Usually, flipping through the classical channel on a flight is an exercise in masochism that ends with me saying aloud, “this is why classical music is dead and rotting!” But Delta’s new selection on 757-200(E) is different.

Twenty-four complete classical discs are presented with media-player style controls. I began by listening to Julian Anderson Khorovod from his CD Alhambra Fantasy; this is a CD that I’ve long enjoyed and actually had with me on my laptop, but having it presented to me in my seatback inspired me to listen to it again. Plus the dynamics compression was done well, leaving everything audible without taking away much of the crispness of the percussion. Say what you want about the importance of audio fidelity, compression is really useful when listening on a plane even with noise-cancelling headphones; I wish iTunes had it.

I passed over the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Higdon’s City Scape and Concerto for Orchestra (not bad pieces, but not my favorites, and I just recently taught City Scape) and continued with Holst’s second suite for winds conducted by Fredrick Fennell (the recording that begins with the sound of a tuba player losing his job). I continued with a CD pairing Mozart’s Gran Partita with Berg’s Chamber Concerto. Unfortunately, additional information about the discs beyond title and track names isn’t available, but it appears to be on a Decca label.

I listened for a bit to the Symphony of Psalms on a disc paired with the Symphony in C and Symphony in 3 Movements–I don’t know who was conducting or playing, the string playing and brass were vigorous, but the chorus’s sound was really affected by the editing and/or compression, and the reed and piano performances were weak, and there was so much else to dig into that I moved on to Tan Dun’s Symphony 1997, a work I didn’t know. It had some of the clichéd pathos and (to me) unoriginal percussion writing that has not let me yet fully embrace Tan as a top notch composer, but like most of his best works, the pacing is perfect. That it’s about as much of a symphony as Cats is an opera is immaterial.

In a somewhat orientalist decision, adjacent to the Tan CD, we find Lang Lang playing recent Chinese compositions on his “Dragon Songs” CD and a complete recording of Puccini’s Turandot (Sutherland, Pavarotti, Pears, Mehta—this is no bargain-basement recording). But we forget about such decisions when we realize that they’ve actually included vocal music!—something few classical radio stations dare to play anymore—also represented by a terrible muzaky collection of trite by Placido Domingo (typical airline fare; the one true bomb), a complete Solti recording of Die Walküre (less typical; unfortunately, not presented as a gapless album and with weird fades), Strauss’s Four Last Songs, and the Faure Requiem. John Corigliano’s Second Symphony (a transcription of his string quartet) is actually something I’ve heard on other flights, but Ives’s string quartet and Mahler 8 were surprising finds.

The net result is that you can listen even listen with fresh ears to the CDs of The Nutcracker, Bach (WTC and Goldberg), Beethoven 5, Joshua Bell playing the Four Seasons, or Bernstein’s Copland (Appalachian Spring). Just by having other choices, these works regain their status as masterpieces that have stood the test of time and do not feel like they usually do in these situations, as warhorses chosen to pander to the largest possible audiences.

Most airlines seem to secure rights from one or two labels (usually Sony with its own limited list of the same artists), but someone at Delta must have spent a lot of time making calls. The variety of labels presented is remarkable: Decca, DG, Philips, Telarc, Ondine, Sony, and even Naxos are available. Browsing beyond classical, the other stations seemed to take some advantage of the added space to go beyond the major hits, but did not seem to me nearly as adventurous as the classical station. One bow to the corporate world: Lily Allen’s “Fuck You”—ubiquitous in every bar, taxi, and grocery store in Europe this year—is bowdlerized to “*uck You” and loses its cute charm. But the lesser depth of these stations was no big loss, because I kept returning to something new on the classical station. For their product’s ability to keep a musicologist occupied without his iPod for an entire eight hour flight, those who worked on the system for Delta’s 757 are definitely to be praised.

Lei Liang: Brush Strokes. Performers: Arditti String Quartet; Takae Ohnishi, harpsichord; Chien-Kwan Lin, saxophon; Paula Robison, flute; Aleck Karis, piano; Callithumpian Consort - Stephen Drury, conductor. Mode 210.

This CD is a very nice introduction to the recent music of Lei Liang. The selected compositions on this CD are very diverse in character as well as in instrumentation. Yet there is unmistakable a strong identity in all of the compositions. Liang’s music is sophisticated, complex at times, but never fails to be immediate in expressive meaning. This accessibility, together with the detailed craftsmanship makes his music special.

The first composition Serashi Fragments, is played by the Arditti String Quartet. A very bright performance, which puts in great profile a Chinese folk tune appearing in the middle. This is not just a quotation but rather a very meaningful moment: the expressionistic music in which it appears makes this timid melody very fragile and tender. And it also questions the previous music. These kind of questions often appear in Liang’s music and the great quality is that he leaves the mystery of the question open. There are possible attempts to an answer, but never a final one. This charming subtlety is a very strong characteristic of Liang’s music.

In Some Empty thoughts of a Person from Edo Liang achieves the formulation of a similar question through a very strong contrast. Heavy violence tries, but never succeeds in suppressing the subtle and tender music. Also, it must be said that the writing for harpsichord is excellent. Liang finds and uses with great effect the different timbral possibilities of the instrument.

Mastery of instrumental writing is equally found in Memories of Xiaoxiang for saxophone and tape. As an example: by using the mouth piece alone, an expressivity very close to the human voice is created. This brings another quality of Liang’s music to the fore: his music is always immediately understandable. The expressivity of his music always grasps the listener. This music is not only for intellectuals, or New Music aficionados, but for anyone who devotes themselves to careful listening.

Lei Liang - Photo by Carl Cao

In praise of Shadows is a little, marvelous work, like a piece of jewelry. It is extremely well written for the flute, and wonderfully performed by Paula Robison. The music just speaks for itself, everything is beautiful in a meaningful way.

My Windows,for piano solo, is different from the other compositions: this is a set of four short pieces, each of which opens a window to another aspect of Liang’s imagination. The four pieces explore a broad range, demanding quite some virtuosity of the performer. Aleck Karis seems to be the perfect person to play this music, not only is he a virtuoso, but he lets the imagination speak through his playing.

The final work on this CD is Brush-Stroke. A large ensemble piece, in which Liang’s technique of one-note-polyphony is clearly present. This technique is very personal to Liang, and he achieves a very delicate sound world with great imagination. The performance of this work by the Callithumpian Consort is excellent, and it is clear that they have a good understanding of Liang’s music.

The Chinese cultural background of Liang is always present, not superficially, but integrated in the expressive trajectory of each piece. Sometimes the presence is obvious, as in his string quartet. At other times it remains at a distance, a background against which the music unfolds, as for example in the composition for flute solo. The music of Lei Liang is strong and personal, and the performers absolutely do bring out the qualities of his music. Lei Liang is definitely a composer who found his own voice.

Guillaume Dufay and Binchois

One of my American friends asked me for a list of listening recommendations. She would like to get involved more with music and was wondering what the most essential pieces in the canon are. The idea was to come up with a list of approximately thirty titles which she could listen to and get to know a bit better over the period of a year or so.

Here is the first part of my list. It contains music that was composed up to ca. 1500. Whenever available I linked to the itunes store. This way you can buy the tracks directly if you are interested.

Please let me know what you think about my choice and how this list can be improved. (Use the commentary function below to do so). I am looking forward to hearing from you!

1. Chant Wars by Dialogos and Sequentia. A compilation of chant that reflects the confrontation between newly emerging Carolingian repertoires and older local traditions in the 9th century.
   
2. Viderunt omnes by Perotin. This is an example of early polyphony. A four-voice setting of the Christmas gradual by one of the great masters of the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Excellent performance by the Hilliard Ensemble.
   
3. Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300 – 1377). A 14th-century setting of the Ordinary of the Mass (i. e. the unvarying chants that were used every day, unlike the Proper of the Mass which contained chants that were specific for a particular day).
   
4. Chansons by Dufay. These wonderful “songs” are gems of Renaissance court culture. I especially like this recording by Bernhard Landauer, Michael Posch, and the Unicorn Ensemble, even though their performance would not satisfy the purists amongst the Early Music crowd. My favorite chansons are Helas mon dueil and Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys but you should really listen to the whole album!
   
5. Binchois: Chansons. I know it would probably make much more sense to choose some motets by Binchois instead of yet another set of chansons. However I love this album so much, that I cannot hold myself back and urge you to take a close “look” as well. My favorite song is En regardent vostre tres doulx maintiens.
   
6. Josquin: Missa L’homme armé Sexti toni. An entire mass composed on the basis of a secular song.
   

Gabriela Montero

In one of his countless interviews Friedrich Gulda remarked that those who cross boundaries are considered by society either as “revolutionaries or fools.” That, like so many of Gulda’s views, is somewhat exaggerated and simplistic, but there lies a kernel of truth in this assessment: going beyond the boundaries of our ordered world, one can either discover a land of wonderful possibilities or shipwreck in a stormy sea losing orientation and direction.

Crossing boundaries in music can mean many things. There is the crossing of genres, often between musics of various regions, times, or social niches. Then there is the crossing of the boundary between what is considered to be acceptable as music (the norm) and what is considered non-music (avantgarde). Finally there is the crossing over of the musical work into a musical space in which the performers and listeners are not constrained by Werktreue or composers’ intentions. In all of these activities improvisation plays a central part, and thus it might be said that whenever musicians cross boundaries they engage to some degree or the other in the act of improvising, and thereby becoming vulnerable and exposed, leaving behind the known musical world.

The many splendored thing called improvisation is often the driving force behind those magical moments in which we discover layers of emotional meaning in music that were previously hidden from our ears. Take for instance the miraculous improvisations of the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard who often links together the pieces on his concert programs via beautifully woven improvisations. Here, the listeners are invited to re-enter the musical imagination of the composer whose piece they just heard by way of an improvisational afterthought.

Or take for instance the cool, detached, yet strangely powerful improvisations of Jacques Loussier that affected how an entire generation of Bach connoisseurs was listening to Jazz music. At the same time Loussier’s improvisations changed the way that people would listen to Bach’s music. I for one can’t get his weirdly retained introduction to the E-flat minor Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier out of my head. Whenever listening to someonelse’s interpretation I will inevitably compare it to Loussier’s rendition.

It is this exciting act of relating the presence of the musical performance to a commonly shared repository of musical ideas, concepts, and tropes that makes improvisation so central to our private and intimate experience of music. By moving music across the boundaries of convention and tradition improvisation constantly reinvents and questions our personal musical universe.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of albums that were in one way or the other indebted to improvisation. Once such album is Gabriela Montero’s “Baroque” (EMI Records) released in 2007, produced (for a ton of money, I guess) in the famous Abbey Road Studios, and featuring fifteen loosely connected numbers. What ties these numbers together is for the most part the fact that their composers belong (unsurprisingly) to the Baroque era. It would be too much to expect that the selection of works on “Baroque” goes beyond the usual suspects. We find a few movements from Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons scattered all over the place, Johann Pachelbel’s unavoidable Canon, Tomaso Albinoni’s Adagio, and Georg Friedrich Händel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

As one fears already from the unimaginative programming, the music itself isn’t very convincing either. Throughout the album Montero’s improvisations aren’t much more than an (undoubtedly) impressive display of all the different ways one can apply Kitsch to completely worn out “classics” of the baroque repertory. The best moments on “Baroque” are those numbers in which Montero mixes musical styles as for instance with the “Hallelujah” chorus that morphs into a Habanera-like rendition of the famous Handel signature tune, or with the latino-style Scarlatti sonata that transplants the Spanish music of the Neapolitan composer into a South American dance-hall atmosphere. That these moments owe much of their musical impact not to the power of improvisation but rather to the method of crossing the boundaries of genres is apparently no coincidence. Cross-over artists have been a major source of income for the ailing classical music industry and this album by Montero will be no exception in this respect.

While listening to the album, reading the liner notes, and browsing Montero’s website one cannot help the feeling that the artist would have probably been better off not to team up with EMI and Big Life Management for this project. Judging from Ms. Montero’s earlier projects – especially the Rachmaninov and Prokofiev album with Gautier Capucon – she is a capable musician. Even some of her earlier improvisations are worth their while. Maybe a bit more real improvisation, the one that goes beyond the boundaries of the average musical imagination and less of the kind that crosses the boundaries into a world of boredom and triviality would have helped this present undertaking as well. Whether Gabriela Montero in crossing all those boundaries has to be considered a “revolutionary or fool” in Gulda’s words is for the listener to decide.

For those of you who haven’t read the first review in this series: the idea is to review this album by listening to each song only once. This gives me almost no time to think. I just jot down my thoughts as the music plays on. Why? Because it’s fun and because I may repeat this experiment at some point, just to see whether I will hear, like, or note different things then. Here we go:

Bend down the Branches: Well this is something new! A short lullaby, very delicate and sweet with improvized and dissonant counterpoint. Charles Seeger would be amazed!

You can never hold back Spring: Banjo, Clarinett, out of tune piano, brushed snare drum, trumpet, trombone, and everything played softly. This instrumentation sounds like fall: rain, fogg, and temperatures below 10° C and yet Mr. Waits sings about spring. Wonderful.

Long Way Home: A howling duet between Tom’s voice and a lonesome trumpet near the end of the song, right before the refrain comes back for the last time: makes you feel homesick.

Widow’s Grove: Irish waltz. Pretty straight forward, but there is a freezing violin tremolo in this wonderfully drawn out bridge before the refrain! During the refrain that tremolo thing is now taken over by a balalaika (or what the hell is that?). Absolutely stunning! Here comes the bridge again, this time it’s a different motive in the violin. I love this song and I will buy an accordion as soon as possible!

Little Drop of Poison: “I like my town with a little drop of poison.” Hehe. The singing saw is back, and the marimba!! Yes, I love this instrumentation. This is a tango with the melody of a Strauß waltz. Cool, now we’re up one step, harmonically I mean. There is also this klezmer feel. A klezmerized tango by Strauß. Cool…

Shiny Things: That rhythm is strange but I cannot figure out what’s going on from listening to it only once… I’ll get back to this some other time.

World Keeps Turning: The intro keeps on turning, too: in harmonic spirals down to the wide and dark entry of Waits’ voice. Nice contrast with the high piano line (this time in tune!). Gets boring soon… too much repetition.

Tell It To Me: High, almost clear voice, stringy sound, simple melody and harmony. I like it that once can hear the tapping of the musicians’ feet and the background noises of their fingers on the fretboards.

Never Let Go: Oh no, this one is just too much cliche! Does Waits have a sponsoring contract with the Irish Folk Song Union?

Fannin Street: One of these songs you can sing along although you haven’t heard it yet. And this is not a bad thing to say. Not necessarily…

Little Man: This is a nice song, and Waits is trying hard to sing it nicely. There is a detective novel saxophone solo and a I-don’t-care-about-it-anymore-piano-bar-accompaniment.

It’s Over: The same detective band as above, only a few drinks later.

If I have to go: Again one of these incredible ballads. Reminds me of Johnsburg, Illinois on Swordfishtrombones. If have to admit that I pressed the repeat button on my Rhapsody player. This is just too beautiful. Waits’ voice has actually quite a big ambitus. This is a short song, about 2 mins. It’s basically a long melody in two contrasting parts (first one gong up, second one going down). This melody is reaped twice and at the end Waits sings the first half of it again, and then it’s all over. Quite simple, quite wonderful.

Goodnight Irene: Screaming, accordion, drunken choir. Listen to this only when in good company.

The Fall of Troy: I often wonder how these songs come into being. Does he invite a couple of people to his living room to try out things? Do they make up songs on the spot? Some sound like that, others are more like fully crafted compositions. (Ah, by the way: nice ending…)

Take Care of All My Children (who are playing the horns in the background of this song by the way)

Down there by the Train: I guess I should have paid attention to the lyrics…

Danny Says: Slightly disorganized guitar introduction. Crazy modulations.

Jayne’s Blue Wish: Hah! I like this. A lazy guitar accompaniment and untypical chords for Tom Waits.

Young at Heart: That Hawai guitar kills me! The whistle solo brings me back to life again, but it feels more like coming back from drinking a cup of tea with the undead on the Bahamas. Or something….

Tom Waits is really productive lately. Two days ago he released a three-CD-set called Orphans: Brawler, Bawlers & Bastards. Here’s the deal: I’ll listen to each song only once and while listening I type down my thoughts. Let’s go.

Lie to Me sounds like a medical experiment in which Elvis’s voice is paired with Waits’s style and your own garage band sound. Great opening, reminds me of Jockey full of Bourbon on Rain Dogs.

Lowdown: solid rock. Sounds like a garage band practicing Ugly Kid Joe songs. First time I heard a “double-bass-drum-fill in” in a Waits song (at about 1:28 min).

2:19: Jam session in a steel mill. Everyone is doing his thing. You really wonder how this works. At times it doesn’t sound like a song and then all of a sudden everything fits together magically well. Just for a second or so…

Fish in the Jailhouse: sounds like someone’s trying out his new mixing software. The song combines minimalist singing (one or two blues licks and a non-sense one-line text) with a sturdy rhythm and lots of extra sounds (metal clangs, bells, sirens). The type of Waits song that is fun to hear once or twice.

Bottom of the World: (click on the title to download song) this is a good, solid song. It has the traditional Waits ingredients. Slow bass, a woven texture of electric guitars, banjos, plastic guitars, and a voice that is somewhere between screaming and failing.

Lucinda: Wonderful accompaniment. It’s very soft in the background. The trick of this tune is that at first you hear only the strange scream on the third beat of each bar. It’s always the same and very prominent. After a while you stop paying attention to it and then, like in an archeological excavation the accompaniment comes out.

Ain’t Goin’ Down to the Well: Is this an improvisation? Shuffle feel. Rhythmic breathing, looped. Nice filler. There should be something more melodious coming up…

Lord I’ve been Changed: Not really. Blues, barber shop style, with humming chorus in the background. A nice guitar played through a miserable amp. Hypnotic guitar accompaniment actually.

Puttin’ on the Dog: This is a great piece of saxophone playing in the background. Just like on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. Mysetrious, subversive, drawing away your attention from the rest of the song. I wish I could hear that saxophone better!

Road to Peace: This propably the first political song by Waits. His voice is almost crying, whining, pressed. Great orchestral effects with the electro guitar.

All the time: Starts with breathing drum effects. More and more sounds are added. Waits is singing through a megaphone. Crazy guitar solo and also a sexy harmonica.

The Return of Jackie and Judy: Oh man, he’s really overdoing the garage band style on this one. Doesn’t this man have any nieghbours at all?

Walk away: Sleeky and foreign.

Sea of Love: This is a great song. What a great sound! The marimbas from Underground on Swordfishtrombones are back! The short chorus is very untypical of Tom Waits. It sounds like 80s background music for a movie scene in which the main character is having a drink in a sleazy brothel. (In fact that description sounds a lot like Tom Waits style. I guess it’s the 80s feel that sounds foreign).

Buzz Fledderjohn: I have a feeling that I know this song. It sounds a lot like other Waits songs. That guy seems to be repeating himself quite a bit.

Rains on me: This is exactly the same voice like on I don’t wanna grow up hehehe. And the background chorus is from That feel.

In a nutshell: a couple of nice songs and excting effects, nothing too great, though. There are more “reviews” coming over the next couple of days: still two CDs to go… hang on.

Image credit: La Folia

Everone who is a little annoyed with Sting’s interpretation should check out The Forge Players’s Flow my tears. (I discovered them in real rhapsody). This CD is a collaboration between a classical string quintet, two non-classical vocalists (Freddy Wadling and Mikael Samuelson), and a couple of lute-, theorbo-, guitar-specialists (Lars Akerlund, Hallbus Totte Mattson, Roger Tallroth). If you were missing some colors and ideas in Sting’s recording, listening to this album will give you plenty of that. The singers are not trying to be early music specialists, they tell stories, miss notes, have problems with intonation, and yet their voice fascinate me. A little shrill, a little dark, a little strange…

The Forge Players: Flow My Teares. Atrium 3984-22109-2.