Volume 21 Issue 9 - Summer 2016

with full documentation of the evening in a
very fine cloth-covered hardcover edition,
24.5cm X 15.5cmX 2.3cm. Inside are two
CDs and a Blu-ray disc containing the
complete concert in HD audio plus an HD
video of the event with choice of stereo or
5.1 surround sound. On the same Blu-ray
disc are bonus videos including full documentaries,
Claudio Abbado in Berlin –
The First Year and Members of the Berlin
Philharmonic Remember Claudio Abbado.
There are lots of discussions, rehearsals and
human interest events plus the reason Abbado
had to wait eight months after assuming the
post to receive a contract. A personal code
to download high resolution audio files is
also included.
A well-produced 56-page multilingual
booklet the size of the package contains information
about the two works on the program
and how they are tied together. There are
interesting articles with many colour photographs.
Also there are the names of the
personnel of the orchestra in May 2013.
Bruce Surtees
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY
Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire; Max
Kowalsky – Pierrot Lunaire
Ingrid Schmithüsen
ATMA ACD2 2734
!!
Arnold
Schoenberg’s celebrated
1912 song
cycle Pierrot Lunaire
is justly regarded as
a masterpiece of his
mid-period atonal
works. Don’t let the
bogeyman of atonalism
scare you away; this is an extremely
compelling work that exudes an atmosphere
of exuberance and playfulness.
Originally conceived to be performed by
an actress and an ensemble of five instruments,
the vocal quality that Schoenberg
calls for in this multifaceted jewel of a work
is unique: not quite sung, not quite spoken,
but somewhere in between. The texts consist
of 21 poems by the Belgian symbolist Albert
Giraud in the German transliteration by
Otto Erich Hartleben published in 1892.
Many others have set these texts to music,
including the persecuted composer and
lawyer Max Kowalski (1882-1956), whose
cycle of 12 of these poems included here were
conceived and published in the same year
as Schoenberg’s. Kowalski’s charming and
supple settings are cast in a neo-romantic
style and are conventionally sung.
Having presented the work some 70 times
during her career, it’s fair to say that soprano
Ingrid Schmithüsen has become the very
embodiment of Pierrot and delivers an admirably
nuanced account of Schoenberg’s opus.
In most cases this complex work involves a
conductor; here however, it is clear that the
soloist is calling the shots (and incidentally
owns the recording copyright). This emphasis
on the voice no doubt explains the frustratingly
recessed sound of the ensemble, which
left me pining for the vivid instrumental presence
in just about every other recording I’m
familiar with, notably the outstanding 1971 LP
by Jan DeGaetani. By contrast, the Kowalski
song cycle with pianist Brigitte Poulin is
perfectly balanced.
Daniel Foley
Noravank: Petros Shoujounian – String
Quartets 3-6
Quatuor Molinari
ATMA ACD2 2737
!!
Composed to mark
the centenary of the
Armenian genocide,
Noravank’s
title is derived from
a homeland monastery
that was Petros
Shoujounian’s inspiration.
Its 14 sections,
divided into string quartets of three, three,
three and five movements, are symbolically
named after rivers and are based on liturgical
chants.
Quartet No.3 was the most affecting for me,
through its tiny echoes of melodies and treatments
heard in Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe
and Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel; it concludes
with the provocative Dzoraget. The contradictions
of Quartet No.4’s depressive second
movement, the energetic third and Quartet
No.5’s lamentoso first movement brought to
mind the power of nature and the current
plight of evacuated Fort McMurray folks –
if that’s not the musical equivalent of theological
proof-texting. The balance of Quartet
No.5 and all of No.6 more overtly reflect the
influence of eastern folk songs, both in the
keys and the lilts they comprise. Another
memory of song, from Chopin’s “Raindrop”
Prelude in D-Flat Major No.15 Op.28, is
heard in the onomatopoeic burbling waters
of the Vedi.
This CD was suggested to me, a Pärt
fanatic, as a possibly similarly contemplative
recording. While these aren’t tracks for
mindful meditation, there is an introspective
quality to all the movements. Maybe the
invoked theme of migration is apt, after all:
fires, oppression, the liturgical life – these all
involve movement and change. But this introvert
was soothed rather than discomfited
via the talent of the Quatuor Molinari, who
commissioned this work that is ultimately
about renewal. Fine liner-note editing and
the eponymous cover photograph round out a
very marketable product.
Vanessa Wells
Finding a Voice: The Evolution of the
American Sound
Walden Chamber Players
Independent (waldenchamberplayers.org)
!!
This new disc from
the Walden Chamber
Players features
compositions which
might be described as
the linking species of
the American music
family tree. Ably
performed here are works by little-known
composers (Marion Bauer 1882-1955), lesserknown
works by composers well known
(Aaron Copland’s Threnodies), and works by
modern composers who write close enough
in time to us that they might remain in our
blind spot (Ned Rorem).
Rorem is best-represented here, and rightfully
so – after all, he is a still-living and
underappreciated American composer
whose healthy sense of deference to
American musical heritage is best exemplified
by his Ives-tinged The Unquestioned
Answer (2002). But it is actually Virgil
Thomson’s ghost that looms largest over this
recording. In the middle of the 20th century,
Thomson achieved more infamy as cantankerous
critic than fame as a composer. As
far back as 1944, he took aim at the cult of
the warhorse, noting that “the enjoyment
and understanding of music are dominated
in a most curious way by the prestige of the
masterpiece.” In that same essay, he wrote,
“this snobbish definition of excellence is
opposed to the classical concept of a Republic
of Letters.”
These words could serve as this disc’s
manifesto; it demands that we re-evaluate
these works which might have otherwise
been lost to the murk of history. They may
not be capital-M masterpieces (whatever that
actually means), but they are nonetheless
worth hearing.
Elliot Wright
WAM
Michael Finnissy; Michael Norsworthy
New Focus Recordings FCR157
(newfocusrecordings.com)
! ! While it may not
move you to tears or
laughter, the music
of Michael Finnissy
should hold you in a
kind of rapt fascination,
like an elaborate
mechanism with
multi-coloured parts moving according to
mysterious laws. This new release features
American clarinetist Michael Norsworthy.
The composer provides the piano accompaniment;
also performing are violinist
William Fedkenheuer and the New England
Conservatory Wind Ensemble.
Brief liner notes by the composer offer
some helpful information: his substantial
Clarinet Sonata unfolds calmly, the piano
part presenting a cantus firmus derived from