Frank Ezra Levy: Concertos, Divertimentos, etc.
Hana Gubenko, viola. Barbara Jost, cor anglais. Andreas Ramseier, clarinet. Timon Altwegg, piano.
Toulousse Chamber Orchestra/Gilles Colliard
Guild GMCD 7809
Total Time:  73:38
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Ernst Levy (1895-1981) was a Swiss born composer and educator who taught at MIT, the University of Chicago, and the New England Conservatory before retiring to live in Switzerland.  He was known as an excellent pianist with powerful performances that were often linked to the Liszt-school of playing.  This new Guild release though turns its attention to his equally prolific son, Frank Ezra Levy (1930-2017).  Levy was a professional cellist (performing with the St. Louis Symphony, among others) having studied with Leonard Rose and Janos Starker.  To say he was a prolific composer is a bit of an understatement with some 239 published works that include 15 symphonies and 20 string quartets.  Some of his music has appeared on an earlier Naxos release orchestral music in their American Classics series.  There is an aura of bittersweetness surrounding the present release as Levy passed away shortly after the final masters for release were made.  He was at least able to hear these performances before his death.  Of the five works on the album, two of them are concerti and three are “divertimentos” for solo instruments.  The concertos serve as bookends.  As a composer, Levy tended toward more tonal compositional style eschewing more avant-garde techniques.  This tends to make his music more communicable to broader audiences.  The pieces here were all written within the past five years.

The Piano Concerto No. 6 (2014) is scored for strings and timpani.  The three-movement work opens with a rather somber thematic statement which begins to gain a bit more rhythmic interest as the music continues.  There is some contrapuntal interplay between strings and piano that develops.  The motivic idea is then more fully explored.  The second movement has a more sinuous melodic idea that wends its way through some interesting harmonic shifts.  The finale allows for some virtuosic display and is in the form of a rondo.  The music here is parallel to the post-Les Six and Neo-Classical blended styles (it is like a hybrid of Martinu and Bartok).  There are many sections of the work that feature ideas that work linearly between the soloist and a section of the orchestra.

There are two works here for viola.  The Divertimento Concertante for Viola, Piano and String Orchestra (2013) is in six movements.  Levy’s approach here recalls the Bloch concerto grossi that explored a sort of Neo-Baroque style of form and modernist harmony.  The first movement does open with a burst of energy with great solo ideas for viola that begin the interplay with piano of smaller cells of material.  There is a rather gorgeous lyric line in the center of the movement.  As the piece continues, it does a nice job of creating interplay between the soloists.  The rhythms throughout tend to have an almost cutting, jagged interjection against the seemingly spun-out melodic lines.  The slower segments do have some rather moving lyrical ideas.  The second movement introduces some skittery harmonics in the strings that adds a brief ethereal aspect to the elegiac movement.  A bit more energy moves us forward in third movement which features a more extensive piano solo.  The viola is given a more lengthy solo moment at the edges of the fourth movement which has a more romantic tinge.  The lyrical writing continues into the fifth movement with some slightly darker qualities and things are wrapped up nicely in a fugal finale.  There are some interesting harmonic and rhythmic moments in this work which seems slightly stronger than the opening concerto.  The Divertimento for Clarinet and Piano (2013) follows some similar lines described as a “reinterpretation of the Baroque concerto.”  It also is in six movements with some flirtations with a more romantic sensibility.  The third movement is a bit unique as it is cast in 5/8 creating some variety and interesting interplay with clarinet and violins.  This movement also has plenty of fugal and contrapuntal devices.

The Dialogue for cor anglais and Strings (2016) was composed specifically for this release.  The more soulful and mournful sound of the instrument lends the piece its unique character here.  The music is in a single movement with seven identifiable sections that allow for interesting interchanges.  The notes also state the piece can be played on French horn which would give the music a unique character as well.  This somewhat points to Levy’s interest in creating music that is accessible and transmutable for performance.

The final work on the album is the Viola Concerto No. 2 (2013) composed for the soloist on this album, Hana Gubenko.  Cast in four movements, it too feels like a reimagining of the Baroque solo concerto.  The first movement has an interesting opening “Adagio” that creates a nice contrast to the interesting rhythmic vitality of the following 5/8 section.  The second movement is a bit more intense with some interesting recurring exploration of the opening material.  Expressive writing for the soloist follows in a brief “Adagio” that ends abruptly before the fugal ideas of the finale.  In some respects, then the piece feels more like a two-movement work with the slow adagio sections serving the sort of function one finds in Baroque concerto grossi.

The performances here are committed.  For some, the different pieces here will tend to blend together as they seem to be exploring similar techniques and can create a sort of sameness that is hard to overlook as ideas tend to be explorations that can feel rather fragmentary.  Perhaps the most successful piece here is the Divertimento concertante for viola and piano followed by the concluding Viola concerto.  The writing seems well poised to be good entries for college orchestras to be introduced to this modern tonal writing with interesting harmonies.  Each work certainly has its merits as it stands fine on its own.  In this case, one can certainly see how the prolific Levy managed to continue writing new works for friends and colleagues.  The anachronistic quality of the music with its 1920s modernist styles will be the first striking thing for some listeners but the dramatic flow of the pieces is mostly engaging.

Telemann: Overtures, Volume 1
L’Orfeo Wind Ensemble/Carin van Heerden
CPO 555 085-2
Total Time:  61:22
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) is a composer whose distinct Baroque musical voice lies as a nice contrast to the more familiar works of Bach.  His exploration of winds in concertos and concerto grossi are often quite enjoyable forays exploring the techniques of his players.  Furthermore, his command of instrumental color is often a delight for those unfamiliar with his music.  In some ways, he is among the more experimental composers of the period and this is evident in this collection of five “overtures” for winds—essentially variants on wind trios, quartets, and similar chamber music genres.  The pieces collected here are among the earliest of their type.  Telemann brings in the oboes and bassoon from their martial places and combines these with the horn, a hunting instrument.  Pieces for winds would be used at court as morning or evening music, or as part of parades.  It is also possible that they were the “background” music at meals (“table music”).

Exactly what function these works had, or why Telemann wrote them, is still unclear.  They appear to have been composed between 1714-1716, while the composer was in Frankfurt.  Here he was situated with the horns available from the Darmstadt court as well as double reeds stationed at the garrison there in the city.  What one discovers throughout these pieces is Telemann’s skill at exploring the unique tonal palette of these instruments even while allowing some room to “adapt” as needed to the forces available.  For this recording, the ensemble features 2 oboes, 2 horns, a bassoon, lute, and harpsichord—a unique combination by any standard.

The pieces here are in the keys of F Major and D Major and follow a typical pattern of the orchestral suite with an overture followed by several dances.  Telemann tends to use the French overture style for the opening movements.  Here one finds him exploring the unique capabilities of tone color within his limited ensemble.  The result tends to be so accomplished that one forgets that there are no strings.  The music bubbles along in a way listeners will realize will be further apparent in Handel’s orchestral suites.  One is struck at the melodic contour of the horns and the way that the oboes can cut through this with their own interplay that is further enhanced by the bassoon’s commentary as the ideas spin out.  Telemann further delights his listeners through a variety of regional and international dances that are interspersed among these works.  It is often more difficult today to grasp the regional differences of these dance forms, but his use of them here adds an occasional exotic quality.  The opening Overture, TWV 44:16 features an exciting final “Fanfare” with the ensemble showing off its technical skill in the rapid passage work.  The second work is the sole “concerto”.  It features four brief movements in a slow-fast alternation, including a gorgeous “andante” highlighting oboe, and wonderful siciliano.  A beautiful “Sarabande” appears in the Overture in F, TWV 44:8 featuring some fascinating harmonic shifts.  Throughout, one is struck by the sheer variety that Telemann discovered in his use of this particular combination of instruments.

The performers here are all members of L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra.  The ensemble is exploring the Baroque style in this intimate chamber music and one can certainly hear how these ideas familiar to orchestral music of the period have been well applied here.  Articulation is clean and crisp and intonation is equally impeccable on the period instruments employed.  The performances have a real sense of joy and fun as they explore this music.  It really does dance along.  CPO has also captured the music well in the sound picture which helps lend this an immediate quality without too much reverb to blur the performances.

Telemann wrote a great wealth of music and those who love Baroque music can appreciate the ways he was expanding the boundaries and horizons of the period.  Often the sorts of ideas and approaches he would fall upon would find their way into the Rococco and Classical period styles.  These unique pieces are certainly delightful discoveries of lighter music.