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Author Archives: Peter Burwasser

Carr: Landscapes and Lamentations

Richard Carr belongs to the ever-burgeoning band of American composers who’ve left the academia of their youth behind, as an alternative creating music that fortunately attracts from quite a lot of sources, together with pop and people music. This newest assortment of his chamber music works is principally dedicated to materials impressed by nature, which tempts the listener to listen to it as a kind of modern impressionism. But that’s considerably deceptive, suggesting imitative writing within the method of Debussy. Carr extra typically takes his cues from his beloved nature walks (together with waterfalls, woods, and ice caves) and flows into summary language that includes bluegrass, jazzy rhythms, Stravinsky-like angular Neoclassicism and fugal building that honors Bach. His musical collaborators are the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), whom he joins, variously, on violin, piano, and guitar. The performances are partially improvised and in addition carried out from scores, though the mix is seamless and tough to listen to. ACME scrambles a bit in among the quicker passages, and there are some occasional intonation misses, however these are minor points. This is, general, a positive instance of radiant modern American chamber music, skillfully constructed and enjoyable to hearken to.

The publish Carr: Landscapes and Lamentations appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Carr: Landscapes and Lamentations

Richard Carr belongs to the ever-burgeoning band of American composers who’ve left the academia of their youth behind, as a substitute creating music that fortunately attracts from quite a lot of sources, together with pop and folks music. This newest assortment of his chamber music works is especially dedicated to materials impressed by nature, which tempts the listener to listen to it as a form of modern impressionism. But that’s considerably deceptive, suggesting imitative writing within the method of Debussy. Carr extra typically takes his cues from his beloved nature walks (together with waterfalls, woods, and ice caves) and flows into summary language that comes with bluegrass, jazzy rhythms, Stravinsky-like angular Neoclassicism and fugal development that honors Bach. His musical collaborators are the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), whom he joins, variously, on violin, piano, and guitar. The performances are partially improvised and likewise carried out from scores, though the mix is seamless and troublesome to listen to. ACME scrambles a bit in among the sooner passages, and there are some occasional intonation misses, however these are minor points. This is, general, a wonderful instance of radiant modern American chamber music, skillfully constructed and enjoyable to take heed to.

The publish Carr: Landscapes and Lamentations appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Elgar: Viola Concerto. Bloch: Suite for Viola and Orchestra

Edward Elgar wrote his final main work, the Cello Concerto, within the dispirited, grey temper of post-World War One England in 1919, and practically a decade because the demise of the wonderful Edwardian age, for which he basically wrote the soundtrack. Not surprisingly, the work is magnificently darkish, but in addition tinged with moments of playful nostalgia. The rating was reworked as a viola concerto, in 1929, by the nice British violist Lionel Tertis, with the composer’s blessing. It is a remarkably profitable association, which is primarily because of the capability of the instrument to imitate the sound of the sung human voice. Of course, this impact is solely depending on the ability of the soloist, and Timothy Ridout is just beautiful, enjoying with a nimble, lyrical expressiveness that lends an improvisatory movement to the music. That virtuosity is much more on show within the suite that Swiss born composer Ernest Bloch wrote nearly the identical time that Elgar was composing his Cello Concerto. This colourful, even playful work, impressed by Asian melodic patterns, is brilliantly introduced off by Ridout and his BBC colleagues. The recording is vividly lifelike. In all, a really thrilling launch.

The publish Elgar: Viola Concerto. Bloch: Suite for Viola and Orchestra appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Elgar: Viola Concerto. Bloch: Suite for Viola and Orchestra

Edward Elgar wrote his final main work, the Cello Concerto, within the dispirited, grey temper of post-World War One England in 1919, and almost a decade because the demise of the fantastic Edwardian age, for which he basically wrote the soundtrack. Not surprisingly, the work is magnificently darkish, but additionally tinged with moments of playful nostalgia. The rating was reworked as a viola concerto, in 1929, by the good British violist Lionel Tertis, with the composer’s blessing. It is a remarkably profitable association, which is primarily as a result of means of the instrument to imitate the sound of the sung human voice. Of course, this impact is completely depending on the talent of the soloist, and Timothy Ridout is just beautiful, enjoying with a nimble, lyrical expressiveness that lends an improvisatory movement to the music. That virtuosity is much more on show within the suite that Swiss born composer Ernest Bloch wrote nearly the identical time that Elgar was composing his Cello Concerto. This colourful, even playful work, impressed by Asian melodic patterns, is brilliantly introduced off by Ridout and his BBC colleagues. The recording is vividly lifelike. In all, a really thrilling launch.

The publish Elgar: Viola Concerto. Bloch: Suite for Viola and Orchestra appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos

Nathalie Stutzmann started her musical profession as a singer, and lots of of her admirers subsequently ascribe a vocal high quality to her conducting. But her riveting fashion additionally betrays the pure rhythms of a born dancer, even within the measured classicism of the Beethoven piano concertos. She attracts daring and buoyant music-making out of the fantastic Philadelphians, for whom she is serving because the principal visitor conductor, portraying the composer as a full-fledged Romantic, even within the first two concertos, that are historically interpreted as homages to Beethoven’s trainer, Haydn. The younger Shanghai-born pianist Haochen Zhang, a Cliburn Competition gold medalist, gives a delightfully dashing distinction to Stutzmann’s strong method, with elegant, but richly colourful tonality that appears rooted in an 18th-century sensibility, even amidst the grandiosity of the “Emperor” Concerto, the final of the set of 5. Of course, there’s fierce competitors within the recorded catalog of this music, together with such venerable soloists as Fleisher, Brendel, and Serkin, however this absorbing new take has sufficient perception and distinctive persona, to not point out excellent recorded sound from BIS (Stutzmann’s outstanding dynamic shaping is very effectively captured), to put it amongst the perfect.

The put up Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos

Nathalie Stutzmann started her musical profession as a singer, and plenty of of her admirers subsequently ascribe a vocal high quality to her conducting. But her riveting model additionally betrays the pure rhythms of a born dancer, even within the measured classicism of the Beethoven piano concertos. She attracts daring and buoyant music-making out of the wonderful Philadelphians, for whom she is serving because the principal visitor conductor, portraying the composer as a full-fledged Romantic, even within the first two concertos, that are historically interpreted as homages to Beethoven’s instructor, Haydn. The younger Shanghai-born pianist Haochen Zhang, a Cliburn Competition gold medalist, offers a delightfully dashing distinction to Stutzmann’s sturdy method, with elegant, but richly colourful tonality that appears rooted in an 18th-century sensibility, even amidst the grandiosity of the “Emperor” Concerto, the final of the set of 5. Of course, there’s fierce competitors within the recorded catalog of this music, together with such venerable soloists as Fleisher, Brendel, and Serkin, however this absorbing new take has sufficient perception and distinctive character, to not point out excellent recorded sound from BIS (Stutzmann’s exceptional dynamic shaping is particularly properly captured), to position it amongst the very best.

The put up Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

The Legacy of George Crumb

George Crumb wrote some of the most exotic, and often electrifying music of the modern era. And yet the composer, who died in February 2022 at the age of 92, radiated a demure persona that was utterly at odds with his ferociously original music. His soft voice, tinged with the gentle drawl and rhythms of his native West Virginia, contrasted with the extreme emotions that inhabited his scores; I can recall attending a recital of a group of his many settings of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca (with the composer in attendance) that elicited a shriek of terror from an audience member.

Crumb’s distinctive voice was well established by the time he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for Echoes of Time and the River. His music, which was influenced by a diversity of figures including Mahler, Debussy, Bartók, and even Thelonious Monk, bravely broke away from the academic orthodoxy that embraced serialism as the only serious way to write. He also introduced extra-musical elements into his work, such as requiring the musicians in Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) and Ancient Voices of Children to wear masks. His instrumentalists were sometimes instructed to chant. And he engraved his meticulously hand-written scores in unusual patterns, such as rendering the staves in a spiral (which, he admitted, was mainly decorative and has minimal effect on the way the music is performed).

It was also during this period that Crumb started to incorporate unusual instrumentation, including vast percussion batteries, electronic amplification, and, notably, prepared piano. The piano is featured in all four books of his great homage to Bartók, Makrokosmos, which he completed over the course of seven years, from 1972–1979. One of the original pianists for book three, Music for a Summer Evening, was James Freeman, who recalls the novelty of the composer’s directions. “I remember that George dropped off the score for the first time at my house, and I was amazed at the work I had to do on it—besides lots of notes, rhythms, and all kinds of extended things inside the piano which I’d never done before. There was even a thumb piano part in my section that wasn’t easy. Now everyone is used to playing these inside-the-piano things. But it wasn’t so then. They were really new. For the recording session of Makrokosmos III for Nonesuch Records, we learned that the Steinway Company refused to allow us to use their pianos, because of all the inside-the-piano playing. Baldwins were rented instead. But the metal bars in Baldwins are in completely different positions than those in Steinways, and of course it was for Steinways that George had written the piece, and on which we’d learned and practiced our parts. That really made things difficult for Gil [Gilbert Kalish, his piano colleague] and me. I don’t remember how we actually managed to play some of those things, but we did, I imagine by somehow stretching our hands and fingers into really awkward positions.”

Freeman also recalls that the composer himself ended up taking part in the performance, although it was not planned. “In the fourth movement, Myth, George calls for someone to groan three times. It was written into Gil’s Part (Piano I), but all four of us tried the groaning. George didn’t like what any of us did—one was too sexual, one too sleepy, one too nasal, one too hoarse. We urged him to do it himself, and he eventually agreed. So it’s George himself groaning on that record, though the liner notes do not acknowledge that!”

Crumb’s best-known work is probably his 1970 amplified string quartet, Black Angels, at least as measured by the number of recordings made of it, by now at least ten. The work created a sensation immediately. It actually inspired the creation of the Kronos Quartet. David Bowie included a recording of the piece on his list of top 25 favorite records. In 2004, I engaged the composer in a lengthy conversation about Black Angels, during which a few truisms about the work were brought into question. Principally, the concept that this was Crumb’s “Vietnam quartet” is not exactly correct. At least it was not conceived as such.

Black Angels, a 20-minute work in 13 sections, took Crumb almost a year to complete. It was commissioned by the Stanley Quartet, then in residence at the University of Michigan. The Vietnam connection, which he came to accept as valid, snuck up on him. “I didn’t approach it that way. It was very late in the compositional process that I became aware of associations with that period. Some have suggested that even some of the titles refer to the geography of Vietnam, such as Night of the Electric Insects. I came to recognize that there was something of the feeling of that strange time. That’s when I called it music in tempore belli, in time of war.”

Then there is the question of numerology. He warned against reading too much into this. “Yes, this business of 7’s and 13’s came into the music. I don’t remember what they even mean. It was more technical, structural. I got carried away with the Friday the 13th thing [the date inscribed on the score]. I think it is important in all music not to reveal too much. Beethoven doesn’t give us all of what’s in his mind. There are references to Shakespeare in his letters, but not in the score. Mahler’s Third originally had descriptive titles for all of the movements, but he dropped them. Even more abstract music is probably connected with other ideas—poetry, landscapes, and other things. Let the listener make the connections.”

In the course of our conversation I was able to conjure an uncharacteristic flicker of pride from Crumb, and even a sense of artistic competition when I asked him about a possible connection to another sensational work, Krzysztof Penderecki’s 1960 Threnody for Victims of Hiroshima. That work opens with a sort of hysteria for high strings that Crumb goes one better in the startlingly slashing violence of the three threnody sections in Black Angels, including the very opening of the piece. “I did know the Penderecki. There was a kind of anguish there, but it is kind of monolithic. I tried to cover a lot more moods.”

 Some of the overtly dramatic elements of Crumb’s performance directions have drawn ridicule over the years, but have been largely embraced by musicians and audiences. Flutist Mimi Stillman, founder and artistic director of Dolce Suono Ensemble, was coached by the composer for their performance of Vox Balaenae. “As a performer, I find it endlessly inspiring and fun to present the theatrical elements to an audience, as they contribute to the overarching message of Crumb’s powerful music. The sense of theatricality is intrinsically tied to executing his music—in some sense what makes it theatrical is not really extra-musical. One feels a sense of ritual and drama performing these elements, and they contribute to a sense of wonder and awe for the audience.”

Crumb’s modest demeanor carried over to his important career as a teacher, which could be a challenge for his students. One of his composition students from his long tenure on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Daniel Dorff, recalls his frustration with Crumb’s mild-mannered approach. “I asked Dr. Crumb to be more critical and incisive with me, adding that I came here for constructive criticism to develop my skills, and that my self-confidence wasn’t fragile. That registered loud and clear with George, essentially giving him permission to say whatever he thought about my sketches toward new pieces. From then on, he let loose in the most polite and constructive way, but not holding back with specific troubleshooting and advice. Once he even raised his voice because my motivic structure was so unfocused. That was a great lesson!”

Dorff jokes that “there used to be a saying that talking with Crumb about music is like talking to a tree about nature, meaning that one learns by observing the source rather than by discussing.” This was, in a sense, true for Jennifer Higdon as well, and led to a revelation that transformed her way of thinking about her music. “I had a moment in a lesson when George turned to me and said, ‘You know Jennifer, in the end, all that really matters is how the music sounds.’ And this carried special resonance because I was in the Ph.D. program at Penn, where we worried all the time about being able to theoretically justify every note we put on the page. He was right; in every piece that we love, no matter the genre, the one thing we can always say is that we love how it sounds. So I realized that maybe, if that’s what really matters, I should change my approach to composing, and just follow the sound. I learned to trust my ears and gut instinct in making all of my compositional choices. It’s quite a different approach to thinking theoretically.” And that approach is an essential element of the legacy of George Crumb.

The post The Legacy of George Crumb appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

The Legacy of George Crumb

George Crumb wrote some of the most exotic, and often electrifying music of the modern era. And yet the composer, who died in February 2022 at the age of 92, radiated a demure persona that was utterly at odds with his ferociously original music. His soft voice, tinged with the gentle drawl and rhythms of his native West Virginia, contrasted with the extreme emotions that inhabited his scores; I can recall attending a recital of a group of his many settings of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca (with the composer in attendance) that elicited a shriek of terror from an audience member.

Crumb’s distinctive voice was well established by the time he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for Echoes of Time and the River. His music, which was influenced by a diversity of figures including Mahler, Debussy, Bartók, and even Thelonious Monk, bravely broke away from the academic orthodoxy that embraced serialism as the only serious way to write. He also introduced extra-musical elements into his work, such as requiring the musicians in Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) and Ancient Voices of Children to wear masks. His instrumentalists were sometimes instructed to chant. And he engraved his meticulously hand-written scores in unusual patterns, such as rendering the staves in a spiral (which, he admitted, was mainly decorative and has minimal effect on the way the music is performed).

It was also during this period that Crumb started to incorporate unusual instrumentation, including vast percussion batteries, electronic amplification, and, notably, prepared piano. The piano is featured in all four books of his great homage to Bartók, Makrokosmos, which he completed over the course of seven years, from 1972–1979. One of the original pianists for book three, Music for a Summer Evening, was James Freeman, who recalls the novelty of the composer’s directions. “I remember that George dropped off the score for the first time at my house, and I was amazed at the work I had to do on it—besides lots of notes, rhythms, and all kinds of extended things inside the piano which I’d never done before. There was even a thumb piano part in my section that wasn’t easy. Now everyone is used to playing these inside-the-piano things. But it wasn’t so then. They were really new. For the recording session of Makrokosmos III for Nonesuch Records, we learned that the Steinway Company refused to allow us to use their pianos, because of all the inside-the-piano playing. Baldwins were rented instead. But the metal bars in Baldwins are in completely different positions than those in Steinways, and of course it was for Steinways that George had written the piece, and on which we’d learned and practiced our parts. That really made things difficult for Gil [Gilbert Kalish, his piano colleague] and me. I don’t remember how we actually managed to play some of those things, but we did, I imagine by somehow stretching our hands and fingers into really awkward positions.”

Freeman also recalls that the composer himself ended up taking part in the performance, although it was not planned. “In the fourth movement, Myth, George calls for someone to groan three times. It was written into Gil’s Part (Piano I), but all four of us tried the groaning. George didn’t like what any of us did—one was too sexual, one too sleepy, one too nasal, one too hoarse. We urged him to do it himself, and he eventually agreed. So it’s George himself groaning on that record, though the liner notes do not acknowledge that!”

Crumb’s best-known work is probably his 1970 amplified string quartet, Black Angels, at least as measured by the number of recordings made of it, by now at least ten. The work created a sensation immediately. It actually inspired the creation of the Kronos Quartet. David Bowie included a recording of the piece on his list of top 25 favorite records. In 2004, I engaged the composer in a lengthy conversation about Black Angels, during which a few truisms about the work were brought into question. Principally, the concept that this was Crumb’s “Vietnam quartet” is not exactly correct. At least it was not conceived as such.

Black Angels, a 20-minute work in 13 sections, took Crumb almost a year to complete. It was commissioned by the Stanley Quartet, then in residence at the University of Michigan. The Vietnam connection, which he came to accept as valid, snuck up on him. “I didn’t approach it that way. It was very late in the compositional process that I became aware of associations with that period. Some have suggested that even some of the titles refer to the geography of Vietnam, such as Night of the Electric Insects. I came to recognize that there was something of the feeling of that strange time. That’s when I called it music in tempore belli, in time of war.”

Then there is the question of numerology. He warned against reading too much into this. “Yes, this business of 7’s and 13’s came into the music. I don’t remember what they even mean. It was more technical, structural. I got carried away with the Friday the 13th thing [the date inscribed on the score]. I think it is important in all music not to reveal too much. Beethoven doesn’t give us all of what’s in his mind. There are references to Shakespeare in his letters, but not in the score. Mahler’s Third originally had descriptive titles for all of the movements, but he dropped them. Even more abstract music is probably connected with other ideas—poetry, landscapes, and other things. Let the listener make the connections.”

In the course of our conversation I was able to conjure an uncharacteristic flicker of pride from Crumb, and even a sense of artistic competition when I asked him about a possible connection to another sensational work, Krzysztof Penderecki’s 1960 Threnody for Victims of Hiroshima. That work opens with a sort of hysteria for high strings that Crumb goes one better in the startlingly slashing violence of the three threnody sections in Black Angels, including the very opening of the piece. “I did know the Penderecki. There was a kind of anguish there, but it is kind of monolithic. I tried to cover a lot more moods.”

 Some of the overtly dramatic elements of Crumb’s performance directions have drawn ridicule over the years, but have been largely embraced by musicians and audiences. Flutist Mimi Stillman, founder and artistic director of Dolce Suono Ensemble, was coached by the composer for their performance of Vox Balaenae. “As a performer, I find it endlessly inspiring and fun to present the theatrical elements to an audience, as they contribute to the overarching message of Crumb’s powerful music. The sense of theatricality is intrinsically tied to executing his music—in some sense what makes it theatrical is not really extra-musical. One feels a sense of ritual and drama performing these elements, and they contribute to a sense of wonder and awe for the audience.”

Crumb’s modest demeanor carried over to his important career as a teacher, which could be a challenge for his students. One of his composition students from his long tenure on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Daniel Dorff, recalls his frustration with Crumb’s mild-mannered approach. “I asked Dr. Crumb to be more critical and incisive with me, adding that I came here for constructive criticism to develop my skills, and that my self-confidence wasn’t fragile. That registered loud and clear with George, essentially giving him permission to say whatever he thought about my sketches toward new pieces. From then on, he let loose in the most polite and constructive way, but not holding back with specific troubleshooting and advice. Once he even raised his voice because my motivic structure was so unfocused. That was a great lesson!”

Dorff jokes that “there used to be a saying that talking with Crumb about music is like talking to a tree about nature, meaning that one learns by observing the source rather than by discussing.” This was, in a sense, true for Jennifer Higdon as well, and led to a revelation that transformed her way of thinking about her music. “I had a moment in a lesson when George turned to me and said, ‘You know Jennifer, in the end, all that really matters is how the music sounds.’ And this carried special resonance because I was in the Ph.D. program at Penn, where we worried all the time about being able to theoretically justify every note we put on the page. He was right; in every piece that we love, no matter the genre, the one thing we can always say is that we love how it sounds. So I realized that maybe, if that’s what really matters, I should change my approach to composing, and just follow the sound. I learned to trust my ears and gut instinct in making all of my compositional choices. It’s quite a different approach to thinking theoretically.” And that approach is an essential element of the legacy of George Crumb.

The post The Legacy of George Crumb appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Florence Price: Scenes in Tin Can Alley

Florence Price is having a moment. Call it round two; this native of Arkansas moved to Chicago in 1927, at the age of 30, to escape the endemic racism of the American south. There she became the first African-American woman to have a work premiered by a major American orchestra when her Symphony No. 1 was played in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The current renaissance of her music centers around her superbly constructed symphonic output, which has been favorably compared to the style of Dvorˇák. But she wrote in many formats, including solo piano. This collection consists of miniatures, penned between 1928 and 1941. They draw from a variety of influences, including rag, musical theater, spirituals, and generous dashes of Chopin and Debussy. All but a set of five Preludes are descriptive works, presented in a concisely theatrical manner as scenes, sketches, and portraits. Price was not an innovator in any technical way, and her emotional range is somewhat limited, but her elegantly formed music radiates an easy sense of joy and human dignity. That’s a winning formula in my book. American pianist John Tatsuo Cullen presents this material with panache and palpable affection.

The post Florence Price: Scenes in Tin Can Alley appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

Florence Price: Scenes in Tin Can Alley

Florence Price is having a moment. Call it round two; this native of Arkansas moved to Chicago in 1927, at the age of 30, to escape the endemic racism of the American south. There she became the first African-American woman to have a work premiered by a major American orchestra when her Symphony No. 1 was played in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The current renaissance of her music centers around her superbly constructed symphonic output, which has been favorably compared to the style of Dvorˇák. But she wrote in many formats, including solo piano. This collection consists of miniatures, penned between 1928 and 1941. They draw from a variety of influences, including rag, musical theater, spirituals, and generous dashes of Chopin and Debussy. All but a set of five Preludes are descriptive works, presented in a concisely theatrical manner as scenes, sketches, and portraits. Price was not an innovator in any technical way, and her emotional range is somewhat limited, but her elegantly formed music radiates an easy sense of joy and human dignity. That’s a winning formula in my book. American pianist John Tatsuo Cullen presents this material with panache and palpable affection.

The post Florence Price: Scenes in Tin Can Alley appeared first on The Absolute Sound.

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