As I wrote in
my review of Crystal’s recent oboe disc Mist over the Lake,
this company has the knack of compiling out-of-the-way repertoire
in recitals that, sometimes despite themselves, seem always
to work. This time it’s the turn of the bassoon and Benjamin
Coelho.
Brandl starts
things off with his very genial Quintet, with the quartet
supplying very much a cushion for the bassoon. Beethoven was
still alive when Brandl wrote it but its gentility is more
backward looking than abrasive and challenging. Two things
stand out – firstly, there’s no first movement exposition
repeat and secondly that the slow movement really lives up
to its claim of Andante con moto – it positively fizzes
along. Gordon Jacob’s Suite is a useful addition – I’m not
aware it’s otherwise available at the moment, as was also
the case in their oboe disc with Bliss’s Conversations.
A mysterioso start over dripping pizzicati sets this work
in motion and it’s full of Jacob’s expert writing and puckish
wit (try the Caprice, for once exactly what it promises).
There’s real warmth in the Elegy and March rhythms animate
the finale.
Bernhard Heiden
was born in 1910 and died in 2000. He’d studied with Hindemith
and this Serenade, written in 1955, is very much in his teacher’s
musical image. So, in the Intermezzo, a charming one, one
is aware of a certain aloof distance but that’s not the defining
impression. That happens to be one of great variety and metric
freedom, of rhythmic cleverness. From the counterpoint of
the opening, through the light-footed march and the Hindemith-meets-Beethoven
evocation of the Scherzo there’s always something to please
the ear. Especially notable is the finale’s return to the
opening’s pregnant contemplation.
The Villa-Lobos
is a sliver, only 2.18, so completists shouldn’t get too excited
– it’s fugal and vivacious and full of teeming colour. Finally
there is Gerardo Dirié’s Anjo Breve (Small Angel). Born in
Cordoba in Argentina in 1958 this seventeen-minute piece owes
its origin to Brazilian literary inspirations – Carlos Drummond
the Andrade and Jorge Amado. It is dedicated to, and was first
performed by, the soloist here who plays it with full consideration
of its alternately static and extended romantic moments. The
central movement, all loquacity and conversational ferment,
is especially taxing and enjoyable.
Once more the
notes are helpful, the recording clear - though the recordings
themselves are undated. Nothing here is too serious and there’s
plenty of stylistic variety.
Jonathan
Woolf
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Benjamin Coelho (bassoon)
