Hommage to Women Composers
Ruth Lomon and Iris Graffman Wenglin, piano
Navona Records 6254
Total Time:  77:07
Recording:   (*)***/****
Performance: ***/****

Canadian composer and pianist Ruth Lomon is joined here by Iris Graffman Wenglin for an engaging collection of music for piano and piano duo by women composers.  The music here spans some 150 years of music with the bulk of the disc devoted to works from the last half century.

Wenglin begins the album with two wonderful works by Clara Schumann (1819-1896).  First are the 1832 Caprices and then a brief little Polonaise in Eb (1831) which are excellent examples of the composer’s virtuosic playing and gorgeous melodic writing, equally rivalling that of her husband.  From here we jump almost a century to the music of the Les Six composer Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983).  Her Jeux de Plein Air (1917) is represented by its second movement (“Cache-cache Mitoula” whose fun children’s game is enhance by the work’s exploration of bitonality—an early example of this approach.  Louise Talma (1906-1996) was one of the many wave of composers studying with Nadia Boulanger.  She was the first woman to receive two Guggenheim Awards and the first woman to become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She is represented here by one of her first notable works, Four-Handed Fun (1939) which she performed with Lukas Foss at a home concert for Marian MacDowell.  A decade separates this from the next piece on the program, Miriam Gideon’s (1906-1996) Homage a ma jeunesse (1949).  This is one of Gideon’s earlier pieces and the three movement sonatina for two pianos revelas her more relaxed approach to form and variation techniques.

From works that seem to reflect a focus on youthfulness, we move into more serious thematic pieces.  Barbara Pentland (1912-2000) has a more expressive, lyrical style that then moves into explorations of textures and rhythmic complexity.  These aspects are all on display in her 1958 set of 3 Duets After Pictures of Paul Klee.  A set of variations by Marka Richter (b. 1926) follows with harmonic ideas that are more modal.  A striking fugue is one of the highlights of this work.  Thea Musgrave (b. 1928) takes the listener on a series of Excursions (1965) filled with a great sense of wit as she explores eight different driving scenarios in these brief vignettes.  Ruth Lamon’s own Soundings (1975) is dedicated to Wenglin and is an excellent example of how Lamon explores sounds and rhythm.  Spirales (1974) takes this a step further in Jacqueline Fontyn’s two-movement work.  The gradual incorporation of clustered harmonies begins to take further shape as we move into Maria Ptaszynska’s Two Interludes (1979) where geometric patterns inform the way these sounds and works are organized.  Finally, Shulamit Ran (b. 1949) brings us back to the opening album’s portion of the program with a collection of Children’s Scenes (1970).  These are all quite miniature brushstrokes often lasting less than a minute.

The album is a collection of recordings made in 1976 and 1978.  These have been remastered.  The performances overall are quite good, there are a few moments where a passage may be a little blurred or less precise, but the general thrust of the program allows one to overlook this.  So much of the music here is hard to find that it is still good to have this collection representing so many fine composers in one place.

Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in d
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Manfred Honeck
Reference FR-733
Total Time:  63:12
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Often here we refer to the influence of Bruckner on composers whose music is less familiar to a larger public, or who are being rediscovered.  Now we have an opportunity to explore the great Austrian symphonist’s last work the Symphony No. 9 in d.  Begun as early as 1887, Bruckner was still working on the piece up until his death in 1896.  Thus, the symphony has only three movements as the fourth was never completed.  Some fee that had he spent more time focusing on this work it may have been finished but the composer often went back and revised and edited his works based on critiques he received along the way.  There are a number of sketches for a fourth movement but none which seemed to be coming together and Bruckner even thought adding his Te Deum would be a fitting way to complete the work.  As such, though it still stands as one of the last great masterpieces of the period.  It would receive it first performance in 1903 in a severely edited version by one of his students Ferdinand Lowe.  That particular edition would be the one that first appeared in America under Theodore Thomas’ direction with the Chicago Symphony.

Part of the “Fresh!” Live concert series from Reference Recordings, this new release brings us another stunning recording from Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh with the orchestra conducted by its music director (since 2008) Manfred Honeck.  Over the past few years he and the Pittsburgh Symphony have released highly-acclaimed recordings in this series that has been recorded and masted by Soundmirror.  For those with high-end stereos, the hybrid super audio, with its 5.0 Stereo will certainly surround you with all the Brucknerian glory you can muster.

Perhaps thoughts of eternity and his place in it were in Bruckner’s thoughts as he began work on this piece.  As a composer steeped in religious imagery and traditions, the symphony is infused with symbolic gestures and musical imagery that connect with an exaltation of the Almighty and our human ascent into the heavens.  The music feels less like an orchestrated organ piece as Bruckner’s use of orchestral color is often tied to the functioning of different stops on a large pipe organ.  In this work, some of that is present, but in the quieter moments the lines have a more intricate interaction.  Somewhere in the midst of all this is perhaps a deeper expression of the composer’s own belief system and faith.   Moments of awe and moments of darkness intermingle through the big climaxes in ways that break out often into reflective beauty.  Throughout his orchestral textures still can be explored in specific blocks of sound, but there seems to be something different about them in this work.  Perhaps these inner emotional connections, the religiosity of the music itself, are what often make this one of the more popular of his works.  The first movement still has an almost Wagnerian thematic statement, one that tends to explode out of his brass writing with its harmonic shifts adding to that nod to the grand operatic tradition.   What is more, it does not lag or get bogged down as Bruckner can sometimes.  It ebbs and flows moving to climaxes only to pull back before we get its final powerful bars.  From glances to heaven, the second movement seems to move us to the verge of hell and a rather intense and unusual dance with a figure that seems bound to try and claw its way out.  There are some rather landler-like lighter moments for contrast before those death beats return.

Honeck draws some stunning performances from the Pittsburgh players who are in top form here.  The shaping of phrases is also exemplary.  This is a performance that is deeply informed by a deep understanding of the rhythmic motives, thematic threads and references, and implications of Bruckner’s music.  Of course, he is helped here by a really superb engineering feat that helps enhance the PSO.  Honeck’s extra intensity and energy is aided by the fact that the recording was made from live performances in February 2018.  For this performance he is using the Nowak edition.  Honeck takes a bit more time in the opening movement which allows for some rather emotional drama aided by a slightly more relaxed tempo In places.  His scherzo though falls about in the middle of performances (not too breezy, but not overtly restrained either).  In the finale, he also takes time to let the music unfold naturally and beautifully making for some gorgeous moments that transport the listener.  Reference released (back in 1997) a version of this symphony with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting the Minnesota Orchestra at a time when the conductor was touring and performing using his own detailed editions.  Here, Honeck’s performance seems to be quit similar, though his version runs almost four minutes longer.  Most likely Honeck’s will be a tough new competitor for those looking for an engaging performance that is capured in such great sound.  With some 140+ versions of the work to choose from by every generation of conductor one generally cannot go too wrong, but this release is perhaps the best place to start and upon which other performances will likely be compared.  The trio is really more impish than its opening, though the rhythms of the former hint at the edges.  This movement would be a normal highlight worth the price of the album on its own.  The final movement’s yearning and adoration is about as close to a religious romanticism as one might get and those opening bars and that gorgeous harmonic writing tantalizes so well.  Also worth noting is the way the performance captures both those huge orchestral explosions alongside moments of sparser writing.  Tempos too help provide a very powerful interpretation that flows very naturally.  Truly we move from one “wow” to another.

The release is also helped by Honeck’s own experience as a performer with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Orchestra lending him an even further unique understanding of this music.  On top of this is his very informative, and personal, notes which accompany the album and make for an engaging introduction to this work.  I can think of no other release where the conductor so carefully has outlined his understanding of particular motives and patterns and how they connect throughout this work.  Each movement has detailed information down to the measure numbers (and even album timings) to help any listener wade through this experience more.  But truly one is best invited to sit back and let this music wash over you with its powerful expression because it is in the way Honeck shapes these performances that one begins to truly appreciate the emotional depths of this music.  One sits enthralled and begins to dream at what a Bruckner cycle with Honeck and the PSO might be.    This is the second Bruckner outing, they recorded the other popular fourth symphony a couple of years ago.  Certainly that will also be worth revisiting as one looks to a performance here that is an important interpretation by Honeck to help distinguish itself in so many ways.