Penderecki: The Three Cello Concertos. Arto Noras,cello; Sinfonia Varsovia, Krzysztof Penderecki, conductor. Pekka Savijoki, producer; Matti Heinonen and Polish Radio, engineering. Elatus 49593

hen Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima blazed into concert halls all over the world in 1960, audiences were shocked to discover a piece of uncompromising—indeed ferocious—avant-garde music that nevertheless made an indelible impression. And that impression—above and beyond the sonic terrorism of those screeches and rattlings and wails and buzz-bomb glissandos and hornet’s nest of angry cacophony—was of sheer, searing, blasted-from-the-volcano passion. Here, at last, was an ultra-modernist who had no interest in icy Boulezian abstractions. Penderecki’s music was white-hot. It was also, as became even clearer with the liturgical and operatic works that soon followed the Threnody, especially the austere, harrowing St. Luke Passion, both shrewdly theatrical and fixated on human pain.
      Since the 1960s Penderecki has evolved stylistically from the athematic and aleatoric fury of those early pieces, encompassing more retrograde idioms going back all the way to Shostakovich and Mahler (without deleting more adventurous sonorities from his arsenal), but he has never wavered in his obsession with, and compassion for, the suffering of humankind. You can’t listen to the concertos on this disc and not feel this instantly. The First Cello Concerto, completed in 1972, begins with three minutes of low, cavernous, almost pitchless moans, out of which arises the tormented voice of the solo cello to instigate and plunge through a maelstrom of frantic skitterings, rustlings, throbs, and rumbles. The occasional lulls in the storm are angst-ridden, sullen, and darksome, only heightening the relentless intensity, nor is there (despite Herculean demands on the solo protagonist) any virtuoso display, or any of the call-and-response give and take of the typical concerted work. The Concerto is seamless and, like all Penderecki’s concertos, without movement divisions. It is one of the most exhausting eighteen minutes in the concert repertoire. There is no resolution or apotheosis, simply a brief attenuation into silence.
      Penderecki’s 1982 Second Concerto is longer, more expansive, more sectional, and though hardly old-fashioned in scoring (especially its eerie, traumatized opening which returns to haunt later portions of the work), conventional enough in its sharply articulated interplay of upsurging motives to sound positively Brahmsian in comparison with the First Concerto. And the soloist is allowed, at last, to sing as well as to skitter and dart. The result is a more humane music; defiance, even consolation, seem at least possible.
      The 1983 Viola Concerto, adapted for cello as recorded here, is leaner and more contrapuntal in texture, tauter and more unified in structure, and more restrained in emotion: grim enough, but elegiac and resigned rather than heroic and tortured. Its unforgettable coda, as the soloist ascends in halting, sorrowful steps to the heavens, is ineffably tender and sad.
      Cellist Arto Noras plays with magisterial nobility and soulfulness, and an imperial disregard for all difficulties. The Sinfonia Varsovia, under the composer’s direction, is a superb partner. Elatus’ recording is dynamic and detailed, with an ideal balance of soloist (just a tad bigger than life) and orchestra. This disc will give any high-end system a workout, but it’s the music’s emotional power that you’ll remember.
Mark Lehman

Messiaen: Des canyons aux étoiles…. Radio France Philharmonic, Myung-Whun Chung, conductor. Lennart Dehn, producer; Raymond Buttin, balance engineer; Sylvain Dangoise, Armel Hemme, recording engineers. Deutsche Grammophon 471617 (2 CDs)

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essiaen’s color-drenched masterpiece brims with energy and vivacious orchestral effects. Inspired by the awe-inducing landscape of the American West, Des canyons aux étoiles is in twelve movements, each infused with aural nature poetry: isolated deserts, the shapes and colors of canyons, and the infinite spaces of the heavens. The music, in Messiaen’s words, is “an act of praise and contemplation,” describing “an ascent from the canyons to the stars…to share with God the eternal state of Creation.” Unless you’re tuned in to Messiaen’s peculiar brand of mysticism it would be easy to mistake his devout Catholicism for plain old pantheism, but I’ll leave such probings to the more metaphysically inclined.
      But this is no exercise in soporific New Age meanderings. Messiaen’s music pulses with energy and startling effects such as the huge brass-led depictions of Bryce Canyon’s multi-hued rocks or his reliance on unusual instruments, including one of his own devising—the geophone, a big lead-shot-filled drum. Rotated slowly, it sounds like a giant sandstorm and has a prominent role alongside the wind machine, glockenspiel, xylorimba, and the small army of bells, tubes, maracas, and other high-pitched percussion instruments. There’s also a prominent part for piano (Roger Muraro is especially fine in his two virtuosic bird-song-based cadenzas). Just 13 strings are pitted against a normal orchestral complement of winds and brass.
      The result is a combination of strange and wonderful sonorities, including the delicate wisps of sound, sharp percussion transients, and massive block chords that make audiophiles drool. The engineers capture them well, including the eerie sounds of blowing into a trumpet mouthpiece amid a forest of bells, and the hushed, tinkling beauty of movement seven, “The Resurrected and the Song of the Star Aldébaran.” In movement five, “Interstellar Call,” a solo horn sends its call into the empty vastness of space, answering itself in pianissimo passages of fluctuating pitch. This echo effect is diminished by distant microphone placement. In my preferred recording of the work led by Reinbert de Leeuw [Montaigne 782035], the horn is upfront and you clearly hear subtle harmonic twists and dynamic relationships somewhat obscured in Myung-Whun Chung’s otherwise well-recorded version. Chung is slightly slower than de Leeuw in most of the movements, though both do ample justice to the work’s brilliance and both fully capture Messiaen’s unforgettable evocation of time, space, and eternity.
Dan Davis

Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Suite for Two Pianos Opus 4b. Jean-Francois Heisser, Georges Pludermacher, pianos; Guy-Joel Ciprani, Gerard Perotin, percussion. Ysabelle Van Wersch-Cot, producer; Jacques Doll, engineer. Apex 49569

ere’s a logical but seldom-if-ever-before-seen pairing: Bartók’s classic masterwork of athletic, hard-edged modernism, the 1937 Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and his 1941 arrangement for two pianos of the early (1907) Second Orchestral Suite.
      Often as the Sonata’s been recorded, it remains fresh, inventive, brooding, brilliant, and grand. Heisser, Pludermacher, et al. do it proud, playing with steely precision and fire. But the real eye-opener is the rarely recorded four-movement Two-Piano Suite. This is one of the earliest pieces that approach Bartók’s mature style, while maintaining a winsome youthfulness all its own. And it reveals a kinder, gentler, more relaxed and unhurried Bartók, too, with lush harmonies and a serenade-like spaciousness and serenity. The opening commodo spins out a meandering folk-style tune over lilting rhythms in a manner that recalls Enesco’s rhapsodies. Next is a scherzo with an elaborate and splendidly crafted fugal development section—an early adumbration of the great fugue that caps off the Concerto for Orchestra. Then comes a dreamy, impressionist-tinted adagio, and to conclude, a melodious finale with yet more dancing folk tunes.
      Apex’s recording is good but not ideal. There’s plenty of impact—you can’t miss the wallop of the tympani in the Sonata—but the pianos aren’t quite as sharply focused as I’d like, and not entirely free of a slight “freeze-dried” digital glaze. Minor quibbles. If you love this great Hungarian’s music, you’ll want to hear this engaging but almost unknown addition to his oeuvre.
ML

Janácek: Jenufa. Karita Mattila (Jenufa), Jorma Silvasti (Laca), Anja Silja (Kostelnicka). Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Bernard Haitink, conductor. Wolfram Graul, producer; Jean Chatauret, engineer. Erato 45330 (2 CDs)

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anácek’s opera stands or falls on the performances of Jenufa, the village girl who’s jilted by the father of her child, and Kostelnicka, her deluded stepmother who kills Jenufa’s secretly-born infant to save the girl from the wrath of the villagers. So despite some shortcomings, this recording taken from live London performances is a must-have, thanks to Karita Mattila’s gorgeously sung, beautifully characterized Jenufa and Anja Silja’s searing Kostelnicka, the latter a triumph of acting and sheer will power over a wobble-afflicted voice long past its sell date. In Silja’s defense, Kostelnicka is under tremendous stress and she’s no youngster. Silja moves and terrifies us, as a good Kostelnicka must. No excuses need be made for Mattila. She just goes from strength to strength, capping a triumphant Metropolitan Opera Jenufa with a Carnegie Hall recital that drove voice-lovers wild. Here, she sings with tremendous intensity. Her last-act scenes radiantly embody Janácek’s theme of forgiveness and reconciliation, and when the situation demands it, she isn’t afraid to make less-than-beautiful sounds.
      As Laca, the angry rejected lover of Act One and Jenufa’s devoted savior thereafter, tenor Jorma Silvasti is good without leaving any great impression. The big falloff in quality comes with the playboy bad guy, Steva, sung—often croaked—by Jerry Hadley, whose strangulated high notes and effortful climaxes are sins as bad as his callous treatment of Jenufa and their child. The rest of the cast is adequate, but often sounds uncomfortable with the language. The only native speaker is the grandmother, Eva Randová, and there’s a world of difference when you hear a Czech cast, as in the old Supraphon recording, or even the Mackerras [Decca], where only the two leads are non-Czech.
      The orchestra is critical in this opera, and Haitink elicits refined ensemble sound and drama but lacks the earthiness of Janácek’s language-based phrasing. Notwithstanding Haitink’s warmth, Mackerras brings a more driven, idiomatic touch to the score. Both use the original version, not the more romanticized one imposed on the composer for the first performance and until recently, commonly used. We get well-detailed, natural, in-house sound that slightly favors the orchestra, but low transfer levels means that it’s veiled unless we kick the volume up. Get this one for the leads, but Mackerras is still first choice.
DD

Bernstein: West Side Story. Soloists; chorus; Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn, conductor. Andrew Walton, producer; Eleanor Thomason, engineer. Naxos 8.559126

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s Bernstein’s assistant during the composition of West Side Story, Kenneth Schermerhorn brings an impressive history to his new recording of the complete score. His Nashville Symphony plays with considerable skill and sensitivity in a recording conceived to provide as much theatrical atmosphere as a concert performance can, spoken dialogue introducing set pieces (e.g., the balcony scene) and big numbers such as “America” containing quite a lot of commotion. Among the soloists, Mike Eldred’s Tony offers the most persuasive singing—“Something’s Coming” and “Maria” are especially moving. But the others acquit themselves well, too.
      Yet Schermerhorn’s evident love for the music expresses itself less as enthusiasm than as reverence. Bernstein’s own recording [DG 415 253], made late in his career, took quite a lot of heat in some quarters for casting opera singers, but you have only to go to the “Prologue” to hear how he and his players embody the very air and energy of those New York streets. When it comes to the thrilling “Quintet,” once compared by critic Will Crutchfield to ensembles in Verdi or Puccini, Schermerhorn is left so far in the dust I could barely recall the performance. In “America,” the chorus of women completely lacks the deliciously mocking “magpie” character of the composer’s performance or the original cast. It’s not a matter of tempo; Schermerhorn’s timings are very close to Bernstein’s. It’s a matter of rhythm, accent, dynamics, phrasing: In a word—the best and largest meaning of the word—style.
      Despite West Side Story’s classic status, choice among the several recordings is by no means obvious. The original Broadway cast [Sony 60724], with the young Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert, and Chita Rivera, will always have its unique, incomparable authority, Max Goberman’s conducting an easy match for the composer’s. But the score is not complete. The same is true of John Owen Edwards’ undistinguished British production [Showtime CD006]. The soundtrack from the movie [Sony 48211] is sizzlingly conducted by Johnny Green, with marvelous overdubbed voices, paramountly the young Marni Nixon, perhaps the loveliest Maria ever. But the score is rearranged and several pieces are deleted. Which brings us back to the composer, whose recording is more than complete, containing a chorus of the “Jet Song” dropped from the original show. But Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras lead that controversial operatic cast. A Hispanic singer in the part of an American Pole whose adversaries are Puerto Rican? Bizarre, yes, but my, does he make a glorious meal of “Maria.” Owing to the vitality of all involved and its completeness, that well-recorded album would be my desert island West Side Story. If the tonal weight of operatic voices is anathema to your ears yet you still want all the music, the new Naxos is certainly more than good enough, and the sound is superb.
PS

t is fascinating to observe the interplay of musical fashion with the publicity juggernaut behind a major film and the pronouncements of film critics who know little about music, and appreciate it less. Bernstein’s score for Far From Heaven is receiving extravagant praise because—get this—it has a nice melody! When the composers of the Golden Age wrote music like this they were critically scorned for being reactionary or derivative in the age of serialism. Bernstein himself composed numerous far superior scores in this style, including From the Terrace (the closest prototype stylistically and thematically for Far From Heaven) and To Kill a Mockingbird (his masterpiece which initiated the lamentably imitated trend of using a piano to carry a romantic score). In comparison, Far From Heaven sounds like Muzak. Yes, it does effectively evoke the spirit of the Fifties, as it is designed to do in the film. And yes, it does have a decent main theme—which is little more than a rehash of From the Terrace, embellished by a piano solo reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird. But at best, this is watered down, recycled Bernstein. The sound is aggressively multimiked, producing grotesquely large instrumental images and a severely limited dynamic range: hardly the acoustic environment for this kind of orchestral music unless it is intended to be played in an elevator.
      The contrast couldn’t be greater between Far From Heaven and Franz Waxman’s 1950 Oscar-winning score for Sunset Boulevard. The “Main Title” music juxtaposes several sharply contrasting themes in a concise and dramatic fashion that is a lost art in today’s films. Waxman could match anyone as a melodist, but much of Sunset Boulevard inhabits the musical world of Kurt Weill. Symphonic jazz blends seamlessly with haunting and eerie impressionistic soundscapes. The stunning nine-minute “Conversing Corpses” cue for the deleted opening scene is a major discovery. The sound preserves a natural concert hall environment with tremendous dynamic range and fine inner detail. This is the most important film music release of the past year.
      Philip Glass’ minimalist technique would seem to be totally out of place underscoring a restrained psychological drama like The Hours. However, the repetitive string configurations have a timeless quality that plays a critical role in unifying the film’s tripartite structure. Nevertheless, Glass’ scales and arpeggios are so naturally assertive that they have the potential to take you out of the film, especially when the prominent solo piano is playing. That said , the luscious layered strings are recorded with an ideal combination of sweetness and clarity that provides enough ear candy and conventional musical emotionalism to seduce even hardcore Glass haters. In short, this score can be jarring in the context of the film for some, but ranks with Glass’ finest recorded works. As such, it deserves a successful afterlife in the concert hall.
      Catch Me If You Can showcases John Williams’ return to his jazz roots. In nearly half a century he hasn’t missed a beat. The progressive jazz score brilliantly establishes the time frame of the film in musical terms. The dazzling “Main Title” sequence is a magical fusion of music and image. Some critics have gone so far as to call it the high point of the film year. The well-chosen source songs add to the mood of the album, but they can be programmed out if you prefer an uninterrupted original program that, once again, demonstrates Williams’ amazing versatility.
      The music of Lord of the Rings continues to be problematic for me. Howard Shore’s massive score has received unmitigated praise from Lord of the Rings zealots who seem to need it to be something profound. The Two Towers is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful films ever made, but the pace is glacial, the acting stiff, and several scenes, including the climactic battle, are too long. It is a great visual spectacle, but it is not a great film. Shore’s music addresses the spectacle effectively. Critical comments that it is too loud and obtrusive are ridiculous in the context of the film’s scope. However, the melodic content is mediocre, the orchestration is too persistently dense and unimaginative, the chorus is overused (when will film composers get Carmina burana out of their heads?), and the numerous vocals are a trial for anyone interested in a major orchestral score (at least Enya didn’t return to warble over the walking trees). The sound is significantly better than The Fellowship of the Ring in nearly every way. The Two Towers is a good score, but it is reasonable to expect more instrumental and stylistic variety in a Trilogy that is arguably the greatest vehicle for dramatic music in film history.
ABL