Hand Records)

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Granados Goyescas Op.11 (1911)
Janáček In the Mists (1912)
Scriabin Piano Sonata no.9 in F major Op.68, ‘Black Mass’ (1913)

Orion Weiss (piano)

First Hand Records FHR127 [74’51”]
Producer David Frost; Engineer Silas Brown
Recorded 22-24 May 2014 at SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, New York

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

First Hand Records issues the first instalment of another planned trilogy (see also The Future is Female with Sarah Cahill), the Arc series being a traversal by Orion Weiss across a century of piano music with intermittent forays into conceptually related pieces by earlier composers.

What’s the music like?

Focussing on music from before the First World War, this first volume is dominated (at least in terms of length) by Goyescas – the cycle of piano evocations in which Granados both paid homage to the illustrious Spanish artist, while extending the potential for large-scale formal design associated primarily with Liszt. That the composer subsequently transformed this into a one-act opera says much for the original’s motivic interconnections, such as Weiss further emphasizes throughout an interpretation in which characterization and cohesion are as one.

The listener is guided from teasing melodic interplay in Flattery, via the (mostly) confiding intimacy of Conversation at the Window then encroaching fear of separation in Fandango by Candlelight and its pained experiencing in Laments, or The Maiden and the Nightingale. A tragic climax arrives in the ballade Love and Death; after which, Serenade of the Ghost offers an ironic epilogue. Weiss renders this methodical yet visceral sequence with no mean insight, drawing out that pathos seldom far beneath the surface of Granados’s mature music.

If the Spanish composer was realizing his vision despite – or even because of – his success as composer and performer, In the Mists finds Janáček combating those vicissitudes of personal and professional failure. Hence the tonally and expressively oblique nature of its initial three sections, such as Weiss articulates with notable emphasis on their volatile mood-swings and frequent welling-up of emotion. All of this is duly thrown into relief by the final Presto with its gradual yet, as here, inexorable tendency towards ultimate fragmentation and dissolution.

Much has been written over the past century about those occult and even satanic connotations of Scriabin’s Ninth Sonata, whose Black Mass subtitle was only added after the event and at the prompting of another. Once again, it is the harnessing of such fluid and increasingly violent expression to a formal follow-through as precise as it is fastidious which gives this music its uniqueness. Weiss ensures an audibly cumulative build-up that, in the closing stages, achieves a claustrophobic intensity which could be considered liberating or annihilating as one prefers.

Does it all work?

Yes. Although it is not hard to locate alternative recordings for each of these pieces of at least comparable value, their juxtaposition within this context makes for a programme absorbing in its overt contrasts yet satisfying in its overall cohesion. Whether or not Weiss has performed this in recital, the trajectory towards an even greater self-absorption and inward intensity feels as inescapable as the presentiments of world conflict which lie behind much of what is heard here. Future volumes will doubtless offer a changing perspective and maybe a ‘way forward’.

Is it recommended?

It is. The sound has a lucidity and detail ideal for piano music from this period, with Weiss’s annotations succinct but also pertinent to his interpretations. This series is a notable addition to his extensive discography, further information about which can be accessed at his website.

Listen

For further information on this release, head to the First Hand Records website, and for more information on Orion Weiss, head to his website