CD and Book Reviews - my/maSCENA

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Round midnight: Dutilleux, Merlin, Schoenberg (Erato)

By Norman Lebrecht on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

With the fadeout of two landmark string quartets – Germany’s Artemis in disarray and America’s Emersons to retirement – France’s Quatuor Ebène probably head the current list of the world’s best. Four crack musicians who play standing up and are forever pushing out boundaries, their album releases are always an event and often a surprise. This new recording pairs two nocturnal masterpieces – Henri Dutilleux’s Ainsi la Nuit and Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Dutilleux goes down the Bartok path of things that go squeak in the night. Schoenberg listens in to illicit lovers in the woods. Both works arouse fear…

CD Review : Lost and Found (Sanctuary Concerts)

By Justin Bernard on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews

Lost and Found Blackwood (Jeff Reilly, bass clarinet; Peter-Antony Togni, piano) Sanctuary Concerts SCCD 006 ★★★★✩ They have been collaborating as musicians for more than 20 years, but this is the first time that pianist Peter-Anthony Togni and clarinetist Jeff Reilly have released a recording under the rubric of their duo Blackwood. With one exception (Miles Davis), there are only original compositions here, written individually or jointly. By the sensual sound of the bass clarinet, it might be taken for a jazz recording, but we do not find the energy and improvisation usually associated with this musical genre. We are…

CD Review: High Voltage Chamber Music (Navona records)

By Arnaud G. Veydarier on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews

High Voltage Chamber Music Jan Järvlepp (composer) Sirius Quartet Arcadian Winds Jae Cosmos Lee Navona records NV6366 ★★★★✩ After two critically acclaimed albums in 2020, Ontario composer Jan Järvlepp returns with High Voltage Chamber Music, which presents four chamber works recorded between 2019 and 2020 and performed by the Sirius Quartet, Arcadian Winds and the formidable American violinist Jae Cosmos Lee. Järvlepp’s style is normally distinguished by the effective use of orchestral forces, a quality evident in his large-scale works. His writing for small ensemble bears witness to the same architectural thinking. Composing for quartets and quintets, Järvlepp remains just…

CD Review: English Songs à la française (Bridge)

By Arthur Kaptainis on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews

English Songs à la française. Songs by Gounod, Hahn, Massenet, Milhaud, Poulenc, Roussel, Ravel, Saint-Saëns Tyler Duncan, baritone. Erika Swtizer, piano Bridge 9537 ★★★★✩ The catalogue of English settings by French composers is not vast, but neither is it inconsiderable, to judge by this intriguing recital by the New York State-based Canadian baritone Tyler Duncan. Most of the songs are in merry major mode. Saint-Saëns’s gloomy “‘Tis better so,” after the harmless “Cherry-Tree Farm,” is an exception. There are artful evocations of folksy British harmony or rhythm: Ravel is successful with minimal means in his Chanson écossaise (a setting of…

CD Review: Sound visionaries (Navona Records)

By Arthur Kaptainis on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews

Sound visionaries Works by Debussy, Messiaen, Boulez Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano Navona Records NV6358 ★★★★✩ The Toronto pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico has built her career on the twin pillars of contemporary and Canadian repertoire. Here she goes international with incisive results. The angular and structural properties of Debussy’s Book 2 Préludes (we hear a selection of eight) are given full value. Seven of Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus are brilliantly lit for all to see. The solemn chorale and treble cascades of Première communion de la vierge are sharply contrasted. Who would have thought that a “regard” of baby Jesus…

CD Review: Sibelius – Symphony No. 3 (ATMA Classique)

By Arthur Kaptainis on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews

Sibelius: Symphony No. 3 Orchestre Métropolitain Yannick Nézet-Séguin ATMA Classique ACD24033 ★★★★✩ Least loved of the brood of seven, Sibelius’s Third Symphony is known (to the extent that it is known at all) as a modest classical interregnum between the heroic Second and tragic Fourth. This latest instalment in the Orchestre Métropolitain cycle under Yannick Nézet-Séguin sharpens its profile with crisp strings and tangy woodwinds held in a handsome balance. There are shadows and sunbeams under Nézet-Séguin’s exacting direction, and wonders of contrapuntal and colouristic interplay. The Andantino con moto second movement is as close to chamber music as orchestral…

CD Review: Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 – Scherzi (Deutsche Grammophon)

By Paul E. Robinson on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews

Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 21; Scherzos (4); Etude Op. 10 No. 12 (“Revolutionary”); Impromptu No. 1 in A flat major Op. 29; Nocturne in E flat major Op. 9 No. 2 Seong-Jin Cho, piano Deutsche Grammophon DG 28948604395 ★★★★★ The 27-year-old South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho won the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 2015 and made a DG recording shortly thereafter devoted to Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Ballades. This new CD is a companion volume and one expects there will be more Chopin to come from this outstanding artist. Each time out he displays dazzling technique…

CD Review: Louise Farrenc (Erato)

By Paul E. Robinson on 8 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews

Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 1 in C minor Op. 32; Symphony No. 3 in G minor Op. 36 Insula Orchestra/Laurence Equilbey Erato 190296698446 ★★✩✩✩ There is no question that the classical music business has done a poor job of providing equal opportunity for female composers and conductors. The present generation is trying hard to do something about that and this new recording provides an excellent example. Both the composer and conductor are Frenchwomen. Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) studied with Hummel and Reicha and was a professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire for more than 30 years. She composed a great…

Beethoven, Birtwistle: A bag of bagatelles

By Norman Lebrecht on 1 October 2021 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

England’s most adventurous living composer never bothered much with the piano. Harrison Birtwistle started out on the clarinet, composed operas in his head and wrote one without strings. Asked for a piano concerto, he delivered something called Antiphonies, which is more street fight than conversation between piano and orchestra. You get the impression he’s not that keen on anything in an instrument but percussive coloration. Now 87, Birtwistle has a unique sound imagination and an approach to music that misses out many of the building bricks. He once told me that the only symphony of Mahler he knew was the…

CD Review: Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene (Decca)

By Norman Lebrecht on 24 September 2021 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly

Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene Songs by Fauré, Grieg, Hahn, Liszt, Nico Muhly, Kevin Puts, Caroline Shaw Renée Fleming, soprano. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, piano Decca 4852089 ★★★★✩ / ★★✩✩✩ Good to hear that America’s prime diva is not going gentle into that good night. Past 60 and no longer taking operatic roles, she sings out full and flamboyant in this set of nature-themed songs that came together during her daily walks in the COVID lockdown. Everything you’d expect from a Fleming recital is here – the effortless highs, the velvety lows, the flawless intonation, the jumbled syllables in several tongues. Her…

Browsing: CD and Book Reviews

Round midnight: Dutilleux, Merlin, Schoenberg (Erato)

CD Review : Lost and Found (Sanctuary Concerts)

CD Review: High Voltage Chamber Music (Navona records)

CD Review: English Songs à la française (Bridge)

CD Review: Sound visionaries (Navona Records)

CD Review: Sibelius – Symphony No. 3 (ATMA Classique)

CD Review: Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 – Scherzi (Deutsche Grammophon)

CD Review: Louise Farrenc (Erato)

Beethoven, Birtwistle: A bag of bagatelles

CD Review: Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene (Decca)

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