Three releases from Navona bring a variety of new music for different chamber combinations from small ensembles to solo music.

The euphonium is an instrument that often gets relegated to the back of a wind or marching band and fills out the harmonic balance in the brass family.  It has a rich, mellow sound though that is fully explored in Sound and Light (Navona 6339) which features five new pieces for the instrument.  Noted euphonium performer and clinician Demondrae Thurman has commissioned the pieces included on this new release.  The album opens with Barbara York's "Child's Play" Sonata where references to French-Canadian folk song and American jazz come together with great wit to contemplate the joy of childrearing.  The central movement is quite lovely.  From here we move on to Doug Bristol's three-movement sonata (2013) which has some interesting interactions between soloist and piano in its opening movement and some fascinating improvisation-like segments before moving into an finale that has some angular writing and a funky second section.  There are some equally jazzy moments in the briefer Insinuacoes by Anne Victorino D'Almeida which would make for a fine finale in any program.  Patrick Schultz presents a number of technical challenges in his Roon Sonata which features some fun circus-like atmosphere and bluesy inflections in its opening music, a quirky waltz, and a reflective finale that shows off the versatility of the instrument well.  This work leads into a more impressionistic multimovement piece by Anthony Barfield, Mediations of Sound and Light.  Thurman is really a stunning performer whose lyrical playing makes so much of this music work and the technique is equally there to bring out the virtuoso moments with seeming ease.  This is a great demonstration of how this instrument needs more attention and a great collection of pieces to do so.  

If solo piano music is among your listening interests, then the latest volume of Sustain (Navona 6345) should also be on your radar.  This Spring release features twelve works mostly for solo piano performed primarily by Lucie Kaucka and Randall Hodgkinson and representing a host of different musical styles by quite diverse composers.  Many of these pieces could serve as brief openers or little encores.  For variety, the album includes a couple of brief pieces featuring violin and piano, and tenor sax and piano, and closes off with a brief piano trio.  Several of the composers featured here have released other music on the label and this is sort of a compilation of these various composers bringing a quick way to perhaps launch off to other releases of their music on the label.

The same can be said of the second volume of Fleeting Realms (Navona 6348) which pulls together six disparate works by as many composers.  Here is a way to whet one's appetite for contemporary music in this varied recital of pieces.  The are are string and wind trios, a brief one-movement string quartet, a duo for violin and cello, and even some vocal music with a seven-minute chamber opera, and a concluding song cycle on poetry of James Joyce.  It makes for a rather unusual set of pieces that will stretch the listener and provide exposure to different genres of chamber music along the way,

Project Fusion: Bach Glazunov, Bozza, Maslanka
Project Fusion:
Daniel Espinoza, soprano saxophone.
Matthew Amedio, alto saxophone.
Michael Sawzin, tenor saxophone.
Matthew Evans, baritone saxophone.
Bridge Records 9561
Total Time:  58:38
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

The saxophone quartet, Project Fusion, give listeners a chance to hear the range and versatility of the modern saxophone in their new release featuring the work of four composers.  The album opens with a transcription of Bach’s chorale, Durch Adams Fall, BWV 18.  It will reappear in new guise in the concluding work on this release, David Maslanka’s Recitation Book (2006).  But first, we are treated to a couple of important repertoire works.

Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) is perhaps better known for his ballet music and symphonies.  Towards the end of his life, he discovered, and fell in love with the saxophone and would compose a concerto as well as the Quartet in Bb, Op. 109 (1932) recorded here.  This is a substantial chamber work in three movements.  Conceptually, the piece focuses on sonority and harmony which lends it a somewhat experimental quality all within a modern romantic idiom.  The opening waltz is a the first of these aesthetic explorations of rhythm and style which continues into the central movement;s “Canzona variee”.  In effect, it is a theme and variations with a twist as Glazunov moves the canzone through instrumental registers and then adds some homage to Schumann and Chopin, bringing us a little salon-like moment.  The final “Allegro moderato” allows for more technical displays and a lighter finale for a quite enjoyable work.

Eugene Bozza’s (1905-1991) Andante and scherzo (1938) precedes his own stylistic development and serves to provide a window into his earlier compositions.  Here we get a little of the late Impressionistic qualities a la Ravel and some of the modernist hints that take their cues from Stravinsky and Roussel.  The work provides a bit of a palette cleanser before the closing work.

The prolific American composer David Maskanka (1943-2017) is perhaps best known for his wind band pieces.  A hallmark of his style is to meld other musics interpretively into settings that are idiomatic for wind instruments, often from works not associated with them.  His Recitation Book (2006) serves as a sort of classic example of this postmodernism where all things can be made equal while also feeling a bit like a personal reflection of his own work and life.  The piece at its core is a meditation on life and death with a quite spiritual quality.  Maslanka has chosen music by Bach, Gesualdo, and a Gregorian Chant as the sources of departure for this suite of five reflections.  The work explores the sonorous qualities of the different saxophone voices in beautiful writing that allows the thematic ideas to float above lyrical harmonic shifts leading to an enthralling piece.  There is a sense of askance, questioning, and somber resignation that brings us through this often contemplative work.

This is a quite engrossing release of music with fine repertoire choices that lend themselves well to those interested in expanding their musical horizons a bit.  The performances are stunningly captured here and one suspects this will be a recording one can return to often.