Volume 25 Issue 4 - December 2019 / January 2020

DISCOVERIES | RECORDINGS REVIEWED
DAVID OLDS
Having retired from my day job at New Music Concerts and
recently undergone knee replacement surgery which involves
an extended recovery, I have found myself lately with a luxury
of leisure time. This has given me the opportunity to listen in more
depth to the discs I select for my own column. It has also enabled me
to select a bumper crop to write about, without however, providing
any extra space in which to do so. With apologies to the artists, I will
try to keep my assessments brief.
In my formative years, while immersing
myself in the music of the 20th century, I set
out to collect recordings of all the works of
Arnold Schoenberg and Béla Bartók.
Schoenberg proved to be the greater challenge,
because in those days there was not
yet a definitive collection of his oeuvre, so I
had to gather the recordings wherever I
could. The quest for Bartók was simplified by a comprehensive
Complete Edition Bartók Béla issued in 33 volumes by the Hungaroton
label. It was there that I first encountered the quintet for string quartet
and piano dating from 1904, an unpublished student work that
although well received at its first performance, was later withdrawn
by the composer. I was pleased to receive a new recording of the
youthful work on Veress – String Trio; Bartók – Piano Quintet
featuring violinists Vilde Frang and Barnabás Kelemen, violists
Lawrence Power and Katalin Kokas, cellist Nicolas Altstaedt and
pianist Alexander Lonquich (ALPHA 458 alpha-classics.com).
Frankly, the disappointment I had felt on my initial encounter some
decades ago was confirmed upon re-listening to the quintet. Although
I’m sure purists would not agree, to my ear the accomplished and
virtuosic work would be more at home in Brahms’ catalogue than in
Bartók’s. It shows a masterful control of late-Romantic-period
nuances and exuberant bombast, especially in the czardas of the final
movement, but none of the subtlety of the night music, nor the
harmonic and rhythmic complexity of later Bartók. I was pleased to
find that the music of Sándor Veress (1907-1992), who was a piano
student of Bartók and later his assistant at the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences, fits better into my idea of what modern Hungarian music
should sound like. The trio dates from 1954 and incorporates
Schoenberg’s 12-tone method of composition, thus providing a
convincing hybrid of the styles of two of my favourite composers.
Veress’ music was a welcome discovery for me, and I look forward to
hearing more of this under-sung composer.
Tchaikovsky & Babajanian features violinist
Vadim Gluzman, pianist Yevgeny Sudbin
and Canadian-born cellist Johannes Moser
(BIS-2372 SACD bis.se). The bread and
butter of this disc is the Tchaikovsky Piano
Trio in A Minor, Op.50 which receives a
stellar performance, amply illustrating the
points addressed in the comprehensive liner
notes by Horst A. Scholz. But of more
interest is the Piano Trio from 1952 by Armenian composer Arno
Babajanian (1921-1983) who was previously unknown to me. The work
is both rooted in the Romantic world of Rachmaninoff and imbued
with folkloristic flourishes from Babajanian’s native land. The notes
point out that it was written under the constraints of the Stalin regime
and go on to say that after Stalin’s death in 1953, Babajanian’s style
opened up to embrace atonality, aleatoric music and microtonality,
among other modern techniques. It makes me wish we were
presented with a later example of his work, but my preferences
notwithstanding, this is a solid composition that holds its own in a
crowded field of late-Romantic chamber music, and once again the
performance is committed and convincing. The “encore” piece on this
CD is Sudbin’s trio arrangement of the Tango from Alfred Schnittke’s
Concerto Grosso No.1 for two violins, harpsichord and strings from
1976, which draws this eclectic disc to a somewhat tongue-in-cheek
conclusion.
This year saw the passing of numerous
cultural icons, but two in particular are
brought together on Kira Braun’s new
disc Mosaic (Centaur Records CRC 3779
centaurrecords.com), Glenn Gould Prizewinner
André Previn and Nobel Prize
Laureate Toni Morrison. Previn first set the
poetry of Morrison in the cycle Honey and
Rue in 1992 for soprano Kathleen Battle,
jazz trio and symphony orchestra. Two years later he went to the well
once more, to set Four Songs for the more modest forces of soprano,
cello and piano. On this disc Braun is joined by cellist Kirk Starkey
and pianist Linda Ippolito in performances recorded February 23,
2019 just three days before Previn’s death at the age of 89. Morrison
died just six months later making this an apt memorial tribute,
although that was not the intention of the recording. Braun’s voice is
well suited to the dark opening poem Mercy, the wistful Shelter and
the concluding poem The Lacemaker, but I wish there was a little
nsemble
ivant
latin romance
With Special Guests: Don Thompson, O.C., Kevin Turcotte, Luisito Orbegoso and Juan Carlos Medrano
LATEST CD AVAILABLE NOW
“... wonderful collection by Ensemble Vivant. The music leaps off the page in these
performances, which are joyful, attentive to detail, and interpretively clairvoyant.
The musicians in the ensemble are individually brilliant and, collectively, greater than
the sum of their parts. Thank you Catherine Wilson and Ensemble Vivant...”
Phil Dwyer C.M., J.D.
Noted Canadian Jazz Musician
ensemblevivant.com
thewholenote.com December 2019 – January 2020 | 79