Beneath The Tide: A Collection of Concertos
Bruno Philipp, clarinet.  Mojca Ramuscak, Goran Koncar, violin.
Pedro Ribeiro Rodrigues, guitar. Charlene Farrugia, piano.
Croatian Chamber Orchestra/Miran Vaupotic
Navona Records 6186
Total Time:  74:16
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

A variety of modern concertos greets the listener in this new release featuring the Croatian Chamber Orchestra.  Works for clarinet, violin, guitar, and piano explore a variety of musical voices in this music for soloist and orchestra.

Michael Cunningham’s Clarinet Concerto, Op. 186 appeared in a collection of the composer’s orchestral music last year.  The performance by Bruno Philipp is a committed one for this rather dark work.  The first movement opens with a burst of nervous energy that then shifts into a rather virtuosic display by the soloist against the dark textures of the orchestra.  Hindemith feels very much in the background of this work as well with Cunningham’s tendency to use a similar harmonic approach that supports his long thematic ideas that build and build like extensions of a Baroque motif stretched to the breaking point.  The central movement, “Lithe”, moves us into a suave moment of relaxation in tempo but the undercurrent of the music still maintains a sort of sinister quality.  Hints at the musical motives of the first movement flit into the texture adding a sort of twittering unease.  “Charivari” means essentially a “bunch of noise” often in folk mock parades intended to either celebrate a marriage or make fun of an unpopular person which informs the final movement.  The style here certainly suggests such an intent with the fast-paced four-note motif that opens the work (an almost Prokofievian approach) with the serenade qualities reflected in the lyrical second idea.  The first movement motif returns as the piece moves towards a gradual piled-up harmony, last statement by clarinet and final cadence.

There are two works for violin and orchestra.  The first is Rain Worthington’s In Passages.  This ten-minute emotional work has the soloist emerge from the string texture with poignant modern lyric lines.  The soloist and orchestra have some interplay here as the primary idea works across the strings.  The latter provide as sort of sounding board to the soloist in this piece.  Violinist Mojca Ramuscak finds just the right tone and balance for this intriguing work.  Bruce Reiprich’s brief Lullaby (2002/2018) was written to celebrate the birth of a friend’s son.  It is a lush and romantic work beautifully performed here by Goran Koncar in what would make for a really gorgeous encore number.

Ssu-Yu Huang is a Taiwanese composer who has received numerous commissions for guitar.  Her first concerto for the instrument is a single-movement affair.  The structure is rather fascinating though.  There is an opening guitar idea that move us into a folkish idea inspired by an actual Hengchun folksong (“Nostalgia”).  Using a modified rondo structure, this idea is placed alongside more astringent modern and atonal works.  The style of the music has a rather cinematic quality (aided by a fairly dry recording) to it as if we are experiencing a suite of music from a dramatic film with an Asian setting.  It is interesting to hear how the guitar line itself morphs in and out of these ethnic inflections.  The piece features a committed and excellent performance by Pedro Ribeiro Rodrigues.

The album concludes with a piano concerto that was one of composer’s Beth Mehocic’s earliest compositions.  This is a more traditional work which was not quite supported when she first began her academic studies in the mid-1970s.  Fortunately, the concert world has realized that accessible new music is vital to their survival as well and she revisited the piece for a more recent performance.  For the more recent performances and subsequent recording she has made a few tweaks to the orchestration.  Having had previous work recorded for PARMA, this became a more viable recorded possibility and has led to the present recording.  The opening movement has a blend of Copland-esque open harmonies in the orchestra with a more romantic piano style laid against this style.  A more reflective idea opens the central slow movement that explores a repeated motif.  This builds towards the third movement rondo which is transitioned into by percussion and somewhat martial idea which will run through this final movement.  There are parts of this work that feel like a continuation of the mid-century symphonists like Paul Creston.  Overall, the piece has a nice dramatic flow with an accessible style.  The piano gets to have a few pyrotechnics along the way, but stays balanced well with the orchestral writing and it gets a little cadenza as well.  The sound here is a bit forward for the piano which leaves the orchestra seeming a lot drier and further recessed in the sound picture.

The music here features a great variety of approaches that introduce listeners to these contemporary composers.  By choosing a variety of solo combinations, the album widens its appeal with a little something for every taste.  What is more fascinating is that each of these pieces are equally captivating and receive an excellent set of performances well supported by the Croatian orchestra.

Rihm: Music for Violin & Orchestra, Volume 1
Tianwa Yang, violin. Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz/Christoph-Mathias Mueller
Naxos 8.573812
Total Time:  52:05
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Tianwa Yang is exploring the music of composer Wolfgang Rihm (b. 1952) and begins here with three works taken from three different periods of his life.  The first volume of works for violin and orchestra provide a chance to hear Rihm’s compositional process evolve.  His music is still slowly trickling out with these being the second recordings of these pieces, the 2014 work being apparently a premiere recording.

Dritte Musik (1993) opens the album.  It was the third concertante work for violin and is a reworking of an early piece for chamber orchestra.  The music is fairly episodic as it explores a variety of rhythmic motifs and musical lines.  The piece has a variety of percussion elements that add a somewhat jazz-like feel at times. Also unique is the addition of an accordion which is among the sounds explored in the piece as well.  The violin tends to flit across these soundscapes with jabbing energy that on occasion is almost viciously attacked by orchestral bursts.  This striving against the world is very much a part of this intense piece.  The music moves from nothingness to these large blocks of sound and then back again.  Dramatic bursts while the violin explores the extreme registers of the instrument add to this sort of visceral edge to the music.

At the center of the album is Rihm’s first violin concerto, Lichtzwang (1975-76).  It was premiered, and subsequently recorded, by Janos Negyesy with the South West German Radio Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bour.  A variety of cymbal and tam-tam bursts announce the work’s beginning.  Sliding ideas begin to appear creating slightly dissonant harmonies before the soloist slowly emerges into a host of denser orchestral chords.  Though piled dissonances and seemingly random interjections occur, there is a gradual sense of tonality as the piece progresses.  The piece incorporates a chorale-like moment, with organ pitted against the opening percussion, as well.  Most fascinating is the way the soloist insists on being in its upper register while the orchestra tries to grab it and pull it down.  It is interesting to see how this antagonistic style of musical argument appears already in this early work.  There is no denying though that it is a powerful piece with some of the lyrical moments recalling Berg’s own concerto, though we are in fare more dissonant realms here.

The final work on the disc is the most recent.  Gedicht des Malers (2014) was composed for Renaud Capucon.  The title is a fantasy built on a portrait of Max Reger by the German artist Max Beckman, but here Rihm imagines the portrait is of the great violinist Eugene Ysaye.  Rihm’s conception is of the orchestra being the canvas and the soloist the brush that interacts with its own exploration of motifs and colors.  Romantic gestures hint at the edges of the piece along with Berg, a common connection in Rihm’s work.

Rihm’s music is by no means an easy listen.  It demands intent focus on one level, but succeeds because it has a great dramatic sense and in the midst of this one can forgo the often stark, close clusters of sounds and almost random solo lines.  The music in each case here is all of this type with subtle orchestral shifts and assertive writing across all three pieces.  As difficult as these may be to pull off, Tianwa Yang proves to be perfectly adept at finding the lyrical qualities of this music while also avoiding pathos.  She creates strong emotional, and deeply-felt segments that are heard in some of the more tonal moments best.  Her intonation is striking given how high she is required to play and it all seems so effortless.  That said, in the more intense moments, her attacks and articulation are equally invigorating.  One might only wish for a few more access tracks to be able to explore sections of these pieces in more detail.  Timing is a little short for this volume but do not let that detract from what may be some of the finest performances of these works to come for a very long while.