There is great art meant to move you and then there is music that is just nice to listen to, no matter how great the composer (and they made money selling sheet music to amateurs, so easier-to-play, populist music was a money spinner).
I’m lumping all these together because while from great composers, they are collections of music that is easy on the ear.
Gustav
Mahler Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Katharina Kammerloher (mezzo-soprano), Arttu Kataja (baritone) and Eric Schneider (piano) feature on this collection of art songs written by Mahler.
Mahler set 12 poems to music from the collection of poems “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” plus other texts; 24 “Wunderhorn” texts exist and there are 20 on here. Top marks for sleeve art, which makes an old collection of tunes look modern.
“Lob des hohen Verstandes” (“In Praise of High Intellect”) opens, and it’s a jolly tune that proves a nice opener to a programme that gets more intense and solemn in places. It’s about a contest between a cuckoo and the nightingale so there are some vocal “cuckoos” in places; as a drummer, I am pleased that the cuckoo won for his sense of rhythm. (The nightingale, with his inability to keep to a beat, probably learned lead guitar and joined a band).
Tragically, the later “Der Tamboursg’sell” (“The drummer-boy”) talks of the death of that fine musician, “Woe is me, poor drummer-boy / They lead me from my cell / Had I remained a drummer / I’d not have been in prison”. Kataja’s baritone brings a nice sense of doom and funerality (is that a word?) to this song of a drummer’s last walk.
Actually, Mahler seems to have it in for drummers, as in the otherwise jaunty “Revelge” (Reveille) he has the drummer lying dead on front of his similarly deceased former comrades; it seems to be anti-war and the narrator lies dead in front of his sweetheart’s house as the erstwhile enemy march by.
Mahler has a pleasingly dark sense of humour, though: “Ablösung im Sommer” (“The changing of the summer guard”) seems to be about the circle of life, in this the cuckoo has sung himself to death and the narrator is waiting for the season to turn and encourage the nightingale to have a warble.
This excellent collection is out on MDG, MDG90823226.
Ian Stephens: Chamber Music
This is mod
ern but only slightly too cool for school and the first work, “Celtic Elegy” is a trad as it comes, clarinet and cello playing a gentle Celtic air, the cello cleverly adding a bagpipe drone.
“Springhead Echoes” follows and switches to violin but with a slightly Celtic air in the opening bars, as if the previous song lingered on.
“Celtic Elegy” was in memory of the land but “Springhead” is a real elegy, for Rosalind Richards. She lived in Dorset so this has a pastoral English feel. It is approachable; it does have odd whimsical, modern moments, though it also has a feeling it’s about to break out into a dance. It has a Brahms influence while the following “Clarinet Quintet” also an elegy, turns to Beethoven, and jazz as well.
The three movement “North Country” nods to traditional music, reinterpreting the folk tune “The Oak and the Ash”, transforming it across three movements, “Lilting” being a bit Scottish and “Heartfelt”, starting off, well, heartfelt before becoming more lively, a dance given the modern music treatment.
Raised in Devon as a cellist and singer, Stephens studied at the University of Bristol and later worked with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He now teaches at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester.
Artists: Fitzwilliam String Quartet, Jonathan Small (oboe), Mandy Burvill (clarinet).
This is out on Divine Art, DDX 21105.
Karl-Andreas Kolly Mendelssohn Inspired By Bach
This does it what is says on the tin: inspired by Bach, Karl-Andreas Kolly explores traces of Bach in Mendelssohn’s piano works.
Bach is famed for his mathematical approach with patterns, structures and repetitions, so while I have no idea what Kolly is doing, it is an excellent album, lots of lovely, flowing piano. If you like piano, should give this a listen.
He plays a Steinway concert grand piano, the “Manfred Burki”, from 1901.
Out on MDG, 90423626.
JMC
