"New" Music Log

[Brian]

Of course one of Latvia's leading composers, turning 67 this year, is *checks notes* a populist whose music is heavily inspired by Argentine tango? Half of this album of orchestral works by Arturs Maskats is given over to Piazzolla riffs. First the 11-minute "Tango," featuring a short accordion solo, and aside from some contemporary flash in the orchestration, it is a pretty straightforward imitation tango. He says that he wrote it to do for tango what Ravel did for La Valse, in which case he failed, but it's fun.

The 20-minute Accordion Concerto is similar, although it is broken up into four short movements and the second one has a wild climax where the strings are divided into individual soloists and they breed chaos, a la Penderecki. Still, it's not long before the brass enters with a Latin tango-type theme to subdue them back into shape. The accordion soloist often alternates passages of her own bustling solo with quiet percussion-only orchestral interludes. The third movement is a slow "Blues" (again, more Argentinian than American). This leads directly into a cadenza, then a perky finale that finally breaks free of South America to a more general, somewhat chaotic expression of joy. It's the best part. There's an unexpected quiet ending.

"Cantus diatonicus" is a 7-minute piece Maskats wrote as a student, with prominent solos for oboe (as main melodist) and celesta (as main accompanist, color provider, and folk-tune-quoter). The atmosphere is that of waking up or sunrise, with a childlike sweetness/innocence creeping into the musical language in the second half. When dissonance briefly appears, it sounds almost accidental.

The album ends with a 16-minute tone poem representing the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Called "My River Runs to Thee," it's also a monument to Maskats' biggest contribution to the musical world. In the early 2000s, he ran the Latvian National Opera and (according to the booklet) recognized the possible conducting talent of one of the orchestra's trumpet players. That trumpet player, Andris Nelsons, went on to commission this work from his old boss for performances in both of Nelsons' workplaces, Boston and Leipzig.

The piece starts off in what's becoming a familiar Maskats mood: quiet, with lots of softly clopping percussion. From here, a slow, romantic string melody builds to a climax and subsides back into more soft bell chiming and tinkling. I thought maybe the piece was ending, but that was just minute 4 out of 16. A spookier section begins around 7', with dissonant, clashing tones from the piccolo and violins that sound a little Ligetian. Maybe it's a reference to "Because I could not stop for death..."? Now there is a sort of slow development section, as the romantic violin melody and the more dissonant elements prepare for showdown. You'll never guess who wins. Overall, I found the piece a mixture of Vasks-style dualism/conflict and Hollywood schmaltz.

All told, the album adds up to just 53 minutes. The booklet is very little help explaining why this composer is so obsessed with tango. It does make clear, however, that he is a Latvian audience favorite because his music is so easy-listening, so approachable, and so forthright in its emotions. This album is, very rarely for a contemporary music CD, something for Florestan to listen to in a lighthearted mood. For me it is a little too sweet, but there are occasions when even a grump like me needs a little musical sugar. Maybe I'll listen again, maybe.

[Todd]

Back in 2017, I discovered the pianist Marie-Luise Hinrichs.  I picked up a pair of Soler discs from her and was mightily impressed.  I later picked up her recording Vocation, consisting mostly of recordings of her own transcriptions of music by Saint Hildegard von Bingen.  It was my purchase of 2017 and remains one of my purchases of the century.  I'm not exactly sure how, but this 2023 release Visions, which is essentially a sequel, escaped my attention.  Within thirty minutes of learning of this, I purchased a download. 

Basically, what I wrote in 2017 holds true for this recording.  (See link below.)  To be sure, the novelty is gone, and the first disc is firmly entrenched in my mind, so this disc had less of an impact.  That written, it's basically a beautiful, soulful, spiritual continuation of the first disc.  It is stylistically almost identical.  The only difference is that tempi are slightly swifter overall.  Also, Hinrichs adds one Tchaikovsky piece, two of her own, with the rest given over to Bingen and Gurdjieff.  This time, eight Bingen transcriptions are included out of eighteen tracks, so the mix is different. 

For the quickest summation possible: I adore the first recording; I adore this recording.

Oh, it turns out this is the third such recording.  In 2019, she released Meditationen, which I somehow missed.  It is not downloadable, so I will have to obtain a physical copy.

Original Vocation comments: https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,26195.msg1049294.html#msg1049294

[Brian]

MacMillan's Symphony No. 4 is an intimidating listen at 40 minutes on a single track, in a single movement. It is primarily slow, with such big architecture that the Qobuz review compares it to Bruckner, although it doesn't sound anything like Bruckner. Parts sound like the musicians are warming up before the lights dim; parts involve a surprising amount of Caribbean steel drum, which I don't think I'd ever heard in classical music before.

The overall emotional feel is contemplative, very Serious, maybe slightly grim in places but mostly a sort of hushed beauty. It sounds like a very early Sunday morning as the birds start to wake up and light creeps in through the bedroom window and the person inside slowly drifts out of sleep to the realization that they need to eat breakfast and go to church. After a fairly loud climax around 15', the cellos (without vibrato) begin to intone almost medieval-sounding religious hymn tunes, with more steel drum decorations. At 24', it's the violas sounding like 1600s viol consorts. It's somewhat painful, after this, to endure a passage where the percussion players must intentionally play out of rhythm with each other.

There follows a passage of great beauty - restrained rather than rapturous, but beauty all the same, and with MacMillan's habitual religious reverence. The ending of the symphony, unexpectedly, is loud and fast, building to a sizeable climax with lots of percussion and a French horn that is Star Wars-ish.

Then we have the half-hour Viola Concerto, written for Lawrence Power. The viola has immediate melodic work to do, and MacMillan's gambit with orchestration generally is to pit the viola against smaller instrumental groups, then have big percussion-heavy climaxes break out while Power is resting. The central movement, especially, has an appealing vision of viola as healing balm and reassurance. The finale offers some of MacMillan's "catchiest" writing, with strong rhythms and a lot of piccolo - think maybe Shostakovich or Arnold. I don't know if it will stick in my memory as strongly as the symphony, but it makes a very good first impression.

[foxandpeng]

MacMillan's Symphony No. 4 is an intimidating listen at 40 minutes on a single track, in a single movement. It is primarily slow, with such big architecture that the Qobuz review compares it to Bruckner, although it doesn't sound anything like Bruckner. Parts sound like the musicians are warming up before the lights dim; parts involve a surprising amount of Caribbean steel drum, which I don't think I'd ever heard in classical music before.

The overall emotional feel is contemplative, very Serious, maybe slightly grim in places but mostly a sort of hushed beauty. It sounds like a very early Sunday morning as the birds start to wake up and light creeps in through the bedroom window and the person inside slowly drifts out of sleep to the realization that they need to eat breakfast and go to church. After a fairly loud climax around 15', the cellos (without vibrato) begin to intone almost medieval-sounding religious hymn tunes, with more steel drum decorations. At 24', it's the violas sounding like 1600s viol consorts. It's somewhat painful, after this, to endure a passage where the percussion players must intentionally play out of rhythm with each other.

There follows a passage of great beauty - restrained rather than rapturous, but beauty all the same, and with MacMillan's habitual religious reverence. The ending of the symphony, unexpectedly, is loud and fast, building to a sizeable climax with lots of percussion and a French horn that is Star Wars-ish.

Then we have the half-hour Viola Concerto, written for Lawrence Power. The viola has immediate melodic work to do, and MacMillan's gambit with orchestration generally is to pit the viola against smaller instrumental groups, then have big percussion-heavy climaxes break out while Power is resting. The central movement, especially, has an appealing vision of viola as healing balm and reassurance. The finale offers some of MacMillan's "catchiest" writing, with strong rhythms and a lot of piccolo - think maybe Shostakovich or Arnold. I don't know if it will stick in my memory as strongly as the symphony, but it makes a very good first impression.

These works are excellent.

[JBS]

Malcolm Arnold used steel drums in his Commonwealth Christmas Overture

[Brian]

Molecule is the stage name of an electronic music composer and DJ, real name Romain De La Haye-Serafini. Symphony No. 1 sounds pretty much exactly the way you'd expect a DJ with an orchestration assistant to sound if he wrote a 17-part, 45-minute symphony chopping, remixing, and recontexting famous works by Holst, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, etc. Lots of varied episodes, lots of color, lots of "spot the composer" quotes popping up all over the place. Those who enjoy Andrew Norman, for example, might like this. I found it very entertaining, if in a superficial way, to hear the various quotes as they've been repurposed into new episodes, riffs, etc. However, obviously, this method of composition does not result in a long-range dramatic arc across the piece.

Your interest might increase or decrease based on the compositional method. Molecule listened to the Lille Orchestra's rehearsals for two years, choosing rehearsals to hear "raw" sounds and unfinished products. He then took hundreds of tapes of orchestral music and "remixed" them, changing the keys and only quoting two bars at a time to avoid charges of plagiarism. Finally, an assistant carried out the actual writing of parts for every instrument. Molecule fills in bits of electronics around the edges.

Molecule claims that the piece is about death and how we confront it, although to me, it is more of a series of images and impressions and it's all about the color and the momentary impressions.

[Brian]

Three big commissions by Cincy, all around a half-hour, all very different.

Zhou Tian came to the USA at age 20, studied with the likes of Jennifer Higdon, and teaches in Michigan. (I'm surprised Ohio forgave him for that.) His Concerto for Orchestra has sections with poetic descriptions such as "Glow" and "Seeker's Scherzo." Generally speaking fast sections are actually quite coherent and rhythmically interesting, not just one-two-one-two, while slow sections are soft, quiet, poetic. The orchestral virtuosity is exciting. However, there is not really a new or personal "stamp" on the material.

Ultimately I found this piece unsuccessful. The textures, harmonies, and major-key romantic-ish vibe all sound like a composer who wants to please his audience, but the melodic material is simply not memorable enough to close the deal. It would probably be pleasing to see live, but I won't remember any standout part. The live applause seems pretty enthusiastic.

Thierry Escaich's Psalmos, Sinfonia Concertante for orchestra is based on Bach chorales and Lutheran hymns, most prominently "Ein feste burg ist unser Gott." The first Bach melody is quietly brought out by solo flute in a short introduction, accompanied by strange sliding strings and (I think) vibraphone. The result is an evocation of Escaich's organ-playing roots. Over the next 25 minutes, the Bach and traditional sources will be stretched almost beyond recognition, except perhaps "Ein feste burg," which is almost always played prominently by the trumpets. The two central moments are the slow movement, which builds to a level of feverish emotional intensity almost like Nielsen's Fourth, and the finale, which resolves to a very traditional C major, in an untraditional way. Escaich is always well worth hearing in my experience.

Finally, Sebastian Currier's Flex is a six-movement piece with self-descriptive titles like "15 Versions of the Same Phrase." I rather like this approach as it demystifies things like "passacaglia" for today's audiences who may not know the terminology. The first movement is a bit scherzo-like, with tugging syncopations and spotlit soloists. (It reminds me a tiny bit of the beginning of Atterberg 6.) This leads, without any major change in mood, to the 15 Versions, which is exactly as advertised, a short, somewhat cryptic motif passed around among orchestral sections. It's not a proper variation movement since only the instrumentation changes. What follows is a variation movement. The fifth movement of six is the proper slow movement,

Generally speaking, the piece favors small groups of orchestral players paired together, and there are not a lot of full-on climaxes. It is therefore by far the subtlest of the three pieces. It's also lacking in any sort of storytelling or dramatic arc: it's just an exploration of all the ways everyone can play together. That requires a certain listening style, which is not mine, but could be yours.

[Mandryka]

Saving the most radical for last, Helga Pogatschar's Mars: Requiem ends things with a buzzsaw.  Ms Pogatschar was around thirty when she wrote this and she purposely set out to write a piece commemorating the dead of WWII, and to do so in a manner that stood against the male music tradition.  All well and good, though I'm not convinced that setting ancient liturgical texts is the best way to achieve that end.  That written, such intense iconoclasm can lead to striking, original, vital, visceral works.  (I'd write "shocking", but art does not shock me.)  So, what does a bad girl have to say about the Requiem?  Well . . .

The work opens with Mars, an obvious addition to the standard text, and it stands in for the Dies Irae.  Filled to the brim with synthesizers and electronic drums, along with caterwauling as opposed to singing, and all manner of crushing intensity that would make Trent Reznor perk up, it's as non-classical a start to a Requiem as exists.  The Introitus follows, and an electronically augmented bass bellows out the text, surrounded by female singers, and then the electronic bass thunders, and the (presumably) electronic music meant to evoke Byzantine chant arrives, as does a tenor.  It swirls and grinds forward.  The Kyrie opens with recorded German text, and then movies into more of the grinding, industrial rock meets tradition vibe.  Pogatschar blends styles and voices, sometimes pairing the two high parts expertly, and she even incorporates straight-up Renaissance a capella polyphony briefly, before reintroducing thudding electronic bass.  The piece then constantly weaves all these widely disparate sounds and styles, arriving at a Sanctus that includes extended droning passages that sound like hyper-aggressive minimalism.  The effect is quite something, and truly unique.  The Agnus Dei falls just short of the effect, as the soprano soars above everything else, with the other soloists adding color, while electronic music hums in the background and synthesized instruments approximate some type of pseudo-folk music.  The concluding Qohelet blends modernized takes on ancient music with the soloist very obviously recorded in an isolated booth and then mixed in.  The minimalist support compels.

This work is entirely unlike all the others, standing apart and away from any tradition.  It blasts past conservative avant garde writing into something new in my experience, showing what can be done with the Requiem, and opening infinite paths forward.  It blends so many influences, some separated by millennia, and keeps moving forward with almost unyielding intensity, and does so with very little concern for sounding beautiful, that it ends up a modern music drama with liturgical texts.  In some ways it's like a post-post-modern Hildegard von Bingen, taking full advantage of everything to convey a message.  There's a sense of exploration, purpose, anger, sorrow, and the composer seems to give zero fucks about how it might be received.  It is bold.  It is original.  It is striking.  It is absorbing.  Now, that written, there may very well be dozens or hundreds of similar works I've never heard because I've never sought to explore this artistic nook of the contemporary world.  I kinda want to look a bit more.  And Ms Pogatschar deserves some more listening.  To be clear, I suspect many people may hate this often outright ugly work.  That's fine.  It works for me.  Fantastically well. 

I could not find this recording to stream on any paid service I have access to, so I went the YouTube route.  Sound is therefore a bit compromised, though I get the sense it doesn't matter.  I also made it a point to listen in my 2.1 home theater the first time around, with the .1 adding to the sonic, even physical experience.  The second time around I went with earbuds, and this work seems quite well suited to that delivery mechanism.  It lacks weight, but it sounds claustrophobic, and the isolation allows the music to burrow into one's ears, mind, and soul. 

I must give thanks to Kees van der Vloed at the Requiem Survery website (http://www.requiemsurvey.org/), which is devoted to listing all sorts of requiems, recorded and not.  The site lists over 5000 different pieces.  More listening remains.

Ha! Tremendous. @Todd -- PM me if you want the booklet (which has a worthwhile essay. Or indeed the music files.