Something unique happens in New In Music This Week: February 27th. I couldn’t choose just one top pick, I have two. Both are contemporary classical recordings.
Here are my top picks:
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: FORWARD INTO LIGHT – Sarah Kirkland Snider – New Amsterdam/Nonesuch Records
I hope composer Snider is right. That, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Her music on Forward Into Light, with its title track centered around women’s rights, certainly strikes optimistic tones.
For those who think that contemporary classical music is atonal, lacking in melody and often structureless, I suggest you listen to this incredible album. Over the course of four works, the title track, Drink the Wild Ayre, Eye of Mnemosyne and Something for the Dark, Kirkland invites us into her music. She has composed music that stimulates, engages and moves us while being accessible without being facile.
Forward Into Light was first performed in 2022 at Carnegie Hall. Drink the Wild Ayre was commissioned for Emerson String Quartet. The eight-movement Eye of Mnemosyne was commissioned by the Rochester Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra commissioned Something for the Dark.
Since first receiving this album, I’ve listened to it half-a-dozen times. There’s always something new that I discover with each listen. And isn’t that what we want from music?
Andrew Cyr conducts the Metropolis Ensemble.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: THE GROTESQUE & THE SUBLIME – Daníel Bjarnason – Sono Luminus
On a Friday morning in February of 2022, I attend an LA Philharmonic concert conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The main attraction for me was the world premiere of a piano concerto by Iceland composer Daníel Bjarnason entitled Feast. It is an aptly named piece because it was a feast for the ears – and for the eyes in the hands of pianist Víkingur Ólafsson.
With this recording, featuring pianist Frank Dupree, you can hear this incredible composition. And I can hear it again and again – which I’ve done. Taking The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe as his inspiration, Bjarnason wrote a frenetic dance between soloist and orchestra that makes navigating both Poe’s story and our struggles with the pandemic (this was written and debuted during that time) exhilarating.
The second work is Fragile Hope which Bjarnason composed in honor of his late friend, composer Jóhann Jóhansson. It is an evocative and moving work.
Inferno, yes, we’re going into the underworld, concludes the album. It’s a 3-movement piece that runs 31 minutes and showcases why Bjarnason is a composer to be reckoned with on a very serious level.
The composer leads the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in this outstanding recording.
Here are the other fine recordings to be in New In Music This Week: February 27th:
CHORAL MUSIC: SONGS OF REMEMBERING: IN MEMORY OF AHMAUD “QUEZ” ARBERY – Alexander Lloyd Blake / Tonality & Wild Up – Bright Shiny Things
From the outset of Blake’s Running From, Running To: A Musical Reflection on Ahmaud Arbery, you know you are settling down with beautiful music that tells a tragically unsettling story. Through eight movements, Blake sets to music the story of Arbery who was chased down by two men in a truck and was gunned down by them.
Soprano Angel Blue gives voice to Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones (until Jones appears late in the piece in a spoken word part of this work). Baritone Jamal M. Moore sings the part of Arbery and alto Ogi (who co-wrote this with Blake) sings the role of the Protestor in the 7th movement – No More!
Wild Up accompanies Tonality and the soloists. This is a potent piece that deserves your attention.
The album ends with Blake’s arrangements of Deep River, Poor Wayfaring Stranger and an a cappella version of No More!
CLASSICAL: FORGOTTEN MELODIES – Alexander Malofeev – Sony Classical
One of my favorite composers that isn’t performed or recorded with great frequency is the Russian composer Nikolai Medtner. With great enthusiasm I played pianist Malofeev’s Forgotten Memories hoping his performance of Medtner’s music brilliantly. And he does.
This two-disc album takes its name from Medtner’s 8-part Forgotten Melodies I, Op. 38. On this recording it’s approximately 38 minutes in length. Malofeev takes these works at a different pace than the composer did in his own recordings, but his performance is powerful and impressive. He also performs 2 Fairy Tales, Op. 48: No 2, Tale of the Elves by Medtner.
The album opens with five works by Mikhail Glinka – including The Lark. Disc two opens with six works by Sergei Rachmaninoff including the Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 3 and his Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor. Four works by Alexander Glazunov (including Song of the Volga Boatmen, Op. 97) close out the album.
All the composers are Russian as is Malofeev. His passion for these works is matched by his emotional and precise playing of them.
JAZZ: FOREVER YOURS: THE FAREWELL PERFORMANCE – Chick Corea – Candid Records/Chick Corea Productions
This recording comes from the last two solo-piano concerts Corea gave before passing away in February of 2021. The songs on Forever Yours include many of Corea’s originals, but also songs/works by Bill Evans, Jerome Kern, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Stevie Wonder and Mozart.
The recording reflects the diverse styles of music that inspired Corea throughout his career. This is a beautiful recording of his final concert. Whether it adds anything to our understanding of Corea, his music and his playing, only you can decide. It did leave me with a melancholia because only four months later, he’d be gone.
JAZZ: IN MY DREAMS – Bill Frisell – Blue Note Records
In a recording career that has last, so far, 43 years and included well over 80 albums (with more than half of those as a leader), guitarist/composer Frisell is one of jazz’s most prolific composers and one of its most distinctive.
Take his new album, In My Dreams, which is timed to his upcoming 75th birthday (March 18th). It is a mix of studio and live recordings. Of the twelve tracks, 9 are originals. The three covers are Billy Strayhorn’s Isfahan, Stephen Foster’s Hard Times and the song Home on the Range.
Throughout the album, Frisell takes listeners on a meditative journey that explores everything that makes America the beautiful, complicated, messy, confounding and inspiring country that it is.
Frisell is joined on this album by Eyvind Kang on viola; Thomas Morgan on double bass; Hank Roberts on cello; Roy Royston on drums and Jenny Scheinman on violin.
In a career filled with great albums, In My Dreams stands up there with the finest Frisell has ever made.
JAZZ: LANDINGS – Ingrid Jensen – Newvelle Records
Trumpeter/composer Jensen has, quite possibly, released her finest and most impressive album with Landings.
She’s working with Marvin Sewell on guitar, Gary Versace on organ and Jon Wikan on drums. Their playing is risky when it needs to be, swinging at other times and precise. They are a tight quartet.
The only thing that improves on the quartet is the opening track, Amsterdam After Dark, composed by George Coleman. This was the title track of his 1979 album of the same name. Coleman joins Jensen’s quartet for a powerful start to Landings. At 89 years old, Coleman sounds focused and he makes every moment have purpose.
I hope we get more music from Coleman and I can’t wait to hear where Ingrid Jensen lands next.
JAZZ: UNUSUAL SUSPECTS – Adonis Rose with Phillip Manuel – Moocha Music
If, like me, Adonis Rose and Phillip Manuel are not familiar to you, a moment to introduce them, please.
Rose is a drummer, composer and producer. He is the Artistic Director of New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. Manuel is a singer who is from New Orleans. It appears his first solo album came out in 1992 (A Time For Love) and he’s had four additional albums through 2007.
On this album, Rose and Manuel team up to take several songs that previously didn’t have lyrics and combine them with lyrics written by Manuel. There are also three songs composed by Manuel with Michael Pellera. There’s a version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller that sounds unlike any other version you’ve ever heard and they also perform Bill Withers’ Hello Like Before.
The end result is an album that feels like this generation’s version of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman because these gentlemen are so closely aligned musically and emotionally
JAZZ: VENEZUELA – LATIN AMERICAN SONGBOOK VOL. 2 – Edward Simon – Artist Share
In 2016, pianist Edward Simon released Latin American Songbook. Ten years later we get the second volume.
On this album he performs the works of Francisco De Paula Aguirre, Jacob Do Bandolim, Simón Díaz, Enrique Hidalgo, Alejandro Luis Laguna and José “Pollo” Sifontes.
Amongst the many joys of this album is hearing music by composers with whom I wasn’t familiar. My favorite track is the one that anchors the album, Dama Antañona by Aguirre. The slow build of this song over the course of nearly 18 minutes is a gorgeous example of restraint and precision.
Joining Simon on this album are Adam Cruz on drums and Reuben Rogers on bass. Jackeline Rago, who plays cuatro and maracas, is a special guest.
That’s all for New In Music This Week: February 27th.
Enjoy your weekend! Enjoy the music!
Main Photo: Art from the album cover for The Grotesque & The Sublime (Courtesy Sono Luminus)