Musica contemporanea

Il primo album da solista di Gaspar Claus ha avuto una lunghissima gestazione. Per quindici anni, il violoncellista ha moltiplicato i suoi viaggi, gli incontri e le collaborazioni con i più grandi artisti di tutti gli orizzonti musicali: da suo padre Pedro Soler a Barbara Carlotti, passando per Rone o Bryce Dessner. Con tutte queste influenze, il musicista ha trovato la casa migliore nell'etichetta InFiné per presentare Tancade, un album profondamente personale, trovandosi per la prima volta ad essere l'unico leader a bordo. Con il notevole contributo di Francesco Donadello e David Chalmain al mastering e al mixaggio, che hanno dato a questa registrazione un suono unico, ricco di contrasti.Il materiale di questo viaggio è minimo: con un violoncello come unico bagaglio, Claus affascina per la varietà delle sue composizioni, sfruttando le infinite possibilità sonore del suo strumento. Pizzicati, archi che sono alternativamente morbidi o graffianti, bassi profondi a cui rispondono alti svettanti... da vero architetto del suono, l'artista riesce a trasformare ciascuno dei brani che compongono quest'opera in un mondo a sé stante, evocando sensazioni uniche. Ci si può così lasciare trasportare dalla trance quasi tribale e ipnotizzante delle parti percussive di Une foule, prima di passare ad atmosfere più meditative, come quella della crepuscolare 1999. Il genio di Claus è ammirevole: riesce a scolpire così tanto materiale con così pochi strumenti, mentre l'apporto dell'elettronica si limita a piccoli effetti di riverbero o distorsione - il minimo indispensabile, insomma.La grande forza di Tancade è che non si trasforma mai in una pura dimostrazione di tecnicismo. L'album non è un mero catalogo di ciò che un violoncellista può produrre con il suo strumento. Anzi, per ogni traccia, risulta evidente come la ricerca di una particolare atmosfera abbia influito sui processi compositivi e di esecuzione. Gaspar Claus ha dato vita ad un album magnifico, pieno di inventiva e di poesia, che mette l'ascoltatore in connessione con una serie di emozioni antiche di millenni. Andiamo sul sicuro quindi, nel dichiarare che Tancade diventerà certamente un classico essenziale del violoncello contemporaneo. © Pierre LAMY / Qobuz

Dying too soon in July 2020, Nikolai Kapustinas was like a UFO in the Russian musical landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries. Classical? Jazz? It is difficult to attribute his music to a precise genre as the symbiosis between the two styles is so perfect. For his part, the composer has chosen his side: "I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I'm not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation?  All my improvisations are written, of course, and they become much better; it improves them.” These words perhaps best sum up one's feelings when listening to Kapustin's compositions. These are resolutely classical scores, as revealed by their titles, "Concert Etudes", "Sonatine" and "Sonate", but from them emerge harmonies, rhythms and a lexicon that are definitely related to the world of jazz.Although reluctant to perform his works in public, the composer has nevertheless recorded a substantial part of them. This indubitably explains the small number of performers who dare to measure themselves against the works of the Russian master, so captivating were his interpretations in their perfectly mastered virtuosity. Almost a year to the day after Kapustin's death, Yeol Eum Son presents here some choice pieces: among them, the unmissable 8 Etudes de concert, Op. 40, and the Sonate pour piano n° 2, Op. 54. The South Korean pianist, silver medallist at the 2011 Tchaikovsky competition and accustomed to orchestral repertoires, gives a generous amplitude, depth and groove to these pieces, whereas Kapustin had accustomed us to dazzling interpretations achieved at a single stroke. Yeol Eom Son's playing shows how much Kapustin's compositions follow the lineage of the greatest masters, from the Romantic period to Gershwin, and that they have their rightful place in the concert repertoire. © Pierre Lamy / Qobuz 

In this installment in "an ongoing Shostakovich survey", Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra bookend the composer's brilliant, often turbulent symphonic career. Nearly half a century lies between Shostakovich's triumphant debut with the First, premiered before his 20th birthday, and the Fifteenth, an inventory of influences written under the shadow of his own mortality. Penned just two years earlier, the Fourteenth is a symphonic song cycle, and the Chamber Symphony is a skillful adaptation of his tragic String Quartet No. 8. © Deutsche Grammophon

Recorded: [1-4]: January 2014, at Towson University Center for the Arts [5-7]: August 2016, at Grusin Music Hall, University of ColoradM Boulder [8-12]: May 2018, at Powell Methodist Churchm Ohio

Gérard Grisey's Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil ("Four Songs for Crossing the Threshold," 1999) was one of the last things he composed before his sudden death from a brain aneurysm. To call it a foreshadowing is on the mystical side, but it's quite a haunting work, comprising four separate "deaths" (of the Angel, of Civilization, of the Voice, and of Humanity), followed by a tender Berceuse that will touch even those not attuned to the work's sparse modernist language. Remarkably, Hannigan both sings and conducts the Ludwig Orchestra in this work for soprano and 15 musicians; apparently, no videos of how she accomplished this have surfaced, but it would be fascinating to see how she did it. Hannigan joins the Grisey to two other works, possibly concerned with death: Luigi Nono's "Djamila Boupacha" for solo soprano, about the death of an Algerian revolutionary, and Haydn's Symphony No. 49 in F minor, H. 1/499, subtitled "La Passione." The subtitle was not Haydn's, and there is some question as to whether the work was intended as seriously as it is presented here. However, Hannigan's performance of this Sturm und Drang-period work is a remarkable one, hard-driving, with a buzzing harpsichord sometimes emerging from the background. Listeners' mileage certainly may vary here, but there is an X-factor in Hannigan's favor here: the boldness of the entire project is something few others attempt. © TiVo

Erkki-Sven Tüür's Mythos, which occupies more than half of the present recording, was composed to mark the 100th anniversary of the Estonian Republic in 2018. It's not strictly a programmatic work, but online listeners may wish to seek out Tüür's description of the music: the opening, which seems to arise out of the formless void in the manner of Mahler (absolutely a major influence on this composer), actually is inspired by sea creation myths of the Finno-Ugric peoples. The work is a tour de force of orchestration, with sonorities that sometimes sound electronic even though only conventional instruments are used. Tüür's handling of the winds is especially ingenious; among many examples, consider the Star Trek transporter-like sound that appears at 23:00 and 24:00, and underlies the action over much of the next several minutes. These are flawlessly rendered by the Estonian Festival Orchestra under Paavo Järvi, and in general, it would be hard to imagine a more idiomatic and committed performance than the ones these works receive here. The textures are quite complex but are completely natural and intelligible in this recording. The other two works on the album, the short Incantation of Tempest and the ecologically oriented Sow the Wind, fit with the theme of chaos and are also memorable. The three pieces were recorded at different places and times, but they hang together remarkably well. Those last two works are recorded live and don't have quite the crackling engineering of Mythos, recorded at the Estonia Concert Hall, but this is a satisfying package showing that musical nationalism is not dead, and that offers an ideal introduction to Tüür's recent work. © TiVo