"New" Music Log

[Todd]

I've yet to amass a even a medium sized Palestrina collection, but I am familiar enough with his work that I thought I ought to go for something big and juicy in the form of the Cantica Salomonis, or the Song of Songs, expressed in twenty-nine motets.  Oh yeah!  Well, not really.  So, the music is most excellent.  The singing, however, is not.  One can probably find fault in many places, but for me, the high voices are the problem.  There's an unappealing nature to the high parts.  It makes listening a chore.  (I think the high parts are taken by women only, though perhaps some boy sopranos are used.)  The lower voices sound more tonally alluring, but also less than tidy.  The Palestrina Ensemble Munich is not the most accomplished ensemble I have listened to.  As a slight saving grace, the few extra encores sounds slightly more appealing.  But overall, despite the involvement of living Schuberts, the recording cannot be counted a great success.

[Todd]

Now here's a composer I didn't know that I really needed to hear.  This is the second Mayr to pop up in my collection – Rupert Ignaz Mayr is the other one – and this Mayr has a claim to fame, such as it is, in the fact that he was a noted instructor of Italian bel canto opera composers, including Donizetti.  He was Bavarian by birth, but he ended up spending a lot of time working farther to the South.  This recording of not one, but two Messa di Gloria, one in E minor and one in F Minor, reveals Mr Mayr to be a composer of no little accomplishment.  The best shorthand here is to describe the music as a perfect blend of Carl Maria von Weber and Gioachino Rossini.  And that is why I really needed to hear this music.  Both works are in minor keys, but the energy levels bubble and the pace stays taut.  Severe religiosity is out; theatrical gestures are in.  Vibrance, showy set pieces for the soloists, and multiple very Weberian horn blats permeate the whole undertaking.  Mix in superb singing and really quite fine recorded sound, and this here is a winner.  It turns out that Mayr wrote gobs and gobs and gobs of music, including literally hundreds of liturgical movements that could be dropped in any old place.  It also turns out that conductor Franz Hauk is most devoted to Mayr's music and has recorded a decent chunk of it for Naxos.  I think I should probably investigate a bit more. 

[Todd]

A couple years ago, I picked up the excellent Josquin & the Franco-Flemish School box on Warner, and it contained several new to me composers, including Adrian Willaert.  I thought to myself I should really try something else by the composer, and now is the time.  This now almost thirty year old recording of the Missa Christus Resurgens and some smaller works fit the bill.  Things kick off with the Christus resurgens by Jean Richafort, which serves as the basis of the main work, and it sets the tone of all that follows.  And that is an intimate, beautiful, not too dense, easy to follow and generally just soothing and musical-warm-blanket recording.  The high voices dominate the recording, which is all to the good, and the singing sounds lovely and otherwise blended nicely.  This is one of those hour-long recordings where one just presses play and lets the good times roll. 

[Todd]

For no good reason, I've never listened to either Dvořák's Mass in D or his Te Deum.  I've heard his Stabat Mater (under Kubelik) and Requiem (under Ancerl), but not these.  Well, now was the time, I thought.  That no less than Antoni Wit conducts all but guaranteed success.  And a success it is.  The Mass, evidently scaled up from the original, smacks of 19th Century grandeur, but having flowed from the pen of Dvořák, the tunes are simply gorgeous, and even with the scale, it sounds like a slightly beefier, definitely sunnier approach to liturgical music that Fauré later mimicked-ish, at least in the quieter sections.  Sure, one can hear whiffs of Wagner in the brass in some places, but it's tasteful, restrained Richie.  It really sounds just splendid, celebratory, and lovely.  The Te Deum sounds more identifiably Dvořákian, and it is entirely extroverted and often most showy, though never garish, even in the most over the top moments. 

[Brian]

The Te Deum is my "secret" favorite Dvorak, a true hidden gem from the opening polyrhythms to the glittering full circle conclusion. The Wit performance is up to his standard, but the piece can be a little faster, and I wish he was still paired up with his amazing Warsaw band.

Wit is also responsible for the only Dvorak Requiem I'd put up against Ancerl, if you get curious.

[Todd]

Thirteen bass drum and bell thwacks open Thierry Lancino's Requiem.  After that sparse, hard entry, uncompromising blats of sound emerge, as does a singer singing lines of the Sibyl.  It's all terribly modernist, hard-hitting, uncompromising, ugly.  As it happens, I can and do enjoy such music, even when dealing with religious themes.  Last time I had a similar hankering for religious themed new music, I ended with the far less compromising and far more radical Mars: Requiem by Helga Pogatschar.  This is not that.  This is more traditional modernist music, rather conservative in comparison.  Think Ligeti (definitely) mixed with Berlioz (definitely) mixed with Bruneau (probably), infused with a little bit of art house movie aspirational serious film music, and of course some French avant-garde, and one gets the idea.  I don't mean to make light of the work, because it is indeed very serious, but it gives off something of a Barenaked Ladies vibe, because it's all been done.  The blended text, mixing the Requiem text with other pieces in other languages, works well enough, and the orchestral colors and sounds, and the bracing modernism, and the at times really quite excellent soloists (Skelton and Murphy earn their paychecks), and the really rather fine choral work make for a fine overall listen.  Indeed, this more or less typifies what I think of when I think of large-scale modern choral works.  That's a good enough thing.  Turns out there's a decent enough batch of recordings of Lancino's works, with the one by Paula Robison and Pavaali Jumppanen the most immediately appealing.  I suspect I shall be hearing more from Mr Lancino.  In the meantime, this recording works well, is in good enough modern sound, and shows that sometimes big(gish) names can and do deliver.

[Brian]

This starts with "Seven Capricci" by Jörg Widmann, who is becoming every cool artist's go-to guy for a short piece to add to their recording. The seven miniatures total up to just 12 minutes but they encompass a wide range of styles, from a relatively straight-laced, pretty waltz to a chorale full of pauses and hesitations - to a 30-second movement called "Noises" that is exactly that, nothing but funky blowing and buzzing effects. "Keys" also includes a drum-roll style moment where everyone...taps their keys.

The rest of the disc blends arrangements of works by Felix and Fanny and Johann Sebastian. Given the relative non-fame of the works chosen - the most well-known would be two Songs Without Words and the Passacaglia in C minor - I had hopes that they'd all be chosen because of a genuine affinity for the saxophone quartet medium. Yup. For one thing, fugues sound really great played by four saxes. For another, Felix Mendelssohn's bustling energy and often excessive accompaniments lend themselves well to contrapuntal quartet treatment. We know this from his string quartets; now we have more proof. Fanny is saved for last, with two song transcriptions serving as encores, the last an Italianate saltarello with a nice bouncy rhythm.

A short disc, but things can be short when they're fun. 53 minutes of pure entertainment. Kebyart, the saxophone ensemble, sounds great throughout and they are very well recorded. Only at certain moments (outside the Widmann) can you hear clicky keys, and there's a nice amount of space around the players, too.

[Todd]

About twentyish years ago, I purchased my first and only disc of Antheil's music, the Ballet Mécanique on Naxos.  Every once in a while, I give it a spin and enjoy the relentless, giddy drive and absurdity of the whole thing – and that's the version for orchestra.  So, after much ado, a follow-up purchase in the form of the Violin Sonatas.  Hot shots Tianwa Yang and Nicholas Rimmer, both so well known to my ears, including for their knockout recording of Wolfgang Rihm's works for violin and piano, made the decision to go for this an easy one.  The listener can expect and gets tip-top quality playing.  I mean, Yang's glissando and Rimmer's repeated notes alone are worth asking price – and those are merely the first things that make the listener think "Neat!". 

The first three sonatas date from the hot house Roaring 20s, and the influences are obvious.  Think Stravinsky (including near/actual quotations), Bartok's folk music (including near/actual quotations), Schulhoff's filtered jazz, ragtime, Spanish piano music, and, well, Antheil, and that's what one gets, a pastiche-meets-unyielding-invention glob o' music in three works ranging from the taut, eight-minute and change single-movement sonata (with bass drum added), to the more than twenty-four minute, four movement behemoth that is the first.  The Fourth sounds less intense and frantic, with some lovelier melodies emerging, but it retains something akin to a stream of consciousness feel informed by a plethora of influences. 

Recorded sound is fully up to snuff, and playing is hot shot quality.  A treat of a recording.

[Brian]

If there is music with a funnier backstory, or an album with a funnier booklet note, someone please tell me about it. This album focuses on, yes, music composed to celebrate the Eurostar train from London to Paris and Brussels, and the completion of the Channel Tunnel. There is a fanfare for the first train to Brussels, a fanfare for the Queen's first departure to Paris, and an extra fanfare composed because the composer was notified that actually the Queen would be coming from Paris to London. (And then the plan got switched again, so this one was not performed in the actual train station.)

The main piece, Royal Eurostar by Paul Patterson, is a 12-minute brass and percussion work (to which organ was added for the CD, played by Wayne Marshall) that was meant to be played as the Queen and her entourage boarded the first train through the Chunnel, in the hope that it would reach its climax right as the train left the station. You can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, it's very grand, with brass writing influenced by Gabrieli, the English baroque sackbutts, Respighi, Hindemith, Persichetti, etc. alike. There are sets of timpani to both the left and right, and distant rafters trumpet fanfares. The studio recording sound picture had to be conceived to replicate the real-life performance with musicians on various train platforms. I hope you like fanfares, because there are a LOT of fanfares. Le Marseillaise gets quoted, of course. The climax is definitely grandiose enough that I can tell when the train is leaving the station (around 10') - pity the Queen didn't get to hear the best part. After the climax, the organ and dueling timpani provide a dramatic outro. This is a very silly piece, with lots of huffing and puffing, but I found it endearing and entertaining.

The fanfares are short - a couple minutes each - and generally blend a mix of "national" melodies together (plenty more Marseillaise) in a baroque-sounding musical language of intertwined counterpoint, glittering brightness, and ascending scales.

Also on the disc: a neobaroque suite by Derek Bourgeois commemorating the 300th anniversary of the arrival of William & Mary to the UK; the very dutiful solemn Elgar piece "Sursum corda"; Richard Strauss' fanfare written for the Knights of St. John; and the one well-known piece on the disc, Hindemith's Konzertmusik. (The Hindemith and Elgar works borrow the Philharmonia orchestra.) I quite like the Bourgeois piece but must point out that the melody for "The Death of Mary" sounds a lot like the jazz standard "Someday My Prince Will Come." The Strauss is suitably solemn and grandiose. The Hindemith performance is rather slow (15% shorter than Steinberg at 18:30), but features bold and blazing brass playing.

But let's be honest: all 3 of us who have ever heard this album listened to it because of the Eurostar music. Whatever. It's kinda fun! I'll probably never play it again, but I liked it this time.

[Todd]

A while back, I picked up the second volume of Portuguese Piano Trios played by the Trio Pangea and rather enjoyed it.  So why not try the other two volumes, including the brand spankin' new third volume.  So I did.

The first volume starts off with the Op 15 Trio by Luiz Costa, from 1937.  If one did not know the year of composition, one might guess 1887.  It's late romantic through and through and basically sounds like lightened up Brahms.  Since Brahms wrote some of the very best piano trios, that's hardly condemnation, but nor is the work the height of originality.  Claudio Carneyro's Op 24 Trio from 1928 follows.  Here the light, breezy, tuneful music sounds very much like music composed in France in the 20s.  Some of the singing cello lines mimic a tenor musing on something or other in a most appealing way.  Sérgio Azevedo's Hukvaldy Trio, from 2013, receives its world premiere here.  The single movement work emerges from pieces by Janacek, and one can hear that influence and Bartok's and Shostakovich and Schnittke, as well.  The piece moves seamlessly from jagged piano music softened by hazy violin writing to formless, amelodic globs of music; from neoromantic swooning to post-modern harshness; from beauty to unbeauty.  It ends up the most compelling work on a nifty recording.  Excellent sound, superb playing.

The third volume begins with Armando Jose Fernandes' Sonata a Tre, from 1980.  Strikingly light, infused with abstract folk elements, it gently screams neoclassical, with a meltingly beautiful Andante sostenuto.  Nuno Corte-Real's single movement Sonata Holandesa follows, receiving its world premiere recording here.  It unfolds in an almost fantasia like manner, moving from one idea and style to another, always fluidly, with some sections working better than others.  One can hear the influence of minimalism, with piano ostinato appearing in various places, while neoromanticism pops up several times, as well as more modernist stylings, though never of the gnarly variety.  The composer brings the instruments to the fore at various points so one can hear the violin playing exposed with hushed support, for instance.  The complete lack of edge to the sound helps here in that one never grows tired of the sound, though the underlying rhythmic element hints that perhaps some more bite would be good in a few places. 

The big draw here is Jose Vianna da Motta, student of Liszt and teacher of Sequeira Costa, who in turn taught his (later) son-in-law Artur Pizarro, who in turn recorded da Motta's Piano Concerto.  His biggish Piano Trio in B Minor receives its world premiere commercial recording (something new to me).  Big, bold cello playing starts things off, and the whole thing is unabashedly romantic.  That makes sense since the work dates from the 1880s when da Motta was but a young man.  Even more than Costa in the first volume, this work sounds like a missing Brahms piece, though one with languid passages aplenty.  That is not meant as criticism.  One can also hear hints of what Strauss and Korngold did later.  So, you know, it ain't too bad at all.  Indeed, it's most enjoyable and makes me think I should try that Pizarro recording and listen to da Motta's 78s. 

Two members of the trio changed between the second and third volumes, but the playing remains very good.  (Truth to tell, I'm not familiar with recorded piano trios that don't sound accomplished.)  The recorded sound is extremely close and entirely devoid of Raumklang.  It detracts from the music a bit.  Overall, this is the least of the three releases, but it's still good to hear, especially for that da Motta.

[Brian]

For those who have forgotten how the label chose to promote this new album:

"Jüri Reinvere knows how to write music as intense as the scent of seaweed, the sultriness of a summer's night, but also with the sweat of fear in anticipation of death. He powerfully grips his listeners and does not let them go until they have experienced stories of passion and exhaustion, dreamlike beauty and nightmarish catastrophes, of longing, ecstasy and realisation."

Wowzers! I got to listen today.

And Tired From Happiness, They Started to Dance is a three-movement orchestral triptych, totaling about 24 minutes, that lives up to the title in that I found it exhausting. Reinvere's style could be compared to the mystic nature-painting of people like Vasks or Rautavaara, and the quasi-minimalist cell repetition/evolution of Vasks or Reinvere's own teacher Lepo Sumera. Except...faster. And manic. The piece is absolutely relentless, and as a result, the first few minutes were my favorite (before they kept going and going).

The next piece is very different. Concerto for Two Flutes, Strings, and Percussion is in two movements, both almost entirely slow. The first really, really emphasizes flutter-tonguing and other atypical effects for the two flautists, and has a rather haunting sense of stasis that calls to mind composers like Vasks again. (But this time more directly.) The second movement has a long duo-cadenza section where the flute players again engage in exotic effects, very nearly beat-boxing. There are some spit sounds. The strings and percussion are used very discreetly throughout, and the overall mood is haunting, spooky, frosty. Near the end, it's easy to imagine the dueling flutes and the chiming background percussion as an evocation of a winter snowstorm.

On the Ship of Fools is a 20-minute seascape with occasional lulls and surges. The composer it reminds me of most is Salonen, which is good because Salonen is a great, and the musical language Reinvere uses here is an interesting balance between static/statuesque chilly abstraction and post-impressionist tone-painting. The ending is nicely evocative and includes lots of very "small" percussion sounds - glittering dings and tinkles as the music fades into silence, as if the ship is floating away under starlight.

Basically, this disc is 2/3 for me. If you like the music of Vasks especially, the concerto is well worth a listen and may really lure you in. If you like Salonen, Rautavaara, Aho, Magnus Lindberg's "Al largo," etc., On the Ship of Fools may be a real find for you. ...They Started to Dance is less interesting to me, but it is impressive that Reinvere has such a musical range across different moods. Orchestra and sound are everything the composer could hope for.

[Todd]

Bright Sheng is good and reliable, so it seemed appropriate to try another disc or two of his music.  This ditty with no less than Cho-Liang Lin involved seemed like something to hear.  The recording opens with Spring Dreams, in its version for Violin and Chinese Orchestra.  Cho-Liang Lin had the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra commission the version for violin after hearing the original written for Yo-Yo Ma, so not only does one get to hear a heavy hitter soloist, but the one who made it happen.  The solo writing is more "Western" in conception, and quite virtuosic in places, but it also infuses not only Eastern music, but some of the writing sounds rather like Appalachian fiddling.  Behind the soloist though, is a mass of timbres and sounds unlike a Western orchestra, except down low, where cellos and basses reside.  Those familiar with Sheng or other composers who use Chinese instruments will know what to expect, and when combining the instruments with some Western forms, the result really is quite something.  It's basically a modern violin concerto with Chinese characteristics, but not one possessed of saccharine or condescending writing, but one firmly ensconced in the concerto tradition.  Nice.   

The Three Fantasies, from 2006 follows, and it is a suite for violin and piano.  Sheng successfully melds Eastern sounds, mostly from the violin, and more traditional Western sounds from the piano, in something like an extreme version of Bartokian, stylized folk music.  There's fast and furious, and slow and contemplative music, and just how many times does one get to hear music influenced by both Tibetan and Kazakh sources in one short piece?  Obviously not frequently enough, so this little suite works very well indeed.  The Tibetan Dance, from 2001, basically a Clarinet Trio, closes things out.  While certainly possessed of some Eastern sounds, it's more conventionally modernist, but not knotty in style.  Indeed, the first two movements sound slow and dreamy and lovely – and have hints of Debussy in the piano writing.  (That counts as a very good thing.)  The final movement is where all the dance action is, in an abstracted kinda way, with big ol' piano note clusters and cacophonous playing by the violin and clarinet.  It's pretty nifty.

Sonics are high grade and playing is even higher grade.  Another hit from Sheng and those who choose to record him.

[Todd]

The last Bright Sheng recording was good enough that sampling another seemed like a good idea.  The title work here joins Fazil Say's 4 Cities as a contemporary work for cello and piano of no little accomplishment.  Sheng writes that he was influenced by folk music for years, and that Northern Lights is influenced by, well, Scandinavian folk music.  The opening movement seems more infused with some eastern influences, though I don't know the specific influence.  The second movement, though, perfectly illustrates Sheng's statement that Scandinavian and Appalachian folk music share some similarities, because it almost sounds like something Mark O'Connor could have written.  That is high praise.  The other two movements more or less offer the same blend of neo-Bartokian folk-infused music.  Sheng writes of this being his first attempt at this style of music, and here's to hoping more follows.

Melodies of a Flute follows, and this chamber piece for flute, violin, violoncello, marimba, and one small suspended cymbal, is unabashedly and delightfully influenced by eastern music ideals.  It should be, as it is influenced by 李清照, and celebrates her poetry.  (The booklet notes include the relevant poems.)  The vibrant, rhythmically rollicking open quickly gives way to meltingly beautiful and gentle music where the flute floats a melody as lovely as any crafted by Debussy.  The long, multi-sectional opening movement flows from section to section effortlessly, while the more energetic second movement offers a nice contrast and something sure to generate applause. 

The compact, super-tightly constructed Four Movements for Piano Trio offers an essentially perfect blend of western chamber music and eastern influences, in a dissonant and easily enjoyable and entirely accessible piece.  The short-ish, single-movement Sweet May Again, written for Edgar Meyer and Emanuel Ax, and influenced by a poem of the same name, blends modernism, jazz or something like it, and is just plain fun to listen to, in all its virtuosic glory.  The recording closes with Hot Pepper, for violin and marimba.  The work is based on a folk song from Si Chuan and in its compactness and brightness makes for a fine piece.  It would be a great work to include in a chamber music program, but the instrumental mixing is a bit unusual.

Sound quality is very fine and playing is all modern conservatory grad quality.  This disc offers an excellent overview of what happens when wealthy folks commission works from a leading composer of the day. 

[Todd]

Mallets melodiously meeting metal greet the listener's ears at the open of Mount E'mei, and then a violin soloist enters the fray in this essentially flawless fusion of Eastern and Western musical styles tone poem.  It pays homage to the titular mountain, which apparently has no little significance in China.  And it's a nice homage.  Quite often, the music sounds dreamy, with the violin floating above sparse, lovely music that is formless and fantastical, as in a musical fantasy.  But then mammoth tuttis arrive, wash over the listener, but they never sound hard.  And, nearly miraculously, Ye manages to deploy cymbals in a manner that does not sound gauche.  That is no mean feat.  While a single track, it unfolds in multiple sections, including solo sections for the violinist and percussionist, and the transitions define flawless.  It's difficult to describe, but the music sounds familiar but bracingly new, bold yet comfortable, rough yet lovely.  It's just swell.  Percussionist Shengnan Hu rocks, to boot.

The Scent of Green Mango follows, and it is a modern, single-movement piano concerto of the generically modernist variety.  By that is meant that the piece lacks the same blatant and fantastic fusion of East and West in the opener, instead coming close to sounding like a Bartok-meets-Henze fusion (with Messiaen tossed in), with notes and instrumental groupings coming at the listener in fast and furious manner.  Gnarly for sure, it's also comfy gnarlyness, and it also infuses some gentle music into the mix, music that has strong hints of (high-grade) movie soundtrack music.  Lamura Cuo is basically a single movement fantasy for violin and orchestra with a far more East-meets-West vibe than the preceding work.  That written, its modenist bona fides are never in doubt, even when the soloist pours out long, beautiful melodic lines.  The recording ends with The Silence of Mount Minshan, a paean to another mountain of note.  Late Mahlerian dissonances married to almost Mendelssohnian lightness and programmatic shifts in tone, all delivered with a vaguely Eastern flair, make this a nice closer.

Xiaogang Ye has turned out to be a most reliable composer for me, with three additions to my collection and three hits.  This recording, of works all completed within the last decade, is a real keeper.  Sound, soloists, conductor, and band are all high grade. 

[Todd]

It has been many moons since I last purchased a recording of the music of Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, so I decided to buy another.  This one serves dual purpose since it has some Arriaga plus works by other composers.  To Arriaga, he's referred to by some as the Spanish Mozart, though I didn't hear that in his string quartets.  I hear it even less here.  Instead, I hear a blend of three other composers.  In the fun Los esclavos felice Overture, I hear generous dollops of Haydn and Rossini.  That's swell.  In the Symphony in D, well, I hear Arriaga not so much as the Spanish Mozart but as the Spanish Schubert.  One hears the same general vibe as in Schubert's first three symphonies, and that's a darned good thing.  Tuneful, light, tuneful again, with hints of theatricality, it hits the spot.  Seriously, had this been sold as a missing Schubert work, that would have been easy to believe.  This does not sound like the Mozart I know.  It's not a great work that should grace concert halls around the world, but there's enough there that hopefully a few more conductors take it up.  Given his success with Schubert's D Major Symphony, I should like to hear what Thomas Hengelbrock could do with the work, though I doubt that happens. 

The rest of the recording is given over to small overtures and sinfonias by a bevy of Portuguese composers, Carlos Seixas, João de Sousa Carvalho, António Leal Moreira, and Marcos Portugal.   The remaining works sound either Haydnesque (especially Carvalho) or Rossinian (Portugal to the point where it sounds like a missing juvenile work).  Since the works are all short and all sound like sunny classical works, they all work. 

Nice playing, nice conducting, nice enough recorded sound.  A delight filled recording.

[NumberSix]

Is this thread  17 years old??!!

I am impressed.

[Todd]

I still have explored only a few works by Krzysztof Penderecki, and when I saw that this disc included no less than Barry Douglas tickling the ivories in the Piano Concerto, backed by no less than Antoni Wit, it was a must have.  The concerto is a big, long, single movement but multi-section work.  Prokofiev looms rather large, with guest appearances by Bartok and Wagner and Mahler, among others.  But it is no mere derivative work.  Occasional delicate and lovely sections are outnumbered and outgunned by big, beefy, often motoric sections, with Douglas thundering out the piano part.  The weighty orchestral passages, with ample low string heft, and the massive Mahlerian Andante maestoso all satisfy, even as they tip over into garishness.  The Flute Concerto is somewhat similar.  It sounds less tuneful, but just as motoric and vibrant, with a spikiness that is not unappealing given the daintier solo instrument.  As far as modernist flute concertos go, it's pretty good, though the piano concerto is more to my taste.  Playing and sound quality it fully up to snuff in this better than anticipated recording. 

[Brian]

One thing I recently learned from the composer Samuel Adler's memoir is that the students/acolytes of Penderecki and Lutoslawski ginned up a silly "rivalry" between the two composers, who happened to be based respectively in Krakow and Warsaw, so they became an art-music Yankees-Red Sox divide. Adler was touring Poland before the Curtain came down and Penderecki invited him over for breakfast. But his handler-driver was a Warsaw native and therefore a Lutoslawski devotee, and said, "You can go, but I refuse to step into that man's house. When you're done eating breakfast I'll pull up in the driveway and honk the horn so I don't have to knock on the door."

[steve ridgway]

One thing I recently learned from the composer Samuel Adler's memoir is that the students/acolytes of Penderecki and Lutoslawski ginned up a silly "rivalry" between the two composers, who happened to be based respectively in Krakow and Warsaw, so they became an art-music Yankees-Red Sox divide. Adler was touring Poland before the Curtain came down and Penderecki invited him over for breakfast. But his handler-driver was a Warsaw native and therefore a Lutoslawski devotee, and said, "You can go, but I refuse to step into that man's house. When you're done eating breakfast I'll pull up in the driveway and honk the horn so I don't have to knock on the door."

Go the Horn Honkers .

[Todd]

It took until now for me to listen to Robert Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust.  I'm not sure why, but there it is, and here's this recording from Claudio Abbado on a major label, with the Berlin band, and with some of the biggest name singers at the time the recording was made.  At the very least, technical quality is assured.  There's no mistaking the composer in the Overture, which here sounds bold, dramatic, and kinda Rhenishy.  So far, so good.  Then the singing bits start.  Usually, though not always, big name, big buck talent delivers, and they do so here.  Whether singing solo or in tandem, all the singers sound very fine, and yes, Terfel belts out the tunes, and both Mattila and Graham sound entirely distinct and recognizable.  The chorus does good work, too.  Along the vocal front, only the children's choir bits are not to my liking. 

Musically, the work seems a bit discombobulated and discontiguous, mixing slightly different Schumannesque soundworlds.  One could complain that the writing and orchestration does not reach Wagnerian levels of refinement and beauty, and one could lament that it does not reach Berliozian levels of grandiosity, especially given the subject.  But what is there has the same immediate appeal of Schumann's orchestral works, just in extended, grander scale form.  The music sounds unabashedly romantic to its core, and that suits the tale.  Whatever Abbado's limitations in certain repertoire may be, when it comes to theatrical works, he knows his stuff.  He plays up the drama, keeps the music moving, keeps things clear, and lets the singers shine.  Multiple little moments catch the ear throughout, none more so than the start of Mitternacht, which sounds like the Mendelssohn-Mahler musical melding the world needs.  This grand and grandiose operatic oratorio (which is how I hear it) is none too shabby, and it makes me think perhaps I should try Genoveva.  There's a version of that with the great Juliane Banse, so, hmmm.

Good stuff.