REVIEWER’S LOG - April
2008
Robert Hugill
Sometimes you end up reviewing
records, never entirely sure why this particular record
has crossed your portals at this time, whether it be record
companies re-issuing discs in another format or just trying
to generate more interest. Lincoln Cathedral’s Ascension
Day Matins is a case in point, as it was recorded way back
in 1993 and is an interesting snapshot of Matins at the
Cathedral. Recording services is tricky and this disc
attempts to record the entire Matins service, though the
spoken passages sound a little distant. Frankly, I can’t
see myself sitting down of an evening and deciding to play
a recording of a complete Matins or Evensong service.
When it comes to plainchant,
though, things are rather different and I can listen to
acres of this. The Abbey of St. Joseph de Clairval, Flavigny
have recorded a couple of discs of plainchant on the Traditions
Monastiques label. Their Easter
chant disc has a certain naïve charm as it sounds as
if someone has simply popped in to the church with a recorder
and switched it on. The result, though not sophisticated,
has the realistic feel of monks singing chant. Good chant
singing only comes about with experience, and that’s the
beauty of this type of disc. The voices may not be perfect,
but they’ve been singing chant every day of their lives.
Another, even more curious
mass was the reconstruction of the service as it might
have been celebrated by the Jesuits in Peking. This included
pretty routine settings; after all the priests in Peking
could not rely upon a large musical establishment. The
mass was coupled with pieces in Chinese using Chinese musicians.
Until coming across this disc, I had not realised that
foreign missions tended to include sections of the mass
in the local dialect; a use of the vernacular which precedes
Vatican 2 by quite a way.
Some discs stand out so
much, that you can understand why the record company might
re-issue them, to try and widen the market. Look at Binchois
Consort’s pair of Dufay discs which are now available on
Hyperion’s cheaper Helios label - hurrah! Andrew Kirkman’s
group are stunning on both discs, performing Dufay’s
early masses for St. Antony of Padua and St. James
the Greater; he of Santiago de Compostela fame. What is
so brilliant about these discs is that they combine fine
musicology with some toe-tappingly infectious performances.
Frankly I had not realised that Dufay could be such fun.
Inevitably you can end
up reviewing discs of music by composers of whom you have
heard little or nothing. I have endless curiosity about
these forgotten petits maitres and love listening
to new discoveries and first recordings. You may never
hear a forgotten masterpiece, but you can hear pieces which
help fill in gaps in the musical background. Clemence
de Grandval was from a well-to-do 19th century
French family so she could afford to compose without having
to worry about making a career of it. Taught by Flotow
and Saint-Saëns, friend of many French musicians, her music
was played by some of the major players of the day. Forgotten
partly because the orchestral scores have disappeared,
her reappraisal has required some work to re-create her
orchestrations.
Janos
Fusz occupies a similar position in earlier musical
history. He is mentioned, not favourably, in one of Beethoven’s
conversation books. His songs break little new ground,
but they help provide background to the world of Beethoven
and Mozart. It helps our understanding of composers if
we can hear more of the background to their world, it
can make us realise when the famous composers were really
being adventurous and when they were simply recycling
the music that went on around them. Another 18th century
Eastern European composer is Frantisek Brixi, from a
family of musicians who were related to the famous Benda
family. His work is interesting as his influences mix
in the Neapolitan school. Despite an extensive output,
few of his pieces have made it on to disc.
Domenico Scarlatti is a
well known name, but his repertoire from the Italian period
prior to his departure for the Iberian peninsula is less
well known. He undertook his career rather in his father’s
shadow and his sacred music from Italy seems similarly
to exist in Alessandro Scarlatti’s wake. The new disc from
Naxos lets us hear some of Domenico’s music. What it seems
to tell us is that Domenico really only came into his own
when he managed to get away from his father. His Italian
music is pleasant and well crafted but lacks the flair
and remarkable edge that he brought to the sonatas.
Robert
Parsons is hardly an unknown name, after all his
Ave Maria crops up rather a lot. But the bulk of his
output is still under recorded; until now he has not
received the accolade of the sort of single composer
disc that is commonplace for his contemporaries. Of course,
this is another disc where someone (in this case Barnaby
Smith) has had to do a substantial amount of musicological
work before the music could be performed. This is a perennial
problem with lesser known composers - and lesser known
pieces by well known composers; before you can perform
it you need the music which means someone must have transcribed
it from the sources. And, of course, following the Hyperion
court case editors and conductors are increasingly wary
of the copyright issues, so just borrowing someone else’s
edition has become a fraught enterprise. I can only applaud
the enthusiastic souls who spend the time in the libraries
making this happen.
Elgar is certainly not
a petit maitre, but parts of his output are relatively
neglected on disc. A new complete song edition is in progress
from Channel Classics. Though this uses the talents of
Amanda Roocroft the record company is not English and the
onlie begetter of the project is Dutch pianist Reinild
Mees, showing that Elgar’s music really is becoming international.
It is always difficult
finding suitable ways to perform and record lesser known
pieces. With Schumann’s
choral music, of which there is a not inconsiderable
amount, an entire disc of his music might seem a little
daunting. Not everyone wants to hear 70 minutes of 19th century
part songs, even well written ones. A German group had
the interesting idea of commissioning pieces to go with
the Schumann ones, interleaving the old and the new, a
fascinating idea which makes for challenging and stimulating
listening; something that other groups ought to consider.
Not everyone will like the confluence of old and very new,
but to me the exciting nature of the project and the vivid
performances transcend any doubts I may have had about
the individual pieces.
An even more daunting prospect
is an entire disc of contemporary Anglican worship music
from Texas; individual pieces are charming but the whole
ensemble is a little too much. David Ashley White has a
long pedigree of writing for the Episcopal Church in American
and his pieces are all well made and very, very useful.
But, as I have found with my own sacred music, useful pieces
do not necessarily make good programmes on disc. What this
disc lacks is that element of challenge which the Schumann
disc had. To make a good programme you need to give the
listeners something substantial to get their teeth into,
whereas this disc of Ashley
White’s music presents 27 shorter items.
With Simon McEnery’s Resurrection we
have something of the opposite problem. This is a long,
single-disc piece which feels rather over-extended for
McEnery’s rather film-music like talent. Much of the piece
feels as if it has wandered over from the world of the
contemporary musical. But it is not McEnery’s first such
piece. Resurrection was premiered in Salisbury Cathedral
where McEnery has premiered previous pieces, so presumably
McEnery delivered precisely the sort of accessible music
which his commissioners wanted. The tragedy of contemporary
church music is that few composers of the stature of Sir
Harrison Birtwistle are writing pieces and that the idea
of a Birtwistle piece to be listened to and enjoyed by
everyday Salisbury congregants seems rather unlikely. I
rather suspect, that if approached, Birtwistle would not
have been entirely happy with Canon Jeremy Davies’s libretto
with its over reliance on hymn based structures. The composer
was lucky with his performers, the piece was recorded by
Salisbury Cathedral choir, unfortunately his has not given
them much that is challenging in the way of music.
Stephen
Goss, who is based at Surrey University, seems adept
at persuading people to go into the studio to record
his pieces; it probably helps that he has a fine studio
set up at his University. This means that the discs of
his chamber music are always fascinating mixes of pieces.
He has followed up his disc The Garden of Cosmic Speculation with Frozen
Music, an equally fascinating and challenging mix.
Two of the pieces involve frequent references to Terry
Gilliam films. I am never sure about revealing too much
of the programme that underlies a piece, after all if
you either don’t know or don’t like Terry Gilliam’s films,
what are you to think of the music. I can begin to sympathise
with Berlioz who wanted to withdraw the programme of
the Symphonie Fantastique and get us to listen
to it purely as music. Still, programme or no, Goss’s
disc is worth a second listen.
Philip Glass’s music would
seem to offer little scope for that rather traditional
combination of choir and church organ. But Howard Williams
and the Choir of the 21st century have taken
the remarkable step of re-working Glass’s Another
Look at Harmony Part 4 for this combination. Originally
written for vocal ensemble and electric organ, the definitive
recording is close miked (as is most of Glass’s writing
from this period), giving an intimate studio feel. Williams
and his Choir manage to make a good case for their new
choral version though I doubt whether many choirs and organists
will have the stamina required to perform the piece.
Oystein
Baadsvik is a Norwegian Tuba player who has devoted
much playing time to revitalising the repertoire for
this instrument. On his new disc, his partners in crime
are the Swedish Wind Ensemble conducted by the trombone
virtuoso Christian Lindberg. The disc’s punning title Prelude,
Fnugg and Riffs refers both to the Bernstein piece
and to a new work Fnugg Blue by Baadsvik and Svein
Giske. This is a disc which wears its contemporary music
ID lightly and allows you to mix challenging music with
real fun and enjoyment.
Naxos recordings give you
a good opportunity to experiment at low cost. Few people
would buy one of the full price recordings of Rossini’s La
Donna del Lago just to see if they liked it, but
they might experiment with the Naxos one - based on the
performances at the Rossini in Wildbad Festival. The danger
is that the performance will not do justice to the piece
and our experimenter will be put of Rossini opera seria
for life. Luckily the new performance, whilst not quite
top notch, is more than serviceable and well worth the
experiment. Naxos have also built up a nice line in re-issues
of old recordings. Sometimes these would only really seem
to have an appeal for cognoscenti, but with something like Victoria
De Los Angeles’s Manon, the recording is essential
listening. This is not just for the star, but because her
recording is based on the ensemble of the Opéra Comique,
recorded when that ensemble still regularly performed French
opéra comique in a recognisably French style. Any of their
recordings from the 1950s are essential listening - windows
onto a forgotten and lost world. The advantage that these
1950s recordings have is that their recorded quality is
such that you can listen to them regularly. The Opéra Comique
recording of Bizet’s Carmen complete with spoken
dialogue, is still my favourite recording of that opera.
Even the Naxos publicity
refers to Callas’s 1954 recording sessions as problematic.
Their new disc of Puccini
heroines includes so many vibrato-laden accounts of
well known arias in operas that she no longer (or never
did) perform on stage that our intrepid experimenter might
be put off for life. It has taken me a long time to come
to appreciate Callas’s talents. I still prefer the live
recordings where the coruscating performances make up for
any vocal defects.
Robert Hugill
