All Sorts of Ives

A splendid introductory album to the incredible musical imagination of Charles Ives. From a Cambridge mono lp made in the late 60's, we have Harold Farberman conducting small orchestral numbers with the hand picked Boston Chamber Ensemble and soprano Corinne Curry singing some rather interesting and quirky songs with the excellent pianist/teacher Luise Vosgerchian as accompanist.

I have to admit that much of Ives is downright puzzling at times for my simple mind. The bits and pieces of melodies, jagged rhythms and often wierd harmonics can distract away from the brilliant, inquisitive and highly intellectual mind that this man possessed. The songs, especially, are not at all easy to follow and require a level of concentration that can, and I say can, take away from the beauty that one expects in lieder as presented by a Schubert, Wolf or Brahms. However with a careful, unbiased, and studied approach, one can find great meaning and connection between the text and the music But...it ain't easy...

The musicians on this record do full justice to the music. Though Harold Farberman's career as a conductor has been somewhat uneven, he has displayed a keen understanding of Ives and probably has recorded more of this composer than anyone else on the planet. This record is one of Farberman's best offerings as an interpreter of Ives. I admit to not knowing Corinne Curry but Luise Vosgerchian was very well known in Greater Boston as a master teacher and pianist. Like fellow Bostonian, and Armenian, organist Berj Zamkochian, Vosgerchian was a local legend and treasure. This record captures her pianistic eloquence wonderfully, especially telling is her take on Ives' "Three Page Sonata."

Glad I stumbled upon this at the Goodwill. Something different but at the same times familiar.

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Beethoven and Paul Paray

In the mood for a little Beethoven? Good! because I am today.

Here is one of Paul Paray's later stereo lps with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on a Wing reissue. We're served up the first two symphonies in typical forthright performances that were characteristic of Paray during his decade tenure in Detroit.

Unfortunately, critics were none too kind about these two when they were released. There were issues about orchestral sloppiness, problems with momentum and also conductor commitment. My listening reveals the Paray Detroit sound which is lean and mean and a sense of propulsion which lacks in many recordings of these overrecorded pieces. Maybe I'm wrong but I think that there is a spontaneity present that is the hallmark ofth best of Paray performances. Interestingly, I find so much to connect Paray and Munch - lean textures, excitement and a desire to break away from the label of "French music specialist." I love it!

Paul Paray was a truly great conductor. I cannot but marvel how he achieved the results he did with Detroit. He was a great interpreter, superb orchestral builder and singular musician. The real deal.

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Carlos Surinach conducts Hovhaness

I like the music of Alan Hovhaness. Maybe being half Armenian, I somehow relate to the rather "oriental" melodies that Hovhaness incorporates into his works. Or, perhaps the composer's minimalistic approach is like a balm after the listening intensity of say, Mahler's 6th symphony. Well, I don't really know why, I guess, this fascination for Hovhaness though his music does speak from his deeply spiritual and honest heart....I respect that immensely.

This Heliodor lp, from an MGM original, features a piano and violin concerto. It  is extremely fine and a fitting introduction to this most fascinating, yet open of composers. Certainly having the excellent composer Carlos Surinach on the podium is a huge bonus. Boy, oh boy,  one of the great shames is that Surinach's small but vital recorded legacy is all but locked in the vaults! The soloists, sisters Maro and Anahid Ajemian, prove to be the very best advocates for this music since both not only sympathesize with Hovhaness' art (they were strong advocates for the composer), and they were very much artists that made a specialty of music of their century.

Coming back to Alan Hovhaness. Born a few miles down the road from where I live, a man who gravitated to the east searching for answers and exploring the origins of culture, first towards his father's homeland in Turkey and then farther towards orient and birthplace of his Japanese wife. No doubt, Hovhaness was a brilliant man, an intellect of the highest order who sought to speak his message of brotherhood and decency through seemingly uncomplicated and accessible music.  I think a key to understanding Hovhaness is through his own words, here in an interview from 1971 in Ararat magazine, a publication of the Aremain General Benevolent Union:

"We are in a very dangerous period. We are in danger of destroying ourselves, and I have a great fear about this ... The older generation is ruling ruthlessly. I feel that this is a terrible threat to our civilization. It's the greed of huge companies and huge organizations which control life in a kind of a brutal way ... It's gotten worse and worse, somehow, because physical science has given us more and more terrible deadly weapons, and the human spirit has been destroyed in so many cases, so what's the use of having the most powerful country in the world if we have killed the soul. It's of no use."

Wow.

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Ring in the New Year with Rossini!

Oh gosh, a while back I posted a transfer of Luciano Sgrizzi performing the piano pieces comprising Rossini's late opus the "Sins from My Old Age." That transfer was immensely popular and I had numerous requests for the companion lp from Nonesuch which features the choral pieces. Well, here it is! Found it last weekend at the Goodwill and it is a near mint copy. What luck!

I can understand why this record won the coveted Grand Prix du Disque in 1965. It is a beautifully recorded, superbly prepared and a highly idiomatic reading of these gems from Rossini's salon soire years. I think it's  fitting to present it now since the record opens up with a salut to the New Year!

What strikes me most about these pieces is the invention behind them. Rossini was a great experimenter and he obviously loved the interplay between melody and accompaniment. This music captures your attention and really wraps itself around you, in a loving and comforting way. Maestro Loehrer leads elegant performances and he is fortunate to have Luciano Sgrizzi on board for his dazzling pianistic virtuosity. I have listened to this collection three times straight and each time, I hear something new and positively delightful!

Happy New Year!

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Piano Music of Latin America with Charles Milgrim

Here's one I forgot about. From 1967, on Epic's "Crossroads" label, we have some "off the beaten path" piano music from a number of Latin American composers. The pianist is Charles Milgrim of whom I know nothing other than he seemed to specialize in the piano repertoire of Central and South America.

Sit back, grab a glass of wine and a good book and, have a listen. Some cute little miniatures here.

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Morton Gould conducts music of Herbert and Ketelbey

A "Symphonic Serenade" for my distinguished colleague Buster at the  Big Ten Inch Record . Buster has posted some really nice work of Morton Gould in the past so here's my chance to reciprocate. Here we have Gould leading the Rochester "Pops" in light classical fare of Victor Herbert and Albert Ketelbey.

This is a fine collection led by an extremely talented and gifted man. Morton Gould was the alter ego of Leonard Bernstein, possessing the latter's immense musical gifts as a composer, conductor, musician, and impresario albeit in a more quiet, conservative and less controversial way. In fact, Gould bore many of the attributes of what would be characteristic of the finest "kapellmeisters" of the 18th century, that is patience, flexibility, endurance and consistent craftsmanship. Please note that I do not use "kapellmeister in a negative way, but rather as a tribute to Gould as I compare him to men like Bach, Telemann and Haydn. Gould could, quite simply, do it all and he did, being highly regarded as one of the leading American musicians of the mid to latter half of the last century. Lest not forget that Gould was practically a household name too!

We don't hear a lot of Herbert and Ketelbey and it is really too bad. Their music used to play an integral role in "pops" concerts but has since been displaced by others, often inferior, and its really too bad. The music on this album is very well crafted, tuneful and highly creative. Just listen to Herbert's "Suite of Serenades" and you'll get an idea of why this composer was one of the most famous and well regarded in his day. This piece brings the world in a rather cute way to the listener's doorstep.  Morton Gould's superb musicianship and ear for detail make this lp a real treat. You can hear the Rochester orchestra enjoying themselves and, so will you!

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The Music of Artur Schnabel

Artur Schnabel was a genius. I say this because, like the controversial John Cage, Schnabel recognized that the music was in the silence between the notes. What this means is that the greatest of artists know that the pause, the space, if done "right" creates the necessary "tension" that glues the music together. Nobody did this better than Schabel and the proof is in the pudding - if he never left anything behind other than the Beethoven "32" his place as one the greatest of recorded artists would be self assured.

Yes, Schnabel was a very great performing musician but, like another superb performing musician,Wilhelm Furtwangler, he thought of himself first and foremost as a creator, a composer. Indeed, Schnabel left behind a small but impressive catalogue however neglected it is today. Perhaps this is so because as a performer, Schnabel was supreme in the early romantics but his own compositions are anything but romantic; his works are highly indebted to his friend Schoenberg and their structure is at home in the second Viennese School.

From the original album notes on ML5447 by Cesar Saerchinger

Schnabel's String Trio of 1925 (for violin, viola and cello) is the last of four chamber works written during successive summer holidays from 1921 to 1925 and may be regarded as representative of his "middle" period. He was still under forty and in the midst of a highly successful European season as Germany's top-ranking pianist when he suddenly retired from the concert platform to spend the winter alone in a remote Austrian mountain village. Here he put his creative powers to a new and severe test — to explore the resources of the "linear" contrapuntal style, free from the current traditional harmonic conventions and rhythmic patterns, but also from the newly invented devices of atonality adopted by the radical contemporaries of the day. The result was the first movement of a new string quartet, his second, which was to be completed the following summer. It was a radical break with the past and specifically his own. And it was the beginning of what we now know as Schnabel's mature style.

This new and highly individual manner of writing was to produce some of his most remarkable works, including the third and fourth quartets as well as the String Trio of 1925. This work, though shorter and more concise than its immediate predecessors, constitutes the epitome of this chamber music group, and was the last to appear for over five years. It consists of three relatively short movements. The first (Allegro energico) is forceful and expressive, clear and characteristically rich in its contrapuntal design. The second (Larghetto) opens with a virtually diatonic two-voiced theme which combines stateliness with serenity. The same theme is quoted literally in the strong third movement (Vivacissimo), but in an entirely different light.

 When first performed by the International Society for Contemporary Music in Vienna, ten years after it was written, its composer was hailed by the critics as a "creative musician of power and originality." No other works of Schnabel had been heard in Vienna where he had spent his youth and "learned his trade."

The "Duodecimet"  1950 is, as its name implies, a piece for twelve voices, or parts. According to sketchy indications in the manuscript score, and the nature of the music itself, it is meant for twelve solo instruments — strings, wind instruments and percussion. It is Schnabel's last composition, finished one year before his death, at Axenstein (Switzerland) within sight of Lake Lucerne and the mountains beyond it — a view "beautiful beyond description" in Schnabel's own words.

 These four short movements, as close to abstract music as he had ever written, seem nevertheless to reflect the beauty of the idyllic scene. In them the composer achieved what he had long striven for: the utmost freedom in melodic, rhythmic and polyphonic design and expression. The first movement is a vigorous, moderately fast Introduzione; the second, presumably slow, is followed by a Scherzo and an Epilogue (moderato).

 The whole work is characteristic of what Krenek calls "Schnabel's peculiar kaleidoscopic technique of motivic design," i.e., each movement has its characteristic melodic unit which appears again and again to form ever new combinations. While this use of a tone-group in ever-changing juxtaposition may be reminiscent of the so-called "twelve-tone" technique used by certain contemporary composers, it is important to remember that Schnabel regarded this or any prescribed method or system as incompatible with complete freedom of invention.

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