by Ben Hogwood Picture of György Kurtág (c) Filarmonia Hungaria
This is a post in honour of the remarkable composer György Kurtág, celebrating his 99th birthday today.
You can read about his work with baritone Benjamin Appl in an interview published on Arcana last week, but to get some appreciation of Kurtág’s remarkable music, here are a few pointers:
It is perhaps a bit restrictive trying to listen to Kurtág’s music via a YouTube link, so if you can find a widescreen system to play Grabstein für Stephan on then I fully recommend it. Following the score will show just how imaginative his orchestration is, and how compressed and concentrated the music becomes.
Meanwhile the Microludes, for string quartet, encapsulate Kurtág’s economical and pinpoint style, pieces whose every move and aside is critical to the whole.
One of my favourite live experiences was watching Kurtág and his now late wife Márta play exquisite duets at the Wigmore Hall for the composer’s 80th birthday. It was like eavesdropping on a private conversation between two intimately connected souls, no more so than when they were playing Kurtág’s own arrangements of J.S. Bach:
Published post no.2,450 – Wednesday 19 February 2025
Gouldian Finch is the pseudonym under which we find Martin Horntveth, the drummer for Jaga Jazzist – where he is one of the principal members along with brother Lars. For this work, based on a commission entitled Polaroid from the Kongsberg Jazz festival in 2021, he assembles a band of similar dimensions to carry out his musical wishes- nine musicians to supervise as band leader.
This album reflects the breadth of Horntveth’s musical outlook, but hones in more on his love of jazz and jazz rock, and what he describes as “a love / hate relationship with fusion and funk.” Typically he comes out from behind the drums to play keyboards and other percussion instruments on the album, as well as producing and arranging.
What’s the music like?
If you like Jaga Jazzist, then this will be right up your street – assuming your street is home to all sorts of colourful musical twists and turns.
The overriding observation is that Horntveth loves to celebrate music itself, because Schizo bubbles over with positive energy, its riffs delivered with flair and excitement, dressed in multicoloured clothing.
The best examples of this are CAPS LOCK, a riot of colour that originally scuttles along a little furtively before blossoming into a flurry of activity, and Guilty Pleasure, which is an enormous amount of fun. The title track is made of similar stuff, a rush of musical endorphins that bottles up all the fizz Horntveth projected through his band.
There is an appealing playfulness running through the likes of Guilty Pleasure but there are slower moments too, such as the start of Spinning Pinwheel, a plaintive saxophone choir that proves to be a mask for the exuberant funk that follows. No Filter is closer to ballad territory, a nice freewheeling bit of music with the sun at its back.
Does it all work?
It does – with the caveat that you won’t always be in the right mood for music that does sometimes spill over into hyperactivity, the sonic equivalent of having too much caffeine!
Is it recommended?
It is. Schizo does indeed flit between musical moods, but it is a lot of fun.
For fans of… Jaga Jazzist, The Comet Is Coming, Moses Boyd, Ezra Collective
Listen / Buy
Published post no.2,449 – Tuesday 18 February 2025
Coleridge-Taylor Petite Suite de Concert Op.77 (1911) Cooke High Marley Rest (1933) Delius Mazurka and Waltz for a Little Girl RTIX/7, 1 & 2 (1922-3) Headington Toccata (1963) Rubbra Eight Preludes Op.131 (1967) Scott Lotus Land Op.47/1 (1905) Armstrong Gibbs Lakeland Pictures Op.98 (1940) – no.2, After Rain (Rydal Beck); no.8, Quiet Water (Tarn Howe) Baumer Idyll (1935) Mayer Calcutta-Nagar (1993)
Peter Jacobs (piano)
Heritage HTGCD131 [73’30″] Producer & Engineer Paul Arden-Taylor
Recorded 14 & 16 September 2014 at Wyastone Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Heritage extends an already extensive discography of British music with its follow-up to the Peter Jacobs Anthology, a further volume featuring collections of or standalone miniatures with a wide range of musical idioms given focus through the persuasiveness of the pianism.
What’s the music like?
Among the miscellaneous pieces included here are Greville Cooke’s ruminative ‘portrait’ of the home of pianist (and his former teacher) Tobias Matthay, Delius’s respectively pert and fey offerings, or Christopher Headington’s scintillating study for John Ogdon. Cyril Scott’s evergreen is treated to a subtly understated reading, while two out of a set of eight by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs provide enticing evocations of Rydal Beck then Tarn Howe – their innate Englishness sounding removed from the overtly Russian manner of that from Cecil Baumer.
Forming the backbone of this collection are three sets that in themselves attest to the variety of the music featured. Best known in its orchestral guise (a recording of which can be found on Heritage HTGCD249), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Petite Suite de Concert is light music of a superior kind – witness its flighty initial Caprice, its ingratiating Sonnet or its lively closing Tarantelle, though its ostensible highlight is Demande et Réponse whose alluring sentiment helped with keeping the composer’s memory alive prior to his belated rediscovery.
Other than figuring among its composer’s later works, the Eight Preludes by Edmund Rubbra could hardly have been more different. As with his Eighth Symphony written soon afterward, these short while arresting pieces likewise focus on specific musical intervals rather than any overall key scheme, though their cohesiveness heard as an integral sequence could never be in doubt. Introspective without being inscrutable, this is wholly absorbing music and Jacobs accords ample justice to what is only the second complete recording this set has yet received.
As the most unlikely inclusion, John Mayer’s Calcutta-Nagar proves nothing less than a total delight. Known primarily for his syntheses of Indian and European elements, notably through the group Indo-Jazz Fusions, Mayer wrote extensively for Western media with this collection a notable instance. Only two of its 18 pieces last over a minute, yet their capturing of places recalled from the Calcutta of the composer’s youth is absolute. Jacobs notes his favourite as being the 13th (Kali Temple), but listeners will doubtless come up with their own favourites.
Does it all work?
Yes, whether as a judiciously planned collection or an anthology from which one can select individual items as preferred. The three collections are each among the most distinctive of its kind, while they and the various individual pieces provide ready-made encores in recital. Evidently this is music which Jacobs has long included in his repertoire, the performances exuding that combination of technical finesse allied to a probing insight as have long been hallmarks of his interpretations. Those who are unfamiliar with this music are in for a treat.
Is it recommended?
Indeed, not least as the sound has a combination of clarity and warmth ideal for piano music. The pianist pens informative notes, and one hopes that there will be further such anthologies. Meanwhile, Jacobs approaches his 80th birthday (this August) with his pianism undimmed.
Compost Records write: “Rainer Buchmüller aka Fred und Luna sadly passed away in January 2024 after a long illness. He was a kind-hearted person, gifted artist, friend and companion. We mourn him deeply. A few days before his death, Rainer Buchmüller had sent us the track listing for Vol. 3 (and already ideas for Vol. 4), with the request to publish this posthumously, he would be very happy if his fans and all those who will be would receive a “sign of life” from him.
The tracks are all German – of course – and are drawn from the 1970s and 1980s, and Buchmüller builds on the first two volumes of the series with a third that pushes the envelope of ‘krauty’ elements still further.
What’s the music like?
This compilation is a lot of fun, the chosen tracks displaying invention, wit, charm and enough rhythmic drive to get any stubborn dancefloor on the move.
The highlights are many, beginning with Christian Nainggolan’s Nachtraucher, a really good percussive heavyweight. The grooves are infectious, no more so than on Die Wilde Jagd’s Austerlitz, an excellent, sabre tooth groove. Water Map, a Fred und Luna collaboration with Organza Ray, is a propulsive winner, with its bubbling bass, spoken word and shady trumpet.
Sula Bassana’s Space Taxi is suitably cosmic, while Die Orangen’s Lost In The Center harks back to a slow 80s electro boomer. Meine Muse, from Philipp Johann Thimm, is ghostly, while Puma & The Dolphin’s Nuances is excellent, typifying the original rhythms and humour running through this compilation.
Does it all work?
It does – a wide variety of styles and approaches make this a consistently rewarding compilation.
Is it recommended?
It is. Rainer Buchmüller had very sound instincts when it came to choosing a compilation, and this third volume of Future Sounds of Kraut complements the first two beautifully. Make sure you catch all three!
by Ben Hogwood Picture of the Naala Badu building (c) Iwan Baan
What’s the story?
Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds has its roots in an invitation by Jonathan Wilson, curator of the Art Gallery of NSW. He commissioned Lawrence English to create a sound environment reflecting on the Naala Badu building.
English responded with what is described as ‘an atmospheric tint to visitors walking through the building throughout the year following its opening.
For his source material, English drew on artists ‘who have also operated in the orbit of the Art Gallery of NSW. These include Amby Downs, Chris Abrahams, Chuck Johnson, Claire Rousay, Dean Hurley, Jim O’Rourke, JW Paton, Madeleine Cocolas, Norman Westberg, Stephen Vitiello and Vanessa Tomlinson.
English invited the musicians to contribute to two long-form pieces, bringing them together in a continuous whole, which retains an improvisatory spirit. He then added the following note to the album:
“Place is an evolving, subjective experience of space. Spaces hold the opportunity for place, which we create moment to moment, shaped by our ways of sense-making.
Whilst the architectural and material features of space might remain somewhat constant, the people, objects, atmospheres, and encounters that fill them are forever collapsing into memory.”
What’s the music like?
Sometimes installation pieces only work in the environment for which they were designed, but that is not the case here – this music works far beyond the confines of the Naala Badu building (above).
With his associates, Lawrence English has fashioned a rather beautiful stretch of music that works beautifully as a piece of immersive ambience. It is best enjoyed in one stretch, although the album is helpfully split into sections when downloaded.
Initially a sonorous, mid-range piano spins slow but thoughtful lines over held drones that shift very slowly, surrounded by thick ambience. Yet by section V, the music has blossomed in colour, to this listener a rich, dark blue. The mood shifts during VI, a woolly backdrop supporting a fresher, cooler piano line, but then VII shifts to a lighter outlook before becoming more discordant. Ultimately a peaceful conclusion is found in VIII, the final section.
Does it all work?
It does – though if listening on headphones, be sure you have little noise around you, for sometimes the mid-range frequencies can be compromised.
Is it recommended?
It is – Even The Horizon Knows Its Bounds is an instinctive but immersive piece, greater than the sum of its parts. It is music that refuses to rush, taking its own sweet time – a valuable commodity in today’s hectic world.
For fans of… Loscil, Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Stars Of The Lid
Listen / Buy
Published post no.2,446 – Saturday 15 February 2025
Arcana.fm 