"New" Music Log

[Todd A]

Jumping forward to the classical era, Dmitry Bortniansky makes a first appearance in my collection. This recording starts off with a setting of an anonymous Cherubic Hymn, which sounds aged and serene and lovely, and then things jump into a more identifiably classical era soundworld. Though not entirely. Rather like Tchaikovsky’s later setting of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, big slugs of the music sound something closer to timeless. Bug slugs do not, however. Not being a musicologist, I don’t know how familiar Bortniansky may have been with Haydn, or vice versa, but in some of the writing, there’s a vaguely similar style and approach. It does sounds less austere than Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, but the buoyancy, the verve, the energy, and the clear seriousness of purpose works well. The short concerto style writing also keeps things moving along. The singing is all modern US conservatory good, so it is very good, and the recorded sound from the San Franciso venue is quite excellent. A very nice addition to my collection.

 

[Todd A]

Back to the Renaissance, and off to jolly old England, with works by Christopher Tye and William Mundy. The 16th Century music is very serious, lovely, and somewhat austere, at least when compared to, say, Spanish composers. While one can enjoy lovely polyphonic writing, much of the music is much influenced by chant, Mundy even more than Tye. The comparative simplicity of much of the writing combined with the small scale sound is most rewarding, though. Overall, another hit from Jeremy Summerly and crew.

 

[Todd A]

Time for some Tomáš Norbert Koutník! Who? Yeah, I know. I found this for a few bucks and figured it couldn’t hurt to listen to it. The 1970 vintage recording contains two works, the oratorio Kriminalista Nevinný and the Requiem in E Flat Major. Basically, the music sounds like a merging of Pachelbel and early Haydn, with dollops of Handel. The tunes sound nice enough, the orchestral writing sounds nice enough, and the singing is good enough. It’s hard to drum up a great amount of enthusiasm for the recording, but it is impossible to dislike. This would make for perfect background music to listen to while performing some mundane task, so one’s mind can wander and focus on the music from time to time. The transfer is OK. It’s hard to tell if it came from degraded tape or LP.

 

[Todd A]

Tallis time. I’m of course familiar with Thomas Tallis, and rather dig his Spem in Alium, but I’ve listened to comparatively little of his music. This recording of a Mass for Four Voices and some Motets is basically the anti-Spem. Simple, sparse, clear, this music occupies a different world. One commonality is the striking beauty. The simplicity, if anything, makes it more apparent. Perhaps a deeper dive into Tallis’ output is warranted.

 

[Todd A]

I’ve yet to amass a even a medium sized Palestrina collection, but I am familiar enough with his work that I thought I ought to go for something big and juicy in the form of the Cantica Salomonis, or the Song of Songs, expressed in twenty-nine motets. Oh yeah! Well, not really. So, the music is most excellent. The singing, however, is not. One can probably find fault in many places, but for me, the high voices are the problem. There’s an unappealing nature to the high parts. It makes listening a chore. (I think the high parts are taken by women only, though perhaps some boy sopranos are used.) The lower voices sound more tonally alluring, but also less than tidy. The Palestrina Ensemble Munich is not the most accomplished ensemble I have listened to. As a slight saving grace, the few extra encores sounds slightly more appealing. But overall, despite the involvement of living Schuberts, the recording cannot be counted a great success.

 

[Todd A]

Now here’s a composer I didn’t know that I really needed to hear. This is the second Mayr to pop up in my collection – Rupert Ignaz Mayr is the other one – and this Mayr has a claim to fame, such as it is, in the fact that he was a noted instructor of Italian bel canto opera composers, including Donizetti. He was Bavarian by birth, but he ended up spending a lot of time working farther to the South. This recording of not one, but two Messa di Gloria, one in E minor and one in F Minor, reveals Mr Mayr to be a composer of no little accomplishment. The best shorthand here is to describe the music as a perfect blend of Carl Maria von Weber and Gioachino Rossini. And that is why I really needed to hear this music. Both works are in minor keys, but they energy levels bubble and the pace stays taut. Severe religiosity is out; theatrical gestures are in. Vibrance, showy set pieces for the soloists, and multiple very Weberian horn blats permeate the whole undertaking. Mix in superb singing and really quite fine recorded sound, and this here is a winner. It turns out that Mayr wrote gobs and gobs and gobs of music, including literally hundreds of liturgical movements that could be dropped in any old place. It also turns out that conductor Franz Hauk is most devoted to Mayr’s music and has recorded a decent chunk of it for Naxos. I think I should probably investigate a bit more.