MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline

 

Edgard VARESE (1883-1965)
Orchestral Works 2
Amériques (original version 1921) [23:55]
Ecuatorial (1932-34) [10:27]
Nocturnal (1961) [9:24]
Dance for Burgess (1949) [1:44]
Tuning Up (1947) [4:50]
Hyperprism (1922-23) [3:48]
Un grand Sommeil noir (1906) [2:59]
Density 21.5 (1936) [4:43]
Ionisation (1929-31) [5:24]
Elizabeth Watts (soprano); Maria Grichiwska (flute); Thomas Bloch (ondes martenot); Men’s Voices of Camerata Silesia, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Christopher Lyndon-Gee (piano and conductor)
rec. Sept, November 2005, Grzegorz Fitelberg Hall, Katowice, Poland. DDD
NAXOS 8.557882 [67:14]
Experience Classicsonline


Varèse’s music is powerful and modernist, even when heard some forty years after the composer’s death. This disc is a true delight, containing a range of works composed from 1906 to 1961. The second volume in Naxos’s series of Varese Orchestral Works, the disc also contains solos, such as Density 21.5 for flute, and choral works, such as Ecuatorial.
 
The opening work is Amériques, heard here in its original 1921 version, for full orchestra. This is an earthy performance, which brings to life Varese’s vivid description of the New World. Varèse was born in France, but moved to the United States in 1915. His early European compositions were burned in a fire, and Amériques was the first of his new works. A substantial oeuvre lasting almost 25 minutes, the work possesses a strong sense of the new, a fresh start, and the slight unease that comes with unfamiliar territory. Varèse makes use of exotic instruments, such as the alto flute, sirens and a vast array of percussion to create a distinct sound world. His music is full of almost pagan energy; there are parallels here with The Rite of Spring, tied with an astounding forward-looking modernism, which makes the music sound contemporary even now. This is an incredible work, performed well with raw energy and a sense of conviction.
 
Varèse’s interest in new sounds gained him a reputation as being ‘the father of electronic music’. Composed for two Ondes Martenot, bass voices and ensemble, Ecuatorial was completed in 1934 and is thought to be the first work ever written to combine live and electronic instruments. This curious work possesses its own unusual sound-world - how often does one encounter two Ondes Martenot? - with a feeling of tribal humanism. The vocal writing depicts a savage scene of human sacrifice, using an array of unusual techniques which combine with the modernist sounds of the Ondes Martenot and electronic organ to give the feel of an unusual and slightly intimidating place. Use of percussion and brass add strength to the orchestration, and the juxtaposition of microtonal sounds with more ‘normal’ harmonies creates a thrilling tension in the work.
 
Nocturnal has a similarly tribal feel, although the soprano soloist gives a more western feel to the work. The texts were originally planned, like Ecuatorial, to come from ancient civilisations, but Varèse finally settled on English texts by Anaïs Nin alongside nonsense sounds which Varèse created himself. Nocturnal was first heard, incomplete, in 1961 for a Composer Portrait concert, and the work was never finished, despite the creation of numerous sketches. The version heard here was completed by Chou Wen-Chung in 1969 from the composer’s notes and sketches.
 
Dance for Burgess is a brief work, lasting less than two minutes, and was composed as a gesture of friendship to Burgess Meredith, for a Broadway musical called Happy as Larry. Making use of swing and jazz styles, the work retains Varèse’s individuality while demonstrating his skills as a composer.
 
The 1947 work for large orchestra, entitled Tuning Up, was composed for Boris Morros, who was producing a film called Carnegie Hall. The idea was for a parody work for the New York Philharmonic and Stokowski, but Varèse took the piece seriously and was offended at the lack of respect the piece received during rehearsals. A brilliant work, however, it contains fragments of works by Varèse and others, interspersed with an underlying tuning note A.
 
Hyperprism is one of Varèse’s better known works, scored for nine wind instruments and nine percussion and completed in 1923. It caused a riot at its premiere, despite its brevity - it is less than four minutes long - but was the first of Varèse’s works to be published.
 
The earliest of Varèse’s surviving works, Un grand Sommeil noir for soprano and piano is a setting of a Paul Verlaine text, composed in 1906. The haunting melody lines and largely consonant harmonies are far removed from the biting modernism of Amériques. This beautiful work is given an excellent performance here by Elizabeth Watts and Christopher Lyndon-Gee.
 
Density 21.5 is one of the seminal twentieth-century works for flute, and is thought to be the first use of key clicks in the flute repertoire. Composed for Barrère’s platinum flute, the title comes from the density of platinum and the work seeks to demonstrate the properties of that metal in flute making. This performance by Maria Grochowska is considered and convincing, combining expression with a sense of drama.
 
Ionisation uses thirteen percussion (including sirens) and piano and demonstrates Varèse’s use of rhythm. He creates textures, tensions and resolutions in a way one would not immediately associate with percussion music, and despite the lack of pitched material the overall effect is startlingly melodic.
 
This is an excellent disc, which serves as a welcome introduction to the work of this largely under-valued composer. Varèse’s music divulges a creative genius who was undoubtedly a long way ahead of his time, and one can only listen in awe at his work. The performances here are entirely convincing and manage to encapsulate the raw humanistic elements in the music. At the price of a Naxos disc, this is unmissable.
 
Carla Rees

see also review by Dan Morgan

 

Note from Paul Serotsky

Both Dan Morgan and Carla Rees, in their reviews of Vol. 2 of the Naxos series of Varese orchestral works, make the same small but significant error (possibly copied from the CD booklet?). "Ionisation" is not for 13 percussion (instruments), but for 37 percussion played by 13 percussionists.

Incidentally, what a superb little piece it is - and all the more so because Varese did not rest content with a mere rhapsody of "sound effects", but cast it in what amounts to an "atonal" sonata form. Now, that's what I call "neat"!


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.