Hans Huber Music for Winds

Musiques Suisses presents a second CD dedicated to the chamber music of Hans Huber (1852-1921). The previous one (MSS 6257) gave us one each of a Quartet for Piano & Strings and a Quintet for Piano & Strings. This new release, also of chamber music with piano, offers the composer’s music for winds – a quintet and a sextet both scored for flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon, with an oboe as the fifth wind instrument in the sextet.

There is not very much of Huber’s music available on CD; what there is comes primarily from two Swiss labels, Sterlingand Musiques Suisses. Huber’s orchestral music has been recorded by Jörg Peter Weigle with the Stuttgart Philharmonic on Sterling. American Record Guide wrote of it “This is music by a man with a big heart, and it can’t help but cheer you up.” The same can be said of his chamber music for winds, which is lively and inventive, rooted in folk music with sprightly rhythms and colorful harmonies. He has a predilection for triple meters, not only in his short, quick scherzos, but also in his big outer movements. Seamlessly integrated brief interludes that contrast in tempo and mood keep the listening experience fresh and interesting.

This is the only currently available recording of both pieces, so we are fortunate to have them in such fine performances. I don’t see in the album notes that the performing ensemble has given itself a name, but they are exceptional players, with associations to the orchestras of Prague, Cologne, Berlin, Basle and Zurich. Pianist Konstantin Lifschitz is joined by Kaspar Zehnder, flute, Christian Hommel, oboe, Stephan Siegenthaler, clarinet, Olivier Darbellay, horn and Matthias Buhlmann, bassoon. Listeners who enjoy romantic chamber music for winds, by Reinecke for example, would enjoy this music too.

Terpsichore Muse of the Dance

When it comes to the sound of a renaissance band, I have to admit that a raunchier one than is heard here has generally been more my cup of gruel. Give me blaring shawms, raucous bagpipes, rude crumhorns, thunderous drums and throw in a hurdy-gurdy once in a while – the bawdier the better! But I know that there’s more than one way to skin a haggis. On this new Paradizo CD, Skip Sempé and his Capriccio Stravagante Renaissance Orchestra have created a program that not only includes some of the edgier sounds these bands can produce, but presents a wide range of instrumental textures and, perhaps more importantly, music of the Renaissance that has been overlooked.

Programs of music from this time have tended to favor frequently recorded pieces by Praetorius, Susato and Holborne, which has left a considerable range of music unexplored. Mr. Sempé cites William Brade, who is well represented here, as an example of a composer whose music has been unjustly ignored. In addition to Brade, Praetorius and Holborne round out most of the rest of the program along with two brief pieces by John Bennet and Moritz Landgraf von Hessen, two unfamiliar names that certainly deserve an appearance.

Mr. Sempé makes the case that renaissance composers wrote not only dance music, but art music as well, not intended to accompany dancers. The enormous variety of sounds produced in the dance numbers by mixing groups of strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion is enough to hold your interest, but aside from these spirited numbers are some very lyrical, beautiful and more profound ones.

Terpsichore, Muse of the Dance is the title of this album from the small Paradizo label. It’s a great recording that serves perfectly to initiate new enthusiasts for renaissance music, but at the same time provides enough that is new to satisfy the already enthused.

Pisendel, Violin Concertos from Dresden

In the first half of the 18th century, Dresden was well known for the excellence of its music organizations, which drew the finest players and singers from all over Europe. Bach aspired for a position there while in Leipzig working on music which would become part of his B Minor Mass, and so written with the capacity of the Dresden instrumental and vocal ensembles in mind. Renowned violinist Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755) was concertmaster of the Dresden court orchestra at this time. Many of the leading composers of the day wrote concertos inspired by Pisendel’s virtuosity. Here we have a beautifully recorded program from the little Raum Klang record label bringing us four of these Pisendel-inspired works, as well as one by Pisendel himself.

This collection of exhilarating concertos comes from the high baroque, a period most of us can agree produced some of the most enjoyable music in history. Listeners interested in hearing something new from this time will find four world premiere recordings here, one each from Johann Friedrich Fasch, Johann David Heinichen, Georg Fridrich Handel, and the man who is the subject of the collection, Johann Georg Pisendel. Also included is a concerto by Telemann, one of his most technically challenging and musically interesting, inspired by the virtuosity of the young violinist at his peak.

Violinist Johannes Pramsohler is the concertmaster and solo violinist of the International Baroque Players recorded here. The performances are excellent, recorded in a live but not too boomy space, and in great sound from Raum Klang.

Radek Baborak, horn – Telemann and Zelenka

In the hierarchy of French horn players, Radek Baborák resides at the very top, with little company. His burnished golden tone, sparkling articulation, and boundless musicality is astonishing to hear in this very difficult program of overtures by Telemann and Zelenka.

These two composers were writing for the natural, or hunting horn which was played before valves were added to brass instruments. Basically, it was a long metal hose that flared at the end. As a quick refresher on the harmonic series, if the lowest tone that this tube can produce is a B flat, the next higher note that can naturally be played would also be a B flat, one octave above. Speaking roughly, as some of these intervals are either too wide (sharp) or too narrow (flat), the next note is a fifth higher, then a fourth, a third, a minor third and a flat minor third, three whole steps, and a few out of tune whole steps until they all become half steps, or a chromatic scale. In order for Telemann or Zelenka to write an actual melody for the horn, this is where it had to be, in the very upper range of the instrument.

Because the notes are so close together, it takes tremendous control in the small muscles of and around the players lips to produce the desired pitches. This is what makes the finesse and subtlety with which Mr. Baborák plays in that upper register so amazing.

I’ve said nothing of the music itself. I should note that, an “overture” at this time was not what we now understand it to be. It was not only an introductive single movement, but rather a  “suite” of contrasting dance movements. This form would later blossom into the orchestral suite, popular all over Europe.

Radek Baborák, who was principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2003 to 2010, plays with the Berliner Barock Solisten, a group founded in 1995 by members of the Berlin Philharmonic. The performances are superb, the music is a joy to listen to, and you get to hear a horn player who is without question among the top ranking few on the planet.

Hymn to the Dawn, the Etherea Vocal Ensemble

The diverse choral music of Holst, Prokofiev, Beach, Rheinberger, Mendelssohn and Rossini makes for a very enjoyable program, sung by the seven women and one countertenor of the Etherea Vocal Ensemble.  These eight young singers are led by their artistic director Derek Greten-Harrison on a Delos CD titled “Hymn to the Dawn”. With only eight singers, and several of the works sung by a portion of that number, each voice is very exposed. Singers must perform flawlessly, as they do here, both as soloist and as part of the ensemble. It’s a pleasure to be treated to such clear and gorgeous singing.

The music is not only beautifully sung, but also thoughtfully programmed. It seems to me to be in three parts. For the first, a harp plays a prominent role, followed by a middle section of a cappella singing and concluding with the choir accompanied by piano or organ. The program opens with two rarely performed works by Gustav Holst, the Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda and Two Eastern Pictures. Harpist Grace Cloutier, who is a wonderful musician, accompanies the Holst, then provides a brief interlude with a Prokofiev Prelude to be followed by Amy Beach’s Three Shakespeare Choruses. In the Beach, the choir is reduced to a quartet, and every line and word is crystal clear. The middle a cappella section is music from the romantic period: songs by Josef Rheinberger and motets of Mendelssohn. In a stylistic departure from the rest of the program, the album concludes with Trois choeurs religieux for women’s chorus and piano by Rossini. Not profound, but sunny and sweetly sung, reminiscent at times of the great composer’s operatic choruses.

The Mendelssohn motets were recorded in Christ Church,New Haven and the rest of the tracks in the Marquand Chapel,Yale Divinity School. It is all recorded in impressive sound from the California based record label Delos, who in 2013, can be congratulated on their 40th anniversary.

Reinhold Gliere Duets with Cello

Reinhold Glière (1875-1956) is famously known to cellists for his Cello Concerto Op. 87, written in 1945-46 and premiered by nineteen year old Mstislav Rostropovich. Music for cello holds an important place in other areas of Glière’s output, his chamber music for example. While he is best known for large-scale works such as symphonies, ballets, operas and symphonic poems, Glière is also a master these more intimate forms. Small scale pieces, his duets that include the cello, are the program for this Naxos CD. There are duets for violin and cello, for cello and piano, and for two cellos. While these are not first recordings, most of them appear to be the only currently available versions.

Gliere’s music continues the Russian romantic line of Borodin and Glazunov, with an evident influence of impressionism. The music is gracefully melodic, colorful, completely tonal, and very pleasant. Changes in sonorities as the cello is partnered with violin, with piano, or with another cello, provide textural variety, ensuring there is no ear-fatigue in this 72 minute program of cello music.

The warm resonant tones of cellists Martin Rummel and of Alexander Hulshoff are joined by tasteful contributions from violinist Friedemann Eichhorn and pianist Till Alexander Korber. This is an obvious acquisition for cello enthusiasts, but its circulation deserves to be much wider than that. It is very unique and beautiful music that many listeners would enjoy.

Orchestral Music of Ludvig Jensen

Listeners coming to the orchestral music of Ludvig Jensen for the first time will be completely taken aback by the quality of this little known Norwegian composer’s music. All of the tools of the romantic composer’s trade are evident in abundance, and cpo has given us over two hours of his beautiful and thrilling music on this new two CD set.

Ludvig Jensen (1894 – 1969) was an entirely self-taught composer who never attended a composition class, yet at the peak of his career, stood as the leading composer of his Norwegian contemporaries. In the early years, he did all his composing in secret and didn’t release works to the public unless his close friend Odd Gruner-Hegge (his first name is “Odd”, a talented musician and later the principal conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, advised. This was the case for his Passacaglia for Orchestra of 1928, which was his first international success, lavishly praised by Carl Nielsen and Arturo Toscanini.

Later revisions aside, all of the music here was written between 1925 and 1940, a  time when art music in central Europe had been completely transformed by the Modernist movement. But romanticism lived long in Scandinavia, and especially so in Ludvig Jensen. There is nothing here to affront even the most conservative listener. If you like the music of Edvard Grieg, you will thoroughly enjoy all the music here.

Special mention must be made of the Norwegian Trondheim Symphony Orchestra lead by conductor Eivind Aadland. They are a group I don’t believe I have ever come across before. All sections of the orchestra turn in exemplary performances. Jensen’s music could hardly be better served by them, nor by the cpo sound technicians who have given us one of their best.

The orchestra is not identified, but here is a sample of the early Passacaglia for Orchestra by Ludvig Jensens.

Mozart Camargo Guarnieri

The magic of this music is how naturally the composer folds unrelated musical genres into his own unique sound world. Suggestions and moods of Jazz, blues, classical (impressionism to be most accurate) and Brazilian folk music are nuanced together so successfully that the result is absolutely captivating, a hypnotic synthesis that defines the composer’s style.

He is Camargo Guarnieri (1907 – 1993), who is “universally recognized as the most important Brazilian composer next to Villa-Lobos.” (from the liner notes by James Melo). Most of the music on this two CD set from Naxos is devoted to his Ponteio, Books I – V, for solo piano, the pieces most closely associated with the composer. They are very brief character pieces that encompass a broad range and blend of moods drawing on a variety of rhythmic, melodic and harmonic possibilities. It is often atonal, but it seems not for the sake of being so. Rather, tonality is disregarded to facilitate the higher purpose of creating color.

Guarnieri’s music is very pleasant just to be around, but there is substance to it too, and it bears some focused listening. I think it is the amalgamation of genres that makes the music so interesting. Guarnieri might take a rhythmic pattern typically associated with ragtime, add irregular accents to it, a Brazilian folk melody and harmonies that could have come from Ravel or Debussy. It’s all so subtly and tastefully done, and the result is mesmerizing.

Pianist Max Barros was born in California of Brazilian parents and he leaves nothing wanting in his excellent performances. These especially well engineered recordings are among the best that I have heard from Naxos.

Here’s a performance of Guarnieri’s Ponteio no. 47. Unfortunately, the pianist is not identified.

Ponteio no. 47

Anton Rubinstein Don Quixote and Ivan IV

The two tone poems on this Delos CD were obviously cut from the same cloth, which must have been the stage curtain of an opera house because both were originally conceived as operas. Russian pianist, educator and composer Anton Rubinstein (1829 – 1894) wrote twenty operas and developed a flair for portraying various human characteristics in music. The two pieces on this Delos CD, Don Quixote, Musical Picture after Cervantes, Op. 87, and Ivan IV, Musical Picture after L. A. Mey, Op.79, never became operas, but were completed as character pieces based upon one fictional and one real subject.

Rubinstein’s music, coming right from the thick of the Romantic period in Russia, is somewhat out of the ordinary. At a time defined by the group of composers known as The Five, or The Mighty Handful (Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin), Rubinstein eschewed the predominant Russian musical style for a more Germanic sound. Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn were the strongest influences on his music. These two character pieces, while understandably not standard repertoire material, are suspenseful, rousing and rugged, and put on full display Rubinstein’s capacity for writing dramatic music.

Neither work has been regularly available on CD, and from what I can see, this recording, originally released on Russian Disc in 1993, is the only time they have appeared together. Authoritative performances come from Igor Golovchin and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra on a very welcome and great sounding reissue from Delos.

Following is a an extract from Ivan the Terrible performed by the Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra under Robert Stankovsky.

Let The Bright Seraphim

This Signum Classics CD provides a very attractive program of music from four baroque masters: J.S. Bach, Telemann, Scarlatti and Handel. Much of the music is quite familiar, but other selections are not, altogether forming an interesting program. The selections revolve around the two featured artists, soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins. The two appear together in excerpts from Bach’s cantata Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51, Scarlatti’s chamber cantata Su le sponde del Tebro (On the Banks of the Tiber), Handel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine, HWV 74 and Let the Bright Seraphim from the oratorio Samson. These numbers are interspersed with solo trumpet ones that include Telemann’s Trumpet Concerto in D major and several  transcriptions from Handel oratorios, operas and The Water Music.

The music and the performances are all top shelf. I should note that Mr. Steele-Perkins plays an instrument of the period. Accompaniment is provided by the Armonico Consort under it’s founding director Christophper Monks. The magic of the recording is provided by Ms. Thomas. She is a singer who possesses a wonderfully crystalline, sweet and enchanting soprano voice, and employs it with irreproachable intonation. Here’s a little sample of her art.