Record Roundup: 2024 Classical In Focus
A brutally brief attempt to catch up with a smattering of great classical releases
Suddenly I looked up from the grindstones to which my nose has been surgically attached and realized I haven’t done any roundups yet this year. Between the monthly podcast, weekly A Song For Friday features, and live reviews, it’s not as if I haven’t been spreading the word. But I’m left feeling hideously behind. Herewith, a first attempt at righting that wrong with brief takes on just a few of 2024’s best classical releases.
Excerpts from most of these can be found in this playlist or below.
An American Epic
Talea Ensemble and the Harlem Chamber Players - Julius Eastman: Femenine As I noted when I presented this recording on my podcast, the idea of a definitive version of an Eastman work is misguided. Between the sometimes sketchy documentation of his intentions and the latitude he gave his interpreters the range of valid approaches is almost limitless. But listeners are allowed to play favorites and this deeply engaged and collaborative realization of Femenine is my pick. It manages to channel the pioneering spirit of the 1974 live recording within a sleeker, stunningly engineered context that hits all the marks for a contemporary Eastman record. The equally fantastic performance I saw some months after they made the recording proved that these players share a unique connection to Eastman’s music that should be part of any conversation about why he resonates so deeply with our times.
Wind and Wood
Laura Cocks & Weston Olencki - Music For Two Flutes Pretty much what you would expect from two of our most fearless composers, performers, and improvisers. That means you have NO idea what to expect, but it will be wild, committed, and uncompromising. Just letting it happen is the best approach - ask questions later.
Kyle Bruckmann - Of Rivers For most oboe players, mastering orchestral parts and the occasional solo stand might be satisfying. Not for Bruckmann, who tackles the gnarly, the conceptual, and the noise with equal flair. Working with boundary-pushing composers like Jessie Cox, Hannah A. Barnes, Helen Grimes, Linda Bouchard, and Christopher Burns has led Bruckmann to expand the sound world of the oboe. Perhaps the composer taking the least pity on the performer is Bruckmann himself, with his Proximity, Affect combining ear-splitting expulsions and ragged intakes with alien synth work. Standard-setting stuff.
Strings Attached
Kenneth Kirschner - Three Cellos This latest release from the Greyfade label is the first in their new Folio series, which means the full experience includes a gorgeous book detailing the methods and motivations behind the creation of July 8, 2017, the ten movement piece included here. Beginning with music Kirschner composed in software, the work was painstakingly adapted for three multitracked cellos in collaboration with Chris Gross, who recorded the piece with stunning assurance. The results are a contemplative immersion into the sound world of the instrument.
James Diaz & Julia Jung Un Suh - [speaking in a foreign language] Diaz has ideas about what a violin can do and be and with his co-conspirator Julia Jung Un Suh (literally) pulling the strings, they all see marvelous realization here. From the disquiet and unease of a woozy drone to the shadowed joy of a hardscrabble folk dance, these snapshots of organized time hit hard.
Jason Eckardt - Passage The JACK Quartet lays into the title piece, fully engaging with Eckardt’s inspiration, which is nothing less than some of the few ills of the post-9/11 security state. But you don’t need to know all the backstory to be gripped by the layered architecture and furious and fiery lines. The album also includes Pulse-Echo, which adds pianist Jason Hardink into the mix for a mysteriously telegraphic exchange of notes and tones, with silences and sounds given equal weight. Passage is an exemplary calling card for Eckardt’s concerns and compositional swagger. Answer the invitation stat.
Modney - Ascending Primes If he had kept to his roles as a co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble and a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, violinist and composer Josh Modney would still be having an incredible impact on the contemporary scene. But since 2018, he has been releasing an increasingly assured series of solo albums, with this latest perhaps his fiercest personal statement yet. As implied by the title, Modney’s five compositions here go through ascending forces, from the solo violin and distortion pedal of Ascender to the “undectet” of Event Horizon, which includes 11 superb players. Throughout all the pieces, there are moments of delicacy and space juxtaposed with sections of serrated aggression, most notably the return of that distortion pedal - deployed with extreme prejudice - in the third movement of Fragmentation And The Single Form. It’s cathartic and thrilling, just like this whole magisterial album.
Chamber Made
Yu-Hui Chang - Mind Like Water Sparkling performances by the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, the Composers Conference Ensemble (featuring many members of Talea Ensemble), and cellist Rhonda Rider illuminate four spare and poetic chamber pieces, making this portrait album a perfect introduction to the Taiwanese-American composer.
Osnat Netzer - Dot : Line : Sigh This debut portrait album is animated by the tension behind Netzer’s cerebral, abstract approach and the witty, often white hot titles with which she decorates them. It’s impossible for me to know how the experience of listening to a track called I AM FUCKING ZEN would be different without knowing the title - but I’d like to think an informed listener is a happier listener, LOL. While these pieces often seem to be made up of individual brushstrokes, there’s a tremendous variety of arrangement and mood. Performances by Ensemble dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, ~Nois Saxophone Quintet, and soloists match every twist and turn with ease. The overall vibe is one of smart playfulness. Let these dots, lines, and sighs decorate the vastest space known to us: the one between your ears.
Yi-Ting Lu - An Unopened Seashell Like Luciano Berio with his Sequenza series, Yi-Ting focuses on the possibilities of individual instruments in this first collection. However, there’s less of Berio’s cataloging approach (admittedly part of the charm of the Sequenzas) and more of a sense of an intuitive attraction to the guitar (Dan Lippel), bassoon (Ben Roidl-Ward), harp (Ben Melsky), piano (Lam Wong), and saxophone (Thomas Giles) as featured here. Everyone contributes incredible performances, addressing Yi-Ting’s challenges flawlessly and with flair.
Voices Added
Michael Hersch - Poppaea Past and present collide in Hersch’s devastating one-act opera, which looks at the Ancient Roman tale of Nero and the women caught up in his world of violence, corruption, and absolute power. Typically for Hersch, he zeroes in without hesitation on very modern themes of trauma, resilience, and self-actualization. His longtime collaborator, the genius soprano Ah Young Hong, puts in her finest, most concentrated performance, which is saying something. Support is too strong a word for the spellbinding work of Steve Davislim (Nero) and Silke Gang (Octavia), Ensemble Solovoices, and Ensemble Phoenix Basel, conducted by Jürg Henneberger, who all surround Hong with commitment and complexity. Poppaea is a landmark piece and this is a recording to match it.
Will Liverman - Show Me The Way The title of this deeply informed, expansive selection of songs comes from the first track, a delightfully unexpected arrangement of Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, Bud Green, and Teddy McRae’s 1937 classic. But it’s also slightly ironic because based on this and 2021’s equally excellent Dream Of A New Day, Liverman needs no one to show him the way. He is the one drawing the map, forging connections between Fitzgerald, Amy Beach, Florence Price, Kamala Sankaram, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and others with his creamy, engaging baritone, which is sensitively underpinned by pianist Jonathan King. Like the early days of Bryn Terfel, Liverman knows that a central part of the role of the lieder singer is to communicate, human to human. Make sure you’re listening.
Lainie Fefferman - Here I Am The product of 15 years of work, this deeply involving song cycle based on the Torah follows Fefferman’s last album, White Fire, perfectly. Where that work focused on women of the Old Testament, Here I Am brings the power and mystery of what was essentially a survival guide and “how to” for forming and sustaining a society united by their belief in Yahweh. Using techniques of musical theater (the good kind), art rock, and contemporary classical, Fefferman and her collaborators create a tapestry of song that reveals more with every listen.
Ekmeles - We Live The Opposite Daring Fans of this vocal ensemble - and I am one - have had to wait since 2020 for a follow-up to their deliriously good debut album but this rich feast provides enough sustenance for another lengthy hiatus. Featuring works by six composers, including Zosha Di Castri, with whom they’ve worked at least since 2019, Hannah Kendall, Shawn Jaeger, James Weeks, Erin Gee, and Ekmeles director Jeffrey Gavett, We Live… presents a slide show of wildly different approaches. From Weeks’ Primo Libro, which opens the album on a stern note, to Gee’s Mouthpiece 36, which ends things playfully, Ekmeles dazzles once again with their fearlessness, feeling, and expertise.
Pop Art
William Brittelle - Alive In The Electric Snow Dream I always thought the promise of psychedelic music was not that made you want to take mind-altering substances but that it was itself a mind-altering substance. For 21st century psychedelia look no further than this latest sci-fi fantasia from Brittelle. Outrageously colorful and unafraid to tap into the crunch and complexity of prog rock, this seven-movement work will rearrange your brain in the best way. As a bonus, we get an epic take on Dido’s Lament that would send Purcell diving under his four-poster bed.
Chris P. Thompson - Stay The Same I ended my review of Thompson’s 2020 album, True Stories And Rational Numbers with a call to action: “Put it on and the sparkle will fill your room, like mirrored mobiles spinning around themselves, as you hear the piano in a whole new way.” While there are a few of those dazzling piano tracks here, he emphatically does NOT stay the same throughout, offering up slabs of dense art rock with wit and flair. The Help You Need even touches on fractured funk while Selfie captures our moment perfectly with its spoken word narration. Thompson has opened up a universe of possibilities with Stay The Same - join the fun.
Nathalie Joachim - Ki moun ou ye Her fine 2019 album, Fanm d’Ayiti, was nominated for a World Music Grammy but it’s anyone’s guess where they would slot this one. I fear it may simply be too good to attract that often clueless institution’s ear at all! A sublime synthesis of translucent electronics, clattering beats, art-pop melodies, and chamber music strings and flute, much of the album was written on Joachim’s family farm in southern Haiti and seeks to answer a central question: Who am I? As an exemplar of the personal made universal, Ki moun ou ye lacks any air of didacticism, which even though warmly delivered was a turn-off when it came to repeat listens of Fanm d’Ayiti. There’s none of that here and the effect is even more emotionally connected - and addictive.
Find more in this vein in this playlist!
From the archive:
A Song For Friday: David Crowell
A Song For Friday: MIZU
A Song For Friday: Sugar Vendil
A Song For Friday: Nathalie Joachim
I always look forward to your Classical roundups (along with the others). Appreciate your fresh perspectives and eloquent words.
Fefferman is intriguing! Giving that and her previous release a listen. Thank you!