Volume 25 Issue 3 - November 2019

elements – the composer has assembled a hauntingly beautiful and
unusual musical world that the talented Önder sisters tackle with
virtuosity, expertise and their own recognizable musical agency.
Notable is the Sonata for Two Pianos, commissioned by the Louis
Vuitton Foundation, which premiered earlier this year. Here, the
sisters explore the range and expressive depth of the four-hand-piano
tradition in order to bring to life this beautiful and challenging work
that prods listeners to confront their own expectations of what constitutes
contemporary classical performance in 2019 and to rethink what
remains possible within the codified three-part sonata form employed
here. Both the music of Say, and the nuanced playing of the Önder
sisters, was new to me prior to receiving this recording. I am pleased
to musically get to know these important and, very much of this
moment, global artists.
Andrew Scott
VOCAL
Zachary Wadsworth – When There is
Peace: An Armistice Oratorio
Chor Leoni Men’s Choir; Erick Lichte
Independent CLR 1909 (chorleoni.org)
!!
One year ago
(November 10 and
11), the 100th anniversary
of the end
of World War I, this
work was premiered
and recorded in
Vancouver, where
Zachary Wadsworth (b.1983) is the Chor
Leoni Men’s Choir composer-in-residence.
Wadsworth says his goal was “to honour the
experiences” of those who served and “to
celebrate those who gave their lives in search
of peace.”
The 58-minute oratorio draws from 17
different writers, including many soldiers’
wartime descriptions and poetry by Robert
Service, Siegfried Sassoon, Sara Teasdale
and others. Soprano Arwen Myers, tenor
Lawrence Wiliford and five readers add to
the sonic mix led by the chorus, Borealis
String Quartet and percussionists Martin Fisk
and Robin Reid, all conducted by the choir’s
artistic director, Erick Lichte.
The prevailing mood, as expected, is sombre,
with the chorus suggesting (to me) the haunted
voices of the dead, ghostly laments from beyond
the grave. A recurring motif relates to birds –
representing life in contrast to the carnage below.
Musically, there’s a repeated ascending violin
melody (shades of Vaughan Williams!) while
the text (included) mentions “larks,” “thrush,”
“brave birds,” “bird songs,” “swallows,” “robins”
and Sassoon’s description of the armistice:
“Everyone burst out singing… with such delight
as prisoned birds must find in freedom.”
The well-crafted music of this worthy
addition to the choral memorial repertoire
provides a platform for the powerful words
of war and peace, century-old words still
relevant, not only on Remembrance Day, but
on all days.
Michael Schulman
Charles Gounod – La Nonne Sanglante
Michael Spyres; Vannina Santoni; Marion
Lebègue; Accentus; Insula Orchestra;
Laurence Equilbey
Naxos 2.110632 (naxos.com)
!!
In 2018, the bicentennial of Gounod’s
birth, the Paris
Opéra Comique
revived this opera,
unstaged until
2008 in Germany
following its brief,
11-performance run
in 1854. Whatever
the reasons for its
initial failure, this
production, with
highly dramatic
scenes, brilliantly
sung by an outstanding cast, makes a persuasive
case for its future survival.
During the dark, nervous Overture we witness
the Nun’s murder and slo-mo start of a battle
between two warring clans in 11th-century
Bohemia. (Today’s opera directors abhor closed
curtains during overtures.) The libretto involves
two lovers from the rival clans, the ghost of “the
Bleeding Nun” seeking vengeance against her
murderer, mistaken identity, ghostly gatherings
and a murder plot, ending with the lovers, Agnès
and Rodolphe, finally reunited.
Befitting the supernatural goings-on, the semiabstract
sets and projections are all grey and
black, as are most of the cast’s costumes, a mix of
medieval and modern. The Nun wears a white,
bloodstained shroud; the other ghosts appear in
grey military garb or shrouded in white.
Tenor Michael Spyres (Rodolphe) dominates
the action – his arias presage Gounod’s great
tenor arias for Faust and Roméo – and with
his sweet yet powerful voice he sings them
all magnificently! Paralleling Spyres’ intense,
thrilling vocalism are sopranos Vannina
Santoni (Agnès) and Jodie Devos (Arthur,
Rodolphe’s page), and mezzo Marion Lebègue
(Nun). Conductor Laurence Equilbey’s minor
cuts, mostly in the ballet, help propel the
excitement throughout.
Enthusiastically recommended to all lovers
of great singing!
Michael Schulman
Winterreise
Ian Bostridge; Thomas Adès
Pentatone PTC5186 764 (naxosdirect.com)
!!
Ian Bostridge
reaffirms the case
for Franz Schubert’s
Winterreise being
the greatest of
song cycles; it’s
also famous for
the number of
times it has been
recorded – including seven times by the great
lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. This
Pentatone recording is Bostridge’s third and
that makes ten recordings by two of the finest
exponents of lieder the world has ever seen.
In Winterreise Schubert takes the despondency
which closed Die schöne Müllerin
and pushes it to extremes creating a desolate
landscape (both inner and outer) of
unrelenting pessimism. Even Schubert’s
friends, who understood the pain from where
it sprung, were reportedly dismayed by the
bleakness of the song cycle.
Bostridge brilliantly cloaks himself in
Schubert‘s rejected lover, driven to the
verge of madness as we follow his lonely
peregrinations through a snowbound
landscape. Thomas Adès’ pianism highlights
the emotional veracity of the performance.
As the lover’s journey progresses, his vision
becomes more inward and the subjectivity of
the songs more pronounced. The final song,
Der Leiermann, is a masterstroke: the traveller
meets a destitute hurdy-gurdy player,
whose rustic song Schubert mimics with a
quirky piano figure. The wanderer wonders
whether he should go with him but his question
is left hanging in the air as the song
drifts away. If Fischer-Dieskau’s baritone
voice heightened the gloom, Bostridge’s tenor
enhances the cycle’s drama through contrast
between vocal tone and meaning.
Raul da Gama
Verdi – Donizetti
Michael Fabiano; London Philharmonic
Orchestra; Enrique Mazzola
Pentatone PTC 5186 750
(pentatonemusic.com)
!!
Opera excerpt
recordings are a
dime a dozen, but
this new issue
intrigued me.
Michael Fabiano,
a young American
tenor of considerable
repute for his
starring roles in Italian and French repertoire
at the most famous opera houses around the
world, comes out with his debut recording
on the prestigious Pentatone label with a
remarkable collection of difficult bel canto
arias by Verdi and Donizetti. Why these two?
In his scholarly introduction Fabiano maintains
that there is a relationship between
the two composers, particularly in their
middle periods. There is a departure from the
80 | November 2019 thewholenote.com