Best Of 2022: Classical

Even with the constant onrush of mostly negligible repertory recordings from the major labels, the new music scene continues to be one of the most fertile in music today, filled with endless innovations in structure and sound. Here's a scratch of the surface - or, more appropriately, a sip of the cream, starting with things I've already written about.

Hear a track from each of these in this playlist or below, excepting those noted that are on Bandcamp only - I urge you to follow up and give those a listen, too.

Record Roundup: 22 For 22 (Part 1)
Pathos Trio - When Dark Sounds Collide
Eric Nathan - Missing Words

The Best Of 2022 (So Far)
Sarah Plum - Personal Noise
String Orchestra Of Brooklyn - Enfolding

Record Roundup: Envelope Pushers
Ted Reichman - Dread Sea
Greg Davis - New Primes
Josh Modney - Near To Each
Steven Ricks - Assemblage Chamber
Maya Bennardo - Four Strings

Record Roundup: Evocative Voices
The Crossing - Born
Carlos Simon - Requiem For The Enslaved
Kate Soper Feat. Sam Pluta - The Understanding Of All Things
Loadbang - Quiver

Record Roundup: Songcraft
Michael Hersch - The Script Of Storms Also note reissues of The Wreckage Of Flowers and The Vanishing Pavilions, music for violin (Miranda Cuckson) and piano (Hersch), respectively.

Record Roundup: Autumn Flood, Pt. 1
John Luther Adams - Sila: The Breath Of The World 
Anthony Cheung - Music For Film, Sculpture, And Captions
Julian Brink - Utility Music
Andrew McIntosh - Little Jimmy
Greg Stuart - Subtractions

Record Roundup: Autumn Flood, Pt. 2
Olivia De Prato - I, A.M. - Artist Mother Project: New Works For Violin And Electronics

Steven Beck - George Walker: Five Piano Sonatas If you’re looking for an advocate for some underperformed and under-recorded piano music, there couldn’t be a better choice than Beck. Having seen him apply his monster technique and deep engagement a number of times with the Talea Ensemble, including a memorable tribute to Fred Lerdahl, I knew I would be hearing these works at their best. Walker, who died at 96 in 2018, has been called the “great American composer you never heard of” - although some of that obscurity was lifted when he became the first Black composer to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1996. Even so, these five sonatas were new to me, and they show an impressive range and growth over the years. From the First Sonata (1953), which puts him solidly in the American tradition with its variations on the Kentucky folk tune “O Bury Me Beneath the Willow," while still hewing to a fairly traditional sonata form, to the five-minute, one-movement Fifth Sonata (2003), which explores a fascinatingly attenuated harmonic realm that seems purely his own, Walker's grasp of the form is equal to anyone's. If you want more Walker - and I think you will - look no further than the Cleveland Orchestra's spectacular collection of his orchestral works. 

Jennifer Grim - Through Broken Time Grim not only has a great technique, whether in music of exquisite lyricism, like Tania León's Alma (2009), which opens this superb album, or of an advanced architecture, such as Julia Wolfe's Oxygen, for 12 Flutes (2021), but her curatorial acumen is equally sharp. Putting crucial recent works by Valerie Coleman and Alison Loggins-Hull alongside an Alvin Singleton piece from 1970 lends context to her selections, which the liner notes describe as being at the intersection of post-minimalism and Afro-modernism. Through Broken Time was recorded and released in 2022, which is not as common as you would think in the new music world - but it is just that urgent a collection, and one that will be looked back upon as a landmark in the future. Grim did not hesitate to get this music to us, do not hesitate to listen ASAP.

Johannes Moser - Alone Together I admit it - I'm terrible. So terrible, in fact, that I made a playlist with only the six newly-commissioned works on this album. I just don't need my experience of brilliant new pieces by Christopher Cerrone, Ellen Reid, Timo Andres, Annie Gosfield, Ted Hearne, and Nina Young diluted by Grieg, Barber, and others, even if they're in "octophonic arrangements." Also, that playlist is 42-minutes long, just the right length for an album. The new pieces range from the dramatic (Reid's Somewhere There Is Something Else) to the songful (Andres' Ogee), with Hearne's Lobby Music unsurprisingly taking the cake as far as innovation goes. Blending Moser's hypnotic cello with electronic beats, voices from recent events, and electronics, Hearne somehow avoids being gimmicky through sheer force of will. Any fans of his masterpiece, Place, will know what I'm talking about. Cerrone's more quietly futuristic Exhalation makes the most of Moser's multi-tracking skills, with an electronic shimmer behind searching melodic lines and pizzicato sections. Moser has the skills and taste to be an important force for new cello music, perhaps he'll do so without apology next time around.

Christopher Cerrone - The Air Suspended While Moser's album in original form was too long, this tantalizing EP of recent pieces by Cerrone is all too brief at 22 minutes. The title piece (2019) is a commanding three-movement piano concerto, whose power belies its minimal forces, with only the Argus String Quartet and bassist Pat Swoboda backing up Shai Wosner, for whom the piece was written. Conceived for the close, sculptured acoustic of a recording, I can imagine it being thrilling in a concert hall as well. Also included is Why Was I Born Between Mirrors?, performed here by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, who premiered it in 2019. The recording is a true product of the pandemic-era, however, with sessions taking place in six cities across two continents. But no matter, the final result is a deeply absorbing piece, with a narrative thrust that hints at the inspiration Cerrone took from Ben Lerner's Leaving The Atocha Station. The tale of how Cerrone improvised his way into the piece, locking flower-pot percussion jams onto a digital grid and then building from there, is nearly as gripping as the music. The Air Suspended may be short, but it packs an outsized punch.

Bergamot Quartet - In The Brink This excellent debut puts the Bergamot right into the mix of our most exciting string quartets with four debut recordings. While Paul Wiancko's bustling Ode On A Broken Loom (2019) and Suzanne Ferrin's wobbly Undecim (2006) are both captivating, it's the works by Tania León and Ledah Finck (also the group's violinist) that kick their repertoire into the next level. León's Esencia (2009) is jam-packed with expertly deployed rhythms from Caribbean and Latin American traditions, both a warm embrace of her roots and a dazzling display of compositional acuity. Finck's title track (2019) takes things to a continent of her own imaginings, adding a drum set (Terry Sweeney) and shouted vocals by the quartet for a wild, spiky ride. My radar is firmly set for more, both from the Bergamot and Finck. 

Cenk Ergun - Inseln Even with 12 layers of countertenor Rupert Enticknap's voice, this sublime work always feels like one person and profoundly individualistic. The end result is an emotionally driven equation that somehow multiplies Medieval monophony by Ligeti's Lux Aeterna to arrive somewhere new. Originally a sound installation at Berlin's Zionskirche, the digital release also includes a recording made there, which is full of atmospheric externalities in addition to the space's unique resonances. 

John Luther Adams - Houses Of The Wind Consisting of five tracks that manipulate the same recording of an aeolian (wind-driven) harp, this album aligns more explicitly with ambient music than most of Adams' work - which is only to say that it is even more deeply peaceful and meditative. 

Aaron Myers-Brooks - Oblique The Eleventh and 6th Caves, a track that naturally extends Eddie Van Halen's virtuosic rock into microtonal realms, opens this album for guitar and electronics like a fanfare welcoming you into Myers-Brooks' unique world. Using a guitar tuned to 17 equal divisions of the octave (17 EDO) frees him to explore unusual harmonies, which he expresses through a phenomenal technique that is equally at home with delicate harmonics and lethal shredding. Triads and Arpeggios, which is for electronics only, reveals further characteristics of his compositional interests away from the guitar - colorful, dense, teeming with ideas, like a little island filled with evolutionary anomalies. Set sail.

AGS - Lab Rat Ever since getting hooked on Scott L. Miller's work due to the Tak Ensemble's excellent recording of his Ghost Layers, I have eagerly awaited transmissions from his universe. Just as with last year's collaboration with Rarescale, that anticipation has been repaid with interest by this latest release. AGS is the trio of Alexander Kranabetter (trumpet, electronics), Gloria Damijian (toy piano, percussion), and Miller (Kyma, electronics), a group formed initially for an improvised set at December 2020's Alte Schmiede Vienna festival. The experience was compelling enough that they put in some time in a studio and also recorded telematically to arrive here. Good thing, too, as the album delivers both kicky fun and otherworldly atmospherics for an absorbing listen. High risk/reward ratio for both players and listeners! 

andPlay & Victoria Cheah - A Butterfly On Your Shoulder Into Years And Years To Come This collaboration between the violin/viola duo of Maya Bennardo and Hannah Levinson and composer/synthesist Cheah could almost be a sequel to her piece on Concrete And Void, last year's stunning debut by Wavefield Ensemble. Cheah's strength of musical vision integrates the strings and electronics into a single, tensely purposeful unit, occasionally shading into spectralism with long, gradually ascending lines. Bummed that the cassette sold out but so glad I eventually caught up with these intriguing soundscapes. 

Eren Gümrükçüoglu - Pareidolia The title refers to the phenomenon of seeing shapes in randomness, like picking an elephant out of a cloudscape. But "peripatetic" could have worked just as well, so well-traveled through various realms is this Turkish-born, Florida-based composer and performer. And it's not just geographical, as his jazz guitar roots, engineering skills, and experiences creating soundtracks for television all inform his compositional approach. This debut portrait album features five recent compositions performed by the likes of Conrad Tao, the JACK Quartet, the Mivos Quartet, Ensemble Suono Giallo, and the Deviant Septet, bookended by two electronic pieces, for a 360-degree view of his stylish, entertaining, open-hearted music. Seen strictly as a calling card, Pareidolia should have students flooding his composition classes at FSU.

Departure Duo - Immensity Of The duo of soprano and double bass shouldn't really work. But apparently György Kurtág thought enough of the idea to compose Einige Sätze aus den Sudelbüchern Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs, based on the scrapbooks of an obscure 18th century physicist, for such an ensemble. Taking that witty 1999 piece as a jumping off point, Nina Guo and Edward Kass went all in and commissioned three other works, leading to this delightful collection. The Kurtág consists of 22 very short vignettes that foreground Lichtenbergs' quirky pronouncements (example: "The one who is in love with himself has at least the advantage that he won't encounter many rivals."), almost like character studies of whomever would deign to write such things down. The duo alternates reading English translations of each one, which interrupts the flow a little, but their voices are so nice I don't really mind. The album opens with Katherine Balch's four-movement Phrases (2017), which pull and push poems by Arthur Rimbaud like textual silly putty, giving Guo a lot to play with as Kass' bass pulses in the background. The three movements of John Aylward's Tiergarten (2018) feel more like a duet between the players and also inject some tone-painting into three Rilke poems about animals freighted with mythical resonances, the swan, the panther, and the unicorn. The final work, Emily Praetorius' Immensity Of (2019), plays with one line of text from Daphne Oram, abstracting it with whistles and single notes as the bass searches for resolution and connection. While everything about this rara avis album could seem quite, well, serious, Guo and Kass have a lightness of approach (see the photos in the booklet for further proof of this), not too mention complete command over their instruments, making listening a pure pleasure. More commissions are in the offing and I say bring. them. on.

Paul Bowles - A Picnic Cantata Those who associate Bowles only with his forbidding novel, The Sheltering Sky, must have missed the EOS Ensemble's wonderful recording of his music back in 1997. While there is a sense of promise unfulfilled by those colorful works, he definitely had something to say as a composer, with his globe-trotting ways having an influence, whether through French impressionism or the markets of Morocco. And now the New York Festival of Song has given us a sparkling gift in the first stereo recording of this brief theater piece, a collaboration with poet James Schuyler, which was performed at New York's Town Hall in 1953 and released by Columbia in 1954 on an LP with Francis Poulenc's Sonata For Two Pianos. I can guarantee you that if I had ever seen this in a thrift store, I would have known about this piece years ago. No matter - I'm just grateful to NYFOS for finally putting this out!

The Crossing - Carols After A Plague It can be hard to keep up with this pathbreaking choir, but the effort will always be rewarded, a sentiment that was never truer than with this epic collection of 12 new works by composers such as Tyshawn Sorey, Shara Nova, and Viet Cuong. As the title hints, everything is organized around themes from the recent pandemic era, whether the terrors wrought by the new virus, or the rage and sorrow brought on by police killings and a divided country. Everything is done in a spirit of compassion, empathy, and sincerity, however, so it never feels like pandering. The composers and choir are all in the same boat with us, consoling rather than preaching. Interludes composed by Crossing director and conductor Donald Nally lend the nearly 90-minute album a cinematic sweep. It's hard to think of a better album with which to draw a line between 2022 and 2023. May the coming months bring different things to sing about.

Find more classical and composed goodness in this archive playlist and make sure to follow this one to see what 2023 brings. For a different view of this arena, check out my playlist of Classical Grammy Nominations 2023.

You may also enjoy:
Best Of 2021: Classical

Best Of 2020: Classical
Best Of 2019: Classical
Best Of 2018: Classical
Best Of 17: Classical
Best Of 16: Classical
Best Of 15: Classical & Composed
Best Of The Rest Of 14: Classical & Composed

Record Roundup: String Theories

Plucked, bowed, tapped, strummed, or otherwise perturbed, taut strings, whether made of metal, plastic, or animal fiber, and perhaps attached to a resonant chamber, can be employed for as broad a range of expression as music can contain. The six albums below all have stringed instruments as their focus and represent peak artistic achievements for all involved. There’s also enough variety between them to suit every mood and setting, from challenging extended techniques to deeply meditative explorations into ambient realms. Enough of my yakking, let’s get on with it!

Ben Melsky/Ensemble Dal Niente I’m constantly telling people I love the harp. But it wasn’t until the opening notes of Tomás Gueglio’s After L’Addio/Felt (2014), the solo piece that starts off Melsky’s fascinating new collection, that I felt I was hearing the harp music I needed. Combining dry strums with the sweeping glissando for which the harp is known with brightly plucked notes, Gueglio gives us a sassy overview of the instrument’s reimagined sonic possibilities. The fact that the dry sounds are the result of a new technique of dragging Melsky’s calluses across the strings, speaks to not only a tight connection between composer and performer but also to Melsky’s dedication to his craft. In Alican Camçi’s Perde (2016), Melsky’s harp goes mano a mano with his Ensemble Dal Niente colleague Emma Hospelhorn’s bass flute, his swipes and melodic fragments moving in parallel with her husky whispers and staccato vocalizing. It’s slightly combative and if they never quite agree an invigorating detente is eventually reached. 

Next is Frederick Gifford’s Mobile 2015: Satirise (2015), part of his series of indeterminate pieces, which five agency to the players in how they order the elements during their performance. This one is designed for harp and guitar, played here by Jesse Langen, and finds the players embracing the similarities between their instruments as much as the differences, creating a unified landscape of sound rife with topographical interest. Wang Lu, whose debut portrait album made such a splash last year, contributes the cheekily titled After some remarks by CW on his work (2018), with the CW standing for composer Christian Wolff, one of her inspirations. A dialogue for Katie Schoepflin Jimoh’s clarinet and Melsky’s harp, the piece is a reflective gem. 

Igor Santos’s Anima (2019) is the longest piece here at 13 minutes plus and turns Melsky’s harp into a cog in a machine created by a delightfully witty percussion part played by Kyle Flens. It must be a joy in concert. On-Dit (2014), Eliza Brown’s piece incorporating a short fragment of text by Voltaire, closes the album with dynamic writing for harp accompanied by an hypnotic vocal part sung by soprano Amanda DeBoer Bartlett. It’s a mysterious yet energizing conclusion to a landmark recording for Melsky’s chosen instrument. I put it alongside Michael Nicolas’s Transitions and Olivia de Prato’s Streya as an exemplar of what a modern collection like this can look like. And speaking of looks, New Focus Recordings has really gone above and beyond with the packaging for this one, giving it a wonderfully handmade feel. If you still buy physical media, put this at the top of your shopping list. 

Pauline Kim Harris - Heroine This album is some kind of miracle. It was an instant hit in my house, too, assuming the status of a classic with stunning rapidity. The fact that it goes down so easy belies the amount of thought and craft, as well as heart and soul, put into it by Harris, a violinist with wide-ranging interests, and her co-composer, Spencer Topel. The first of the two pieces is an ambient exploration of the fourth movement of J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor (BWV 1004). Over more than 40 minutes, Harris and Topel blend live and recorded violin with electronics that at times shimmer and sparkle and at others seem to interrogate the source material. It’s mesmerizing and immersive, with the richness of the experience no doubt aided by Sono Luminus’s exquisite recording. To me, this the ideal use of Bach in the 21st century, especially when it comes to making records. 

The second pieces is equally wonderful, even if the source material, Johannes Ockeghem’s Deo Gratias of around 1497, is less familiar. Harris and Topel take the composer’s medieval canon through what feels like a natural evolution into infinity. One can only imagine what Kubrick would make of this glorious music and what images he would create to accompany it! Just as both Bach and Ockeghem used structural forms to make heavenly music filled with compassion and love, so do Harris and Topel create a sense of warmth and peace out of the application of intellectually rigorous approaches. There’s something healing about Heroine and I recommend listening to it without delay. 

Ashley Bathgate - Sleeping Giant: Ash Anyone who has seen Bathgate perform with the Bang On A Can All-Stars or solo has no doubt been riveted by her total involvement with everything she plays. It goes beyond her sheer virtuosity into what seems to be a mind-meld with the composer's intentions, a quality which comes through very clearly on her second solo album. Like Harris and Topel, Bathgate has found a wonderful way to keep Bach in the present without simply recording his work again. Arising out of a deep collaboration with the composers of the Sleeping Giant collective and inspired by Bach's Cello Suites, this series of six pieces was played in concert for two years (where was I?) before Bathgate made the recording. The result is a triumph for all involved and a better argument for the continuing life of these works in the repertoires of other players could not be imagined. 

Andrew Norman's For Ash opens the album, well-placed as you can hear the fragments of the Prelude of Bach's Fourth Suite coming through like a palimpsest. Chris Cerrone contributes On Being Wrong, which has features gorgeous harmonics and sections of Bathgate accompanied by more and more recordings of herself. There's a bit of darkness and melancholy to Cerrone's writing here as well, widening the emotional landscape of the album. Little Wonder, which composer Timo Andres calls "a madcap gigue," builds upon itself, repeating a line then adding a new phrase (or "cell"), only to go back to the beginning and play it all again, adding yet another cell. There's a woozy playfulness to it that I can imagine Bach enjoying quite a bit - especially after a stein or two of Bock. Jacob Cooper's Ley Lines takes the pedal stop at the end Suite Five's Prelude through a series of repetitions that almost arrives at 10 minutes of pure intensity. Bathgate's commitment to the short phrases, many of them on open strings, is incredible. 

The perfect follow-up to that is Ted Hearne's clever DaVz23BzMHo, which has Bathgate's cello triggering samples from a 1990's commercial, arriving at a lush noir exploration that wouldn't sound out of place in the next Blade Runner film. Robert Honstein's Orison closes Ash on a somber note, long lines stretching off into some unknowably distant inner space. It must be stunning in concert, especially after all that has come before, completing the circle that started with For Ash. That said, any one of these pieces can stand on their own and together they represent an impressive injection of new works for solo cello into the music of our time, a testament to Bathgate's dedication to her craft and to her connections to composers. 

andPlay - playlist There’s so much overlap in NYC’s fecund new music scene that it took me a minute to connect the Hannah Levinson I was watching play Catherine Lamb with Talea Ensemble at Tenri Cultural Center last month with this album, which I already had on repeat at the time. But, yes, this is the same violist, here paired with violinist Maya Bennardo, whom I also know as a member of Hotel Elefant. Though they founded andPlay about seven years ago and have commissioned many works, this is their debut album. The five world-premiere recordings make a perfect statement of the versatility and even power of this combination of instruments. 

Ashkan Behzadi’s Crescita Plastica (2015) opens the album with dramatic swoops and glides, guttural stops and eerie harmonics in a bold statement of purpose. Bezier (2013), the first of two works by David Bird, turns the viola and violin into glitchy simulacra of electronic instruments, with bird-like tones intruding playfully before the real fireworks start. It’s a tour de force and quite a calling card for this composer, who was new to me. Clara Iannota’s Limun (2011) is next, adding a harmonica to the sound world, which provides a drone over which Levinson and Bennardo alternately duel and join forces. Bird’s Apocrypha (2017) further expands things with electronics and brings the album to a stunning close. He is a composer I hope to hear more from soon. Bennardo and Levinson have made such a strong case for this instrumentation that I hardly thought about it, just reveling in all the fantastic sounds, expertly captured by New Focus. I hope andPlay is prepared to be overwhelmed next time they put out a call for scores!

David Bowlin - Bird as Prophet While Bowlin’s name was not immediately familiar, I’ve seen him perform as a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble many times. Here he has assembled a mostly spectacular selection displaying his dazzling gifts as a soloist, starting with Mario Davidovsky’s Synchronisms #9 for violin and electronics - still bending minds over 30 years after it was premiered. Kastena, a duo for violin and cello (Katinka Kleijn) by Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin is a rich reminder of the Russian heritage from which she takes inspiration. The title piece by Martin Bresnick, which adds Tony Cho on piano, seems a bit prosaic in this company and doesn’t quite add up over its ten-minute span. George Walker’s Bleu for solo violin is a brief burst of near-romanticism, nicely cuing  up another piece by Karastoyanova-Hermentin. Mari Mamo features Conor Nelson on flute and Ayano Kataoka on percussion alongside Bowlin for an even deeper transmutation of Eastern European folk traditions. Du Yun seems to create her own traditions and Under a tree, an Udātta is one of her most ritualistic works, with its dense violin writing accompanied by recorded Sanskrit chants. Having a version of it recorded by a consummate musician like Bowlin is a real treat, a word that applies to this fine collection as a whole. 

Kronos Quartet - Terry Riley: Sun Rings Fans of both composer and quartet have been waiting for a recording of this celestial suite since it was premiered in 2002. While I can only speculate, I wonder if part of the delay was coming to a rapprochement between the various elements in what is a complex conception to realize in the studio - nearly "rocket science," in fact! Using "space sounds" captured by NASA spacecraft and received on "plasma wave instruments" designed by physicist Don Gurnett, Riley has composed music for quartet and vocal choir (the San Francisco-based ensemble Volti) that, rather than simply following along, interacts with them, perhaps most spectacularly in Venus Upstream. The 72-minute work takes us through a narrative that connects to many of the feelings around humanity's exploration of space, from the pride at our achievement and the danger we faced to get there, to the wonder of the beyond and our astonishment at our own small stature when set against the backdrop of the universe. While it seems less about the astronaut's experience than, say, Apollo by Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Roger Eno, at several places it evokes the starlit darkness of what lies beyond earth's atmosphere. The voice of Alice Walker, speaking after 9/11, saying "One earth, one people, one love" becomes a mantra in the final movement, and one we would all do well to keep front of mind. Sun Rings is full of creative leaps that only Riley would make and it is perfectly acceptable to put all the astrophysics to the side and just enjoy a perfectly realized and transporting work of music by one of our finest (and, though he would probably hate to hear it, most venerable) composers. If you're in the DC area, catch it live on March 13th, 2020 at Washington Performing Arts - I'd get there if I could.

Hear all of these albums in the playlist below and keep up with all the classical music that's caught my ear in 2019 here.




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Tristan Perich's Divine Violins
Record Roundup: Strings And Things
Cello For All Part 2: Michael Nicolas
Cello For All Part 1: Laura Metcalf