Tag Archives: Pacifica Quartet

Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet: Telling American Stories with music


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Anthony McGill’s star rises rapidly higher with the release of this new album. His previous Cedille release was music for woodwind soloists and orchestra and featured Anthony’s brother, flautist Demarre McGill as well. And this one is a real gem that introduces listeners to four composers whose work defines to significant degree the current state of American music. From the very well known work of Richard Danielpour to three less familiar names listeners will want to know better, this is one fine chamber music recording.

I was first introduced to the clarinet and string quartet genre via the 1957 RCA recording of Mozart’s A major Clarinet Quartet played by Benny Goodman with the Boston String Quartet (paired with Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and this disc was my first hearing of both works). I later heard the Brahms Clarinet Quintet (McGill recorded both of these on a 2014 Cedille release) and other essays in this genre but the Mozart and Brahms are forever my reference point as I imagine they are for most listeners.

Anthony McGill (photo copyright 2014 by Chris Lee)

All of these works are essentially clarinet quintets though only one bears that specific title. All but one work are recorded premieres but all are fulfilling listening experiences beautifully performed by Mr. McGill and the fabulous Pacifica Quartet . This album is almost as much an homage to the clarinet quintet genre as it is to the people and historical events that provided inspiration for the music. This is music with messages for all who want to hear them.

Pacifica Quartet (photo from their website)

All four works here are inspired by “American Stories”, as Maestro McGill says in his introductory notes, “Through music we connect with our stories.” The music here is about pain, struggle, memorial, and hope. It is more elegy than lamentation and, ultimately more music than history. But, as music, it succeeds very well and one hopes that these works will help preserve the histories described. This is beautiful and lyrical music with immediate appeal and substance that demands repeated hearings.

Richard Danielpour

Richard Danielpour’s “Four Angels” (2020) is in one movement divided into four sections, each lamenting the death of four little girls (Addie May Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Rosamond Robertson) who were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 by Ku Klux Klan members. Danielpour says in his notes, “This music also stands as a small testament to the choice for a better path, one consisting of the compassion and understanding that we must have for one another.”, a statement that could be applied to all the works herein.

James Lee III (photo from composer’s website)

James Lee III is represented by his four movement “Clarinet Quintet”(2019) here in its premiere recording. This rising star states in his liner notes that this quintet is inspired by his reading of the experiences of Native Americans. It is also, via quotation in the first movement, homage to Black American composers who preceded him. The scherzo movement is named “Awashoha”, a Choctaw word meaning, “play here”. The metaphors he attaches to his classical forms are gentle impressionistic clues to his compositional processes. It is a deeply felt work and listeners are advised to explore his well organized website.

Ben Shirley (Photo from composer’s website)

Ben Shirley’s “High Sierra Sonata” (2019) is in three movements and, according to the composer, is somewhat autobiographical, inspired by his fall into addiction and subsequent recovery. He specifically references his experience as a volunteer for an athletic event in the Eastern Sierra Mountains in eastern California where the unpredictable changes in weather provided him with a metaphor for life’s unpredictable nature, both in his life and others.

Valerie Coleman (Photo by Matthew Murphy from the composer’s website)

The recording concludes with “Shotgun Houses” (2000) by Valerie Coleman. This work, the only one on this release that is not a premiere recording, is an homage to fellow Louisville resident Muhammad Ali and references the architectural style known as “shotgun houses” known to both Ali and Coleman when they resided there. She states that the opening movement is a general homage to southern black culture, the second an homage to Ali’s mother, and the third a celebration of Ali’s triumph in the 1960 Olympics which essentially launched his fame.

Jason Vieaux with the Escher Quartet


 

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Though this album was actually released a few months before the Sharon Isbin recording containing, purely by chance, two of the same guitar quintets is perhaps an indicator that these quintets are making their way into the active performing repertoire.  I’m not really interested in the differences between the two recordings but I am interested in hearing two of the finest guitarists working today finding the two works on their respective radars at more or less the same time.

The present disc with Jason Vieaux (whose fine work has been reviewed elsewhere in this blog) and the Escher Quartet begins (as Isbin’s does) with the inconceivably little known masterpiece, the Guitar Quintet Op. 148 (1950) of Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968).  The composer’s style sounds pretty much mid-century post romantic with a wealth of Spanish references.  The high romanticism of the quintet format (compare Schubert’s Trout Quintet, Brahms and Schumann’s Piano Quintets) is well served here in an incredibly engaging work which makes significant demands on the musicians but is musically very transparent to the listener.  It is a wonder that this piece is not better known and, for that matter, that the rest of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s output is not being explored in a big way.

The second work here also deserves more hearings.  Aaron Jay Kernis’ (1960- ) 100 Greatest Dance Hits is another piece which can be described as post romantic and audience friendly.  Kernis uses some extended techniques like using the instruments percussively at times but its basically a consonant melodic experience.  It’s scoring for guitar and string quartet keep the listener in basically the same sound world and, except for Kernis’ curious titlings, this is a guitar quintet in all but name.  And the use of dance forms is a tradition that goes back at least the baroque era.  Like the opening work, it is cast in four movements.

Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) is a prolific Italian composer who spent a great deal of creative life in Spain and, as a result, has incorporated Spanish rhythms and idioms into his work.  This contemporary of Mozart and Haydn shares a similar late classical style.  The last work here is another four movement Guitar Quintet (1793), the fourth of nine he wrote and probably the best known.  The only difference between this rendition and the one by Isbin and the Pacifica Quartet is the absence of castanets in the fandango last movement.  In fact that may be one of the hooks for completists who want to hear what it sounds like in its original version (both work very well).

The performances are all full of enthusiasm and seemingly easy virtuosity that one expects from musicians of this caliber.  If you are stumped as to which one of these to get I think the only reasonable answer is, of course, both.

 

 

The Ecstasy of Enjoyment: Sharon Isbin with the Pacifica Quartet


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Cedille CDR 9000 190

I was delighted to have had the opportunity to speak with guitarist Sharon Isbin (1956-) about this fine album.  She appeared to be in the midst of a queue of interviewers set up by her press corps but she came across as a confident, relaxed, and skilled interviewee and a gracious person with a palpable passion for music.  Listening to this latest release and having a more than passing interest in this fine musician it is a joy to see her getting recognition.

Originally from the Midwest, Isbin actually began her studies in Italy where her nuclear scientist father was working as a consultant.  Her studies in Varese, Italy began at age 9 with Aldo Minella.  She also counts among her teachers Andre Segovia, Alirio Diaz, and Oscar Ghiglia among her many teachers.

Most curiously she spent time studying Bach with none other than pianist Rosalyn Tureck during the time she was working on her landmark recording of the Bach Lute Suites.  Isbin stated, “I don’t play piano and Tureck doesn’t play guitar but I wanted her insights into the preparation of this music.”  Apparently this collaborative scholarship resulted in the publication (by G. Schirmer) of two of these suites originally written for lute.

As an academic, Isbin is all about research, fact checking, and collaboration and this clearly pays off as listeners will be delighted to find.  But she is also the founder of the Guitar Department at the venerable Julliard School, a department which this year celebrates 30 years hosting students from 20 countries and, this year, establishing a DMA in guitar performance.  Her first graduate, Australian guitarist Alberta Khoury, is the first recipient of this degree.

Asked about being THE musician to start the guitar department at Julliard she related that Segovia had proposed the idea some years ago and was rejected but that she was actually asked to start the department.  An example, perhaps, of the student transcending the teacher.

Isbin plays a great deal of guitar music but, unlike many in her field, she has shown interest and devotion to music of our time as well.  In fact she estimates having at least 80 scores and arrangements either commissioned by her or dedicated to her.  It was with her recording “American Landscapes” featuring concerti commissioned from Lukas Foss, John Corigliano, and Tan Dun that first brought this artist to this reviewer’s attention.  She is the recipient of three Grammys (and this album may very well earn her a fourth).

Regarding the present release, Isbin spoke of the process of preparation involved with this music.  The Pacifica Quartet had been in residence at the University of Chicago and this was the connection (Cedille is a Chicago based, Chicago friendly label) that allowed her collaboration to appear of this fine record label.

She also spoke of the serendipitous discovery of finding that the composer’s granddaughter, Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco, actually lived near her in New York.  They began discussions and Isbin was able to view and work directly with the manuscript of the Quintet which opens the disc.  Asked about the fact that this very quintet had been recorded about a year ago by Jason Vieaux, Isbin replied that it was pure coincidence but that this piece was considered by the composer to be his finest work of chamber music.

The Italian composer, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) was born in Italy but was forced to flee the Nazis and was able, with the sponsorship of Jascha Heifetz (then a recently minted citizen himself), to come to the United States in 1939 just before the outbreak of WWII.  In fact, his family suffered a similar indignity in 1492 when they were forced from their native Spain when the Alhambra Edict forced the expulsion of Jews from the country.  The composer’s curious hyphenated name, according to Isbin, resulted when a dying friend who had no progeny asked that the composer somehow incorporate his name.  This is both sweetly romantic and evocative of the sensitivities of the man himself.

The Guitar Quintet Op. 143 (1950) is a grand romantic and virtuosic work that deserves to be heard.  It is difficult to imagine an audience not being thrilled by this music.  It is cast in four movements like a classical work (allegro, andante, scherzo, finale).  From the beginning the listener is carried along by beautiful melodies and clever collaborations between the strings and the guitar.  Isbin related that superscriptions on the score saying, “Souvenir of Spain” gave the idea for the title of this album.

This is followed by one of the most recognizable guitar concertos, the Concerto in D Major for guitar and strings by Antonio Vivaldi written about 1730.  The original is written for lute and Isbin uses an edition for guitar by Emilio Pujol with gorgeous ornamentation consistent with late baroque practice added by the present performer.  This performance is with guitar, violin, viola, and cello (no second violin) but manages to make a big sound.  This work is a personal favorite and, unlike the other works on the album, extremely well known and loved by this reviewer.  My baseline favorite recording of this piece will probably always be Julian Bream’s performance on this RCA recording but Isbin’s scholarship provides a fascinating perspective on this work.  So basically I now have two favorite recordings.

Next up is the only piece on the album where the Pacifica Quartet plays without guitar.  Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) is more or less a contemporary of Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  Offered here is Oración del Torero Op. 34 (1925).  Curiously this work was written originally for four lutes or string quartet.  Only the quartet version seems to get much play though the lute version might be interesting as well.  This work, which translates into English as “Bullfighter’s Prayer” is essentially a miniature tone poem whose drama takes on almost cinematic dimensions in its just over 7 minutes.  The Pacifica Quartet does a potent job of delivering an engaging performance.  The Pacifica consists of Simin Ganatra, first violin; Austin Hartman, second violin; Mark Holloway, viola; and Brandon Vamos, cello.  They are based at Indiana University.

Last and certainly not least is another major Quintet by an Italian composer, Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805).  His dates make him a contemporary of Mozart and Haydn, though he was born in Italy, many of his productive years were spent in Spain where he enjoyed royal patronage.  He was a prolific composer who has experienced a significant interest in the 20th century.

He wrote no less than 9 Quintets for guitar and string quartet and this one, in D Major G. 448 dates from about 1798 and is the best known of his works for this combination.  It has the rather unusual attribute of having a percussionist (one Eduardo Leandro) improvise on castanets and tambourine in the last movement, fandango.

The work is cast in three movements (pastorale, allegro, grave assai-fandango) and will remind the listener of Haydn, Mozart, and/or early Beethoven.  The music is both familiar and very entertaining.  The castanets do not appear to be included in the original score and one can find recordings without them but they really rock that last movement.

This is another triumph for Ms. Isbin and a feather in the caps of the Pacifica Quartet.  It is sonically spectacular album as well having employed the producer/engineer team of Judith Sherman and Bill Maylone.  They achieve a lucid and warm sound field with an appropriately dry resonance that makes for an intimate listening experience which reveals the details the musicians coax from the score.  Get this one, you’ll play it often.

 

 

 

PUBLIQuartet: Freedom & Faith


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Bright Shiny Things BSTC 0126

There are seemingly more string quartets performing these days than ever before and they are fine musicians.  Whether we’re talking about the Kronos Quartet, Arditti Quartet, Pacifica, Telegraph, etc. all contain truly finely trained and virtuosic musicians.  The problem is to distinguish one’s self (or one’s ensemble) in some way.  I’m not going to go into how each of the mentioned string quartets have done this so don’t worry.

My point here is to review this fine disc by yet another new music quartet called PULBIQuartet.  They have chosen, at least in this, their second release, to continue their efforts at “genre bending”, exploring music and transcribing music that is atypical of the standard quartet repertoire.  Like their colleagues they are aiming at a redefinition or perhaps a revitalization of the string quartet genre.  The performers are: Curtis Stewart, Jannina Norpoth, violins; Nick Revel, viola; and Amanda Gookin, cello.

The album at hand, titled “Freedom and Faith” presents music predominantly written by or associated with women.  Get into the Now (2017) by Jessica Meyer is classical in the sense that it uses the standard 2 violins, viola,and cello and is divided into three movements played with short pauses.  Content wise this is a strong piece which requires a great deal of virtuosity and a handful of extended techniques involving percussive use of the bodies of the instruments themselves and even a few spots that require the musicians to vocalize.  All in all a riot of a piece with good humor.  It lasts about 20 minutes and begs to be heard again.  Very entertaining!

The next 9 tracks fit into the PUBLIQuartet’s project called Mind|the|Gap which is at the heart of their efforts to breathe new life into the string quartet and, hopefully, garner some new fans.  All members of the quartet share arrangement and, at times, co-compositional duties.

Tracks 4, 5, and 6 contain transcriptions of sacred vocal music by female composers.  The Medieval Hildegard von Bingen’s, “O ignee Spiritus” is followed by Francesca Caccini’s, “Regina Coeli”, and then Chiara Margarita Cozzolani’s, “O quam suavis est Domine spiritus tuus”.  The vocal originals must be quite lovely but these works seem to retain their sacred ambiance even without the words.  So ends the section which contributes to the “faith” in the title of the album.

Who knew that “A tisket, a tasket…” was by Ella Fitzgerald’s arranger Van Alexander.  The PUBLIs (if you’ll forgive the truncation) do a marvelous and entertaining arrangement of this novelty song.  It provides a sort of comic relief dividing the faith segment of the program to the “freedom” segment.

The next 4 tracks focus on transcriptions of popular music.  These are serious pieces, not the “pop” type songs that are basically feel good or dance tunes but the type of music that is in the shadow of serious social issues.  Who better  than Nina Simone?  These are loving and strikingly original arrangements of Herb Sacker/Nina Simone’s, “Blackbird”, Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newly’s, “Feelin Good”, Nina Simone/Weldon Irvine’s, “Young Gifted and Black”, and Nina Simone’s powerful antiracist reproach in her, “Mississippi Goddam”.

These transcriptions are done in a free manner with echoes of Stephane Grappelli, Cajun music and, doubtless, references that this reviewer has not grasped.  They are highly entertaining.

The album ends with another string quartet.  This one is by Shelley Washington and it is a powerful piece.  In its relatively short ten minutes or so she manages to create some memorable sound worlds.  There are few program notes that give a clue as to the background and intended meanings of the purely instrumental works (those not derived from vocal music) but one senses political stirrings.

All in all a unique little recital which at least challenges the common notions of this chamber grouping and, frequently, succeeds.