How Bach May Have Heard It

The latest BBC Music magazine free cover disc goes with the self explanatory title of J S Bach Great Organ Works. The organist is David Goode and the organ used is an historic 1714 Gottfried Silbermann organ in Freiburg Cathedral, Germany. It is a carefully maintained and little modified organ from Bach's time and while there is no firm evidence that he ever visited and played it, he "could" have done. It does at least provide a reasonably authentic idea of how Bach's organ music would have sounded in his own time. David Goode provides a nicely varied programme ranging from a concerto written "after Vivaldi", graceful sweeping chorales, louder and more aggressive preludes and fugues and masterful toccata and passacaglia accompaniments to yet more fuges. These show off both Bach's genius and the qualities of this organ and the light and shade and different sound worlds it can replicate. I would not be inclined to purchase discs of organ music and so these occasional BBC Music discs in the genre are extremely useful.

Latin American Passion

Like his later works based on Arab / Jewish themes, Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasion Segun San Marcos ( St Mark's Passion ) bears more resemblance to a prog rock concept album than to Bach. That in no way implies that it is of less relevance. The work is a South American take on the Passion but a modern South American take as opposed to what is becoming more familiar from the Latin American baroque period. The music includes salsa with screaming jazz influenced brass, lilting Cuban rhythms and guitars, more ancient candomble percussive effects and wistful folk strains from the mountain regions. The closest the piece comes to western classical music is in the second half with a solo violin accompaniment. The Passion does not deal in the role of Jesus and Evangelist but the chorus comments on behalf of all almost throughout. The ensemble is conducted by Maria Guinand, though many of the musicians manage to imply an improvisatory air to what they are doing. The mood is more one of carnival in many parts of the work, establishing the festive air of the mob. But eventually, the work resolves in a quiet and meditative extract in Aramaic from the Kaddish. Golijov brings the various strands of his familial background and upbringing to bear on the Passion story and it is a worthwhile and original addition to the tradition of such works.

Way Out In The Swamp

The album Gris-Gris was where clean cut New Orleans r 'n' b musician Mac Rebennack metamorphosed into Dr John The Night Tripper and embarked on a distinguished decades long career as that persona. Recorded and released at the height of psychedelia and the hippy dream, it cast a unique New Orleans perspective on those days. The novelty weirdness and other wordly qualities helped it to be embraced by the hippies but listening from this distance it is clear to see the solid strands of New Orleans varied musical history buried in the tracks. From the slaves of Congo Square, to the more latin afro-Caribbean rhythms, through early jazz and onto the distinctive shuffle beat of New Orleans r 'n' b and the Mardi Gras Indian tribes, it is all there. But what makes the disc special and sets it apart are the two tracks which open and close the album, strangeness that has rarely been heard before or since. Both Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya and the remarkable Walk On Gilded Splinters inhabit this dream world of humid, steaming swamp, voodoo religious imagery, ambiguous and mysterious spirituality and superstition. The recording technique adds to the effect, Rebennack's distinctive throaty vocals recorded up close and in your face and backing vocals, sparse instrumentation and hypnotic percussive effects placed way back in the mix but building an atmosphere at all times. Listen and enter a different world.

Italian Abstractions

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda obviously has an affinity for the music of fellow countryman Luigi Dallapiccola and has used his tenure with the BBC Philharmonic to record some of his orchestral music. This is an attractive disc which gives a fine overview of Dallapiccola's work. It begins with Dallapiccola at his most approachable in the piece Tartiniana which orchestrates sonatas by Tartini. Such endeavours were a trend among 20th century Italian composers with Casella, Respighi and Berio among others doing similar things in the footsteps of Stravinsky and Pulcinella. The soloist here with the orchestra is violinist James Ehnes. The remaining works on the disc are more typical of Dallapiccola's interest in serialism and more contemporary approaches but they are never too far out on the edge. Due Pezzi is a twelve note score but retains echoes of early music, solo violin duties here and in the remaining works falling to orchestra leader Yuri Torchinsky. Piccola Musica Notturna is a programmatic night music piece, a generally serene and reflective piece with one or two harsh outbursts, cries in the night. The remaining two contrasting works are extracts from his ballet score Marsia, which combines lyrical and even impressionistic elements with harsher grinding rhythms, and the more abstract Variazioni per Orchestra which develops his own experiments and individual take on the 12 tone system. This disc makes a good introduction to a composer who is not at all forbidding despite the modernist garb the music is dressed in.

More Than Just A Teacher

Pianist Mark Bebbington has been slowly building up a reputation as the current leading exponent of English piano music from the first half of the 20th century. This disc is the first volume of the piano music of Frank Bridge. The reputation of Bridge himself is also slowly coming out from beneath the shadow of simply being known as Britten's teacher and his music is becoming more widely available and appreciated in its' own right. This well filled disc contains several small scale miniatures covering most of the span of Bridge's piano compositions from early to late, 1905 to 1925. He tended to write with particular performers in mind and was aware of both French impressionists and Russian visionaries ( such as Ravel and Scriabin ) as well as fellow English contemporaries ( Ireland, Delius and Bax ). They often inhabit a fantasy world, are not immediately identifiable as stereotypically English, are sometimes descriptive and occasionally programmatic as in the Vignettes De Marseilles. The most substantial work on the disc both in terms of length and content is his one Sonata. This is the most experimental and the most emotionally challenging and it is no coincidence that it was written in the aftermath of WW1 when Bridge's music, in common with that of many others, underwent a significant change in mood and method becoming something altogether darker and more brooding. Bebbington has all the technique and affinity necessary to bring out the quality of these pieces.

Down In The Basement

It has become accepted wisdom that Exile On Main Street is the best Rolling Stones album, although it wasn't received as such at the time. It remains a bit of a hotch potch reflecting the infamous circumstances of its' recording in the basement of Keith Richards's mansion in the south of France. But the fullness of time have seen it benefitting from the lack of any concept or marketing conceit, it is simply a collection of songs reflecting the various influences on the band from blues, soul and rock through to country and even gospel. There are telling contributions from extra band members such as the horn section of Bobby Keys and Jim Horn, the contrasting piano styles of Ian Stewart and Nicky Hopkins and the organ of Billy Preston. It is probably the album that sees guitarist Mick Taylor at his most integrated into the band ( though it doesn't stop some of his solos being buried way down in the mix nor Mr Jagger rapping needlessly over the top of others ) He certainly is given his head on a storming version of Robert Johnson's Stop Breaking Down. Mick Jagger is just about the most mannered of rock singers but on this album he is in good voice and it is before he became something of a self parody. He also displays his harmonica skills on several tracks to good effect. "Keef" remains the beating heart of the band as always. On this anniversary release of the album there is a bonus disk which features a couple of alternate takes ( which prove the right choice was made originally ) an instrumental throwaway of no great value, a fascinating early incarnation of the song that became Tumbling Dice and six songs that could have sat happily on the original album if they had been selected ahead of any of those finally chosen.

Things That Dwell In the Night

This is a fine collection of Britten's orchestral songs played by experienced specialists in his repertoire. The two cycles for tenor , in this case Philip Langridge, are perhaps his most famous in this genre. Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, also featuring Frank Lloyd on horn and the English Chamber Orchestra under Steuart Bedford, is a superb illustration of Britten's ability to set an anthology of texts bound together by a similar theme which in this case is night, sleep and dreams. It is also a novel setting in the way that the one solo instrument interacts with and bookends the singer's contributions. The other tenor piece, Nocturne, also features Langridge with the Northern Sinfonia. The theme of the texts set makes it a later companion piece to the Serenade and it also had similar solo instrumental duets with the singer but in this case different instruments for each setting including bassoon, harp, horn, timpani, cor anglais, flute and clarinet. The members of the Sinfonia undertake these tasks admirably. The final piece is a late work, Phaedra, back with the English Chamber Orchestra and this time soloist mezzo-soprano Ann Murray. Setting an ancient Greek theme, this is more operatic in tone and is a dramatic showpiece for Murray packing a wide range of emotions into its 15 minute span.