Here’s something new, a blending of South American and Japanese musical influences, along with the centuries-old classical tradition. Esteban Benzecry is an entirely new name to me, so this whole disc is like a miniature world of musical discovery. Since I went the download route, I did not end up with the liner notes, but that never distracts from just listening.
The recording opens with the nearly half-hour Violin Concerto, and it sounds dandy. Strangely, one name that comes to mind listening is the rather non-South American, non-Japanese Einojuhani Rautavaara, though in a general sense in how orchestral colors are drawn out. One needn’t strain to hear rhythmic elements found in the works of some other South American composers, and one also needn’t strain to hear both the virtuosity of violinist Xavier Inchausti and the knotty yet accessible writing in the cadenza. The short second movement,
Évocation d’un tango, is a languid and freely unfolding piece that sounds exotic and familiar, dissonant yet gorgeous, and truly captivating. The final movement means to evoke pre-Columbian South American traditions, and as such it ends up having hints of Revueltas in it, either by chance or on purpose. It definitely does not sound merely derivative. The low brass and the percussion are used to superb effect in a slow-motion movement of no little drama and impact, with the violin floating above the band.
The second work is a five song, well, Song Cycle. It mixes poems by four different female poets, including the composer’s wife Fernanda Victoria Caputi Monteverde, Nobel prize winner Gabriela Mistral, and ends with a setting of ancient text by the Quecha people. The first song has a very Queen of the Night style opening, and then each piece mixes the closely recorded soloist delivering somewhat cool but precise singing, backed by colorful and blended orchestral music, with hints of the piano version in the end of the third song. It was impossible not to be reminded in a vague way of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, but this work does not match that qualitatively, and as good as Ayako Tanaka is, she cannot match the great Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, but the works shoot for different things, and this definitely works very well indeed.
The disc ends with the Clarinet Concerto, which launches with almost two minutes of just the clarinetist playing before the strings enter. The soloist, like in the Violin Concerto, seems to float above the orchestra, due partly to the recording, but also due to what sounds like shifting musical pictures in quasi-programmatic music. It works best when the orchestral music sounds quiet and continuously shifting, but in the percussion heavy stretches of
Danzas volcánicas it also works well. One also gets treated to a blending of the folk and the academic in
Baguala enigmática, which displays its folk origins but has some hints of Wagner (or something similar), and then in the concluding movement one hears something reminiscent of Leonarda Balada in its blending of old and new, and one also gets another nice and very easy listening cadenza in the final movement. Perhaps the piece does not equal the Violin Concerto for overall impact, but it offers much to the listener.
This Naxos disc immediately brings to mind two other similar blockbusters from the label: Vivian Fung’s
Dreamscapes and Stephen Hartke’s Clarinet Concerto. Here’s contemporary music that can hold every second of the listener’s attention.
All sorts of wow.
