The Danish String Quartet's Prism V is the last in a series of "Prism" releases, each presenting one of Beethoven's five late string quartets, prefaced by a Bach work that could have been a source for some of Beethoven's thematic material, and followed by a more contemporary work. The idea is a promising one, for Beethoven indisputably made a deep study of Bachian counterpoint in his later years, and several releases in the series have been revelatory. The finale seems to offer an attractive symmetry; the opening Bach work is the Chorale Prelude, BWV 668 ("Vor deinem Thron tret' ich"), which was published with The Art of Fugue and was Bach's last completed composition, and the program proceeds with Beethoven's String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135, Beethoven's final full piece. The thematic links in this case are a bit hazier than on the other albums, and making the Beethoven quartet sound Bach-inspired takes quite a bit of effort on the players' parts; the rough humor of the work is shoved to the background. This said, the performance of the Beethoven quartet itself is up to the Danish Quartet's usual very high standard; it is an unorthodox but absorbing reading with great control and detail. Anton Webern's youthful and ultra-Romantic String Quartet of 1905, not often heard, is another attraction here. The program ends with the unfinished final fugue of Bach's The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, breaking off in mid-measure as if to suggest that there is more on the way from this superb group. Admirers of the Danish String Quartet's series will be satisfied with this release, and indeed, they put it on classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2023. © James Manheim /TiVo

Herbie Hancock's lackluster string of electric albums around this period was enhanced by this one shining exception: an incorrigibly eclectic record that flits freely all over the spectrum. Using several different rhythm sections, Herbie Hancock is much more the imaginative hands-on player than at any time since the prime Headhunters period, overdubbing lots of parts from his ever-growing collection of keyboards. He has regained a good deal of his ability to ride in the groove. "Calypso" finds him playing synthesized steel drums and interacting with customary complexity and ebullience with V.S.O.P. mates Tony Williams and Ron Carter. Disco rears its head, but inventively this time on "Just Around the Corner," and in league with Jaco Pastorius' vibrating, interlacing bass, Hancock gets off some good, updated jazz-funk on "Spiraling Prism" and "4 AM." There is even a reunion of the original Headhunters on a rhythmically tangled remake of "Shiftless Shuffle"; drummer Harvey Mason sounds like a rhythm machine gone bonkers. Easily the outstanding track -- and one of Hancock's most haunting meditations -- is "Textures," where he plays all of the instruments himself. This would be the last outcropping of electronic delicacy from Hancock for some time, and it was mostly -- and unjustly -- overlooked when it came out.© Richard S. Ginell /TiVo

Teenage Dream did its job. With its five number one singles, the 2010 album turned Katy Perry into a genuine superstar, the kind of musician whose image rivaled her music in popularity, the kind who could topline her own 3-D theatrical documentary, the kind whose name became shorthand for a sugar-pop sensibility. This meant there was only one thing left for her to do on its 2013 sequel, Prism: to make a graceful pivot from teen dream to serious, mature artist. Prism hits these marks precisely yet isn't stuffy, not with its feints at trap-rap, but even with the preponderance of nightclub glitz, there isn't a shadow of a doubt that Katy Perry has toned down her cheesecake burlesque, opting for a hazy, dreamy, sun-kissed hippie Californian ideal that quietly replaces the happily vulgar pinup of her earliest years. All the lingering nastiness of One of the Boys -- the smiling Mean Girl backstabbing of "Ur So Gay," for instance -- and the pneumatic Playboy fantasy of Teenage Dream are unceremoniously abandoned in favor of Perry's candy construct of a chipper, cheerful grown-up prom princess, the popular girl who has left all her sneering dismissals in the past. Perry remains a terminal flirt but she channels her energies into long-term relationships -- the sexiest song, "Birthday," is a glorious retro-disco explosion delivered to a steady boyfriend, while elsewhere she testifies toward unconditional love -- and the overall effect transforms Prism into a relatively measured, savvy adult contemporary album, one that's aware of the latest fashions but is designed to fit into Katy's retirement plan. Ultimately, this makes Prism a tighter, cleaner record than its predecessors -- there are no extremes here, nothing that pushes the boundaries of either good taste or tackiness; even when she cheers on excess on "This Is How We Do" she's not a participant but rather a ringmaster, encouraging her fans to spend money they don't have just so they can have a good time. Ultimately, this sense of reserve reveals just how canny Katy Perry really is: she's determined to give her career a dramatic narrative arc, eager to leave behind the bawdy recklessness of her early years in favor of something that's age appropriate. That's why the lead single from Prism was "Roar," an homage to Sara Bareilles so transparent that the singer/songwriter may deserve co-credit: the inspirational adult contemporary single signaled how Perry no longer views herself as a fluffy confection but rather a showbiz staple who'll be here for years and years, and Prism fully lives up to that carefully constructed ideal.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

This is the Danish String Quartet’s fourth instalment in the Prism series, the group’s ongoing project that will ultimately hold five volumes of recordings linking Bach fugues with Beethoven quartets and quartets by alternating later composers. While the preceding volumes presented quartets by masters who lived to experience the 20th century – these being, in order of their appearance in the series: Dmitri Shostakovich, Alfred Schnittke and Béla Bartók – Prism IV finds the Danish musicians interpreting Felix Mendelssohn’s (1809-1847) String Quartet No. 2. As Paul Griffiths remarks in the liner notes, the quartet’s interpretation of Mendelssohn is empowered by Beethoven’s model in terms of “vivid gesture, contrapuntal energy, harmonic boldness and formal innovation”. The piece is paired with Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 and Bach’s Fugue in G minor, BWV 861 in the arrangement of the Austrian educator and composer Emanuel Aloys Förster. Praised by The New York Times for “playing of unusual, and unusually effective, liberty” and a tone that “throbs with joy”, The Danish String quartet have built a reputation for their unique interpretations of both traditional and contemporary repertory, often opposing contrasting material and idioms within a programme. The group’s violist Asbjørn Nørgaard has explained that in the past, the quartet members had become “slightly bored with much of the classical music programming. Too much randomness, too little connection.” As they attended a back-to-back performance of Wagner’s Prelude to Lohengrin and Ligeti’s Atmosphères, interpreted by the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, they came to a collective realization that ultimately gave birth to the idea for the Prism concept: “connecting masterworks” and “creating a completely new framing but with elegance and respect”, as Nørgaard puts it. In his liner essay, Paul Griffiths traces different connections between these pieces and their composers – motif-based between Bach and Beethoven, and broader, yet also more immediate ties connecting the latter’s composition to Mendelssohn, who created his Quartet only months after Beethoven’s passing in 1826. “Mendelssohn at this point probably knew all five of Beethoven’s late quartets and certainly was aware of the last, still unpublished when, in July 1827, he began the response that was to occupy his next three months. It was in the finale of Beethoven’s Op. 135 […] that he found his starting point, similarly a question. Keeping the rhythm and contour of Beethoven’s "Muss es sein?", he narrowed its intervals in his own "Ist es wahr?", which he drew from a love song he had jotted down the month before". Elsewhere in his piece, however, Mendelssohn closely follows the model of Beethoven’s Op. 132, down to elegant imitations of its most central themes. Mendelssohn’s Quartet abounds in references, alluding to, at times even imitating Beethoven’s tonal organization and use of contrast, though each nod to Beethoven also reveals a step towards a different direction, as Mendelssohn’s String Quartet offers alternative answers to old questions. In the same vein, Beethoven’s motif development in the first movement of his String Quartet in A minor proves deeply informed by Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, though it is not the head motif of the Fugue in G minor, but that of the C-sharp minor Fugue, to which the American musicologist Lewis Lockwood has drawn parallels. The Danish String Quartet’s interpretation of the G minor Fugue – one of Bach’s best known fugues and occasionally referred to as the “Little Fugue” – leads gracefully into Beethoven’s String Quartet, confirming the quartet’s claim that “Beethoven is not a disconnected island in music; it is a continuation from Bach and the old masters”. Mendelssohn continues the lineage. © ECM Records

Enigma burst on the scene in the early '90s with a pretty nifty schtick: dance beats and lush chord washes underpinning such exotica as muttered French sex talk and Gregorian chant, all unified by a bizarre theme somehow related to the Marquis de Sade. The concept was never as original as some people thought (Mark Stewart's "Maffia" had set plainchant to electro-funk as far back as 1984), but it worked nicely, and "Sadeness" (har har) was an international dance club hit. Two albums later, Michael Cretu (the individual who records under the Enigma moniker) doesn't seem to have done much to expand upon his original ideas. The monks are still there, floating in a murky club mix, though this time they're joined by a cool Mongolian ensemble as well. Cretu is singing more, which is unfortunate since his voice is mediocre and his lyrics silly, but the occasional high point does emerge, such as the darkly lovely "The Child in Us." Most of the album, however, is twaddle. Song titles like "Morphing Thru Time," "Beyond the Invisible" and (seriously) "Odyssey of the Mind" will give you a good idea of what to expect -- lots of atmosphere, lots of reverb, lots of sternly intoned lyrics about, er...something or other. What's missing is musical interest. Overall, the cool packaging is the only thing noteworthy about this disappointing effort.© Rick Anderson /TiVo

The third volume of the Danish String Quartet's ongoing "Prism" series, which shows how the radiance of Bach's Fugues is refracted through Beethoven's Quartets to illuminate the work of later composers. "Beethoven had taken a fundamentally linear development from Bach", the Danes note, "and exploded everything into myriads of different colours, directions and opportunities, much in the same way as a prism splits a beam of light". Here the quartet follow the beam from Johann Sebastian Bach's Fugue in C-sharp minor through Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 to Bela Bartok's String Quartet No. 1. "A revelatory connected soundscape in which Beethoven's introspection feels more unsettling than usual" (BBC Music Magazine, on Prism II) © ECM New Series

This release by the Danish String Quartet is part of a five-album series titled "Prism," each of which will apparently include three works: an arrangement of a Bach fugue for string quartet, one of Beethoven's five late quartets, and a 20th century work that somehow lies in the shadow of both, or, to use the quartet's own words, "a beam of music is split through Beethoven's prism." In this case, the program is unusually coherent, with the String Quartet No. 3 of Alfred Schnittke engaging itself directly with the Beethoven String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130, and Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, here played as the finale of the String Quartet No. 13 as Beethoven originally conceived the work. Logically, the Beethoven should go in the middle, but after you hear the Danish String Quartet's blistering performance of the String Quartet No. 13, you'll agree that it would be an impossible act to follow. The group gets just how radical this quartet was, especially with the Grosse Fuge in place, as sharp contrasts grow throughout the work and explode in the unthinkably intense fugue. The quartet takes the first movements of the six-movement work very rapidly, with the lighter melodic passages seeming like passing thoughts, takes a deep pause with the Cavatina slow movement, and then plunges into the fugue at top power. They are aided by magnificent engineering work from ECM, working on the Reitstadel Neumarkt, a riding stadium with famed acoustics. The Schnittke quartet is a fascinating work in itself, quoting the Beethoven extensively and exploring its sharp contrasts (sample the Agitato middle movement). One awaits the rest of the Danish String Quartet's series breathlessly, but it's possible that this volume, with a Beethoven performance for the ages, will tower over the rest. A bonus is a set of notes by the great Paul Griffiths, writing mostly for ECM these days.© TiVo

Unlike the other two Keith Jarrett trio recordings from January 1983, this collaboration with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette does not feature standards. The trio performs the 30-minute "Flying" and a 6-minute "Prism," both of them Jarrett originals. "Flying," which has several sections, keeps one's interest througout while the more concise "Prism" has a beautiful melody. It is a nice change to hear Jarrett (who normally plays unaccompanied) interacting with a trio of superb players.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the Triangle, Arild Andersen's 15th date as a leader, and his second with pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos and drummer John Marshall is their re-visioning of the trio. Though Tsabropoulos composed five of the nine pieces here, he does not compose for himself as the centerpiece of the trio's expression. The bass is the true centerpiece of this group's language. And it is not simply because Andersen is the group's "leader." Tsabropoulos was a classical player who came to improvisation late, and jazz later. His phrasing is unique and rhythmic, and his writing lends itself to notions of pulse and color rather than single-line flights of inquiry. Andersen's long-handed style offers unique articulation of the rhythmic pulse allowing for his part to balance Marshall's dancing style of drumming with the knottier eloquence of the Tsabropoulos five- or six- note motifs. The beautiful "Choral," is one example where Andersen's undersided melodic notions are colored by the beautiful chromatic voicings of the pianist. Marshall skitters and shimmers with his brushes, playing through them the rhythm. "Andersen's Saturday," is signatory in that it offers a wonderfully direct flow of even-handed grooves and layers of melody that present themselves in the foreground and reveal their full meaning in the rhythmic push and pull. "Pavane" offers another side of the Triangle with its crystalline lyric and parsed out rhythm coming from shards of chordal investigation. The closer, "Cinderella Song" by Tsabropoulos, strolls unhurriedly though shapes and rounds with Andersen's phrasing being the piece's "singing voice." The Triangle is a refreshing and sophisticated new way to hear the trio. © Thom Jurek /TiVo

The double album Sleeper contains a previously unreleased live concert by Keith Jarrett's European quartet from the '70s, recorded at Tokyo's Nakano Sun Plaza on April 16, 1979. Together with saxophonist Jan Garbarek, bassist Palle Danielsson, and drummer Jon Christensen, Jarrett performs seven of his own compositions: "Personal Mountains," "Innocence," "So Tender," "Oasis," "Chant of the Soil," "Prism," and "New Dance" -- the latter song being the shortest here at seven minutes, while "Oasis" clocks in at over 28 minutes! As a companion piece to the live albums Nude Ants and Personal Mountains (both recorded the same year, even though the latter album was only released in 1989), Sleeper offers another noteworthy document of the creative interplay between these four musicians.© Christian Genzel /TiVo