A North American Collaboration

Choral Works of Morten Lauridsen
Elora Festival Singers, Noel Edison
Naxos, 8.559304

***

Here's another delightful recording from our friends at Naxos.

I discovered Morten Lauridsen via a recording by Stephen Layton and Polyphony from 2004 on Hyperion (CDA67449). I was immediately nearly heartbroken by the simple beauty of his Ave Maria; so quietly powerful was this music that I found myself seeking the disc out for mood control. I've been on a mission since then to acquire more of his oeuvre. The 64-year-old Lauridsen is professor of composition at USC, and has written several secular and sacred settings for mixed choir. Polyphony followed that initial release with a second in 2006, also on Hyperion (CDA67580), the two discs covering most of his output.

Lauridsen's writing, especially in the classic sacred settings, is wonderfully simple and direct, employing quite spare and deliberate part-writing and a limited but very engaging harmonic palette. Having made this much acquaintance, I feel I could identify him readily by this harmonic language, which is firmly tonal but gently modern.

Now comes a recent release on Naxos of an excellent cross section of Lauridsen's work, sung by a Canadian group, the Elora Festival Singers. I was thrilled by their recording a few years back of Vaughan Williams's Requiem (Naxos 8.554826), and they have released discs of Arvo Part's Berliner Messe and music of Healy Willan, among others.

But this recording of Lauridsen will stand on its own. The choir has a very warm and blended sound, and Noel Edison gives us very feeling interpretations of these works. I'm especially taken with Les Chansons des Roses, a four-movement work that concludes with an achingly beautiful, piano-supported monody that reminds me of Duruflé and his penchant for plainsong.

Having been introduced to all these works by other groups, I can say that this Naxos release equals or betters any other versions I've heard. Add in Naxos's bargain price, and you have a really attractive package.

Highly recommended.

Weiss, Volume 6

(sorry for another crappy picture)

Sylvius Leopold Weiss: Lute Sonatas, Vol. 6
Robert Barto, Lute
Naxos 8.555722

A blog friend has pointed me to Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750). The German Weiss was a direct contemporary of J. S. Bach, and they seem even to have met thru Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann. The Wikipedia entry says that Weiss is history's most prolific composer for the lute, and also one of the great technical players of the instrument. I have a number of recordings of Paul O'dette and Nigel North playing John Dowland and Bach on the lute, but it shows my myopia that I'd never even heard of Sylvius Weiss before this recent introduction. But one can sample his compositions on iTunes, and after a quick listen I did the download.

Once again, Naxos comes to the rescue, with at least eight volumes now of Weiss's lute sonatas by American lutenist Robert Barto. Not all are available on iTunes, so I just randomly picked Volume Six.

It's really lovely music, exhibiting the modernity of Bach's writing, but with just a touch of the antique (which might be as much instrument as repertoire). The sound is necessarily intimate, chamber music played in a quiet, resonant space. The writing is very charming but seems less technical than Bach's; it has, to my ear, the more relaxed contrapuntal textures of Pachelbel or Telemann. But he's very melodic, and a couple times on this disc I thought we could be listening to the lute versions of lost additional Brandenburg Concertos.

The lute is pretty new territory for me. It has some obvious similarities with the guitar, of course, but it's more complex. Most lutes have more strings than a guitar, and strings are usually doubled, with each doubled unit (or "course") tuned either in unison or in octaves, depending on the individual course and the historical period of the instrument. Frets are of gut tied around the neck, rather than a guitar's imbedded metal frets. The instrument is played essentially like a guitar, it seems, but there are some idiosyncrasies: beyond the greater pitch spread from the more numerous courses, it seems much more the custom with the lute that high notes are played by selecting a higher course rather than by stopping far up on a lower string (perhaps this counts as a versatility of the guitar and explains why fewer strings / courses were needed?). This technical aspect is something new and intriguing to me.

Lutenist Robert Barto is apparently very well known in Lute circles, and this disc seems most expertly played. Naxos has given us, as ever, a first-rate recording.

I'm eager to accumulate the other volumes of the series, and expect I might have more to say about the music with increased exposure.

Never Too Much of a Good Thing

Mark Knopfler
Shangri-La
Mercury records

***

I've been so taken with Mark Knopfler's latest, Kill to Get Crimson, that I decided to get the album previous to this one, Shangri-La.

Dating from 2004, it's in the same vein as Crimson, with very basic acoustic instrumentation and juicy, well-placed guitar phrasing (which reminds me of Count Basie in its fabulous economy). Knopfler himself mumbles his way endearingly thru the set, sounding like your local auto mechanic with a magnificent spark of talent that you'd likely miss if you didn't look closely.

His guitar playing is kind of everywhere and nowhere at once. Video footage has him often playing unaccompanied or with just a trio, which is always a challenge for an instrumentalist, but especially so for one with a quiet or sparse style. But he steps deftly into the spaces between his sung phrases, and there is a little harmonic movement that moves like a stream beneath the songs as they pass. Obviously, the studio album fattens the sound with additional musicians--Jim Cox's drumming and Chad Cromwell's Hammond B-3 seem especially tasty (of course)--but it's really Knopfler's guitar that holds the place of honor at the exhibition's center.

I'm especially taken with Song for Sonny Liston, both for its relentless, plodding gait (if this groove doesn't make you want to move something is broken) and for its eloquent exposé of a man of whom I'd scarcely heard before. But the whole album is atmospheric and devoid of artifice. In addition to Cox and Cromwell, he's joined by Richard Bennett on guitar, Guy Fletcher on keys, Glenn Worf on bass and Paul Franklin on pedal steel guitar.

Here's a bit of Sonny Liston from YouTube:

Youthful Old School

Music for Compline
Stile Antico
Choral music of Tallis, Byrd, Sheppard, Aston and White
Harmonia Mundi, HMU907419

***

Stile antico is a group of young British singers specializing in Renaissance and early baroque repertoire. I don't remember how I learned of them, though I suspect I heard a profile of the group on NPR (which is credited for launching this present CD to No. 1 in an instant). But however I heard of them, I made a mental note to look for their CD when I next found my way into a good music store. But with classical music pretty much gone from the big stores I run across in the course of my work week, I eventually caved in and downloaded the CD from iTunes.

And what a debut disc. They have chosen from a rich catalog of English Tudor heavy hitters, with 17 tracks of Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, John Sheppard and Robert White.

One can't help feeling a giddy sense of accomplishment for these dozen young men and women, who have put their heads together and come up with a life-changing plan. Certainly they have excellent role models to follow, with London being the home of numerous choirs and top-shelf vocal ensembles and the schools which produce them: the Hilliard Ensemble, Pro Cantione Antiqua, Polyphony, Oxford Camerata, the Monteverdi Choir and the Tallis Scholars come immediately to mind, and there are amazing school and church choirs everywhere. It says something fabulous about London that a new group can arise in 2007 in the midst of so much existing and established talent.

All the members of stile antico are actively engaged in study, or have recently embarked upon professional careers as singers and instrumentalists, performing in concerts and ensembles and in movie sountracks. There must be a certain critical mass wherein a cultural element like this becomes self-sustaining, as one could not make a living in this way except in a few special places. I would give my eye teeth to belong to such an ensemble (wanting only for talent and youth and expertise and geography; baby steps).

Stile antico sound on this recording as though they've been singing together for years, which is even more impressive in that they work without a conductor. They approach individual pieces as chamber musicians with everyone offering their input, yet manage to produce a highly polished product. They handle the material with professional confidence, and their blend and intonation are beyond reproach. If you don't like this recording, you're not going to like the material no matter who performs it.

The recording is first-rate, though one of the casualties of the iTunes purchase is information about where the disc was recorded (this is not a priority for most people, I know, but it's something I like to know, along with the producer and engineer, and the recording equipment). But the recording itself is where the rubber meets the road, and this one is a rare treat.

Highly recommended.

Another Dobson

Two Recordings of the 2003 Dobson Organ at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, CA.
Samuel S. Soria, organ
Delos Records

Premier Organ Recording DE 3331

• Alec Wyton: Fanfare
• Louis Vierne: Naïades for Organ, Op. 55
• Julius Reubke: The 94th Psalm - Sonata for Organ
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 547
• Olivier Messiaen: L'Ascension pour Orgue, II. & III
• Herbert Howells: Psalm Preludes, Set II No. I

____________

Organ Voices DE 3343

• Theodore Dubois: Toccata in G
• Eric De Lamarter: You Raise the Flute to Your Lips (from Four Eclogues)
• Peter Hurford: Paean
• Maurice Duruflé: Suite, Op. 5
• Paul Drayton: Pavane
• Eugene Reuchsel: Trés lent et douloureux (from Evocation de Louis Vierne)
• Olivier Messiaen: Joie et Clarté des Corps Glorieux
• Hugh McAmis: Dreams
• Edwin Lemare: Andantino (from Les Corps Glorieux)
• César Franck: Chorale No. 2 in B

***

I was trying to figure out what sonic lineage the new Dobson organ in Philadelphia's Kimmel Center claims as its kin. Certainly not (to look at recently-reviewed recordings) North Germanic baroque, and not something derived from Cavaillé-Coll's workshop. The obvious answer is that Dobson is springing into the 21st Century by way of Skinner and G. Donald Harrison and M. P. Moller and the 20th Century American Classic organ. But I don't quite hear that in the Kimmel instrument. It's lovely and powerful, and it has a stylistic and sonic coherence, but it has its own stamp; it's not quite this and not quite that, and yet I can't so far put my finger on a new direction which is distinctly Dobson. I enjoy the exercise, and it may yet come to me. But so far it seems like a branch off the family tree which is too short to gauge its direction.

My questions, in my review of the recent recording of that new Kimmel Center organ, about whether Lynn Dobson was up to so immense a task as building what is billed as "America's largest concert hall organ" were evidently misplaced. It's a confident, assured instrument and a magnificent mechanical and sonic achievement with no asterisks. But with my inherent skepticism toward the do everything organ, I've continued to scratch my head a little about the roots of its sound. Obviously, such an instrument does not appear in a poof of smoke, so in search of a little perspective I set out to see what brought Lynn Dobson to this watershed. As I mentioned in that earlier review, my familiarity with Dobson's work was confined to a small mechanical action instrument installed in a church in Minneapolis shortly after it was installed roughly 25 years ago--a world away from the behemoth in Kimmel Center. So I wasn't surprised to learn that Mr. Dobson had traversed a number of steps leading to the Kimmel organ. One of these steps, a most pertinent one, is an ambitious instrument from 2003 in Los Angeles' Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

There are at least three solo CD releases on this instrument, and I've managed to get my hands on two of them. I had seen these releases in online catalogs over the past year or two, but hadn't been paying attention. Double shame on me, as both these releases are on the Delos label, which specializes in organ recordings and is responsible for several of the most spectacularly-recorded CDs in my collection (including the Todd Wilson complete Duruflé from 1986 that tops them all). These releases bring Delos's usual engineering excellence to the task, and the instrument and space are fantastically captured.



But the organ. A four manual instrument of 76 speaking stops and 105 ranks, it's a substantial organ by any standard (though still a bit smaller than the 97 stop / 124 rank Kimmel Center organ). This organ certainly establishes the firm's credentials for tackling the Philadelphia instrument, though it's worth noting that these are the only two four manual instruments Dobson has built. (He's done many three manual organs, but these two four manual instruments are substantially larger than anything else from his shop.) The church's previous building was damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and Mr. Dobson was commissioned to build an organ (using some of the old organ's pipes) for the new church built in replacement. It's a lovely building, the kind of huge, blank-slate space which architects must rarely get a crack at. Sonically, it's not quite Notre Dame, but it's a gigantic volume of enclosed space, and very sympathetic to grand organ music. So the pedigree is excellent all around.



Our performer on these releases is the Lady of the Angels cathedral organist Samuel Soria, who gives us a mixture in both programs of firmly established and relatively unfamiliar repertoire. Soria came to Los Angles after a nine year stint in Chicago at the luscious Flentrop at Holy Name Cathedral, and has studied with some very prestigious people, including Wolfgang Rubsam, Jean Guillou and Naji Hakim. He has an excellent musical sense (I would expect nothing less with this roster of teachers), with middling tempos and sympathetic registrations. The lush acoustic is well suited for this kind of music, and Soria has good instincts for this set-up. One small complaint is that he rushes his way through the climax to the third movement of Olivier Messiaen's l'Ascension, a stirring movement which nonetheless I feel requires a player to make a case for. But it's a small niggle. Here is yet another rendition of Duruflé's Op. 5 Suite pour orgue, and Mr. Soria tackles the huge technical challenges, especially of the final movement, expertly. He also gives a thrilling rendition of Franck's Second Choral--a piece for which the instrument seems tailor-made.

After my recent attention to the very period-specific and genre-specific work of GOArt, I'm aware that an instrument which seeks to do everything well must necessarily compromise on everything. Much of mainstream contemporary organ building covers a certain tonal landscape, and it's understood that a copy of a 16th or 17th Century organ will have very limited practical application for anybody but a university. This Los Angeles Dobson gives me a little perspective from which to judge his Kimmel Center organ (of which I'm longing for a solo recording). This Lady of the Angels instrument speaks into a more sympathetic space for organ music than Kimmel Hall, and the organ here speaks clearly and has a huge dynamic range--as we'd expect from an instrument of 105 ranks. Much more than the Kimmel Center organ (to my ear), I hear a connection between this Los Angeles Dobson and the work of Ernest M. Skinner or G. Donald Harrison. This organ sounds American. It's a really big sound, the sound of large air volumes and high wind pressures and clean, forthright projection. All pipe speech characteristics and artifacts have been scrubbed clean, seemingly making for sounds where key elements would not disappear behind some closed swell shutters (which is one of the reasons I've never cared for swell boxes).

Like the Fisk organ in Dallas's Meyerson Symphony Center, this is an organ designed to fill a huge space, and it is naturally a less intimate, less delicately-nuanced sound than what we might get from a small-room instrument. It's not an idiosyncratic sound. There is a full set of fiery en chamade horizontal reeds on this organ, which bring the requisite snap to climaxes, but that leads me to one of my few complaints about the organ: something in the wind supply regulation of these en chamade reeds, or an incongruity between the wind pressures or supply of these reeds versus the rest of the organ makes the reeds a bit distracting, especially in antiphonal effects. They sound great to top off the ensemble for a climax, but as solo voices there is something off-putting in their speech and / or voicing. In parts of the Ruebke Sonata on the 94th Psalm, I momentarily wondered if there were something wrong with my sound system. I see the third recording available on this instrument is with another performer, so maybe Mr. Soria just has a different sense of what works than I do; maybe I'd agree with a different performer's choices here more.

For so large an undertaking, though, these few carps are trivial. I'm quite wowed by Mr. Dobson's work here, and I'll look forward to other recordings on both instruments. I see that Mr. Dobson is currently working on another large, four manual instrument for a church in Dallas. I anticipate that instrument, but for now I'm quite engrossed with this pair of impressive new organs from him.