Tamara Stefanovich / Thomas Bloch / Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim / Alexander Soddy MESSIAEN Turangalîla-Symphonie

TURANGALÎLA-SYMPHONIE

 

Tamara Stefanovich INFLUENCES

On her first PENTATONE album, Tamara Stefanovich presents a highly personal selection of solo works by Bach, Bartók, Ives and Messiaen. “Influences” shows how these extraordinarily original and idiosyncratic composers let themselves be inspired by the exterior world, thereby demonstrating how authenticity comes from looking outside as well as inside. The repertoire spans from Bach’s embrace of Italian musical elements in his Aria variata alla maniera italiana, Bartók’s incorporation of folk elements in his Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, and Messiaen’s use of Hindu rhythms in Cantéyodjayâ to the collage of marching bands, sounds of trains and machinery, church hymns, ragtime and blues in Ives’ first piano sonata. In all cases, the exterior influences lead to deeply original and personal sonic galaxies. In that respect, the pieces presented here underline how identity results from a constant dialogue with our surroundings, ever changing and enriching our perceptions of ourselves and the world.

Reinbert de Leeuw / Asko|Schönberg / Netherlands Radio Choir GYÖRGY KURTÁG Complete Works for Ensemble and Choir

Recorded in Amsterdam’s  Musikgebouw and Haarlem’s Philharmonie between March 2013 and July 2016, this 3-CD Set is a milestone in the documentation of Hungarian composer György Kurtág’s s work and also a labour of love.  It brings together all of Kurtàg’s works for ensemble and for ensemble and choir. The insightful and precise performances bear witness to extensive preparation by the dedicated Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble. Conductor Reinbert de Leeuw  speaks of “learning Kurtág’s oeuvre step by step, and performing these pieces repeatedly over a period of twenty years.”  De Leeuw consulted extensively with György and Márta Kurtág before and after each session: “There were moments when I was overwhelmed at first hearing”, says the famously-demanding Kurtág, “and we could embrace the result immediately. But sometimes we were critical. The fact that Reinbert always listened to our remarks and re-recorded fragments or even whole pieces makes this publication authentic.”  Works heard here are presented in chronological order of composition, beginning with the Four Capriccios (1959-1970, rev. 1993) and continuing with Four Songs to Poems by János Pilinszky (1975),  Grabstein für Stephan (1978-79, rev. 1989), Messages of the late Miss R. Troussova (1976-80), …quasi una fantasia… (1987-88), Op. 27 No. 2 Double Concerto (1989-90), Samuel Beckett: What is the Word (1991), Songs of Despair and Sorrow (1980-1994), Songs to Poems by Anna Akhmatova (1997-2008),  Colindă-Baladă (2010),  and Brefs Messages (2011).   Extensive CD booklet includes all song texts with translations, an interview with Reinbert de Leeuw, liner notes by Wolfgang Sandner and Paul Griffith, and a statement by György Kurtág. (ECM Records)

Tamara Stefanovich / Mark Padmore / Thomas Larcher THOMAS LARCHER What Becomes

A Padmore Cycle, Thomas Larcher's songs written in 2011 for tenor Mark Padmore, sets poems by Hans Aschenwald and Alois Hotschnig. The gnomic texts sometimes seem to occupy similar territory to those of Schubert's great song cycles. But if Larcher's settings, which are beautifully tailored to the colour, clarity and expressive strengths of Padmore's voice, evoke any specific 19th-century song composer it is Schumann.

Larcher accompanies the songs himself, but he entrusts three of his solo-piano works to Tamara Stefanovich. None of the Poems, "12 pieces for pianists and other children", lasts more than three minutes. As with the seven longer numbers of What Becomes, they range between winsomeness and nagging obsessiveness, although Stefanovich plays both sets with tremendous gusto. She finds a bit more in the prepared piano writing of Smart Dust , but even here there is a nagging sense that Larcher's music rarely amounts to anything more than the sum of its parts. (Andrew Clements / The Guardian)