CDs
One for the heart
by Ian Dando
Anthony Ritchie Chamber Music. NZ Piano Qt. Kiwi Pacific SLD 113. Right from its opening passionate cry for help, the Cello Sonata (1999) is an emotionally forceful work sure of its identity. The one that went straight to my heart, though, was Viola Sonata (1994). Ritchie has compassion for the viola. It’s him. From the tumultuous opening, the emotional force is sustained till the witty jazz and bluegrass finale. These are very personal works. After time off to reinvent himself in 2000, Piano Trio (2001) and Oppositions for Piano Quartet (2005) show a liberated Ritchie deserting the older thematic development through standard tonality for gritty writing, often revealing traces of his new magic-square structures, as in his landmark 24 Preludes CD of 2004. Strong performances, generous 70 minutes, lively recording and four quality local works all make this one of the year’s finest.
Adams, Corigliano, Waxman violin works. Naxos 8.599302. The star in this, another American Series CD, is John Adams’s popular minimalist Violin Concerto. Soloist Chloe Hanslip’s violin sings soulfully in the deeply expressive chaconne, and is spikily virtuosic in the toccata finale. She masters the more exploratory dramatic range strongly in Corigliano’s large chaconne from Red Violin. Waxman’s bowdlerised arrangements of Enescu’s Rumanian Rhapsody No 1 and Wagner’s Prelude und Liebestod from Tristan are the only dross beside the strongly recommendable Adams and Corigliano.
Nancarrow chamber works. Continuum. Naxos 8.559196. The wealth of interesting repertoire in Naxos’s “American Classics” covers tradi-tionalists like Copland and firebrand iconoclasts like Cowell, Cage and Nancarrow. Ligeti in 1981 feted Nancarrow as “the best music by any living composer”. If you like jazz, Bach or unprecedented rhythmic difficulty, often unplayable by humans, Conlon Nancarrow (1912-97) is for you. New York’s rhythmically spry 15-piece Continuum acquits the union of jazz and Bach counterpoint with flair in many of the early pieces such as String Quartet and Toccata. Continuum’s larger-than-life vitality in the two-piano transcriptions of Study 15 and Tango, from Nancarrow’s unplayable mid-period, flouts the notion that what was originally written for the mechanical pianola is ipso facto dead. His expansive Piece No 2 for small orchestra (1986) manipulates as many as eight clear contrapuntal strands with sheer compositional virtuosity and is brilliantly played. That item alone is worth the price of this bargain 70-minute disc of America’s most durable individualist.
