Wily Coyote

A variation on the rock and pop world's "best of" compilation albums, this disc entitled " A Portrait" is a collection of works by 20th century American composer Lou Harrison. The performers are the California Symphony conducted by Barry Jekowsky and it is fitting that they should be so, since Harrison's music is very much of the west coast. It has roots in native American music and values but is also facing Asia and taking in much from the music of Japan, China and particularly Javanese gamelan. Certain aspects recall Copland and even Dvorak before him but on the whole, Harrison is deliberately turning his back on European music, both from the classical and romantic period and more relevantly from any serialist approach. That is not to say that it eschews the experimental, the percussion piece that closes the disk, Double Music, is a joint effort with John Cage. Elegy, To The Memory Of Calvin Simmons is a simple moving piece dedicated to a young conductor who died in an accident, mainly written for strings but with solo oboe played by William Banovetz. Solstice is the work which most features those Asian influences and spotlights the solo flute of Timothy Day, while Concerto in Slendro pits the violin of Maria Bachmann aggainst a battery of percussion. Symphony No 4, which he correctly sub-titled Last Symphony, is a substantial forty minute work with a native American / ecological backdrop which culminates in the final movement with Three Coyote Stories sung / narrated by jazz soul singer Al Jarreau. These wise and humourous folk tales seem to sum up the composer himself.

World Music Before There Was World Music

In the heady days of guitar heroes in the late sixties and early seventies, there was one hero for whom the term unsung might have been invented and that was Mick Hutchinson. Who knows why superstardom did not materialise. It may have been luck, temperament, discipline, contacts, the right setting. It certainly wasn't lack of talent; together with multi-instrumentalist Andy Clark the duo Clark-Hutchinson boasted superb musicianship and imagination. We can be grateful though that there is still the phenomenal album A=MH2 to appreciate. A unique album that is impossible to pigeon hole. Not quite jazz, not quite prog rock, not exactly psychedelic and yet containing elements of all these and more. The "more" including classical, and various world musics particularly from India and the Middle East. The track Acapulco Gold even ventures into flamenco territory laced with Tudor English lute styles. Hutchinson's remarkable guitar playing is drenched in a blues feel but goes so much further into all the above mentioned influences and it is a masterclass in how to produce so many varied tones and effects from an electric guitar in a way that would even make Hendrix think twice. But all in service of the music. The contributions from Andy Clark on sax, piano, organ, bass and percussion should not be overlooked either, his piano and sax work producing telling solos and the rest providing a perfect foil for the flights of Hutchinson's guitar. The five lengthy instrumental improvisations that make up the album induce an hypnotic and ecstatic feel but by its' very nature this was destined to be very much a one off. Attempts to expand Clark-Hutchinson into a conventional band never really worked as witnessed by the bonus disc here of fairly routine blues workouts, albeit still with some fine guitar. But they never found a strong enough vocalist or front man to stand up to and complement their own strong musical personalities. Let's just be glad to hear this album.

Choral Focus

On Photography is the title of this disc on Gavin Bryars's own record label which showcases the Latvian Radio Choir and on which Bryars allows pieces by the Latvian Arturs Maskats and the more widely known Ukrainian Valentin Silvestrov to appear alongside his own work. The conducting duties for the choir are shared between Sigvards Klava and Kaspars Putnins. Among the Baltic Sates, it is perhaps Estonia that is most famous for its' choral tradition, the singing revolution and all that. But the Latvians here show that they are a force to be respected in their own right. It is perhaps a bit of a cliche to talk about the bass sound produced by choirs from this region. On this disc that is indeed evident but there is also some spectacular solo work in the female upper registers too. The pieces by Maskat and Silvestrov are both devotional. Maskats sets text from Psalm 141 while Silvestrov's Diptychon sets the Lord's Prayer in Russian and Testament, a religious poem by a Ukrainian poet Tarass Shevchenko. Bryars's own works are secular but the sound world they inhabit retains this devotional sense. There is a prose setting, And So Ended Kant's Travelling In The World, and settings of three poems by Italian Cecco Angiolieri. The title piece was meant for a large scale work for the Los Angeles Olympics but has devolved downwards in size but not in stature and focuses ( no pun intended ) on the fascination with early photography by such luminaries as Jules Verne and Pope Leo XIII. The only deviation from the acapella recording is the addition of some subtle and understated percussion but the disc is never less than entrancing.

A Genuine Partnership

Wigmore Hall in London is renowned as THE chamber music venue and this disc on its' own Wigmore Hall Live label is chamber music par excellence. The title is Violin Sonatas - 1 and is the first of a traversal of all Beethoven's violin sonatas by the duo of violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cedric Tiberghien. This particular generously filled volume contains four sonatas from early and middle period Beethoven. The violin sonata was a form that he only tackled during a concentrated period of his life, six years as opposed to for instance the string quartets which covered most of his career. There is still a clear progression to be traced however. The recording quality here is crystalline and shows all the qualities of the hall's famous acoustics. The pair of performers are both rapidly rising solo stars in their own right but have an obvious love and affinity for chamber music and play as a genuine partnership, each sensitive to the demands of the music and each other. There is no grandstanding, just a sense of joy in shared music making. This is a genuine partnership and the remainder of the cycle wil be well worth collecting.

The Best Back Porch Session Ever.....

.....is the tag line given at the beginning of each programme of series three of the BBC4 tv show Transatlantic Sessions. This disc somewhat confusedly is Volume One of Transatlantic Sessions 3. All three series contained much fine music but the songs on series three particularly grabbed me. The conceit of the programmes was informal get togethers of folk and country musicians from Scotland, Ireland and the US in a remote farm house in the Highlands of Scotland converted into an impromptu recording studio. The constants in the series, representing each side of the coin, are the Scottish violinist Aly Bain and the American dobro virtuouso Jerry Douglas. They act as musical directors and arrangers for the various combinations of musicians that are put together for each song. Obviously the musicians have been hand picked to gell and combine and the whole thing is seamless and proves, if it needed proving, the shared roots of this music. What works is that it is not in fact a loose "session" or jam but a collaboration of like minded individuals helping out friends to give the best possible setting for each song. Gems on this particular disc in the series are Paul Brady's Lakes Of Pontchartrain, Darrell Scott's Shattered Cross, Bruce Molsky's Blackest Crow and Joan Osborne's Saint Teresa but there is not a dud among the nineteen tracks, including several spirited instrumentals.

Paradise Found

During the anniversary celebrations last year, I became aware of one piece by Schumann that I did not previously know; his oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri. The peri is a mythical fairy like figure, the supposed offspring of a human and a fallen angel and as such denied access to heaven. The conceit of this tale ( based on four lengthy peoms by Thomas Moore ) is the quest by this particular peri to gain admission after being given the task of finding the thing that is of most value to the heavenly hosts. After two failed attempts bringing the blood of a fallen hero and the dying sighs of the grieving lover of a plague victim, the peri ultimately succeeds with the tears of a penitant sinner. It is not clear if the heaven represented is a Christian or an Islamic one, perhaps generic would be a better term. Schumann was in two minds whether to make this an opera or an oratorio and there are certainly operatic sections, in particular the vocal quartets. It is a tuneful and substantial work and the orchestration makes ridiculous ( as do so many other works ) the contention that Schumann could not orchestrate. The performers here are the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantiques and the Monteverdi Choir conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. The fine cast of soloists is led by Barbara Bonney as the peri and also includes Alexandra Coku, Bernarda Fink, Neill Archer, Gerald Finley, Cornelius Hauptmann and Christoph Pregardien. The oratorio does not quite fit onto one disc and so there are two other short works filling out the second disc, Requiem fur Mignon and Nachtlied. These are also well worth hearing and the Requiem benefits from the work of solo baritone William Dazeley as well as the talents of the Members of the Hanover Boys Choir. The Mignon being remembered here is not a real person but a child character from a Goethe novel but that does not make the poignancy any less deeply felt.

Showcasing The Cello

This month's edition of BBC Music magazine had a cello theme which was followed through by the free cover disc of two cello concertos, Saint-Saens's Cello Concerto No 1 and Walton's Cello Concerto. The Saint-Saens is written in one continuous span, though there are distinct passages in the piece which more or less folllow the traditional three movement convention anyway. It is an important early piece in the genre of cello concertos for the way in which Saint-Saens combats successfully the difficulties of balancing the instrument with the orchestra. It is given a fine performance here by ex BBC New Generation Artist scheme member Andreas Brantelid with the BBC Philharmonic and their upcoming new chief conductor Juanjo Mena. The BBC Philharmonic also feature in the Walton concerto under Tuomas Hannikainen and accompanying soloist Paul Watkins. Walton's concerto was his favourite among the three he wrote ( the others for violin and viola ) and it is more introverted and low key than the Saint-Saens, so much so that the original commissioner Piatigorsky pestered Walton to change the ending to a more grandstanding crowd pleasing finale. Such an ending was written but here, as is normally the case, it is the graceful elegiac completion that is performed.