SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews 

“No Seasons” - ASTOR PIAZZOLLA: Cuatro Estaciones Portenas; JOAN VALENT: Quartre Estacions A Mallorca; JORGE GRUNDMAN: Four Sad Seasons Over Madrid - Soloists/Non-Profit Music Ch. Orch./Malikian - Non-Profit Music

Another entry in a fine new series of SACD releases from Madrid.

Published on July 12, 2009

“No Seasons” - ASTOR PIAZZOLLA: Cuatro Estaciones Portenas; JOAN VALENT: Quartre Estacions A Mallorca; JORGE GRUNDMAN: Four Sad Seasons Over Madrid - Ara Malikian, violinist & conductor/ Susana Cordon, sop. (in tr. 9)/ Daniel del Pino, piano (in Valent & Grundman)/ Non-Profit Music Chamber Orchestra - Non-Profit Music multichannel SACD (no number), 1:08:31 *****:

Yes, that is the correct name of this chamber orchestra. We reviewed an earlier CD by this same orchestra - that one was on the Warner Bros. Spain label, but this one is on the orchestra’s own label and on SACD - a route which has been followed by a number of other symphony organizations around the world. Perhaps the folding of Warner Bros. Classics in the U.S. had something to do with it. The Madrid-based label lives up to its unusual name by donating all its profits to humanitarian causes - primarily the international medical emergency relief organization Doctors Without Borders. The packaging is the first striking thing one notices about this album - one of the best of the many jewel-box alternatives, to my thinking.  It is bound like a small hard-cover booklet with the SACD in a slot inside the back cover, and 36 pages of music in English and Spanish. There is no protective sleeve over the SACD, but the card stock of the slot is not as hard and abrasive as the original xrcd cases were.

The three works are built around the idea of the four seasons, and the two suites by Piazzolla and Valent have many similarities. Piazzolla conceived of the four pieces in his suite separately, and for his tango quintet. Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov later arranged them for chamber orchestra, transferring the melodic role of the bandoneon in the originals to the solo violin. Each one is about six minutes long, and they work well together portraying the four seasons.

Joan Valent hails from the Balearic Islands and wrote his Four Seasons suite based on a poem by Macu Sunyer.  The entire poem is thankfully printed in the booklet, and it is a very strange poem. The vocal work by Grundman honors a friend of the composer who died suddenly, but the sense of the work for soprano, violin, piano and strings is the imaginary feelings of a young woman during the four seasons of the first year following the loss of her beloved.

The performances are at a high level and the hi-res surround sonics pick up the natural massed string sounds beautifully.  Armenian violinist Malikian was a child prodigy, and he has long been open to the music of other cultures, including Arabic, Jewish, Gypsy, Tango and Flamenco.  So the repertory of this SACD is right up his alley.

 - John Sunier

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