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Site review by Polly Nomial October 8, 2008
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Performance: Sonics: |
A frustrating disc.
With two very different works, there are two performances of almost equally different standards. Opening with the improvisatory "Seven" for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola and cello we are given a performance that is almost hypnotic with its near-static textures. The work is not tonal but despite this it, unlike much work from lesser composers of the avant-garde, manages to convey real feeling and emotion in this dedicated performance from the young ensemble and conductor.
The Quartets I-VII for 24 instruments should be an interesting and enjoyable first excursion in Cage's non-silent music for many listeners as these works are based on 8 old American chorales. These tonal works have been re-orchestrated so that no more than 4 instruments from the 24 are playing at once. However in their very committed reading, the Orchester Jakobsplatz Munchen under Daniel Grossman try too hard to be expressive and what should be a sung line becomes markedly more fragmented (as is the very danger warned about by Grossman himself in the brief notes).
The recording is good without being exceptional and a point of interest for those with multi-channel set-ups is that for Seven the listener appears to have been placed on the podium whereas in the Quartets a more normal concert-style presentation is adopted.
If only the same response from the musicians had been obtained for Quartets as they demonstrated in Seven...
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Copyright © 2008 John Broggio and SA-CD.net
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Review by JJ July 1, 2008 (2 of 3 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
First and foremost, this SACD is a small gem. Wonderfully recorded in both stereo and multicanal, it offers John Cage’s (1912-1992) music an indispensable setting. The program opens with “Seven”, a 20-minute piece dating from 1988, for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola and cello, giving improvisation a unique image in which seven musicians are free to do as they please. “This is in no way random music,” states Daniel Grossmann, “and yet, each interpretation is unique. This uniqueness constitutes a central concept in John Cage. It is only thus that he felt his music was alive.” “Quartets I-VII” for 24 instruments, composed in 1976 to commemorate the United States’ bicentenary, is based on eight American chorals transformed by the composer, who at the time declared in an interview: “I would like to create a circus full of music, as could have been heard in this country in 1776. But, I am already up against conservative feelings. For, of all the arts, music was the one which tried to attract people’s attention to one thing. Much of the music of the time was what could be called “sacred.” It was church music. And people think I am sacrilegious by playing two or three pieces at the same time. They therefore refuse to cooperate. That is the problem in our country: feelings that helped people live no longer do, except for a few, who are helpless opposite the weight of the institutions.” Daniel Grossmann and his Munich orchestra pay a vibrant tribute here to the California composer by inviting the listener to share this moving music that anyone can approach.
Jean-Jacques Millo
Translation Lawrence Schulman
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