Best Of 2018: Classical

The fecundity of the contemporary classical scene continues to fill me with amazement - and gratitude. Hundreds of hours during my 2018 have been enhanced by the pioneering spirit of the composers, performers and labels who continue to inject streams of inventive sounds into an already rich river of music. My Top 25 included six of the best new music recordings, but barely scratched the surface of all the great albums that came out in the last 12 months. I will highlight some others that thrilled me this year, including a few new releases featuring old music that rose above the clamor, starting with those I already covered in previous posts.

Record Roundup: One Day In 2018
Johnny Gandelsman - J.S. Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Violin
Matteo Liberatore - Solos
Maya Baiser - The Day

Words + Music, Part 1: Laurie Anderson And Kronos Quartet
Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet - Landfall

Record Roundup: Electro-Acoustic Explorations
Clarice Jensen - For This From That Will Be Filled
Tania Chen - John Cage: Electronic Music For Piano

Best Of 2018 (So Far)
Wang Lu - Urban Inventory

Record Roundup: Avant Chamber and Orchestral
Duo Noire - Night Triptych
Joshua Modney - Engage
Seattle Symphony - Berio-Boulez-Ravel

Three Portraits: Cheung-Trapani-Du Yun
Anthony Cheung - Cycles And Arrows

Focus On Contemporary Classical
Nordic Affect - He(a)r
Lorelei Ensemble - Impermanence
Notus - Of Radiance And Refraction
The Crossing - Zealot Canticles
John Lane - Peter Garland: The Landscape Scrolls
Ken Thomson - Sextet
FLUX Quartet - Michael Hersch: Images From A Closed Ward

Piano Promenade

Whether solo and all-natural or treated and limned with electronics, the piano was at the center of dozens of notable recordings. These caught my attention.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Messiaen: Catalogue d'Oiseaux The 20th Century master's magnum opus of birdsong for 88 keys receives a gorgeous - a likely definitive - treatment from Aimard. If this is a Messiaen mountain you've been waiting to climb, let Aimard be your guide.

Igor Levit - Life It's wonderful to see this supremely talented pianist broadening his palate well beyond often recorded works by Bach and Beethoven. Here he blends Busoni and Liszt transcriptions of Bach and Wagner with Schumann's last work and pieces by Frederic Rzewski and Bill Evans for his most personal collection to date.

Lubomyr Melnyk - The Dreamers Ever Leave You and Fallen Trees Combining Melnyk's ecstatic and romantic approach to minimalism with ballet was a brilliant stroke and even without seeing the movement, Melnyk's inspiration feels very immediate. Fallen Trees is more of a group effort, with several of Melnyk's label-mates from Erased Tapes taking part - but his immersive vision is at the forefront.

Dmitri Evgrafov - Return Following on from his stunning and immersive Comprehension Of Light, Evgrafov narrows his focus on this EP, putting his melancholy piano in the foreground and proving that a limited palate hardly tones down his epic tendencies.

Tigran Hamasyan - For Gyumri This Armenian pianist is usually sorted with jazz, but his meditative pieces, especially on this EP, rub shoulders more naturally with the keyboard vanguard in this category. Put another way, when I want to listen to jazz piano I don't reach for Hamasyan, but if I've already listened to Melnyk or Evgrafov and want to keep the mood going I will.

Hauschka - Adrift and Patrick Melrose A contemporary savant of the prepared piano, Hauschka embarrassed us with many riches in the realm of soundtracks. These two are just the ones that stood out for me, with the first capturing the external loneliness of the open sea and the second exposing the contours of a different kind of loneliness, that of the acerbic character created by Edward St. Aubyn and played to a T by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Kelly Moran - Ultraviolet Moran also uses prepared piano to execute her sonic paintings, but I see her as more of a synthesist than Hauschka, which is why it makes perfect sense to see her working with Daniel Lopatin (who releases powerful electronic soundscapes as Oneohtrix Point Never) on this lush and sparkling collection.

Vicky Chow - Michael Gordon: Sonatra The great pianist from Bang On A Can demonstrates that nothing but a piano - and the wicked imagination of Michael Gordon - is required to create a musical brain teaser. M.C. Escher would be jealous of the way the repeating arpeggios seem to fold into themselves in an endless series.

Chamber Constellations

Perhaps due to economic factors, some of the most exciting and innovative new music is being written for solo instruments and small ensembles. Proof yet again that size doesn't matter!

JACK Quartet - John Luther Adams: Everything That Rises I admit to somewhat blanking out when terms like "just intonation" and "harmonic clouds" are thrown around, but one listen to this landmark, hour-long string quartet (the composer's fourth) will shut down anything cerebral for a glassy and fascinating journey into the heart of these instruments. The JACK's concentration is astonishing.

Aizuri Quartet - Blueprinting Since 2012, the Aizuri has been receiving constant acclaim for its performances but only just this fall put out its first album - and it's a doozy! Including five world-premiere recordings of works by Gabrielle Smith, Caroline Shaw, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Lembit Beecher and Paul Wiancko, Blueprinting evinces a complete unity of purpose amongst the four players in both their playing and artistic vision. While they push the envelope sonically, with percussive effects and Beecher's "sound sculptures," this is an easy album to love from the first listen.

Francis Macdonald - Hamilton Mausoleum Suite That the combination of string quartet and harp recorded in an especially resonant space (the titular mausoleum, which is in Lanarkshire, Scotland and once housed the remains of Alexander, the tenth duke of Hamilton) made for a lovely and transporting listen should come as a surprise to no one. That composer Macdonald is also the drummer in Teenage Fanclub, a band whose own fan club always seemed to overstate their importance, was certainly a surprise to me. Who knows what other amazing talents occupy the backline of other Scottish indie rock bands?

Wet Ink Ensemble - Wet Ink: 20 Even two decades in, this all-star group still plays cutting edge music as if the ink is still drying on the score. This collection, with works by Artistic Directors Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper and Eric Wubbels among others, celebrates that legacy with style.

Trey Pollard - Antiphone The in-house arranger for Spacebomb, whose work has graced some of my favorite albums in recent years, is given his head as a composer and reveals a gift for pared down chamber pieces with a bit of drama and no lack of sparkle.

Jennifer Koh - Saariaho X Koh I knew this album was inevitable after hearing Koh's commanding performance of a solo violin piece by Kaija Saariaho at the Hotel Elefant fifth anniversary benefit two years ago - but the results far exceeded my expectations. Not only does Koh have an affinity for Saariaho's sound world, but the Finnish composer's work for strings is deeply affecting and involving. The world premiere recording of the cinematic Light And Shadow for violin, cello and piano is worth the price of admission but all the pieces are riveting.

The Hands Free This debut album by an ensemble comprised of James Moore (guitar/banjo), Caroline Shaw (violin), Nathan Koci (accordion) and Eleonore Oppenheim (bass) shows that supergroups can work as all are well known for their work in groups like Roomful of Teeth, Victoire and Dither. It also makes sense musically as the unusual combination of instruments seems to mesh perfectly with their musical vision. Lovely Jenny, which wears its folk roots on its sleeve, is an especially effective song but the whole album intrigues and satisfies in equal measure. Let's hope they find time in their busy schedule to make another one of these!

Marianne Gythfeldt - Only Human A clarinetist with the Talea Ensemble and other collectives, Gythfeldt steps out on her own with this stunning (and stunningly recorded - every pop, click and breath is perfectly captured) collection of commissioned electro-acoustic works. The composers - John Link, Mikel Kuehn, David Taddie, Elizabeth Hoffman, Eric Lyon and Robert Morris - are all unknown to me, which puts the album in the class of public service for raising their profiles. Gythfeldt is setting a new standard for her instrument here.

Transient Canvas - Wired The unusual duo of Amy Advocat's bass clarinet and Matt Sharrock's marimba comes into clearer focus on their second album. Works by Kirsten Volness and Dan Van Hassel bookend the record, effectively containing the variety within, which traverses the melodic and meditative to something approaching musique concrète.

Tigue - Strange Paradise Composers and percussionists Matt Evans, Amy Garapic and Carson Moody have assembled their most lapidary offering yet as Tigue, with three long tracks making epic - and even occasionally groovy - paintings for your ears. Post-rock aficionados looking to further broaden their horizons should get with Tigue stat.

Vocalizations

The human voice, that most elemental of instruments, was well represented this year, especially in choral albums like those mentioned above and below.

Skylark Vocal Ensemble - Seven Words from the Cross One of my favorite things about this group, who were responsible for the remarkable Crossing Over, is their desire to use words and music to communicate. Sounds obvious, I know, but it's not always the case with choral music. Here the run the gamut, from William Billings and American traditional songs like Amazing Grace to Hildegard von Bingen and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, to take us on a dignified and moving journey through Christ's final statements from Golgotha. Through this kaleidoscopic selection, they manage to create a newly relevant impression of those canonical words. Like Christ's teachings themselves, these beautiful melodies need not remain in a house of worship. Play them in your house and find wonder wherever you are.

The Crossing - If There Were Water If this technically adept choir, led by Donald Nally had only released Zealot Chronicles (see above) this year, it would have been a distinguished year for them. But they also put out this dark and challenging album, which pairs two works about diaspora and displacement, stretching across centuries and continents. Greek composer Stratis Minakakais contributes Crossings Cycle, which addresses the tragedy of Syrian refugees, while Gregory W. Brown's un/body/ing addresses the removal of native Americans from western Massachusetts - and then a later eviction of European settlers, pushed out to build a reservoir. Between this and Zealot Chronicles, The Crossing is rapidly becoming a CNN for choral America.

Barbara Hannigan - Vienna: Fin de Siècle One of the finest singers of art songs takes on the birth of modernism as it arose out of late romanticism in Vienna. So we have cycles by Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Zemlinsky, Alma Mahler and Hugo Wolf, beautifully sung and sensitively accompanied by Reinbert de Leeuw on piano. What more could you ask for?

Christian Gerhaher - Schumann: Frage Somehow the incredible series of albums by baritone Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber passed me by - maybe because many of them weren't released in the U.S. This, the first in a new series taking on all of Schumann's lieder, proves Gerhaher is a singer for the ages and that Huber is the perfect accompanist. This album is an instant classic and would not sound out of place among the great Deutsche Grammophon recordings of the 50's and 60's. Is there a subscription service so I don't miss anything else from these two?

Dmitri Tymoczko - Fools And Angels Given that prog rock is respectable now it was only natural for composers to start reverse engineering it for the concert hall. While Tymoczko seems to lean more toward Gentle Giant than my beloved King Crimson in his listening habits, this collection is a wild ride of outré harmonies and adventurous textures. He also makes a convincing stab at a Scott Johnson-like approach to field recordings in Let The Bodies Hit The Floor, which uses audio from This American Life.

Living Large

Even given what I said above, there are still many new works - and old works discovered - for larger forces. Here are three of the best. 

Michael Hersch - End Stages and Violin Concerto With Images From A Closed Ward immediately establishing Hersch as a striking architect of darkness for string quartet, this album shows that he can think big as well. The Concerto is a gnarly and gripping piece, with a performance by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the International Contemporary Ensemble that will be hard to better. End Stages is featured in a live performance by the legendary Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and finds them delivering the eight short movements with authority, letting the emotionally probing writing shine. I have a feeling there will be more impressive work to come from Hersch.

Florence Price: Violin Concertos Inclusion is paramount on all sides of the concert stage and part of the road to parity is righting wrongs of the past - which is why the rediscovery of these major works by Price, an African-American woman who died in 1953, is so welcome. Albany Records, which has been championing American music for decades, is the perfect label to release Price's music, allowing her to enter the catalog alongside her peers. And this recording, with the violin of Er-Gene Kahng and the Janacek Philharmonic conducted by Ryan Cockerham, makes a more than persuasive case for these sweeping, tuneful pieces. They should be performed often, perhaps paired with a work by Dvorak, who reliably packs concert halls and famously remarked, "The future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the Negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States."

Daniel Bjarnason - Collider As demonstrated on last year's Recurrence, also performed by the excellent Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Bjarnason is a master of mood expressed in orchestral form. Could these pieces work as electronic soundscapes? Certainly - but the combination of his synthetic sensibility with the organic, analog sounds of the symphony is sublime. His soundtrack to Under The Tree, a 2017 Icelandic film nominated for an Oscar, was also released this year and is more than worthy of investigation.

Find selections from most of these albums (save Aizuri Quartet and The Hands Free) in this playlist or below. You may also find something to love in the Of Note In 2018 (Classical) playlist, which is a wider selection of what came out this year. Finally, I've collected many of the Grammy nominees in the Classical category here.

You may also enjoy:
Best Of 2018: The Top 25 
Best Of 2017: Classical
Best Of 2016: Classical
Best Of 2015: Classical and Composed

Best Of 2017: Classical

The word “classical” is just shorthand for the vast array of (mostly) composed music that stems from that tradition, a mere iceberg’s tip of which I was able to cover throughout the year. If you missed those posts, I list them and the albums they included below (aside from those I included in The Top 25), all of which are among the best of the year. Following that is a brief look at some other incredible recordings bequeathed to us in 2017.

Record Roundup: Strings And Things
Melia Watras - 26

Rupert Boyd & Laura Metcalf - Boyd Meets Girl
Sebastien Llinares - Erik Satie
Cornelius Dufallo - Journaling 2
Yaron Deutsch - Pierluigi Billone: Sgorgo Y, N & Oo

Record Roundup: On The Cutting Edge
Phong Tran - Initiate
Scott Wollschleger - Soft Aberration

Brooklyn Rider - Spontaneous Symbols

Piano Players

Leif Ove Andsnes: Sibelius The Swedish giant is mostly associated with the epic sweep of his symphonies, tone poems, and THAT violin concerto. Leave it to Andsnes to dig deep and find a wealth of solo piano music to further round out our picture of the composer. And if you’re expecting sketchy juvenalia, take note of the fact that these pieces span Sibelius’s whole career, from the cheery Opus 5 Impromptus to the Funf Skizzen (OK, it means "five sketches") of Opus 114, which find him elaborating on folk-like melodies with sophisticated sparkle. As you would expect, Andsnes plays everything with total command and a well-modulated warmth in a sonically perfect recording. The year’s essential Sibelius album. 

Rafal Blechacz - Johann Sebastian Bach If you want to wind me up, get me talking about the endless recordings of canonical works, many of which already have several brilliant interpretations from which to choose. Then someone like Blechacz comes along, on Deutsche Gramophon no less (yellow banner and all), playing such a well-conceived program of Bach and playing it so goddamned beautifully that my walls come tumbling down. Even if you have an aversion to Bach on modern piano, I urge you to check Blechacz out in the Italian Concerto, Partitas 1 and 3, and the shorter works here. There is command of tempo and timbre, as you would expect, but also spontaneity, warmth, and even joy, all of which make the music feel new. Blechacz is not as young as he looks, so I wondered why I had been unaware of him, even though he has won multiple competitions and was only the second Polish pianist in history to get an exclusive contract with DG. It comes down to repertoire, as he made his name in Chopin, which is never going to get my attention. This record is so astonishing, however, that I might just give Chopin another try.

Hauschka - What If Instead of turning his elaborately prepared piano toward Cage-ian abstraction, Volker Bertelmann, who performs as Hauschka, constructs propulsive little art-pop miniatures filled with all kinds of spine-tingling flourishes and emotional echoes. What If finds him developing his techniques further and also improving the recording of his handmade sonics to an almost three-dimensional degree, making for perhaps his most consistent album yet. I've heard other prepared pianists and they all try to be Hauschka - just stick with the original!

Sarah Cahill - Eighty Trips Around The Sun: Music By And For Terry Riley As the title hints, Cahill conceived this four-disc set as an 80th birthday tribute to Riley and it is a gift indeed. Featuring the first commercial recordings of his puckish early opus, Two Pieces, along with world premieres of pieces by his son Gyan Riley and a raft of other luminaries including Pauline Oliveros and Evan Ziporyn, this is a fully stocked treasure trove of keyboard goodness. Cahill is the ideal person to have put this together as she not only has the technique and concentration to show off the music at its best, but her working relationship with Riley spans more than a decade of commissions and performances. In short, she gets him, and is a persuasive and passionate advocate for his music and the way it has influenced composers for decades. Oliveros is definitely one of those and it is her A Trilling Piece For Terry that closes out the set, taking up all of disc four. This improvisational work is here performed as a duet with Samuel Adams, and every part of the piano is coaxed into participating resulting in a thrilling traversal of possibilities that you will want to experience more than once. There's over three hours of listening on Cahill's magnum opus, and a host of moods, so I recommend taking your time with the whole collection, which should prove definitive.

Choral Creations

The Crossing and International Contemporary Ensemble - Seven Responses This massive undertaking finds one of our finest vocal ensembles commissioning seven new works in "response" to the same number of cantatas in Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri, a 17th century monolith of religious music. But you don't need to be a believer to fall for these works by Caroline Shaw, David T. Little, Pelle Gudmunsen-Holmgreen, Hans Thomalla, Santa Ratniece, Lewis Spratlan and Anna Thorvaldsdottir. It was the latter that caught my eye when the album came out, recalling her marvelous work for Skylark's Crossing Over, and she doesn't disappoint here. Her contribution is the 10-minute Ad Genua, where fragmented strings seem to stake out a moonlit clearing for the voices to occupy in almost ghostly fashion. There's a hint of Ligeti here, as there is elsewhere on Seven Responses, and fantastic solo singing by Maren Montalbano-Brehm, a mezzo who is one of The Crossing's secret weapons.

Donald Nally, the conductor, is also a critical factor, keeping perfect balance between the voices and the complex soundscapes of the music played expertly by ICE. While the overall mood is one of nuanced contemplation, Little's dress in magic amulets, dark, from My feet, is a shock to the system with bold, dramatic gestures straight out of the Trent Reznor playbook. But that variety is key to keeping us involved as the the scale of the thing, at nearly two hours, is demanding. Stay the course, however, and you'll find the rewards are many. The Crossing's album of John Luther Adams' Canticles Of The Holy Wind is also a fascinating listen and I'm looking forward to catching up with their other 2017 releases, featuring music by Ted Hearne and Edie Hill.

Trondheim Vokalensemble and Symphony Orchestra - Ståle Kleiberg: Mass For Modern Man Grammy-nominated classical music is a mixed bag if ever there was one, but I have found it a good source to catch up on things I missed. If you want to go spelunking yourself, check out this playlist which includes nearly all of it. That's how I came across this somewhat conservative but emotionally engaging work, which strives to cover the issues of "modern man" with movements revolving around refugees, bereavement after losing a child, and even loss of faith. While the lyrics in English translation are admittedly clunky, the work succeeds on sheer feel thanks to the convincing performance by the Trondheim singers and players. Give a listen and then watch the Grammys to see if LL Cool J will have to learn how to pronounce "Trondheim Vokalensemble."

Chamber Explorations

Cadillac Moon Ensemble - Conrad Winslow: The Perfect Nothing Catalog The inspiration for the title piece on this wonderful collection of Winslow's compositions is Frank Traynor's store/gallery/art installation of the same name and there is almost the sense of moving through various rooms of random stuff as you listen to the seven movements. Footsteps, boxes falling, distorted electronics and little tunes crop up, each shift in texture, tone, melody and rhythm leading you through the cabinet of curiosities cooked up by Winslow and his collaborators, which includes producer Aaron Roche, himself a guitarist and songwriter. Roche also plays on the final work, Benediction, a quirky and atmospheric miniature for guitar and piano, demonstrating a sure hand in a technically demanding piece. Ellipsis is the other short work on the album and was composed for vibraphone and "electronics resonance" - but I also hear voices, and I don't think they're in my head! Abiding Shapes features all of Cadillac Moon, a unique ensemble of flute, violin, cello and percussion, and has Winslow composing using sawtooth, sine, and square waves, which are usually associated with electronic instruments. Somehow it comes together very musically, with even a hint of forms from the "old weird America" of folk music. Both Winslow and Cadillac Moon were new to me but this extraordinary album has put them solidly among my favorites of those making music that seems truly new and of our time.

American Contemporary Music Ensemble - Thrive on Routine I may be in the minority here - or maybe I'm just a Stan for John Luther Adams - but the distance in how captivated I am by In A Treeless Place Only Snow, his contribution to this superbly performed and recorded collection, and the other works has only grown since it was released. But listen for yourself and trust ACME's instincts before mine before making up your own mind.

Molly Joyce - Lean Back And Release This EP got a lot of people excited earlier this year and rightly so. Joyce shows a versatile and confident touch on these two pieces for solo violin and prerecorded electronics, each one developing from minimal material into something deep and involving. The performances by Adrianna Mateo and Monica Germino are highly persuasive and I suspect we will be hearing much more from Molly Joyce in the future.

Jasper String Quartet - Unbound This excellent quartet has long played newer music alongside canonical works but on Unbound they jump into the 21st Century feet first and perform seven pieces by living composers. I think they found the water to their liking as these are fantastic performances of well-curated works by Caroline Shaw, Missy Mazzoli, Annie Gosfield, Judd Greenstein, David Lang, Donnacha Dennehy, and Ted Hearne. The Sono Luminus recording is - as usual - perfect, with a close but not clinical acoustic that puts you in the center of the music, which is alternately spacey, fun, folksy and severe. Unbound easily takes its place as one of 2017's essential string quartet releases, alongside Brooklyn Rider's terrific Spontaneous Symbols and the Del Sol String Quartet's instant classic, Dark Queen Mantra.

Orchestra For One

Australian Chamber Orchestra - Jonny Greenwood: Water "And I should raise in the east/A glass of water/Where any-angled light/Would congregate endlessly" - that's the final couplet of Philip Larkin's poem, Water, which is where Greenwood, also the lead guitarist in Radiohead, gained inspiration for this sparkling piece. Alternately lush and jagged across its nearly 16-minute span, Water has a narrative thrust, which is unsurprising when you consider all of Greenwood's stellar work for Paul Thomas Anderson movies such as The Master and Inherent Vice. The piece also shows Greenwood developing as an orchestrator and he makes good use of the texture and power of the ACO's strings. I do have to complain - loudly - about the orchestra's decision to pair the piece with the umpteenth recording of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, which even he was probably sick of as the ink dried on the manuscript. Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes, which is not underrepresented by any means, would have made a more apropos companion. And Greenwood's beautiful work is priced at "album only" if you want to buy it on MP3 - argh. Stream Water, though, and if you become a fan of Greenwood's work you can join me in eagerly awaiting the soundtrack to Anderson's Phantom Thread, which will have more of his polished and intriguing music.

Holiday Hangover

I saw Easter candy in a store the other day, but that doesn't mean you have to stop listening to seasonal tunes. Christmas comes every year, in any case, and we're always looking for something new to play amidst the Bing Crosby classics. When guests pile into your house for Wassail and you're needing something whimsical that might satisfy everyone, try Imagine Christmas, in which artists from the Sono Luminus family put their own spin in familiar tunes, my favorite being ACME's (yes) imaginative take on Silent Night, a most unexpected delight. For the quiet moments before bed on Christmas Eve, there's nothing better than Winter's Night by the Skylark Vocal Ensemble, a truly glorious album of sublime choral music based around Hugo Distler's seven variations of the hymn Es ist ein Ros Entsprungen. This is one you can play any time of year, especially when you find yourself exclaiming "Serenity now!"

Listen to tracks from all of the albums below and if you're still seeking more new sounds, catch up with dozens of albums in the 2017 Archive (Classical) playlist. Whatever happens next year, you can keep track of what catches my ear in Of Note In 2018 (Classical).

Coming soon: More Best Of 2017 featuring: Hip Hop, R&B and Reggae, Electronic, and Rock, Folk, etc.

You may also enjoy:
Best Of 2017: The Top 25
Best Of 2017: Out Of The Past
Cage Tudor Rauschenberg MoMA
Best Of 2016: Classical

Best Of The Rest Of 14: Classical & Composed

I found time to write about only a few of the things I listened to in this realm throughout the course of the year. This wrap up includes those recordings and some of the many others of note.

Glenn Kotche took his compositions to new heights on Adventureland, really finding his voice outside of Wilco. It's a delightful and mysterious collection, more than living up to its title. 

Brooklyn Rider introduced me to the music of shakuhachi virtuoso Kojiro Umezaki a few years ago and I was grateful when (Cycles) came out earlier this year, collecting his emotionally charged and formally adventurous compositions.

The dog days of summer were enlivened by another wide-ranging installment of the American Composers Orchestra's Orchestra Underground series, Tech & Techno, which featured polished new compositions by a number of young composers. That album led me to Stereo Is King, a great collection of witty and fascinating work by Mason Bates, and I was glad for the pointer. 

Talea Ensemble is one of the finest new music groups in the country, if not the world. A new album by them should be a cause for celebration, and it is, for me at least. I just wish a few more people would come to the party - you don't know what you're missing. Their latest release, A Menacing Plume, focuses on the spellbinding music of Rand Steiger, an American composer and teacher who is probably more forward-thinking than some of the younger writers on the Tech & Techno Album. His use of electronics is seamless and completely assured. Like Varese, he's done his experimenting before composing his music. Talea Ensemble has chosen five of his chamber works and they're often sleek and purposeful constructions, with some of the sense of wonder Boulez inspires in his later pieces. 

Thanks to a terrific and dimensional recording and the utter conviction of Talea's players along with conductor James Baker, these are likely to be definitive recordings of these colorful works. I'll not soon forget the nimble woodwind playing or the physicality of Elizabeth Weisser's viola - you can feel the gut of the strings and the air in the resonating chamber when she plays. Marvelous. Special mention has to made of Ben Reimer's dazzling percussion on Elusive Peace which finds him playing the highly structured parts with ease and lightness of touch. Like the album as a whole, everything feels very naturalistic. Talea has no doubts about the worth of Steiger's music and neither will you after hearing this album.

I've had an ear out for Anna Thorvaldsdottir's music since Rhizoma came out a few years ago. The music on that collection was so intriguing yet also so reserved as to almost vanish as you listened. This year Deutsche Grammophon released Aerial, featuring six recent (2011-2013) works which hang together more like a concept album than a recital. This is bold music, equal parts beauty and terror, and it has a strong theatrical bent. Unusually, Thorvaldsdottir is credited with mixing, editing and production on several tracks - she obviously knows how to make things sound the way she wants. And it pays off - you'll be pulled through the album almost in a state of suspense.

Speaking of bold music, any composition by Mario Diaz de Leon is bound to make a strong first impression. His work in the drone-metal arena has left him unafraid of volume and power, but it's the finesse with which he deploys them in his concert music that makes it resonate beyond the first hearing. His piece, The Soul Is The Arena, is a highlight of There Never Is No Light, the extraordinary debut album by Joshua Rubin, a clarinetist and a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble. I doubt very highly that there is a better clarinet player in the new music world today and the ease with which he navigates Diaz de Leon's demanding work, and that of Mario Davidovsky and the other composers featured, is astounding. This is a signature release and one that will serve as an excellent introduction, should you need one, to both Rubin and some important composers.

The quantity of both stages and performance time for large-scale contemporary stage works is shrinking in the U.S. However, that doesn't stop composers from thinking big. A new release from Nonesuch featuring Louis Andriessen's La Commedia addresses this issue head on by allowing you to bring the performance, in the form of a film, into your home. That the film is directed by Hal Hartley in sumptuous black and white only sweetens the deal. While the music is often beautiful and creatively sets the words of the Bible, Dante, and others to make up a new narrative, there is a certain lack of dynamics overall, which I don't recall from Andriessen's other music. This makes La Commedia somewhat less than involving when just listened to. It really is ideally enjoyed as a visual experience - but how many people will take the time to get the most out it? All I can say is that it's worth it and kudos to all who made this realization possible.

Christopher Tignor's Core Memory Unwound is one of my favorite albums of our short century. While none of his subsequent releases have connected at that level, he can still surprise and intrigue with his singular style. Thunder Lay Down In The Heart has the feel of a theatrical piece, starting as it does with a scene-setting spoken word piece and moving through themes and variations featuring chamber instruments, electronics, and rock drums. I'm not to sure what it adds up to, but I can hear the sound of one of our more interesting musical minds at work.

Hauschka is the wizard of the prepared piano and also possesses a usually witty and warm compositional voice. Abandoned City features him at his chilliest, however, with tense rhythms and dense chord stabs. The album is as atmospheric as its title, and almost as urban. Thames Town suggests that a hip hop collaboration may be in Hauschka's future - I couldn't help but imagine how Pusha T would sound rapping over its spare instrumentation and dance beats.

Along with Joey Baron, Bobby Previte has been the go-to drummer at the intersection of the avant garde and jazz for at least a couple of decades. Terminals finds him stepping out as composer, interacting with other leading lights like Zeena Parkins (harp) and Nels Cline (busy man!) on a series of long, involving "concertos" for percussion and soloist. Y Percussion is the common denominator on this recording and, even if there is some meandering, each track is filled with drama and color.

Leif Ove Andsnes completed his Beethoven Journey this year and it would be hard to beat his recordings of these cornerstones of Romantic music. Not all Beethoven is equal to my ears, however, so if you buy aonly one disc in the series make sure it's the one containing Piano Concertos 2 and 4. This is old Ludwig at his most sparkling, especially in the 2nd Concerto, and the performances and recording are basically perfect. You can say that about the the final disc, which contained the 5th Concerto and the Choral Fantasy, except for the sparkling part. This is a side of Beethoven that doesn't move me, where his work sounds almost pro forma. But if you want to make up your own mind about this music, the Andsnes cycle is a great place to start.

Igor Stravinsky is of course known for his game-changing ballet scores and kaleidoscopic orchestrations. He also composed piano music throughout his career and now Jenny Lin has applied her masterful technique to a complete collection of those pieces - and I'm glad she did. 

Stravinsky knew his way around the piano, but Bach was the master of the keyboard and Igor Levit's new recording of the Partitas got a lot of people excited about this music again, including me. As part of my process of reviewing the album, I discovered Christiane Jaccottet's brilliant performance (on harpsichord instead of the modern piano employed by Levit) and that excited me even more.

Lou Harrison was an American composer who embraced exoticism and joy in equal measure. La Koro Sutro is one of his signature works and I was happy to see a new recording of it, although it maybe slightly more reserved than I'd like. If you can't find this one then by all means give it a listen. 

I'm not sure why Richard Reed Parry's Music For Heart & Breath excited me more in concert than in the fine recording on Deutsche Grammophon. Perhaps it was the stethoscopes or the fact that being on stage made the performers' hearts beat faster. In any case, approach it with fresh ears - you may like what you hear. There's definitely more here than just catnip for fans of Parry's band, Arcade Fire.

Bryce Dessner, guitarist for The National appears on Parry's album (indie rock mafia, anyone?) and also had his own work released under the imprimatur of DG. Unfortunately, St. Carolyn By The Sea, the piece in question, is a great argument against handing prestige recording contracts to any old rocker with some composing skills. Despite the expert husbandry of Andre de Ridder conducting the Copenhagen Philharmonic, nothing could make this music interesting. The recording is not a total waste as it includes a beautifully done concert arrangement of Jonny Greenwood's score from There Will Be Blood.

Dessner's dabblings stand in stark contrast to the rigorous work of Morton Feldman, whose String Quartet 1 was the subject of a definitive recording by the Flux Quartet, along with some of his other string music. I'm not sure this music as been played with more assurance, making this one of the most important string quartet albums in some time. If you like what you hear, check out their recording of Feldman's String Quartet 2, which goes on for over six hours.

On the lighter side, but perhaps no less important, the Nightingale String Quartet continued their traversal of the string quartets of Danish composer Rued Langgaard, who died in 1952 and whose music has been struggling for recognition ever since. Danes themselves, the members of Nightingale have a real sympathy for this music, but don't oversell it. Langgaard's writing has a lovely transparency, like looking through layers of water, and an easy melodicism that may come from some of Denmark's folk traditions. Kudos to the Nightingale for their three volume cycle, now complete, of these sweet sounds.

Soprano Anna Prohaska had a good idea, to create a recital of soldier's songs from composers as varied as Beethoven, Poulanc, Eisler and Ives, among others, and pulls it off beautifully. Eric Schneider's piano underpins her performance, which is emotionally open but never overwrought. Behind The Lines is an exemplar of the kind of intelligent programming we need more of in an age when so many works have been recorded over and over. '

When it comes to Richard Strauss, I tend to dislike the more popular works (all those big 19th century tone poems) but become extremely attached to his other music - the 20th century operas and his smaller works. Christiane Karg, a German soprano, did not have to work very hard to make me fall for Heimliche Aufforderung, her well-selected album of Strauss lieder. Her ease and warmth in these songs is matched by Malcolm Martineau's piano and, even without the rarer numbers, their performance more than justifies yet another Strauss release.

While 75% of baritone Gerald Finley's Shostakovich album is taken up with the Suite On Verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti, already beautifully sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (among others), the real news is in his presentation of Six Romances on Verses by English Poets. I was not familiar with this song cycle, but it is prime Shostakovich and Finley inhabits these songs, more than ably accompanied by Thomas Sanderling and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

Whew. How is a discerning listener to keep up with all this stuff? I Care If You Listen magazine was one way I found out about some of these releases, along with the NYT Classical Playlist. Let me know if you have any suggestions along those lines.

Still upcoming: Great EP's of 2014 and Out Of The Past.

Best of the Rest of 12: Composed & Contemporary

The world of composed, orchestral, instrumental and avant garde music is a wonderful rabbit hole to explore - and explore I did in 2012.

Go Jonny Go
Even with Radiohead on a massive and brilliant world tour, guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood somehow managed to put out two records in 2012. The first, a collaboration with his lifelong hero, Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, features a kind of call and response between the two musicians. Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is a signature work of the 60's and inspired Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver, which was also used in his score for There Will Be Blood. 48 Responses to Polymorphia takes off from Penderecki's Polymorphia, which was based on the brainwaves of people listening to the Threnody.

While it is certainly gratifying to see Greenwood realizing his ambition to work with his inspiration, as someone who is deeply engaged with musical modernism and the avant garde, I don't think Penderecki necessarily represents the best of the 20th Century. While Kubrick's use of his music in both 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Shining was highly effective, that may actually be a result of something lacking in the music when listened to on its own. That said, everything on the Penderecki/Greenwood album is expertly and passionately presented and is certainly worth a listen.

I have no such reservations regarding Greenwood's score for The Master, the latest Oscar bait from Paul Thomas Anderson. Greenwood shows his greatest command of instrumentation and texture yet on pieces that have spontaneously inspired my own emotional narrative to accompany them. He also slots in period songs seamlessly, such as the impossibly lush Ella Fitzgerald recording of Get Thee Behind Me Satan. It's Greenwood's most satisfying and accomplished soundtrack and he seems poised to join the greats of cinematic music. It's disappointing that he will once again go unrecognized at the Oscars. Like Mahler, his time will come.

New Music Cavalcade

Old favorites Brooklyn Rider, crowdsourced the production of their latest album, Seven Steps, and I was happy to pledge my support. It featured two great new compositions, the group-composed title track, and Christopher Tignor's wonderful Together Into This Unknowable Night, contrasted with Beethoven's String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. I'm no purist, but despite my early enthusiasm, in the end I remained unconvinced by their rendition of the latter. It seemed somehow less than the sum of its parts, although there were some fascinating parts. However, the new pieces make Seven Steps a worthy addition to their catalogue.

I discovered the fascinating Line Imprint on a trip to DC and picked up one of of their limited edition releases, Seth Cluett's Objects Of Memory. Like a lot of their releases, Cluett's work exists at the intersection of ambient music, minimalism, and sound art. This means that you sometimes can barely hear anything - but you want to. Further investigation required.

Over the summer, my daughter and I were lucky to attend Missy Mazzoli's River To River concert, which featured two pieces from her opera, Song From The Uproar. While the recording can't quite match the primal power of seeing Abigail Fischer sing the lead role in concert accompanied by Stephen Taylor's haunting projections, it's still an absorbing, dramatic listen, and shows further evolution in the work of this exciting young composer.

Mazzoli's work also featured prominently in Maya Beiser's "CelloOpera" Elsewhere, which premiered at BAM last fall. While not a complete success, it was a further demonstration of Beiser's outsized talents as a performer. Her playing is also flawless on her latest album, Time Loops, anchored by Michael Harrison's Just Ancient Loops, an absorbing and emotional new composition. The takes on the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria and Arvo Pärt's Spiegel Im Spiegel do not do much for me, but the album ends strongly with Harrison's Raga Prelude and Francisco Nunez's substantial and varied Hijaz, featuring the Young People's Chorus of New York City. Here's hoping Beiser's next recording is Salt, the Mazzoli section of Elsewhere, with Helga Davis, the astonishing vocalist who sang the premiere.

2012 saw the death of Elliott Carter, who was still composing as he neared his 104th birthday. Alisa Weilerstein released her take on his concise and explosive cello concerto just days before Carter died and, with the able assistance of Daniel Barenboim on the podium, this is likely a definitive recording. In pairing it with the Elgar concerto and Bruch's Kol Nidre, both of which have been recorded dozens of times, Decca seemed to be more concerned with business matters than musical ones, however. Here's a tip:  because the movements are short, you can download just the Carter from Amazon for under $7.

For All Seasons
Vivaldi's The Four Seasons is a warhorse if there ever was one - but it's given new life in Max Richter's "recomposition," featuring the stylish violin playing of Daniel Hope. It received a rapturous reception when performed late in 2012 at Le Poisson Rouge, and rightfully so. Encompassing minimalism, ambience, and paying homage to the dance rhythms of the original, Richter's piece more than stands on it's own.

Transcending FatCat
The estimable FatCat label (Breton, etc.) initiated a new subsidiary last year, 130701, to focus on "post-classical" music and as a first shot across the bow released the excellent Transcendentalism EP. Featuring gorgeous and adventurous new music from Dustin O'Halloran, Hauschka, and Johann Johannsson, it's an exciting introduction to their aim to bridge the gap between post-rock and contemporary classical.

Sax Stories
Matthew Silberman seems to see "jazz" not just as an opportunity for blowing his horn but as a method to creating a mood and telling stories through sound. His debut album, Questionable Creatures, features an unusual two-guitar line-up and fulfills that mission to a tee. Special mention to Tommy Crane, bringing the heat on drums.

Record Review: Breton

The album is dead, say the pundits. Listeners live on shuffle play and you can't sell'em anymore, so why bother? From an artistic point of view, however, this holds about as much water as telling playwrights to only write one-act plays or painters that they can only use one subject per piece. Just as real musicians desire to use a bigger canvas for expression, real music fans demand to hear their heroes go big. Finally, if a forward thinking bunch like Breton still see value in creating a long-player, I wouldn't worry too much about the health of the format.

 

That leaves us with Other People's Problems, the debut album from Breton, which comes on the heels of the Blanket Rule EP, the most recent of several they've released since 2010. The first sign that they are going to treat this seriously is the addition of secret weapon Hauschka, a fairly prominent avant garde pianist/composer who is also signed to FatCat Records. His string and brass arrangements appear on four songs, which are brilliantly sequenced throughout the record, lending it a continuity. Fortunately, there is no reverence for the work of the Dusseldorf-based master. The first sounds we hear on lead track Pacemaker (after some ominous clanking, which may be the "Demolition" or "Metro" referred to in the sleeve notes), are Hauschka's strings, chopped, scuzzed, and quickly joined by the brick-hard rhythm section. Roman Rappak's doleful sprechstimme soon enters along with some uber-distorted synth that could cause a weak woofer to clip in protest. It's a fantastic song that doesn't end so much as back out of your consciousness.

Pacemaker is an apt title for an opener as it sets the tone without hesitation. Those of us who have followed Breton for a while know we will hear them evolving but familiar. Anyone new to the band will know right away what they're about and be ready to go along for the ride. Electrician follows, with the crucial couplet "Why are they trying to salvage/What we'll be leaving by the side of the road?" Crucial, because nearly everything is treated as salvage in Breton's world, from the dilapidated London bank they use as a headquarters, to Hauschka's strings, and even Rappak's voice, Adam Ainger's drums and the field recordings used by Ian Patterson and bassist Daniel McIlvenny to thicken the texture. It's a scorched earth approach that leaves only the future as a possibility: Don't pick up our scraps because we've bled them dry.

The third song is a re-recording of standout 2011 single Edward The Confessor, an assaultive stomp that includes their other secret weapon, Rappak's delicate harp filigrees, which are also heard on one or two other songs. The noirish soundscape of 2 Years follows, with its alternating refrains of "Two years is not so much" and "Whatever happens, don't ask us who we're here to see" - its mood made stunningly effective by the soulful backing vocals from Py. It's one of my favorite songs on the record, a haunting combination of glitch, strings and sorrow.

For all their engagement with the world of electronics, samples and studio wizardry, Breton has always come off as a band and Wood and Plastic has a careening forward motion that only a live rhythm section can create. Soaring strings once again bring drama and segue nicely into the next song, Governing Correctly, which opens with the bone-dry wit of Ainger's drums. This song showcases the band's compositional chops, almost a mini-suite with three or four micro-movements in a mere 3:50. There's a casual virtuosity in the way the synth picks up the melody of the almost spoken lyrics, hinting at an anthem, but only just.

Interference is actually anthemic, with massed football-terrace vocals and a chorus of "It's a mechanism we've come to rely on/It's a skeleton." Hauschka's work here has a grandeur reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield that exposes the cinematic nature of the song, amplified in the poignant video Breton created. Ghost Note is a dense keyboard-heavy workout leavened by Rappak's harp but unmistakably grim. "They decide, they decide, they decide," Rappak repeats, as if he indeed has no choice.

The spacious opening to Oxides comes as a momentary relief, as does its mildly funky backbeat. However, subway announcement vocals and mechanistic synth patterns soon bring the calamity of modern life back to the forefront. Just when you think there will be no let-up along comes the goofy cowbell and cheap keyboard intro to Jostle, which they somehow transmute into the most lyrical song on the album, the way a shaft of sunlight can make an urban wasteland sparkle. Shattered safety glass and the stars in the sky can be equally uplifting, if we let our eyes do the seeing instead of our minds.

The album ends as I hoped, with the fractured stasis of The Commission. Five minutes of broken glass, bass drum drops, pulsing keys and echo-laden vocals. It's the kind of song that continues after it's over, until you go back to the beginning. And you will go back quickly - Other People's Problems is a triumph.

The packaging is also exemplary, as is the extra stuff included in the deluxe package, most notably a limited edition cassette. Only 150 exist and no two are alike. Mine was recorded an old copy of Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection and contains gorgeous mostly instrumental music - low-fi and hinting at further possibilities for Breton. No doubt the contents of these tapes will provide future material to be salvaged...

Full disclosure moment: I am thanked on the inner sleeve, not for anything I've done in any official capacity but just for trying to spread the word across all my networks about this terrific band. Call me "the under-under-assistant east coast promotion man."