Need to update your playlist but feeling classic? Maybe you
want to switch up your style. Look no further, here are some options:
JG Thirlwell: ‘Dystonia’ (Cantaloupe)اضافة اعلان
Mivos Quartet
If you are a fan of adult cartoons, you may have already
heard the music of composer JG Thirlwell, who has written antic and
entertaining themes for “Archer” and “The Venture Bros”. But he has also long
plied his trade on the contemporary classical scene, with compositions for the
Kronos Quartet and Alarm Will Sound.
At a harmonic level, his cartoon scores do not sound much
like his “serious” music. But there is one constant at work: Thirlwell is an
entertainer. That quality makes his latest album — a series of quartets played
by the Mivos Quartet — a particular highlight.
A demonstration of his talent comes during the first minute
of “Ozymandias,” the album’s vivacious, tightly plotted centerpiece. After
establishing an easy facility with some evergreen avant-garde-isms — stabbing
staccato, glowering glissandi — Thirlwell writes a passage of singing,
vibrato-strewn playing. Then its back to the savagery. Crucially, though, he is
not afraid of more vulnerable sonic states. That sensibility pays off
handsomely throughout the album, not least in the penultimate work,
“Heliophobia”.
At a surface level, the sequencing of this album’s five
works alternates between intense ragers and more intimate meditations, but each
one also contains multitudes. And chalk up another victory for the Mivos
players; last year, they brought new pieces by the improvising guitarist Mary
Halvorson into the classical sphere. Now they have made a mark this year as
well.
‘Der Ferne Klang …’: Orchestral Works & Songs by Franz
Schreker (Deutsche Grammophon)Chen Reiss, soprano; Matthias Goerne, baritone;
Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Christoph Eschenbach, conductor
Heady, enveloping, ever-so-slightly preposterous — what
magnificent music Franz Schreker wrote for the orchestra, and what a shame that
it has fallen into such disfavor. Every so often, a recording comes along to
restore its lavish glories to honor, though, and this one is particularly
welcome for its range, its quality, and its devotion to the cause.
Christoph Eschenbach might not conjure the sense of freedom
and wonder that enraptures in the most intoxicating accounts of Schreker’s
scores — Michael Gielen’s “Vorspiel zu einem Drama,” say, or Marc Albrecht’s
“Der Schatzgräber” — but the subtlety and control that he brings to these
performances is impressive nevertheless.
Take the extraordinary amount of detail to be heard in the
wandering, longing “Nachtstück” from “Der Ferne Klang,” or the care evident in
the “Valse Lente”, which the Konzerthausorchester players phrase with charming,
naive serenity. The gorgeous Chamber Symphony and the dainty Kleine Suite
receive exquisite readings, reminders of a delicacy in Schreker’s writing that
is often forgotten amid all its opulence. Chen Reiss and Matthias Goerne make
sensitive arguments in turn for the mournful “Vom ewigen Leben”, which sets
poetry by Whitman, and the doleful “Fünf Gesänge”, Only the Romantic Suite
falls short, dragging a little too often in tempo; but if it does, well, that
is just an excuse, if you should need one, to find another Schreker recording
to fall in love with.
‘Fantasie: Seven Composers, Seven Keyboards’ (Harmonia
Mundi)
Alexander Melnikov
One downside of the period-instrument movement is that its
insistence on historical accuracy has put something of a damper on recordings
that cross centuries and styles. Enter Alexander Melnikov, a pianist whose
latest album traces the development of the fantasy, Western music’s most
imaginative and least rule-bound form, from the 18th to 20th centuries.
Each composer is heard on a different keyboard, kicking off
with Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, performed to crisp, punchy effect on a
copy of a two-manual harpsichord from the 17th century, and coming full circle
with Schnittke’s grinding Improvisation and Fugue, played on a Steinway less
than a decade old.
Melnikov calls the program a “handshake game” in which the
imprint of one composer can be heard in those that follow (though sometimes at
subterranean depths). Something similar goes for the instruments as well. The
tangent piano — a now-obscure instrument from the 18th century, on which
Melnikov plays a harmonically daring fantasia by C.P.E. Bach — has some exotic
timbres that become both smoother and more unified on the fortepiano used for
two works by Mozart.
Greater resonance materializes in works by Chopin and
especially Mendelssohn, whose Fantasia in F-sharp minor bristles with edgy
intensity and romantic brio. But this just scratches the surface of the
connections made and the surprises encountered in this recording, which is,
pardon the expression, just fantastic.
‘Contra-Tenor’ (Erato)
Michael Spyres, tenor; Il Pomo d’Oro; Francesco Corti,
conductor
On his new set of arias from the baroque and early classical
eras, Michael Spyres stretches himself to the limit. By my math, he sings
across three octaves, bringing panache and a juicy, pliable sound to music
written for tenors who could rival castratos in virtuosity and beauty of tone.
In 2021, this sui generis vocalist released “Baritenor,” an
album with an audacious — if at times unconvincing — mix of famous baritone and
tenor arias. In “Contra-Tenor,” by contrast, Spyres sounds free, fresh and
dashing, equalizing the registers of a chestnut-colored voice from dusky lows
to lightsome highs. He visits the rare air above high C in boffo flashes and
relishes bottom notes for their own brand of virtuosity, recalling Marilyn
Horne’s revelrous way with downward ornaments in “Una voce poco fa.”
The album hits one stupefying climax after another, and for
a recital with arias by Mozart, Handel and Gluck, it’s a testament to Spyres’
showmanship that the best moments come in the rarities. His weightless tone
beguiles in Sarro’s “Fra l’ombre un lampo solo”, and his poise amid the big
leaps and tiny twists of arias by Mazzoni and Latilla beggars belief.
Conductor Francesco Corti’s effervescent style with Il Pomo
d’Oro propels Spyres’ handsome, explosive vocalism. These musicians leave
little doubt of the star power of the baroque-era tenors who sang this material
— and of the singer who is reviving it.
Elfman: Violin Concerto, Hailstork: Piano
Concerto (Naxos)
Sandy Cameron, violin; Stewart Goodyear, piano; Buffalo
Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Conductor JoAnn Falletta has wide-ranging taste. She was an
early interpreter of the music of John Luther Adams; in recent years, she has
investigated rarities by Franz Schreker and Victor Herbert, while also playing
arrangements of Ellington with her players at the Buffalo Philharmonic
Orchestra, where she has been the music director since 1999.
That curiosity is given room to roam once again on this
album. Danny Elfman’s madcap and noirish gifts — familiar to fans of Tim Burton
movies and “The Simpsons” — are on intermittent display throughout his Violin
Concerto No. 1. But with a running time of over 40 minutes, this work also
often belabors its points; sometimes, it neglects to give the orchestra enough
to do.
Happily, Adolphus Hailstork’s Piano Concerto No. 1 rewards
the orchestra more richly. His music is, at last, starting to be programmed
more regularly; on June 13, the New York Choral Society will present his recent
“A Knee on the Neck” at David Geffen Hall. In the first movement here, he puts
folkloric Americana riffs through surprising variations while also engaging
with the raucous legacy of Ballets Russes-era Stravinsky. In the second
movement, Hailstork, he crafts themes full of yearning ardor. And in the
finale, these diverse fascinations are fused with ingenuity. The whole piece is
a corker.
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