Direct Contact
Roberta Rust, piano.
Navona Records 6229
Total Time: 68:48
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Roberta Rust teaches at the Lynn Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida.  Her debut album with Navona collects music from eight contemporary composers with music spanning across seven decades.  There are also more personal connections that the pianist brings to each of these works either through direct contact with the composers, or as important works in her own development as a performer.  The music provides a snapshot of 20^th Century piano music and its many musical expressions across North and South America.  The program is filled with engaging musical discoveries in excellent performances that make a perfect case for all the music here.

The album opens with a somewhat uncharacteristic excerpt from George Rochberg’s Carnival Music (1971).  “Blues” has a very Gershwin-esque piano style that only slowly begins to unravel into more contemporary language in its final bars.  Two works by Michael Anderson (b. 1989) follow.  Thirteen Plus 4 (2005) builds on the sort of expanded jazz harmonies of the opening selection providing a nice transition into a piece that is more restrained, much more like a late night jazz reflection.  The same can be said of the first movement from the composer’s Sonata (2008) which has a rather compelling melodic idea with beautiful harmonic writing in this equally contemplative piece.   In a somewhat similar vein, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Lament (1999) was composed in response to Judith Arron’s death, a person whom the composer held in high esteem for her work in the redevelopment and rebirth of Carnegie Hall.  The music has this rather intense expressive style that seems to reach out in askance.  Chromatic shifts in the melody add this pained quality to the music set against Zwilich’s somewhat romantic musical gestures in what is a very intimately personal work.  There also seem to be some additional veiled musical references that are like passing memories.  The oldest selections on the album come from the composer’s husband, Philip Evans (b. 1928).  First is one of his first compositions, the Minuetto (1939), a more traditional piece of Neo-Classical influences, but a most gorgeous primary melody.  It is then followed by two selections from his Suite 1945 (“Sarabande” and “Aria”) which are more modernist in tone in a Bartok-ian way, though Evans’ music still has a rather engaging melodic content that blends traditional harmony within Bartok’s piano style.  Thomas McKinley’s Fantasy Pieces (2005) are two more intense and expressionistic works that have a tight construction in a couple of very brief pieces.  Three of John Sharpley’s Four Preludes (1998) conclude this album.  The first, “Reflection”, is an aptly-named restrained piece.  The other two are in the tradition of Ives-like quotation of American popular tunes and hymnody extrapolated into more modern sounds within the composer’s personal musical language.

In addition to the host of selections by American composers, Rust has included music from Cuba and Brazil.  Leo Brouwer’s Diez Bocetos (2007) was inspired by Cuban artists and in at least two of the pieces require the performer to improvise.  Rust has chosen three of the pieces: nos. 4, 5, and 7.  For the seventh, she incorporates a Bach theme in between the habanera framing sections in a moment that has a somewhat jazz-like sensibility.  Brouwer’s music always has a delightful combination of rhythmic excitement that can be heard in these selections which shift between mostly tonal harmony and forays into the slightly more dissonant.  The other music from South America is by the Brazilian composer Almeida Prado (1943-2010).  Rust gave the premiere of his 1986 work Halley.  The three-movement piece was written to the year the famous named comet appeared again near Earth.  Prado studied with Boulanger and Messiaen and his music reflects some of the latter’s aesthetic.  The first movement begins with an exploration of the lower nether regions of the piano.  The music is more atonal with intriguing clusters of sound out of which emerge different motivic threads.  It represents a more advanced tonal sound palette that is eased by the descriptive connections of the music.  There are moments where the music shimmers almost like an Impressionist piece before returning to its more angular lines.  Each movement is an exploration of motive and unique colors of the piano.  A host of grand gestures also make for a rather dramatic work that requires more virtuosic demands which Rust handles well.  This is especially true of the way the music shifts in tone from the more dissonant to the more sparkling aspects, from dark rumblings to final ethereal evaporation.

Rust’s performances here are beautifully captured by the sound of this recording.  The piano has the perfect presence and this further enhances her delicate performances of the lyrical music on this album.  This is an excellent collection of pieces all well worth hearing and further exploring for anyone interested in accessible contemporary piano music.

Bennett: Orchestral Works, vol. 3
Dame Sarah Connolly, mezzo-soprano. BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/John Wilson
Chandos 5230
Total Time:  64:34
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012) is perhaps best known for some of his film scores notably Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Equus (1977), and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).  Chandos has been mostly exploring the composer’s concert music and in this third volume four works provide a sampling of the composer’s later pieces for orchestra.  While Bennett’s popular music could be quite romantic, his concert music tended to blend serial technique alongside jazz and cabaret music all cast in a more atonal sound world.  These two tracks of composition tended to not overlap.  Richard Hickox earlier began to explore some of Bennett’s music, but these more recent releases are helmed by conductor John Wilson, who is the Associate Conductor of the orchestra recorded here.  The music on this third volume features four works, two from earlier in his output and two composed toward the end of his life.  Each of the works has a personal relationship connection with the composer.

Bennett’s Symphony No. 1 (1965) was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra who performed it in February 1966 under the direction of Istvan Kertesz.  The piece is cast in three movements and opens at a frantic pace and though the main ideas tend to be fairly jagged, the orchestration is crystal clear with delineated lines and shapes to the music that ease some of its more difficult harmonic language.  The central movement features a lyrical idea cast in winds and brass that floats above and through the texture here until it dies away.  It is in many ways the heart of the symphony.  During the work on this symphony, the composer met and fell in love with the tenor Dan Klein who would become his long-term partner.  It is to him that the central movement gets its inspiration.  The music moves to a more intense and insistent finale that manages to maintain its sense of clarity amidst its serial design.  In fact, most will hear this as a modernist atonal work with hints of Henze and perhaps late Walton—the latter especially in some of the climactic brass writing.  It is an interesting work that serves as a fitting opening for the album.

Poetry by his sister Meg Peacock follows in A History of the Dansant.  The recording here is of a new chamber orchestra version from 2011 following its 1994 setting for mezzo-soprano and piano.  Dame Sarah Connolly recorded that earlier version a few years ago and returns for this orchestral version.  The three texts are a sort of triptik of reports of travel.  The music is set as 1920s dance crazes:  two foxtrots and a tango.  The texts have a bit of humor but the music seems to point out a potential darker side.  In some respects, the music has an almost musical theater-like quality—due to the musical forms underlying them.  Connolly’s performance here is simply stunning.

Reflections on a Sixteenth-Century Tune (1999) takes it inspiration from a melody by Josquin des Pres (“En l’ombre d’ung buissonet”).  The piece was intended for youth string orchestras and Bennett sets up his theme and then treats it to four variations with a finale bringing things to a quite close.  It falls into the great wealth of English string music and the third movement is an homage to Peter Warlock.  The composer dedicated this work to the conductor John Wilson.  Here we get a great example of some of Bennett’s lyricism and rich harmonic palette in a very accessible work that is an excellent expansion to string literature.  For many this may be the album’s highlight with a lush performance.

Finale, the album closes with Zodiac (1975-76) which Bennett dedicated to his friend, and fellow composer, Elizabeth Lutyens’ 70^th birthday.  It was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra as part of the American Bicentennial celebrations.  The music is a series of brief musical snapshots of each sign of the zodiac serving as a sort of Baroque concerto for orchestra featuring ritornelli that frame each of the three zodiac signs that are grouped by season.  One might say it is Bennett’s Four Seasons meets Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

Wilson proves to be an excellent interpreter of Bennett’s music.  He manages to help create clean and clear textures and Chandos has provided a warm acoustic that does not muddy this at all but provides a crystalline support and balance.  This is a good sample of Bennett’s concert music that may have some picking up earlier volumes.