NEW IN MUSIC THIS WEEK: APRIL 21st

Due to Record Store Day, New in Music This Week: April 21^st is a couple days later than usual. Not to take anything away from the fine new releases this week, but if you’ve ever seen the massive lines of collectors wanting to get those unique releases on RSD, you’ll know why I waited.

New In Music This Week: April 21^st has some outstanding releases for you to explore. 

My top pick is:

JAZZ: SILENT, LISTENING – Fred Hersch  – ECM Records

I’ve been listening to pianist/composer Hersch’s album for about two months now. I can’t stop listening to it. For nearly 51 minutes, I get to do exactly what Hersch implores us to do with his title:  be silent and listen.

Of course, he’s being relatively silent and is listening as well. Listening to his deepest thoughts and expressing them through what seems a largely improvised series of recordings.

He opens with the Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington composition Star-Crossed Lovers. He follows that with six exquisite originals before performing Russ Freeman’s The Wind. The album’s last three tracks are another Hersch original and songs written by  Oscar Hammerstein II and Sigmund Romberg (Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise) and Alec Wilder and Ben Ross Berenberg’s Winter of My Discontent.

There’s no discontent to be found here. This is a truly beautiful solo piano recording.

The rest of my selections for New In Music This Week: April 21^st are:

CLASSICAL: ALL THESE LIGHTED THINGS – Elim Chan, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra – Alpha Classics

The title of this album comes from a three-movement work by Elizabeth Ogonek that is sandwiched between Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2.

All These Lighted Things was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra were Ogonek was Composer-in-Residence. It was there that she had her violin concerto In*Silence given its first performance under the baton of Elim Chan.

I really like All These Lighted Things. The nearly 15-minute work has three very different movements, but they coalesce nicely into a potent composition and recording.

Chan makes some interesting choices with Romeo and Juliet and her Daphnis et Chloé is equally convincing. But the highlight remains Ogonek’s work.

CLASSICAL: CHOPIN: ÉTUDES, Opp. 10 & 25 – Yunchan Lim – Decca Classics

South Korean pianist Lim plays these 24 works by Chopin with such dexterity that it seems impossible that he’s so young. Though it shouldn’t. In 2022 was the youngest person to win gold at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Études Op. 10 were published in 1833.  Chopin was only a few years older than Lim so perhaps these works, amongst the most challenging in the classical repertoire, are being performed by someone so young – though much older musicians still find these works challenging. It is worth noting that some of these études were composed when Chopin was a teenager. Two years later Études Op. 25 were composed. Each set has 12 études.

Lim has been widely praised for his seemingly effortless skills. This album is only going to further that reputation.

CLASSICAL: DELIUS: HASSAN – COMPLETE INCIDENTAL MUSIC – Britten Sinfonia, Britten Sinfonia Voices, Jamie Phillips, Zeb Soanes – Chandos

This work was a discovery for me. Frederick Delius composed incidental music for a play by poet James Elroy Flecker. The work, whose full title is The Story of Hassan of Bagdad and How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand, had its world premiere in 1923.

This recording, featuring narration by Soanes, has every note of music written by Delius and runs 80 minutes. In an interview published in the Christian Science Monitor in October 1923, Delius said, “At present my music is bound up with the drama for me that I cannot think of it apart from it.”

This recording would certainly have changed his mind. The narration (by Meurig Bowen) is never intrusive, but I found myself longing to get straight to the music. 

CLASSICAL: SORABJI: TOCCATA TERZA – Abel Sánchez-Aguilera – Brilliant Classics

Composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji is not a household name. yet his deeply challenging compositions are clearly catnip for pianist Sánchez-Aguilera whose previous album was 2020’s Toccata Seconda per Pianoforteby Sorabji. 

Both works are lengthy (each over two hours) and require a level of playing that both works require. The Toccata Terza was composed in 1955 and was rediscovered in 2019 after it had gone missing.

I wasn’t familiar with Sorabji but the playing on this album and the compositions themselves mean I will be listening to more of his works. In the hands of Sánchez-Aguilera compositions that can seem dense and lengthy turn into fascinating explorations of the keyboard and all it can do.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: MAGNOLIA – Aleksander Dębicz – Warner Classics

Polish composer and pianist Dębicz first came to my attention with his 2015 album Cinematic Piano. Film music and Bach have been hugely influential to Debicz and his albums leading up to Magnolia have reflected that.

This album is the first album of solely his music. He is joined on Magnolia by horn player Konrad Gołda, guitarist Łukasz Kuropaczewski, countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński, folk flutist Michał Żak and cellist Marcin Zdunik,

Magnolia feels like a soundtrack to a film. But perhaps that was the point, to encourage us to create that movie in our own hearts and minds.  To sit with this beautiful music and let our imaginations run free.

If so, this is beautiful music to do just that.

JAZZ: ORCHESTRAS – Bill Frisell – Blue Note Records

Guitarist/composer Frisell has long accomplished so much with his choiceful consideration of musical partners. For this album his finest choice proves to by arranger Michael Gibbs who has partnered with Frisell to create concerts with two different ensembles that achieve huge success.

The first is with the Brussells Philharmonic led by Alexander Hanson. Frisell is joined by bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston for a performance that includes four songs written by Frisell, two by Gibbs and Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life.

The second album and concert is with the much smaller Umbria Jazz Orchestra. Two songs, Ron Carter’s Doom and Frisell’s Electricity are performed with both ensembles. It’s fascinating to hear the differences and the similarities in both performances.

Either way, this is a richly satisfying album that is a must-have for Frisell fans. Blue Note has also released a 3LP set that includes material note included from the concerts.

JAZZ: PERPETUAL VOID – Marta Sánchez Trio – Intakt Records

Drummer Savannah Harris and bassist Chris Tordini join pianist/composer Sánchez for a massively impressive album. The album tells you with the first track what to expect. I Don’t Wanna Live the Wrong Life and Then Die. 

Okay. We’re not taking things easy here. And they don’t, but the music is utterly compelling. Other titles include Prelude to Grief, The End of that Period and This Is The Last One About You might make you think this is all darkness. 

Sánchez is smarter than that and her musicians go along with the story here. This is Sánchez’s first trio album (having worked a lot in the quintet format). I hope there are more trio albums in her future. I wouldn’t mind be trapped in this perpetual void waiting for another trio album, but I hope I don’t have to.

OPERA: THE HOURS – KEVIN PUTS/GREG PIERCE – Renée Felming, Kelli O’Hara, Joyce DiDonato, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Yannick Nézet-Séguin  – Erato

I’ve written a few times about this wonderful opera based on Michael Cunningham’s novel. Now you can hear exactly what’s so special about it in this recording made live during a performance at the Metropolitan Opera.

DiDonato, Fleming and O’Hara a terrific in this story of three women in different times within the 20^th century. The whole cast is in fine form in this powerful opera. Fans of Virginia Woolf, the novel or the feature film will find this story being told in a unique and powerful way.

That’s all for New In Music This Week: April 21^st.

I hope you enjoy the music!