The Music of Nacho Duato's "Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness" (Continued)

For technical reasons, this post had to be split apart. Follow the links to: Part 1.

Multiplicity. No.6 "BRANDENBURG" Allegro from Brandenburg Concerto No.3, BWV 1048 Goebel / MAK	Archiv .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.7 & 14 "ALLEGRO - ADAGIO", "SONATA" Allegro & Adagio from Violin Sonata BWV 1023, Adagio from Violin Sonata fBWV 1018 Elizabeth Wallfisch & Paul Nicholson	Hyperion .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.8 "FOUR CEMBALOS (1)" Mvt. 1 from Cto. for four Harpsichords, BWV 1065 Bob van Asperen, G. Leonhardt et al. / Melante Amsterdam	Virgin Classics .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.9 "LARGO" Largo from Violin Concerto BWV 1056R Alice & Nikolaus Harnoncourt / CMW	Teldec .com .co.uk .de .fr

Multiplicity. No.10 "CONCERTO FOR TWO VIOLINS" Allegro from Cto. for two violins, BWV 1043 Andrew Manze, Rachel Podger / AAM	Harmonia Mundi .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.11 "FOUR CEMBALOS (2)" Largo from Cto. for four harpsichords, BWV 1065 Leonhardt Consort / CMW	Teldec .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.12 "MINUET" Minuet in g from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, BWV 114/115 Gustav Leonhardt	Deutsche Harmonia Mundi .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.13 "WEICHET NUR, BETRÜBTE SCHATTEN" Aria No.1 for Soprano from the "Wedding" Cantata, BWV 202 Ton Koopman, Lisa Larsson / ABO	Challenge Classics .com .co.uk .de .fr

Forms of Silence & Emptiness No.1 & 7 "CONTRAPUNCTUS 3", "FINAL FUGUE" from The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 Hesperion XX	Alia Vox .com .co.uk .de .fr
Forms of Silence & Emptiness No.2 "TOCCATA" from Toccata & Fugue, BWV 538/1 Ton Koopman	Teldec (Warner) .co.uk .de .fr
Forms of Silence & Emptiness No.3 "LENTO" Mvt. no.2 from Trio Sonata No.6, BWV 530, André Isoir	Calliope .com .co.uk .de .fr
Forms of Silence & Emptiness No.4 "CHORALE" Choral Prelude BWV 957 (from the "Yale Manuscript") Joseph Payne	Harmonia Mundi France [oop] (musique d'abord, CD H MC90 5158)
Forms of Silence & Emptiness No.5 & 6 "SINFONIA", "SEUFZER, TRÄNEN, KUMMER, NOT" Sinfonia and Aria for soprano from "	Challenge Classics .com .co.uk .de .fr

'Golgotha'

F. Martin, Golgotha, Cappella Amsterdam, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, D. Reuss (released on April 13, 2010) Harmonia Mundi HMC 902056.57 94'28" Online preview

Frank Martin (1890-1974) is one of those lesser-name composers Ionarts loves to champion. In particular, he is the creator of some of the most moving sacred music of the 20th century: more traditionally Christian works like the Mass for Double Choir, Le Mystère de la Nativité, the In terra pax, and the late Requiem Mass surely merit a place alongside Janáček's Glagolitic Mass, Britten's War Requiem, settings of the Requiem Mass by György Ligeti, and Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. These are all works that, on one hand, make reference to the august tradition of Christian liturgical music but, on the other, are unmistakably modern in how they incarnate doubt as much as faith, a distinctly 20th-century attitude. Martin, in spite of a Calvinist upbringing and a lifelong devotion to Bach's St. Matthew Passion, remained mostly an agnostic doubter until a late-in-life reconversion. He came to an understanding of the subject matter of his oratorio Golgotha, released last month in a new recording led by Daniel Reuss, through a process more aesthetic than spiritual, attempting to recreate in music the mood and complexity of Rembrandt's etchings of The Three Crosses.

The opening howl of this intense, but gloomy and somewhat moodily subdued piece -- "Père! Père! Père!" (a passage taken from Confessions) -- seems filled with the uncertainty that there is any father there to take the call. Indeed, the pairing of excerpts from the four Gospel accounts of the Passion -- and not always the ones you would expect -- with meditations by that great unbeliever turned Doctor of the Church (Augustine, one of my favorite theologians) focuses the drama less on Christ's suffering than on the travails of the doubting believer. In one of the more moving juxtapositions that illustrate this point, the shouts of "Christ! Christ!" of the chorus in the seventh tableau, Jesus before the Sanhedrin, become the opening of an excerpt ("Christ! Christ!") from Augustine ("It is my guilt that causes all your suffering"). The climax of the work to my ears is the sixth tableau, which features the alto solo (here the warm voice of Marianne Beate Kielland) as a lost soul yearning to find God but unable to do so. Against a gently oscillating instrumental fabric, the quietly intense bassoon solo going high enough to trick the ears into thinking it is an English horn, a disembodied chorus intones verses from Psalm 120 (121), like help from above that goes largely unheeded.

The somber instrumental scoring and simple homophonic choral writing give a quasi-monastic austerity to the spirit of inward reflection. The way the sound is captured in this excellent recording (made in Tallinn's Estonia Concert Hall last April) reinforces the sense of what Martin was trying to imitate in the Rembrandt etchings, a world engulfed in darkness. The choirs, a combination of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Reuss's Cappella Amsterdam, sings with intensity and well-balanced ensemble. Although there are some of the thrilling moments you would expect from a large-scale choral and orchestral work, the piece is far from theatrical and may not instantly appeal to every listener. The five soloists take turns in the role of evangelist and the various characters in the Gospel narrative, again adding to the sense of individual rumination of a story more than a drama to be watched. The only minor reservation to note is that there is something odd about the way the baritone soloist, Mattijs van de Woerd, was miked: it sounds too close to the voice, especially during the extended solo of the third tableau, which does not leave the listener with the most flattering picture of a fine singer.

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Triduum reflections

The Music of Nacho Duato's "Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness"

Among the recommended concerts in the “May in Music” calendar was this item: The Compañía Nacional de Danza presents “Multiplicity: Bach” at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater on Friday and Saturday May 14th and 15th at 8PM: A “choreographic reflection inspired by the music and life of Johann Sebastian Bach.” Now that I’ve seen it, the recommendation is redoubled. “Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness” (to give the full title of the two-partite work) is absolutely, terrifically right. [Preview on WETA here.]

Since Nacho Duato uses recordings to which he sets the ballet sequences, my record collector's hunting-instinct was kindled and I wanted to know which interpretations exactly he was using. Some were obvious--like the opening and closing Aria from Glenn Gould's 1981 Goldberg Variations (drawn out + humming) others were more tricky to figure out, despite a track list provided in the program of the Bavarian State Opera. Not all of them are still in print; where possible I've given links to the editions that are currently available.

For technical reasons, this post had to be split apart. Follow the link to: Part 2.

Prologue & Epilogue "ARIA" Aria from Goldberg Variations Glenn Gould (1981)	Sony .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.1 "AEOLUS" "Zerreisset, zersprenget, zertrümmert die Gruft" opening chorus from "Aeolus Propitiated", BWV 205 Harnoncourt / CMW	Teldec .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.2 "PRELUDE" Prelude from Cello Suite No.1, BWV 1007 Anner Bylsma	Sony .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.3 & 5 "PER MOTUM CONTRARIUM", "VIOLINI IN UNISONO" from A Musical Offering Davitt Moroney et al.	Harmonia Mundi .com .co.uk .de .fr
Multiplicity. No.4 "POLONAISE" Polonaise from Orchestral Suite No.2, BWV 1067 Kuijken / LPB	Deutsche Harmonia Mundi .com .co.uk .de .fr

Reviewed, Not Necessarily Recommended: “Risonanza”__Hanuš, Haas & Eben

Hanuš, Haas & Eben, Risonanza, Veverka, Kahánek, Englichová Supraphon

HANUŠ Trio concertante, op. 59b; Sonata quasi una fantasia, op. 61. EBEN Ordo Modalis; Risonanza. HAAS Suite for oboe and piano Ÿ Vilém Veverka (ob); Ivo Kahánek (pn); Kateřina Englichová (hp) Ÿ Supraphon 3993 (70:42)

The Supraphon album “Risonanza” takes its name from Petr Eben’s “6 Risonanza for Harp Solo”, although that is actually the least (in terms of duration) of the included Czech 20^th century compositions for various combinations of oboe, harp, and piano. The intrigue begins with the cover. What is oboist Vilém Veverka doing to the chest of the alluringly reclining, gorgeous harpist Kateřina Englichová? Fixing the very bottom of her necklace? Why does pianist Ivo Kahánek look on with thin-lipped disapproval? Curiosity-fuelled closer inspection reveals the risqué scene to be an optical illusion. Note to photographers: small aperture—resulting lack of depth perspective—may make hands and bustier appear closer together than they are.

An early anti-climax, that revelation, but nothing that can stop my curiosity knowing a bit of Eben’s music as I do and having much liked the little I’ve heard of Janáček-student Pavel Haas’ music. Jan Hanuš (1915-2004) is a new musical acquaintance of mine.

The mentioned “6 Risonanza” (1986) are highly attractive solo harp pieces—more engaging than much of the solo harp repertoire I have had the (occasionally dubious) pleasure to hear at the last ARD harp competition. They are not purely virtuosic pieces but instead idiomatic, coy, and colorful tableaux that are connected by a few bars of Mozart quotations that slowly, over the course of the work’s seven minutes, being to rub off on the stretches of music between. Eben’s “Ordo modalis” for oboe and harp (1964), according to the composer, is inspired by the Shakespeare poem “Venus and Adonis”. “If the poem’s theme is a combination of the ancient Ovid motif and its renaissance Shakespeare version, then in [this] music we find inspiration in ancient harp and shawm [as well as] renaissance baroque orientation in the… freely stylized old dances, lined up into a suite.” The modal composition tailored to showcase the harp is full of bubbly, intriguing moments but in need of more attentive listening than it readily encourages.

The Haas Suite for Oboe and Piano is a de-facto vocalise for the oboe on top of a muscular piano sonata. The lyrical, urgently expressive suite was written at the time of—and influenced by—the German invasion of Poland, the fourth neighbor of German to fall, now through outright war, after the Saar, Austria, and Haas’ Czechoslovakia had already been annexed. The writing of future horrors was already on the wall in late 1939, even if Haas could not have foreseen his tragic end in the Holocaust five years later. The liner notes describe the suite, especially the closing moderato, without any hyperbole as “among the best that Czech music has brought forth in the first half of the 20^th century.”

That, and Hanuš’ Trio concertante for oboe, harp, and piano (1978) are the best arguments to purchase the recording. What a bold and brisk trio the Hanuš piece is! It’s op.59b because the trio is the composer’s own piano-reduction of the orchestral part of his double concerto op.59a. That would explain the trading of extended solo passages among the harp and oboe. The sonata for oboe and piano, finally, is a particularly happy, buoyant “sonata quasi una fantasia”—written in the spring of 1968, before the events of August 21^st that turned a hope-filled year’s start into the blood-stained associations we now have with the “Prague Spring”.

The three performers delight throughout, which means this recital’s appeal will extend beyond just those listeners with a healthy interest in 20^th century Czech music or repertoire for the oboe and harp. By how much? Veverka mentions Britten, Dutilleux, and Poulenc as roughly Western analogues to this music. And it is fair to suggest fancying those should be a good indicator of finding the Hanuš-Eben-Haas connection attractive, too.

In Brief: May Day Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• Embedded in a long, funny bit about a crazy flowchart that was supposed to be the solution to ending the war in Afghanistan is a theremin joke. Yes, Jon Stewart! [The Daily Show]


• Check out the story of Joey Baker, a local kid at Suitland High School with aspirations (and potential) to be an opera singer. Favorite quote: "Son, you can't say 'George Handel,' " he said at one point. "You either say 'Handel' or 'George Frideric Handel.'" [Washington Post]


• Hahaha. John Adams reports on the newest innovation for audience comfort at the New York Philharmonic: a high-speed people-mover that will whisk subscribers who hate contemporary music quickly out of the hall. [Hell Mouth]


• All hail to the newest province of Lawrence Johnson's media empire. [The Classical Review]


• Some links to marvelous videos about (and featuring) favorite poet Philip Larkin. [Maud Newton]


• Hilton Als had a brilliant piece last week on the work of Tyler Perry, especially his Madea character. [The New Yorker]


• What is the worst cancer in the opera world today? Regietheater productions? Star cancellations? Rising ticket prices and lowered expectations? Same old repertory? No, says tenor Marcelo Álvarez, it's the negative criticism of opera bloggers. [The Times]


• Ever wondered about the Greek-style disposable coffee cup you were served in New York (or see on TV cop shows that take place in New York)? It was designed by Leslie Buck, who passed away this week. [Gothamist]

BSO Premieres Leshnoff’s “Starburst”

Friday evening, Marin Alsop led the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Starburst, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham, and Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony to a packed house. The program was introduced with a dramatic plea from BSO oboist Michael Lisicky, who led an arm-waving pep rally harping on the importance of purchasing subscriptions while pointing out the voluntary twenty percent pay cut made by the musicians to keep the doors open.

Starburst is an intensely driven work that unearths brilliantly unique colors through abstractly weaved lines. Instead of deriving color primarily through percussion, as often is the case with contemporary symphonic works, Leshnoff (pictured) finds purpose in every note with the winds and strings creating inimitable microcosms. When the piece eases midway through, the strings shimmer and muted trumpets hail, followed by the brass and xylophone driving the piece to its bursting, albeit slightly superficial end. There was enough material packed into this brief work to warrant a full symphony by this Baltimore-based composer. We have covered Leshnoff’s interesting Six Miniatures for Violin and Percussion, and your reviewer is currently preparing his intricate Cosmic Echoes for trumpet and organ for performance this week. Additionally, Leshnoff has some interesting commissions in the pipeline.

Other Reviews: Joe Banno, BSO, Alsop offer new "Starbu[r]st," new-sounding Stravinsky with Shaham (Washington Post, May 2) Tim Smith, BSO offers Leshnoff premiere, Stravinsky concerto, Rachmaninoff symphony (Baltimore Sun, April 30)

Stravinsky’s neo-Baroque Violin Concerto in D major was a challenge unmet by Alsop and soloist Gil Shaham, due to out-of-tune trumpets, vague conducting by Alsop, who seemed often to be trying to catch up with the music instead of cuing ahead, and an aggressively uncontained soloist. While the work, particularly the opening Toccata, was shaped in an expressively Romantic way, the ensemble within the orchestra and with soloist was exceedingly lacking. It is possible for this work to be performed with the precision of a polished HIP baroque band, which at times occurred Friday evening, such as when the clarinet and violin soloist performed acrobatic maneuvers together in the Aria I movement or when in the final Capriccio the concertmaster and violin soloist were dueling above a pizzicato jive from the basses. Overall, the Stravinsky’s impact was weak in comparison to the Leshnoff – a missed opportunity. The program, titled Russian Perfection, concluded with a persuasive performance of Rachmaninoff’s audience-pleasing Second Symphony.

Next week's concerts by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will feature Beethoven's Triple Concerto (May 6 to 9).

Won't You Come Home, Zuill Bailey?

Bach, Cello Suites, Z. Bailey (released on February 2, 2010) Telarc TEL-31978-02 | 140'32" Beethoven, Complete Works for Cello and Piano, Z. Bailey, S. Dinnerstein (released on August 25, 2009) Telarc CD-80740 | 68'46"

American cellist Zuill Bailey will come back to his hometown -- he was born in Alexandria and studied with a cellist from the National Symphony Orchestra and then at Johns Hopkins before going to Juilliard -- this week for a recital (May 4, 7:30 pm) at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. His program, with the pianist Orion Weiss (who saved the Quatuor Ébène's bacon earlier this year by filling in for one of their ailing players on their American tour), will include music by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, as well as a new work by Roberto Sierra. My thoughts on Bailey's Beethoven appeared in the Washington Post two years ago, in a review of a concert by him and pianist Simone Dinnerstein at the National Gallery of Art. The first disc of his complete Beethoven set with Dinnerstein was released on the Delos label in 2006, but both discs have now finally been released (both recorded in New York in 2005 and 2006) as a set on the Telarc label.

On their WPAS recital Bailey and Weiss will open with the longest of the three sets of cello and piano variations Beethoven composed, a set of twelve in G major on "See, the conqu'ring hero comes" from Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabaeus (WoO 45, from 1796). In many ways the pianist is the star of this piece, so it will likely be quite different with Weiss replacing Dinnerstein in concert. Bailey's Beethoven recording with Dinnerstein is good if not a must-have, the duo's athletic approach leading to a vigorous interpretation with a few overly affected moments. Bailey's tone is generally clear and his attacks crisp and well enunciated, his most objectionable fault coming from an occasional overzealous scrubbing of the strings that leads to a raspy paucity of that tone. No sforzando goes unhammered.

Bailey has also recorded the Bach solo cello suites, a new release he will celebrate tonight at another local concert, in the quirky venue An die Musik LIVE! in Baltimore, with some of the suites. We have written extensively about the suites, a few years ago now, and recordings continue to appear (Sebastian Klinger and many others). In an interview, Bailey described his approach to these pieces, centerpieces of the cello repertoire, as "so personal" that "it changes from day to day." The sound of the recording seems in keeping with his own summation of his interpretation, "a highly expressive Baroque style." The fast movements are mostly rhythmically animated, a metrical regularity underscoring the nature of the dances, while some of the slow movements are too indulgent. The worst sound of all, the deciding factor on so many recordings of the suites, is the sixth suite, on which the best performance ever to reach my ears remains the recording of Bruno Cocset, on a reproduction of a violoncello piccolo specially crafted to the demands of the piece. The tessitura of the work does not really fit the modern cello, and with a dramatically tending performer like Bailey, the temptation to force the sound high on the A string is too much to resist.

Go hear Zuill Bailey for yourself, playing Bach this evening at An die Musik LIVE! in Baltimore (May 1, 8 pm) or in his WPAS recital on Tuesday (May 4, 7:30 pm) at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.