…this time in the form of one of the most charming works by Johannes Brahms, his Serenade no.1 in D major. An early work – published as Op.11 – it is full of good tunes and has a sunny disposition. Here it is in a performance on period instruments, with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra conducted by Nicholas McGegan:
Published post no.2,211 – Sunday 16 June 2024
…in the form of an early work by Sir Edward Elgar. Here is his Serenade for Strings in E minor Op.20, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Groves:
Published post no.2,204 – Sunday 9 June 2024
Zoë Beyers (violin), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
Elcock
Violin Concerto Op.13 (1996-2003, rev. 2020)
Symphony no.8 Op.37 (1981/2021)
Nimbus NI6446 [56’24’’]
Producer and Engineer Phil Rowlands
Recorded 28 July 2021 (Symphony), 26 May 2022 (Violin Concerto) at Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The English Symphony Orchestra and Kenneth Woods add to their much lauded 21st Century Symphony Project with this release devoted to Steve Elcock (b.1957), juxtaposing two major works which confirm his standing among the leading European symphonists of his generation.
What’s the music like?
Both works heard here only gradually assumed their definitive form. Composed at stages over almost a decade, the Violin Concerto marks something of a transition between less ambitious pieces for local musicians and those symphonic works which have come to dominate Elcock’s output. Its initial Allegro vivo is a tensile sonata design whose rhythmic energy is maintained throughout, with enough expressive leeway for its second theme to assume greater emotional emphasis in the reprise. There follows a Molto tranquillo whose haunting main theme, at first unfolded by the soloist over undulating upper strings in a texture pervaded by change-ringing techniques, is a potent inspiration. A pavane-like idea soon comes into focus while the closing stage, reaching an eloquent plateau before it evanesces into silence, stays long in the memory. The short but eventful finale is a Passacaglia whose theme (audibly related to previous ideas) accelerates across five variations from Andante to Presto, before culminating in a heightened cadenza-like passage on violin and timpani then a peremptory yet decisive orchestral pay-off.
The Eighth Symphony has its antecedents even further back, having begun as a string quartet in the early 1980s, though it continues those processes of evolution and integration central to the seven such works which precede it. It reflects the impact of the Sixth Symphony by Allan Pettersson (still awaiting its UK premiere after 58 years), but whereas that epic work centres on fateful arrival, Elcock’s single movement is more about striving towards a destination that remains tantalizingly beyond reach. Numerous pithy motifs are stated in the formative stages, as the music alternates between relative stasis and dynamism before being thrown into relief by the emergence (just before the mid-point) of a trumpet melody that goes on to determine the course of this piece as it builds inexorably towards a sustained climax then subsides into a searching postlude. Overt resolution may have been eschewed, yet the overriding sense of cohesion and inevitability duly outweighs that mood described by the composer as ‘‘one of desperation in the teeth of impending catastrophe’’ which, in itself, becomes an affirmation.
Does it all work?
Certainly, given both works receive well prepared and finely realized performances – notable for the way Elcock’s demanding yet idiomatic string writing is realized with real conviction. The concerto is a tough challenge for any soloist and one Zoë Beyers meets with assurance – its close-knit interplay of soloist and orchestra brought off with admirable precision, and its occasional modal subtleties rendered as enrichments of the tonal trajectory. Elcock has been fortunate in his recorded exponents, and this new ESO release is emphatically no exception.
Is it recommended?
Indeed, and good to hear that, as the ESO’s current John McCabe Composer-in-Association, Elcock will feature on a follow-up issue of his pieces Wreck and Concerto Grosso, along with the recent Fermeture. For now, this latest release warrants the strongest of recommendations.
Listen & Buy
You can listen to sample tracks and purchase on the Naxos Direct website. For further information on the artists, click on the names for more on Zoë Beyers, the English Symphony Orchestra and their conductor Kenneth Woods. Click on the name for more on composer Steve Elcock
Published post no.2,182 – Saturday 18 May 2024
abfPeter Herresthal (violin); bMembers of Arctic Philharmonic [Oganes Girunyan, Øyvind Mehus (violins), Natalya Girunyan (viola), Mary Auner (cello), Ingvild Maria Mehus (double bass)]; cdeArctic Philharmonic / Tim Weiss; aBergen Philharmonic Orchestra / James Gaffigan
Mazzoli
Dark with Excessive Bright (2021 – versions with string orchestra (a) and string quintet (b)). Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) (2013)c
These Worlds in Us (2021)d
Orpheus Undone (2021)e
Vespers for Violin (2014)f
BIS BIS-2572 [66’22’’]
Producers Jørn Pedersen, Hans Kipfer Engineers Gunnar Herfel Nilsen, Håkan Ekman
Recorded 4 June 2021 (a) at Grieghallen, Bergen; March 2022 at Storman Concert Hall, Bodø
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
BIS issues the first release to be devoted to the orchestral output of Missy Mazzoli (b.1980), New York-based and firmly established among the most significant opera composers of her generation, recorded with a stellar cast of musicians at venues on the west coast of Norway.
What’s the music like?
In his prefatory note, American author Garth Greenwell characterizes Mazzoli’s music thus – ‘‘Each piece is a journey no step of which is forgotten, so one arrives in a place that feels at once familiar and absolutely new’’, which seems a fair description of its audible connection with the past while, at the same time, absorbing accrued influences into an idiom wholly of today. That each of the works bears this out, albeit in different ways and with unpredictable outcomes, says much about the effectiveness of her modus operandi these past two decades.
Earliest here is These Worlds in Us – its title drawn from a poem by James Tate concerning the wartime death of his father, leading to music whose interplay between feelings of pain and elation is abetted by a tightly focussed evolution. An identical duration aside, Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) could hardly be more removed in its formal corollary to that of the solar system; such abstraction offset by the ‘sinfonia’ connotations with a Medieval hurdy-gurdy whose modal drone, recreated here on an electronic keyboard, underlies the headily increasing velocity of this piece. Nominally the paraphrase of a larger work, Vespers for Violin combines solo violin with an electronic soundtrack where overtones of keyboards, voices and strings subsumed into a texture such as proves at once rarified and evocative.
Framing this release are two versions of the title-track. Having started out as a concerto for double bass and strings, Dark with Excessive Bright was reworked for violin at the request of Peter Herresthal – a quotation from Milton being the catalyst for a piece that refashions Baroque techniques from a present-day vantage, and one which succeeds equally well with orchestral strings or string quintet. Most compelling, though, is Orpheus Undone – a suite whose two movements (respectively 10 and five minutes) open-out that emotional trauma of Eurydice’s death with a methodical while always cumulative inexorability as to suggest that Mazzoli could distinguish herself in the symphonic domain were she to take time-out from that of opera. Certainly, one of the most absorbing orchestral pieces of recent years.
Does it all work?
Pretty much always, though the composer is fortunate to have had such advocacy from the musicians heard here. Herresthal reaffirms his standing as go-to violinist for new music, his playing as subtle and as resourceful as this concerto requires. The much in-demand James Gaffigan gets luminous playing from the Bergen Philharmonic, as does Tim Weiss from the Arctic Philharmonic of whose Sinfonietta he is artistic director. Sound of spaciousness and clarity, along with succinctly informative notes by the composer, are further enhancements.
Is it recommended?
It is, and those suitably drawn into Mazzoli’s sound-world are encouraged to check out other releases – notably the powerful and unsettling opera Proving Up (Pentatone PTC5186754) or the endlessly thought-provoking Vespers for a New Dark Age (New Amsterdam NWAM062).
Listen
Buy
You can explore purchase options for this recording at the Presto website. Click on the names for more on the artists – Peter Herresthal, Tim Weiss, James Gaffigan, Arctic Philharmonic and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra – and for more on the composer Missy Mazzoli
Published post no.2,174 – Friday 9 May 2024
Tim Posner (cello), Berner Symphonieorchester / Katharina Müllner
Bloch Schelomo (1917)
Bruch Kol Nidrei Op.47 (1880)
Dohnányi Konzertstück Op.12 (1904)
Claves CD3079 [56’21’’]
Producer & Engineer Johannes Kammann
Recorded September 2023 at Diaconis-Kirche, Bern, Switzerland
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
What’s the story?
This is the debut concerto album from British cellist Tim Posner, currently principal cellist with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. He has been awarded the Thierry Scherz prize at the Sommets musicaux de Gstaad, joining a list of illustrious cellists such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Pablo Ferrández and Anastasia Kobekina, as well as viola player Timothy Ridout, with whom he is a member of The Teyber Trio.
The winner of the Thierry Scherz prize gets a recording with Claves as part of their reward, and here Posner. together with conductor Katharina Müllner and the Berner Symphonieorchester have constructed an attractive program of concertante works for cello and orchestra, written in the style of a concerto but in single-movement form.
What’s the music like?
Bloch’s Schelomo is increasingly well-known, a powerful utterance for cello and orchestra in an extended single movement. Subtitling the piece Rhapsodie hébraïque, Bloch wrote the piece in six weeks, modelling it on chosen verses from the book of Ecclesiastes. In his words, the cello takes ‘the incarnation of King Solomon (the book’s author), while the orchestra ‘represents his internal world and his experience of life’. The themes are mostly original but are of Hebrew resonance, one a reproduction of a tune Bloch’s father would often sing.
The Konzertstück for cello and orchestra is not a well-known part of the output of Ernő Dohnányi, but it had personal significance for the composer when he completed it at the age of 26. The composer’s father was a fine amateur cellist, and he must have been at the front of Dohnányi’s mind when he wrote this single-movement work, set out as though it were a single movement concerto.
Bisecting the two larger works is Kol Nidrei, one of the most enduring of works for solo instrument and orchestra by Max Bruch. Completed in 1880, it was dedicated to Robert Hausmann, who premiered Brahms’s Double Concerto with Joseph Joachim seven years later. Kol Nidrei is based on two Hebrew melodies.
Does it all work?
Yes, it does. Posner brings a fresh approach to each of the three works and is extremely sensitive in his balancing with the orchestra and the melodic phrasing he applies.
Schelomo receives a commanding performance, but with room for the orchestra to make its telling contributions, ideally shaped under Katharina Müllner. Posner’s tone is beautiful throughout, and especially secure in the higher register sections, where he takes the part of Solomon with assurance and poise. There is some really nice detail in the smaller sections, where the Bern principal oboe really shines, and the whole mood is one of intense and passionate thought.
Kol Nidrei starts softly, lost in thought, but comes through to a chorale theme displaying emotional strength in depth, a real point of light in the darkness. Müllner’s pacing here is ideal.
The real discovery of the album is the Dohnányi, whose cheery, airy theme sets the tone for free flowing piece that proves contagious in its positivity. Cello and woodwind enjoy frequent dialogue, and the main theme is a joy when it reappears in orchestral guise half way through. The cello part is deceptively virtuosic, but it falls easily under Posner’s hands.
Is it recommended?
Enthusiastically. This is an imaginative album, performed with sensitivity and flair. The trio of pieces are extremely complementary, and Posner’s verve and enthusiasm are infectious. It is to be hoped more recordings will follow from this source, for this is a very fine package all round.
Listen
Buy
You can explore purchase options for this recording on the Presto website
Published post no.2,170 – Monday 6 May 2024
Arcana.fm 