Blogger won't allow me to continue the numeration from the previous post, so I have defaulted to bullet points. The first disc is actually number 20 and the last number 29. So there will be a couple more posts before I am finished.
- Witold Lutosławski: Fanfare for Los Angeles Philharmonic, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Chantefleurs et Chantefables, Symphony No. 2 I attended a lecture given by Lutosławski at McGill in the 70s where he talked a lot about his use of aleatory techniques. I wish I had been more interested at the time as now I am doing something similar myself! In any case, this is an interesting disc of an interesting composer. The music is more lyrical than you would expect despite being non-tonal. He does a great deal with tone-colour and contrasting groups of instruments in the symphony.
- Witold Lutosławski: Fanfare for Los Angeles Philharmonic, Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 4 The Lutosławski symphonies are spread out over six decades from the first, completed in 1947, to the fourth, in 1992. The style of the Symphony No. 1 is not radically different from that of, for example, the Symphony No. 5 of Prokofiev, composed at roughly the same time, though the Lutosławski is more motoric with more structural clarity. The Symphony No. 4 is in the two-section structure that he first explored in the Symphony No. 2 where there is an episodic section followed by a section in continuous development.
- Witold Lutosławski: Symphony No. 3, Les Espaces du sommeil There is a lot of Lutosławski's technique of "limited aleatorism" in the Symphony No. 3 where the exact pitches are notated, but the rhythmic element is left to the players. Les Espaces du sommeil was written at the request of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. One thing that all of Lutosławski's symphonies share is conciseness: the Symphony No. 3, for example, is only thirty minutes long and the 4th is around twenty-one minutes. As opposed to the Mahler 3rd, which runs around one and a half hours.
- Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3 I've not been fond of Mahler in recent years, so I was hoping that Salonen's interpretation might rescue Mahler for me--that was at least partially true! Salonen doesn't do melodrama, but he is pretty good at drama and this performance is a bit tauter and more incisive than many others. I don't think that Mahler needs any indulgence in the interpretation! I appreciated the clean and precise delivery of the LA Philharmonic.
- Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3, continued Good pacing, good singing from Anna Larsson, the alto soloist, great work from the brass section and overall an excellent performance. I enjoyed this a lot more than I usually enjoy Mahler.
- Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 At under an hour in duration, the 4th is one of the shortest Mahler symphonies. This performance is crisp, clean and focussed. Barbara Hendricks sings the vocal part in the last movement.
- Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde This has long been my favorite piece by Mahler, a symphony in all but name using German translations of classic Chinese poetry. This is the version for two male voices: Plácido Domingo, tenor, and Bo Skovhus, baritone. The orchestral parts seem a bit clearer than I am used to and the opening of Der Abschied is especially rich and resonant. Some excellent singing in this recording.
- Wynton Marsalis: All Rise What is this anyway? A blues cantata? Jazz oratorio? Marsalis' notes for the premiere performance aren't too helpful: "All Rise is structured in the form of the Blues, 12 movements to the 12 bars. It is separated into three sections of four movements; each section presents different attitudes about the uncontrollable rush of experiences in the quest for happiness. The first four movements are joyous, the second four are more somber and poignant, and movements 9, 10, and 11 are dance movements. Movement 12 is the gospel 6/8 shuffle; a dance, but not in a secular sense." I almost hate to say this, but the first few movements sound vaguely like a little Leonard Bernstein mixed with Carl Orff, and, ok, just a soupçon of neo-classical Stravinsky.
- Wynton Marsalis: All Rise, continued The second disc, beginning with El "Gran" Baile de la Reina, has some pretty nice jazz.
- Olivier Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie I've noticed that this piece is getting more and more performances these days--and so is Des canyons aux étoiles, being given at the Proms this year. The first thing I notice is that the pacing is a little less hysterical and more organized than some other recordings of the piece. If you don't know this amazing work, here is a fairly substantial post I did on it a couple of years ago: https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-music-of-messiaen-part-8.html This recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra dates from 1985.
I found All Rise frustrating. Jazz musicians and composers who have mastered the art of continuous variation by carefully formed harmonies and melodies at the scale of a character piece often struggle to create music at a larger scale level of musical forms. It's not that no jazz composer could ever pull this off. Gershwin, at the risk of an obvious example of a popular level composer tackling larger scale forms, managed to do it. Bernstein managed to do it, too although I'm not a huge fan of Bernstein overall.
ReplyDeleteBut Ellington struggled with larger-scale forms. As much as I love jazz the disciplines involved in writing in that style encourage mastery of character pieces and continuous variation technique at the expense of time spent on more traditional large-scale approaches like sonata and fugue.
All Rise, if I tried to listen to it again, would probably just make me want to listen to Minghus instead.
Lutoslawski is a blast. I spent a lot of my thirties and later twenties digging into music from central and eastern European composers and it's interesting to consider Lutoslawski's approach to composition in light of just how swiftly socialist realism died a miserable death in Poland by even the relatively early 1950s! There's a book called Composing the Party Line that gets into how socialist realism was enforced in the USSR but that in Poland and East Germany the top down prescribed movement died a swift and fairly ugly death, which meant that Polish and East German composers who felt up to it embraced some pretty avant garde approaches even by the mid 1950s.
Yes, I'm afraid that I wasn't impressed with All Rise either. The bits that are not jazz are just a tiresome mishmash.
ReplyDeleteIt is fascinating how differently music was practiced in the Eastern European countries like Poland and Hungary as opposed to in the Soviet Union. And how composers managed to flourish in both environments.