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Chopin: Études
Yunchan Lim, piano (Decca)
The pianist Yunchan Lim, who just lately turned 20, debuted at Carnegie Hall in February with an old-school program: all 24 of Chopin’s études. His first album on the Decca label, taking part in those self same 24 devilishly troublesome items — 12 every in Op. 10 and 25 — is old-school, too. The cowl picture, shot on movie, has Lim practically engulfed in moody shadow, a picture that, together with the font, evokes classical music’s glamorous mid-Twentieth century.
The goal appears to be to place him as an inheritor to that period’s keyboard titans. It’s hardly a troublesome activity. After Lim’s Carnegie efficiency, and his dazzling successful rounds on the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, it’s no shock to seek out him in whole command on this recording, balancing note-by-note readability with long-phrase lyricism amid staggering technical calls for.
Even in fiery études, he’s calm as he exposes the panoply of voices that emerge from simply two fingers. His rubato breathes naturally but energetically; there’s a vitality and sense of ahead movement even in slower items. And Lim’s tender taking part in is especially delicate, as within the pleading high quality he brings to a tiny pianissimo quintuplet in Op. 10, No. 9. The album loses little of the joy of a reside live performance whereas including extra management, transparency and polish. It’s a triumph. ZACHARY WOOLFE
‘In C’
Maya Beiser, cello (Islandia Music)
For the sixtieth anniversary of “In C,” Terry Riley’s crusading, proto-minimalist work, the intrepid cellist Maya Beiser has reimagined the piece ingeniously. As written, “In C,” which consists of a collection of 53 brief musical motifs, may be performed by any group of musicians on any devices, and lasts so long as their particular person choices about how lengthy to repeat these motifs.
Beiser, against this, creates loops out of the motifs and stacks them atop each other in progressively evolving paragraphs, with a near-constant pulse on the cello’s lowest string undergirding the exercise above. She provides refined reside drumming in locations (by Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer), in addition to just a few wordless vocal tracks.
The result’s transfixing. In place of the managed chaos that often prevails in performances of “In C,” Beiser creates a sound image that’s modern and orderly, Riley’s temporary themes rising to the floor, then disappearing by the darkish whirl of sound. She additionally performs with the cello’s timbre to introduce simply sufficient variation to maintain the sound image from changing into too uniform. At instances the pulses fall away, leaving the listener in suspension.
Above all, this model of “In C” provides an emotional impression completely different from any I’ve heard: moody and introspective, but in addition, by the top, quietly uplifting. DAVID WEININGER
Hamelin: New Piano Works
Marc-André Hamelin, piano (Hyperion)
The Canadian virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin is persuasive in a large span of repertoire that features C.P.E. Bach, Frederic Rzewski and William Bolcom. He additionally composes. His 1998 album “The Composer-Pianists” was a sweeping survey that additionally included picks from his 12 Etudes in all of the Minor Keys, which he launched of their entirety in 2010.
His earlier choices of his personal music have been wealthy, however his newest self-portrait album is on one other degree. As earlier than, he’s a faithful tipper-of-the-cap: This set’s opening “Variations on a Theme of Paganini,” from 2011, nods to one in all Rachmaninoff’s riffs on that much-adapted Caprice No. 24. It’s all good enjoyable, however there may be one other high quality on this set that strikes properly past a recreation of spot the citation. Call it a extra luxurious synthesis.
Even as Hamelin’s “Suite à l’Ancienne” (2019) and “Pavane Variée” (2014) mix classic types and tunes with superior harmonic trappings, his well-documented affection for jazz additionally peeks by. That’s not so shocking, since he has performed jazz-influenced sonatas and études by Nikolai Kapustin, too. But Hamelin’s specific really feel for incorporating blues sonorities strikes me as much less of a pastiche than Kapustin’s — even when he’s mixing American textures with Sixteenth-century chanson. It’s in all probability time so as to add the epaulet of “rising composer” to this pianist’s already imposing biography. SETH COLTER WALLS
‘Orchestras’
Bill Frisell Trio; Brussels Philharmonic; Umbria Jazz Orchestra (Blue Note)
The prolific and protean guitarist Bill Frisell and the composer-arranger Michael Gibbs have a relationship that stretches again practically half a century. Despite a raft of collaborations, a full-scale orchestral challenge has eluded them till now. This album accommodates two concert events by Frisell’s trio: one with the Brussels Philharmonic (below Alexander Hanson), the opposite with the Umbria Jazz Orchestra (below Manuele Morbidini). All the preparations are by Gibbs, largely of Frisell originals, with a few Gibbs’s personal items and some requirements thrown in.
Undertakings like these can simply fall sufferer to bloat and inelegance, however “Orchestras” feels balanced and pure. Gibbs’s preparations, dense but spacious, depart house for Frisell, the bassist Thomas Morgan and the drummer Rudy Royston to weave nimbly by the textures. Some of the preparations are breathtaking: Listen to how the trio and Brussels orchestra appear to develop and push one another upward in Frisell’s “Throughout” and “Richter 858, No. 7.”
For all of the chops on show right here, the album’s most affecting second is the best: the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” with the guitarist subtly adorning the jazz orchestra’s chorale-like accompaniment. Frisell has been taking part in the music for a lot of his life, and just lately mentioned he would preserve doing so “until there isn’t a want anymore.” DAVID WEININGER
‘Rose in Bloom’
Erin Morley, soprano; Gerald Martin Moore, piano (Orchid Music)
A debut solo album based mostly on birds and flowers may appear hackneyed; “Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking,” as Miranda Priestly would say. But that’s not the case with a expertise on the order of the coloratura soprano Erin Morley.
Her voice is opalescent, a font of sheer, harmless colours, with bell-like readability, pristine runs and notes in alt that spin like mad. Her singing has an instrumental purity, however it’s also tenderly observant. A Saint-Saëns vocalise has such specificity that you simply nearly overlook it has no phrases. There’s humor, too: In Milhaud’s “Tais-toi, Babillarde,” Morley mimics a chatty swallow with cheeky exuberance.
Morley and the pianist Gerald Martin Moore shift swiftly by types and moods. In one compelling sequence, they thread collectively nightingale songs — the colourful sensuality of a Rimsky-Korsakov romance, the intriguing thriller of a Berg lied, the resplendence of the Saint-Saëns vocalise — with radiant weightlessness.
Ricky Ian Gordon’s new music cycle “Huit Chansons de Fleurs” comes within the center and slows this system’s fast tempo. His easy prosody, hovering melodies and beneficiant spirit suffuse the music, even turning a poem of mournful decay, “Her Garden,” right into a tribute to the love shared with somebody who has died. Morley gently tugs on the rhythm and shades the fragile melody, sounding each technically immaculate and emotionally fragile in an album of predictable loveliness and sudden poignancy. OUSSAMA ZAHR
