There is something very elemental about the music of John Luther Adams, and witnessing Become Ocean live made a very strong impression. Listening to it literally repoints your brain, as I discovered back in 2018 with the London Contemporary Orchestra.
“Over the years my orchestral music has become simpler and more expansive.
Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing (1991-95) contains four different musical textures. In the White Silence (1998) has three. For Lou Harrison (2002) reduces this to just two.
In Dark Waves (2007), I finally got to one. When I first heard that piece I began to wonder if I could sustain a similar sound for a longer span of time. The result is Become Ocean, a meditation on the vast, deep and mysterious tides of existence.
The title is borrowed from a mesostic verse that John Cage wrote in honor of Lou Harrison’s birthday. Likening Harrison’s music to a river in delta, Cage writes:
LiStening to it we becOme oceaN.
Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. And as the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean.”
The second entry for Arcana’s contribution to #AmbientAugust is very different from the first. Whereas yesterday we enjoyed thoughts from the studio of Aphex Twin, today we hear from 44-year old Russian composer Anatoly Lyadov, and his remarkably vivid portrait of The Enchanted Lake.
Stillness like this in an orchestral piece is relatively rare…as is the luminous orchestration:
William Mival Vale – a pastoral symphony (2022-23) Tristan – still (2003) Pluen (feather) (2018)
Signum Classics SIGCD977 [57’13”] Producer Stephen Johns Engineer Mike Hatch
Recorded 21 & 22 May 2024 at St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Signum Classics issues the first album devoted to William Mival (b.1959), featuring his three most significant orchestral works which also amounts to a representative overview of his output, all being heard in persuasive readings by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins.
What’s the music like?
Best known for almost two decades as Head of Composition at the Royal College of Music, as for his frequent broadcasts on Radio 3, Mival has created an output of a quality out of all proportion to its quantity. Many will first have encountered his music through the orchestral piece On the Ringstreet (1996), its lively traversal of Vienna’s Ringtrasse and acute punning on familiar passages from 19th century opera leaving a very different impression from these pieces and not least because of their preoccupation with interiorized emotional ‘landscapes’.
Premiered prior to a concert presentation of the third act from Tristan und Isolde, and what might be termed a ‘symphonic adagio’, Tristan – still finds Mival integrating elements from that opera in the context of a string quartet Wagner left unrealized in the mid-1860s and the speculative orchestral piece Stille und Umkehr by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. This is music which unfolds inferentially as it variously touches on without needing to embrace a musical Romanticism that, of necessity, remains tantalizingly and unself-consciously beyond reach.
Over a decade had elapsed before Mival returned to composition in earnest – his subsequent orchestral piece being Pluen. Its Welsh title refers to the three heraldic feathers in the Prince of Wales’s coat of arms, duly translated into three variations on the folksong Y Glomen (The Dove) with a brief introduction then a more extended conclusion. Here the composer places himself in a lineage of British musical landscapes, for all that his metamorphic thinking feels more audibly aligned with that of Austro-German composers at the start of the 20th century.
From here to Vale is to find Mival reinforcing his overt while never inhibited take on tonality in what he calls a ‘pastoral symphony’; one whose six continuous sections imply a Classical structure in outline as they draw inspiration from the region of Clywd, adjacent to where the composer was born. Here again, however, the music admits a distinctly European sensibility with its methodical progress toward an ecstatic culmination before concluding in the deftest transcendence. Suffice to add its first section’s ‘Senza ironia’ marking holds good throughout.
Does it all work?
Yes, assuming one responds to Mival’s often oblique yet always sincere response to musical Romanticism. Certainly, those who appreciate such as David Matthews, Philip Sawyers and the more recent works of Robert Saxton should find themselves readily engrossed with what is on offer. It helps that the Philharmonia is so attuned in its playing, and Martyn Brabbins’s direction so unobtrusive in its authority. A pity that earlier piece was not included, but it can be heard on the Royal College of Music YouTube channel
Is it recommended?
Indeed, not least as the sound serves the music ideally and the annotations are so informative. It is to be hoped the release of this album will encourage greater interest in Mival’s output as a whole, with maybe a collection of his various chamber and ensemble works as a follow-up.
Toccata Classics issued the first in a series affording an overview of Moses Pergament (1893-1977), a Finnish-born Swedish composer, conductor and critic whose music received belated recognition in his lifetime and has received scant attention in the half-century since his death.
What’s the music like?
Not a few listeners (such as this reviewer) first encountered Pergament in Stig Westerberg’s recording of the ballet Krelantems och Eldeling, striking and eventful music which typifies his complex stylistic make-up overall. The present release ranges widely over Pergament’s output – thereby confirming his idiom to be less one of innate originality than a skilful and constantly evolving synthesis as draws on his Lithuanian ancestry, Finnish adolescence and Swedish maturity; all the while underpinned with elements drawn from his Jewish heritage.
This is nowhere better demonstrated than in his Piano Concerto. Whether or not the musical content infers any concrete programme, it provides a refreshing take on the three-movement archetype – taking in a tensile allegro prefaced by a commanding Maestoso, an eloquent and often plangent adagio, then a lively and increasingly propulsive Allegretto with the deftest of resolutions. Standing in a notable linage of such concertos by Hindemith (1945), Tcherepnin, Blacher (both 1947) and Rosenberg (1950), this is a significant work whose revival is timely.
The remainder of this anthology unfolds, chronologically, from the inwardly elegiac Sorrow and the quizzical playfulness of three Lyrical Dances, to the charged sensuality of Sulamith’s Dance then suffused lamenting (abetted in its revised scoring) of Chanson triste. Two pieces from a seemingly unused score for the play The Feast of Esther convey a calmly simmering intensity, and three pieces for the film They Staked their Lives yield an imaginative response to what appears a well-meaning but unintentionally hilarious perspective on Totalitarianism.
The proclamatory Festive Fanfare and touchingly evocative For Nicole lead into a group of cello pieces inspired by the artistry of Gaspar Cassadó. Although the latest of these, the solo Meditation sounds inwardly pensive next to the overt volatility of the eponymous duo from five years earlier or the distinctly equivocal interplay of Melodia romantica. The final piece also makes the deepest impact – Fantasia differente emerging as a processional of mounting anguish then sombre evanescence, its ‘Ciélo e térra’ subtitle hinting at an existential subtext.
Does it all work?
Pretty much throughout – owing not least to the commitment from these musicians, for whom making this album was far more than just another assignment. Above all, those contributions of Martin Malmgren who not only tackles the Piano Concerto with aplomb but also pens the detailed and what might be called ‘positively contentious’ notes on this composer’s life and music; part of a booklet which also includes a pertinent consideration of national identity by Henrik Rosengren. Those new to Pergament could hardly hope for a more inclusive context.
Is it recommended?
It is. Anyone suitably enthused should investigate releases on the Phono Suecia and Caprice labels, not least the choral symphony The Jewish Song regarded as Pergament’s masterpiece. The second volume of this Toccata Classics survey, devoted to songs, has just been released.
Gabriel Schwabe (cello), Sinfonieorchester Aachen / Christopher Ward
Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme Op. 33 (1876) – original version Pezzo capriccioso in B minor Op.62 (1887) Nocturne in D minor Op.19/4 (1873, arr. 1888 by composer) Canzonetta in G minor Op.35/2 (1878, arr. 2025 by Schwabe) Valse sentimentale Op.51/6 (1882, arr. 2019 by Schwabe) Fantasy Overture, Romeo and Juliet (1870 version)
Naxos 8.574741 [56’45”] Producer / Engineer Patrick Lemmens
Recorded 14 September 2018 (Romeo and Juliet) and 23-26 May 2025 at Eurogress, Aachen
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Naxos issues its latest recording by Gabriel Schwabe, featuring Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, alongside arrangements for cello and orchestra and a first recording of Romeo and Juliet in its second version, with the Aachen Symphony Orchestra and Christopher Ward.
What are the performances like?
Although long ago published and recorded on numerous occasions, the original version of the Rococo Variations still lags behind that made by Wilhelm Fitzhagen for whom it was written, and who shamelessly pointed up those opportunities for virtuosity at odds with the essentially Classical poise of Tchaikovsky’s own conception. Opting for the original, Schwabe makes the most of its innate formal or expressive modesty while never neglecting the element of display as surfaces in the guise of a playful humour not so often associated (though hardly unknown) with this composer. In particular the eighth variation, summarily omitted by Fitzhagen, has a genial animation that makes for a far more fitting segue into the coda – hence seeing through to its close a work whose keen lack of pretence is out of all proportion to its musical rewards.
Tchaikovsky finished one other piece for cello and orchestra, Pezzo capriccioso veering from moodiness to recalcitrance with its deftness much in evidence. Also here are his arrangement of the Nocturne from the Op. 19 piano pieces, pensive and soulful, together with Schwabe’s idiomatic takes on the Violin Concerto’s Canzonetta and wistful Valse Sentimentale from the Op. 51 piano pieces. Odd, however, that Tchaikovsky’s cello arrangement of the Andante cantabile from his First Quartet has been omitted as there was more than enough room for it; as there was for two song transcriptions – namely Legend, the fifth of his Op. 54 set, and Was I Not a Little Blade of Grass?, the seventh of his Op. 47 set – the composer also devised and which would have helped to place what is heard here in a wider, more balanced perspective.
What has been included is the second version of the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet with (surprisingly?) its first commercial recording. Those familiar with the 1869 original will find this much closer to the third and definitive version from 1880 with the masterly introduction now in place (albeit its climax slightly underscored) then a very different lead-in (not a little akin to Balakirev) to the coda, which here seems rather over-protracted next to that of eight years later. All the right pieces are here, just in a different and ultimately less effective order.
Does it all work?
As a programme, it does. Certainly the Rococo Variations is much more effective a creative entity as Tchaikovsky conceived it, so making his reluctance to overrule Fitzhagen the more perplexing, while the other pieces with cello afford ready-made encore material Schwabe no doubt includes in his own concerts. Ward and his Aachen forces accompany sympathetically, before coming into their own with Romeo and Juliet – a fascinating intermediate version that, for all its failings, was worth making available to Tchaikovsky afficionados in this recording.
Is it recommended?
Indeed so. The performances are never less than well-attuned to the music and lack nothing in conviction, enhanced with weightily immediate sound and insightful booklet annotations. Those attracted (and why not?) to this programme should not hesitate to acquire this release.
