Sharon Kam / Gregor Bühl / London Symphony Orchestra AMERICAN CLASSICS

This is a unique collection of American works involving the clarinet‚ brilliantly performed‚ but sadly‚ it is a disc very hard to enjoy because of the unrelentingly aggressive quality of the recording. Most of this music is jazz­influenced‚ which may account for the balance of a recording‚ made in the Olympic Studios in London‚ which makes it feel as though you are shut up in a matchbox with very loud and persistent performers. Maybe that is the way some jazz­lovers want to hear their music‚ but these are works that‚ for all their brash qualities‚ demand the subtlety of light and shade‚ of dynamics less than fortissimo‚ and they hardly get that here. For all the virtuosity and feeling for idiom in Sharon Kam’s solo work‚ it sometimes feels as though one is actually inside the clarinet.
I remember feeling how unnecessarily dry and aggressive the recording was for Simon Rattle’s ‘Jazz Album’ – listed in selected comparisons above – which includes Bernstein’s Prelude‚ Fugue and Riffs in a superb performance with Michael Collins as soloist. But going back to that makes me realise how‚ close as the sound is‚ it has more air round it than this one‚ and reveals far greater subtlety of shading in Collins’s solo work than is revealed in Sharon Kam’s. As for Sabine Meyer’s performance on her ‘A Tribute to Benny Goodman’ album‚ it masterfully reveals the work as having far more qualities than surface brilliance.
When it comes to Copland’s Clarinet Concerto‚ the contrast between Meyer and Kam is even more marked. The wonderfully smoochy melody of the long opening section‚ which is so seductive with Meyer‚ is here made to sound sour and unpleasant‚ and for that I am not inclined to blame the soloist‚ but simply the recording. From their scrawny sound you would never recognise string­players from the LSO either. The second of the four movements of Morton Gould’s Derivations is a ‘slowly moving contrapuntal blues’‚ but it comes across as depressingly arid. Rhythmic control in the fast music here and throughout the disc cannot be faulted‚ but how wearing it all is.
The Gershwin songs are performed in free‚ jazz­elaborated arrangements by the conductor John Cameron and Gregor Bühl (Summertime)‚ and there you might argue that the close­up sound is more appropriate‚ but even in Artie Shaw’s Clarinet Concerto – by far the least adventurous music on the disc‚ yet a skilful mix of classical and jazz procedures – one craves for more subtlety in the sound. And how odd that no hint is given in the booklet of Kam’s background or achievements. (Gramophone)

András Schiff / Dénes Várjon / Budapest Festival Orchestra / Heinz Holliger SÁNDOR VERESS Hommage à Paul Klee

Sándor Veress represents a high water mark in Hungary’s rich musical heritage. He belongs between the generations of Bartók and Kodály, his teachers, and of Ligeti and Kurtag, his pupils. He experienced both world wars and Hungary’s police state afterwards, emigrating to Switzerland at age 45. Veress also taught Heinz Holliger, who was responsible for this fine recording, a loving tribute to his teacher.

The Hommage à Paul Klee, the first of the three works on this disc, is nowhere near as grim as one might expect from someone escaping tyranny. It is a seven-movement work combining transcendent soundscapes with a frisky jazziness, presumably reflecting in music seven of Klee’s paintings. It has been adapted for ballet no doubt due to the both celestial and playful moods which Veress manages to invoke through his limpid musical lines. That said, its fifth movement, marked Allegretto (Stone Collection), is an exciting and rhythmic tour de force, with pizzicato strings adding infectious momentum to the rambunctious pianos. Similarly, the near-mystical reverie in the next-to-last movement – an Andante (Green in Green) – is followed by a tumultuous Vivo (Little Blue Devil) that charges in a headlong rush to close the Hommage.

Although neither in sonata form nor theme-and-variations structure, this Hommage à Paul Klee is a (two-) piano concerto in all but name. It convincingly blends tuneful folk forms within a near-austere aesthetic. Weightless although far from light, its ethereal transparency beautifully suits the simple yet evocative paintings that the Hommage seeks to mirror. Its shape as a suite of movements bears comparison in a number of intriguing ways to Frank Martin’s 1974 Polyptyque for violin and two small string orchestras. Claudio Veress, who runs a website for his father’s music, reports that the composer was a great admirer of Martin’s music. This work suggests that the sentiment may have been reciprocated.

Chanticleer IGNACIO DE JERÚSALEM - MANUEL DE ZUMAYA Mexican Baroque

Called “the world’s reigning male chorus” by The New Yorker magazine, the San Francisco based GRAMMY award winning ensemble Chanticleer celebrates its 37^th season in 2014-15, performing in 25 of the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for their “tonal luxuriance and crisply etched clarity,” Chanticleer is known around the world as “an orchestra of voices” for the seamless blend of its twelve male voices ranging from soprano to bass and its original interpretations of vocal literature, from Renaissance to jazz and popular genres, as well as contemporary compositions.

This extraordinary album reflects the musical sophistication of Ignacio de Jerusalem and Manuel de Zumaya, two significant composers in Mexico during the 18th century. This glorious music was widely performed throughout "New Spain," from Guatemala in the south to California missions in the north. Chanticleer is joined by the Chanticleer Sinfonia, conducted by Joseph Jennings.