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THE WORLD’S BEST CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEWS . Est 1923 DECEMBER 2020 gramophone.co.uk THE ART OF OPERETTA Sparkling melodies and biting satire – the challenges and charms of Lehár, Off enbach and G&S P L U S The fi nest Beethoven Missa solemnis recordings Critics’ Choice: our reviewers’ picks of 2020 Christmas music: a festive feast of new albums UNITED KINGDOM £6.50 NEW RELEASE LAWO CLASSICS www.lawoclassics.com LWC1198 n g i n m i C o 1 ! 2 0 2 LWC1207 PROKOFIEV / MYASKOVSKY PROKOFIEV: SYMPHONY NO. 5 MYASKOVSKY: SYMPHONY NO. 21 Vasily Petrenko Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra LWC1215 Distributed in the UK by PROPER MUSIC www.propermusicgroup.com A special eight-page section focusing on recent recordings from the US and Canada JL Adams undoubtedly appeal to enthusiasts. It will Golijov draws on Silkroad’s globe- Lines Made by Walking. untouched not appeal to everyone, but rest assured spanning roster of virtuosos to shape a Jack Quartet that the Jack Quartet’s committed singular soundscape that marries impulses Cold Blue Music F CB0058 (55’ • DDD) performances are a model of flawless from Central Asian song epic, Delta blues ensemble and intonation, captured in and ruminative minimalist patterns. very clear sound. Guy Rickards Falling Out of Time is beautifully scored for a chamber ensemble of string quintet, Golijov Patrick Kilbey’s kamancheh, pipa, trumpet/flugelhorn, Contemporary Falling Out of Time electronics, percussion and sheng, with Composers profile Silkroad Ensemble three singers: Wu Tong (who doubles (2/18) of John In a Circle Records F ICR017 (80’ • DDD • T) on sheng) as the grieving father who Luther Adams (b1953) remains the best becomes Walking Man, searching for general introduction to the music of this answers from his departed son; distinctive American composer. In that Venezuelan vocalist Biella da Costa as article, Kilbey did not specifically discuss Though conceived the Woman, who sees at once the futility any of Adams’s (to date) five string and created well of her husband’s odyssey; and Dutch quartets but many of his comments hold before the pandemic, soprano Nora Fischer as Centaur, good for them, too: the connection to Osvaldo Golijov’s a metaphor for the artist. Adams’s music of nature, specifically its latest collaboration with Silkroad Following a difficult period, Golijov’s being ‘the physics of sound’, ‘geography Ensemble seems uncannily well suited career is back on track here. His searing and geology’. to the era of corona. Global in its new score recalls the ardent honesty of his It should come as no surprise that impact, the affliction is at the same time breakthrough Pasión según San Marco but Adams’s first quartet (2011; he does not responsible for countless private griefs. operates on a much more intimate level. overtly number them) was The Wind in Falling Out of Time, for its part, navigates From sky-piercing calls to the haunting High Places, in which the composer a space between the archetypal and the reverse lullaby – boy to parents – that reimagined the quartet as a ‘16-string individual pain we confront with every concludes it, Falling Out of Time is a Aeolian harp’. untouched (2016), the next impossible loss. Similarly, this 80-minute Kindertotenlieder for our fragile present. quartet and the first recorded here, work inspired by David Grossman’s novel Thomas May revisited that same ethereal sound world, of the same name evokes a sense of the Shuying Li with ‘the fingers of the musicians still not simultaneous absurdity and necessity touching their fingerboards’. Of fairly of art that our latter-day plague has ‘World Map – A Collection of Mini Concertos’ equal durations, the three movements, provoked. As Grossman observes in the American Variations. Canton Snowstorm. ‘Rising’, ‘Crossing’ and ‘Falling’, seem to elegant album booklet: ‘But there is one The Dryad. Matilda’s Dream. The Peace House describe an arch shape, like the rise and fall place, or rather one dimension, where Four Corners Ensemble of a bird high over a range of hills. There we can feel, if only for an instant, both Navona F NV6312 (59’ • DDD) is little variety of the glassy timbre or near- the absolute nihility of death and the glacial tempo. full abundance of life. And that The most recent quartet, Lines Made dimension is art.’ by Walking (2019), is another triptych The Israeli author, who won the Man Shuying Li (b1989) describing a simple arch, the movement Booker International Prize in 2017 for is a Chinese-born, titles indicating something of a programme. A Horse Walks Into a Bar, published Falling American-resident The upward- and downward-striving Out of Time in 2014 in response to the composer. She motions – again, with a very slow pulse – loss of his son to war. Golijov structures studied initially at the Shanghai of the outer movements, ‘Up the this tale of a nameless Man and Woman Conservatory of Music but won a Mountain’ and ‘Down the Mountain’, attempting to come to terms with scholarship to study in the United States, are straightforward, but more as metaphors their son’s death into an engrossing, eventually graduating from the University rather than overt description, again relying immersive song-cycle he calls a ‘tone of Michigan. In 2017 she co-founded the on minutely varied repetition to generate poem in voices’. Its generic flexibility – in Four Corners Ensemble with an momentum. Like them, the central ‘Along live performance, one can readily imagine international group of young soloists and the Ridges’ is contemplative in its visual accompaniment and staging – the World Map Concertos Series (2018-19) expressive disposition. mirrors the hybrid quality of Grossman’s is the first major compositional product Both works are of a piece with Adams’s unique blend of prose, poetry, folklore of this partnership. The five miniature larger and better-known works and will and modern fable. concertos – once apiece for flute, clarinet, gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE DECEMBER2020 I LISTENING ROOM AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE OR STREAMING Click the camera icon while searching in your Spotify mobile app and scan the code below to listentoselectionsfromthesealbums. Navona Records, Ravello Records, Big Round Records, and Ansonica Records are imprints of PARMA Recordings. www.parmarecordings.com SOUNDS OF AMERICA Flawless: the Jack Quartet make the best possible caseformusicbyJohnLutherAdams–seereviewonpageI piano, violin and cello – are all quintets, Annie Jeng’s brilliant pianism informs all performances that underline those the other four instruments accompanying five works. Navona’s sound is quite closely connections, Edwards and Kolb respond the soloist. miked but clear and bright. An enjoyable to the sheer pleasures of aching emotions, Each concerto takes inspiration from disc. GuyRickards vague desires, delightful comedy and a specific country. American Variations is quick-moving, intense melodrama with B Strozzi a winning mash-up of ragtime, jazz (with playing of sheer physical beauty and close a fleeting allusion to Rhapsody in Blue), GianoncelliThreeCorrentesBStrozziArieavoce attention to the texts, whether Edwards’s klezmer and other styles inspired by the sola,Op8–L’Astratto.Chesipuòfare.Donne pliant, seductive, free-ranging voice or American Dream. Matilda’s Dream, for belle.Epazzomiocore.Fermailpiede.Nonc’è Kolb’s virtuosity on instruments made cello, is a dark fantasy based on ‘Waltzing piùfede.Tumenepuoibendire by Michael Schreiner after early Matilda’, though the Australian folk ElissaEdwardssopRichardKolbtheorbo/archlute Baroque models. melody only emerges fully at the close. AcisFAPL90277(58’•DDD•T/t) The light-hearted parody of The Dryad looks to Denmark and Austria ‘L’Astratto’ turns out to be a miniature by contrast, a flute concerto melding 10-minute opera. The deeply felt cantata Hans Christian Andersen’s tale with ‘Che si può fare’ begins with sheer poetry, Schubert’s song ‘Der Lindenbaum’, This splendid and introduces an unforgettable tune of sad while The Peace House (for violin) is set authoritative recital beauty and ends with a warning addressed in Panmunjom on the uneasy border by Elissa Edwards and to beautiful women, ‘Che’l dolersi d’Amore between the two Koreas. Finally, Canton Richard Kolb of arias e una follia’. In providing a theatrical Snowstorm (ie the Chinese city, not a and cantatas from Barbara Strozzi’s last variety of sounds as Edwards’s partner Swiss region) is as much a vivid tone published opus showcases the dramatically and in three instrumental Correntes by poem of a blizzard as a piano concerto. It coloured, highly charged power of the Bernardo Gianoncelli, Kolb’s playing is a brilliant conclusion to the series, fusing composer’s expressive toolkit, lit by the swings with darkly intimate colours and Western and Eastern musical traditions in emerging harmonic language of the suggestive rhythms. N its volatile soundscape. Baroque, influenced by Monteverdi In fact, the performances are based A H EE The performances are, as one might through her teacher Cavalli, as a serious on Kolb’s Complete Works edition, H S F expect, superbly prepared and executed precedent for the future of opera. In his published in 2019 by Cor Donato L U W impeccably. It is invidious to pick out booklet notes Kolb comments that in Editions. The audiophile sound was O E BY: specific soloists from such a beautifully Strozzi’s time a taste for ‘indulgence in recorded at The Clarion performing H P balanced ensemble but both flautist Erika the sensual pleasure of vocal melody or as arts centre at Brazosport College, A R OG Boysen and clarinettist Joshua Anderson an esoteric manifestation of nothingness’ 50 miles south of Houston. T O H produce beautifully nuanced playing, and was growing – the future indeed. In Laurence Vittes P gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE DECEMBER2020 III R I C H A R D WA G N E R . E V E R Y O P E R A . T H R E E W E E K S . 20 June until 14 July 2022 in his birthplace of Leipzig. INFORMATION & TICKETS: WWW.WAGNER22.COM SOUNDS OF AMERICA ‘Painted Music’ Also in six movements, Painted Music have been a ‘hallucinated fish’ in a GolijovFishTaleHoughtonFromtheDreaming (2017) by Bryan Johanson (b1951) is past life! By contrast, the inspiration JohansonPaintedMusicMcGuireSuite built on a larger scale, nearly twice as behind Philip Houghton’s triptych QuatraDuo(MichelleStanleyflJeffLaQuatragtr) long as McGuire’s Suite. Styled – not From the Dreaming (1991, rev 1997) NavonaFNV6306(61’•DDD) entirely convincingly – a sonata by its was a prolonged sojourn in the ‘central composer, the inspiration comes from and northern outback’ of his native Paul Klee, with whom Johanson shares Australia. In the opening ‘Cave a birthday, and the music matches a Painting’, Houghton (1954-2017) has This is a deceptively specific musical form to a Klee artwork: the guitar emulate (at several removes) straightforward disc, a toccata for the opening ‘Senecio’, a a didjeridoo; the ensuing ‘Wildflower’ intended primarily as nocturne for ‘Strong Dream’ and so on. is surprisingly changeable (to reflect the debut recording It is effectively done even if Johanson’s the climate, perhaps), while ‘Gecko’ of this husband-and-wife duo. It even compositional ingenuity is stretched to makes for a splendid scherzo finale. opens with a gentle and light Suite by the limit by Klee’s imagery. The performances throughout are James McGuire (b1944), commissioned Of an altogether different level of immaculate – LaQuatra and Stanley by guitarist LaQuatra in 2016 for his invention is Osvaldo Golijov’s Fish Tale are first-rate players individually but ‘then-future wife and duo partner’. It (1998), a beguiling, alternately lively and have great ensemble and mutual was originally in four movements but contemplative work that Golijov (b1960) understanding – and Navona’s in 2019 McGuire added two more (the himself likened to a ‘watercolor’. In close-miked sound is bright and second and sixth), and this is the version form it is best thought of as a tone poem clear. A rewarding listen. given here. describing how the composer might Guy Rickards Cincinnati Music Hall Our monthly guide to North American venues Year opened 1878 Architect Samuel Hannaford Capacity 2439 Resident ensembles Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra ‘In the centre of great cities, you have a cathedral or a city hall or a palace of justice. Here in Cincinnati it’s Music Hall. A temple of music.’ These are the words of Louis Langrée, music director of the Cincinnati Symphony. Built in 1878, Cincinnati Music Hall serves as home for the city’s Ballet, Opera, May Festival and, most important, commitment to commissioning, programming, community its Symphony and Pops Orchestras. Recognised as a National and inclusion so that, Martin says, ‘its rich past will inform Historic Landmark for its Venetian Gothic architecture, it was our future’. originally designed to house musical activities in its vast central The identification was clear on a live-streamed concert of auditorium – seating 5000 and reduced to 3500 in 1975 – and one of Joseph Bologne’s violin concertos, played by Augustin industrial exhibitions in its splendid flanking wings. It was Hadelich, and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite; the opening credits designed so that when you came into the hall you would featured stunning images of the Music Hall before Langrée and immediately feel a sense of beauty and occasion. ‘It’s a hall the strings, wearing masks, and the winds, separated by Plexiglas, in the old tradition,’ Louis Langrée told me. made the kind of exhilarating, inspiring music the orchestra is Four years after Langrée was named Music Director in 2013, known for. the hall would successfully undergo a $143 million, 16-month The day before I spoke to Langrée had been the first time renovation that resulted in a thousand fewer but more since a massive Beethoven Akademie concert in March that comfortable seats, a new performance studio, more production the orchestra could rehearse in the hall. ‘It was Schubert’s space and better sound. ‘They extended the proscenium by Unfinished Symphony in B minor, and before the musicians three feet into the hall,’ Langrée says, ‘and now we have the took up their instruments and removed their masks I asked them LL same acoustics for the winds and the strings.’ to hum a B major chord, then B minor. I thought how privileged A H C ‘The acoustics were good before,’ the orchestra’s President we were to be able to still make music and to invite people in the SI MU Jonathan Martin added, ‘but now they’ve become great.’ hall to make music for them. It was very moving.’ ATI Like the Hall, the Cincinnati Symphony was born in the Martin believes that the hall evokes an emotional response that N N CI 19th-century surge of Midwest pride in cities like Chicago, transcends music. ‘This is my sixth orchestra and the only parallel N CIY: St Louis and Detroit alongside similarly iconic and profoundly relationships I’ve experienced between a community and a concert H P American baseball teams. Together with the Pops, which joined hall was Severance Hall in Cleveland. An iconic love of the A R OG in 1977, the Symphony breathes its American heritage in its concert hall, if that’s a phrase.’ Laurence Vittes T O H P gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE DECEMBER2020 V SOUNDS OF AMERICA A LETTER FROM Seattle Thomas May is missing live performances, but he finds roots of optimism and lasting change amid the gloom It’snowbeenclosetoeightmonthsandcountingsinceIwaslast These were all fresh performances, recorded live with minimal abletoattendaliveperformance–intheconventionalsense. post-production for subsequent streaming – mostly from SCMS’s Thatevent,arecitalprogrammetitledAmericanRagebythe new performance centre in downtown Seattle, though a number intrepidpianistConradTaoinOctave9,SeattleSymphony’s of the contributions were filmed in remote locations (including experimentalhaven,provedtobequitememorableonitsownterms. the premiere by flautist Marina Piccinini of an AJ Kernis Hisexplosiveimmersioninprotest-orientatedmusicbyFrederic commission, recorded in the crystal cave of former World War RzewskiandJuliaWolfecomplementedagenerous,visionary Two bunkers in the Gotthard Pass in Switzerland). accountoftheCoplandPianoSonataandTao’sownimprovisations Along with the well-curated programmes and high calibre of the intriguinglyfilteredthroughelectronics. performances, what struck me was that somehow SCMS managed But this recital also stands apart, for purely circumstantial to preserve and convey a local stamp to this unusual edition of the reasons, as a turning point in my expectations for live performance festival. In other words, it felt very much like an event produced for the foreseeable future. Tao’s bold programming and by SCMS, featuring many familiar artists, with welcome close-ups incandescent, high-energy style in an intimate space epitomised of their expressions while performing. A highlight was the the singular aura of the live experience that makes concert-going completion by the Ehnes Quartet of their passionate and polished so irreplaceable. Beethoven quartet cycle – begun in the halcyon days of January, Yet within days, the cancellations began; soon, every when the world seemed innocent still. Naturally I missed the engagement I’d been looking electricity that comes only with In lieu of my usually hectic schedule, I forward to covering at the the presence of other audience height of the season vanished. had an opportunity to address some of the members, but the whole But eclipsing the litany of enterprise felt like another endless lacunae in my musical knowledge immediate disappointments version of the usual experience was the ominous, ineluctable rather than a pallid substitute. realisation that the disastrous incompetence of the federal Perhaps the intimacy of chamber music makes it more amenable government, a historic distrust of arts support and the coronavirus to this virtual transformation. But I’m holding out hopes for larger pandemic had merged into a perfect storm to ravage the US concert experiences and even opera to accomplish something cultural landscape. similar – transmitting an experience that preserves a palpable local The end of the world as we knew it – with a crashing halt. colour. Later in November, I’m looking forward to an experiment Everyone has had to improvise ever since, negotiating ways to from Seattle Opera. Only in her second season as general director, survive and reconnect: the institutions we take for granted, the Christina Scheppelmann has responded to the crisis by keeping artists who sustain musical life, each audience member who has a season of live performances in place, including an Elisir d’amore been atomised and cut off from the essential experience of sharing (with two-piano accompaniment) that will be fully staged and a live performance in the same space. videotaped for streaming in a way that self-referentially Throughout late spring and into the summer, I tried to find incorporates the new reality of social distancing. Meanwhile, nourishment in the ritual of watching archival streams. There Seattle Symphony will live-stream its delayed world premiere of were some advantages to the break in my usually hectic schedule a new work by Tyshawn Sorey for the cellist Seth Parker Woods, of travel and new compositions to be assimilated at warp speed. performed as scored for a smaller ensemble live from In lieu of that, I had an opportunity to address some of the endless Benaroya Hall. lacunae in my musical knowledge, alighting on shamefully Smaller organisations such as Byron Schenkman & Friends and neglected repertoire and little-known curiosities alike. Seattle Modern Orchestra are preserving their identities through But none of this can replace the real thing. Just as the whole online seasons that remain faithful to their missions, which process was becoming too predictable, I found encouragement include challenging the canon by presenting under-represented in the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s solution to how to voices. All of this continues the work of rethinking what the carry on with its annual summer festival. Under the guidance ‘classical’ sphere can mean for 21st-century audiences that had of artistic director James Ehnes and outgoing executive director been going on well before coronavirus struck. The strictures Connie Cooper, SCMS transformed its usual month-long chamber imposed by the pandemic are being folded into the larger quest festival to the online medium, with the customary number of for equity and access; it’s as if they’ve only sped up the urge concerts and ancillary events. to imagine the sphere anew. gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE DECEMBER2020 VII Save 25% on subscriptions with code XMAS25 THEWORLD’SBESTCLASSICALMUSICREVIEWS Est1923.JANUARY2020 MALVERN MAGIC What’s on the go in the gramophone.co.uk Worcestershire BEETHOVEN workshopof Nicholson& Co.Ltd? Twoworldsofmusic,onemagazine July/August 2020 UK £5.99 www.choirandorgan.com see page 43 Judith Weir Surveying the choral canon of the Master of the Queen’s Music THEWORLDS B E ST CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEWS Est 1923 . OCTOBER 2020 LangLang’s gramophone.co.uk Goldbergs AsherecordsBach’s masterpiece,we explore thework’senduring significancefor pianists CHOIR&ORGANOFFERS aRssvoeeEeeeuE orppMaanNggeUJeeuw 32Sd26IiMCthuDWsiOceWisre’scNctihLoOonrAalDmusic BINeCetLhUoDvIeNn’Gs music and EToAWPnhrwLhmeUhaicboerShdrrnirsseleioaslcalnhootJoraadsrohtibnlpouigsrm tsa n o B the history of recording areintherunning? 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