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‘American Counterpoints’
Experiential Orchestra; James Blachly, conductor; Curtis Stewart, violin (Bright Shiny Things)
Julia Perry, who would have turned 100 this month, achieved some actual recognition throughout her lifetime, however — in a story all too widespread for composers who aren’t white males — fell into obscurity after her dying in 1979. There have been current efforts to revive her works, together with her Violin Concerto, written within the Nineteen Sixties and now recorded by the Experiential Orchestra underneath James Blachly, with Curtis Stewart because the soloist.
This brooding, 25-minute piece begins with a passionate violin cadenza, performed like the remainder of the concerto with heated dedication from Stewart, after which evolves steadily, with out outlined part breaks. It is a wonderful instance of the sober but seething angularity of its period, leavened with heat strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness.
It’s a vigorous work of mid-Twentieth-century Neo-Classicism, and has wonderful firm on the album in one other: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Sinfonietta No. 1, with a wrenching gradual motion and a driving finale. The recording additionally contains Perkinson’s violin solo “Louisiana Blues Strut,” full of life within the efficiency by Stewart, whose raucous, hip-hop-influenced “We Who Seek” seems as properly. And there may be extra Perry: the lushly contemplative Prelude for Strings, the alternately assertive and hovering Symphony in One Movement for Violas and Basses and the hymn “Ye, Who Seek the Truth,” in an instrumental association by Jannina Norpoth. ZACHARY WOOLFE
When Aaron Copland died in 1990, Allan Kozinn wrote in The New York Times, “Composers’ performances usually are not all the time definitive, however Copland was a wonderful, communicative conductor and pianist.” That evaluation is abundantly borne out by this 20-CD field set of the composer’s recordings of his personal oeuvre for Columbia Records.
Somewhat surprisingly, Copland exhibits himself much less convincing in populist works like “Appalachian Spring” and “Rodeo,” items through which others have introduced out the music’s rhythmic snap extra adroitly. Where he excels on the rostrum is in brawnier fare, corresponding to “Music for a Great City,” “Statements” and “Symphonic Ode,” reminding a listener how sharp-elbowed his orchestral writing might be. He was additionally an excellent pianist and accompanist, as heard in recordings of the Sonata for Violin and Piano (with Isaac Stern); the Piano Quartet (with members of the Juilliard String Quartet); and numerous track cycles. Benny Goodman’s two accounts of the Clarinet Concerto will stay classics so long as this music is cherished.
Perhaps most revealing on this set are clips from Copland’s rehearsals for the chamber model of “Appalachian Spring.” More than as soon as, he warns the musicians that their taking part in is verging too near straight sentiment. “The sound’s on the Tchaikovsky facet,” he says at one level. “Make it extra American spirit […] extra cool. The music by itself is heat — you don’t have to assist it.” Conductors ought to heed his recommendation. DAVID WEININGER
‘Wide As Heaven: A Century of Song by Black American Composers’
James Martin, baritone; Lynn Raley, piano (New World)
The New World label is dedicated to Black American classical repertoire, with releases together with a period-orchestra model of Scott Joplin’s opera “Treemonisha,” the “Black Manhattan” collection and Anthony Davis’s extra up to date “Amistad.”
This diversified, shifting and entertaining album extends that custom, with items by Davis, William Grant Still and plenty of others — and with highly effective performances by the baritone James Martin and the pianist Lynn Raley. Take Harry T. Burleigh’s magnificent setting of the Whitman poem “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors”: Here, Martin is powerful and convincing when voicing each a Union Army soldier and an older, enslaved girl who’s saluting the American flag.
But the place the baritone Thomas Hampson has, up to now, easily navigated the repetition of “sunder’d” throughout the girl’s story, Martin permits a slight, susceptible tremor to enter into his second cross on the phrase. At the piano, Raley’s crisp assault maximizes the piece’s often chromatic strategy to army gait. And that’s simply one of many wonderful objects right here. Hall Johnson’s “On the Dusty Road” has marvelous blues feeling; Davis’s “Bells” rings with echoes of bebop and gamelan throughout its tackle artwork track. And the boogie-woogie piano components of Margaret Bonds’s “The Way We Dance in Harlem” evokes rousing vocalizations from Martin. SETH COLTER WALLS
Duruflé: Requiem; Poulenc: Lenten Motets
Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge; Harrison Cole, organ; Stephen Layton, conductor (Hyperion)
Note for observe, Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem is an astoundingly fairly work that critics have described as “a luxuriant harmonic bathtub” and “an impressionist’s large-scale plainsong fantasy.” Trained as an organist and steeped within the melodic mysticism of Gregorian chant, Duruflé deployed plainsong with a naturalness and harmonic sophistication that sound anachronistic for the mid-Twentieth century, but additionally sound everlasting.
The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, dials up the plushness with the 1948 model for organ, and the instrument at Saint-Eustache in Paris is so sonorous and pillowy as to render an orchestra wholly pointless. The organist Harrison Cole swathes the luxurious choruses in downy consolation. Chords and busy Sixteenth-note runs drift by like clouds. Even harmonic abrasions have a smooth-edged refinement.
Stephen Layton’s baton retains the music flowing, all lush and heady, and the Trinity singers, treating consonants as mere solutions, string collectively syllables right into a liquid legato. Vaporous strands float from the soprano part, and the altos and basses are warmly anchoring but improbably diaphanous. The tenors’ vivid forged often pierces the temper, and the vocal soloists inject welcome verve and persona amid the ensemble’s nameless gorgeousness.
An incisive rendition of Poulenc’s Four Lenten Motets for a cappella refrain closes the album in a show of versatility, however the Requiem’s closing motion, “In Paradisum,” offers the true decision. The richly arrayed divisi singing, stable but clear, dissolves into the organ’s closing chord, a chic metaphor for apotheosis. OUSSAMA ZAHR
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, conductor (BR Klassik)
Does the world really want one other recording of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony by Bernard Haitink? That’s an inexpensive query: Bruckner’s symphonies have been central to the eminent conductor’s repertoire, particularly the Seventh, the work with which he bid farewell to his musical profession, in 2019. At least 5 different business recordings have been obtainable earlier than the discharge of this 1981 dwell efficiency. It takes little looking out to seek out extra.
Still, I discovered this new entry unimaginable to withstand. Haitink was a grasp at pacing giant symphonic constructions with impeccable, understated eloquence. Few items reward this ability like Bruckner’s Seventh, and right here he shapes with simply sufficient momentum to propel the huge opening actions onward with out sacrificing the music’s sonic splendor. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra performs with a refinement that’s anticipated, and a transparency that surprises. The ensemble’s brasses are appropriately potent on the work’s many apexes, however they impress much more when the rating requires delicacy and restraint.
Bruckner front-loads a lot within the first two actions that the opposite half of the symphony can really feel like an afterthought. One extra advantage of this account is that Haitink makes the mazelike finale spring with vitality, appeal and a relentless sense of marvel. DAVID WEININGER
