Rachmaninoff: Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op.
42; Liszt: Grandes Études de Paganini; Haydn: Piano Sonata in C, HOB. XVI:48. Jooyoung Kim, piano. MSR
Classics. $12.95.
The Eloquent Saxophone: Music of Jean Françaix,
Alexander Tcherepnin, Gene DiNovi, Paule Maurice, Claude Debussy, Robert
Schumann, Paul Bonneau, Charles Koechlin, Felix Arndt, and Leslie Bassett. David Tanner, alto,
soprano, tenor, and baritone saxophones; Marc Widner, piano. Navona. $14.99.
The Fifth Row: An Acoustic Tour of Historic
Theaters.
Stuart Weber, guitar. Ravello. $14.99.
New Music for Flute—Works by Roger Dannenberg,
David Stock, Tony Zilincik, Elainie Lillios, Linda Kernohan, Randall Woolf, Roger
Zahab, and Judith Shatin. Lindsey Goodman, flute. Navona. $14.99.
There is an interesting connection, beyond
their Romantic style, between two of the works performed by Jooyoung Kim on a
new piano-solo CD from MSR Classics. Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli uses a theme that is not by
Corelli, although he did use the theme (known as “La Folia”) as the basis of a
set of variations of his own – for violin and continuo – in 1700. But just as
Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Joseph
Haydn retains its title even though Haydn did not write the theme, so
Rachmaninoff’s work maintains its designation despite the historical
inaccuracy. The intriguing “connection” element is that Liszt also used “La
Folia” as a theme in one of his works: Rhapsodie
espagnole. Beyond this tidbit of history, there is no particular
relationship among the works here, except that Kim has clearly selected them to
show her pianistic prowess – which two of them, the Rachmaninoff and Liszt,
clearly do. Kim makes full use of the capabilities of a modern concert grand in
these works, and this is particularly effective in the Rachmaninoff variations,
which Kim plays with considerable finesse and a fine sense of contrast from piece
to piece. Some of those contrasts are especially effective, such as that
between variations 7 (Vivace) and 8 (Adagio misterioso). Kim is also strong
in Liszt’s Grandes Études de Paganini,
which she performs, as most pianists do, in the somewhat less difficult (but
still formidable) 1851 version. These pieces are actually harder to play
(either in the 1851 version or the original from 1838) on a modern piano than
on one from Liszt’s time: mid-19th-century pianos had a lighter
action and shorter key travel, making some of Liszt’s demands in these pieces
simpler, if scarcely easy. Kim handles the material well, and her light touch
in the third étude, “La Campanella,” is particularly welcome, as is her
handling of the arpeggios in the final étude. The one piece on this disc that
does not come across as effectively as it might is the two-movement Haydn
sonata, whose delicacy of sound fits poorly with the fullness of the piano here
and whose poised first movement, Andante
con espressione, seems less congenial for Kim than the more overt
emotionalism of Liszt and Rachmaninoff. On the whole, though, Kim shows herself
here to be an impressive performer and an effective interpreter of the
Romantics.
Solo-piano CDs are quite common,
solo-saxophone ones much less so. The new Navona release featuring David Tanner
– actually a re-release of a recording from 1988 – is both a solo offering and
a multi-saxophone one, with Tanner, thanks to the magic of multi-tracking,
playing four separate saxophones in two of the works recorded here. Although
Kim’s piano recording is one to which listeners who especially like the music
may well turn to hear her performances, it is more likely that fans of Tanner
and/or saxophones in general will be interested in this CD than that they will
select it because of the specific pieces Tanner plays. That is true even though
the work opens with a real gem, Serenade
comique by Jean Françaix, an under-appreciated composer whose music shows
real wit and style. This is a two-and-a-half-minute quartet that bounces along
so stylishly that one wishes it would go on considerably longer. The other
quartet here, La Blues by Gene
DiNovi, is at the opposite end of the expressive spectrum, being melancholy,
reserved and crepuscular. The other works here showcase effects from the
traditionally classical (in Sonatine
Sportive by Tcherepnin, another underrated composer, and in Debussy’s Syrinx, Schumann’s Romance No. 1, and Koechlin’s Etude
No. 8) to the jazzy and pop-influenced. Tanner is at home with pretty much
every style of which the saxophone is capable, and he receives very able backup
from Marc Widner in the saxophone-and-piano works. It would be overstating
things to call any of the music here especially profound, and even the longest
work, Maurice’s impressionistic Tableaux
de Provence, lasts less than a quarter of an hour – with Maurice getting
there via five very short movements. But every piece gives Tanner a chance to
show the moods and colors of which the saxophone is capable. In addition to the
pieces already mentioned, the CD includes Arndt’s Nola, Bassett’s four-movement Music
for Alto Saxophone and Piano, and Bonneau’s Caprice en Forme de Valse, which is a real charmer for saxophone
solo. Tanner’s saxophone playing is exuberant and always sure-handed, and if
none of the works heard here is highly significant in itself, all of them give
Tanner a chance to display not only his own multifaceted performance
capabilities but also those of the instrument itself.
Like Tanner on saxophone, Stuart Weber on
guitar offers a broad stylistic mixture of material and a playing technique
that shows familiarity not only with classical guitar style but also with folk
and pop performance. The title of Weber’s new Ravello CD, The Fifth Row: An Acoustic Tour of Historic Theaters, shows to how
great an extent the specific music heard here is not the main interest. What Weber offers are 11 compositions, of
various types, recorded in historic American theaters – thereby intending to
give listeners a sense of what it would sound like if they were sitting in the
fifth row of each theater during a guitar performance. This rather curious
concept is all that really unites the various pieces here, beyond the fact that
all are short: the whole disc runs only 37 minutes. Certainly the CD is a treat
for guitarists and for listeners interested in just how varied the sound of an
acoustic guitar can be. The classical composers heard here include Telemann (Bourée alla Polacca), Dvořák (Humoreske), 18th-century
lutenist Sylvius Leopold Weiss (Passacaille),
and Bartók (Evening in the Country). Weber
also performs Randy Newman’s Texas Girl
at the Funeral of Her Father and Samuel A. Ward’s America the Beautiful. And he includes five of his own works: Sacajawea, Spanish Creek, Jefferson Waltz,
Toccata—Darkness, and Walk Away. The
oldest music here, by Telemann and Weiss, offers a particularly strong contrast
with the remainder of the material, moving in stately fashion through
prescribed forms in a way that is very different from the sometimes unfocused
emotionalism of Weber’s expressive pieces, among which the quiet beauty of Jefferson Waltz stands out. For those
genuinely interested in the venues where these pieces were recorded, the CD
helpfully provides that information: five works were recorded in Montana
theaters, two in Colorado, two in Idaho, and one each in Utah and Wyoming.
There are indeed sonic differences among the pieces, but it is difficult to
know to what extent that results from the music itself rather than from the
aural qualities of the venues where the recordings were made. Weber plays
everything quite well, in any case, and listeners interested in this eclectic
collection of material will find the disc quite satisfying.
Somewhat similarly, the music on a Navona
CD focused on flautist Lindsey Goodman – in this case, eight contemporary
compositions – is not the disc’s primary attraction: Goodman’s playing is
(along with her voice in two pieces). But this is a more rarefied disc than
Weber’s, because all the music goes out of its way to show just how “modern”
(or post-modern) it is. This means that five pieces include electronics or computer-generated
sounds: Separation Logic for flute and
live computer processing (2013) by Roger Dannenberg (born 1955); I Asked You for solo flute and fixed media
(2016) by Tony Zilincik (born 1967); Sleep’s
Undulating Tide for flute in C and live, interactive electroacoustics
(2016) by Elainie Lillios (born 1968); The
Line of Purples for flute and pre-recorded electronics (2015) by Randall
Woolf (born 1959); and For the Fallen for
amplified flute and electronics (2017) by Judith Shaitin (born 1949). The remaining
works here are A Wedding Prayer for two
flutes (2004) by David Stock (1939-2015), Demon/Daemon for solo flute (2016) by Linda Kernohan (born 1970),
and the all-small-caps-titled suspicion
of nakedness for flute (2012) by Roger Zahab (born 1957). The titles’
attempts at profundity, or at least meaningfulness, are entirely in line with
the preferences of many contemporary composers, and the use of various
electronic and computerized “enhancements” of the flute’s sound – including
amplification of the instrument itself – make the disc’s provenance abundantly
clear. Thus, this is not a CD for listeners enamored of the traditional sound
of the flute or of skillful performance on the instrument. It is only for
people who wish to hear the flute in this particular context, whose interest is
in 21st-century compositions that happen to employ the flute as part
of their sonic texture, altering its sound and the form of its participation in
the material as each composer wishes. All is carefully planned here. The
genuinely unpleasant sound at the start of Separation
Logic is entirely intentional, as is the percussive ostinato that opens I Asked You – and as are the words that
pop out from within the musical line. So are the loud breaths, some sounding
almost like gasping, in Demon/Daemon,
and the dirgelike percussive background of For
the Fallen. Goodman appears thoroughly satisfied to be performing this
material, and certainly extracts from her instrument a very wide variety of
sounds, some of which may come as a surprise to listeners not already familiar
with the extent to which familiar instruments can be made to sound like
something outside their inherent nature. So this is not a recording for
listeners who want a chance simply to hear adept flute playing: context is
everything here, and the CD is only for those attracted to this type of music and wanting to listen to the ways in
which a flute can fit into it.
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