Brett Dean: Etüdenfest, Shadow Music, Short Stories.
Beethoven (arr. Dean) String Quartet op. 59/1: Adagio. Dean: Testament
Swedish Chamber
Orchestra
Brett Dean,
conductor
BIS SACD 2194
Buy from:
New classical music releases reviewed in detail by Gavin Dixon
Wednesday, 19 October 2016
Brett Dean Shadow Music
Buy from:
Brett Dean has a rare gift, an ability to make the
avant-garde accessible, and without any compromises. He now holds a position
similar to Luciano Berio in the previous generation, as the composer of serious
Modernist music that always keeps its face to the audience. Both composers often
employ a Postmodern element in their music to achieve this, writing works with
clear links to the much-loved music of earlier eras. But both also pursue more
abstract paths, though even then giving helpful clues—evocative titles, clear
thematic or textural ideas—to allow listeners to keep up. The five works
presented here come from relatively early in Dean’s career and present a compositional
voice gradually approaching full maturity. All of the textural, timbral, and
even structural ideas that make his more recent works so successful are already
securely in place, but what’s often missing is a sense of substance, of having
an important message to express.
Or perhaps that is the wrong way to approach this
music. The opening work, Etüdenfest
(2000), was inspired by the sounds emanating from conservatory practice rooms.
It is filled with extended string techniques, playfully layered and juxtaposed.
There is a quiet and often haunting atmosphere to the work, but Dean seems
determined to ground the music in its own prosaic origins: Just when you feel
something emotionally profound is about to happen, he introduces an obbligato
piano, incessantly practicing his arpeggios. And then the work ends. A playful étude
and nothing more.
But the brittle, half-lit atmosphere of Etüdenfest continues throughout the
program. In Shadow Music Dean
orientates the entire work around the idea of shadows, with dark sounds and
eerie percussive effects looming out of indistinct background textures. Winds
and percussion are added to the ensemble, following the strings and piano of Etüdenfest, but this is still
predominantly string music, and while Dean writes proficiently for every
orchestral section, it is always the strings that get the majority of the
interesting extended techniques.
Short Stories (2005) is, as its title suggests, more pictorial and
more narrative. The five “interludes” each have a different character, the quieter
ones following the shadowy mood of the previous two works. A narrative quality
comes through more strongly in the faster music, where we hear long, weaving
violin lines drawing the ear onwards through the ever-beguiling textures. No
actual stories are told (or at least acknowledged by the composer), apart from
in the penultimate movement, “Komarov’s Last Words,” a memorial to cosmonaut
Vladimir Komarov, the first casualty of space flight.
A greater emotional depth is evident in Testament (2002, rev. 2008), a work
inspired by Beethoven’s “Heiligenstadt Testimony.” Dean prefaces the work with
a chamber orchestra arrangement (flute, clarinet, and string orchestra) of the Adagio from Beethoven’s String Quartet
op. 59/1. The arrangement itself is very elegant, and Dean’s penchant for held
string pedals informs his settings of the accompanying textures. Testament follows the mood of the
Beethoven movement, but the actual allusions to Beethoven’s work within Dean’s
are subtle, brief quotations from the Adagio,
and also, apparently, allusions to the upbeat character of the finale of the
quartet. The result, in Dean’s words, is an ambivalence “somewhere between languor
and resolve.”
The BIS label has done great service to Brett Dean’s
music, and this is just the most recent in a long line of excellent SACD
recordings. Dean himself conducts here, and the focus on textures and balances
that characterize his composition transfer well to his work at the podium. The
pace at which he unfolds these works always feels patient, searching for, and
achieving, excellent clarity in each of the textural ideas he presents. Orchestral
playing is excellent throughout: It always seems to be with Brett Dean’s music,
a virtue, no doubt of his idiomatic writing. Recorded sound is very fine, too,
clear SACD audio, not the kind that shows off its high fidelity credentials,
but instead articulates the details without any harshness or edge and gives
subtle but valuable weight to the bass.
None of these works is labeled as a first recording. With
Etüdenfest, Shadow Music, and Testament,
BIS is here catching up with ABC, who recorded the three works with the
Tasmanian Symphony (ABC 4763219, released
2014). The latter work is an orchestral arrangement of a piece by the same name
for 12 violas, written in 2002, and the original is available on BIS 2016, as a
filler for the Violin Concerto “The Lost Art of Letter Writing,” to date perhaps
Dean’s most accomplished work. No other recording of Short Stories appears to be available at present, but, given the
huge interest in the composer’s work from a range of record labels, it is
probably only a matter of time before the next appears. No need to wait
though—these composer-led versions are unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.
This review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 40:3.
This review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 40:3.
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
Ustvolskaya, Silvestrov, Kancheli – Works for Piano and Orchestra, Elisaveta Blumina
Galina Ustvolskaya: Concerto for Piano, String
Orchestra, and Timpani
Buy from:
Valentin Silvestrov: Four Postludes, Hymn
Giya Kancheli: Sio
for Orchestra, Piano, and Percussion
Elisaveta Blumina, piano
Thomas Sanderling, conductor
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Grand Piano GP 678 (58:03)
Buy from:
Elisaveta Blumina and the Grand Piano label have done sterling work in
recent years in promoting the piano, both solo and concertante, music of
post-Soviet composers. The aesthetic politics here are complicated: Silvestrov
and Kancheli are both of a religious Minimalist persuasion, even when writing
music, as here, that is completely secular. But that school has increasingly
moved into a radical, even confrontational position, with tonality and textural
simplicity presented not only without apology, but almost in deliberate contravention
of Western tastes. The challenge to Modernism here is obvious, but both
composers go further, and if the West is willing to concede a neo-Romantic or
Postmodern dimension to recent musical culture, even that is challenged.
Kancheli is quoted in the liner note extolling Romanticism, with no “neo-”
attached, as ‘a high dream of past, present, and future.’ Conflict seems
inevitable, if only at the level of the individual listener coming to terms
with this radically ahistoric stance. Blumina herself is Russian but based
primarily in Hamburg, a city with a long tradition of supporting recent Russian
music (thanks largely to the music publishing industry there), so presumably
performs for audiences accustomed to the challenges this music presents. She
and her colleges perform the music with real conviction, and there is no sense
that the players share my reservations. As such, then, this is an important release,
not least because it presents two world premiere recordings, and excellent
performances of two other rarely heard works.
Such reflections have little relevance to the first work on the program,
although it somehow manages to fit neatly into the ethos of the recording.
Galina Ustvolskaya’s Concerto for Piano, String Orchestra, and Timpani was
written in 1946 when she was 27 years old and just completing her studies at
the Leningrad Conservatory (following a long disruption caused by the siege).
The style is some distance from the austere Modernism of Ustvolskaya’s mature
work, the single movement written predominantly in the keys of C Major and C
Minor. As well as being in a single movement, the music also seems
monothematic, with a four-note trochaic motif dominating from start to finish.
The composer herself resisted comparisons with her most famous teacher,
Shostakovich, but this motif, and its emphatic recurrence, are reminiscent of
Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. On the other hand, that insistence, the
continual focus on a single idea, repeated through different textures and
harmonies, is similar to the approach in her later music: For all its tonal
convention, this is music of an insistent and uncompromising bent. And, as
often with Shostakovich, the positive and optimistic ending feels at least
slightly ironic—exaggerated almost to the point of satire.
No such mixed messages in Silvestrov’s Four Postludes of 2004. Silvestrov specializes in music with a
sense of belatedness, hence the regular us of “postlude” in his titles. That
can come through in stylistic play, but just as often, as here, it is achieved through
an unspecific sense of nostalgia. The music, throughout, is quiet and
reflective, typically with the piano giving attacks to chords and textures,
which the strings then sustain in clear, uncomplicated, diatonic harmonies.
Silvestrov displays an impressive skill in handling this simplicity. The way
that silences are integrated into the discourse is always seamless. And
although the music is nostalgic, it is never sentimental, giving a sense of
focus, even efficiency, to the work’s 16-minute span. The Hymn (2001) that ends the program is in a similar spirit. This work
is shorter and is written for strings alone, one to a part. The dynamic never
rises above mezzo-piano, and is
usually lower, and so the music requires careful concentration, and, again, a
sense of deep stillness and reflection is the listener’s reward.
Between, we hear Sio for
string orchestra, piano, and percussion by Giya Kancheli. The work is based on,
or at least invokes, the folk music of Kancheli’s native Georgia. He explores
the available textures and sounds, including some prominent tuned percussion,
over what feels like a series of loosely structured variations. Occasional
abrupt changes of texture and mood help to define the contours of the work, and
to distinguish it from the more flowing and even Silvestrov scores that frame
it. But, like Silvestrov, Kancheli favors simple, diatonic textures, doubled
between the piano and the strings, and the simplest of accompaniments. For all
its melodic appeal, this remains, at least for me, a radical, even provocative
aesthetic stance.
Excellent performances throughout from Blumina and the Stuttgart Chamber
Orchestra under Thomas Sanderling. This music isn’t about virtuosity or high
level technical skills, but the sheer amount of rhythmic unison and the radical
simplicity of the textures make perfect ensemble and tuning a key requirement,
and that is exactly what we hear. The climax of the Ustvolskaya feels a little
underwhelming, but it is difficult to decide whether the performers or the,
still little-experienced, composer are to blame. I could also imagine the junctions
in the Kancheli to be more pointed, although excessive drama would probably
ruin the effect. At the other end of the spectrum, the delicate, quiet string textures
are ideal, especially for the Silvestrov. Maintaining that sound throughout the
Hymn must be real challenge, and the
last of the Postludes gradually
disappears to nothing, a beautiful effect, especially as presented here.
This review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 40:3
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Desyatnikov Children of Rosenthal Vedernikov
DESYATNIKOV
The Children of Rosenthal
Alexander
Vedernikov, cond; Pyotr Migunov (Rosenthal);
Kristina Mkhitaryan (Tanya); Irina
Rubtsova (Nanny); Elena Manistina (Wagner); Maxim Paster (Tchaikovsky); Vsevolod Grivnov (Mozart); Vassily Ladyuk (Verdi); Alexander Teliga (Mussorgsky); Bolshoi Theater Chorus and
Orchestra MELODIYA
10 02432 (2 CDs: 119:28)
Buy from:
Leonid Desyatnikov’s opera caused a stir in Moscow
when it was premiered at the Bolshoi in 2005. Protests by a pro-Putin youth organization
took place outside the opera house, and an obscenity case was brought before
the Duma. The controversy centered on the choice of librettist, Vladimir
Sorokin, a novelist with a reputation for presenting historical figures in compromising,
and often pornographic, scenarios. In post-Soviet Russia, the nation’s
20th-century history is still a sensitive topic, and radical re-interpretations
stir strong emotions.
The Duma investigation soon fizzled out—it turned out Sorokin’s
libretto wasn’t as pornographic as his opponents were expecting. It is just as Postmodern
though, and proves an ideal fit for Desyatnikov, a composer with similar
interests in resurrecting (literally in this case) and radically reinterpreting
the past. The opera was a commission from the Bolshoi, the first, and still
only, new work by the company since the fall of the Soviet system. But given
the changes in Russian society and culture in those years it could hardly be
more timely, presenting modern Moscow as city of confused identity, still
clinging to outmoded ideas about its past, even as they become tenuous to the
point of absurdity.
The plot centers around a genetic scientist called
Alex Rosenthal. He arrives in Soviet Russia as a Jewish refugee from Nazi
Germany, already having mastered a technique of human cloning. The reasons for
his Jewish identity are not clear (to me at least), but the approval by the
Soviet authorities of his research is more germane to the satire. As the story
opens, he has already cloned Wagner (a mezzo voice here, Elena Manistina),
Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and Mussorgsky, and is in the process of cloning Mozart.
The actual opening of the first scene is an impressive coup de theatre, with an eerily amplified voice telling the
audience to switch off their mobile phones before giving the background and
presenting the laboratory scene. All the actual cloning procedures are
presenting in suitably sinister mood: Desyatnikov’s polystylism dominates most
of the opera, but he is a Minimalist too, and ominously churning repeated
figures in the orchestra underpin these opening scenes.
The story then follows the adventures of Rosenthal and
his “children” through the Brezhnev and Gorbachev eras, with both presidents
making cameo appearances. Eventually, with the fall of the Soviet system,
Rosenthal loses his funding and soon dies. The orphaned clones are thrown out
onto the streets, and the final act takes place in Moscow’s Komsomolskaya
Square, a famously run-down area with the city’s four main terminus stations in
close proximity. The five cloned composers are now living rough and busking for
a living. Mozart falls in love with a prostitute named Tanya (Kristina
Mkhitaryan), and the heroes’ efforts to buy off her pimp, Kela (Boris
Statsenko), result in their all being poisoned. Only Mozart survives, and the
final epilogue is a hallucination sequence, in which the four other clones return
to sing in his dreams.
There is obviously much subtle satire of modern Russia
that is lost on me, and probably on most other Western listeners too, but the
musical pastiche and commentary is much easier to engage with. Just flicking
through the synopsis, we find all sorts of allusions to the operas of the five
composers, for example, act I, scene 2 opens with a number titled “Schlafst du,
Wagner, mein Sohn?” Desyatnikov divides the work into sections referencing the
styles of Wagner, Mussorgsky, Verdi, and Tchaikovsky. He plays a subtle game of
stylistic allusion, never including any direct quotes, but often getting so
close in style that the notes seem to match up with the originals. So, in the
Mussorgsky section, Orthodox chant is sung by the chorus in the weighty,
emphatic style of Boris Godunov, and,
in the Wagner section, motifs that sound like they should be in the Ring cycle, but aren’t, regularly appear
in the orchestra. The fact that the four referenced composers are almost
contemporaneous means that a more generalized late-Romantic operatic style
predominates, creating valuable, if slightly paradoxical, continuity across the
work. But Desyatinkov often reminds us that this is not neo-Romanticism, as
such, particularly in the way that he structures climaxes, his Minimalist
techniques returning to the fore, with repeated lines accreting to increasingly
chaotic and dissonant tuttis.
Performance-wise, this is an impressive release. The
recording was made in 2015, presumably live and on the Bolshoi’s huge main
stage, resulting in the voices sometimes sounding distant. Balance is good
though, between stage and pit, with the voices always clear. Diction is good
too, and Desyatnikov’s relatively straightforward word setting allows the text
to come across clearly. The cast is presumably drawn from the Bolshoi company,
and all prove equal to the music’s challenges. In fact, the generally
late-Romantic sound here, combined with the composer’s obvious care in writing sympathetically
for the voices, makes this seem like a straightforward sing, at least for
contemporary opera, although that might be deceptive. Conductor Vladimir
Vedernikov finds a good balance between dynamism and clarity, and, even without
the visuals, the listening experience is one of being carried along from one aural
scenario to the next.
Melodiya have produced an impressive package for this
release, suggesting they are anticipating a high profile for it. The two discs
come in a hard-back CD-box sized book, that also includes the libretto in
Russian (Cyrillic) and English. They are not side by side, sadly, and, although
the tracking on the two discs is generous (17 and 20 respectively), the track
numbers are not included in either libretto.
But these are small qualms for what is otherwise an
impressive release. Hopefully a video of the production is also in the works.
This opera is obviously as innovative in its stagecraft as it is in its music,
and, given the specifically Russian focus of much of the satire, it is
difficult to imagine a Western production at any point in the near future.
Post-Soviet Russian music is a confusing field, led by composers with an
increasingly philosophical and abstract approach to their art. Leonid
Desyatnikov is as theoretical and abstract as they come, but don’t let that put
you off this opera, which is surprisingly accessible and endlessly intriguing,
at least to these Western ears.
This review
appears in Fanfare magazine issue 40:3
