"New" Music Log

[Todd]

I'm sure that the choirs of the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow or the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg are as well-trained in this type of music as any other and able to deliver flawless renditions.

Maybe.  I will never find out.

[Florestan]

Maybe.  I will never find out.

Neither will I, probably --- but then again, never say never. 

[Todd]

Neither will I, probably --- but then again, never say never. 

I can say never.  I have no reason to travel to Russia for business, and were I to travel to Russia for vacation, it would be to locales farther to the east - Lake Baikal, parts of the Siberian Traps, Kamchatka, those sorts of things.

[Florestan]

I can say never.  I have no reason to travel to Russia for business, and were I to travel to Russia for vacation, it would be to locales farther to the east - Lake Baikal, parts of the Siberian Traps, Kamchatka, those sorts of things.

I see. Well, may you be able to see whatever interests you.

[Todd]

Ridiculous.  That's a word that popped into mind multiple times while listening to the latest from William Youn, or as I prefer to think of him, Korean Piano Jesus.  Hot off belatedly devouring his third Schubert sonata installment and passionately hating myself for waiting so long to buy it, I snapped up and listened to this collection of French music for piano and orchestra, with some solo piano fare tossed in.  Most of the music is new to me, but some is old hat.

The set opens with something new to me, Reynaldo Hahn's Piano Concerto in E Major.  Now, I know me some Hahn, but only songs.  Without fail, they sound meltingly beautiful, and whenever I spin them, they beguile for the duration of the recording.  This here concerto is cut from the same cloth.  It opens with the soloist spinning out beautiful music, and then the band enters, winds dominating, in music that sounds so purely charming and beautiful it is ridiculous.  The movement slowly unfolds and dances around until the second movement Danse, which sounds so elegant and refined that it is ridiculous.  Finally, in the closing movement, starting with a reverie, the gentle, soft, hazy strings overwhelm the listener with impossible levels of beauty, and so does the solo playing.  It is ridiculous.  As the movement winds on, with some boisterous marches, wide dynamics swings, and a fleeting, almost vaudevillian feel, it imparts nearly limitless music enjoyment.  It is ridiculous.  While the recording is definitely modern, it most certainly does not offer clinical clarity of each instrument; everything sounds beautifully blended.  There are not too many recordings of this piece, though Shani Diluka recorded it recently, so perhaps that recording needs to find its way to my ears.

Faure's well-known Ballade, Op 19 follows.  As with pretty much everything he wrote, the music sounds either beautiful or stupid beautiful. Youn plays with nutso refinement and tonal gradation, with impossibly gentle dynamic changes.  Listen to his gentle runs.  They are so subtle it is ridiculous.  The orchestral accompaniment, with a cello peeking out here, the winds there, bewitches while KPJ spins out limitless beauty.  It's just so ridiculous.  (Seriously, if any pianist alive and recording should record every note of Faure's piano music, it's KPJ.  I mean, sure, Jean-Rodolphe Kars is alive, but the Father will not be making any more recordings.) 

KPJ then treats the ridiculously lucky listener to his own arrangement of Hahn's À Chloris.  In the brief three minutes, it's like hearing Bach filtered through a hyperromantic sensibility, stripped of the usual pesky voice muddying things, with the result being pure musical beauty.  But it sounds rough, ugly, and gauche compared to KPJ's transcription of L'heure exquise.  So sublime, so flawless, so hypnotic, the listener is forced to surrender to the sheer ridiculousness of it all. 

Low strings bellow beauteously to open Nadia Boulanger's Fantaisie variée pour piano et Orchestre.  The music sounds like a literally perfect stereotype of Fin de siècle music.  Thick and often orchestrally opaque, with piano writing that nearly mimics organ writing in places, the music floods the listener.  Slight hints of Straussian goodness can be heard, some Gounod, too.  Instruments jump in and out, flitting by.  While French, there's an almost Russian excess sentiment, a Rachy gooiness that's so ridiculously mesmerizing that one wallows in the music as it moves from one (probably too) thickly textured variation to the next.  And are those hints of Ravelian waltzes one detects?  Probably.  It is easy to hear why this is not core rep, but at least as delivered here, one certainly thinks it deserves a bit more love than it has received to date.

Faure's Fantaisie for piano & orchestra, Op 111 follows, and it would be ridiculous to think it's not every bit as good as the Ballade.  KPJ produces a stream of beauty.  And then, to cap everything off, is his arrangement of Après un rêve for solo piano.  This piece, which also works well for Cello and Piano, is played in beautiful fashion, but also with more drive and tension than expected, though on evidence of this (and all prior recordings), KPJ can't produce an ugly sound no matter how loud he plays.  How ridiculous.

So, here's nearly ninety minutes of musical gorgeousness and excess too good to be true.  Yet it's true.  No, the non-core pieces are not quite elevated to core rep levels, though the rendition of the Hahn as played here comes pretty gosh darned close.  The whole thing just washes over the listener, generating giddiness and unlimited satisfaction.  Is this a purchase of the year?  It would be ridiculous if it were not. 

[Todd]

For no particular reason, I decided I wanted to listen to a big ol' slug of new religious music from different eras, though with a heavy concentration on the Renaissance.  ('Tis my favored era for such music.)  Unlike the last time I had a similar hankerin', listening will not be limited to Requiems.  Once again, I decided to rely on Naxos for a goodly chunk of the music since recordings can still be had for a pittance when sales happen.  Also. I have found that Jeremy Summerly and his normal crew tend to be quite reliable sources of lovely recordings, so they will appear.

Writing of Mr Summerly, a hot off the press, 2024 release of music by written by Philip Stopford between 2016 and 2022 kicks things off.  The shortest possible review: Steven Spielberg would reject the music as too trite and treacly.   The music actually annoys as the recording unfolds.  The melodies blend show tunes and feel-good Hollywood schlock into a saccharine mess.  Too, the star soprano does not generate a particularly appealing sound.  The cymbals make the listener wonder just what the heck is going on.  (This is sacred music, after all.  Right?)  For the most part, the Missa Deus Nobiscum and all the smaller works sort of all sound like a treacly, annoying musical blob.  It's not until the closer, God is Our Hope and Strength, where the music tips over into outright awfulness, with horns, organs, and electric piano generating noise that nearly causes the annoyance to morph into mild anger.  Thankfully, it lasts only six little eternities, er, minutes. 

The plusses here are limited to the up to snuff modern recording quality, fine instrumental playing, nice organ playing, and generally fine choral singing. 

A big ol' whiff.

[Cato]

For no particular reason, I decided I wanted to listen to a big ol' slug of new religious music from different eras, though with a heavy concentration on the Renaissance.  ('Tis my favored era for such music.)  Unlike the last time I had a similar hankerin', listening will not be limited to Requiems.  Once again, I decided to rely on Naxos for a goodly chunk of the music since recordings can still be had for a pittance when sales happen.  Also. I have found that Jeremy Summerly and his normal crew tend to be quite reliable sources of lovely recordings, so they will appear.

Writing of Mr Summerly, a hot off the press, 2024 release of music written by Philip Stopford between 2016 and 2022 kicks things off.  The shortest possible review: Steven Spielberg would reject the music as too trite and treacly.   The music actually annoys as the recording unfolds.  The melodies blend show tunes and feel-good Hollywood schlock into a saccharine mess.  Too, the star soprano does not generate a particularly appealing sound.  The cymbals make the listener wonder just what the heck is going on.  (This is sacred music, after all.  Right?) 


For the most part, the Missa Deus Nobiscum and all the smaller works sort of all sound like a treacly, annoying musical blob.  It's not until the closer, God is Our Hope and Strength, where the music tips over into outright awfulness, with horns, organs, and electric piano generating noise that nearly causes the annoyance to morph into mild anger.  Thankfully, it lasts only six little eternities, er, minutes. 

The plusses here are limited to the up to snuff modern recording quality, fine instrumental playing, nice organ playing, and generally fine choral singing. 

A big ol' whiff.

Your review makes me wonder about the arbitri musicae at NAXOS! 


And our great Karl Henning and his assorted religious works stay unrecorded and unpromoted!


Another example of how the amount of kulcheral garbage generated by the talentless drowns out those whose works deserve an audience!

[Todd]

My first recording devoted solely to the music of Jacob Obrecht comes next.  (I have heard some Obrecht, but in collections only.)  A couple Salve Reginas, a Venit ad Petrum, and the forty-five minute Missa Caput make up the disc.  It is very lovely and at times affecting.  It lacks the mind-bending polyphonic goodness of someone like Morales or the arresting austerity of someone like Rore, but the directness works well.  And the women's voices, often overpowering the lower voices, works extra well for me.  A very fine recording.

[Todd]

Carlo Gesualdo is my favorite murderous fiend of a composer, and I am very familiar with his Madrigals, having amassed three sets.  I also picked up the mammoth Responsoria a decade ago, as recorded by the Glossa folks, so I am familiar with what he does when the subject is religious.  Here is his five voice sacred music, and basically it is just shy of seventy minutes worth of beautiful, austere, deadly serious music.  It lacks the daring of his later madrigals, but it's devotion is obvious.  Nice singing, decent recording, and a most pleasant listening experience.

[Jo498]

You probably know this one already, but if not, check out "Gesualdo: Death for 5 voices", a movie by Werner Herzog.

[DaveF]

Sang a piece of his at Christmas - terrible rubbish.  How reputable performers get mixed up with it is beyond me. (Fortunately, advancing years have already erased everything about it, including title, from my memory.)

Anyway, to thread duty.  I was aware that I didn't know a single note of music by Weinberg despite the persuasive advocacy of @vandermolen and others, so sat down late on Friday to remedy this ignorance.  Started with the First Symphony - then discovered that the score is available, perfectly legally, on issuu - https://issuu.com/peermusicclassical/docs/peer3895_weinberg_symphonie_nr._1_op._10_p_a4 - so had to listen through again.  Ditto with nos. 2 & 3.  Finally crawled off to bed at 2am or so - with work the next morning - feeling like Keats's watcher of the skies.  Mature reflection may begin to introduce questions of why someone 14 years younger than DSCH should still be writing in his idiom, but for the moment it's all new and exciting.

[vandermolen]

Sang a piece of his at Christmas - terrible rubbish.  How reputable performers get mixed up with it is beyond me. (Fortunately, advancing years have already erased everything about it, including title, from my memory.)

Anyway, to thread duty.  I was aware that I didn't know a single note of music by Weinberg despite the persuasive advocacy of @vandermolen and others, so sat down late on Friday to remedy this ignorance.  Started with the First Symphony - then discovered that the score is available, perfectly legally, on issuu - https://issuu.com/peermusicclassical/docs/peer3895_weinberg_symphonie_nr._1_op._10_p_a4 - so had to listen through again.  Ditto with nos. 2 & 3.  Finally crawled off to bed at 2am or so - with work the next morning - feeling like Keats's watcher of the skies.  Mature reflection may begin to introduce questions of why someone 14 years younger than DSCH should still be writing in his idiom, but for the moment it's all new and exciting.

Interesting! Weinberg's 5th Symphony is his masterpiece IMO (Kondrashin is best). I've even seen Symphony 3 live at the Proms. I like the Piano Quintet, symphonies 1,3,5,6 and 21 although I don't know them all. Also the Cello Concerto.

[Brian]

The Cello Concerto is being performed at London's Southbank next month.  About time it entered the repertoire, it's an amazingly strong piece.

It's also a piece that, with all its emotional tunes, is perfectly calculated to win over major concert-hall audiences. That is an amazing program! The Weinberg Cello Concerto and The Bells are both on my must-see list. Also it'll really test the audience's love for quiet endings. 

[DaveF]

Interesting! Weinberg's 5th Symphony is his masterpiece IMO (Kondrashin is best). I've even seen Symphony 3 live at the Proms. I like the Piano Quintet, symphonies 1,3,5,6 and 21 although I don't know them all. Also the Cello Concerto.

I'm getting there! - long way to go to 21, although I see that Mirga G-T and the CBSO have recorded it, so may skip ahead.  It was no.2 especially that left me lost for words - like a forgotten Shostakovich SQ, but with buckets of added charm (a commodity in fairly short supply in DSCH's works, to my ears).

[vandermolen]

The Cello Concerto is being performed at London's Southbank next month.  About time it entered the repertoire, it's an amazingly strong piece.

I hope to go to this concert - thanks for the alert.
My wife might be interested in the fact that the performance of Rachmaninov's 'The Bells' is being signed as she is a BSL Interpreter.

[Todd]

Jumping forward to the classical era, Dmitry Bortniansky makes a first appearance in my collection.  This recording starts off with a setting of an anonymous Cherubic Hymn, which sounds aged and serene and lovely, and then things jump into a more identifiably classical era soundworld.  Though not entirely.  Rather like Tchaikovsky's later setting of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, big slugs of the music sound something closer to timeless.  Bug slugs do not, however.  Not being a musicologist, I don't know how familiar Bortniansky may have been with Haydn, or vice versa, but in some of the writing, there's a vaguely similar style and approach.  It does sounds less austere than Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, but the buoyancy, the verve, the energy, and the clear seriousness of purpose works well.  The short concerto style writing also keeps things moving along.  The singing is all modern US conservatory good, so it is very good, and the recorded sound from the San Franciso venue is quite excellent.  A very nice addition to my collection.

[Todd]

Back to the Renaissance, and off to jolly old England, with works by Christopher Tye and William Mundy.  The 16th Century music is very serious, lovely, and somewhat austere, at least when compared to, say, Spanish composers.  While one can enjoy lovely polyphonic writing, much of the music is much influenced by chant, Mundy even more than Tye.  The comparative simplicity of much of the writing combined with the small scale sound is most rewarding, though.  Overall, another hit from Jeremy Summerly and crew. 

[Todd]

Time for some Tomáš Norbert Koutník!  Who?  Yeah, I know.  I found this for a few bucks and figured it couldn't hurt to listen to it.  The 1970 vintage recording contains two works, the oratorio Kriminalista Nevinný and the Requiem in E Flat Major.  Basically, the music sounds like a merging of Pachelbel and early Haydn, with dollops of Handel.  The tunes sound nice enough, the orchestral writing sounds nice enough, and the singing is good enough.  It's hard to drum up a great amount of enthusiasm for the recording, but it is impossible to dislike.  This would make for perfect background music to listen to while performing some mundane task, so one's mind can wander and focus on the music from time to time.  The transfer is OK.  It's hard to tell if it came from degraded tape or LP. 

[Brian]

This disc combines the surviving string quartets by Chicagoans Leo Sowerby and Florence Price (who knew and admired each other), both from 1935, plus Price's later short suite, Five Folksongs in Counterpoint.

Price's String Quartet No. 2 shares the same virtues and flaws of her other large-scale music: attractive themes derived from folk traditions, a soundworld that recollects Dvorak's American-period works, and vibrant dance episodes in the good column; simplistic accompaniments/counterpoint, lack of development, and episodic structure in the bad column. The tunes in each movement are memorable and wonderful, but the accompaniments sometimes make me cringe. (The poor second violin and viola have some really basic one-two one-two see-saw busy work to do while other players get melodies.) The scherzo is the very best part and would be a terrific standalone miniature - as usual with Price.

Leo Sowerby's music is more in line with the academic American school of the time - early Piston, that kind of thing. It's less immediately attractive but has an interesting structure that goes for lots of contrast. The first movement has a slow introduction that returns at the end, setting up the scherzo in second place, followed by a slow movement and a final "recitative and fugue". This whole American neoclassical/academic school is something I only connect with intermittently, and I know GMG has some members who are way bigger fans. If you know Sowerby's piano quintet from Hyperion (EDIT: Sorry, I confused him with Leo Ornstein), maybe you'll be interested in this, but it wasn't for me.

Price's Five Folksongs in Counterpoint sounds a lot like a blend of the two previous works. It was written in 1951, one of her last works, and basically lives up to its title by making the title tunes fit squarely into old-school classical frameworks. This is somewhat intellectually engaging for the tunes that I do not know, but REALLY interesting for the ones that I do ("My Darling Clementine," "Short'nin Bread," and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"). At the end of most of these little exercises, she lets her hair down by writing a faster concluding flourish.

One problem plaguing both composers is the engineering. The quartet sounds so dynamically flat, so narrow in range, that I looked up photos of the concert hall to see if it was to blame. Not so - the hall looks rather nice and can accommodate a chamber orchestra. I think the engineering/mic placement is part of it, but only exacerbates a certain lack of interest by the players themselves. Surprising because their reputation is so good. In short, the disc is underplayed but there will be certain groups of people who find it really interesting.

[Todd]

Tallis time.  I'm of course familiar with Thomas Tallis, and rather dig his Spem in Alium, but I've listened to comparatively little of his music.  This recording of a Mass for Four Voices and some Motets is basically the anti-Spem.  Simple, sparse, clear, this music occupies a different world.  One commonality is the striking beauty.  The simplicity, if anything, makes it more apparent.  Perhaps a deeper dive into Tallis' output is warranted.