Early, Classical and Beyond

Scherzi Forastieri
Flute Alors!
ATMA ACD2  2818 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/scherzi-forastieri)

Speaking as a former recorder player, I can say, with good authority, that it can be a frustrating instrument: limits to timbre and dynamics can quickly outweigh the joys of how easy it is to make your first decent sounds. The Montreal-based recorder quartet Flûte Alors! is a shining example of the other side of this coin, revealing for years now how astonishing this instrument can be when it’s well played. 

Although known for its eclectic repertoire, the latest offering from the quartet focuses solely on Italian music of the early Baroque. The title is taken from a collection of canzoni written in 1611 by Giovanni Cangiasi and translates roughly as “pleasantries of a foreigner.” Of the 18 tracks on this CD, ten are by Cangiasi and they really are very cheerful and inventive. Like most music from this period, the curiosity for modern ears lies in all the ways in which the conventions of the high baroque have not yet been formed: vestiges of renaissance harmonies and dance forms present themselves again and again. 

I particularly liked the “clucking hens” of Cangiasi’s La Furugada and the athletic and sinuous theme of Nicolò Corradini’s La Bizzarra; both of these feature that light-speed tonguing only possible on the recorder. Execution throughout is spectacular: virtuosic and tasteful ornaments, spot-on tuning, infallible passage work. Yes, the colours are limited but the group has selected interesting and varied music and as far as taking the listener back in time, it is thoroughly and delightfully convincing.

More Bach, Please!
Concerto Italiano; Rinaldo Alessandrini
Naïve OP8454 (arkivmusic.com/products/more-bach-please)

Over the years, composers and performers as diverse as Anton Webern, Procol Harem and the Modern Jazz Quartet have all drawn inspiration from the music of J.S Bach. The Rome-based Baroque ensemble Concerto Italiano directed by Rinaldo Alessandri is the latest ensemble to refashion the music of the Leipzig cantor in this intriguing Naïve label recording titled More Bach, Please!. The aim of the endeavour was to create three new works based upon pre-existing material by Bach with Alessandrini drawing from a number of sources.

The Ouverture in the French Style BWV831 for solo keyboard was originally published in 1735 as the second half of the Clavier-Übung (paired with the Italian Concerto). Here, the appeal is three-fold. Not only are Alessandrini’s arrangements meticulously constructed but the movements were thoughtfully chosen. Furthermore, the playing itself is stylish and elegant with the ten-member ensemble producing a warmly cohesive sound in which violinist Boris Begelman and violist Ettore Belli deliver particularly polished performances.

The Partita for flute, strings and continuo and the eight-movement Ouverture in G Major for strings and continuo utilize various sources including those from the Violin Sonata BWV1016, the keyboard Partitas BWV825 and 828 and the Ouverture BWV820. Again, the ensemble performs with a solid conviction with flutist Laura Pontecorvo’s sensitive and controlled tone melding perfectly with the string ensemble.

How could Bach not have approved of these arrangements? He himself frequently transcribed and reused his own music (and that of others). With modern technology AI can undoubtedly produce a competent refashioning of a composer’s work, but there is still ample room for the human touch and creativity, as this recording so admirably demonstrates.

Schumann: Carnaval and Kinderszenen
Edna Stern
Orchid Classics ORC100338 (edna-stern.com/recordings)

The Young Schumann
Charles Owen
Avie Records AV2647 (avie-records.com/releases/the-young-schumann-carnaval-op-9-•-papillons-op-2-•-intermezzi-op-4-•-abegg-variations-op-1)

The evergreen Carnaval is the main work on two new recordings of music for solo piano by Robert Schumann. There is an exciting sense of youthful impetuousness in Edna Stern’s recording, with fast movements taken very quickly and slower movements treated flexibly, with a generous use of rubato throughout. The quirkiness of Schumann’s language is brought to the fore as Stern emphasizes Schumann’s many sudden accents and contrasts of dynamics. Listen to the sense of improvisation in the Valse noble and the breathtaking abandon Stern brings to the infamously difficult Paganini. The final pages of the closing March are truly thrilling. This is high-octane playing, capturing a sense of live performance on the wing in a warmly recorded acoustic.  

In comparison, Charles Owen’s performance prizes sensitivity of phrasing and clarity of texture over sheer visceral excitement. Accents and inner voices are less prominent, and tempos are less extreme. This is a carefully considered performance, though this serious-mindedness doesn’t always translate into the same thrill of excitement that Stern produces. Owen fills out his album with Schumann’s first two published works, the Abegg Variations, Op.1 and Papillons, Op.2. I find Papillons, in particular, a much fresher performance, with light textures and dancing rhythms that emphasize this music’s roots in the ballroom. Owen also includes the rarely heard Intermezzi, Op.4, in a committed performance that makes one wish these six pieces were heard more often. The confident swagger of the first piece, the syncopated playfulness of the second, and the varied moods of the fifth are all vintage Schumann. The clarity of the recorded sound complements Owen’s overall textural precision and beauty of tone.

Stern’s coupling is the popular and often-recorded Kinderszenen, Op.15. These “Scenes from Childhood” can sound overly precious in the wrong hands, but Stern manages an appealing freshness and innocent charm. There is originality too, in Stern’s own composition which ends her recording. The title, To-nal or not-to-nal, refers to the pull in contemporary writing between tonal and atonal harmonies. In five short sections inspired by literary quotations (Schumann, too, took much inspiration from the literature of his time), Stern’s work is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of textures and colours. 

Lovers of Schumann’s piano music will enjoy the contrasting approaches Stern and Owen bring to these inspired works.

Chamber Works by Frederick Block
ARC Ensemble
Chandos CHAN 20358 (shop.rcmusic.com/products/chamber-works-by-frederick-block)

After fleeing from Europe to New York City in 1940, Vienna-born Friedrich Bloch (1899-1945) resumed composing as “Frederick Block.” In the few remaining years before his death from cancer, Block busily composed many works, including three symphonies, his seventh opera and the brief, five-movement Suite, Op.73 for clarinet and piano (1944) in which jaunty playfulness alternates with wistful lyricism. 

Far more substantial are three works dating from 1928-1930, filled with the lush songfulness of Viennese late-Romanticism. In the Piano Quintet, Op.19, two buoyant movements, with melodies resembling those of Erich Korngold, frame a nostalgia-perfumed slow movement. The sweet, slightly decadent sentimentality of a fin-de-siècle Viennese ballroom permeates the four lively movements of Block’s String Quartet, Op.23.

Echoes of Korngold re-emerge in the opening Andante of Block’s Piano Trio No.2, Op.26, followed by a sprightly scherzo marked Molto vivace, a ruminative Adagio and the cheerful Vivace-Tango, not only pre-dating but also, for me, more entertaining than anything by Astor Piazzolla.

This is the latest in the Music in Exile series curated by Simon Wynberg, artistic director of Toronto’s ARC Ensemble, devoted to unheralded composers displaced or suppressed by war or dictatorship. Wynberg discovered Block’s compositions while exploring archives at the New York Public Library. Thanks to him, and the ensemble’s fine musicians – violinists Erika Raum and Marie Bérard, violist Steven Dann, cellist Thomas Wiebe, clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas and pianist Kevin Ahfat – the music of yet another deserving composer lives again.

Works for Piano and Orchestra – Prokofiev; Rimsky-Korsakov; Tsfasman
Zlata Chochieva; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Karl-Heinz Steffens
Naïve V8448 (zlatachochieva.com/music)

Recordings of two of the three composers (certainly not these compositions, though), may be abundant and varied. They may be performed with attention to historical practices or conceived as a series of romantic flights. But what strikes you through her performances of Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Tsfasman is that Zlata Chochieva doesn’t impose doctrinaire impulses on these three orchestral works but explores – with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Karl-Heinz Steffans – a range of expressive and rhythmic nuances. 

Her playing is absorbing and sensitive, full of insightful phrasing, reflective subtlety and joie de vivre. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Piano Concerto in C-sharp Minor, Op.30: Note that the choice of this work (not operatic extracts from Scheherazade) puts a spotlight on the composer’s genius for infusing his works with primary instrumental colours, and progressive harmonies, particularly in the third, Allegro movement.

Prokofiev, on the other hand, was a genius of the piano, but his concertos – among the most inventive ever written –  are rarely performed. This Piano Concerto No.2 in G Minor, Op.16 is a case in point. It begins as an almost backward-looking composition but the performer in him soon takes over and by the time we get to the Finale - Allegro tempestoso movement we are presented with the composer’s barnstorming prowess. 

Tsfasman’s Jazz Suite is a glowing echo of his idol, Gershwin. Consummate performances by pianist and orchestra bring an alluring dénouement to this programme.