Musicwhore.org Great. Another music blog. (2005-2013)

A while back, I linked to a Washington Post article describing the apathetic relationship between classical music and the Grammys. Oddly enough, the classical categories are the only ones I pay any mind.

It’s because the Grammys have a particular irrelevance in classical music circles that makes me interested in the nominees and winners more. If the classical world doesn’t really care about the awards, who cares enough to nominate and to vote?

I’m also distant enough from the classical categories not to be so derisive of its nominees. I wouldn’t question eighth blackbird’s nomination as much as I would Fergie’s.

Most of the titles in this round-up are 2008 Grammy nominees and winners, while others I just happen to be listening to at the time.

Alexander Grechaninov, Passion Week, Op. 58 (Kansas City Chorale, Charles Bruffy, conductor)

This album won the Best Engineering Award for classical recordings. I’m not sure how that’s determined. Purely vocal works are difficult to evaluate because they often just end up becoming background music to whatever other task I’m doing. That’s just my lazy disclaimer to say I played this album a few times but nothing really seeped in. It’s a 20th Century work that’s planted firmly in tonality, and the Kansas City Chorale sound wonderful. But I can’t think of anything flattering to say about the piece itself. Sorry.

Duke Quartet/Andrew Russo/Marc Mellits, Steve Reich: Different Trains/Piano Phase; Marc Mellits: String Quartet No. 2

Duke Quartet has a lot of repertoire overlap with Kronos Quartet, even performing works commissioned by Kronos. I love Kronos, but I’m really liking some of Duke’s interpretations. Duke’s reading of Different Trains has a leaner tone. The near 20-year difference between Kronos’ premiere recording and Duke’s 2007 release is sharp — the Duke recording is crisp, each part, including the sampled voices and overdubbed quartets, clearly audible. The different playing style also gives the work a nice hue. Marc Mellits’ String Quartet No. 2, by comparison, is a very accessible work, more like rock songs than classical works. Mellits and pianist Andrew Russo also tackle Reich’s Piano Phase, a piece of remarkable and difficult transformations.

eighth blackbird, Strange Imaginary Animals

This album won the award for Best Chamber Performance. The pieces on this album are all incredibly challenging, and any ensemble with the tenacity to tackle them ought to receive some recognition. David M. Gordon’s Friction System can get incredibly abrasive, while Gordon Fitzell’s Evanescence puts the ensemble through unsettling electronic effects. Jennifer Higdon’s Zaka opens the album at a manic pace, while Steven Mackey Indigenous Instruments tests eight blackbird’s rhythmic mettle. Just when the album seems to get indulgent, Dennis DeSantis’ title piece, remixed, offers relief from an intense program. Strange Imaginary Animals is not for the faint-hearted.

Joan Tower, Made in America (Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin, conductor)

Made in America dominated a number of categories, winning Best Orchestral Performance, Best Classical Album and Best Contemporary Composition. I think I would be much more impressed with the title piece if I weren’t already familiar with some of Tower’s other orchestral pieces. The works on this disc — Made in America, Tambor, Concerto for Orchestra — don’t stray too far from dramatic gestures of Silver Ladders, Island Prelude or Sequoia (reviewed previously.) Part of me wishes Tower did more to distinguish these pieces, but another part of me enjoys the energy, grandeur and color of her writing. She knows how to wring the best from an orchestra, a fact not lost on conductor Leonard Slatkin, who recorded Tower’s work previously for the Meet the Composer program.

John Adams, American Elegies (Orchestra of St. Luke’s)

This collection of elegiac works conducted by composer John Adams introduced me to Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question, a piece of incredibly beauty and grotesqueness. A chorale in strings get interrupted by violent commentary from flutes. It’s a beautiful tension. Adams compiled other pieces similar in spirit.

Ives’ Five Songs, performed by Dawn Upshaw, similarly explores that tension between lyricism and tonal ambiguity. Ingram Marshall’s Fog Tropes mixes fog horns with actual horns in a murky texture, an idea Björk would steal for her album Volta. Morton Feldman’s Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety is unusually compact, and the repetitive theme anticipates the minimalism Adams would explore years later. Oddly enough, Adams’ own variation on Feldman’s piece, Eros Piano, isn’t nearly as compelling. It’s actually the weakest — and longest — part of the album. Regardless, American Elegies is a thoughtful compilation of some affecting pieces.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Sings Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs (Boston Symphony Orchestra, James Levine, conductor)

I don’t usually listen to classical vocal music, save for times when Dawn Upshaw just happens to show up on a recording. But Neruda Songs marks the second posthumous Grammy win for Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died from cancer in 2006. Peter Lieberson, her husband, set five poems of Pablo Neruda to music for his wife to sing. I haven’t read the translations of the poems to know what Lieberson is singing, and part of me doesn’t want to. She has an expressive, sensuous voice, and her husband’s lush melodies make wonderful use of it. I’m sure reading a translation of the text may give better context of the work, but Lieberson’s performance is spellbinding enough for the emotions just to come through. Knowing any more than what can already be felt seems optional.

Michala Petri, Movements (Danish Symphony Orchestra, Shui Lan, conductor)

I don’t usually run into albums for recorder, let alone original pieces composed for the instrument. But Northern Concerto by Joan Albert Amargós earned a nomination for Best Contemporary Composition. The bright, breathy timbre of the recorder makes it an unlikely choice for concerto material, and it’s not exactly an instrument capable of very extended techniques. As such, each of the composers prevent the orchestra from overshadowing the recorder too much. Amargós’ piece is the most conventional, giving the recorder a level playing field with the orchestra. Daniel Bortz’s Pipes and Bells is a bit more adventurous, putting the recorder in a more unpredictable environment. Steven Stuckey’s Etudes for recorder and orchestra put both through their paces. Petri does a fine job of delivering the intricate lines thrown at her, but I wonder if the limitations of the instrument imposes too many restrictions on composers writing for it.

Terry Riley, The Cusp of Magic (Kronos Quartet and Wu Man)

Sometimes I think Kronos got more out of their working relationship with Terry Riley than Riley has from Kronos. The quartet credits Riley for changing the way they approach new scores, while Riley credits Kronos for bringing him back to notated composition. But Riley’s pieces for Kronos require a lot of work from me to grasp. The eclecticism for which Riley is lauded strikes me more as attention-deficit disorder.

I can’t say I love The Cusp of Magic on the whole, but there are moments that are really striking. On paper, using toys as a musical backdrop smacks of indulgence, but in practice, it’s really quite charming. On the more tonal movements, Kronos and pipa player Wu Man have a dazzling interaction. But I’m not convinced of the relationship between the haunting movements with extended instrumentation (the toys and synthesizers) and the tonal ones without. Perhaps there are really two distinct pieces here, but Riley has welded them together into one suite. It’s his call.