C. P. Stamitz: 10 Symphonies
Ensemble Amadeus/Normann Kastner
Aurus Subtilis Classic 5083
Disc One: Total Time:  76:44
Disc Two: Total Time:  79:21
Recording:   (*)***/****
Performance: (*)***/****

For its debut CD release, the Ensemble Amadeus has chosen a collection of symphonies by the Mannheim composer, Carl Philipp Stamitz (1745-1801).  It was his father, Johann, who created a style o music in the Rococo that would provide the many unique orchestral techniques which blossomed in the Classical Period.  The Mannheim court would become an important and influential musical source for many composers including Mozart who visited there.  Cannabich, Richter, and Holzbauer were other important figures who wrote music for the court and took over the musical education of the younger Stamitz.  Carl Philipp was a second violinist in the court orchestra from 1862-1770.  After which, he and his brother Anton would move to Paris where he would serve in the court of Duke Louis de Noailles.  It was here where the bulk of the ten symphonies recorded here were conceived.  Stamitz did have the opportunity to travel and experience new music after this period.  A young Beethoven was even a performer at concerts where he was performing as well at The Hague.  He even conducted a performance of Handel’s Messiah in Berlin.  But his life was also filled with its share of tragedy including the loss of all four of his children at young ages.  He would die shortly after his wife, essentially penniless.  All of his property and belongings were auctioned off which meant that much of his music was also subsequently lost.  That said it is known that he wrote at least two operas, and over 150 orchestral works from symphonies to concertos and a concertantes, as well as plenty of chamber music and solo pieces.

The works here were all composed in the 1770s and as such are representative of Stamitz’s command of the orchestra and the writing required for it.  We are still in the period of Italianate, three-movement works.  Stamitz’s pieces though have all three movements fairly well balanced.  The openings tend to be allegros with nice lyrical central movements.  The finales are often prestos with dance-like qualities.  The melodies tend to be presented in perfect packages with excellent phrasing as one might expect.  Along the way, he sticks in a little rocket or waltz, some unique dynamic shading, or an interesting harmonic surprise.  Sometimes the syncopated ideas are quite delightful as well.  The pieces were designed more as backdrop than something one might listen to as carefully as we might today and thus are pure entertainment pieces.  That said, they are still occasionally quite engaging and delightful works.  The music is basically for strings with paired oboes and horns.  The recording takes some liberties by changing this up for clarinets or flutes to allow for some variation in color—something just as likely to have occurred in the time.  There are five symphonies here bearing Opus 9; three from Op. 13, one from Op. 15, and one from Op. 24.  These are all in major keys, though when they shift to a relative minor the effect is quite striking.  Though not listed, there seems to be a fortepiano also in the texture as a carryover continuo part which can be heard adding extra ornaments, especially in the slow movements.

These are fine performances allowing listeners to be introduced to this new chamber ensemble.  The pieces are unique as well which is a bonus.  A long the way there are also some minor cadential blurs but this is not distracting in the long term as the music itself is fairly infectious.  The ensemble tends to shine quite well in the third movements the slow movements tend to be a little more tenuous and thinner in texture.  It is not clear if this is an authentic instruments orchestra, but the performance practice of the period is adhered to here and that is also a bonus.  The music is not overly romanticized and this allows for clear textures for most of the pieces.  Phrases are also well shaped.   Sometimes the sound gets a bit muddied in forte climaxes which is more the ambient issues of the church where this was recorded and mostly effects things when brass enter.  The package here is a cardboard double-disc style with the CDs themselves housed in sliding sleeve halves which some may find can scratch discs.  The booklet is nicely housed in the center.  Notes are fine here to give a general overview of the music and the players.  Overall a fine addition to the catalog of Rococo and Early Classical music from a composer whose work is an important link to the work of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven all who can be heard calling from the shadows of some of these works.

 Haney: Birth of a City

Jason Kao Hwang, violin. Melanie Dyer, viola. Adam Lane, bass. Tomas Ulrich, cello.
Julian Priester and Steve Swell, trombones.
Dave Storrs and Bernard Purdie, percussion.
Big Round Records 8956
Total Time:  52:14
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Composer David Haney’s new album Birth of a City is an intriguing collection of conceptualized improvisations.  There are two works here that explore blends of percussion with trombones and string instruments.  The title work is a series of eight different sections that explore rhythmic, or melodic fragments.  These are then improvised between whatever combos Haney intends to explore.  A host of percussion instruments are used to add a variety of intriguing sounds and punctuations with an occasional rhythmic idea providing a foundation from which the other material then springs.  The use of the trombones in the opening section gives the music an almost noir-ish quality.  When this switches to add strings, the music takes on a more intense quality and moves closer to a more classical avant-garde style.  Haney uses interesting bent pitches alongside gongs and different cymbals.  Even the melodic contours of the third part have an almost Asian-quality in their aesthetic.  As each of these different sections plays out, we get a sort of musical birthing image of different parts of this single thematic thread that provides the link between these different sections.  It connects with this concept of birthing sections of a city where different ideas will interact and where the listener seems to stand at one corner that can take them in any one direction.  The music overall has this jazzier underpinning upon which Haney also crafts music that might be more on the aleatoric classical realm, but the harmonic ideas are built around jazz progressions laid against these various explorations of line.  The music moves toward more intense writing as the parts build on one another gradually moving towards using all the different instrumental sounds.  Dissonance becomes far more pronounced as the piece progresses adding to this bustling intensity.  Sometimes, as in the seventh section here, the music has moments of emotive lyricism that move into extreme dissonance.  The work thus moves towards these denser textures becoming more forceful and dramatic culminating in the final smashing together of all the instrumental ideas in an atonal jumble of ideas and sounds.  It is as if the opening music has been deconstructed away from its harmonic and melodic roots to an exhaustive conclusion.  Part three explores a waltz tempo

The five parts of Variations on a Theme take a specific part of a thematic idea for improvisation and development.  This allows for the creation of a variety of different sonic textures and sounds.  The piece opens with the modified string quartet which lends the music a more classical sensibility.  The cool bass ostinato pattern in the second part, coupled with the brush snare, moves us more into the jazz realm.  The music dissolves into a trombone duet for its final part.

Birth of a City is in that third-stream universe that brings in aspects of classical chamber music with jazz for a more cerebral experience of musical material.  However, Haney’s lines are quite clear and this allows for an instantaneous entry into the soundworlds that he creates in both of these improvisatory works.  Certainly an album worth exploring for those who like their jazz and classical combos a little chunkier.