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The Last Words of Christ (REGER, HAYDN, WEBERN & Others – Ebonit Sax Q. – Challenge Classics

The Last Words of Christ (REGER, HAYDN, WEBERN & Others – Ebonit Sax Q. – Challenge Classics

by | Oct 13, 2016 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

Ebonit Saxophone Quartet – The Last Words of Christ – REGER/HAYDN/WEBERN/SIBELIUS/SHOSTAKOVICH – Challenge Classics multichannel SACD CC72701, 53:13 (2/3/16) ****: (Simone Muller, soprano saxophone/ Dineke Nauta, alto saxophone/ Johannes Pfeuffer, tenor saophone/ Paulina Marta Kulesza, baritone saxophone/ Claron McFadden, voice) A nearly successful  attempt at solemnity. In 1786 a work by Joseph Haydn premiered in Cadiz, Spain. The occasion was Good Friday Service in a “subterranean” cathedral. According to reports made to Haydn, the church was darkened and a priest flung himself before the altar and uttered the first word of the seven last sentences spoken by Jesus before his death. A homily on each word followed, separated by the performance of each of the seven movements. Together, music and text comprised the Easter celebration of the Passion.  As such, it appears to belong to the tradition of religious music which reached its apogee in Handel, Pergolesi and Bach. However, I  have always had a problem with this notion; The Seven Last Words of Christ considered in purely musical terms does not seem to express any noticeable degree of solemnity, no transcendent yearning or tragedy. Certainly, the old Haydn jollity and wit are set aside, but instead we hear a […]

BOULEZ: Complete Music for Solo Piano – Marc Ponthus, p. – Bridge (2 discs)

BOULEZ: Complete Music for Solo Piano – Marc Ponthus, p. – Bridge (2 discs)

by | Jun 12, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

Often neglected music by a controversial and sometimes inconsistent composer…but not here! BOULEZ: Complete Music for Solo Piano – Marc Ponthus, piano – Bridge 9456 A/B (2 CDs), TT: 80:35 ****: So let’s list them: Three Sonatas, 12 Notations, Incises, Une page d’ephemeride—that’s it. One would think that someone like Boulez would have completed many more piano works during the course of his long and semi-productive life, but his penchant for ongoing, incomplete, and constantly revised pieces would seem to work against it. Add to that the Leonard Bernstein problem—the attraction, demands, and difficulties of balancing a conducting career with the composing instinct–and I guess it’s not too hard to see why the output is somewhat limited. However, small though it is, it is also very important. Most of the music is very early, the enfant terrible at work coming to terms with the Second Viennese School, and then advancing their initial efforts into something bordering on the radical. The first effort, 12 Notations, constitute the first real encounters with Berg-Webern-Schoenberg triumph, and the results are an elegant and naïve attempt to internalize the essence of these composers. Boulez dismissed them for years, then returned later to orchestrate several of […]

Gilles Vonsattel, piano – Shadowlines = Works of D. SCARLATTI, WEBERN, MESSIAEN, BENJAMIN & DEBUSSY – Honens

Gilles Vonsattel, piano – Shadowlines = Works of D. SCARLATTI, WEBERN, MESSIAEN, BENJAMIN & DEBUSSY – Honens

by | Dec 1, 2015 | Classical CD Reviews

Swiss pianist Vonsattel explores the roots and applications of modernism with often explosive effects. Gilles Vonsattel – Shadowlines = SCARLATTI: 3 Sonatas; MESSIAEN: Etude No. 4 “Ile de feu II”; 2 Preludes; WEBERN: Variations, Op. 27; BENJAMIN: Shadowlines: Six Canonic Preludes for Piano; DEBUSSY: Feux d’artifice; Masques; D’un cahier d’esquisses; L’Isle joyeuse – Gilles Vonsattel, piano – Honens 201510CD, 67:51 (10/2/15) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: This second album from Swiss pianist Gilles Vonsattel – Laureate of the 2009 Honens Piano Competition in Canada – testifies (rec. March 2015) to his interest in modern composition, especially that influenced by classical forms. As such, the recital may prove attractive to a musical few who embrace the intellectual over the emotional aspects of artistic expression. Well I recall my courses in the Second Viennese School with Prof. Friedheim at SUNY, in which we would trace out the geometries of Webern’s tone rows and their multiple permutations, as if a huge grid or anagram had emerged from the harmonic labyrinth!  But did the music compel as to hear it with the same affection we bring to Mozart? From the opening, jumping figures in Scarlatti’s Sonata in a minor, K. 3, we hear the rush […]