Sutermeister’s Orchestral Songs

SUTERMEISTER: Consolatio philosophiae, Dramatic Scene for High Voice & Orch. Romeo und Julia: Ich reise weit. 7 Liebesbriefe for Tenor & Orch.* 6 Liebesfriefe for Soprano & Orch. / Juliane Banse, sop except *Benjamin Bruns, ten; Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz; Rainer Held, cond / Toccata Classics TOCC0608

Heinrich Sutermeister (1910-1995) occupies a somewhat uneasy position in musical history. Although his music clearly used some modern devices borrowed from the modern French school, Stravinsky and even (at times) Carl Orff, he is often considered to have been too tonal and therefore too “retro” to be considered a “great” composer, but when his opera Romeo und Julia was premiered in 1940, conductor Karl Böhm hailed him as a genius.

But there are plenty of things to be said in C major or any other tonal key you wish to name, and Sutermeister was clearly an original and imaginative composer. Here we have several extended works for voice and orchestra, the only problem of which are that Juliane Banse, once one of the finest sopranos of our modern era, seems to have had some significant vocal deterioration. Her once-luscious tone is now hard and shrill, particularly in the upper register, and she has an almost continuous flutter in the voice that bespeaks poor breath support. To her credit, however, she is still an intense interpreter, though you’ll surely be wincing at the actual sound of her voice. And since these are first recordings of these works, we don’t have anyone else to plug in to replace her.

And the music is clearly interesting, particularly in such late works as the Consolatio philosophiae (1977) and the Sechs Liebesbriefe (1979) where Sutermeister updated his musical style somewhat though not subscribing to the atonal school that had pretty much taken over classical music by that time. The text for the former comes from the poetry of Jean-Claude Piguet (1924-2000) which is fairly stern stuff. One example:

1. The Path of Truth

If any man makes search for truth with all his penetration, and would be led astray by no deceiving paths, let him turn upon himself the light of an inward gaze, let him bend by force the long-drawn wanderings of his thoughts into one circle; let him tell surely to his soul, that he has, thrust away within the treasures of his mind, all that he labours to acquire without. Then shall that truth, which now was hid in error’s darkening cloud, shine forth more clear than Phoebus’ self. The seed of truth does surely cling within, and can be roused as a spark by the fanning of philosophy.

This certainly doesn’t look like the kind of text that could be set to music, but Sutermeister did indeed succeed in doing so, using a combination of strophic lines and lyric ones, creating a sung narrative that lies somewhere between Schoenberg’s Erwärtung and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. The orchestration has an equally stern sound, almost metallic in the way he used the winds and basses, at times pulling against each other to create a sonic landscape of polar opposites. Despite the relatively light scoring, however, the sung text clearly calls for a powerful and not a lyric soprano voice. Perhaps Banse, whose earlier singing leaned much more towards lyricism, simply pushed the voice too hard, creating the shrill sounds one hears in this performance.

I’m not sure why Banse and conductor Rainer Held felt the need to include the aria from Romeo und Julia on this disc. It is not different from the version used in the opera and adds nothing to one’s perception of Sutermeister. I guess that Banse just liked it and wanted to record it.

We get a break from Banse’s overdriven soprano in the 7 Liebesbriefe for Tenor and Orchestra from 1935. At age 25, the young Sutermeister was clearly on his way to being able to create interesting music that skirted tonality without abandoning it, and tenor Benjamin Bruns has a high, light voice which he uses to great effect. The second half of the first song in particular clearly shows Sutermeister’s Orff influence while the second (“Der Naturphilosoph”) channels the very personal lyrical style he used to such great effect in Romeo und Julia. But every song in this set has a different musical style; Sutermeister was clearly not a composer who was locked into just one “voice,” but knew how to vary his approach. Both of these song “collections” for tenor and soprano are based on poems by a number of writers, including Goethe, von Humboldt, Burger, Lessing, Margaretha Kuffner and Maria Theresia. The fourth tenor song, “Der Bürger als Brautigam,” sounds the most conventionally melodic and tuneful, but it suits the text, and even so, Sutermeister uses unorthodox rhythmic displacement to break up the meter in certain bars. In the following song, Sutermeister creates an orchestral texture that sounds like an organ, playing two clashing chords at the same time in the lower register. Everything he did was unusual and varied; he was completely unpredictable.

Listening to this recording of the tenor songs, however, I think I have a clue as to why Banse’s voice sounds so hard and shrill. Both she and Bruns are recorded with very close miking. I think that if they had placed them back a foot or so from the microphone, the results wouldn’t sound so abrasive. Just a thought on my part, nothing else.

Wonder of wonders, the 6 Liebesbriefe for Soprano are in not only a different style from the early set for tenor but also quite different from the Consolatio philosophiae of two years earlier. There’s a certain Middle Eastern sound to the harmonies, and the orchestration is much lighter and quite different. It occurred to me while listening to this CD that perhaps the reason music critics, performers and academics abandoned Sutermeister in the mid-1950s was because his early fame had overshadowed another Swiss musical genius, Frank Martin, whose music was somewhat edgier and more modern and thus in line with the times.

Except for the extreme shrillness and “spread” in Banse’s voice, which I sincerely hope is only a temporary thing, this disc is clearly recommended. Except for the familiar Romeo und Julia aria, the music is fresh, surprising and arresting. There’s not much more you could ask for.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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Barshai’s Hair-Raising Mahler 10th

MAHLER: Symphony No. 10 (ed. Barshai) / Junge Deutsche Philharmonie; Rudolf Barshai, cond / Brilliant Classics 94040 (live: 9/12/2001; also available for free streaming on YouTube)

Someone on Twitter posted the cover of this recording yesterday, and it caught my eye because I had never seen it or heard of it before. This is a live 2001 performance of Rudolf Barshai’s re-orchestration of the Mahler Tenth Symphony, played by (as the name indicates) an orchestra of young German musicians. It was originally issued in 2003 as part of a 2-CD set with his recording of the Mahler Fifth, then in 2010, the year of Barshai’s death, as a stand-alone disc.

The good news is that it is a very intense and powerful reading of the score, in fact one of the very best I’ve ever heard—I can only compare it with the even lesser-known performance conducted by Mark Wigglesworth with the BBC Symphony. More controversial, however, is Barshai’s decision to score the symphony for a much fuller orchestra than Mahler himself did in the “Adagio” and everyone else has done in the rest of the symphony.

David Hurwitz, a critic I generally agree with 90% of the time (very good odds!), wrote an excellent review of this performance on his website, Classics Today, from which I quote the following:

Barshai’s own orchestration of the unfinished Tenth Symphony, heavily scored for a huge orchestra that doesn’t sound especially Mahlerian (at this stage in his career Mahler’s own scoring would have been much leaner and more economical), but nevertheless played to the hilt by Barshai and his remarkable youth ensemble.

The first movement in particular has the most hair-raisingly terrifying climax that anyone has ever achieved from this music. Part of the effect may derive from Barshai’s fuller instrumentation and bolder dynamics, and you can’t help but notice the date of this live performance: September 12, 2001. Whatever the reason, the entire reading has tremendous intensity and conviction, though as with all arrangers of this work Barshai hasn’t quite solved the problem of the finale’s quick middle section and the return of the first-movement climax–nor perhaps (at this stage of composition) had Mahler.[1]

But I, personally, would point out that the Tenth Symphony was his emotional reaction to learning of his wife Alma’s licentious infidelity, a discovery which wracked Mahler to the core of his being. (He even wrote a note in the score wondering why she had betrayed him.) Of course, this goes against Alma’s assertion that the Tenth was a “love letter” to her, but then again, she refused to let anyone see the entire score as long as she was alive. This was only discovered after her death.

Thus there is at least this to justify Barshai’s use of an orchestra equal to the size of that used in the Fifth through the Seventh symphonies, although I think I heard the addition of an organ in the second large climax of the opening “Adagio” (and also in the last movement), but since no one else has brought this up it just might be the unusual way be combines low winds and strings. He does, however, have the strings use much longer bowing than usual, and I think this is something that Mahler would have agreed with. (He also adds mandolins to the orchestra.) Alma’s betrayal, as I said, shook Mahler to the core, and let’s face it, his symphonies are all personal diaries in sound of his deepest fears, loves, longings and reactions to natural stimuli. Even moreso than Beethoven, who ranks second in this respect, or Weinberg, who ranks third, the powerful emotions of Mahler’s music are what repelled most conductors before the late 1950s. The music was not only neurotic at times, but didn’t follow the set “rules” of composition and thus were considered to be no more than hysterical rants.

Barshai’s reading of the Scherzo is also more emotionally powerful than anyone else’s, again due in large part to the new orchestration but also to the way he drove his orchestra. In fact, they play each and every movement as if their very lives depended on it. The transition into the last movement suddenly shifts the mood from neurotic to an incredible depth of sadness, almost too much for one person to bear, and this, too is caught perfectly by the orchestra,

Whatever your take on the orchestration may be, there’s no question that this is one of the most emotional Maher Tenths ever recorded. Absolutely a hell of a performance; I guarantee that, once heard, you’ll never forget it.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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[1] https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-10257/

Eric Goletz Plays Standards

PARKER: Now’s the Time. STYNE-COMDEN: Just in Time. TIZOL-ELLINGTON-MILLS: Caravan. SILVER: Nutville. Jungle Juice. Mayreh. AHBEZ: Nature Boy. HARRELL: Train Shuffle. LEGRAND: The Summer Knows. Windmills of Your Mind. GERSHWIN-HEYWARD: Summertime. TURRENTINE: Sugar. WONDER: Overjoyed. PARKER: Now’s the Time: Outro / Eric Goletz, tb/pno; Don Braden, s-sax; Jim Ridl, pno; Henry Heinitsh, el-gtr; Brian Glassman, bs/el-bs/contrabass; Steve Johns, dm; Joe Mowatt, perc; Lajuan Carter, voc; Robin Zeh, Paul Woodiel, vln; Michael Roth, David Gold, vla; Sarah Hewitt-Roth, cel / Consolidated Artists Publications CAP-1073

Eric Goletz, a noted West Coast trombonist-composer, presents his take on a number of pop and jazz standards on this disc scheduled for release on February 23. Goletz explained that the origin of this CD was a casual, cocktail-hour gig where he was “told to play whatever we wanted, so we decided to just have fun and pick tunes that he wanted to blow on.” The result was so successful that Goletz arranged four of them and had them recorded. The rest of the album just sort of followed.

While I really enjoyed this album, I have a major complaint. It would be nice if either Goletz or CAP Records would have been considerate enough to list the COMPOSERS OF THE SONGS. Personally, I thought this was not only industry standard but a legal requirement. In my case it was quite annoying since I didn’t know six of the tunes on this disc, and thus had to chase all over the Internet to try to find out who wrote what…and, as it turns out, there are more than one songs named “Sugar” and “Overjoyed,” so if I got the wrong accreditation it’s Goletz’ fault, not mine.

But there is no complaint about the high quality of these arrangements or, particularly, of Goletz’ solo playing. He is, undisputedly, the best modern jazz trombonist I’ve ever heard. Between his phenomenal chops and his highly inventive improvisations, he even leaves such legendary names as J.J. Johnson or Jimmy Knepper—both superb players, I’m not demeaning them—in the dust. And just because these pieces are not originals by Goletz doesn’t mean that his composer’s mind is not at work. Just listen to the way he re-writes Charlie Parker’s Now’s the Time, changing the harmonies to make them shift upwards and downwards using both whole and half-tone changes upwards and downwards. Goletz’ solo on this one is simply astounding, incorporating “outside” changes within the basic framework of the tune’s changes. Soprano saxist Don Braden, though quite good, plays in a much simpler, funk-inspired style even his chase chorus with Goletz. Pianist Jim Ridl plays in a nice single-note style drawing a bit on Tristano, and guitarist Henry Heinitsch also has a nice style. But one has to be honest, and the truth is that Goletz is head and shoulders above his bandmates in musical invention. His tone is not as full as those of Johnson or Knepper, in part because in order to play with this kind of fleetness he has to keep the breath pressure light so that he can use both lips and slide to get all those complex figures in, but what he plays is just stunning.

It’s also nice, for a change, to hear the bass and drums really swing and not try to play such rhythmically complex figures that one is constantly trying to figure out exactly what rhythm they’re playing in in relation to the rest of the band. Ridl makes a more challenging partner for Goletz in his chase chorus here, and bassist Brian Glassman is no slouch on his instrument, playing a nice solo with some bent notes.

Goletz completely rewrites Juan Tizol’s Caravan in a way I’v never heard from anyone else before, creating a single-note piano line in the bass and shifting the rhythm around, even adding an extra couple of bars here and there. This is the first track on which he uses the strings, and although they don’t play very complex figures, he again has them scored in an interesting way, using shifting chords. When Ridl begins his solo chorus, we suddenly switch to a straight 4 to accompany his single-note playing, followed by Heinitsch (whose guitar, I swear to you, almost sounds like those wonderful hollow-body electrics of the Eddie Durham-Charlie Christian era).  There’s a brief but nice three-way passage including Goletz, Ridl and Heinitsch before a return to the funky beat of the opening.

As noted earlier, I’m not all that familiar with these Horace Silver tunes (I like his playing but don’t own all that many of his records), but once again Goletz gets them to swing and adds some interesting changes. Heinitsch platys a really excellent solo on this one. Although I’ve always liked Eden Ahbez’ Nature Boy, I could have lived without the pathetic “singing” of one Lajuan Carter (sorry, I don’t care how many R&B artists she has backed) or the soporific whole-tone string writing. Goletz’ solo, a good but not a great one, is the only attraction on this tune. Despite a good arrangement and some very fine solos, I didn’t think much of Jungle Juice as a piece, even in Goletz’ fine arrangement. Mayreh, on the other hand, is a nice swinging tune played with just the right light touch (and more fine solos), but The Summer Knows is a real drippy piece that sounds like elevator music. And so the album goes.

Bottom line: This is a nice album with some truly outstanding tracks and a few weak ones, though consistently interesting for Goletz’ playing.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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Vol. 1 of Bacewicz Symphonies Released

BACEWICZ: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 / WDR Sinfonieorchester; Łukasz Borowicz, cond / CPO 555 556-2

It seems almost incredible that, although there were sporadic recordings of Grazyna Bacewicz’ music in the past, most of the recordings and attention she has received have come in the past decade. Prior to that, she was a respected but somewhat shadowy figure in the world of music. Today, I would say that, at least on records, she is a major force to be reckoned with.

The good news about this release is that it is listed as Vol. 1 of her complete symphonic works, which means that we will surely be graced by more CDs in the future. The bad news, so to speak, is that the series starts with Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4, which were already recorded 28 years ago by Roland Bader with the Krakow Philharmonic for Koch International and are available for free streaming on You Tube.

Nonetheless, these works are so good that having alternate recordings of them is a plus and not a minus, and if anything the sharpness and clarity of these new recordings supersede those of Bader. In addition, Borowicz’ tempi are generally quicker than Bader’s except for the slow movements, which he takes at a pace closer to “Largo” than “Andante,” but as it turns out, he’s right and Bader is wrong. The second movement, written in 6/4 time, is marked in her score as quarter note=56, and this is exactly how Borowicz plays it.

Interestingly, Borowicz’ phrasing within the fast movements is broader than Bader’s…but as it turns out, this too is correct. In many places in the score, Bacewicz marked her music as “poco meno mosso,” which literally means “a little less motion.” So for all intents and purposes, tempi as well as phrasing, Borowicz gives you what Bacewicz wrote.

And he certainly conducts this music with energy. The winds and brass practically leap out of your speakers, creating a sound world in which an almost manic energy is fused with elegance and, at times, mystery. As it turns out, the (correct) slower pace of the third symphony’s “Andante” gives the soft string pizzicato passages a feeling that I like to refer to as “sneakin’ around music,” a feeling which Bader, at his much faster tempo, cannot bring out of the orchestra.

Thus I give this recording an A+ in every respect: following the score directions, getting under the skin of the music emotionally, and generally presenting a dynamic, exciting performance. To cite Toscanini’s old saying, “Is like reading the score!” And as I mentioned earlier, the sound quality is utterly fantastic.

Interestingly, although the Third and Fourth Symphonies were written very close together in time, Bacewicz found entirely new things to say in the fourth. The general outlines are similar, but the end result is an even more dynamic work than the third. There are less rubato passages in the Fourth, and even the slow movement has more rhythmic impulse to it. The mood here is also different from the slow movement of the third, not to mention her orchestration choices. This is less of a mysterious movement and more of a menacing one. And, as pointed out in the liner notes, her theme for the third-movement “Scherzo” is even more like folk music than its predecessor while its instrumentation, leaning heavily on high winds (piccolo, flute and clarinet) add a wryly humorous quality to the music. Even the finale has more bite and drive than in the Third Symphony, good as it is.

For those unfortunates who haven’t heard any of Bacewicz’ symphonies, their style lay somewhere in between Bartók (who she clearly admired) and Shostakovich, yet with a personal “voice” and style all her own. She was clearly one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, and the fact that her music is not played frequently in symphonic concerts while Mozart and Beethoven are done to death speaks volumes for the artistic inadequacies of the classical music world and its attitudes towards its audiences. “Yeah, just keep playing the old-timey stuff and we’ll keep selling tickets.” But why?? There are SO many excellent recordings of the old stuff, many of them in excellent stereo or digital versions, that going to so-and-so’s concert to hear yet another rendition of them is the musical equivalent of hitting yourself over the head with a mallet because it feels good when you stop.

I give the very highest recommendation to this one.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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Kalnits & Csányi-Wills Play Weinberg

WEINBERG: Concertino in A min. 2 Songs Without Words. 3 Pieces for Violin & Piano. Sonata Movement (1944). Sonata for 2 Violins* / Yuri Kalnits *& Igor Yuzefovich, vln; Michael Csányi-Wills, pno / Toccata Classics TOCC 0188

This is Vol. 4 in a series of albums presenting Weinberg’s complete works for violin and piano. Although I reviewed the first disc in this series, Toccata Classics 0026 which contained the Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes, the solo violin sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 and the Violin-Piano Sonata No. 2, I passed on the other discs containing the other violin-piano sonatas because I already had excellent recordings of them by violinist Grigory Kalinovsky and pianist Tatiana Goncharova on Naxos and, to be honest, I much preferred their more rhythmic and dynamic performances to the slower, more legato readings of Kalnits and Csányi-Wills.

I did opt to review this CD, however, because it includes pieces I do not have: the Concertino in A minor, 2 Songs Without Words, the very early 3 Pieces for Violin & Piano from 1934-35 and the stand-alone Sonata Movement from 1944. (I have the two-violin sonata in an excellent recording by Gidon Kremer, one of Weinberg’s very few champions in the world, and Madara Petersone on Accentus Music.)

In reviewing this recording, then, the reader should assume that there may be future recordings of these pieces not currently available elsewhere that, like the Kalinovsky and Kremer recordings, may present the music in a more emotional and dramatic light. The 1948 Concertino is just one instance. Although Weinberg did indeed write music that was “lyrical,” it was in his own unusual, intense style. Here, Kalnits and Csányi-Wills play it as if it were a sonata by Rachmaninov, which is not really the right approach, but since it is the only one we have at present, at least we can appreciate the score played by musicians at least somewhat engaged in the presentation of the music.

This Concertino could easily have its piano part transcribed for orchestra, as it is relatively simple, consisting of a rocking motion in the first movement and not terribly challenging for the accompanist. At this stage of his career, Weinberg was more regularly rhythmic and somewhat more conventionally melodic in his writing. In 1948 in particular, he was influenced by his close friend Shostakovich. Of course, this somewhat more conventional form may also have been dictated by the demands of the Soviet Culture Bureau, which came down hard not only on Weinberg (Stalin even had his father-in-law murdered to bring him in line!) but also on Shostakovich and Prokofiev, all of whom wrote alternate forms of certain movements of their works, entrusting them to close allies among performers (young Rostropovich and Richter were two such) to play their original concepts once Stalin was dead (which they did). Thus I can’t altogether blame Kalnits for the Romantic profile of the music, though I do believe that his over-sugary approach to playing, with its occasionally throbbing vibrato and constant feeling of bathos, makes it even more Romantic than it needs to be. Only in the last movement did I feel that he came close to the proper Weinbergian style.

The early pieces for violin & piano are interesting in that they have an almost Middle Eastern sound to the harmony, or at least, one might say, Middle Eastern harmony tempered by the modern French school of that time. The central “Scherzo” is particularly interesting in this respect, with a harmonic base that always sounds as if it is heading towards resolution but never quite arrives there. This piece is played quite well by Kalnits and Csányi-Wills. The third piece, “Dream About a Doll,” does resolve its harmony at times but somehow manages to maintain a strange sort of hallucinatory feeling about it. The doll being dreamed about must surely have had a demon hidden in it! In this piece, the piano part is especially important as it helps convey this mood as well with writing that includes independent themes of its own, sometimes overcoming the violin to impose its will for a few moments. Both instruments rise to an almost frightening and very intense climax in the middle. In its own way, this is the one piece on this album that I felt pointed more clearly towards Weinberg’s mature style, which had its differences in form but not in the strangeness of its emotional projection. This is clearly the highlight of the entire album.

Although the stand-alone sonata movement of 1944 is also somewhat Romantic in feeling, it, too has an uncomfortable emotional undercurrent that is hard to define. Unease? A premonition of something bad that will happen? Anxiety waiting for someone to arrive who is part due? Pick your own and apply it to this music, because whatever it is, it’s in there.  The sonata for two violins is played pretty well, and here both Kalnits and his partner, Igor Yuzefovich, give the music a proper Russian edge.

If you like your classical music consistently sweet and pleasant-sounding, not only this disc but also the complete violin sonatas played by Kalnits and Csányi-Wills are for you. Otherwise, this one is currently indispensable for Weinberg collectors, but keep your eyes out for versions by Kalinovsky or Kremer.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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Tafreshipour’s Remarkable Opera

TAFRESHIPOUR: The Doll Behind the Curtain / Jonathan von Schwanenflügl, tenor (Mehrdad); Signe Sneh Durholm, soprano (Bita); Elenor Wiman, mezzo-soprano (Mother); Jakob Bloch Jespersen, bass-baritone (Father); Thomas Storm, baritone (Maître); Per Bach Nissen, bass (Tombeau); Marie Dreisig, soprano (Giselle); Athelas Sinfonietta; Eirik Haukaas Ødegaard, conductor / Bis 2596 (Live: Copenhagen, December 14, 2020. Video performance available for free streaming on Vimeo)

Amir Mahta Tafreshipour (b. 1974) is an Iranian composer who first graduated from Teheran University before moving to Denmark, where he is now a citizen, and pursuing further studies at the Esbjerg Academy of Music, from which he graduated in 2001, as well as at the Guildhall School of Music and Trinity College. The latter two established his connection with the musical establishment in Great Britain. Among his many works, he is perhaps best known for his harp concerto Persian Echoes, premiered in 2005 on the BBC. The Doll Behind the Curtain premiered in 2015, also in Great Britain, at the Tête a Tête Opera Festival in London.

Scheduled for release in January, this CD presents his chamber opera of less than 70 minutes, The Doll Behind the Curtain. It touches on the topic of societal alienation as well as a universal subject found in many stories from different cultures of the idée fixe. Based on a short story from the 1930s by Iranian writer Sadegh Hedayat, who cited as his influences Poe, Chekhov and especially Franz Kafka, it tells of Mehrdad, a shy, introverted Iranian studying at Le Havre in France. He discovers a beautiful female mannequin in a junk shop, and buys it shortly before returning to Iran. Mehrdad believes he has found a beauty that is flawless and unchanging—as the booklet for the recording put it, “a passive object of adoration with which to share his secret life.” Yet by the second act in this short opera, Mehrdad finds himself isolated from both his parents and his adoring fiancé, Bita. She is his cousin; the engagement was pre-arranged by his father who tries to nudge Mahrdad into marrying her. By this time, however, the mannequin has morphed from a passive object of adoration into “a demanding mistress.” Sneaking into Mehrdad’s room while he is gone, Bita discovers the mannequin. Mehrdad returns to his room, now afraid of the power the mannequin has over him, and decides to “kill” it. But just as he takes out a pistol and moves to shoot the mannequin, a “figure” identical to it with its green dress and blond wig appears. Mehrdad goes to shoot the mannequin and pulls the trigger, as it turns out, on an empty chamber in the pistol. The figure shrieks and runs towards Mehrdad with its arms outstretched. Frightened, Mehrdad shoots at the moving figure; both fall to the floor. The figure’s blond wig falls off, and underneath it is the image of Bita—who also suddenly goes limp. After Mehrdad manages to stand up again, he goes into the alcove where both he and the mannequin give out despairing cries. Curtain.

In some ways, this story shares a theme similar to that of Montemezzi’s L’Incantesimo, where the main character is shocked to discover a deer in the woods that has the face of his wife, Giselda. That story was written by Sem Benelli, also in the 1930s. Apparently, there were writers back then who used symbolism to define, each in his or her own way, the essence of women who were loved but apparently misunderstood in terms of their essential being. One is also reminded of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s famous story, later used in Offenbach’s opera, of a man’s infatuation with a mechanical doll which he not only believes to be human but falls in love with based purely on her “perfect” good looks. Only the destruction of the doll before his own eyes brings him to his senses. The introduction of the Doppelgänger by Hedayat created a fantasy figure which combines the qualities of both the artificial object of beauty (the doll) and the real-life woman.

In this opera Tafreshipour created light, transparent orchestral textures, modal harmonies and often slow-moving melodic lines. The goal of such music is to create, as much as possible, an hypnotic spell on the listener, enveloping him or her in a sound-world quite different from even that of advanced European harmonies—this despite the fact that the very opening music of this opera is loud and dissonant, with what sounds like a wordless choral interjection—yet since there is no chorus, this passage is actually sung by the septet of soloists. The music, you might say, hovers around B major—at least, B natural is the prominent tonality around which Tafreshipour assembles his tonal dissonances, at one point in the orchestral opening actually sounding a B major chord—and in fact, the music constantly suggests tonality more often than not. Mehrdad’s opening monologue does indeed have a melody line (it is not really strophic) although it is not conventionally tuneful. “What is it she wants to tell me?” he asks himself as he gazes at the mannequin in the window. “I could believe those eyes, opaque, made of alabaster, see into my soul and she knows me as I am.” And already at this early stage, the mannequin “sings” wordless tones, much like Roxana in Szymanowski’s equally exotic King Roger, and set to a similar modal melisma. Here, at the very outset of the opera, Tafreshipour is already pulling the listener into Hedayat’s shadowy fantasy world.

Within its brief duration, Tafreshipour sometimes makes quick scene changes. After addressing the doll, there is a blackout. When the lights go up again, he is in the Lycée where the Maître addresses him, telling him that he is sorry to see him go back to Iran because he has seen “your mind and conscience grow.” British librettist Dominic Power should also be given a great deal of credit for not only compressing Hedayat’s story into a libretto but also for his good sense in not making the text over-wordy, always a temptation for many English writers who somehow think of themselves as being equivalent to Shakespeare.

Power’s decision was a wise one, using the device of having figures written to or talked about appear and sing onstage. Thus as Mehrdad writes to his family back home, his mother and Bita appear onstage and sing. Interestingly, the proprietor of the shop from which Mehrdad buys the mannequin is named Tombeau, the French word for “tomb.” Also of note are his words to Mehrdad after he buys the doll: “With such a model, so compliant and so subtle [italics mine], you would create the ideal woman…Hide her from covetous eyes.” This, too, recalls Coppelius’ words to Spalanzani when he sells him the lifelike eyes to plant in the doll Olympia’s face. And for some reason not explained, Tombeau’s granddaughter Giselle also follows Mehrdad back to Iran, and in fact has a (sung) conversation with his parents and later with Bita. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s certainly interesting.

Back home, Mehrdad has applied lipstick to the doll’s mouth to make it look more realistic, but is already packing a gun in the opening scene of the second act, long before the final denouement occurs. Part of the dialogue between Bita, Giselle and the mother is indeed surreal. Out of nowhere, Bita sings, “Now it is winter, snow covers our city, and you are here,” to which Giselle sings one word—“Different”—and the mother also sings just one—“Indifferent,” to which Bita responds, “Cold as snow.” Immediately after, Mehrdad, pistol in hand, sings one line, “May God forgive me,” then sinks to his knees in front of the mannequin, puts the gun to his temple and pulls the trigger…but the chamber is empty. Yet even with the three women present, not one makes a comment or tries to stop him from what is clearly a suicide attempt. Strange indeed! Although Bita sings on two occasions that she is devoted to Mehrdad, when moments of crisis like this arrive she doesn’t lift a finger to help him. One begins to think that the reason he’s so attached to the doll is that she is no more emotionally responsive or giving than his fiancé.

I have written quite a bit about the libretto for this opera because it is clearly on an extraordinarily high level, not only in literary but also in symbolic terms. This is surely one of the most complex and fascinating of psychological dramas ever set to music, and it is to Tafreshipour’s credit that he kept it relatively spars with clear, transparent instrumental textures so as not to overload or pump up what is a very complex and often tense drama of the mind.

There are also hints, not too subtle but underplayed, of Hedayat’s criticism of the harshness of Iranian and Musim culture. Before leaving France, the Maître offers Mehrdad a glass of wine, which he turns down. He then offers him a dinner with his fellow-students, which he also turns down. After Maître leaves, Mehrdad sings, “’Enjoyment and duty co-exist in the harmonious soul.’ How facile is the conversation of pompous petit-maître.” Somewhere deep in the recesses of his subconscious, we come to think, the doll represents not only a love-ideal to Mehrdad but also a touch of freedom that he is not allowed to pursue.

Listening to Tafreshipour’s orchestral score is a treat in itself. The delicacy of the chamber orchestra is made all the more effective by his pointillistic writing with its alternation of counterpoint and the little spot solos given to various instruments (oboe and bassoon in addition to various string instruments. As soon as Mehrmad buys the mannequin, the music becomes edgy and confused, reflecting his mixed-up state of mind. A strange disquiet also underlines the music behind Bita and Mehrdad’s parents upon his return home. “Outwardly dutiful, respectful, quietm but a stranger,” the Father sings. “Cold as the snow that shrouds Tehran.” As Mehrdad, ignoring them, sings to the mannequin “I cannot leave you, and you will not free me,” Bita and his mother sing a strange chord, A above an Eb, underlining his alienation from reality. Middle Eastern melismas constantly underline the music in this scene. The music sounds almost comical in a dark way, like a drunken song sung in a bar, when Mehrdad asks then, “What do you see when you see me? A drunkard? A fool?” Little touches like this continue throughout the opera. Much of the music passes by the listener’s ear as if emerging from a dream…sometimes a pleasant dream, but just as often an edgy, uncomfortable one, particularly in the scene where Bita confronts the doll, singing, “If I could, I would destroy you, kill you, to bring him back.”

And there is a surprise. Immediately after Bita starts to take the blond wig from the mannequin’s head, there is a blackout, and in the very next scene both Giselle, Tombeau and the Maître suddenly reappear out of nowhere, repeating lines that they used in Act I as Mehrdad is sprawled on the couch in a drunken stupor…evidently an alcohol-induced hallucination.

It’s difficult for me to say, given my limited exposure to Tafreshiour’s music, whether or not the “voice” he uses in this score is his usual or normal style of writing, but every scene of The Doll Behind the Curtain works in context as well as in relation to each other scene. It may not be a masterpiece, but it’s a highly effective psychological, almost hallucinatory opera. My sole complaint is that the music ends abruptly, not sounding like an ending at all.

As for the singing, it is somewhat uneven. Tenor Jonathan von Schwanenflügel (Mehrdad) has a pleasant tone and somewhat good diction, but his voice is somewhat nasal and every sustained note flutters unevenly. Bass Per Bach Nissen (Maître) and mezzo-soprano Elenor Widman (Mother) have consistently fluttery voices (and Widman’s also has a whiny quality about it that grated on my ears), but both sopranos, Maria Dreisig (Giselle) and Signe Sneh Durholm (Bita) have good ones (though some of Durholm’s high notes sound a bit shrill), as does baritone Thomas Storm as Tombeau. The singers’ diction varies, but the men are generally intelligible though singing in British English which has its own sound while the sopranos lose their consonants in notes above the staff. They generally make do, and all act their parts with their voices fairly well, but a more consistently good cast would clearly have enhanced the quality of the performance. Nonetheless, highly recommended because of the quality of the music and the libretto. The video available for free streaming on Vimeo appears to be incomplete (it’s only 57 minutes long, and is missing the opening scene), and the singers are almost always off-mic which makes it difficult to understand them, but at least it give you a chance to see the production, which is simple and effective.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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Gulyás Plays Villa-Lobos

VILLA-LOBOS: 5 Preludes. Suite Populaire Brésilienne. Choros No. 1, “Choro tipico.” 12 Études / Georg Gulyás, guitarist / Proprius PRCD 2094, also available for free streaming in individual bits on YouTube

Heitor Villa-Lobos was an excellent but rather strange composer whose music was influenced by 1) his native Brazilian music, 2) the innovations of Bartók, and 3) the intricate structures of J.S. Bach—and all of them, you might say, in equal measure. In these, his complete works for guitar, he was more strongly influenced by Nos. 1 and 3 than by No. 2.

Many of these pieces have been recorded by other guitarists, but I’m not going to cross-reference most of them because I don’t have to. A cursory sampling of Swedish guitarist Georg Gulyás’ playing will tell you that he is a superb guitarist who combines virtuosity, a clear understanding of this material, and, perhaps most importantly of all, an energetic, emotionally involved performing style. In my view, this is what all classical guitarists should sound like, but unfortunately the majority of them are more strongly influenced by the wimpy, over-delicate style of Andrés Segovia than by the meatier playing of Julian Bream of Pepé Romero…even though several of these works were written for Segovia.

Like the Rautavaara CD I also recently reviewed, this CD “slipped out” onto the market. In fact, since it is produced by a really small label, it has had virtually zero promotion, and I couldn’t find a single review of it online, thus in practical terms, it doesn’t exist. Had I not tripped across it by accident on the Naxos Music Library, I wouldn’t have a clue of its existence.

But as I said, Gulyán is a superb—not just a run-of-the-mill—guitarist, and he clearly understands these pieces. This is particularly apparent in the slow pieces, even more so than the fast ones. This is where too many guitarists indulge themselves in over-Romantic goop whereas Gulyás plays then with backbone, combining elegance of phrasing with well-judged changes in dynamics and sometimes strong, sometimes subtle rhythmic stresses, as in the very first Prelude (“Andantino expressivo”). Indeed, his balance of elegance and energy keeps the listener fully engaged. You never feel your attention wandering as he plays, and that is very important. He even imparts a touch of flamenco style in the midst of the second “Andantino” Prelude, which is wholly appropriate.

The music itself is, for the most part, fairly straightforward for Villa-Lobos despite channeling his Brazilian roots. Interestingly, it was the 12 Études, with their strong Bach influence, which he wrote for Segovia in 1929, whereas the five Préludes, which sound much more like Segovia-style music, were in fact written for his wife, Arminda Neves de Almeida in 1940. The one outlier on this recording, the stand-alone Choros No. 1, along with the Suite Populaire Brésilienne, was composed between 1908 and 1912, using the then-popular urban music of Rio de Janeiro as its basis.

In the end, however, I really only found the Études to be really meaty music, meaning music that would stand up to repeated listening. Here, I did make a comparison between Gulyán and one of my idols, Julian Bream. To be honest, I preferred Gulyás. On his recording, Bream rushed the music too much, blurring notes that were clearly intended to be heard separately whereas Gulyás gave them their proper duration and clarity. Recommended primarily for these pieces.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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Rare Music by Rautavaara

RAUTAVAARA: Fantasia. In the Beginning. Deux Sérénades. Lost Landscapes / Simone Lamsma, vln; Malmö Symphony Orch., Robert Trevino, cond / Ondine ODE 1405-2

Here’s a recording that :slipped out” earlier this year. When I say “slipped out,” I mean exactly that. It was probably listed in the Naxos New Release Catalog, but I have given up going through those because 80% of the recordings I want to review—normally out-of-central-repertoire music—are never available for download on the music reviewers’ website, and also nowadays, more than half of them also do not become available on the Naxos Music Library streaming site, but lo and behold , this one was listed on both, so here is my review.

These works were all written between 2005 (Lost Landscapes, which was revised in 2015) and 2016 (Deux Sérénades, one of his very last works, completed in 2018 by Kalevi Aho) but are not generally known or performed. In fact, both In the Beginning and Lost Landscapes are first recordings. Violinist Simone Lamsma is featured on all but In the Beginning which does not include a solo violin part.

The Fantasia is one of those Rautavaara works that fit most comfortably into standard concert programs, combining lush lyricism with his usual adventurous harmonies. Yet one never feels that the composer was “cheapening” his art or condescending in his approach to the piece. American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who commissioned the work, played it for the composer who said, “Wow, did I write some beautiful music!” But I’m sure that, had it been a less emotional performance, he might have been a bit more reserved in his praise.

Fortunately for us, Simone Lamsma pours her whole heart into the score. Harmonically speaking, it harks back to, say, early Carl Nielsen rather than the Alban Berg concerto, but the incredibly sustained lyric line of the piece runs like a golden thread through the sensitive yet colorful orchestration, which is very much in Rautavaara’s own personal idiom. The music rises to an ecstatic climax at the mid-point, with throbbing viola section tremolos behind the soloist. In a sense, the continuous evolution of this piece from start to finish is similar to the kind of writing that Wagner did in his own manner. This should definitely be programmed in concerts more often; I can’t imagine anyone who could say that it is too “advanced” or “confusing” for them to grasp.

In the Beginning, described in the liner notes as “an impactful and potentially ambiguous title,” conforming to conductor Pietari Inkinen’s request for an overture-like concert opener, but here the composer poured the full breadth of his imagination into the score. Although also in his neo-Romantic style, there is an undercurrent of unease, possibly even a bit of menace, from the (quiet) opening bars, in which low clarinets play an ominous figure against low strings and, later, brass. The harmonic language here is also more complex, tonal to a point but constantly shifting the inner harmonies so that the tonality itself shifts in and out of neighboring keys. Yet there is that lyrical line played by the violins, not nearly as pretty as the Fantasia, however. It, too, keeps falling through harmonic “traps” into adjacent harmonic fields, and this, plus the constantly nudged-forward yet subtle rhythm, maintains the edginess of the opening bars throughout the work. This is truly Rautavaara at his best. There are even intimations of Ligeti in some of the more complex writing for the string passages in the last third of the piece. Since it only lasts five minutes, Rautavaara was able to create a much denser structure here than in the Fantasia.

With the Deux Sérénades, we return to a more Romanticized musical environment. Written for violinist Hilary Hahn, it is even longer than the Fantasia but in the same basic mold. The biggest difference, to my ears, is the constantly moving inner voices and subtly shifting harmonies, again with that slight nudge forward to give the music movement. The lead violin line is somewhat more complex than in the Fantasia if not as memorable, but this work, too, is not too far removed from the kind of Romantic stuff that most violinists wallow in, so I guess it makes them happy.

Lost Landscapes is yet another neo-Romantic piece. To be honest, however, I found it to be a very weak piece, so much like the first Sérénade that it sounded like an early draft of it, and not a particularly successful one. This was really quite a let-down for me since most of the music up to this point was quite good. But as I said, most classical violinists just wallow in this kind of overly-sentimental claptrap, and so do their audiences, so I’d expect that this, too would become a concert favorite. I did, however, like the second half of Lost Landscapes much more than the first.

Well, at least most of the album is good, and the first two pieces particularly so.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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David Jaeger’s Viola Music

JAEGER: Sonata, “Tristan and Isolde.” Viola Sonata No. 1. 6 Miniatures for Solo Viola. Constable and the Spirit of the Clouds. Sarabande. Favour / Elizabeth Reid, violist; Alison Bruce Cerutti, pianist / Redshift Records (no number), available for purchase on Bandcamp

Without repeating all the purple prose spewed in the publicity blurb about composer David Jaeger’s “rare, legendary status” in Canada or his “groundbreaking” music, what I was able to glean from this is that Jaeger (1947 – ) is a Toronto-based composer who, in 1971, was also a founding member of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble. This CD is scheduled for release on February 3, 2023.

Such a pedigree would indicate that Jaeger’s music is ultra-modern and possibly quit edgy, but in fact his Tristan and Isolde sonata is quite tonal, almost retro but for some moments of harmonic dissonance here and there. This does not, however, mean that his music is uninteresting. On the contrary, I found this sonata to be extremely interesting, including some high-range “whistle tone” playing for the solo viola. My one issue with the performance is that although violist Reid clearly has the technical command of her instrument to play it, she only imparts a little of the intensity that Jaeger calls for in his score. For the most part, Reid is a placid, even “cool” player who simply doesn’t give much in terms of expression.

Both the first and especially the second movement of this sonata, oddly enough, seemed not to channel Wagner but Native American music with its open harmonies and relatively simple melodic structure. It is in those harmonic excursions and his way of playing with rhythm that Jaeger modifies this style to make it more personal. Overall, I found this a nice sonata if not a very gripping one, but as noted above Reid’s cool approach to the music subverts Jaeger’s intentions to a point. I could easily imagine this music played with much more intensity, which in turn would make it more interesting. (I should also mention that Reid is not alone in this. Pianist Alison Bruce Cerutti plays in a delicate style that has little emotion as well.)

In the moody introduction to the Viola Sonata No. 1, Cerutti does a nice job of establishing a somewhat doleful ambience but, again, stops short of emotional outpouring, which is especially evident when the music becomes louder and more insistent. Reid, I noticed, plays with too much straight tone, and this too robs the music of real feeling. I know that the artists will undoubtedly be upset with me for saying all this, but it must be said because these are (to the best of my knowledge) first recordings, and other violists out there should seriously consider playing these works because they are accessible to average listeners while still having modern features that appeal to more sophisticated minds. There are a few moments in the second movement where Reid and Cerutti play with some energy, but energy is not always emotion and their reading falls quite short of Jaeger’s movement title of “Allegro bizarro.” There’s just too much of a feeling of two MIDIs playing the music rather than two flesh-and-blood human beings.

The 6 Miniatures are, of course, somewhat slighter music but still good enough to be interesting. and would surely be more interesting yet id they had a better interpreter. Jaeger uses some open chords here and establishes what I would call a tonal bias without being centered in a particular key; this is especially evident in the fast, mercurial second miniature, although one always gets the feeling that Jaeger is going to suddenly inject neighboring or not-so-neighboring harmonies at any moment. In the third piece, he also uses a great many portamento passages suggesting microtonal slides though never really moving too far in that direction.

Constable and the Spirit of the Clouds is particularly interesting for its inclusion of electronic sounds with the solo viola. These are primarily background sounds, emulating what I would describe as a “ghost orchestra” playing behind the soloist. Jaeger is considerably different from the majority of composers for electronics in that he creates rich blends and suggests more than what the ear actually picks up. (It’s hard to describe, but once you’ve heard it you’ll know what I mean.) In this piece, at least, Jaeger also avoids injecting any particular rhythmic meter or movement into the electronic sounds, leaving that entirely up to the solo viola part. It makes for some fascinating listening. Towards the end of the piece, he also adds some electronic ambience around the solo viola, which “binds” its sound to the goings-on in the background. The last two pieces, Sarabande and Favour, are also interesting works. In Sarabande Jaeger includes passages in which the violist is called upon to play pizzicato while at the same time playing legato passages…quite tricky! (Unless, of course, one part is pre-recorded.) And there are also some electronic sounds going on in the background as well, this time a bit more like “white noise” than real music.

This CD clearly deserves to be heard in order to judge the quality of the music, which is quite fine. We cannot throw out the baby with the bath water here, and Jaeger’s music struck me as too good to just be heard in these particular performances.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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Hersch & Spalding in an Intimate, Swinging Set

G. & I. GERSHWIN: But Not for Me. HERSCH: Dream of Monk. PARKER: Little Suede Shoes. HEFTI-TROUP: Girl Talk. MONK: Evidence. CAHN-STYNE: Some Other Time. GISMONTI: Loro. WINSTONE-HERSCH: A Wish / esperanza spalding, voc; Fred Hersch, pno / Palmetto Records PM2208CD (live: New York, October 19-21, 2018)

Although pianist Fred Hersch claims Thelonious Monk as an influence, as indicated here by the presence of Monk’s own piece Evidence and Hersch’s tribute piece Dream of Monk, his playing, to my ears, is more frequently an imitation of Bill Evans. Here, however, on this CD scheduled for release on January 9, he indulges in a more swinging style although containing some fascinating features borrowed from Monk and even Art Tatum while esperanza spalding, who once spelled her name normally but now insists on all lower case (probably a big fan of e.e. cummings), provides the vocals. spalding is primarily a jazz bassist, and a very good one, who sings, not a singer who occasionally plays bass, thus she phrases and improvises like a jazz musician despite not having a particularly attractive vocal timbre.

The publicity blurb for this disc makes a big to-do about spalding being a “visionary” jazz vocalist. Aside from the fact that she can swing and improvise, as could Anita O’Day, Sheila Jordan, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae and several others, I don’t hear anything in her delivery that qualifies as “visionary.” Perhaps she, or someone else, can enlighten me as to what she is visualizing. It is true that she rarely sings standards as she does here, but then again Carter and McRae rarely did, either, and both O’Day and Jordan were famous for being able to transform standards into something quite extraordinary. But as I say, she can swing and improvise and at least she doesn’t sound like one of these wispy “come hither” lounge lizards who pass for female jazz singers nowadays.

Both spalding and Hersch do a nice job of extending some of the phrases of these tunes in a very jazzy way. And despite the fact that spalding doesn’t have that much of a voice, her energetic delivery tends to energize Hersch’s playing  Thus they complement each other musically in a way that is most engaging. A little past the halfway mark in But Not for Me, after spalding concludes her first vocal and turns the stage over to Hersch, there is applause. It sounds like maybe five people clapping. Silly me, I thought the Village Vanguard was still a top spot for jazz talent in New York. Apparently not, at least on this evening. But Hersch’s solo is quite a nice one, using a slowed-down, modified version of Art Tatum’s old trick of elongating the time value of notes within an improvised chorus. Close to 12 people applaud his solo before spalding re-enters. All 17 of the attendees applaud at the end of the song.

Dream of Monk is a pretty nice tune and a good tribute to the iconoclastic pianist-composer, yet although Hersch claims Monk as an influence on his playing he really come close to Thelonious’ highly rhythmic and almost asymmetric manner of playing the keyboard (which, I’ve always said, was just as difficult in its own way to replicate as Tatum’s more florid style). spalding provides a nice improvised scat chorus, clearly drawing on her long experience as a fine jazz bassist. The second Hersch solo on this track shows him playing some nice two-handed counterpoint which, although not something Monk himself did, is pretty nifty to hear.

Charlie Parker’s Little Suede Shoes opens with Hersch playing the inside string of a low Bb on his piano while spalding scats in a lively, almost Latinesque manner. I did feel, however, that this track went on a bit too long and said rather too little.

Girl Talk by Neal Hefti and Bobby Troup is up next. spalding turns this into a “deeper meaning” song about decoding the way women talk to each other…well, at least upper middle class women who have money and leisure time and don’t have to work double-shift grunge jobs. It’s kind of cute. By the time she finishes, the Vanguard audience seems to have grown to about 35 people. More respectable, to be sure.

Monk’s Evidence is a really quirky tune and performance, with spalding singing around the edges of the song with some nifty half-voice scatting. Hersch plays one of his finest solos of the set on this one, and in fact dominates the performance, although in the last chorus singer and pianist engage in a bit of cat-and-mouse musical teasing. Jule Styne’s Some Other Time, on the other hand, is a pretty ordinary ballad of the type one heard by the truckload in the 1940s and ‘50s, and although it’s pleasant it didn’t do much for me.

I haven’t a clue who Gismonti was or what Loro is supposed to be about, but it’s a pleasant tune with a peppy Latin beat to it (but apparently no lyrics since spalding just scats to it). They do what they can with it, which makes it entertaining at least. Hersch’s solo is another gem, thankfully, creating some nice two-handed counterpoint and introducing some nice changes into the fairly simple tune. The set ends with another ballad, A Wish.

This is a very nice little CD that put a smile on my face. The microphone placement is close-up and personal, almost making it sound as if Hersch and spalding were right in your living room. For me, it sure beats listening to all that Christmas music.

—© 2022 Lynn René Bayley

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