Deborah Moriarty and Zhihua Tang — Connecting Cultures (BGR) Jump to giveaway form

by

“When you're playing two pianos or when you're playing piano for four hands, you do not only have to listen, but you have an attack that happens,” pianist Deborah Moriarty says about herself and colleague Zhihua Tang’s recently released first album, Connecting Cultures. “You have to anticipate what the other person will do. You have to be in their head, heart and soul and know where they will go. That allowed me to work with Zhihua and get to know her.”

The album presents four-hand piano music from around the world.

What is it like to work with a former student who is now a colleague?

Moriarty: “There's nothing more exciting than having a student become a colleague. I can't even describe it. To go from being the mentor and being the person who is giving them ideas to having an exchange of ideas. The roles shift. One of the great things about working with Zhihua is that we work as equals. We have fun. We have a good time.” 

How did you decide which cultures you would represent on this recording?

Tang: “We included music from all corners of the world. We try to pick pieces that are diverse in style but at the same time, they do share some commonalities. All the composers draw from their roots and express simple beauty in life.”

Moriarty: “If you want to connect cultures, you have to do it in a way that will cause people to listen. When we chose the repertoire, we wanted works we thought people would listen to. Then they could move further into appreciating that particular culture.”

Why did you choose Antonín Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances? 

Moriarty: “Those are dances we've played quite a lot and enjoy. We wanted to choose two contrasting dances. The first one is the triumphant opening of the album, and the second one is one that we love to play.”

Can you talk about the two Chinese composers on the recording?

Tang: “Those two pieces are by two wonderful Chinese composers from two different generations, Wang Jianzhong and Gong Huahua. Jianzhong’s piece, Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon, is more of a traditional folk song from the Guangdong province in Southern China, and it's joyful, peaceful and relaxed.”

Moriarty: “Let me say also, as somebody who is not Chinese, I think that one of the great things about going to China and having a lot of students from there has been my exposure to this incredible music. Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon is like colorful tripods chasing the moon. Every time we play, I think people are just amazed at the beauty of it.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Giveaway Time For Three New Classical Tracks Giveaway

You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about things like our programs, products and services. See Terms of Use and Privacy. This giveaway is subject to the Official Giveaway Rules.

Resources

Deborah Moriarty and Zhihua Tang — Connecting Cultures (BGR Store)

Deborah Moriarty and Zhihua Tang — Connecting Cultures (Presto music)

Eric Whitacre and Voces8 — Home (Decca)

by

“If I could travel back in time and tell my 20-year-old self, this will be your life; you'll be a classical choral composer. I just never could have imagined it,” Eric Whitacre says.

“‘Go Lovely Rose’ is the first piece I wrote. I remember hearing it being sung live in the room. That's the day I knew I would be a composer,” he says, still realizing his dreams 30 years later.

That first composition is featured on his new recording, Home, in collaboration with the British vocal ensemble Voces8.

Why did you call the album Home?

“On one level, it is referenced in a couple of the pieces on the album, specifically in Sacred Veil. It's the major theme and the final words of the entire piece. ‘Welcome home, my child. Welcome home.’”

What do you admire most about Voces8?

“It's their technical acumen. They're spectacular musicians. They sing with such purity and clarity. They sing so selflessly as a group. But there's this deeper thing going on, this kind of emotional intelligence that they have. I knew that from the albums, but I didn't really know until I was in the room with them.”

Can you talk about the liner note, ‘This is how I always dreamed it would sound’?

“About 32 years ago, I wrote something close to it, and a version in my head is always playing. It is ‘I always imagined it would be like this.’ I remember the first time we sang through the album, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, that's it.’ It replaced the version in my head. So now I think about how it should sound. It's just that recording.

“There's something about the transparency of just eight voices. It’s the strength of their purity. It causes these clouds of overtones that, while making the album, send chills down your spine that are just endless.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources

Eric Whitacre and VOCES8 — Home (Decca store)

Eric Whitacre and VOCES8 — Home (Amazon)

Eric Whitacre (Official Site)

VOCES8 (Official Site)

Catalyst Quartet — Uncovered, Vol. 3: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still & George Walker (Azica Records)

by

“At the end of the day, the Catalyst Quartet is important because we’re trying to do something that matters to people.”

Cellist Karlos Rodriguez is a founding member of the Catalyst Quartet, whose goal is to reimagine and redefine the classical music experience and the string quartet.  One way its members do that is through their multivolume series of recordings called Uncovered. 

“We thought the series' inception, which started in 2018, would be one album,” he says. “Then, luckily, we called the thing Uncovered, because more and more music started to be uncovered, and it turned into this multivolume recording project. And in the end, I think it will probably be four volumes.”

The third volume of Uncovered features works by George Walker, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and William Grant still. Why feature these three composers on the same recording?

“Their music is related wonderfully. One of the pieces is called the Lyric Quartet, which is by William Grant still. George Walker's quartet is referred to as the Lyric Quartet. … The middle movement has been published as the Lyric for Strings. [Another example is] William Grant, the dean of all great American music. There is a Jazz Age reference in that. [And] when you say American music, Perkinson has been inspired [and also] crossed the line into jazz-age harmony.

Walker’s Lyric Quartet was his first major composition. He finished it while he was still a student studying in France. What is it about this work that makes it so significant?

“As I spoke of earlier, the middle movement has been published as a standalone work called Lyric for Strings. It's beautiful. And so, many people play it that way, not even knowing that it's a whole string quartet, much like Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.

“We were in California playing a series of concerts. The Barber Quartet was on the program, and so was George Walker's Lyric for Strings. Now, we knew it was a whole string quartet. It's not that we didn't know that, but programmatically it was a good fit. So, we're driving from concert to concert on tour, and we get alerted to a tweet from George Walker, and he must have been well into his 80s at that point.

“And he said, ‘Why does nobody play my whole quartet? Everyone only plays this Lyric for Strings, the slow movement. Are they not up to the challenge of the outer two movements of my string quartet? It's a shame…’ — or something like that. And so, we thought, ‘Oh, wow, good for him for getting on Twitter at his age,’ but also that he knew that people weren't playing this entire work. And so, I wish that he were still with us. But, finally, this album comes out of us playing his entire string quartet.”

When Perkinson finished his String Quartet No. 2 (Calvary) in 1956, he was about the same age that Walker was when he finished his Lyric Quartet. Why is this work important to the ensemble?

“For us, the work is important because of our connection to Perkinson himself through one of our early mentors, Sanford Allen. Sanford Allen is the first African American member of the New York Philharmonic. He's a violinist, and Leonard Bernstein hired him. Sanford is directly responsible for commissioning most of the smaller chamber works and solo works for violin, which often came from Perkinson. He used to call him Perky.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources

Catalyst Quartet — Uncovered, Vol. 3: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still & George Walker (Amazon Music)

Catalyst Quartet — Uncovered, Vol. 3: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, William Grant Still & George Walker (Presto music)

Catalyst Quartet (Official Site)

Tessa Lark — The Stradgrass Sessions (First Hand Records)

by

“Smell is supposedly one of the strongest sensory responses to bring memories back. But for me, the sound of bluegrass may as well be the smell of bluegrass because it launches me back to a pure time and place every time I listen to it,” violinist Tessa Lark said about recording her latest album, The Stradgrass Sessions. 

In this recording, she blends the sounds of bluegrass with classical music elements. She does that with the help of some of her idols, Michael Cleveland and Edgar Meyer. 

What the heck is stradgrass?

“I was using the old Stradivari violin for four years, which is the violin that Joseph Gingold owned and used until the end of his life. Now the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis owns it. It lets one of the prizewinners use it in the four years between competitions. That was me from 2014 through 2018.

“My fiancee, Michael Thurber, when we first met and played together, played bass and accompanied me on a bluegrass number with my father, who plays banjo. In the middle of rehearsal, he said, ‘bluegrass on a Stradivarius is stradgrass.’”

What did Michael Cleveland think when he played on the Stradivarius?

“I just ran into him at a conference in New York, and he was there doing a showcase. I told him I was his biggest fan and had a Stradivarius with me. I asked, ‘Would you like to try it out?’ He said, ‘Of course.’ He said it growled. He got into the tone, playing many double stops and long notes. It sounded excellent in his hands.

“The tune we played together is ‘Lazy Katie,’ and I was in nearby Louisville after we met at that convention in New York City. He lives just outside that in Indiana, and he invited me over to his place. We just jammed for a few hours at his house.”

What was it like to make music with Edgar Meyer?

“Talk about a dream come true. He has influenced the way I live in music in every way. It is a little bit of a shock when I step back for a second and think that this lifetime hero of mine is a colleague.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources

Tessa Lark — The Stradgrass Sessions (FHR Store)

Tessa Lark (official site)

Hélène Grimaud and Konstantin Krimmel — Silvestrov: Silent Songs (DG)

by

“His music is his poetry. It has exceptional transparency. It's simple in the language yet so expressive. Do you know what they say in French? This expression, à fleur de peau — ‘means I want to pull something on the skin's surface that reaches deep,’” says French pianist Hélène Grimaud about the music of one of Ukraine’s greatest living composers, Valentin Silvestrov. “It is pervasive and something that grabs you by the heart and hand and takes you quite far. It's a beautiful journey.”

Her most recent recording, Silvestrov: Silent Songs, also features German/Romanian baritone Konstantin Krimmel as they pay homage to Silvestrov and perform 12 of his 24 ‘Silent Songs.’

What was it like performing these works in front of the composer?

“We met just before the performance, which was the one to be recorded. To meet him afterward and get into his head was a gift. It is a privilege to ask a creator because we always hoped we would have the chance to do it. It's both intimidating and wonderful to have that possibility.

“One thing that fascinated me was that he confirmed my suspicions. Part of the artistic process in the composition is about catching the music. It comes to him as something preexisting. I think there's something extraordinary about it.”

Can you talk about some of the poets that are represented on the album?

“There is a poem by John Keat. It has to do with the melody. The melody is equivalent to a smile, and it is what enables connection. He says you can connect through that smile when you meet another being.

“Because of the hypnotic melody, every time it comes back, it has a different connotation. What better theme is there than love in all its déclinaisons?”

What is the role of the piano in these songs?

“I feel that the role of the piano in this cycle is that of confidence. How would one say that in English? It’s the person you confide in and comes with a higher responsibility because you must take in those secrets and nurture them. There's a beautiful give and take and the music has this ebb and flow, which becomes an integral part of the expression.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources

Hélène Grimaud and Konstantin Krimmel — Silvestrov: Silent Songs (DG Store)

Hélène Grimaud and Konstantin Krimmel — Silvestrov: Silent Songs (Amazon)

Hélène Grimaud (official site)

Benjamin Grosvenor — Schumann & Brahms (Decca)

by

“They're so interconnected as figures and personalities. There are so many ways you can bring them together, because their whole lives are just interconnected in this wonderful way,” British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor says about his latest recording, Schumann & Brahms, which explores the fascinating relationship among Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

Can you tell us about the fictional character by E.T.A. Hoffmann that is the inspiration for the first track, Kreisleriana?

“Johannes Kreisler was a romanticized idea of a tortured artist, a musician with really high ideals and obsessed with the music of Bach. A temperamental musician prone to mood swings and fits of inspiration and then depression. Robert Schumann identified with him as a figure. I mean, there were many similarities between them. The most substantial movement of the set is the second. He told Clara that this piece was about their lives together. This movement is intimacy, longing and love.

“Clara only performed certain movements of it, and Franz Liszt did, as well. Although they admired the piece, they thought it was too much for the audience. I believe that Robert even suggested to Clara that when she plays the last movement, perhaps she should do a crescendo at the end so that the audience would applaud. The idea of a piece disappearing to pianissimo as it does was unusual for the time.”

When you perform the work, do you do the pianissimo?

“Yes. It's a magical effect.  Everything dissolves, like in a puff of smoke.”

Why did you choose Robert Schumann’s Romance No. 2 for this album?

“When they were married, he wrote these romances. Clara requested that he dedicate them to her, and she greatly admired this second piece. She said she knew of nothing more tender than this love duet. It remained a special piece for her throughout her life. It was the last piece she requested on her deathbed. A grandson played it for her.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources

Benjamin Grosvenor — Schumann & Brahms (Presto music)

Benjamin Grosvenor — Schumann & Brahms (Amazon)

Benjamin Grosvenor (official site)

Lara St. John — ♀she/her/hers (Ancalagon Records)

by

When Lara St. John was 14 and studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she was abused by her violin teacher. When she reported it, nothing happened. That’s why she decided to reveal her story to the public.

“Finally, I decided the only way to do it right was to scream from the rooftops,” St. John said. “I've been doing that since the 5,000-word article came out in July 2019 in the Philadelphia Inquirer.”

Her fight for women in the world of classical music continues with a new recording that lifts the voices of a dozen women composers called ♀she/her/hers.

“For years I've been trying to include music by women in programs. There's so much great stuff out there for solo violin I decided to make a recording of it,” she said. “For example, Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté, was a violinist, pianist and terrific composer. Nobody outside of Manitoba has ever heard of her. So I wanted to change that.”

Can you talk about some of the extended techniques used on the album?

“Milica Paranosic’s Bubamara is the first track. She and I have been friends for years and originally bonded over our love of Serbian Roma music. So she wrote this one for me and used traditional Macedonia rhythms. At one point, she said, ‘I want this effect here. How can you do this and can you do it? Can you do it with foot bells? Can you do it with this?’ I just figured out different ways of being able to play a theme. It's doing pizzicato with the left hand, which is kind of like accompanying oneself.

“Laurie Anderson gave me carte blanche, basically. I set her Statue of Liberty for solo violin and Tibetan bells. The bowls make those beautiful sounds that go right into your solar plexus. I don't know how Tibetans do that, but it's an incredible sound.

“I've been a big fan of Valerie Coleman for 20 years, and she wrote a gorgeous flute piece, which I figured out how to perform on violin. I can even do flutter tongue. I have the sound that I want to achieve in my head, and then I figure out how to do it.”

Tell me about Ada Caplan's Whitewashed.

“She was 14 when she wrote to me and said, ‘Hi, I don't know you, but I'm a composer and a violinist. I wrote a piece I want to present to a competition at my school. I wrote it a little bit too hard, and I don't sound good. Can you record it for me?’

“She's from Philadelphia. Of course, a 14-year-old from Philadelphia was a little more fateful than a coincidence. One of her composition teachers is Melissa Dunphy, who also wrote a great piece for solo violin called Kommós, which is also on the album. The whole thing just came together.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources

Lara St. John — ♀she/her/hers (Lara St. John Store)

Lara St. John — ♀she/her/hers (Amazon)

Lara St. John (official site)

Christopher Mallett — Justin Holland: Guitar Works and Arrangements (Naxos)

by

“For me, it's not just American music. It's music that a Black American arranged,” classical guitarist Christopher Mallett said. “That's the most significant part of why I want to help spread this music and why I need to play it.”

Mallett honors and celebrates the Black pioneer of American classical guitar music in his latest solo recording, Justin Holland: Guitar Works and Arrangements. 

He initially discovered Justin Holland's music while studying classical guitar at his local community college. He went on to study at Holland’s alma mater, Oberlin College, and discovered more of Holland’s music as a student at Yale. For several years, Mallett has been carrying around a stack of Holland’s music playing it occasionally.

“It wasn't until 2020 that people started to take notice of Holland's music. It was around the time of George Floyd,” he says. “People started looking up Black composers and classical guitarists. Suddenly, people are writing articles about Holland and reaching out to me and saying, ‘Can you record Justin Holland?’”

“I sat down and read through every single piece,” he says about creating the album. “I spent days and days putting my wife through the torture of just sitting there and saying, ‘What do you think of this one?’ I was whittling it down from 50 to 60 pieces down to 14 of what I thought would be something that would catch the attention of listeners.”

What piece did your wife enjoy the most?

“The two that she said should be on the recording were ‘The Maiden’s Prayer’ and ‘Carnival of Venice.’ My wife is from Indonesia, and ‘The Maiden’s Prayer’ is prevalent throughout Asia and Southeast Asia. When I played it, she said, ‘Oh my gosh, I used to listen to that all the time when I was a little kid. You have to record it.’

“It's an amazing arrangement. I've seen other guitarists play other arrangements online that I feel aren't even half as good as Holland's. Hopefully, this innovation will get out more because it is a trendy tune.”

What sets the “Carnival of Venice” apart from other arrangments?

“There are variations with intricate and quick pull-offs reminiscent of metal music. He has variations with these quick, rapid arpeggios that fly up and down the neck. It's a culmination of all his method books into one piece. Everything he talks about scales, arpeggios, harmonics, pull-offs, slurs, it’s all within that one piece.”

Why was Justin Holland so influential as a guitarist in 19th-century America?

“It was his arrangements. He started making them for his students. They passed them around and they started becoming popular. It caught the attention of a viral publisher back then, S. Brainard & Sons. Any new popular tunes that would come out, Holland would be the person to arrange them.

“What made him a household name to guitarists in America were his two method books. There's this famous method book now called Pumping Nylon by Scott Tennant. As I look through Holland’s method, I almost consider it the Pumping Nylon of the 19th century.”

Resources

Christopher Mallett — Justin Holland: Guitar Works and Arrangements (Presto music)

Christopher Mallett — Justin Holland: Guitar Works and Arrangements (Amazon)

Christopher Mallett (official site)

Calidore String Quartet — Beethoven: The Late Quartets (Signum Classics)

by

Sometimes the best way to tell a story is to start at the end. That way your destination is clear. That’s what the Calidore String Quartet decided to do when recording all of Beethoven’s String Quartets during the pandemic and recently releasing their first 3-CD set, Beethoven: The Late Quartets.

Cellist Estelle Choi said about the creation of the project, “It will be an interesting journey to go back and realize how much uniqueness and creativity was involved in every single one of his quartets. Each one is completely different from the other.”

Why are these string quartets significant to you?

“The Beethoven String Quartets span his entire career. You get work from every single period of his life. The importance of these works is immeasurable. It ushered in a completely new era and cemented the roots of the string quartet as a vehicle, not just for looking into the past but also looking far into the future.

“Suppose you're coming into this not knowing anything about the string quartets. In that case, it represents an incredible body of work from somebody who pushed his creativity and did not feel constrained to fit the status quo. You can explore his compositional eras and find something that speaks to you because his music expresses the human condition.”

How do these late quartets unite us as people?

“In his struggles, you see how he made himself heard within the music. One particular piece which hits me personally is Opus. 132, Heiliger Dankgesang. This is Beethoven struggling to come to terms with knowing that he's towards the end of his life. But in the slow movement, he takes a moment to give thanks.

“A visceral moment in learning this piece that stays with me forever is when we worked with the first violinist from the Alben Berg Quartet, Günter Pichler. He was describing this movement as going from this gorgeous chorale-like opening into the next section which is renewed force.

“He described it as imagining somebody who had been belabored with sickness, suddenly being able to stand up and walk as a healthy individual. That has always stayed with me in imagining Beethoven feeling the burden of this illness and yet being able to stand up and say, ‘No, there is something to live for.’”

Resources

Calidore String Quartet — Beethoven: The Late Quartets (Signum Classics)

Calidore String Quartet (official site)

Eldbjørg Hemsing — Arctic (Sony Classical)

by

“It's hard to describe with words what the Arctic is like, and that's one of the reasons I wanted to create this musical journey through the region,” Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing said. “I try to give an audio/visual experience with images when people listen to it.”

Hemsing grew up about 60 miles from the Arctic Circle. In her new recording, Arctic, she offers a glimpse of its fragile beauty through the music of contemporary and traditional composers.

“I come from a small village in the middle of nowhere. Six hundred people live in that area of wilderness, which is just beneath a big mountain chain. I grew up with my mom playing the violin,” she says. “My father was working in nature. So my upbringing was very much music and nature. That's the main inspiration for this album.”

Many of the pieces on this album are trying to capture the beauty of the Arctic.

“There are difficulties in the North regarding ice melting. The environment is changing. It's easy to lose hope and feel depressed. I wanted to try with this project to come from another angle and show the life and beauty that we need to preserve.”

Could you walk us through Jacob Shea’s Arctic Suite?

“In the Arctic, it's important to try to show all the different sides. That's the musical journey in the piece. It starts with a frozen world. Everything's very quiet, harsh and frozen. But then as the sun returns, which happens around January, you can see life return to this region.

“Slowly but surely, it happens. There's inspiration from the aurora borealis, giving a musical expression to the polar regions. With this piece, you can get a sense of a whole year in the Arctic Circle.”

Does he also sing on that piece?

“Yes. He wasn't supposed to. But when we were preparing the piece, he had so much power while singing. I felt strongly we needed this in the recording because it's raw and real.”

Why did you include Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Whispering?

“I was thinking about the sound you get when you hear the winds howling up in the mountains. It carries so much meaning and expression, but it's quiet and round when it moves. It's almost like water in that sense.”

Could you tell us about Henning Sommerro’s Vårsøg?

“This is a piece I grew up with. It's well known in Norway. The piece was made over a poem written in 1945, just as the world was starting to become normal again after the Second World War. The poem talks about hope for peace and a new start.”

To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources

Eldbjørg Hemsing — Arctic (Sony Store)

Eldbjørg Hemsing — Arctic (Amazon)

Eldbjørg Hemsing (official site)