National Youth Choir of Scotland / Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Christopher Bell CANTOS SAGRADOS

CANTOS SAGRADOS

WOMEN OF NOTE

Clara Schumann's recently recovered G-Minor Sonata['s]...bold gestures and the strong development of its ideas, especially in the substantial and stormy first movement, offer plenty of rewards, both emotional and intellectual... And while the excerpts from Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's The Year fit more comfortably into the orthodox parameters of music for (advanced) domestic use, they do so with exquisite polish... Highly recommended to anyone intrigued by the repertoire. (Peter J. Rabinowitz)

Lasting a shade under twenty minutes, Zwilich's Third Symphony is large in scale. Sinewy, assertive and confident, it is very much in the tradition of the Great American Third Symphonies of the 30s and 40s. As is the case with some of her music from the past decade or so, Shostakovich is the muse in some of the symphony's timbres, rhythms, power, and intensity... Marked Largo, the third movement cyclically revisits the first. Its midsection is strikingly dark and somber... This CD is a release of a major importance. Top recommendation. (Benjamin Pernick)

The great find of this release, however, and reason to rush out and buy it, is Galina Ustvolskaya. Born in 1919, one of the most important students of Shostakovich, and longtime resident of St. Petersburg, her music is fiercely original. I find myself almost at a loss for words to describe it. Simple motives are reiterated and developed with a sort of hypnotic force, but the os.tinati are never “cheap.“ Every gesture seems won through a titanic struggle. This is deeply spiritual music, but informed as much by anguish as transcendence... [B]y the 1988 sonata, Ustvolskaya is completely her own composer. It is only six and a half minutes long, but its thunderous, relentless low clusters (brutal sound-masses, yet still full of harmonic meaning) make it unique among piano music I have heard over the last decade, and its intensity suggests a piece far larger than its real-time duration. Though I have heard some of her music over the radio, and though I know a boomlet of her music is emerging on CD, this is my first encounter with Ustvolskaya on disc, and it has been shattering, the type of discovery that adventurous listeners dream of. (Robert Carl)

Evelyn Glennie / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Lan Shui ORIENTAL LANDSCAPES

It has often been said that Western composers came into contact with percussion and percussion music at the time of the Paris World Fair at the very end of the 19^th Century. From this time, so called exotic instruments made their way into Western music thanks to composers such as Stravinsky, Milhaud (who may well have composed the first percussion concerto of all times), Bartók, Varèse, Jolivet and Messiaen, to name but a few. Since then there have been many works for percussion, often drawing their musical inspiration from the East and the Far East. This is the common feature shared by the four pieces recorded here.

Hovhaness’s interest in Eastern cultures is well-known and many of his numerous works, both small and large, have been inspired by Japan or Bali. His xylophone concerto Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints Op.211 composed in 1965 is one such work. Its title rather suggests a suite of short colourful sketches capped by a lively dance section. Most Hovhaness hallmarks are there, most prominently, modally inflected themes. This colourful work has already been recorded (at least) once before (played by Robert van Sice who nevertheless chose to perform it on marimba rather than on xylophone [Etcetera KTC 1085]).

Thea Musgrave has composed a number of superb and highly inventive concertos, most of which have been recorded at one time or another. However, her Journey through a Japanese Landscape for marimba and wind ensemble, completed in 1994 and first performed in Cheltenham that year by Evelyn Glennie and the RNCM Wind Ensemble conducted by Timothy Reynish, is new to the catalogue. It is based on a series of Japanese haikai representing the seasons of the year. (A pity, though, that these short poems are not printed in the otherwise excellent notes.) As might be expected, this is another fine example of Musgrave’s imaginative and colourful writing. This piece is a worthy successor to her earlier concertos and a most welcome addition to her discography.

Chen Yi and Zhou Long, husband and wife incidentally, are both Chinese-born composers in their late forties. Both, too, are highly representative of Chinese composers whose early composing efforts were cut short by the so-called Cultural Revolution that – ironically enough – aimed first and foremost at suppressing rather than highlighting the pre-Communist Chinese cultural past. Thus, when allowed to resume their musical studies, they – and other Chinese composers – turned to their country’s musical and cultural past, as it were, as a reaction and an exorcism as well. Their music includes a number of features of early Chinese music in an attempt at reconciling Eastern thinking with Western musical techniques. This is quite evident in Chen’s substantial Percussion Concerto of 1998 written for and first performed by Evelyn Glennie with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lan Shui. The first movement draws on a tune from the traditional Beijing opera Farewell to my Concubine whereas the second movement is a realisation of a poem Prelude to Water Tune in which the percussion player also declaims the words imitating "the exaggerated reciting style of Beijing opera". The last movement Speedy Wind is a lively, rhythmically alert piece of music including a cadenza for percussion leading into the work’s fiery conclusion. As a whole, the piece is quite impressive and quite attractive, though it may be a bit too long. It is nevertheless quite rewarding.

The cultural world of the Tang dynasty (618 – 907) apparently means much to Zhou and has had a lasting influence on his music. His subtly scored Two Poems from Tang was selected for the 1997 Masterprize and was recorded that year by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding. His Out of Tang Court recorded here is scored for a Tang ensemble (i.e. gu-zheng [a 21-string Chinese zither], pi-pa [a 4-string lute] and er-hu [a 2-string vertical fiddle]) and orchestra. Its is a subtly and delicately piece of music of great beauty. No doubt, the real gem in this most interesting release.

Performances here could not be bettered and are superbly recorded. A rather unusual release, maybe, but a most enjoyable and interesting one opening many new musical vistas. Not for Glennie’s fans only. (Hubert Culot)