Emma Tring (soprano), BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Martyn Brabbins
BIS 2721 [72’51’’] French text and English translation included
Producer Thore Brinkman Engineers Simon Smith, Mike Cox Recorded 29-31 March 2023, Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Written by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
BIS continues its coverage of John Pickard (b.1963) with a pertinent coupling of his Second and Sixth Symphonies, heard alongside his song-cycle to poems by Verlaine, in what is the most wide-ranging release – whether chronologically or stylistically – to date in this series.
What’s the music like?
It hardly seems 35 years since the Second Symphony blazed forth at its Manchester premiere, so establishing Pickard’s reputation. The composer had earlier studied with Louis Andriessen, to whose confrontational minimalism this piece is indebted in certain particulars – but, unlike other among his contemporaries who were so influenced, Pickard was alive to its symphonic potential. Unfolding over six continuous sections, the work builds via an intensifying process of tension and release to a seismic culmination as marks a seamless, even inevitable return to its start. Those familiar with that pioneering version by Odaline de la Martínez (on YouTube) will find this new one hardly less attentive to the visceral power of what, given its predecessor remains unheard, is a symphonic debut with few equals and one that urgently warrants revival.
Almost 35 years on and the Sixth Symphony offers a very different though no less involving perspective on what this genre might be. The first of its two movements channels a modified sonata design such that an almost whimsical opening has become brutalized well before the despairing close. Its successor refashions the expected continuity from an even more oblique vantage – the music heading eloquently if funereally toward a plangent climax that subsides into a delicate intermezzo, infused with the sound of nature, then on to a final section which recalls earlier ideas in a mood of rapt anticipation. Not that this understatement offers in any sense an easy way out: indeed, the work concludes with its composer poised at a crossroads as much existential as musical, and from where the whole creative process can begin afresh.
Separating two substantial statements of intent, the Verlaine Songs continues Pickard’s recent involvement with poetic texts and, while Paul Verlaine might seem far removed from Edward Thomas or Laurence Binyon, his evocations fanciful while sometimes unnerving – hence Le sqelette with its graphic aural imagery – finds the composer reciprocating in kind. Coming in between scorings with ensemble or violin and piano, this version with orchestra finds Pickard enriching a lineage of French song-cycles from Berlioz, via Ravel and Messiaen, to Dutilleux.
Does it all work?
It does, not least because Pickard is conscious of the need for his music to determine its own course. However dissimilar these symphonies might seem, the sensibility behind them is the same and any stylistic differences more apparent than real. It helps when Martyn Brabbins is a conductor familiar with this idiom as to inspire a committed response by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with Emma Tring alive to the manifest subtlety of the vocal writing, and the recordings consistently heard to advantage in the spacious immediacy of Hoddinott Hall.
Is it recommended?
Indeed, in the hope this series will be continued. Both the First and Third Symphonies await recording, as do Partita for strings and large-scale choral work Agamemnon’s Tomb, so that Pickard’s discography has a way to go even without addition of new pieces to his catalogue.
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins (Birthday Variations); Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra / Pekka Kuusisto (Symphony)
Various Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M.C.B. (2019) Jaakko Kuusisto (comp. Pekka Kuusisto & Eskola) Symphony Op.39 (2020-21)
BIS 2747 [66’32”] Producers Andrew Trinick (Variations), Robert Suff (Symphony) Engineers Graeme Taylor (Variations), Enno Mäemets (Symphony) Live recordings, 13 August 2019 at Royal Albert Hall, London (Variations); 8 December 2022 at Music Centre, Helsinki
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The BIS label issues one of the most fascinating among recent releases, one that juxtaposes a latter-day equivalent to Elgar’s Enigma Variations with a posthumously completed symphony by one of Finland’s leading conductors which now becomes a tribute to his untimely passing.
What’s the music like?
It was clearly a great idea that the BBC commission a piece to mark Martyn Brabbins’s 60th birthday, featuring 14 composers with whom this stylistically most wide-ranging of current British conductors has been associated. The outcome is Pictured Within: Birthday Variations for M.C.B. – each composer having provided a variation on the ‘anonymous’ theme for what here becomes an inverse take on Elgarian procedure in the latter’s Variations on an Original Theme; a work whose ground-plan also furnishes the formal framework of the present piece.
It is worth considering the ways in which these composers seem either inhibited or liberated by their placing (determined beforehand by Brabbins) within the overall scheme. Given this theme – understated to a fault – yields its potential more from the harmonic then melodic or rhythmic angle, the most successful tend to make a virtue of such constraints: thus the ‘Tact 60’ of Variation I finds Dai Fujikura hinting guardedly at ‘C.A.E.’. David Sawer capriciously conjures ‘H.D.S-P.’, while Sally Beamish offers a deftly ironic parallel to ‘R.B.T’ and Colin Matthews rumbustiously complements ‘W.M.B.’ Iris ter Schiphorst captures the pensiveness if not the geniality of ‘R.P.A.’, whereas violist-turned-composer Brett Dean proves a natural fit for the undulating poise of ‘Ysobel’ and Win Henderickx evokes ‘Troyte’ with real gusto.
His ruminative Variation VII finds Richard Blackford emulating more the connection with a country house than ‘W.N.’, while Harrison Birtwistle throws caution to the wind in a darkly inward contrast to ‘Nimrod’, and ‘Sixty Salutations’ finds Judith Weir in an engaging take on the halting charms of ‘Dorabella’. Gavin Bryars rouses himself to unexpected activity in his reading of ‘G.R.S.’, whereas Kalevi Aho is more suited to the sombre eloquence of ‘B.G.N.’ and Anthony Payne ably plumbs the inherent mysteries of ‘***’. John Pickard then takes on the daunting challenge of ‘E.D.U.’ in The Art of Beginning – the mingling of portentousness and humour appearing to make light of its Longfellow association, but whose organ-capped apotheosis confirms real appreciation of the ‘right ending’ as constituting an art unto itself.
The coupling is as unexpected as it proves apposite. Remembered as a notable violinist and a versatile conductor, Jaakko Kuusisto (1974-2022) turned increasingly to composition and, at his untimely death through brain cancer, had planned a symphony for Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra. Acting on behalf of his widow, his younger brother Pekka and copyist Jari Eskola realized this piece from several minutes of extant fragments such that Kuusisto’s Symphony takes its place as the last statement by one who ostensibly had much more to give.
Playing just over 25 minutes, the work falls into two separate movements. Shorter and more outwardly cohesive, the first of these emerges as imperceptibly as it evanesces – taking in a tersely rhythmic central episode, then a warmly expressive melody with more than a hint of American post-Minimalism. Almost twice as long, the Lento seems more discursive but no less absorbing – picking up where its predecessor left off as it builds to impulsive climaxes, separated by an eloquent span derived from a chorale-like theme. Nothing, though, prepares one for the ending – a sequence of quietly interlocking ostinato patterns, evidently inspired by light signals beamed in the Gulf of Finland and underpinned by undulating timpani. The effect is haunting and unworldly but, for these very qualities, wholly fitting as a conclusion.
Does it all work?
Pretty much always. Those expecting an Elgarian ‘re-run’ may be disconcerted by Pictured Within, but this only serves to reinforce the stylistic autonomy and variety of the composers involved (three of whom sadly no longer with us) in what is a tribute to Brabbins’s acumen for involving them in the first instance. Quirky and compelling, the Kuusisto is appreciably more than a labour of love on behalf of those who brought about its completion: both works deserving revival for their intrinsic merits rather than commemorating a particular occasion.
Is it recommended?
Absolutely. These live performances (that of Pictures Within being that of the premiere) have come up well as presented here, while there are detailed notes on each piece by John Pickard and Jaani Länsiö. This fascinating release more than justifies itself musically and artistically.
Paul Wee is a true one-off. An in-demand commercial barrister by day, he is also an extraordinary pianist, capable of taking on some of the most demanding pieces in the repertoire. The combination of a passion for his art and thirst for a challenge has led to award-winning recordings of the music of Thalberg and of Beethoven arranged by Liszt, both for the BIS label.
Yet arguably his greatest recording achievement to date concerns the music of Charles-Valentin Alkan, the 19th-century French composer who was one of the great virtuosos of his day. Wee has mastered two massive works by the composer – his Symphony for Solo Piano and the Concerto for Solo Piano. The latter will form an entire lunchtime concert with which he will make his eagerly anticipated Wigmore Hall debut, on Saturday 15 June. A tempestuous hour of music lies ahead – so while he flexes his muscles in preparation, Arcana managed to get some time with him to explore not just Alkan but a number of other irons he has in the fire.
Firstly, Paul recalls vividly his first encounter with Alkan’s music. “It was when I was in high school, in New York City”, he says. “I heard a live recording of Marc-André Hamelin playing the Symphony for Solo Piano, and I was awestruck immediately!”
His decision to take on the concerto was inspired by similar feelings. “I was immediately taken by the Concerto for Solo Piano when hearing it for the first time: it’s an astonishing musical construction, which makes an extraordinary and unforgettable impact. I didn’t know of any other work like it in the repertoire and knew that I had to give it a go myself.”
The piece is notorious for the demands Alkan makes on the performer, but as Wee confirms the rewards are greater still. “The technical challenges are reasonably self-evident; in the numerous passages where Alkan is displaying the ‘virtuosity’ of the (virtual) ‘soloist’, the writing – whilst always remaining very idiomatic and practical, characteristically for Alkan – can sometimes approach the limits of conventional pianism”, he says. “The emotional (or musical) challenges are mainly twofold: first, bringing to life the (extraordinarily theatrical) drama and rhetoric in the second movement Adagio; and second, maintaining the intensity of the Concerto’s narrative arc across its 50-minute wingspan. But when these challenges are met, it makes for one of the most incredible experiences that the piano repertoire has to offer.”
Wee has recorded the concerto for BIS, an album released in 2019. Has his view of the piece changed since then? “Yes – in relation to both the Concerto’s sound world, and also its pacing, especially in the Allegro assai. As ever it’s difficult to explain this in words, so the best thing for anybody interested is to come and hear it live!”
Alkan is a composer who inspires great dedication among his fans, and Wee considers the elements of his music that lead to these feverish reactions. “I think it is the sheer power and quality of his finest works, which offer extraordinary experiences quite unlike anything else that the 19th century has to offer. The fact that Alkan and these works are not as widely known as they should be can often lead to fans of Alkan’s music to (rightly!) encourage others to discover this music for themselves. That’s exactly what I hope to be doing myself when bringing the Concerto to Wigmore Hall.”
Anyone approaching Alkan’s music for the first time is in for a treat. “It depends on what work they are hearing. If the Concerto, they should prepare themselves for an epic, but nevertheless very accessible, musical narrative; a very wide variety of pianistic experiences, from some of the greatest heights of 19th-century virtuoso piano writing, through to tender intimacy and lyricism, with much quasi-operatic dramatic intensity and rhetoric along the way. Overall, the listener should prepare themselves for the extraordinary cumulative impact of the work, which builds across all three movements and which in a good performance can be utterly overwhelming.”
Presenting this work in the Wigmore Hall is something of a dream for Wee, who recalls his most memorable musical experiences in the venue. “Wigmore Hall is probably my most visited concert venue, and my own personal highlights reel would be too long to list in full! But some illustrative examples would have to include recitals by Marc-André Hamelin playing Haydn, Mozart, Liszt, Fauré, and Alkan in November 2009; Benjamin Grosvenor playing Mendelssohn, Chopin, Ravel, and Liszt in June 2016; and Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis in Schubert’s Winterreise in June 2022.”
Expanding from Alkan, Wee has somehow found time to discover and record concertos by two names unfamiliar to many devotees of classical music – Adolph von Henselt and Hans von Bronsart (above). It is another addition to his small but formidably constructed discography for BIS – and not a recent discovery, either. “I discovered the Henselt in my teens,”, he says, “after reading about it in books by Harold Schonberg and David Dubal, and seeking out recordings by Raymond Lewenthal and Marc-André Hamelin. I came to the Bronsart later, after being captivated by Michael Ponti’s recording of the slow movement.”
The recordings Wee mentions were made with a symphony orchestra, but for the new album he is paired with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, under Michael Collins. “One of the greatest difficulties of the Henselt lies in making the piano part, with all of its detailing and intricacies, audible over the sound of the orchestra”, he explains. “In nearly all cases, large swathes of the passagework (especially in the finale) are simply swallowed and inaudible beneath the weight of a modern symphony orchestra. In teaming up with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra for this recording, I think we have been able to present a different view of the Henselt in particular, which presents Henselt’s (quasi-Mendelssohnian) piano writing with a new immediacy and clarity, whilst maintaining power and heft where needed. Of course, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra is not just any old chamber orchestra; it has a particular reputation for being “the chamber orchestra that can sound like a symphony orchestra”, and I think that anybody hearing (say) the opening tutti of the Bronsart Concerto will be astounded by the vigour and intensity that the Swedish Chamber Orchestra brings to the proceedings. I think they have been the perfect partner for this recording.”
He continues to move forward with recording plans…“but as there are still a few moving pieces here and there, all I will say for now is to watch this space. But my future recording plans with BIS are very exciting, and I’m looking forward to sharing them when I can say more…”
Looking further afield, what other music would he like to explore? “The list is far too long: the piano literature is so wide and so rich, and I find many things to love in nearly every one of its corners. In addition to that, the music that I might want to play and enjoy for myself will not necessarily be the same as the music that might be thought to sell well if I were to record it. So there are many dimensions to this question, which do not necessarily interrelate. Again, I think that all I can say is that there are some very interesting projects in the pipeline, so watch this space!”
In the meantime he will continue with his two complementary disciplines. “Absolutely: I have no desire to give up my legal career and become a full-time musician. I enjoy my work as a commercial barrister; it’s challenging, constantly stimulating, and ultimately very satisfying. On the musical side, I wouldn’t be averse to playing a few more concerts here and there, but probably nothing more than that. I wouldn’t ever want for the piano to become my day-to-day life. I am much happier with the piano being my escape from everyday life, which (for me) is my career at the Bar.”
He expands on how the two very different elements of his life are complementary. “The most important factor is that each presents an escape from the other. When my legal practice is especially demanding (which, as any lawyer will tell you, can frequently be the case), I can take a quick 5- or 10-minute time-out at the piano, and for that window, I am completely disconnected from the strains and stresses of the law: I return to my desk refreshed. In the other direction, my legal career has helped me hugely as a pianist by (perhaps paradoxically) ensuring that the piano is not my day-to-day life, as I mentioned above. Whenever I sit down at the piano, it’s never out of obligation, but out of joy. These days I have a completely different relationship with the instrument than what I used to have when I thought (as a teenager) that I wanted to be a concert pianist. I think the freedom that underpins my relationship with the piano these days has been essential in making me the pianist that I have become.”
Finally, he considers the music he anticipates seeing as a concertgoer this year – when time allows. “As it happens, this year I am going to far fewer concerts than usual, given the demands of family life (our second daughter was born in December and is just six months old). So I’m often going to concerts at shorter notice than usual. That said, I’m hoping to see Benjamin Grosvenor in the BusoniConcerto at the Proms, and I have Igor Levit’s September 2024 recital in my diary, where he’ll be playing the Liszt transcription of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony: these are fabulous transcriptions that should be played in concert far more frequently, so I’m delighted to see him bringing this to London. I’m also planning to see Nikolai Lugansky at Wigmore Hall in December 2024, where he’ll be playing (among other things) his own stunning transcription of scenes from Götterdämmerung. I’m sure there will be many other concerts along the way!”
For information on Paul’s Wigmore Hall debut, on Saturday 15 June at 1pm, click on this link. You can read more about Paul at his website, and explore his discography at the Presto website
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).
Peter Herresthal (violin) and Jakob Kullberg (cello) (Nocturnal Movements), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra / John Storgårds
Nørgård Lysning (2006) Symphony no.8 (2011) Three Nocturnal Movements (2015)
BIS BIS-2502 [54’20’’] Producer Hans Kipfer Engineers Matthias Spitzbarth, Håkan Ekman (Nocturnal Movements) Recorded 29 & 30 August 2019 (Nocturnal Movements), 4 & 5 February 2022 2022 at Grieghallen, Bergen
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
His activities as a composer may effectively have ceased, but Per Nørgård (1932-) remains a defining figure in post-war European music and this latest release from BIS collates three wholly characteristic pieces, including a double concerto which is also his last major work.
What’s the music like?
Playing a little over 25 minutes, the three movements of the Eighth Symphony each pursues its intriguing take on an established form (sonata, ternary then rondo) which emerge with a renewed fluidity and flexibility. The opening movement continually evolves its main ideas in a gradual if cumulative curve of activity, culminating in the heightened crystallisation of motifs on tuned percussion. The central Adagio emerges across densely luminous waves of sound that recall earlier Nørgårdian practice from an arrestingly new perspective; one whose expression admits an almost confiding intimacy. The finale deftly complements this with its artfully ratcheting percussion and infectious rhythmic gyrations on route to a coda of purest radiance; the fitting close to a symphonic cycle that ranks with the finest of the post-war era.
A crucial factor of Three Nocturnal Movements is its having been a collaboration with cellist Jakob Kullberg and developed from the viola concerto Remembering Child of three decades earlier. The outcome comprises two substantial movements that frame a ‘nocturnal’ cadenza. The opening Allegro finds the solo instruments deeply embedded within an orchestral texture whose clarity enables motivic interconnections to emerge with due precision, underlining the airy momentum which carries this music towards its predictably unexpected close. Whatever its provenance, the central Andante is of a piece with those on either side – its limpid gestures and intonational punning a throwback to this composer’s preoccupations from more than half a century earlier, but now imbued with an aura no less affecting for its valediction. The final (undesignated) movement is the most demonstrative with its frequently percussive outbursts and those abrupt though never jarring changes in course that keep the attentive listener fully attuned to a discourse such as builds incrementally toward its wistfully fulfilled conclusion.
The earliest work here, Lysning makes for an ideal ending. Its title translating as ‘Glade’, this is the last of its composer’s pieces for strings and takes the Nordic miniature as template for a study in discreet yet potent contrasts of sonority and emotion that lingers long in the memory.
Does it all work?
Yes, not least because Peter Herresthal and Jakob Kullberg have premiered earlier concertos by Nørgård for their respective instruments, while John Storgårds had previously recorded the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and gave the premiere of the Eighth of which he is dedicatee. This recording ideally complements that from Sakari Oramo (Dacapo 6.220574), focussing less on its overall symphonic cohesion than on the continual unpredictability of its renewed Classicism, and it is difficult to imagine more persuasive readings of the other works.
Is it recommended?
Very much so, in the hope Storgårds may yet complete his Nørgård cycle with the First, Third and Seventh Symphonies. Sound is up to BIS’s customary standards in clarity or perspective, while Kasper Rofelt’s annotations evince long familiarity with the composer’s unique idiom.
Arcana.fm 