Classical Editor: Rob Barnett
 

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A CRYSTAL QUINTET
Five Instrumental Anthology Discs from Crystal Records Inc.

Each includes a work by ALAN HOVHANESS

The unifying thread in these five discs is the music of Alan Hovhaness.

Peter Christ, the guiding light of Crystal, has built up an enviable catalogue over the years - a substantial portion of it centred on 'calling-card' anthologies for individual virtuoso artists.

Duo 1 POINT 5
BILL PERCONTI (alto saxophone)
CRYSTAL RECORDS CD653 61.58

Perconti is recorded intimately in this varied selection. The light clatter of keys is the downside of such close proximity. Alojzy Thomys's Ten Miniatures (20.17) are acceptably varied and entertaining in a fashion which approximates to Milhaud. The Hovhaness Suite Op.291 (8.16) is for sax with guitar. It dates from 1976 and is a reflective monody evocative of the green and tragic miles of Armenia. The guitar lends a Japanese air - counterpart to the composer's orchestral piece Mountains And Rivers Without End. Ryo Noda's Improvisation III is avant-garde and pretty unforgiving. Gerard Massias's Suite Monodique is tight and spry, lyric and alert though overall tending towards dryness. Jerome Grant's Duo 1 point 5 for sax and tape is rather romantic betraying his work as a Hollywood composer though this comes as balm after the restraint of the Massias and Noda. Bozza's Improvisation (aimless) and Caprice ('flight of the saxophone') is followed by two Gershwin efforts. Three Quarter Blues is a drooping soliloquy with a subtle smile while Promenade is cheekily coaxed along. Both are arranged by Bill Perconti who is a most accomplished and sensitive artist hindered by the mechanical dimension of his key-clicking instrument.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

BRASS BONANZA
eight American brass quintets
CRYSTAL CD200 62.25

This anthology was assembled from Crystal's extensive back catalogue. The Metropolitan Quintet treat us to early seventeenth century courtliness from Gabrieli and William Brade. From this it is a small step to the later brilliance of two Speer and one Kessel sonatas played by the Annapolis Quintet. Michel Leclerc, a Belgian composer (b.1914) produces a Stravinskian gambol over five brief fences some acidically modern - as in the case of the second. These are played by the New York Brass quintet who seem to relish the Petrushka frolics of the first and final movements of the five section suite for five instruments. The 1-5 Brass Quintet are soupily sentimental in Northern British style in the Brent Dutton Carnival of Venice. Joseph Horovitz, now with a disc to himself on ASV, has had his Music Hall Suite (1964) recorded before but this is pretty good if a bit too languid in Soubrette Song. It is played by the Metropolitan Quintet. The Saint Louis players do the extremely well kent Malcolm Arnold quintet and are aided by a distant though rich recording. This performance has slickness, humour and virtuosity aplenty and bids fair to be a first choice - a lovely performance. The Dallas Quintet give us Hovhaness's Six Dances each in a different metre: 13/8, 5/8, 3/4, 7/8, 5/8 and 2/2. Anyone at all accustomed to his brass writing from the symphonies will recognise the composer instantly although the second movement would certainly have foxed me. The movements are predominantly meditative lightened at the end by the renaissance dancing of the allegro brillant. The disc kicks off with two brief but worthwhile celebratory fanfares by Glazunov and Liadov.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

PISTONS AND PIPES
Richard Giangiulio (trumpet) Paul Riedo (organ)
CRYSTAL RECORDS CD666 67.14

The Handel Suite In D Major is bluffly regal and is carried off by both artists in fine style. Andrea Grossi's 1680s Sonata Decima is also rather Handelian. The three Fantini sonatas belie their 17th century origins in dignified smooth hymnal style surprisingly close to Hovhaness. Pietro Baldassare's Sonata in F is in the manner of Corelli. They seem to date from the early 18th century. Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987) brings us to the twentieth century - to be exact, to 1948. The Hollow Men (after T S Eliot's poem) is rounded and not too remote from Copland at one extreme and tugged towards Roy Harris at the other. Its stony lyricism is most compelling and I was glad to encounter the work here. Will someone now gives us some of the symphonies. Do we have any Persichetti experts out there who could recommend some priorities for recording? Henri Tomasi's Variations Gregoriennes is from 1964 and is also available in a version with strings. It is a work of fibre and emotional moment with moods sincere and varied, poised and tragic. Tomasi is a composer well worth your attention as you will know if you have explored the Marco Polo disc of his choral music. The disc concludes with the well-rounded bel canto of Bellini's early Concerto in E flat. The Hovhaness Sonata for trumpet and organ (1948) dates from pretty much the same time as the Symphony St Vartan and I hear echoes of that work through its plangently fruity three movements. Hovhaness aims for the spirituality one finds in Vaughan Williams - say in his Tallis Fantasia - and largely achieves it in the first of three movements all entitled Senza Misura. The middle and final movements are grimmer in the organ part than I am accustomed to from Hovhaness but in the trumpet role there is that mesmerising contemplative droop and downward slew. All in all this is a most impressive disc brilliantly played by both artists - indeed either could have been billed first. The disc is well filled.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

AMERICAN MUSIC FOR VIOLA
Paul Cortese (viola) Jon Klibonoff (piano)
CRYSTAL RECORDS CD636 63.22

Elliott Carter's Elegy (1943) is in his early romantic style so think in terms of the style he adopted for his symphony and Pocahontas. This is a calm lyrical work - not in the least 'difficult'. I would be interested to hear this work in its versions for string quartet or string orchestra. A lovely piece - quite a discovery! William Bergsma's Fantastic Variations on a Theme from Tristan are pretty tough and turbulent. There is little soft here and much that is troubled - a major change of gear from the Carter. Hovhaness's brief Chahagir (it means 'Torch Bearer') is from 1945 and is based, as are his three Armenian Rhapsodies, on Armenian folk tunes closer to the modality of Vaughan Williams' Flos Campi - also for viola but with string orchestra and chorus. George Rochberg's three movement Viola Sonata was premiered by Joseph de Pasquale with Vladimir Sokoloff. It is a work of Rochberg's romantic phase. Unlike Carter, Rochberg discovered lyricism and rejected atonalism in his later years. This work is grainy but is strongly lyric in impulse and expression. It might well have been influenced by Prokofiev. The dark song of the middle movement is positively Baxian while the finale leans gently towards Shostakovich. Lastly two piece by Persichetti: his Parable for solo viola and Infanta Marina for viola with piano. The Parable (No. 16 in his sequence of Parables) is from 1974 and is touched with a more avant-garde sour style fused with Persichetti's innate warm humanity. The Infanta Marina (1960) is a much more frankly lyrical piece but is positively restrained by the side of the Rochberg and Carter. A disc of welcome discoveries. Bravo Crystal!

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

THE MAKING OF A MEDIUM
The Piano Trio - Mozart, Hovhaness, Frescobaldi, Pasatieri, Bartok
The Verdehr Trio
CRYSTAL CD741 70.33

The Verdehr have teamed with Crystal to make a series of discs featuring the trio in various permutations. This CD, the first in the series, features a typical clarinet trio. The Mozart (K381) is the Verdehr's own skilful arrangement of a piano duo - rather dour in the busy first and final movements but authentically dulcet in the second. The Frescobaldi switches harpsichord and piano as is consistent with the early 17th century origin. The Canzone seconda and Quinta have a certain slender sweetness. Thomas Pasatieri (b. 1945 New York City) wrote Theatrepieces (3 movements) for the Verdehr in 1986. Pasatieri is the latest in a long line of lyric American Italians: Creston, Menotti, Giannini. The trio is in three movements and one can certainly pick up his operatic credentials (he has written 17!) from the singable lines in a bed of Rachmaninovian sentiment, some slavonic and even English (Finzi!) angst. The whole work is romantically inclined but with enough peppery emotion to avoid blandness. The Bartók Contrasts is a Benny Goodman commission from 1938-40. Its atmosphere is one of fret and worry and although there are some moments of relaxation (notable in the gypsy riffs and ruffles of the Sebes finale) it is still a comparatively sturdy piece of resilient modernism. Hovhaness's 1989 Lake Samish is a characteristic (for Hovhaness!) five movement trio with each movement in contrast. The slashing and stabbing of the persistent allegro contrasts with the celestial hymns of the first and third movements using a hymn to a tune whose outline English ears associate with the sung words 'all glory, laud and honour to thee redeemer King'. The latter part of the third andante maestoso is a sinuous drugged snake dance. Celestial stars glitter in the adagio misterioso which gives way to the becalmed dripping waters of the final Jhala movement which in turn resolves into a fast flickering dance. A fine selection and a recommendable disc.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett


Reviewer

Rob Barnett


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