Monthly Archive: June 2016
BEN JOHNSTON: String Quartets Nos. 6, 7, & 8—Kepler Quartet—New World
A challenging new musical language for modern music lovers. BEN JOHNSTON: String Quartets Nos. 6, 7, & 8—Kepler Quartet—New World 80730-2, 66:43 [Distr. by Albany] ****: As difficult and dangerous as it is to climb Mt. Everest, people do it because it’s there. Ben Johnston’s String Quartet No. 7 (1984) is known among string players and ‘experts’ as the most difficult string quartet to perform. According to a recent New York Times article, the Kepler Quartet has made it a cause over the past 14 years to learn and record all of the 10 quartets that Mr. Johnston has written. Now, 90, the composer lives in a farm outside of Madison, Wisconsin and is in failing health. The Kepler Quartet has been so dedicated to finish the project that they rehearsed in a church close to Johnston’s farmhouse (“literally in the midst of a cornfield, in the midst of a cemetery”) so they could consult with him during rehearsals. What makes Johnston’s quartets so difficult to perform is that he inserts microtones “into the grid of the twelve pitch scale” that is a standard of tuning for normal intervals of the octave scale. Johnston calls it ‘just intonation’ tuning. The system […]
ELGAR: Cello Concerto in e minor; WALTON: Cello Concerto; G. HOLST: Invocation; I. HOLST: The Fall of the Leaf – Steven Isserlis, cello/ Philharmonia Orch./ Paavo Jarvi – Hyperion
Steven Isserlis asserts his supremacy in British cello artistry with two major concertos and two unfamiliar works dear to his heart. ELGAR: Cello Concerto in e minor, Op. 85; WALTON: Cello Concerto; G. HOLST: Invocation, Op. 19, No. 2; I. HOLST: The Fall of the Leaf for Solo Cello – Steven Isserlis, cello/ Philharmonia Orch./ Paavo Jarvi – Hyperion CDA68077, 73:01 (3/4/16) [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: By general consensus, Steven Isserlis (b. 1958) currently reigns as Britain’s finest cellist, and his latest recording of the two major cello concertos – by Elgar (1919) and Walton (1956), respectively – bear witness to a talent that has earned meaningful comparison with the likes of the late Jacqueline du Pre. Recorded between November 2014 and April 2015, the Hyperion production also provides two relatively unknown pieces, by father Gustav Holst and daughter Imogen, the booklet’s testifying to the latter in Isserlis’ life with a photo of his reviewing the score of the solo The Fall of the Leaf with the composer in 1977. A colossal energy suffuses the first movement of the Elgar Concerto, marked with a devout melancholy which often rises up in rebellion to the elegiac sensibility of loss. Beyond […]
WILLIAM BOLCOM: Canciones de Lorca; Prometheus – R. Barbera – tenor/Jeffrey Biegel, piano/ Pacific Chorale and Sym. /Carl St. Clair – Naxos
WILLIAM BOLCOM: Canciones de Lorca; Prometheus – R. Barbera – tenor/ Jeffrey Biegel, piano/ Pacific Chorale and Sym. /Carl St. Clair – Naxos CD 8.559788 (11/13/15) TT: 54:52 ****: Striking contemporary songs and choral work with orchestra make for a compelling musical experience. William Bolcom (b. 1938) is an extremely prolific and skilled composer, winning a Pulitzer Prize and several GRAMMY Awards over the course of his career. Naxos has offered this disc aimed at contemporary music lovers, and in terms of the music and the recording it’s a highly worthwhile purchase. First off is a piece based on the poetry of Frederico Garcia Lorca who died in 1936, the Canciones de Lorca, composed in 2006. Originally written for Placido Domingo, the poems are sung in the original Spanish by tenor Rene Barbera, accompanied by the Pacific Symphony. These are fine performances, and the liner notes provide an English translation, but I listened without the notes first and really enjoyed the performance. The mood of the poems is varied, from whimsical to mysterious. The second work is Prometheus, written by Bolcom in 2009 for chorus, piano (Jeffrey Biegel) and orchestra. It is sung in English, and is an epic work, […]
“Bach vs. Haydn 1788/90” = Works by the Two Composers – group led by Barthold Kuijken, flute – Accent (2 discs)
An interesting contrast between two quite different composers. “Bach vs. Haydn 1788/90” = CPE BACH: Quartet in G, Wq 95; Quartet in a, Wq 93; Quartet in D, Wq94; HAYDN: Trio in D, Hob. XV:16; Trio in F, Hob. XV:17; Trio in G, Hob. XV: 15 – Barthold Kuijken, flute/ Wieland Kuijken, cello/ Ann Cnop, viola/ Piet Kuijken, fortepiano/ Ewald Demeyere, harpsichord – Accent ACC 24293 (2 discs), 63:05, 44:24 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****: Any recording with a Kuijken performing on it is guaranteed to be of quality, and this one is no exception. That remarkable family has established a Belgian line of musicians that is not likely to be surpassed anytime soon, and they are all foundation stones of the modern period instrument movement, one of the first to actually make those old instruments sound good. So needless to say, the performances here are all superb in every regard, the sound produced engrossing and warm in capturing the soft qualities of the instruments. The music is another question. Some people have issues with the non-quartet chamber music of Haydn; but these trios for flute, cello, and fortepiano are a delight, coming ten years after Mozart wrote his Flute […]
“Crucifixus” = Works of KENNETH LEIGHTON – Choir of Trinity College Cambridge/ Stephen Layton/ Andrew Kennedy, tenor/ Jeremy Cole & Eleanor Kornas, organ – Hyperion
Leighton the choral master is what we hear today, even though he would not have been happy with the legacy. “Crucifixus” = KENNETH LEIGHTON: Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis “Collegium Magdalenae Oxonienses”; God’s Grandeur; Give me the wings of faith; Missa Brevis Op. 50; Missa de Gloria, Op. 82, ‘Dublin Festival Mass’: Ite, missa est; What love is this of thine?; Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis (Second Service), Op. 62; Crucifixus pro nobis, Op. 38 – Choir of Trinity College Cambridge/ Stephen Layton/ Andrew Kennedy, tenor/ Jeremy Cole & Eleanor Kornas, organ – Hyperion CDA68039, 72:09 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****: Leighton (1929-1988), a devoted Yorkshireman, was not especially devout, so it is one of life’s great ironies that despite his over 100-work catalog in many genres, he is most beloved among English choristers than anywhere else. He loved poetry and nature, and perhaps we can hear that reflected in some of the works on this recording. But it must be said that if he by and large eschewed church and the Anglican tradition, he sure as heck understood it well, for these religious pieces are as innately Anglican as any you will hear. Not that that is a bad thing, though […]
BACH: St. John Passion – Soloists/RIAS Ch. Choir/ Academy for Old Music Berlin/ Rene Jacobs – Harmonia mundi (2 discs)
Outstanding in every facet, this could be, just maybe, the one to own. BACH: St. John Passion (1749 + 1725 Appendix) – Werner Gura, tenor/ Sumhae Im, sop/ Benno Schachtner, alto/ Sebastian Kohlhepp, tenor/ Johannes Weisser, bass/ RIAS Chamber Choir/ Academy for Old Music Berlin/ Rene Jacobs – Harmonia mundi multichannel SACD (2 discs) + DVD HMC 802236.37, 2:15:20 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] *****: This is the version completed right at the end of Bach’s life, with the powerful and familiarly haunting “Herr, Herr, Herr” in the opening chorus. I mention this because there is an appendix from the 1725 version that includes some numbers also rather popular but not in the regular performing version presented here, and the opening of that earlier edition is absent the aforementioned chorus. However, in a generous and wonderfully intelligent decision by Harmonia mundi, they have included three free downloads, one of the 1749 version given in toto here, and also the complete 1725 edition as well, both offered in a high def 24 bit FLAC file, about ten times the size of a normal 128kbps MP3 file. This is a great treat, and you can even give the third download to a friend […]
Editorial for June 2016
Our free June drawing is for the 13 SACD Complete Ring Cycle of Wagner in the new recording set issue by PentaTone with leading soloists, the Berlin Radio Sym. Orch. & Chorus, cond. by Mark Janowski and with a 250-p. booklet. Here’s a page on the album, just released last month. All you need to do to enter the drawing is to click on the Register To Win button on the home page and fill out all the fields. The winner of our May drawing will be listed below. It is Cynthia Willingham of Greenwood, MS. She will be sent the 64-CD Limited Edition Leonard Bernstein set from Deutsche Grammophon – our May free drawing. EDITORIAL AUDIOPHILE AUDITION began as a local program in San Francisco and then in 1985 as a weekly national radio series hosted by John Sunier, and aired for 13½ years on up to 200 public radio and commercial stations. In September 1998 its web site for program listings was expanded to this free Internet publication. June 2016 is our 207th issue! All disc reviews are added thru the month as written and received, often daily, amounting to nearly 100 a month. The Home Page lists the […]
Audio News for May 31, 2016
Oppo Introduces Its First Speakers – The compact Sonica Wi-Fi speaker comes equipped with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and AirPlay capabilities, and there are compatible smartphones and tablet apps making it easy to manage multiple speakers on the same network. Drivers, amps and chassis have all been designed for a deep, pure and engaging sound that can be further optimized with built-in presets using the Sonica app. It is capable of decoding audio files up to 192/24 and supports FLAC, WAV and Apple Lossless. The companion app can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store, while the Android version is available from Google. Retail price is $299. New Superior Classical Music Platform – Primephonics’ lossless audio and meticulous metadata offers a perfect solution for classical music listeners and audiophiles. The vast catalog of the Netherlands-based company has expanded to include Sony Classical titles. The music downloads range from WAV to FLAC or DSD – with no compressed files or degraded sound, and later this year a high-quality streaming service will also be offered. The primary problem with iTunes and other services is that they really fall apart when needing to classify classical music. Dirk Jan Vink is Managing Director or […]
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
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