\n<\/p>\n
Experiential Orchestra; James Blachly, conductor; Curtis Stewart, violin (Bright Shiny Things)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Julia Perry, who would have turned 100 this month, achieved some real recognition during her lifetime, but \u2014 in a tale all too common for composers who aren\u2019t white men \u2014 fell into obscurity<\/a> after her death in 1979. There have been recent efforts to revive her works, including her Violin Concerto, written in the 1960s and now recorded by the Experiential Orchestra under James Blachly, with Curtis Stewart as the soloist.<\/p>\n This brooding, 25-minute piece begins with a passionate violin cadenza, played like the rest of the concerto with heated commitment from Stewart, and then evolves frequently, without defined section breaks. It is a fine example of the sober yet seething angularity of its era, leavened with warm strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a vigorous work of mid-20th-century Neo-Classicism, and has fine company on the album in another: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson\u2019s Sinfonietta No. 1, with a wrenching slow movement and a driving finale. The recording also includes Perkinson\u2019s violin solo \u201cLouisiana Blues Strut,\u201d lively in the performance by Stewart, whose raucous, hip-hop-influenced \u201cWe Who Seek\u201d appears as well. And there is more Perry: the lushly contemplative Prelude for Strings, the alternately assertive and hovering Symphony in One Movement for Violas and Basses and the hymn \u201cYe, Who Seek the Truth,\u201d in an instrumental arrangement by Jannina Norpoth. ZACHARY WOOLFE<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When Aaron Copland died in 1990, Allan Kozinn wrote in The New York Times<\/a>, \u201cComposers\u2019 performances are not always definitive, but Copland was a fine, communicative conductor and pianist.\u201d That assessment is amply borne out by this 20-CD box set of the composer\u2019s recordings of his own oeuvre for Columbia Records.<\/p>\n Somewhat surprisingly, Copland shows himself less convincing in populist works like \u201cAppalachian Spring\u201d and \u201cRodeo,\u201d pieces in which others have brought<\/a> out the music\u2019s rhythmic snap more adroitly. Where he excels on the podium is in brawnier fare, such as \u201cMusic for a Great City,\u201d \u201cStatements\u201d and \u201cSymphonic Ode,\u201d reminding a listener how sharp-elbowed his orchestral writing could be. He was also a superb pianist and accompanist, as heard in recordings of the Sonata for Violin and Piano (with Isaac Stern); the Piano Quartet (with members of the Juilliard String Quartet); and various song cycles. Benny Goodman\u2019s two accounts of the Clarinet Concerto will remain classics as long as this music is cherished.<\/p>\n Perhaps most revealing in this set are clips from Copland\u2019s rehearsals for the chamber version of \u201cAppalachian Spring.\u201d More than once, he warns the musicians that their playing is verging too close to straight sentiment. \u201cThe sound\u2019s on the Tchaikovsky side,\u201d he says at one point. \u201cMake it more American spirit [\u2026] more cool. The music by itself is warm \u2014 you don\u2019t have to help it.\u201d Conductors should heed his advice. DAVID WEININGER<\/p>\n James Martin, baritone; Lynn Raley, piano (New World)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The New World label is committed to Black American classical repertoire, with releases including a period-orchestra version of Scott Joplin\u2019s opera \u201cTreemonisha,\u201d the \u201cBlack Manhattan\u201d series and Anthony Davis\u2019s more contemporary \u201cAmistad.\u201d<\/p>\n This varied, moving and entertaining album extends that tradition, with pieces by Davis, William Grant Still and many others \u2014 and with powerful performances by the baritone James Martin and the pianist Lynn Raley. Take Harry T. Burleigh\u2019s magnificent setting of the Whitman poem \u201cEthiopia Saluting the Colors\u201d: Here, Martin is robust and convincing when voicing both a Union Army soldier and an older, enslaved woman who is saluting the American flag.<\/p>\n But where the baritone Thomas Hampson has, in the past<\/a>, smoothly navigated the repetition of \u201csunder\u2019d\u201d during the woman\u2019s story, Martin allows a slight, vulnerable tremor to enter into his second pass at the word. At the piano, Raley\u2019s crisp attack maximizes the piece\u2019s occasionally chromatic approach to military gait. And that\u2019s just one of the fine items here. Hall Johnson\u2019s \u201cOn the Dusty Road\u201d has marvelous blues feeling; Davis\u2019s \u201cBells\u201d rings with echoes of bebop and gamelan during its take on art song. And the boogie-woogie piano elements of Margaret Bonds\u2019s \u201cThe Way We Dance in Harlem\u201d inspires rousing vocalizations from Martin. SETH COLTER WALLS<\/p>\n Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge; Harrison Cole, organ; Stephen Layton, conductor (Hyperion)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Note for note, Maurice Durufl\u00e9\u2019s Requiem is an astoundingly pretty work that critics have described as \u201ca luxuriant harmonic bath<\/a>\u201d and \u201can impressionist\u2019s large-scale plainsong fantasy<\/a>.\u201d Trained as an organist and steeped in the melodic mysticism of Gregorian chant, Durufl\u00e9 deployed plainsong with a naturalness and harmonic sophistication that sound anachronistic for the mid-20th century, but also sound eternal.<\/p>\n The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, dials up the plushness with the 1948 version for organ, and the instrument at Saint-Eustache in Paris is so sonorous and pillowy as to render an orchestra wholly unnecessary. The organist Harrison Cole swathes the sumptuous choruses in downy comfort. Chords and busy 16th-note runs drift by like clouds. Even harmonic abrasions have a smooth-edged refinement.<\/p>\n Stephen Layton\u2019s baton keeps the music flowing, all lush and heady, and the Trinity singers, treating consonants as mere suggestions, string together syllables into a liquid legato. Vaporous strands float from the soprano section, and the altos and basses are warmly anchoring yet improbably diaphanous. The tenors\u2019 bright cast occasionally pierces the mood, and the vocal soloists inject welcome verve and personality amid the ensemble\u2019s anonymous gorgeousness.<\/p>\n An incisive rendition of Poulenc\u2019s Four Lenten Motets for a cappella chorus closes the album in a display of versatility, but the Requiem\u2019s final movement, \u201cIn Paradisum,\u201d provides the true resolution. The richly arrayed divisi singing, solid yet transparent, dissolves into the organ\u2019s final chord, an elegant metaphor for apotheosis. OUSSAMA ZAHR<\/p>\n Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Bernard Haitink, conductor (BR Klassik)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Does the world really need another recording of Bruckner\u2019s Seventh Symphony by Bernard Haitink? That\u2019s a reasonable question: Bruckner\u2019s symphonies were central to the eminent conductor\u2019s repertoire, especially the Seventh, the work with which he bid farewell to his musical career<\/a>, in 2019. At<\/a> least<\/a> five<\/a> other<\/a> commercial recordings<\/a> were available before the release of this 1981 live performance. It takes little searching to<\/a> find<\/a> more<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, I found this new entry impossible to resist. Haitink was a master at pacing large symphonic structures with impeccable, understated eloquence. Few pieces reward this skill like Bruckner\u2019s Seventh, and here he shapes with just enough momentum to propel the vast opening movements onward without sacrificing the music\u2019s sonic splendor. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra plays with a refinement that\u2019s expected, and a transparency that surprises. The ensemble\u2019s brasses are appropriately potent at the work\u2019s many apexes, but they impress even more when the score calls for delicacy and restraint.<\/p>\n Bruckner front-loads so much in the first two movements that the other half of the symphony can feel like an afterthought. One additional virtue of this account is that Haitink makes the mazelike finale spring with energy, charm and a constant sense of wonder. DAVID WEININGER<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Wide As Heaven: A Century of Song by Black American Composers\u2019<\/h2>\n
Durufl\u00e9: Requiem; Poulenc: Lenten Motets<\/h2>\n
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7<\/h2>\n