Starker Plays Hindemith, Prokofiev & Rautavaara
Janos Starker, cello.
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, SWR/Andreas von Lukacsy
Baden-Baden and Freiburg Symphony Orchestra, SWR/Ernest Bour; Herbert Blomstedt
SWR Classic SWR19418
Total Time:  74:46
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Janos Starker (1924-2013) was one of the great cellists of the 20^th Century.  His strengths lie in intonation and tone, a deep resonant sound, and often impeccable musicianship that marks his recordings with orchestra with a sense of musical partnership rather than a showcased soloist with an accompanist.  His approach often causes one to rethink the way the soloist and orchestral writing are blended or support one another in Romantic music while providing a unique clear traversal of more contemporary works.  Here we have a rerelease of three performances the great cellist made in the early 1970s.  This is apparently a straight up reissue of a Hanssler Classic release with a reduced price.  More striking is that these are evidently the only recordings Starker made of the pieces here with the Rautavaara being the unique “first” on CD from that release.

These three concertos are each rather unique in the 20^th Century literature as well with three very distinct musical voices.  In instances of contemporary music, it may be sometimes difficult to discern just how what the performer has accomplished has positively impacted the music.  It is easier in tonal music to be able to discern a slight variation in pitch, for example.  Mainstream concerti also bring with them a level of familiarity that causes the listener to react to the way a performer may tackle the music from a period perspective and interpretive liberty.  With Starker, the most amazing thing is that the listener can easily forget the sheer genius of the performance in the contemporary works he tackled.  The Hindemith performance is marked with clear articulation and phrasing that helps guide the listener through the shape and form of each movement.  The dry acoustic also aids this in Hindemith’s case as it creates equally clear orchestral textures.  But it is in the Prokofiev, a work Starker did not necessarily like, where we can hear the true mark of his virtuosity.  The lyrical phrases literally melt here in his hands and each attach tends to match the other so carefully.  The second movement in particular is an amazing display of continuity in his playing.  The cadenza is stunning here and to appreciate what Starker has accomplished, one need only focus on the way repeated accents and techniques are consistent in each recurrence.  It is beyond masterful in this case.  Whether you appreciate the way Prokofiev’s music tends to move from these somewhat angular lines to the ones that are more Neo-Classical in shape and structure, Starker navigates these with such grace that the shifts seem perfectly natural outgrowths of one another.  It is most amazing to hear just how this helps pull the work together into a coherent whole.  The opening of the Rautavaara allows a similar opportunity to hear how Starker shapes lines and creates a consistent level of attack for each and every note, carefully shaping each phrase.

Each concerto allows a window on three unique musical voices as well.  Hindemith’s classic concerto is filled with the sort of quartal and quintal harmonies of his style here exploring the range of the cello.  The orchestral backdrop creates an additional blend that wavers from supportive clarity to a connection with the soloist’s ideas.  Prokofiev’s work, as mentioned, is one of the more difficult works in the repertoire and requires a balance of soloist and orchestra that must be carefully measured.  Ernest Bour helps Starker realize the interconnectedness of the soloist and orchestra well.  The Rautavaara is an early example of music that stands outside the atonal academic world.  It opens with a cello solo that outlines some of the material that will unfold throughout the work.  Motivic ideas become a unifying, and recurring, factor throughout the music.  The style is in the sort of romantic modernism that would become far more apparent decades later, but in Rautavaara we here a deeper connection to his own Finnish musical past extending from Sibelius.  The recording was made in 1975, less than a decade after the completion of the piece.  The opening of the “Largo” is one of many stunning moments, the other being a brief romantic moment in the finale.

The sound here is really superb with great detail of orchestral textures and Starker’s placement against the ensemble is well balanced.  There may simply be no better performances of these works.  The Prokofiev feels even more significant sandwiched between the other pieces here.  It makes this reduced price release an even more enticing chance for fans of 20^th Century music!

Moto Bello
Trio Casals, Sylvia Ahramjian, violin. Ovidiu Marinescu, cello. Anna Kislitsyna, piano.
Navona Records 6156
Disc One: Total Time:  40:55
Disc Two: Total Time:  40:31
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

The program of this new release featuring Trio Casals explores works distinctively tailored for the piano trio.  Recorded in the last half of 2017, the program of ten unique pieces is being featured in their current concerts including one coming up later this May at Carnegie Hall.  The group first debuted at the 1996 Pablo Casals Festival in Puerto Rico.  The music for this release pulls together a variety of musical styles and approaches that allow the group to demonstrate their musicality and virtuosity and is also a hallmark to their programing of new music.  There are three larger, multi-movement works that round off each disc which opens with several briefer works.

Disc one opens with Woman A/Part by Diane Jones.  The piece was inspired by the photography of Carrie Mae Weems.  It opens with a four-note rhythmic pulse that lends itself to a minimalist feel.  A more filled-out harmonic idea recurs with some gradual expansion that will become a full piano statement bringing us into the main longer thematic statement.  A melancholy segment brings us a rather touching reflective style.  Jones blends the idea of repeated motives and themes that borrow from minimalism but moves these more toward to these more expansive lyrical moments.  There are times when we the music shifts into a more traditional harmony with gradual dissonance then adding a dramatic shift.  In many ways, the music reflects the black-and-white images which were in the forefront of Jone’s mind that brings us back to the opening for a nice musical arc.  From this rhythmic-based piece we move on to one that explores pitch and expectations, namely how one resolves a given note, hence the title of Beth Mehocic’s Somewhere Between D and C”.  The piece opens with a rather angular line on cello which continues this jagged outline.  The inspiration here is from a choreographic program for the work that wanted to connect a balance between chaos and tranquility.  Mehocic uses a variety of contemporary techniques in this dramatic work for solo cello.  Bringing us back to an exploration of rhythm, albeit in a more traditional sense, is David Nisbet Stewart’s Habanera.  The harmony has a more modernistic bent applied to this classic 19^th-Century dance form.  The violin and cello take their turns “dancing” with the piano as they interact.  The latter helps add a bit more harmonic drama to the encounter in this brief, almost encore-like number.

Two three-movement works close off disc one.  The first of these is Lines, Hockets, and Riffs by Sidney Bailin.  As the title suggests, the piece is exploring various approaches to counterpoint.  Bailin has reimagined this work a couple of times for different combinations of wind and/or strings.  An homage to Coltrane of sorts is implied in the “riffs” part of the title which has been maintained here.  Each movement is a musical conversation that explores different moods.  “Yearning” features various longer lyric lines that move from one instrument to the next elaborating, or picking up on, the emotional direction of the other.  A “hocket” is a device where a melodic line moves between voices creating a unique linear expression of the material a composer is using.  Common in Medieval music, it also was a popular technique in serial music where it is often harder to discern.  Bailin does manage to help create this ense of handing off of the material in his central movement “Flutter” which has the ideas feel more tossed through the texture that tends to be more horizontal.  Finally, “Chase” picks up with a more serene start that then launches into a gradually intensifying conclusion where all three instruments begin to overlap.  The final work on this opening disc moves us into the natural world of a day in Ocean Air.  In another great sequencing move for the album, the opening movement here, “Afternoon”, also explores a four-part idea like the opening work, though here it is a chord.  The harmony here is along more traditional style in I. Peter Deutsch’s work that sometimes has an almost impressionistic feel with its languid motion indicative of his scene painting.  “Evening” moves us into quartal and quintal writing that creates a stark soundscape with a pointillistic piano adding a sense of stars and later that of calm waves.  The style of the work is a hybrid of Clint Mansell (The Fountain) and Carter Burwell in these opening movements.  “Morning” moves us into a more traditional bright idea with interesting asymmetrical rhythmic pulses and a dance-like feel.  The piece is perhaps the most accessible of the works on the album and is a good conclusion to the first disc.

Ondine is the first of four brief works on disc two.  Giovanni Piacentini’s single-movement work explores the creative process inspired here by a photograph of Isamo Noguchi’s sculpture that lends the work here its title.  The piano comes to the forefront in this work with a rather shimmering idea reminiscent of Ravel.  The violin and cello gradually also appear with simple lines that seem to root the energy of the piano.  The music begins to swirl with more intensity as Piacentini tries to capture in music the idea of creation reaching its form.  This particular work more fully explores the interconnected qualities of the trio with its integrated textures and colors.  Circadia began life as the central movement of Adrienne Albert’s bassoon sonata.  Here it is reimagined in a work for cello and piano highlighting Marinescu’s lyrical and reflective sound.  It is in a dark, romantic style with a deeply moving lyrical melody and gorgeous harmonic shifts that makes the work really pop out here.  From this style of long-flowing lines, we move into a work of deft brushstrokes in Clive Muncaster’s Palette No. 1.  It is one of four pieces that eschews traditional structure and has a more stream-of conscious style where one idea is linked to the next.  The composer also expanded the tonal palette adding in the violin and cello resulting in a more dialogue-like feel in music that is essentially rooted in traditional harmony.  At times there is almost a salon-like quality to gentle music that floats with hints of a more nostalgic era.  The more familiar harmonic territory and relaxed atmospheres of these opening works continues in Joanne D. Carey’s romantic Solo la Sombra.  The piece is an adaptation of an earlier song inspired by the poetry of Pablo Neruda.  It is cast in two segments that features a warmer opening and a more disjunct finale that ends abruptly.

The album concludes with Imagined/Remembered by Bruce Babcock.  He is perhaps best known to film score fans as an orchestrator and conductor but has also had an extensive TV and film scoring career in addition to his many concert works. It is a rather beautiful traditional work for cello and piano exploring distinct moods.  Babcock creates beautiful lyric lines that are set against these often fascinating metrical shifts that are couched in traditional harmony.  The opening movement presents an often gorgeous cello exploration of the main melody.  The central movement shifts to a darker quality and takes on more somber tones and spurts of dissonance in an often stark texture.  Finally, the concluding “Presto” moves us to a more exhilarating celebration bringing the program to an exciting finish.

The overall program here is well designed to focus on more contemporary sounding works on the first disc and those with a more traditional bent on the second.  As noted, there are a couple of works that feature cellist Ovidiu Marinescu that demonstrate his lyrical expressive playing especially.  The set overall features ten unique works that highlight the unique programming of Trio Casals with works that can be well integrated into their programs of more familiar fare.  Each has an additional connection to other artistic expression from the visual arts to the written word creating a further thread that binds the pieces together.  The recording is also well-imaged and detailed as Navona’s tend to be.  The physical release features a well done booklet with information about each composer and the works presented here.  Overall a fascinating program worth exploring by fans of new chamber music.