Shijin’s New CD

THEORY OF EVERYTHING / DAVID-GALLAND-GUILLAUME-BRAFF: Mystery of a White Dwarf. Unexpected Discovery. Golden Age. Implosion. Time Travel. Separating Circle. You Are Here. Curved Wrinkles / Shijin: Stéphane Guillaume, t-sax/s-sax/fl/bs-cl; Malcolm Braff, pno/Fender Rhodes/CP-70 synth; Laurent David, e-bs; Stéphane Galland, dm / Socadisc CD & LP, privately released

Theory of Everything is the second full-length album released by Shijin, a co-op quartet originally comprised of two Americans and two Europeans, but now including only one American, bassist Laurent David who was born in Paris but is now based in Brooklyn. The promo material for this disc describes the music as being “first developed as duets, then completed by the other two musicians and finally put together into a complete format.” This disc is also described as a “concept album” although, from a musical standpoint, I hear little if any connection between the pieces on this disc.

There’s a certain free jazz feel to the opener, Mystery of a White Dwarf, as drummer Galland plays a series of irregular rhythms behind the free-form ideas of Guillaume’s tenor sax and piano and bass fill in. Pianist Braff then takes over for a pleasant solo before turning it back over to Guillaume. So far, my impression was that the saxist is the most interesting soloist on this disc. At about the 5:40 mark, however, Guillaume suddenly switches over to bass clarinet to play a series of grinding bass notes while the synthesizer wails overhead before riding the piece out.

Unexpected Discovery is a gentle, ballad-like piece with not much in the way of a theme, yet oddly Galland’s drums are much heavier on this track and dominate the musical landscape. Golden Age introduces an edgier beat driven by the synthesizer, followed by a Guillaume solo. Braff plays a rather rambling solo on the Fender Rhodes. By now the pattern has become clear: although Braff, David and Galland are all excellent players from a technical standpoint, it is Guillaume who is clearly the most interesting improviser in the quartet. They play with a tight ensemble, however, and though the pieces are not strong melodically or harmonically, they have very interesting rhythmic patterns.

This, then, places Shijin in the category of great promise but not yet to the point of delivering consistently interesting performances. Implosion, one of two tracks from this CD being released as a “single” (whatever that is nowadays, since 45s no longer exist) combines a funky beat with spacey electronics. It’s not too offensive to listen to but it’s not a particularly interesting piece of music. All of the interest is in the synthesizer, although here Braff plays one of his more interesting and well-developed piano solos. Time Travel, the other tune being released as a single, is pretty much innocuous music with a few neat twists of meter.

I found Shijin to be a group with far more promise than they deliver on this disc, but of course I’ve not heard them play in a live setting. Some of the music is interesting, parts of each piece are rather complex, but as a whole the music tends to be more of a patch quilt than what I would characterize as “finished” music except for Guillaume’s superb saxophone solos.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read my book, From Baroque to Bop and Beyond: An extended and detailed guide to the intersection of classical music and jazz

Advertisement

Karnavičius’ String Quartets

KARNAVIČIUS: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 / Vilnius String Qrt / Ondine ODE 1351-2

These are the first-ever recordings of the string quartets of Jurgis Karnavičius (1884-1941), a Lithuanian composer who studied in St. Petersburg with Lyadov and Rimsky-Korsakov and fought in World War I. In fact, his first string quartet heard on this record, written in 1913, did not have its premiere until three years later when he was already at the front.

The music is tonal but surprisingly knotty in texture, an interesting work if not really a ground-breaking one. Although based on the kind of structure that Brahms used, neither the themes nor the harmonic sequences are Brahmsian; in fact, this quartet sounds more like early Martinů  except with a Lithuanian “accent.” It also helps that the Vilnius Quartet “feels” this music in their blood and plays it with vigor and a lean, bright tone, which is perfect for Eastern European string music. There are all sorts of little twists and turns in the music, even in the second movement, that mark it as music that is more inspired than written to formula. At the 4:50 mark, the leisurely tempo suddenly stops and turns into an “Allegro” of vivacious rhythm, very much based on folk music. The last movement is also a surprise: lively, as you expect of the last movement of a quartet, but not too fast and brimming over with interesting musical ideas, some in the minor. There’s also a fascinating descending chromatic passage around the 1:50 mark.

The second quartet, written in 1917 when he was still in captivity (and could have been performed by the string quartet he formed while in the detainment camp), was premiered after he had returned to Russia—now the Soviet Union—in a concert sponsored by the Contemporary Russian Music Propaganda Society in 1923. The first movement has a much sadder tone about it than anything in the first quartet; the music is clearly deeper and more personal. The second movement, however, is energetic and much happier music; but then, at the 9:38 mark, it suddenly turns slower and sadder…and the slow movement is sadder yet. The last movement, also not a very fast “Allegro,” has a more positive demeanor than the preceding slow movement.

Interesting pieces, then, if not quite music of genius. Well worth hearing, however.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@Artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read The Penguin’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Classical Music

Schapiro 17’s “Human Qualities”

SCHAPIRO: Count Me Out. Tango. Hmmm. McCOLL: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. SCHAPIRO: Human Qualities. Hallelujah. A Bounce in Her Step. House Money / Schapiro 17: Bryan Davis, Andy Gravish, Eddie Allen, Nyes Bartholomew, tpt; Alex Jeun, Deborah Weisz, Nick Grinder, Walter Harris, tb; Rob Wilkerson, Candace DeBartolo, Paul Carlon, Rob Middleton, Matt Hong, sxs;  Roberta Piket, pno; Sebastian Noerlle, gtr; Evan Gregor, bs; Jon Wikan, dm / Summit DCD 775

Jon Schapiro, whose album New Shoes: Kind of Blue at 60 I gave a rave review to just a year ago, returns with this new release by his New York-based big band, Schapiro 17, and it’s just as fascinating and just as excellent.

The album starts with Count Me Out, a tribute to Basie and his wonderful bands. This one is a pretty simple tune, but Rob Middleton gets a tenor sax solo that starts out pretty good and just keeps getting better. At about the 2:20 mark, Schapiro throws in a completely different beat, a bit slower but more ominous, kind of like a walking beat in a minor key, and the trumpet figures are equally ominous as well as bitonal. Following this, Deborah Weisz gets a fine trombone solo as the background writing becomes ever denser and even a bit eerier. Roberta Piket tries to jolly things up with some Basie-like piano, but eventually she succumbs to the strange atmosphere and joins in rather than fighting the mood. She then leads the band into a sort of medium-tempo funk beat, with drummer Jon Wikan playing some very strange, asymmetrical figures behind her, the reeds and muted trumpets…then suddenly, the Basie-like vibe returns, now clothed in ominous extended chords despite the valiant efforts of the reed section to re-establish the happy mood of the opening. You might call this a cross between Count Basie and Charles Mingus’ Weird Nightmare.

Similarly, Tango really is a tango but it’s not. I dare anyone out there to come up with an Astor Piazzolla tango as well-written and imaginative as this one…such apiece simply doesn’t exist. Jon Schapiro can certainly create interesting moods, and this one, though also a bit on the dark side, is difficult to describe. You’ve just got to hear it. Matt Hong gets the meaty baritone sax solo, and it’s a very fine one that comes and goes throughout, but once again the star of this track is the writing. I get so many jazz band recordings for review that claim to be “innovative” that really aren’t, they just recycle older orchestral charts that haven’t been heard in a half-century, but Schapiro’s writing really IS innovative. He sounds like no one else while still leaning on certain established jazz forms. I’m willing to bet that he is a student of Bartók and Shostakovich as well as of Pete Rugolo, Marius Constant and the Mingus of Epitaph. His mind works in mysterious ways, yet all of them are utterly fascinating.

Hmmm opens with a strong boogie beat which leads into the attractive but quirky melodic line. Nearly all of the trumpet section writing here uses discords, but as usual Schapiro somehow manages to pull all the different elements together to form a quirky but perfect whole. I can hear where he borrows a few voicing ideas from Gil Evans, too, but there are so many different elements at work here that, once again, it’s hard to pin him down. Andy Gravish’s trumpet solo, though not particularly daring, nonetheless sparkles, providing some upper-register fireworks to this otherwise ominous-sounding piece. Gravish returns again in the final chorus, sparring with Paul Carlon’s tenor before sparking the ride-out.

I’m glad that the liner notes told me that The First Time Ever is a Ewan McColl song “made famous by Roberta Flack,” because I had never heard of it before. (Sorry, I’m not a pop or soul singer fan.)  As annotator Ingrid Jensen puts it, “Poignant bass clarinet entrances and low, lush, static voicings set the tone for this beautiful and ear-bending arrangement.” I would add that it also offers a relatively calm respite from the wildly innovative tracks that preceded it. Piket and trumpeter Eddie Allen add some colorful solos to it as well.

To quote Jensen once again, “The title track [Human Qualities]…is a wild trip through contrapuntal lands of weaving and building orchestral imagery resolving neatly in a unison land that sets up the ever-lively and luscious alto playing of Rob Wilkerson.” This is clearly the most complex piece so far in this album, a real gem that holds your attention from start to finish, yet for all its complexity the somewhat steady beat gives the soloists something to hang on to.  The counterpoint becomes denser during Piket’s piano solo, at which time the tempo picks up a bit, too. It’s a little masterpiece.

Despite its title, Hallelujah doesn’t sound like a very celebratory piece; its dark, quirky melodic line and whole-tone accompaniment, played at a somewhat slow tempo, give it an ominous feeling. Some strange sounds (possibly a synthesizer along with electric guitar?) are heard in the background during the rhythm section break, then an electric guitar solo which fades into nothingness, after which the bass plays with acoustic guitar in the background before low unison trumpet figures come in. More counterpoint ensues when the saxes play a unison figure in an opposing meter against the muted trumpets.

A Bounce in Her Step returns to a swing beat, but once again Schapiro’s writing is complex and contrapuntal, here resembling some of the better “cool school” charts of the 1950s with his own twist. The album closes with House Money, a piece that again opens up with a bit of a Basie feel (but more of a strip-club sort of beat on the tom-toms) with growl trumpet interjections over the snaky, repeated sax section lick before moving out a bit to solo. Growl trombone is also heard in the person of Alex Jeun. Kind of like Ellington meets Basie meets Stravinsky.

But oh! All of my descriptions above may not prepare you for what you’ll hear on this CD. Yes, highly recommended.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read my book, From Baroque to Bop and Beyond: An extended and detailed guide to the intersection of classical music and jazz

Goodbye, Chick Corea

When Armando “Chick” Corea died on February 9 of this year, four months shy of his 80th birthday, the world lost a legend as well as a highly creative spirit.

I didn’t like any of Corea’s fusion recordings, but then again I detest most fusion no matter who is playing it. I loved his early piano trio recordings, his first two (acoustic) albums by his group Return to Forever, the video of him improvising music out of a few notes and gestures with the late Friedrich Gulda, and a few other albums. Chief among them, for me, was the remarkable album in which he and Gary Burton took part in a classical-jazz multi-movement piece titled simply “Septet.” I wrote about this in my book, From Baroque to Bop and Beyond, and I still think it one of the finest pieces of its time and genre.

But I’m going to write a lengthy piece about Chick because everyone else has already done so. I would, however, like to pass along this wry, witty list of advice that he gave to improvising musicians working in a group situation because, aside from being humorous, it’s also very, very true:

Goodbye, Chick, Rest in peace.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read my book, From Baroque to Bop and Beyond: An extended and detailed guide to the intersection of classical music and jazz

A Cornucopia of Schumann Lied

Vol. 1 / SCHUMANN: Liederkreis, Op. 24. Der arme Peter. Belsazar.  Dichterliebe / Thomas E. Bauer, bar; Uta Hielscher, pno / Naxos 8.557075 (released 2005)

Vol. 2 / SCHUMANN: Liebesfrühling: Songs 1-9. Lieder und Gesäng aus Goethes “Wilhelm Meister.” Sologesänge aus Friedrich Rückerts “Minnespiel” / Thomas E. Bauer, bar; Susanne Bernhard, sop; Uta Hielscher, pno / Naxos 8.557074 (released 2005)

Vol. 3 / SCHUMANN: Liederalbum für die Jugend. Lieder und Gesänge I, Op. 27 / Sibylla Rubens, sop; Stefanie Iranyi, mezzo; Thomas E. Bauer, bar; Uta Hielscher, pno / Naxos 8. 557076 (released 2007)

Vol. 4 / SCHUMANN: 12 Lieder, Op. 35. 5 Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 127. 5 Gesänge, Op. 142. Jugend Lieder nach Kerner, WoO  21 & 10 / Hans Jörg Mammel, ten; Uta Hielscher, pno / Naxos 8.557077 (released 2008)

Vol. 5 / SCHUMANN: Frauenliebe und –leben. 7 Lieder, Op. 104. Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart. 6 Gesänge, Op. 107 / Sibylla Rubens, sop; Uta Hielscher, pno / Naxos 8.557078 (released 2008)

Vol. 6 / SCHUMANN: Myrthen. 6 Gedichte und Requiem / Andrea Lauren Brown, sop; Thomas E. Bauer, bar; Uta Hielscher, pno / Naxos 8.557079 (release 2011)

Vol. 7 / SCHUMANN: Liederkreis, Op. 39. 3 Gedichte, Op. 30. 3 Gesänge, Op. 31: 1. Die Löwenbraut. 6 Gedichte aus dem Liederbuch eines Malers, Op. 36 / Thomas E. Bauer, bar; Uta Hielscher, pno / Naxos 8.557080 (released 2013)

Vol. 8 / SCHUMANN: Minnespiel, Op. 101: Nos. 5, 7 & 8. Spanisches Liederspiel, Op. 74. Spanische Liebeslieder, Op. 138 / Anna Palimina, sop; Marion Eckstein, alto; Simon Bode, ten; Matthias Hoffmann, bs-bar; Uta Hielscher, Stefan Irmer, pno / Naxos 8.573944 (released 2019)

Vol. 9 / SCHUMANN: Romanzen und Balladen, Books I & II. 2 Balladen, Op. 122.  Der Handschuh. 5 Lieder, Op. 40. Schön Hedwig. 3 Gesänge, Op. 31 No. 3. 4 Husarenlieder. Des Sängers Fluch, Op. 139 No. 7 (version for voice & piano) / Detlef Roth, bar/narr; Ulrich Eisenlohr, pno / Naxos 8.574029 (released 2020)

Vol. 10 / SCHUMANN: Zweistimmige Lieder, Op. 43. 4 Duette, Op. 34. 3 Gesänge, Op. 31 Nos. 1 & 2. 4 Duette, Op. 78. 3 Gesänge, Op. 95. Des Sängers Fluch, Op. 139 No. 4 (version for voice & piano). Lied für xxx, Anh. M1:2. Mädchenlieder, Op. 103. Sommerruh, WoO 7 / Caroline Melzer, sop; Anke Vondung, mezzo; Simon Bode, ten; Ulrich Eisenlohr, pno / Naxos 8.574119 (released 2021)

Well, chop off my legs and call me shorty. Naxos has actually been releasing a SERIES of the complete lieder of Robert Schumann for the past 16 years, but just haven’t bothered to alert the buying public that it WAS a series. None of the album covers indicated a volume number at any given time; you have to look at the fine print on the back covers to discover that these are meant to be sequential releases. Most people, myself included, just assumed that these were random issues of Schumann lieder by various singers spun out every so often as the spirit moved the company.

But with the issue of the most recent CD, we are informed that this is Vol. 10 of a complete “Schumann Lied Edition” which will run one more volume. We are also told that

I have no doubt that some collectors did “snap up” each issue in this series, but not all. There are so many superb versions of Liederkreis, Dichterliebe, Frauenliebe und –leben, Myrthen etc. out there that I’m sure that some of these releases were glossed over by many.

Yet another reason why I would think that not everyone viewed this as a sequential release of complete Schumann lieder is that the songs were, and still are, released completely out of order. If one is attempting to issue a complete series of anything, one should present them in at least something resembling the order in which those pieces were written, as the Two Pianists label did in their excellent set of the complete lieder of Richard Strauss. Yes, there may be instances when a song cycle is so long that placing it in strict chronological order will be logistically impossible, but you should at least attempt serial integrity.

Well, here goes…my review of the entire series.

VOL. 1: This first installment belongs to German baritone Thomas E. Bauer, who does a pretty good job of hiding his birth year online, though he appears to have been in his early 30s at the time of this recording (I could be wrong). He has a very attractive voice, bright with a quick vibrato which is very unusual for German singers, and is an excellent interpreter, which is not at all uncommon for Germans. Pianist Uta Hielscher, who plays on each of the first eight volumes in this series, has a nice style with plenty of give-and-take in the rhythm and phrasing but uses only a little of the sustain pedal. This is not altogether a good thing, as it makes her slow passages sound a tad disconnected at times, but for the most part this isn’t a major problem. Nearly every track on this CD is sung ideally, which particularly surprised me in Dichterliebe because my bar is set very high. My gold standard performance is the one that Gérard Souzay recorded with Alfred Cortot in 1956, followed by the 1979 recording of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Christoph Eschenbach, but Bauer-Hielscher is very close to these in both vocalism and interpretation. An outstanding record.

VOL. 2: Bauer is back for this CD, sometimes alternating and occasionally duetting with soprano Susanna Bernhard. She has a nice voice and is highly musical, but not on the level of Bauer as an interpreter. Except for Bauer’s insight with words, only about half of this album is really outstanding as music (the Goethe songs are really interesting), but even the weaker songs are pretty good. This CD, incidentally, was recorded in 2003, two years before it was released. And curiously, if you go to download the song texts from the Naxos website, you’ll discover that this Vol. 2 was originally numbered Vol. 1 and vice-versa.

VOL. 3 consists mostly of his songs for children, ending with his five  Op. 27 Lieder und Gesänge. Bauer returns again, making magic of the songs he is assigned, complemented by Sybilla Rubens and Stefanie Iranyi. Rubens is one of my favorite modern singers, a soprano with a bright, pointed, well-focus voice; she sounds like a cross between Lucia Popp and Edith Mathis, and is always a treat to the ear. Iranyi also has a lovely, bright voice. I have no idea what talent agency Naxos contacted to recruit the singers for this project, but apparently they have some of the best voices and particularly voices for lieder in all of Germany. I suppose you could think of these as songs for your children if mom and dad and Aunt Gertrude all had first-class professional voices.

VOL. 4: Thomas E. Bauer takes a couple of CDs off. He is replaced on this disc by Hans Jörg Hammel, a tenor with a rather small voice but one that is attractive in sound, sort of a cross between Julius Patzak and Peter Anders. He’s also a bit more generic of an interpreter than either Bauer or Patzak, but still handles his voice with fine artistry. His one weakness is that his low range is rather wan. Hyperion’s complete Schumann lied edition, the only serious competition to this set, has the great British baritone Simon Keenlyside singing the 12 lieder of Justinus Kerner, a great improvement over Hammel in both voice and interpretation, but as I say, Hammel isn’t bad. He is clearly a better singer than Ian Bostridge, who is also on the Hyperion set.

VOL. 5: Since this disc features Frauenliebe und –leben, which is always sung by a woman, Naxos decided to just give the whole album over to Sybilla Rubens, and she is delightful if not quite as insightful an interpreter as Sharon Rostorf-Zamir or Klára Tákacs. (And truthfully, I’ve never cared a lot for this cycle. To me, it’s common and somewhat drippy music.) A beautiful recital album if rather short: at 47:16, it is the briefest CD in the series.

VOL. 6: It would be three more years before Vol. 6 was released. Bauer is back as the baritone and makes an immediate impression singing “Widmung” from Myrthen, in which he alternates with another newcomer, soprano Andrea Lauren Brown, whose light, airy voice is perfect for “Der Nussbaum” and quite good in her other songs. In fact, I prefer her voice to that of Camilla Tilling, who partners with Christian Gerhaher in the highly-touted Sony Classical recording of this cycle, even though some of her performances are a bit on the timid side. Bauer’s version of the “Lied eines schmedes” is a bit too slow; the rhythm doesn’t really capture the feeling of hammer on anvil.

VOL. 7, which came out two years later, belonged entirely to Thomas E. Bauer, and as usual he is magnificent in both voice and interpretation. The CD begins with the more famous Op. 39 Liederkreis, which includes both versions of “In der Fremde,” “Die Stille,” “Mondnacht” and “Wehmut.” Interestingly, of the 3 Songs Op. 31, he only does the first, “Die Löwenbraut,” even though the CD only runs 56:07 and so could easily have fit the other two songs on it. Bauer sings “Mondnacht” beautifully, but once again Hielscher’s accompaniment is just a bit too slow as well as mannered, adding a broad, slow phrasing to the opening section of the song and again in the piano postlude. I found myself missing Gerald Moore’s style of accompaniment. Although he does an excellent job on “Sonntags am Rhein,” the song’s tessitura stretches his low range to the limit since he is essentially a high baritone and not a deep one. Sadly, this was his last recording in this series.

We then had to wait six years for VOL. 8 to emerge, and her we have an entirely new cast of singers: soprano Anna Palimina, contralto Marion Eckstein, tenor Simon Bode and bass-baritone Matthias Hoffmann. This disc covers only three excerpts from Minnespiel and both books of Spanish songs, thus you get all three singers performing together most of the time. They all have pretty good voices though Palimina has a somewhat fluttery voice and her highest notes are a bit strained at full volume and Bode sounds like a “character singer” and Hoffmann is just a step or two higher than that. Eckstein and Hoffmann, however, have excellent technique, and in their solo excursions they prove that they are good interpreters if not on Bauer’s level.

VOL. 9: Here we not only switch singers once again, getting baritone Detlef Roth, but also switch pianists from Hielscher to Ulrich Eisenlohr. Roth has a light baritone voice, even lighter than Bauer’s, that is unsteady with poor breath support. Although he is an interesting interpreter, this is clearly the poorest disc in the series. I seriously doubt that many Schumann lovers “snapped this disc up,” particularly since most of these songs are available in far superior versions by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. It was also pretty dumb to give “Die nonne,” a song for a woman, to a baritone.

VOL. 10: Lots of duets, mostly between soprano Caroline Melzer and mezzo Anke Vondung. The former has a fluttery voice, but the latter is excellent. Tenor Simon Bode also returns on this one. Some of the performances are excellent but others are not, so this one is a mixed bag.

So there you are, fully up to date on the Naxos Schumann Lied Edition with Vol. 11, the last one, yet to come. Vols. 1-7 are very good to superb, but the last two leave something to be desired.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@Artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read The Penguin’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Classical Music

Happy Birthday, Leontyne Price!

HANDEL: Atalanta: Care selve. Agrippina: Bel piacere e godere. Giulio Cesare: Piangero la sorte mia si crudele. BRAHMS: Ziguenerlied. GIORDANO: Andrea Chenier: La mamma morta. POULENC: Miroirs brulants: Nos. 1 & 2. Main dominee par le cœur. Metamorphoses: No. 2, C’est ainsi que tu es. BARBER: Nocturne. The Daisies. Sleep Now. HOLBY: Songs for Leontyne: No. 4, Winter Song; No. 5, In the Wand of the Wind. TRAD.: His Name So Sweet. My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord. Lord, I Just Can’t Keep From Cryin’. He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands. PUCCINI: La Rondine: Chi il bel sogno di Doretta. Tosca: Vissi d’arte. GERSHWIN: Porgy and Bess: Summertime. CILEA: Adriana Lecouvreur: Respiro appena…Io son l’umile / Leontyne Price, sop; David Garvey, pno / RCA Red Seal 090266390823 (live: New York, February 28, 1965)

Happy Birthday, Mary Violet Leontyne Price!

The old girl is 94 years old today. Neither racism nor competition, old age, pains or Covid-19 can stop her. She takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’. When asked a few years ago if she still vocalized very day, she said, “Of course I do. It’s the only part of my body that still works without Blue Emu, Aspercreme or Ben-Gay!”

Hardly anyone under the age of 60 will ever believe what an incredible celebrity she was in her prime. I still remember, as a teenager going to New York on the bus in 1967-68 (I couldn’t drive yet) to see occasional performances in New York, how her picture filled up those huge poster-sized ads on either side of the subway tunnels. Leontyne in an ermine coat, or wearing a bucket of jewelry, larger than life. And the advertisers didn’t even have to put her name on the ads. All they said was, “What becomes a legend best?” Everyone knew who the legend was.

Of course she had obstacles on her way to the top. Even at a time (1954) when African-American soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs was already at the Metropolitan Opera, singing those high coloratura roles that were a half octave above Leontyne’s range, she was appearing on television singing Tosca—but did not yet have a Met contract. Word on the street was that the Met’s general manager, Rudolf Bing, was definitely going to bring her there, so in 1959 RCA Victor signed her to a 10-year contract and started recording her, first in Il Trovatore with Met stars Richard Tucker, Leonard Warren and Rosalind Elias, then in Verdi’s Requiem with Elias, Jussi Björling, Giorgio Tozzi and conductor Fritz Reiner. The latter was issued in RCA’s prestigious “Soria Series.” She sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni at the Vienna Opera under Erich Leinsdorf. But she still wasn’t at the Met. That didn’t come until 1961 in Verdi’s Aïda, and Bing hedged his bets against her receiving a poor reception by also debuting glamour-boy tenor Franco Corelli in the same performance. But it didn’t matter. Leontyne was a smash success.

Beyond Aïda, however, Leontyne encountered a strange sort of reverse racism. The critics loved her in Aïda because for once they had an Ethiopian princess who actually looked Ethiopian, but some had trouble accenting her as a Spanish doña in Trovatore or Ernani, and even more trouble when she appeared in “whiteface” as the young Japanese girl Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly.

Oddly, Price’s repertoire consisted of only a dozen operas (two of them outliers, Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra and Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Caremlites) plus the Verdi Requiem, yet she built a 17-career around those works. The voice began to have problems in 1977, in part because she laid so heavily into the top range that her lower range had become somewhat hollow and disconnected. By 1981 she stopped singing stage performances and stuck to recitals, which she performed for another decade.

But this recital, given in 1965, shows a soprano in full command of her voice, in part because she lightened it considerably for this performance. Indeed, throughout the first part of it, the Handel arias and Brahms Gypsy Songs, you’d almost think this was the Leontyne Price of 1954-55. The singing is not always subtle, but it is extraordinarily beautiful and the voice sounds fully integrated. Price’s greatest asset as a singer was her strict fidelity to the music. If the score said a quarter note, she sang a quarter note, if an eighth note she sang an eighth note. Nothing was ever stretched out of shape to show off her breath control or how long she could hold her high notes. She was a musician first and foremost, and this recital proves that. Other sopranos might have laid more heavily into the drama of “La mamma morta,” held onto the high notes for all they were worth, but not Price. A quarter note was a quarter note and an eighth an eighth, no more and no less. Yes, she gives a few interpretive touches to the words, but for her the music was sacrosanct. Bless her for that, many times over. In that respect alone, she was an important pioneer in the history of opera.

Yes, her singing of Poulenc is a couple of degrees too loud…French chanson was really not her thing, even though she did sing the composer’s Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Met. But even here, in the middle of “Tu vois le feu du soir” she suddenly lightens the voice as she did in the Handel and Brahms at the beginning of the recital. Maybe it was this shifting of gears in her voice production that eventually pulled the voice apart. Although she had very good training when young, a lot of what Leontyne did was instinctual and natural. You can tell as much from her frank, open and unmannered singing of the three Samuel Barber songs, reminding one of her early Columbia recording of that composer’s Hermit Songs.

Lee Hoiby’s 8 Songs for Leontyne Price (she only sings two of them here) have modern-modal harmonic leanings but are essentially lyrical pieces well suited to the soprano’s voice, and she responds beautifully here to two of them. Next up is the group of four spirituals. Unlike Marian Anderson, to whom singing spirituals did not come naturally (she was raised in a religious environment that didn’t include them), Price has a real swagger and bounce to her singing of these that is infectious even if you don’t buy into the religious context. (I got a kick out of her introducing Florence Price’s arrangement of My Soul’s Been Anchored by saying that Florence was “not a relative.”) Margaret Bonds’ arrangements of the last two spirituals is much more harmonically sophisticated than the first two.

Price ends the concert with an encore performance of “Vissi d’arte” from one of her signature roles, that of Floria Tosca. Opera fans and critics of the time preferred Maria Callas in this role, and Callas certainly gave the more riveting overall performance, but Price had her glorious voice and her musicianship to offer by way of compensation.

An excellent recital and a good way to remember this remarkable soprano.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@Artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read The Penguin’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Classical Music

Benedetto Boccuzzi’s Debut Album

Á CLAUDE / DEBUSSY: Images, Deuxieme Série. Deux Danses pour Harp et Orchestre (arr. Boccuzzi). BOCCUZZI: (quasi) Notturno. CRUMB: Makrokosmos I: Nos. III, VIII & XI. Makrokosmos II: Nos. III, IV & XI. MESSIAEN: Vingt Régards sur l’enfant-Jésus: Nos. II, IV & VIII. ROTARU: Debumessiquisse. TAKEMITSU: Les yeux clos II. Rain tree sketch II in memoriam Olivier Messiaen / Benedetto Boccuzzi, pno / Digressione Music DCTT111

The notes for this CD by Fiorella Sassanelli tell us that Benedetto Boccuzzi is a young pianist, just 30 years old, who “has taken very precise paths in terms of aesthetic and repertoire choices that allow him to present a record that captivates the listener without necessarily being an unprecedented monograph resulting from some musicological discovery or some rare repertoire,” although the music of Diana Rotaru (b. 1981) is indeed rather esoteric and not at all as well known as the other composers presented here. Boccuzzi, who performs regularly in Europe, says in the booklet that he feels “like a magician who pulls fantastical inventions out of a box of wonders.” This CD is scheduled for release next week (February 15).

Certainly, his approach to Debussy’s music is on the ethereal side, and he uses this composer’s music to bookend his recital, the Images at the beginning and the Deux Danses at the end. Yet despite his light touch and use of pedal, his Debussy is not mannered or otherwise Romanticized; it bears a strong resemblance to the way Michael Korstick plays this composer’s works. His choice of the remaining repertoire on this CD is meant to show Debussy’s influence on later composer who wrote in entirely different styles based on the same basic aesthetic.

Despite being Italian, his style sounds more deeply rooted in the French school of playing, similar to Casedesus and even in some respects like Cortot. It also helps that the microphone placement is perfect, fully capturing Boccuzzi’s sound as if he were playing in your living room and not trying to emulate an empty concert hall. He is also a master technician who can make the most difficult passages sound easy without being glib. And when he moves from Debussy to his own somewhat strange (quasi) Notturno, one recognizes the connection to Debussy despite his sometimes playing the inside strings of his instrument, not for cheap effect but for color and emphasis. This piece is much more harmonically daring than Debussy, and has a less definite form; at times, it sounds as if he was also whistling softly while holding down a low bass range chord. From there he moves on to the music of George Crumb, which is not so different in style from his own, and he plays it very well indeed.

And just as Boccuzzi shows the links between Debussy and his own music, his own music and that of Crumb, he then turns to Messiaen as an earlier link between them all. Boccuzzi also plays Messiaen a bit crisper and less Romantic than many French pianists do, yet still maintains a light, airy feel for the music.

As it turns out, Rotaru’s Debumessiquise is another piece in the Messiaen mold, combining amorphic mood moments with more structured components, including some fast keyboard flourishes. From Messiaen and Rotaru, we then move on to Takemitsu, whose music is even more abstract yet within the same basic school. Boccuzzi then returns to Debussy to wrap things up in his own transcriptions of the Deux Danses for harp and orchestra.

It is such a pleasure to hear a pianist with an imaginative recital combining music from the early 20th century to later in that century as well as from the 21st. Would that more artists had Boccuzzi’s artistic imagination and open mind!

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@Artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read The Penguin’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Classical Music

Dan Blake’s “Da Fé”

BLAKE: Prologue – A New Normal. Cry of the East. Like Fish in Puddles.* Pain.* The Grifter. The Cliff. Doctor Armchair.* Da Fé.* Epilogue: It Heals Itself / Dan Blake, s-sax/t-sax; Carmen Staaf, pno/Fender Rhodes; Leo Genovese, synth/prophet/farisa/6-trak/Fender Rhodes/*pno; Dmitry Ishenko, bs/el-bs; Jeff Williams, dm / Sunnyside Records SSC 1616

This CD, scheduled for release on March 12, is one of those “statement” albums about world hunger and the false religion of catastrophic climate change (yes, we’re having climate change, but it’s far from catastrophic…the Earth has been through 100X worse in the past, try reading history), but if you just put all of that aside and listen to the music it’s really quite good.

The album opens with a free-form piano solo by Carmen Staaf that morphs through several keys (and key changes), which hold the listener’s interest. I really couldn’t pin down Staaf’s style; it seems to be completely his own, though based on several modern pianist of the past half-century. Towards the end we hear some electronic whooshing and a high whine in the background.

On Cry of the East, the full band comes in, playing a quirky melodic line set to an irregular meter. Blake plays excellent soprano sax, not only inventive but with good control of the instrument that reminded me of Paul Winter. The tune has several pauses and meter changes as it wends its way along. The quintet as a whole plays in an amorphic style that I found quite intriguing. At one point, it seemed to me that Blake had double-tracked himself playing both soprano and tenor in counterpoint against one another, a nice touch. Here, too, Staaf’s piano solo is a bit more conventional in form and layout but none the less interesting. Blake’s soprano solo combines scalar and serrated passages using thirds with little Coltrane-like flurries, and is likewise quite interesting.

Like Fish in Puddles opens with a drum roll before moving into the odd melodic line which is built around a few motifs, and Blake almost immediately begins filling in with improvisations. Here the musical pauses and tempo shifts are more obvious and extreme, yet he somehow makes it all fit together. The tempo comes way down for the piano solo by bassist Leo Genovese, who plays this instrument on four pieces in this set. After a piano and drum break, Blake switches to tenor, but again doubles himself, this time adding commentary on the soprano. An ocarina-type of instrument is also heard, probably one of the electronic things played by Genovese. Pain lives up to its title. It is a slow, very painful-sounding piece. There is no joy in Mudville on this one. Swirling synthesizer sounds float in the ether behind Blake’s free-form playing. Despite the use of a synthesizer, there’s a certain Mingus-like feel to this piece.

The Grifter is a really neat, uptempo piece, again with an unusual melodic line. I noticed, by this time, that the way Blake writes pieces he lets the lead line dictate the harmony rather than the other way around. Interesting, especially here where the chords sometimes change on every beat in a bar. Interestingly, it sounds here as if Blake has found a way to move the soprano sax down into the tenor range—either that, or he’s playing both instrument at once à la Rahsaan Roland Kirk. (He does indeed double-track himself for the screaming finale.)

The Cliff is perhaps the most interesting piece on the album, opening up with Blake’s multi-tracked tenor playing off-kilter serrated passages, then moving into a Monk-like line. Eventually the music becomes extremely complex as Blake continues to morph the meter and also starts playing his two saxes against one another slightly out of synch. This was, to my ears, almost a modern classical piece than a jazz one except for Staaf’s rather wild, slightly Monk-like piano. Bassist Isheknko finally gets a solo on this one, too, which stays within the parameters set by the lead line.

Doctor Armchair is also a rather wild piece, more free-form than like Mingus or Monk, with Blake on soprano and Genovese on piano flying around in the introductory passages. What little melodic line there is seems to be reserved for the break. Crazy, man! The title tune, Da Fé, is the “spaciest” piece on the album, using soft electronics along with Blake’s soprano and the rhythm section in a fast-tempoed but deliberately understated tune with generally soft volume but lots of outré improvisations before it settles down a bit as Blake plays a kaleidoscopic creation of his own.

The sound of water opens the Epilogue, followed by cymbal washes, then Blake’s soprano sax over the piano and bass. It’s a quiet, peaceful way of ending a very creative CD, with Blake’s soprano playing a repeated six-note lick while his tenor improvises in the foreground, becoming ever wilder and more complex.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read my book, From Baroque to Bop and Beyond: An extended and detailed guide to the intersection of classical music and jazz

Fernando Greco’s Cello Extension

_Booklet

MANZOLI: Abstract Passage I-VI. Logische da una persistenze I & II. BO: Prologo. Intermezzo a Capriccio. PEDRAGLIO: Polifonie I & II. RAVERA: In – stabile equilibrio. D’intenso svanire. ROSATO: Ombre I & II. BELLINO: Intermezzo I & II / Fernando Caida Greco, cel / Tactus TC 960004

According to Emiliano Giannetti’s liner notes:

This project represents a natural conclusion of a twenty-year long research on instrumental treatises written from the 18th to the 20th century…That research, far from standard philology – which tends to match the used instrument with the performed repertoire – as well as from the new trends that lead contemporary composers to write for period instruments, turns out to be very relevant in relation to the performance practice…In this recording, instead, all the typical characteristics of the string instruments made in the violin making’s golden age – the era marked by Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri – are brought back to the cello.

All of the pieces on this CD were written in the 21st century, yet are played on an 1880 Claude Augustin Miremont cello. Between you, me and the light socket, I think that some of this is just a lot of folderol. Classical musicians are MUCH too hung up on “historical performance practices,” as if a return to the days when instruments sounded weak and pathetic was some sort of magic portal to our “understanding” of the music we’re hearing. It’s as if a New Orleans band that chooses to put on a concert of early 20th-century jazz music insisted on playing the old Albert system clarinets, gut string basses and defective trumpets and trombones that poor black musicians of that time had to deal with as a way of conveying the “authenticity” of early jazz. It’s all smoke and mirrors; in the end, all that really matters is the music itself.

As you can see from the above header, composer Andrea Manzoli (b. 1977) gets the lion’s share of the music on this disc. Her six Abstract Passages are actually spread out through the CD, and played out of order to boot. These are essentially microtonal exercises in which she takes a single tone, toys with it for a couple of minutes by moving it up and down by small degrees of pitch and instructing the cellist to play in various ways, i.e. with the edge of the bow on the strings. It’s an interesting experiment but doesn’t have much substance.

Sonia Bo (b. 1960) also works in microtones but is more diverse in her construction of musical material, using a full octave, sometimes in the tempered scale and sometimes using extended notes outside the tonality, Thus hers is as much a constructed piece using variations as it is microtonal “mood” music, though I’m sure it is no less confusing to the average listener. Fernando Caida Greco has a huge, full cello tone which is given a lot of resonance here. To a certain extent, this reverb is necessary to allow the music to resonate in a concert space, yet although the clarity of his playing assures that nothing is lost to the ear even in the softest passages, I felt it was a little overdone, as is so often the case nowadays.

Manzoli’s Abstract Passage III, which follows next, is a very busy piece  covering a wider range of tones and played at a fast tempo. We then move to Umberto Pedraglio’s Polifonie I & II, which is music in the same vein.

The pieces on this CD are indeed all somewhat different, but all are microtonal and to my ears it sounds as if they all got together and decided to write all this music in essentially the same style. What this means to the listener is that, though the program is quite interesting in places, in a blindfold test one would be completely unable to differentiate between the composers. Without different names (and titles) on the pieces in this set, you’d think they were all written by the same person, even though Pedraglio’s Polifonie II opens with a surprisingly lyrical passage that comes and goes throughout the piece.

Yes, I found much of the music here fascinating but none of it of lasting value. This is essentially a one-off, a set of curiosities which entice the listener without really satisfying him or her. It’s like the barker outside of a carnival sideshow promising you more than the sideshow actually delivers. I find much more of substance in the split-tone experiments of Julián Carrillo and Harry Partch. Perhaps one thing that affects my mood in this respect is that almost none of these pieces have any real climaxes in them, thus to my ears they don’t really go anywhere. They are technical and tonal lab experiments, interesting but ephemeral. Indeed, the one piece here that I felt was really different, Manzoli’s Abstract Passage V, was so abrasive to my ears that it gave me a headache.

Of course, you may feel entirely different about them. That’s the beauty of hearing music differently, and all I can speak for is my own reaction.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@Artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read The Penguin’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Classical Music

Heise’s “Drot og Marsk” Recorded

HEISE: Drot og Marsk [King and Marshal] / Sofie Elkjær Jensen, sop (Aase); Gert Henning-Jensen, ten (Rane Johnsen); Peter Lodahl, ten (King Erik, aka Klipping); Johan Reuter, bs-bar (Field Marshal Stig Andersen); Sine Bundgaard, sop (Lady Ingeborg); Morten Staugaard, bs (Count Jakob); Simon Duus, bs-bar (Archdeacon Jens Grand); Mathias Monrad Møller, ten (Arved Bengtsen); Teit Kanstrup, bar (Herald); Royal Danish Opera Chorus & Orch.; Michael Schønwandt, cond / Dacapo 6200006 (live: Copenhagen, April 12, May 22 & 25, 2019)

As far as I can tell, the only other commercial recording of this 1878 opera by Danish composer Peter Heise is the one on Chandos, also conducted by Michael Schonwandt. According to what I’ve read online, Heise was an important Danish composer of the 19th century but is considered to be fairly conservative in style.

The opera’s plot concerns the real murder of Danish king Eric Clipping (or Klipping) in 1286. Apparently, Clipping was a real womanizer on the level of Don Juan, and when he seduced Ingeborg, the wife of Field Marshal Stig, the marshal hires paid assassins to kill him. Afterwards, however, the plot is revealed, Stig is banished and Ingeborg commits suicide.

Of course, there is much more to the action than that. According to the synopsis in the CD booklet, both the King and his servant Rane are pretty randy guys who just can’t stop trying to seduce women regardless of their class. In the opening scene, both take turns hitting up on Aase, the charcoal burner’s daughter. Naturally, Eric is able to succeed over Rane because he can promise her jewels and other splendor, so off she goes to the Castle o’ Love. It is while Eric and Aase are partying hard in the castle that Marshal Stig, off to fight those nasty Swedes in battle, entrusts his wife Ingeborg to the King’s care. Which is kind of like asking Jeffrey Epstein to keep an eye on your pretty young wife to see that no one molests her. The minute Stig is gone Eric asks Ingeborg to dance with him and the seduction is on.

By Act II, Ingeborg is weaving some fabric and already lamenting her fate, having given in to the King’s advances and knowing that sooner or later the axe will fall on her. In order to somewhat blunt her husband’s anger, Ingeborg herself tells him what happened when he returns and deeply regrets her actions. Moved by this, Stig decides not to kill her but to kill the King. When he and his army are presented to Eric as victors in war, the Marshal says he will have his revenge even though Eric claims that she gave herself to him willingly.

Rane (remember Rane? the servant?) is supposed to lead the King into Marshal Stig’s ambush, but he doesn’t show up because both he and Eric are lost in the woods. (Some smart king and servant ya got there, huh?) Suddenly, we’re back at Aase’s hut in the woods (remember Aase’s hut?). She spots the cowl-clad conspirators and suspects trouble (duh, you think?). She warns Eric and Rane about the cowl-clad men and they go off, but dimbulb forgets his sword…so Aase runs after him to bring it to him. But of course, too late, the conspirators run him through and he’s done for.

So that’s your plot. Heise was considered to be a fairly conservative composer in his day, but truthfully, what I hear is very creative music in a style modeled after early Wagner or mid-period Verdi—which in 1878 was not considered modern, but is interesting nonetheless. Of course, much of the music’s impact is dependent upon the conductor, and even in the overture I was impressed by Schonwandt’s approach, which is to maximize the darkness and drama of the score with a powerful impact. Interestingly, Heise shifts gears from ominous to light-hearted quickly and easily when one reaches the first scene and Aase’s aria. Soprano Sofie Elkjær Jensen has an excellent, bright voice, firm and solid up top, with crystal-clear diction. The aria itself is nice but nothing to write home about, but this is fairly typical of mid-19th-century opera. Gert Henning-Jensen, our Rane, has a pleasant but somewhat unsteady tenor voice and, in his first scene at least, sounds just a bit strained up top, but he gets by. Peter Lodahl, our King Erik, has an even looser vibrato in his first scene with Aase. Well, hey, he’s rich and he’s the King, so I guess he doesn’t have to sing all that well. I made a quick comparison between this performance and Schønwandt’s English-language version on Chandos. King Erik is sung there by Poul Elming, who has a finer voice than Lodahl, but the Aase, Inga Nielsen, sounds wan and slightly strangulated, and Schønwandt’s conducting isn’t half as dynamic as on this live performance in Danish.

One thing I liked about the opera was the way Heise kept the music flowing. As it moves from scene to scene, it sounds far less episodic than, say, Il Trovatore or even La Traviata. Sine Bundgaard, who sings Ingeborg, has a noticeable vibrato but not an uneven or overly annoying one, and she characterizes her role well. But when you consider that he’s the star of the show, I just couldn’t put up with the wobbly, strangulated singing of Lodahl. If this is what the Danes consider a star tenor nowadays, they’re in some serious trouble. This is a shame as the music of Drot og Marsk is clearly quite interesting and the opera deserves wider exposure.

Ah,  but there is an alternative to both Schønwandt recordings, and that is the live 1993 performance that some kind soul has uploaded on YouTube. Here, the Aase is sung by Inger Dam Jensen, who is nearly as good as Sofie Elkjær Jensen, and King Erik is sung by Ruders, in even finer voice than on the Chandos recording. Soprano Antje Jansen is Ingeborg, and she, too is better than her counterpart on this recording. and conductor Tamas Vetö does almost as fine a job with the music as Schønwandt. Of the principals, only Anders Jacobssen as Marshal Stig has a covered, somewhat strained voice, and he gets by due to his excellent acting. I switched over to this performance from the Dacapo recording at the point of Ingeborg’s second-act aria and just kept on listening; the performance is splendid, though the sound is a little boxy. Some treble boost is recommended if you record it as streaming audio or download it.

The one plus for getting this recording is the booklet, which includes the full libretto in both Danish and English, although a complete Danish-only libretto is available online HERE.

—© 2021 Lynn René Bayley

Follow me on Twitter (@Artmusiclounge) or Facebook (as Monique Musique)

Return to homepage OR

Read The Penguin’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Classical Music