Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra VICTORIA BORISOVA-OLLAS Angelus

ANGELUS

Lawrence Power / BBC Philharmonic / Martyn Brabbins JAMES MacMILLAN Symphony No. 4 - Viola Concerto

SYMPHONY No, 4 - VIOLA CONCERTO

BBC Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No. 3 "Pastoral" - Symphony No. 4

SYMPHONY No. 3 - SYMPHONY No. 4

Antwerp Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins KALEVI AHO Trombone Concerto - Trumpet Concerto

Hugely prolific as well as widely acclaimed, Kalevi Aho has composed 30 concertos to date. Many of them are available in recordings from BIS, and the present release features two works from the past decade. The Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra was commissioned for Jörgen van Rijen, who also performs it here. The concerto is actually Aho’s second concertante piece for the trombone – his Symphony No. 9 (1994) included a substantial and very virtuosic solo part for the instrument. In that work, and even more so in the concerto, the composer’s aim has been to extend the expressive and virtuosic possibilities of the trombone. Composed around the same time, the Trumpet Concerto is scored for the wind section of a medium-sized symphony orchestra, plus two saxophones, baritone horn and percussion. It was given its premiere by the same musicians that perform it here, the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins supporting its principal trumpet Alain De Rudder in what is often a surprisingly jazzy work.

Piet van Bockstal / Lahti Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins KALEVI AHO Oboe Concerto - Solo IX - Oboe Sonata

All three of these works rely on extended oboe techniques—but each does so in a different way. In the Sonata (1984-5, by far the Solo IX (2010), traces of the normal/extended conflict remain in the form of sometimes bitter conversation (even confrontation) among differing “sound worlds,” but without the morally loaded overlay (pure/impure) that we find in the sonata. In the Concerto (2007)—which borrows liberally from Arabic music in its scales, rhythms, and instrumentation—the extended techniques have been integrated into the soloist’s voice. No longer reflecting a musical “other,” they are treasured for their expressive potential.  

Aho is one of the most distinguished of our living composers; and, on the basis of what I’ve heard (his output is enormous), one of the most consistent: He’s stylistically wide-ranging, but his concentration is unfailing. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that all three of these imaginative works hold your attention from first note to last. Or, more accurately, these works reward your attention from first note to last. They’re not easy listening—they won’t carry you along without effort on your part. The sonata, which makes some apparent allusions to the Shostakovich 10th, is especially challenging, as both the emotional content of the music and the relation of the two performers are apt to shift unexpectedly and sometimes violently, leaving you in a state of anxious vulnerability. There’s a bit less whiplash in the 10-minute solo work, but this, too, is both vehement and changeable in a way that keeps you on your guard.  

That said, it’s the concerto to which I find myself returning most often, perhaps because it makes the most of Aho’s exceptional timbral imagination. Gavin Dixon recently referred to the “Nordic chill” of Aho’s Clarinet Quintet ( Fanfare 36:3), but there’s no chill in this Middle-Eastern inflected music. There’s no musical tourism, either—no attempt at tickling us with exoticism of the sort we hear in Ibert’s Escales , the Corigliano Oboe Concerto, or the “Arab Village” from Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee . In part, that’s because the Arabic elements are fundamental to his expressive palette, rather than a superficial add-on. Even more, though, it’s because the intensity of the music—dedicated to the memory of Aho’s mother, who died just as he was finishing it—is so far from the postcard aesthetic. The work begins with a 10-minute lament. That’s followed by four more movements, played without pause. They range wildly in character, yet the sense that the soloist is railing against the pain of the world remains. The struggle is sometimes beneath the surface of the music, but it’s never far away, and it erupts with particular violence at the end of the fifth movement. In the end, the concerto leaves you drained—and I wish that BIS had placed it at the end of the disc rather than at the beginning.  

Piet Van Bockstal plays with staggering virtuosity and an almost terrifying conviction; he gets excellent support from Brabbins and the Lahti Symphony and from pianist Yutaka Oya. BIS’s engineers capture it all with their usual skill (on the 5.0 tracks, the sound is nearly palpable), and the notes, mainly by Aho himself, give just the information you need. In sum, strongly recommended. (FANFARE / Peter J. Rabinowitz)

Louis Schwizgebel / BBC Symphony Orchestra / Fabien Gabel / Martyn Brabbins SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concertos 2 & 5

Of Camille Saint-Saëns’s five piano concertos, the G minor Second is the one most favoured. Its three movements cover majesty, wit and exuberance: a splendid piece altogether. Louis Schwizgebel (a success at the Leeds Piano Competition in 2012) brings weight, poise, deftness and sparkle to this endearing work, and is well accompanied by Fabien Gabel, the recording reporting a partnership of equals. Scarcely less fine as music is the ‘Egyptian’ Concerto (No 5). Saint-Saëns, an inveterate traveller, knew the locale first-hand. It’s a charming work, full of lovely tunes, affecting harmonies and oodles of atmosphere. Like Gabel, Martyn Brabbins is sympathetic to the music and to Schwizgebel’s intentions. If Rubinstein (in No 2), and Ciccolini and Hough in all five, should not be forsaken, then Schwizgebel is to be reckoned with, for both these performances are excellent and do these marvellous concertos proud – the finale of No 5 has the wind in its sails. Bon voyage! (Colin Anderson)

Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins SALLY BEAMISH Violin Concerto - Callisto - Symphony No. 1

Sally Beamish has enjoyed a productive association with BIS, which now releases three works involving full orchestra. The Violin Concerto (1994) is among her most immediate statements: its three movements, prefaced by quotes from Erich Maria Remarque’s novel about the First World War, All Quiet on the Western Front, proceed from a powerfully rhetorical conflict between soloist and orchestra, via a ruminative “intermezzo”, to a tense finale whose outcome is decisive if far from affirmative. Vividly scored (with some evocative writing for cimbalom), the work is ideally suited to Anthony Marwood’s blend of incisiveness and eloquence – as is Callisto (2005) to Sharon Bezaly’s resourceful flute playing. Here inspiration came from Ted Hughes’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Callisto’s transformations being represented by four types of flute and the “celestial beings” of Diana, Jove and Juno respectively by horn, trombone and trumpet – resulting in music by turns capricious, plangent and transcendent.

Yet the First Symphony (1992) leaves the strongest impression here. Beamish’s first work for orchestra is a set of double variations that integrates traditional Scottish bagpipe music with a paraphrase on Psalm 104, the outcome being a seamless though cumulative span that unfolds with truly “symphonic” inevitability. It makes no mean impact in this performance, Martyn Brabbins drawing a committed response from the Royal Scottish National players, who are hardly less attentive in the concertos. Spaciously recorded and with informative notes by the composer, this disc is ostensibly a first port of call for those new to Beamish’s music. (Gramophone)