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THE WORLD’S BEST CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEWS Est 1923 . OCTOBER 2018 gramophone.co.uk on record The changing way we hear the composer’s music PLUS Ingrid Fliter: exploring the darker side of Chopin A newly discovered recording by Rachmaninov UNITED KINGDOM £5.99 VERBIER FESTIVAL 25 Years of Excellence Since 1994 the Verbier Festival has been transforming a small Swiss Alpine resort into a unique hothouse for the world’s nest classical musicians to try out new repertoire and new partnerships, always with revelatory results. Marking Verbier’s rst 25 years, this special 4-CD set features admired artists such as Martha Argerich, Evgeny Kissin, Daniil Trifonov, Bryn Terfel, Yuja Wang and Valery Gergiev in previously unreleased live recordings. www.deutschegrammophon.com www.verbierfestival.com A special eight-page section focusing on recent recordings from the US and Canada Abel ‘Time and Distance’ talks to ... The Benedictiona. In the Rear-View Mirror, Nowb. The Invocationc. The Ocean of Forgivenessd. Cheryl Seltzer & Joel Sachs Those Who Loved Medusae abeHila Plitmann sop dcJanelle DeStefano mez The co-directors of New York’s ceCarol Rosenberger, abdTali Tadmor pf b Continuum Ensemble on their Mark Abel org eBruce Carver perc Delos F DE3550 (57’ • DDD • T) latest Roberto Sierra recording How did you discover the music of Roberto Sierra? Mark Abel’s fourth We first got to know Roberto Sierra when CD on Delos is rich he was working in the concert ofice at the How would you describe this music, and is in those moments of University of Puerto Rico, where Continuum it enjoyable to play? inspiration when a was invited to perform; he was in his early Sierra’s music has an extraordinary range, composer first comes under the spell of thirties at the time. We asked to see some of embracing amazing compositional integrity, poetry. His marriages of subtly charged his music and were deeply impressed by the phenomenal energy and a gorgeous music with an eclectic modernist twist to maturity of what he showed us. Since then, melodiousness. He also never repeats himself. emotionally provocative, introspective texts we have followed him closely, performing His fusion of Afro-Caribbean elements with work best in Those Who Loved Medusa, set a great variety of his music. Almost all of his the lessons he learned as a former student to Kate Gale’s haunting poem, in which music for piano four hands and two pianos of Ligeti gives his compositions real depth. Hila Plitmann gloriously evokes Medusa was composed for us. We feel he is one of While it is virtuosic music that can be very deep in a lover’s night: ‘Turn me into that the finest composers around. challenging to play, those challenges – always thing you fear. Make me monster … wet, musical, never gratuitous – bring immense ripe, swollen.’ While Delos founding Was the composer involved with this disc? rewards for performers and listeners. director Carol Rosenberger, returning to We worked indirectly with him since he could the recording studios for the first time in not be at the recording sessions. He had What recordings can we look forward to recent years, infuses the involving piano heard us perform all of the pieces before we next from Continuum? part with characteristic chaste beauty, began to record them, giving us very helpful Next up will be chamber music by the late percussionist Bruce Carver adds whisks comments, and listened to the recording as German-American Ursula Mamlok, also on and whips of colour to the feminist drama. it went through various stages of editing. Naxos, followed by our fourth Sierra recording, Also notable is In the Rear-View Mirror, He has been extremely kind. largely of recent works composed for us. Now, a nod to vintage Hollywood set to the composer’s own poems, with Tali Tadmor taking over at the piano and Abel adding ambience and a unique lyrical line at the Biver works gathered here were written for the organ. The second in the cycle, ‘The World The Cellar Door. Girl, Walking. Mirror. Fuse Ensemble to play, with the composer Clock’, is a bittersweet, politically tinged No Matter Where. We Meet Ourselves one of the two vocalists in Mirror (2012; paean to San Francisco before it was taken Fuse Ensemble the other is the late Colette Inez, whose over by Silicon Valley millionaires. The Ravello F RR7993 (44’ • DDD) poem ‘Empress in the Mirror’ was the third, ‘The Nature of Friendship’, includes inspiration for the work). Biver is also the tips of the hat to Barbra Streisand’s old guitarist in Girl, Walking (2014), an at Broadway hit ‘People’ and a snatch from times enchanting quartet for flute, electric Berg’s Lulu. Gina Biver is a guitar, bass and ‘found percussion’. Abel heads in another direction with musical force of Biver’s brand of electroacoustic music The Ocean of Forgiveness, exploring intimate nature: electroacoustic leans stylistically more to crossover idioms poems of love, desolation and reconciliation composer, producer, than to the type created by, for example, by Joanne Regenhardt in quiet, moving electric guitarist and director of the Pierre Schaeffer, Nono or Stockhausen. NAN MELVILLE NAN ways. The opening and closing tracks are Washington DC-based Fuse Ensemble she As with these exemplars from an earlier less memorable. Recorded at the Bridge helped found 10 years ago. Although a busy generation, Biver’s music has a strong studios in Glendale, California, the sound is composer of multimedia works – whether element of improvisation, a co-creation PHOTOGRAPHY: always natural and gorgeous. Laurence Vittes for film, kinetic sculptures, dance – the five with the performers from a pre-set gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE OCTOBER 2018 I BRITTEN DEATH IN VENICE John Daszak • Leigh Melrose • Anthony Roth Costanzo Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra Alejo Pérez • Willy Decker ...[Daszak] sings with a literally magical presence.” - NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG https://Naxos.lnk.to/DeathInVenice NAXOS DVD • 2110577 • 747313557752 • AVAILABLE 10.12.18 BERNSTEIN ANNIVERSARIES • FANCY FREE SUITE OVERTURE TO CANDIDE & OVERTURE TO WONDERFUL TOWN Säo Paulo Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop ...one of the leading conductors in the world.” - MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL https://Naxos.lnk.to/Anniversaries NAXOS • 8.559814 • 636943981429 • AVAILABLE 10.12.18 He(a)r Nordic Affect Their commitment to their repertoire “ is evident in every phrase.” – CLASSICAL MUSIC https://Naxos.lnk.to/Hear SONO LUMINUS • DSL-92224 • 053479222428 • AVAILABLE 10.26.18 AVAILABLE AT: DISTRIBUTED BY: SOUNDS OF AMERICA Brilliant retro entertainment: John Tibbetts and Scott Purcell in Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock template. No Matter Where (2010) and solo, Mauceri and his cast have hit their Girl, Walking are fine examples of her stride. Ginger Costa-Jackson’s magnificent idiom, though the combination in the Moll sets the tone for the performance latter of electric guitar and flute gives it The first complete with the Ruth Etting-like melancholy of the atmosphere of a 1970s film track. In recording of Marc her opening song, Christopher Burchett the marimba solo We Meet Ourselves Blitzstein’s The Cradle contributes a rousing version of Larry the (2015), percussionist-dedicatee Scott Dean Will Rock, restoring Foreman’s call to action and Nina Spinner, partners himself with a ‘triggered audio’ of the composer’s original 1937 orchestrations, one of the many cast members from Opera pre-recorded samples. The Cellar Door is a raises the inevitable questions about whether Saratoga’s Young Artist Program, duo inspired by Jung where the live cello this iconic musical drama is an edgy, still contributes an inspiring version of Ella and piano instrumentalists represent the relevant outcry of social outrage or merely Hammer’s song about workers named Joe. conscious element, and the audio track a brilliant retro entertainment. Made during The recording is excellently balanced (of a waterphone) the unconscious. live performances by Opera Saratoga in and opens up with volume to create an On a more negative note, Biver’s music 2017, it is more the latter, lacking the exciting sound stage. The booklet includes relies overmuch on repetition. Ostinato activist energy and aura of the famous detailed notes and libretto, the second CD patterns drive the music forwards but too Broadway production by Orson Welles a 14-minute bonus track of Blitzstein often merely mark time rather than truly when, because of skittish government describing the work’s provenance and first develop; similarly, her harmonic language sensibilities, the cast had to sing from the performances. Laurence Vittes is rather static and unadventurous. There audience while the composer played the is plenty to enjoy, with such well-prepared score at a piano alone on the stage. R Sierra performances, but the overall impression The musical influences that Blitzstein Kandinskya. Clarinet Sonatab. Thirty-Three is of a short-measure disc of works which drew on include European operetta, Ways to Look at the Same Objectc outlast their material.