Wagner – Parsifal
Schager; Kampa; Pape; Koch; Tómasson; Staatskapelle Berlin; Staatsopernchor; Daniel Barenboim
BelAir Classics BAC128

Dmitri Tcherniakov is one of the most original, phenomenally gifted directors of our time. His collaboration with Daniel Barenboim in Berlin has already produced happy results and this is his latest and his first effort in Wagner. The composer is at his most elusive, complex and spiritual here in a work that Liszt referred to as “a revelation in music drama” transcending everything written before. Harry Kupfer’s previous incarnation of Parsifal in Berlin was a post-apocalyptic, stunningly beautiful staging, but Tcherniakov moves on an entirely different level.

Briefly: The setting is a deserted, Gulag-like cold and forlorn place, wooden barracks lit by bare lightbulbs giving it an incandescent glow. The knights look like prisoners, sick and frustrated. Then suddenly the young Parsifal arrives like a hippie, in gym shorts, running shoes and a hood, with a backpack as the holy fool (fal parsi) who will undergo a spiritual transformation withstanding the temptation of Kundry, the eternal woman, and thereby able to retrieve the Holy Spear and cure the suffering Amfortas, redeem Kundry and restore the Order of the Holy Grail.

Barenboim conducts the over-five-hours long monumental work completely from memory (Gatti did it too in New York!) and he certainly achieves the revelation Liszt was talking about. In the third act, time seems to stand still giving a meaning to the text of “here time turns into space” proven by Einstein some 50 years later. Add to this the glorious singing performances of Andreas Schager (Parsifal), unlikely looking but with a total empathy to the role and a powerful, flexible heldentenor voice; of soprano Anja Kampe, similarly endowed with a voice of subtlety and a most sympathetic, compassionate portrayal of the accursed Kundry. Wolfgang Koch (Amfortas), René Pape (Gurnemanz) and Tomas Tómasson (Klingsor) establish a world standard that will be hard to surpass for years to come.

Arvo Pärt – The Deer’s Cry
Vox Clamantis; Jaan-Elk Tulve
ECM New Series ECM 2466

A mixture of the new and old recorded here by Estonian choir Vox Clamantis, this CD includes the world-recording premiere of Habitare fratres in unum and the largely plainchant And One of the Pharisees, which had its world premiere in California in 1992. There is a variety of Pärt’s music here: from the innocence-evoking Drei Hirtenkinder aus Fátima to the ode to a gittern, Sei gelobt, du Baum. (Google the latter via leones.de!).

Serendipitously, I started my day reading St. Patrick’s fourth-century prayer, The Deer’s Cry, and the title track contains a purity I would compare to David Lang’s I Lie. The Alleluia-Tropus is different than my recording by Vox Clamantis with Sinfonietta Riga: at a decade’s distance, this a cappella version is 25 seconds longer and less dance-like, perhaps the liturgical pace being more fitting for the intercession of St. Nicholas of Myra. Most notable to me, however, was Summa, a tintinnabulous piece containing the Apostle’s Creed in Latin. While it is recorded here a cappella, as originally written, I only have the string versions of it, which convey swells of movement (indeed, I made a little film with it accompanying a murmuration); the choral is more plodding and deliberate in its affirmation of belief – I could picture Joan of Arc reciting it defiantly, atop the pyre as she awaits the lighting of the wood. The CD ends with Gebet nach dem Kanon, a fitting closing prayer to the collection.The liner notes are Pärtesque: sparse, multilingual and presuming knowledge of his work and liturgical music history. But if you enjoy looking up information (e.g. the Russian scriptures have different versification at times: Drei Hirtenkinder is about the West’s Psalm 8:2), there’s a wealth of enlightenment available. Artistic director Jaan-Eik Tulve has applied the 81-year-old composer’s personal tutelage faithfully, and Pärt devotees will be enraptured, the faithful and secularists alike.

Mother of Light – Armenian hymns and chants in praise of Mary
Isabel Bayrakdarian; Ani Aznavoorian; Coro Vox Aeterna; Anna Hamre
Delos DE 3521 (delosmusic.com)

When in 1997 Isabel Bayrakdarian took the MET auditions by storm, we knew something special was happening. The voice was breathtaking, light, shimmering, silvery and agile. The compliments piled up after some spectacular stage performances. I still vividly remember her star turn at the side of Ewa Podles in the COC’s Julio Cesare. A succession of JUNO-winning albums followed and then… her career seemingly stalled. When I heard her again a few years later, I realized that her voice was changing. From a light-as-mist soprano, it was becoming more dramatic, gravitating more and more towards a mezzo sound. A voice in search of the right repertoire? Well, fear not, Bayrakdarian has found it! The enchanting, exotic music of Armenia is the perfect foil for Ms. Bayrakdarian’s “grown-up” voice. It’s lush, languid, opulent and absolutely remarkable. The arrangements for cello and voice shock with their purity of melodic line and meditative quality already built in. This may very well be an album to obsess about. In the space of just a week, I must have listened to it at least ten times. The usual superb quality of Delos recordings only enhances the beauty of the experience. It will be exciting to see what will be the next steps in the recording career of this gifted artist.

Dolce Vita
Jonas Kaufmann
Sony Classical 88875183632 (sonymusicmasterworks.com)

Jonas Kaufmann has it all: one of the most beautiful tenor voices in the world and a stage presence that makes him a convincing leading man, especially when portraying a passionate lover. He is sought after by most if not all the important opera companies. He was chosen to inaugurate the beautiful and controversial Elphie, the new Elbenphilharmonie Hall in Hamburg, a $1 billion orgy of architecture and acoustics. He has a rare quality, namely artistic integrity, which enabled him to walk away from a disastrous production of Manon Lescaut at the Met with just weeks to spare. So why, oh why did he record this crossover album?

The answer is very simple: at his level of fame and success, unlike in most of classical music nowadays, these recordings are still big business. Sony Classical realized that they have on their hands a possible platinum or double platinum seller. At different times, different artists have been put under the same pressure: Caruso, Kiepura and now Kaufmann. Having repeatedly stated my bias against crossover recordings in this space, I decided to put it aside and give the disc a thorough listen. It will sell like hotcakes. The reason is simple: Jonas Kaufmann. No matter how schmaltzy the material, no matter how insipid the playing of Orchestra del Teatro Massimo di Palermo, that voice is simply superb. Shower tenors of this world, rejoice! This is your singalong album. The reason I fully support this CD is also simple. I sincerely hope it will obliterate Michael Bolton and Andrea Bocelli in the popular consciousness. If we are going to devour aural candy, it may as well be delicious!

Vivaldi
Lucie Horsch; Amsterdam Vivaldi Players
Decca 483 0896

The Musical Clock and other Timeless Masterpieces
Suzanne Shulman; Valerie Tryon
Marquis Classics MAR 81471 (marquisclassics.com)

Yes, a clever title for a most interesting programme of music, mostly for flute and piano but with two compositions for solo flute, impeccably performed by Camerata co-founder Suzanne Shulman and pianist, Valerie Tryon. From the opening Allegro vivace from Haydn’s The Musical Clock (the first of five) you can hear the great chemistry between the two, and it gets even better; by the fifth Tryon has proven that you can double tongue on the piano as she matches Shulman’s double-tonguing wizardry! The Sonata in B-flat Major K378 by Mozart is next. Originally composed for violin, it gives the performers something a little more substantial to work with. The Andantino second movement gives us an opportunity to hear Shulman’s dark low register. (Thank you, Suzanne Shulman, for playing this in the original key, not the transcribed for flute version!)

Next up is an intoxicating dose of wistful fin-de-siècle melancholy, a sonata by the very accomplished but little known French composer, Mélanie Bonis, followed by Francis Poulenc’s wonderful – can I say iconic? – Sonata, in which Shulman was tutored by Jean-Pierre Rampal, for whom it was written. Need I say more!

The two last pieces are Harry Somers’ Etching – The Vollard Suite and Milton Barnes’ Music for Solo Flute, to both of which Shulman brings such artistry that I am convinced that these two pieces by Canadian composers are truly timeless masterpieces.

Transcendental – Daniil Trifonov plays Franz Liszt
Daniil Trifonov
Deutsche Grammophon 479 5529

The Tchaikovsky Project – Pathétique; Romeo & Juliet
Czech Philharmonic; Semyon Bychkov
Decca 483 0656

A formidable pairing of the great Symphony No.6 with the Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture featuring Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic launches The Tchaikovsky Project on the Decca label, a multi-year endeavour devoted to re-examining the composer’s greatest orchestral works. Was it really 26 years ago that Bychkov recorded the Pathétique with the Concertgebouw? How appropriate that the major work on the initial disc in this new series should contain an underlying theme of mortality!

Completed in 1893, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.6 takes the listener on a highly personal journey, and the Czech Philharmonic under Bychkov’s competent direction has no difficulty conveying the sense of tragic resignation. Well-articulated phrasing highlighted by the luxuriant strings and brilliant brass makes this performance a true odyssey. The four contrasting movements are all marked by a technical precision and warmly romantic sound that particularly befits one of the composer’s final works.

The Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture from 1869 has long been a favourite with audiences for its interpretation of the familiar story of ill-fated love. Without overly sentimentalizing the score, Bychkov draws the full range of tonal colours from the orchestra – from the prophetic opening of the fight scenes, to the lyrical love theme and on to the cataclysmic finale.

This is a fine beginning to a promising series. Bychkov wrote: “I’ve loved Tchaikovsky’s music ever since I can remember – and like all first loves, this one never died.”

Bruckner 2
Orchestre Métropolitain; Yannick Nézet-Séguin
ATMA ACD2 2708

Ravel
Yuja Wang; Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich; Lionel Bringuie
Deutsche Grammophon 479 4954

DG’s latest issue of Yuja Wang is the fifth in a row of the pianist’s bestselling discs. It has already earned Gramophone magazine’s prestigious Editor’s Choice Award, probably the best recommendation today. The young Chinese virtuoso has cut through the music world like a hurricane, an elemental force, in a few years her fame skyrocketing her to the very top. I was lucky to see her at Koerner Hall a few years ago when I literally staggered out of the concert totally astounded.

The record definitely lives up to its stellar reputation. Dashing through the Ravel Concerto in G Major with her customary bravura she is totally in her element, youthful and impetuous, having the time of her life with this somewhat jazzy, very entertaining and exciting concerto. The phenomenal technical skill notwithstanding, she is also a mature pianist. This is well-demonstrated in the lyrical second movement where she creates a gorgeous sound painting with her extraordinary touch and colouring. I have heard this piece many times and it is always dazzling, but here the overall compositional structure truly shines, as both the pianist and the conductor (Lionel Bringuier) clearly understand it and have tremendous chemistry working towards a common goal.

The completely different Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is considerably more difficult, with a mysterious opening of a theme slowly emerging from darkness; as the piano enters we witness an almost titanic power in Wang’s left hand. As the pace quickens in the march-like mid-section there is dazzling showmanship, exhilarating to listen to in a recording of demonstration quality with full frequency and wide dynamic range. Top recommendation.

Milhaud & Ginastera
Andrée-Ann Deschênes
Independent (aadpiano.com)

Los Angeles-based Canadian pianist Andrée-Ann Deschênes has a thing for Latin American piano music. Her first CD was a collection of piano music from Cuba and Brazil. And in August, the Humber College grad – presently a doctoral music student at California’s Claremont Graduate University (CGU), with a teaching gig at Cal State LA – released Milhaud & Ginastera. Her second indie effort – in a recent interview with CGU’s magazine, The Flame, Deschênes calls herself an “indie pianist” (followed by, “if there’s such a thing!”) – offers two sets of dances for solo piano: one largely inspired by Rio de Janeiro’s neighbourhoods; the other, a well-known trio of Argentinian dances.

After a two-year stay in Rio (1917-18), French composer Darius Milhaud composed his 12-dance suite, Saudades do Brazil. Untranslatable, “saudade” suggests a feeling of longing, melancholy or nostalgia, a fixture in the music and literature of Brazil. In that same Flame interview, Deschênes says she chose these pieces “because they are such unique little gems of music.” And they are, each one its own, self-contained iteration of saudade, some poignant and dark, others more playful with driving rhythms. All tonally interesting, harmonically colourful and utterly charming. Deschênes captures the essence of saudade, tapping into an emotional connection to the material – you sense she’s both moved by it, yet at the same time, focused on the task at hand, technique crisp and clean.

Alberto Ginastera’s Danza Argentinas are also gorgeous gems, and Deschênes executes them deftly and sensitively; the middle, an achingly beautiful invocation.

Deschênes’ disc is a gem. ¡Fantástico!

Charles Wuorinen – Eighth Symphony; Fourth Piano Concerto
Peter Serkin; Boston Symphony Orchestra; James Levine
Bridge Records 9474 (bridgerecords.com)

In his heyday, conductor James Levine was known as a staunch advocate of the American high modern school of practitioners of Arnold Schoenberg’s serial method, commissioning new works from Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen during his tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony. Bridge Records, with considerable philanthropic support, has now issued a commemorative disc of two major works from the last man standing of that compositional triumvirate. The first of these, Wuorinen’s Eighth Symphony, bears the arcane subtitle, Theologoumena, defined by the composer as “a private non-dogmatic theological opinion.” Make of that what you will. Formally it is cast in a conventional order of three fast-slow-fast movements, expressed in a no-compromise, often abrasive, language. That language is nevertheless in many ways a very traditional and approachable one; there are no extended instrumental techniques or a smidgen of spectralism to be found in his highly contrapuntal style. The first movement of the symphony is a wild ride of unbridled energy, dense and frenetic; the second movement is marginally more restrained, while the finale brings the percussion and piano to the fore for a thunderous conclusion. The ensemble of the Boston musicians is pushed to the edge in this high tension recording of the 2007 premiere performance.

The performance of Wuorinen’s compelling Fourth Piano Concerto from 2005 is considerably more assured, in large part due to Peter Serkin’s admirable mastery of the demanding solo piano part and the composer’s more lyrical approach in this work. All three movements of the concerto maintain a constant, mercurial energy leavened with explosive outpourings of orchestral frenzy. This is tough music to love, but easy to admire.

Wind blown – Sonatas for wind instruments by Peter Hope
Various Artists
Divine Art dda 25137
(divineartrecords.com)

A Land So Luminous – Music by Richard Causton; Kenneth Hesketh
Continuum Ensemble; Philip Headlam
Prima Facie PFCD051 (thecontinuumensemble.co.uk)

Richard Danielpour – Songs of Solitude; War Songs
Thomas Hampson; Nashville Symphony; Giancarlo Guerrero
Naxos 8.559772

On the day the Twin Towers fell, Richard Danielpour was at the composers’ retreat in Aaron Copland’s former Peekskill, NY, home. His artistic response to 9/11 was to begin work on Songs of Solitude, settings of six scathing Yeats poems. Danielpour’s melodic, rhythmic and colouristic predilections link him to Copland and Bernstein, two fellow New York-based composers of Jewish ancestry. Echoes of Copland appear in the cycle’s orchestral opening and closing; Bernstein is channelled in the jazzy Drinking Song. The longest song, lasting nine of the cycle’s 28 minutes, sets Yeats’s most famous poem, The Second Coming, but the music fails to match the power of these often-quoted lines.

There’s power aplenty, though, in War Songs (2008), inspired, writes Danielpour, by photographs of young soldiers killed in Iraq. Set to haunting Civil War poems by Walt Whitman, four dirge-like, elegiac songs precede the shattering final song, Come up from the Fields Father, at 11 minutes, nearly half the cycle’s duration. I was left both shaken and stirred.

Both cycles were composed for baritone Thomas Hampson, here in characteristically fine voice, fully expressive of the words (texts are included).