A debut of shifting sounds and changing landscapes
Composer Martin Suckling’s first collection offers some compelling new music, says Claire Jackson
Martin Suckling
This Departing Landscape**; Release;
The White Road*; Piano Concerto
*Katherine Bryan (flute), Tamara Stefanovich (piano); **BBC Philharmonic; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/ilan Volkov
NMC D262 76:57 mins
Martin Suckling, born 1981 in Glasgow, here makes his NMC debut. The title track, This Departing Landscape, takes inspiration from Morton Feldman’s comment about music as a transient art form. (Feldman’s Wilde-like soundbites – ‘I found it more beneficial to experiment with fountain pens than musical ideas’ – may be found in Give My Regards to Eighth Street.) Fast-moving, fragmentary melodies and shifting ideas signify the slipperiness of sound. Pattern plays a more prominent role in Release, where semi-regular instrumental outbursts represent the often-experienced urge to make a loud noise in a reverberant space.
The two concertos are less obviously illustrative. The White Road is inspired by ceramicist Edmund de Waal’s sequences of single-glazed pots. Suckling has said that the work ‘is not a piece about porcelain, nor a musical evocation of the colour white, but it may be about obsession.’ The work was co-commissioned by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for RSNO flautist Katherine Bryan, whom the composer has known since they were teenagers in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Performing here with the BBC Scottish Symphony, Bryan is sublime, slicing through fragmented cadenzas and revealing a powerful lower range.
Another expert soloist is pianist Tamara Stefanovich, a highly accomplished 20th- and 21st-century music specialist who has a thorough grasp of his 30-minute, five-movement Piano Concerto. The choppy second movement – marked ‘implacable’ – is offset by sparse interior sections and a ghostly passacaglia.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
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Elgar
Violin Concerto; Violin Sonata* Renaud Capuçon (violin),
*Stephen Hough (piano);
London Symphony Orchestra/
Simon Rattle
Erato 9029511282 74:31 mins
Accuracy matters, and violinist Renaud Capuçon has it in abundance.
His pin-point precision in the opening movement of Elgar’s Violin Concerto sharpens the nerve-ends of the writing in the faster passages; and where soloists often fudge and slither, Capuçon nails every note, with nothing glossed over, distilling an uneasy air of incipient desperation in the music.
He is, though, much more than a technical sharp-shooter. The ‘Windflower’ episode is steeped in aching sadness and vulnerable poetry, and that is echoed in Capuçon’s tenderly affecting traversal of the slow movement. Passions run high in the finale, where Capuçon strikes a riveting balance between a teeming nervous energy and, in the famous cadenza, searching introspection.
His playing is masterly, and Simon Rattle’s accompaniment is consistently supportive, if fussily tweaked in places. The London Symphony is its usual eloquent self, with occasional ensemble slips perhaps caused by the socially distanced seating, face masks and plexiglass screens necessary for these September 2020 sessions to happen.
Capuçon’s account of Elgar’s Violin Sonata is a major bonus, and benefits immensely from Stephen Hough’s sensitively calibrated pianism. The mix of playful whimsy and sweet lyricism in the central ‘Romance’ is deftly suggested, Capuçon’s ripe and sappy tone a constant pleasure to listen to. The finale flicks frequently from mood to mood, often barely perceptibly, and both Hough and Capuçon are alive to every bar of it.
Taken whole, this generous, richly enjoyable disc is an easy recommendation for either seasoned Elgarians or complete newcomers to his music. Terry Blain
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Katherine Bryan is sublime, revealing a powerful lower range
HK Gruber
into the open…; Rough Music* Colin Currie (percussion);
BBC Philharmonic/john Storgårds, *Juanjo Mena
Colin Currie Records CCR0004
52:42 mins
Since his ‘pandemonium’ Frankenstein!! (1978), HK Gruber’s style has become more sophisticated yet retains its iconoclastic glee. Suave Viennese waltzes bump into raucous Berlin cabaret, while a lush, post-bergian romanticism is off-set by its spikily satirical, Stravinskian framing.
Some 27 years separate his two percussion concertos; while they cover very different emotional ground, both grasp the medium’s potential for eclectic extravagance. Gutsily supported by the BBC Philharmonic, Colin Currie proves a brilliant advocate: indeed, into the open… (2009-10) was written for him. Yet, despite John Storgårds’s clear conducting, this more recent work is one of contrasts not quite comfortably reconciled. The title refers to the death part-way through composition of Gruber’s beloved publisher David Drew, which cast an atypically sombre air of loss onto the work. But the ensuing – and affecting – fading sounds and silences are undercut by somewhat baggily constructed multi-instrument displays.
Far more focused is Rough
Music (1982-83), once described by Gruber as ‘percussive noisemaking in all its extrovert forms’. With textures bursting at the seams, Currie’s performance matches the composer’s charisma. Steph Power
PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Hosokawa • Mozart
Hosakawa: Lotus under the Moonlight; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A, K 488
Momo Kodama (piano);
Mito Chamber Orchestra/seiji Ozawa ECM 485 5413 49:19 mins
Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa’s piano concerto, written in 2006 in response to Mozart’s A major K 488, is a cool customer indeed. This recording is from its Japanese premiere.
Its guiding image, Lotus under the Moonlight, originates in the importance of this flower to Buddhism; the composer writes that the piano represents the opening bloom, the orchestra the surrounding water and universe. The delicacy of the orchestration and the hushed quality with which movement shivers through the textures is little short of magical. An evocation of nature and spirituality, certainly, but also a tribute to one of Mozart’s best-loved concertos, especially its matchless F sharp minor slow movement. Memories of those harmonies and twilit atmospheres are plentiful, but offer references without a hint of feeling ‘derivative’. The piece is followed, naturally, by the Mozart itself.
Momo Kodama is a subtle and poetic soloist in both works, in control of a particularly beautiful range of quiet sonorities in the Hosokawa and matching that, in the Mozart, with ‘pouring-oil’ passagework and deliciously pearly touch. Seiji Ozawa conducts his Mito Chamber Orchestra, performing with equal attention to detail, translucent textures and a deep sense of affection for the music. Recorded sound is icy-clear and precise. Occasionally Kodama can drift into what feels like a danger of daydreaming, which can lead to a slight loss of momentum. The Mozart Adagio, in particular, is extremely slow. Overall, however, this is a haunting and gorgeous performance. Jessica Duchen
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Paganini • Tartini • Vivaldi
Paganini: Sonata for gran viola and orchestra, MS 70; Tartini: 38 Variations on Gavotte from Corelli’s, Op. 5/10; Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto in G minor, RV495; Cello Concerto in G minor, RV416 etc. Plus works by Rolla and Sciarrino
Nils Mönkemeyer (viola), Massimiliano Toni (harpsichord); L’arte del mondo/werner Ehrhardt Sony Classical 19439730032 56:58 mins Delalande to Sciarrino via an inevitably dark-hued transcription of Bach’s D minor Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1052, Nils Mönkemeyer is a violist with
a breadth of repertoire unafraid to trespass into uninvited territory.
His Barroco español disc reimagined keyboard sonatas by Soler and Scarlatti as well as works by Brunetti and Nebra; and this latest creative entanglement with the Baroque and beyond bestrides Italy with reworkings of concertos by Vivaldi (one originally for bassoon, the other for cello) alongside a clutch of somewhat inconsequential variations by Tartini hommaging Corelli; Paganini’s orchestrally accompanied ‘Grand Sonata’ Op. 35; and a couple of bonnes bouches by Paganini’s teacher Alessandro Rolla (both of them premiere recordings).
L’arte del mondo directed by Werner Ehrhardt prove spirited companions, boasting thoughtfully elaborated continuo and a gutsy glee when responding to the rumbustious, sometimes edgy heft Mönkemeyer husbands for Vivaldi’s feistiest fast movements. Though Mönkemeyer’s playing has an evident sense of period performance practice, he’s not hidebound by the imperatives of the time-honoured treatises. He revels in Paganini’s honeyed lyricism, and brings a finely-honed intensity to interpolated cadenzas as multifarious as the turbo-charged one from Vivaldi’s Il Grosso Mogul (the composer’s own), and Sciarrino’s Di Vola – a tense, brightly-lit, provocative interlude between the ‘Cantabile’ and ‘Theme with Variations’ of the Paganini Sonata. Living dangerously doesn’t always make for irreproachable intonation; the recorded sound sometimes unsettles, but Mönkemeyer’s virtuosity is never vacuous and his individuality compels. Paul Riley PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★
Vivaldi
The Four Seasons (arr. recorder); Concertos, RV 185, 196, 236, 249, 257, 271, 316a, 334, 335a, 357, 389 and 449 Bolette Roed (recorder);
Arte dei Suonatori
Pentatone PTC 5186 875
154:51 mins (2 discs)
Vivaldi’s perennial and indeed evergreen Four Seasons provide a hook on which to hang 12 further violin concertos, whose characters Bolette Roed feels have seasonal connotations. While the concept is a personal one, to which I myself sometimes failed to subscribe, it is nonetheless successful on its own terms. Roed is an accomplished recorder player and what she achieves here is technically impressive and, more often than not, musically convincing.
In addition to the Four Seasons, Roed has chosen two further concertos from Vivaldi’s Op. 8, five from his Op. 4, La stravaganza (RV 185, 249, 316a and 357), one from Op. 9, La cetra (RV 334), and four variously printed, or which remained in manuscript during the composer’s lifetime. Roed rings the changes between descant and treble recorders, though only once within a single work.
While adjustments to the melodic line of the solo violin are required to accommodate the recorder, Roed’s skill in producing a satisfying result is striking. Perhaps the most convincing of the concertos are three in which Vivaldi, though offering a choice between violin and oboe, clearly had the latter foremost in mind. There are other delights, too, and many pleasing details: for example the cuckoo calls in the opening movement of Summer, and the shimmering modulations of the affecting Grave of the A minor Concerto (Op. 4, No. 4 – RV 357). Less convincing, to my ears, was the prosaic, matter-of-fact approach to the opening movement of L’amoroso (RV 271). Rachel Podger (Channel Classics) perhaps alone explores its rich panoply of expressive nuance. Roed is supported throughout by the stylish and sympathetic playing of Arte dei Suonatori. Nicholas Anderson
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
A Clarinet in America
Bernstein: Clarinet Sonata; Copland: Clarinet Concerto; Violin Sonata (arr. clarinet);
Rózsa: Sonatina for Clarinet Solo Alexander Fiterstein (clarinet); English Chamber Orchestra/chris Hopkins (piano)
Orchid Classics ORC100155 56:44 mins So what does a clarinet get up to in America? It varies. In the Copland concerto, with its wide-open harmonies and long lingering lines, the instrument conjures up the Big Sky states and rolling plains, with a jazzy barn dance to follow. In Bernstein’s Sonata, an early piece of 1941, the clarinet embarks on a whirlwind tour of Latin America, downtown Manhattan and a music class taught by Hindemith. With Miklós Rózsa’s Solo Sonatina, the musical flavour is more abstract and faceless, yet lightly sprinkled with distinctive Hungarian paprika. Welcome to America, the melting pot.
Given all these colours and moods, it’s a particular regret that the American clarinettist Alexander Fiterstein mutes their impact with playing lacking much personality. Technically there is plenty to admire: in the Copland alone, there’s the smooth beauty of his liquid flow, plus peerless breath control, and a strong alliance with conductor Chris Hopkins and the English Chamber Orchestra, seen at its best in the speed changes of the final coda – usually something of a danger spot. Yet once the music turns more animated or heartfelt, Fiterstein often seems too well-behaved and cautious, no matter how Cuban the rhythms get in Bernstein’s endearingly mercurial sonata, or how much tenderness is laid bare in the slow movement of the Copland sonata, adapted in 1980 from his Violin Sonata of the early 1940s.
The recording is decent rather than outstanding, and Hopkins’s credit as Fitertsein’s piano partner is missing from the album booklet. Geoff Brown
PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★
Phoenix
Ró˙zycki: Violin Concerto ‘Phoenix’; Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Janusz Wawrowski (violin);
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/ Grzegorz Nowak
Warner Classics 9029519170 60:02 mins Very much a labour of love, we owe the existence of this fully orchestrated version of Ludomir Ró ycki’s Op. 70 Violin Concerto to the gifted soloist on this premiere recording, Janusz Wawrowski. This attractive score would be far better known had the orchestration survived a fire at the composer’s home during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising – it was only Wawrowski’s discovery of an 87-bar fragment that enabled him and Ryszard Bry a to recreate Ró ycki’s original intentions with the help of a surviving piano reduction. There was also the thorny question of Ró ycki’s at times unplayable violin figurations, which have been facilitated here by Wawrowski, whilst retaining the virtuosic endeavour of the original.
Cast, like Bartók’s First Concerto, in two movements – a flowing Andante and lively Allegro – the Ró ycki Concerto belongs to the post-romantic soundworld of Korngold, Glazunov and Conus.
Anyone who has thrilled to Heifetz’s and Perlman’s recordings of this enchanting area of the repertoire will find Wawrowski’s dazzling, silvery-toned performance in very much the same class.
Devotedly accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic on resplendent form under its principal associate conductor Grzegorz Nowak, the Tchaikovsky is refreshingly given time to blossom naturally at tempos that hone in on the composer’s profound melodic gift with soaring eloquence. Julian Haylock
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
Rediscovered
Dolmetsch: Concerto for Harp, Clarinet and Orchestra; Maconchy: Concertino for Clarinet and String Orchestra; Spain-dunk: Cantilena for Clarinet and Orchestra;
P Wishart: Serenata Concertante for Clarinet and Small Orchestra
Peter Cigleris (clarinet), Deian Rowlands (harp); BBC National Orchestra of Wales/ben Palmer
Cala Signum SIGCD656 77:19 mins
Four clarinet works by British composers of the 1930s-’40s here see the light of day; all but the Maconchy are world premiere recordings. It’s a fascinating journey through a period of intense change in British musical life; for those intrigued by this era and its longlost music, this disc will provide food for thought.
The Concertino by Elizabeth Maconchy is the finest chiselled, a piece of cool-edged modernism that feels a bit like listening to a Paul Klee painting, with the clarinet a deft and delicate paintbrush.
The Susan Spain-dunk Cantilena seems to blend Delius and
Addinsell, offering a Big Tune plus soft-focus harmonies around folksong-style melodies. Rudolph Dolmetsch reflects the era’s interest in Elizabethan music, while his matching of clarinet with harp is both appealing and unusual. Peter Wishart’s six-movement Serenata Concertante makes brief references to a Christmas carol, a waltz and other forms; it’s hard to tell whether he meant them to sound sardonic. The four works conjure a strange, inward-looking world, seemingly with scant awareness of the virtuoso compositional techniques being embraced then by the likes of Ravel, Bartók, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky, let alone Schoenberg. Maconchy’s piece alone might survive that baptism of fire.
Peter Cigleris presents them with a rich, consistent tone and splendidly mellifluous phrasing; the partnership with Deian Rowlands’s harp is pleasing, the BBC NOW and Palmer are attentive and well balanced and the recorded sound is clear and warm. The pieces therefore enjoy first-rate advocacy. Listeners can make up their own minds as to whether all of them deserve it. Jessica Duchen
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★