AVguide.com: Film/Music Recommendations: Classical Capsules Film/Music Recommendations
 

 
12.2003
   
 

Bach: The Art of Fugue. Emerson String Quartet. Da-Hong Seeto, producer and engineer. DG 289 474 495

Buy CD

  Bach’s Art of Fugue demands the utmost concentration from musicians and listeners alike. Indeed, scholars question whether it was even written for performance; some suggest it’s an academic study demonstrating the near-limitless possibilities of contrapuntal writing and music’s ability to achieve spiritual purity.
      Bach left the piece unfinished at the time of his death, without indicating the order of its 21 canons and fugues, nor the instrumentation. So it’s been performed by a wide variety of forces, from solo harpsichord and organ to chamber orchestra. Today, eighty minutes of solo harpsichord or organ in such abstract music is beyond most listeners, and while chamber orchestras provide welcome timbral variety, it’s harder for them to clarify complex fugal strands.
      That leaves the string quartet, which strikes me as a perfect medium for the work—especially a performance as committed and alive as that of the Emerson Quartet. The group’s lean ensemble sound can sometimes be a detriment in less rigid music, but it’s an advantage here, along with the quartet’s razor-sharp timing, precise articulation, strong rhythmic drive, and clear intent to play this as great music, not as an illustrated counterpoint treatise. Emerson projects emotional feeling in the long, final Canon, but never of an anachronistically romanticized kind. This is playing of real character, every instrument an equal partner in the climb to the mountaintop, ultimately conveying the exhilarating purity sought by Bach.
      Da-Hong Seeto’s engineering has much to do with the disc’s success. We audiophiles tend to exaggerate the importance of unnaturally detailed sound that lets us hear individual voices in a chorus or the last stand in the second violin section. But such transparency is critical in a Bach fugue, where we want to follow each complex instrumental line. Here, we’re able to hear the piece’s intricacies by following all the voices, aided by Paul Epstein’s booklet notes explicating the work, in great detail for Contrapunctus I and brief synopses for the rest.
      The Art of Fugue may not be a disc for casual listening, but regularly working one or several of these fugues into a listening session can make Bach’s masterpiece something (as he once wrote elsewhere) “for music lovers to refresh their spirit.” Dan Davis
   
   
 

R. Newman: Seabiscuit. Frank Wolf, Bruno Coon, Randy Newman, producers; Frank Wolf, Armin Steiner, engineers. Decca B0000772

Buy CD
 

T. Newman: Finding Nemo. Thomas Newman, Bill Bernstein, producers; Tommy Vicari, Armin Steiner, engineers. Walt Disney Records 60078

Buy CD

 

Elfman: The Hulk. Danny Elfman, producer; Robert Fernandez, Dennis Sands, engineers. Decca B0000633

Buy CD
  So far, this has been a grim year for film music, especially when compared to last year’s embarrassment of riches. However, whenever the name “Newman” appears on the credits, there is hope for something interesting.
      Randy Newman has become synonymous with Hollywood’s idea of Americana. At times he almost seems to be preaching to us with his warm, plangent chords and simple, diatonic melodies. One cliché follows another, but many of them were created for film by Newman—Copland without the jagged edges. If this style works for you, Seabiscuit will provide a pleasurable experience. If not, you may need to run to the nearest barf bag. I must admit to a certain weakness for this stuff. Some critics have attacked the score as overly sentimental and for being too loud on the soundtrack, but they are the usual suspects who reject any music that plays a prominent role in the drama. The orchestra is recorded very closely, creating larger-than-life instrumental images, limited dynamic range, and no true concert hall acoustic. But it really doesn’t matter. This is mood music, not concert music. As such, it can be played at any volume that suits your purpose.
      Finding Nemo is a lovable little film and an excellent vehicle for Thomas Newman. In the soundtrack, he utilizes his usual mix of exotic solo instruments and electronic sounds. We have to marvel at the charm and inventiveness of this music, which contains just the right amount of bittersweet emotion and menace. Despite the presence of 40 cues, the 60-minute soundtrack remains relatively seamless. There are no memorable melodies, but the score and its always fascinating orchestration are a lot of fun. It is also closely miked in the now customary soundtrack fashion, but bass is outstanding and there is plenty of dynamic contrast.
      The Hulk opens with an ominous motif derived from Danny Elfman’s Batman theme, and then launches into restless, hyperactive instrumental configurations and brass crescendos that go nowhere. Percussive blasts eventually numb the senses without making any significant emotional impact. There are no substantive contrasting ideas, despite Director Ang Lee’s attempt to make The Hulk a complex psychological drama. And even though Elfman uses a large orchestra, the listener is left with an overriding sense of electronic gimmickry. Revealingly, the credits list the score as “composed and produced” by Danny Elfman, with the help of a conductor and eight orchestrators. What would Bernard Herrmann think?
      It totally fails as a listening experience, but does The Hulk work as a sound spectacular? (There is ample precedent for audiophile recordings with limited musical value.) The soundfield is huge and artificially reverberant, with little dynamic range despite the loud volume level. Gargantuan instrumental images, now the norm for pretentious soundtrack recordings designed for boom boxes, dominate. The engineers succeed in clearly articulating the pounding drums and presumably synthesized bass with effortless power. Nevertheless, like his other recent generic action-movie scores, Spider Man and Planet of the Apes included, The Hulk makes apparent that Elfman has exhausted his bag of tricks. Arthur B. Lintgen
   
   
 
 

Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Serenata Notturna. A Musical Joke. Adagio and Fugue in C minor. Menuet and Trio in C major. The English Concert; Andrew Manze, director and violin. Robina G. Young, producer; Brad Michel, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. Harmonia Mundi 807280 (Sonic rating: 7)

 
 

Hildegard von Bingen: 11,000 Virgins. Anonymous 4. Robina G. Young, producer; Brad Michel, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. Harmonia Mundi 807200 (Sonic rating: 8)

 
  Harmonia Mundi, recognized for sonic excellence since the LP era, has released its first SACDs, including this pair featuring some of the label’s highest-profile artists.
Andrew Manze became director of The English Concert this past summer, taking over for Trevor Pinnock, who founded and led that group so successfully for 30 years. For his debut recording, Manze presents a satisfying program of Mozart’s “Night Music” (as this disc is titled). There’s no question that Manze is a scholarly, historical performance kind of guy but there’s nothing stiff or unfeeling about these readings—listen to the yielding quality of Eine kleine Nachtmusik’s opening Allegro, for instance. Especially fine is when Manze takes on the role of soloist, as when he leads the quartet-within-the-orchestra in Serenata Notturna or with the Adagio cantabile movement of A Musical Joke. In the latter piece, some of the humor is pretty broad and some is much subtler but the conductor delivers all of the jokes effectively, transforming Mozart’s intentionally “bad” compositional technique into something that’s really quite musically coherent.
      There’s a pleasing dimensionality to the 5.0 multichannel, recorded at London’s Air Studios—once Lyndhurst Road Chapel. Orchestral sections are laid out with great clarity. The 24-bit PCM recording delivers grainless, nonfatiguing string sound.
      Anonymous 4 has been one of the biggest-selling classical “acts” for years. For reissue on SACD, HM chose this 1996 recording featuring music of the Twelfth Century abbess, mystic, writer, herbalist, and self-taught composer, Hildegard von Bingen. The program relates to the legend of St. Ursula. Ursula was promised in marriage to a pagan prince. With the goal of remaining chaste, she sailed for three years on a ship with 1000 “companion virgins” and, as the story goes, she was accompanied by ten other ships, each with a noble virgin and 1000 companions. (When I do the math, it comes out to 11,011 virgins, but who’s counting?) When, on her way home, Ursula declined to wed the Hun, all the women were martyred. This is music that’s at once austere and extravagant. About 90% is unison chant, with only occasional moments of polyphony, but it’s totally absorbing nonetheless. Anonymous 4, with its original line-up, is in absolutely top form. The vocal blend is flawless as the quartet negotiates the idiosyncratic contours of Hildegard’s chant.
      The surround version is a natural representation of the sort of moderately reverberant acoustic the group favors for its concerts. A4’s voices are surrounded by a fine halo of reverberation that doesn’t at all obscure the dynamic nuances of the performances. The stereo SACD program—and the CD layer—are quite good at giving an impression of the space in which the recording was made, the Campion Center in Weston, Massachusetts. But the multichannel provides the sound that’s present in the air between the singers and the listening position. It’s magic. Andrew Quint  

Advertisement