April 2021 Classical Record Reviews
Jodie Devos: And Love Said…
Jodie Devos, soprano; Nicolas Krüger, piano.
Alpha 668 (24/96 WAV), 2020. Guido Tichelman, prod.; Tichelman and Bastiaan Kuijt, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Once you hear Belgian soprano Jodie Devos’s exceptionally sincere, impeccably phrased, decidedly down-to-earth rendition of Freddie Mercury’s “You Take My Breath Away,” you’ll know why I’m reviewing And Love Said… Mercury’s ballad may be the outlier on this personal, 25-track collection of English-language songs by composers from Belgium, England, and France, but it exemplifies Devos’s disarmingly direct and heartfelt approach to song.
Devos’s lovely, light soprano, beautiful throughout its range, grows especially enrapturing when she tempers her voice to a silver thread; it’s marvelously touching in Frank Bridge’s “Come to Me in My Dreams.” Devos’s renditions of Bridge’s “Love Went a-Riding over the Earth” and Roger Quilter’s “Love’s Philosophy” rival versions by the great Arleen Auger in their ability to convey the thrill of ecstatic love through beauty of sound.
Elsewhere, in songs by Vaughan Williams, Irene Poldowski, Ivor Gurney, Benjamin Britten, Darius Milhaud, William Walton, and Germaine Tailleferre, it’s impossible to separate superb musical crafting from the poetic brilliance of Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Auden, Sitwell, Rabindranath Tagore, and others. Milhaud’s Two Love Songs, Op.30 may be melodically conventional, but they set Tagore’s poetry so beautifully that they call for repeated listening. Some equally compelling songs are intentionally less scrutable, including those from Britten’s On This Island, Op.11, which slyly address same-sex love in 1930s England. Even if Nicolas Krüger’s piano is set too far back, with too much low-range emphasis, the beauty of it all will sweep you away.—Jason Victor Serinus
Hans Rott: Orchestral Works Vol.2
Gürzenich Orchestra, Christopher Ward, cond.
Capriccio C5414 (CD). 2020. Thomas Bîssl, prod.; Sebastian Nattkemper, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ***½
Rott’s E major symphony caused an internet kerfuffle when his partisans claimed that Mahler plundered Rott’s ideas after the latter’s untimely death. Most likely, Mahler was simply using, consciously or not, bits of music that stuck in his brain, as he recycled themes from other composers.
Rott’s effective but bombastic climaxes, reinforced by full, tight brass chords, are a far cry from Mahler’s clean, expressive, adeptly wrought sonorities. Rott’s structures are fresh—the first movement, like some of Mahler’s, isn’t a true sonata form—and he surprises listeners with overlapping phrases and sections.
Christopher Ward pulls this somewhat lopsided structure together. The first movement, in Wagner’s aspirational mode, unfolds with broad dignity, although the development’s “toy march” could be more piquant. The Sehr langsam is thoughtful, but the soft brass chorale lacks magic. The Mahlerian Scherzo alternates a lilting Ländler with rambunctious tuttis, and Ward propels it to an exciting finish. He builds the finale’s slow introduction with a firm through-line; in the striding march, precise accents and unmarked dynamic contrasts avoid aural fatigue. The Gürzenich Orchestra’s reeds are liquid and flexible; occasionally, as when a brass solo “speaks” late, coordination is briefly uncertain.
This score must be a nightmare to record. Capriccio’s engineers don’t completely avoid congestion, but a pillowy depth around brass solos and a lovely sense of texture in the reed chorales mitigate problems. The crisp, classical contours of the Symphony for String Orchestra have a warm, gentle ambience.—Stephen Francis Vasta
Alfred Schnittke: Works for Violin and Piano
Daniel Hope, violin; Alexey Botvinov, piano.
Deutsche Grammophon 00028948392346 (24/96 WAV), 2021. Christoph Classen, prod.; Tobias Lehmann, eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
Daniel Hope was all of 17 when, after performing the Sonata No.1 and other works by Alfred Schnittke, he met the composer for the first time. In the ensuing two years, before Schnittke was felled by his third stroke, Hope met with him to discuss, study, and perform all the works on this intentionally unsettling program.
At recording’s start, the far milder Suite in the Old Style (1972) proceeds in uneventfully lovely, polite fashion until the final movement, when the old order goes awry. Arrangements of a tame polka and tango leave us unprepared for the recording’s eyebrow-raising centerpiece, the astounding Sonata No.1 for violin and piano (1963), an earlier, modernist work that combines sardonic, Shostakovich-like commentary with elements of discord, sadness, anger, dread, alarm, and disarming lyrical beauty. Hope, so closely miked that you can hear the sound of his bow as his Guarneri’s strings resonate, controls dynamics and timbre while playing with deep knowing.
On the equally striking Madrigal in memoriam Oleg Kagan (1990) for solo violin or cello, Hope pulls out all stops with high squeals, wonky sounds, and a remarkable ability to express emptiness and solitude in the seemingly vast spaces between notes. Gratulationsrondo for violin and piano (1973) laughs at convention as it exposes a hole in the order—images of Der Leiermann (the organ grinder) at the end of Schubert’s Winterreise come to mind—while Stille Nacht (1978) skewers Christmas with a witty, cynical take that sounds like a broken music box presaging the morning after the Christmas truce during WWI. Wow stuff.—Jason Victor Serinus
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