Beneath the Surface #7 - John Sheppard: Sacred Choral Music

Composer: John Sheppard (English, c1515-1558)

Works: Missa Cantate; Libera nos, salva nos I; Reges Tharsis et insulae; Gaude virgo Christiphera; Sacris solemniis; Kyrie Lux et origo (Kyrie Paschale); Adesto sancta Trinitas II; Hodie nobis caelorum rex; Verbum caro

Performers: Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral Edinburgh / Duncan Ferguson

Label: Delphian

Background and Critical Reception

It is very difficult to fully appreciate the turbulent climate in which John Sheppard lived. A contemporary of Thomas Tallis and John Taverner, he lived until the year in which Mary Tudor’s short reign ended. His exact year of birth is uncertain, estimated on the basis that he began his studies in 1534.

He is regarded as one of the finest Tudor composers, but a lot of his musical output was lost, and he remains in the shadow of Tallis and near-contemporaries Taverner, Byrd and Palestrina to this day. More recently however recordings of his music have been forthcoming and choral groups such as the Tallis Scholars and The Sixteen have given his work the attention it deserves.

The Tudor period was an incredibly testing time for the church, under a quickly changing succession of monarchs, and in this period Archbishop Cranmer introduced the First Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Shortly after it seems Sheppard was directly involved in composing for the Queen Mary, whose wish was for music of intricate polyphony – that is, a number of different melodic voices sounding together.

At the time a number of composers used the famous melody of the Western Wind as the basis for mass setting, and Sheppard was no exception, completing his own contribution to the form as one of six masses he completed. The Missa Cantate, the main feature of this new disc from the Choir of St Mary's Cathedral Edinburgh and their conductor Duncan Ferguson, is likely to have been written in the mid-1550s, and is a particularly elaborate setting. It is heard together with a number of shorter anthems, often introduced by brief plainsong.

Thoughts

Perhaps inevitably the first thing that strikes home about this music is its continual purity. It has a curious form of perfection, as if precisely calculated from the start to run with great fluency from beginning to end. This of course ties in perfectly with its intended function.

The overall sound is bright and treble-rich, and it is almost always possible to follow a different melody each time you listen, the music fresh on each encounter.

I do sometimes find with the extensive melisma (notes per word) that I prefer not to follow the text too closely, as it can be oddly frustrating having it change so slowly. The reduced passages are clearly sung, and contrast with the wonderful sound the full choir makes, as about 4’40" into the Gloria of the Missa Cantate. The occasional spicy dissonance always helps, too, making the glorious consonance of the harmonies at the end of each section occasions in which to revel.

The Missa Cantate is considerably quicker in this performance than the Sixteen, suggesting the possible use of a different edition, though the tempo to me feels just right, and the choir negotiate the part writing with impressive surety.

Of the shorter pieces, Hodie nobis caelorum rex has a very measured and quite deliberate progression, switching from male to female voices very effectively, while Libera nos, salva nos I begins slowly but surely, the harmonies slowly turning.

Some of the polyphony is dense but in this recording is always very clear and sung with great control, as at the end of Gaude virgo Christiphera, which resolves into a different harmony. The recording is excellent; Delphian's engineers giving the music the room it needs.

Above all the choir really feel this music and its text – a passionate response to music that is doubtless difficult to get right on account of its complexity. Here they make it sound simple!

Verdict

This is music that succeeds in taking its listener to another place, whether that is a musical or spiritual transportation. While it might not be appropriate to work to it certainly helps to relax the mind, but it works even better with closer listening, the intricacies of Sheppard's part writing fully revealed.

Further Listening

This John Sheppard playlist includes a recording by the Salisbury Cathedral Choir and Gabrieli Consort of the Missa cantate, conducted by Paul McCreesh, as well as shorter pieces from discs by the Tallis Scholars and Stile Antico.

Beneath the Surface #6 - Atterberg: Symphonies nos. 2 & 8

Composer: Kurt Atterberg (Swedish, 1887-1974

Works: Symphony no.2 in F major Op.6 (1911-1913); Symphony no.8 in E minor Op.48 (Composed on Swedish National Melodies) (1944)

Performers: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Neeme Järvi

Label: Chandos

Kurt Atterberg was born in Gothenburg and died in Stockholm. Initially he was studying to become an engineer, but his musical talents began to dominate, and he became a cellist in what is now known as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. On New Year's Eve 1911 he was invited to rehearse the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and they liked him so much he was booked immediately for a concert, where he was able to conduct his First Symphony. Encouraged by this success, he was soon at work on a Second.

In placing an emphasis on his symphonic output Atterberg was joining an increasingly big group of Scandinavian composers expressing themselves in this form. Though their distant ancestor was Franz Berwald, who wrote his four symphonies at the start of the nineteenth century, the Scandinavians were now dominated by Sibelius and Nielsen.

Yet these so-called 'secondary' composers contributed much to the form from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. They were headed by Stenhammar, a fine pianist and conductor, but also included Rosenberg, Svendsen and Atterberg himself.

The booklet notes to this new Chandos release tell the fascinating story of how Atterberg slept outside while writing his Symphony no.2, falling under the influence of some particularly beautiful sunsets. At the premiere no less a figure than Stenhammar himself played the orchestral piano part, giving the piece his stamp of approval, and the performance was a success. The three-movement work uses a favourite Atterberg device, combining the slow movement and faster scherzo together as one.

The Eighth symphony was written in 1944, and its subtitle, Composed on Swedish National Melodies, put down in print what Atterberg was already practising in composition, the use of the folk melodies of his own country in symphonic form. Sibelius himself sent a telegram to Atterberg after the performance, saying, 'Thank you for your wonderfully cogent symphony. With warm greetings, Jean Sibelius'. It was the ultimate seal of approval, to which Atterberg responded that the words 'hang framed in glass before my nose'. The folk tunes sourced included those about love, nature and drinking!

Thoughts

There is an immediate appeal to this open air music, right from the start of the Second Symphony. It is full of melodic invention and attractive, lucid orchestral textures – the sort of music you would want to save for a sunny morning. It is not in any way demanding, but nor is it too simple, and on this disc the music is communicated in the best possible way by musicians who obviously love it.

The Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi has a long and illustrious discography of Scandinavian symphonies to his name, many of them recorded with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra – and here the pairing enjoy the clearest of recorded sound at the hands of Lennart Dehn and Torbjörn Samuelsson, producing for Chandos.

It is also Atterberg's orchestration that is responsible for this clarity, a kind of blend of the best that Grieg and Schumann had to offer. The horns often take the tune in the Second Symphony in particular, but the rest of the orchestra join in with lyrical countermelodies, out in the open air with them.

After a few listens these tunes made their way right to the back of my head and took up root, but the sheer positivity of the symphony carries all before it, similar in mood to Schumann's Rhenish symphony. The first movement segues easily into the second, which has a satisfying cut and thrust, and there is plenty of symphonic drama in the third, too, the music positively bursting with high spirits by the end.

The Eighth has a brooding start, its lower register scoring the only moment on the disc where I sensed a debt to Sibelius. Soon however it hits a resolute passage of faster music; and from there does not look back. Atterberg uses the folk themes sensibly, developing each so that mere repetition is avoided, and his scoring is again extremely clear, allowing the tunes – many of them catchy – to take root once again. As the final movement of four arrives there is a strong feeling of triumph through perseverance, suitable to a wartime symphony, though avoiding the anguish of composers more directly affected by the conflict.

Verdict

It is difficult to imagine a better set of circumstances for Atterberg's music, which is wonderfully performed and recorded here. Chandos scores highly for its pairing of one of his lighter, more pastoral scores with the initially troubled Eighth, which has impressive strength in adversity.

This is the second volume Chandos have released of Atterberg symphonies, and on this evidence I shall certainly be investigating the first – and look forward to the rest of the nine symphonies as they are inevitably released. This is fresh, outdoor music with a taste of spring – and I left the Atterberg experience thoroughly invigorated.

Further listening

The Chandos disc is not on Spotify, but this playlist contains the Symphony no.2 in a recording made for CPO by the Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Ari Rasilainen. It also includes a recording of the Symphony no.6 by no less than Arturo Toscanini, the Cello Concerto played by Truls Mørk and the Sinfonia for Strings.

Beneath the Surface #5 – Alwyn and Carwithen: Piano music

Composers: William Alwyn (English, 1905-1985); Doreen Carwithen (English, 1922-2003)

Works: Alwyn: Fantasy Waltzes (1955), Sonata alla Toccata (1946), Funeral Rites for the Death of an Artist, The Weather Vane (both 1931); Carwithen: Sonatina (1946)

Performers: Mark Bebbington (piano)

Label: Somm Recordings

Background and Critical Reception

William Alwyn is an almost exact contemporary of that other great British William composer, Walton, who enjoyed considerable success with public and royalty alike. Alwyn was not so prominent. He lived close to Benjamin Britten on the Suffolk coast, but his music did not reflect his surroundings in the same, vivid way.

Yet Alwyn was a successful composer of over 300 works, using many of the standard classical disciplines. His output includes over 70 scores for films such as The Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The History of Mr Polly and The Magic Box. There are five symphonies, recorded by both Richard Hickox for Chandos and David Lloyd Jones for Naxos, a large orchestral and chamber music output, and over 100 piano works – of which six are heard on this disc.

As the pianist Mark Bebbington has discovered over the last decade or so, there is a vast amount of British music for the instrument that does not regularly see the light of day. He has undertaken a recording odyssey for the Somm label that has carried him through the slightly better known piano outputs of John Ireland and Frank Bridge, but has also unearthed rarities from composers such as Reginald King and William Matthias.

The piano music of Alwyn probably sits midway between those two extremes. The great John Ogdon performed the Fantasy Waltzes, recording them for Chandos in 1984 – and these make up the backbone of Bebbington's new disc, complemented with the smaller scale Sonata alla Toccata and four world premiere recordings, including the mini suite for children The Weather Vane.

Also included is a work by Mrs Alwyn – the composer Doreen Carwithen, who lived until as recently as 2003. Because she was so supportive of her husband's music, Carwithen did not publish much of her own, but she did write a Piano Concerto, the Suffolk Suite for orchestra and some appealing chamber works. Like Alwyn, she also wrote for film, mostly scoring smaller documentaries. Her Sonatina is heard here for the first time.


Thoughts

I found this disc appealing for both foreground and background listening, but if listening closely it tends to work better divided in half.

The Fantasy Waltzes work best on their own, being a substantial work of eleven pieces, some of which are as long as five minutes. They have melodic ideas aplenty, and Bebbington plays them with a combination of verve and intimacy.

On occasion the music can be a little dry in its harmonic language, but Alwyn largely approaches the challenge of writing in 3/4 in a number of imaginative ways, leaning a little on the music of Debussy and Ravel for inspiration. I enjoyed the subtle homage to the former composer found in the first and seventh waltzes in particular, but for me the pick of the pieces is the sixth, marked Allegro giocoso, its distinctive and sharply dotted theme played with a flourish by Bebbington, but with a contrasting central section of greater tenderness. The ninth waltz, marked Lento e lugubre, is darker, with an emphatic finish, while the second, a brief and charming piece, is notable for its twinkling right hand theme.

The piece I personally enjoyed the most was the shorter scale, ten-minute Sonata alla Toccata. The central Andante is utterly charming, its soft centre established by a really nice, restful chord on which a lot of the phrases land. The outer movements are bold and on a grand scale, the first movement firmly installed in C major with a brisk, invigorating theme, and the third a similarly inspiring call to arms.

The premiere recordings show how Alwyn could work just as well on a smaller scale, his miniature picture painting recalling the piano music of John Ireland. These are brief but intimate portraits, and those in The Weather Vane have an appealing, youthful charm. The Funeral Rites for the Death of an Artist are much heavier emotionally – the artist is unknown – while the short Bicycle Ride is a witty piece.

It is a nice touch to include music by Doreen Carwithen, and having heard the Sonatina I would certainly like to hear more. It is a very well proportioned piece that once again has the slow second movement as its emotional centre, with some beautifully wistful and dreamy music that Bebbington gets right to the heart of. Hers is an interesting musical personality, with a more open sound in the faster music than her husband perhaps, and an easy charm too.

Verdict

This is an attractive disc, suitable for later night listening and with moments of genuine inspiration. One or two of the Fantasy Waltzes were a little dry for me, but they are by and large a tuneful and invigorating set – while the shorter pieces have charm and wit aplenty.

Mark Bebbington and the Somm Recordings founder Siva Oke deserve great credit for their efforts to bring this and other British piano music in from the cold – and discs such as this prove they are absolutely right to do so.

Further listening

Bebbington's disc is not yet on Spotify, but this Mr and Mrs Alwyn playlist offers versions from the pianist Ashley Wass of the Fantasy Waltzes and the Sonata alla Toccata. I would also strongly recommend the single movement Piano Concerto no.1, an energetic and inventive piece, while the Violin Concerto is a much more sizeable and imposing achievement. Also included are some examples of the film music, and the short, neo-classical Concerto Grosso no.2. Carwithen's music can also be heard here, with the Piano Concerto and short but evocative Suffolk Suite included.

Claudio Abbado - some favourite recordings

The death of Claudio Abbado, announced on January 20, 2014, robbed classical music of one of its very finest living conductors – perhaps even the finest.

His recorded legacy, principally for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Sony, is far too large to do justice to in the course of a single article, but I wanted to pay some thanks to this wonderful conductor for leaving with us some very special music making indeed. The records chosen below are not necessarily his best loved, but they have stayed with me for a number of years now.

Haydn

Haydn was not necessarily one of Abbado's premier disciplines, but if my memory serves me right the first recording of his I ever heard was the Clock symphony, no.101, made with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. This is a wonderful recording that enjoys Haydn's pithy humour in the second movement, the tick-tock of the clock beautifully done.

Another recording I remember well is the Symphony no.102 in B flat major, another of the London symphonies, which is brisk and purposeful in the Minuet, like throwing open the curtains on a bright spring morning. It is a shame DG didn’t manage to get all twelve of the London symphonies recorded in time, but the seven completed have some extremely enjoyable music making.

Schubert

Abbado's Schubert has exceptional clarity and, in the case of the Symphony no.9 – the Great – a deeply impressive symphonic breadth. The Symphony no.5 in B flat I found to be absolutely charming, but one of the jewels in Abbado's crown where Schubert is concerned is a rare recording of the complete music for the ballet Rosamunde, with a couple of crisply sung choruses – for shepherds, spirits and huntsmen alike – that go with some utterly charming ballet music numbers.

Mendelssohn

In his time at the helm of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1979 until 1987, one of Abbado's greatest achievements was a cycle of Mendelssohn symphonies and overtures. Players from the orchestra speak in hushed tones of the results they achieved together on those recordings, and listening to the evergreen accounts it is easy to hear why. The overtures have a particular sparkle, with Ruy Blas and The Hebrides particularly masterful offerings of light and shade.
Even better for me are Abbado's recordings of the Scottish and Reformation symphonies, both very good examples of 'Sturm und Drang' in Mendelssohn. The rustic second movement of the Scottish is an absolute delight, while the Reformation simmers a tension that is joyously released in the major key chorale at the end.

Brahms

Several commentators have – somewhat unkindly – poured scorn on Abbado's time with the Berlin Philharmoniker. Although it may not have yielded one benchmark recording after another, I have never found his recordings less than enjoyable. In the case of his Brahms, though, I return again and again to his direction.

I should stress this is not Brahms for the purist, necessarily, but I personally love the sheer refinement of these performances, the sleek approach to orchestral texture that makes the Berliners purr like a luxury German saloon car. There are rough edges when needed, but Abbado tends to take a long term structural view of the symphonies, presenting them in one long, unbroken phrase. In the introduction to the First this is consistently rewarding, but the lilting subjects of the Second benefit from this treatment just as well. The 'fillers' are excellent as well, the substantial choral pieces that are all too rarely heard, and a taut performance of the Tragic Overture that is especially strong.

Mahler

Abbado enjoyed a special relationship with Mahler's music that carried right through to his time with the Lucerne Festival, and some unforgettable live performances of the Second (Resurrection) and Third symphonies.

My abiding memory of his discs for Deutsche Grammophon is a live recording of the Symphony no.1, a relatively early outing on the label with the Berliner Philharmoniker, made in the Philharmonie in 1989. For me this piece in particular works best live, and the emerging dawn of the first movement is a wonderful experience, as is the high spirited outdoors music on offer elsewhere. As far as I can tell this was Abbado's first Mahler for DG, the start of an extremely auspicious discography for the composer.

Prokofiev

Abbado's earlier recordings find him enjoying more twentieth-century repertoire, and it is perhaps a regret that he did not spend more time with modern composers.

A couple of DG discs – of Kurtág, Stockhausen and Sciarrino among others – reveal what he could do in this field, but it is in the earlier giants of the twentieth-century that he really excelled in the 1960s and 1970s. This Prokofiev disc, made with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is highly revered, for it contains a Scythian Suite of formidable power, a demonstrative Lieutenant Kijé and a very deep performance of the cantata Alexander Nevsky.

Even now I feel as though I have just touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to looking at Claudio Abbado's recorded output, for there are many more gems – especially operatic – that I look forward to exploring further. For now, though, it is time to thank him for the music!

Beneath the Surface #4 – Early and Late: Music from Greenland, Denmark and the Faroe Islands

ComposersRune Glerup (b1981), Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (b1932) and Sunleif Rasmussen (b1961)

Works: Glerup: Objets/décalages (2008); Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Together or Not (2012); Rasmussen: Accvire (2008); Traditional works from Denmark, Greenland and the Faroes

Performers: Gáman [Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (violin), Bolette Roed (recorder) and Andreas Borregaard (accordion)]

Label: Dacapo

Background and Critical Reception

Everything about this disc was new to me – composers and performers alike.

The Danish composer Rune Glerup, as his publisher's website states, 'goes in search of strange, almost absurd situations in music'. The piece, which can be read in full here, goes on to describe his music as alternating in violence and tenderness.

Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, also Danish, studied with one of the country's better-known twentieth-century composers, Vagn Holmboe. A brief biography for Music Sales describes him as a contrary individual, the picture often painted being 'that of a nay-sayer, an anti-expressive, anti-virtuoso, anti-romantic inveterate dissenter, a pessimist who does not believe in big metaphysical words and beautifully crafted unities'. This doesn't sound too promising – but the conclusion, that 'Time often stands still when one is in the company of his poetic beings', is much more hopeful.

Sunleif Rasmussen, meanwhile, is a Faroese composer whose work has already been heard through Dacapo. They have recorded his first symphony, subtitled Ocean Days, and an album of string quartets, the second of which is called Sunshine and Shadows. His website, perhaps not surprisingly, declares the Faroe Islands and the North Atlantic nature to be 'key factors to understanding his sensuous music, which bears indelible traces of wind, dunes, lyme grass and the ubiquitous Atlantic Ocean'.

Finally Gáman, a group who were formed in summer 2007 through a shared passion from Nordic folk music that has seen them perform traditionally inspired music from a number of different Nordic countries. On this disc alone they look at music from Greenland, Denmark and the Faroe Islands. They comprise violin, recorder and accordion, but for the Three Bridal Pieces from Sønderho at the centre of this disc they include a tin whistle, piano and melodeon.



The Danish record label Dacapo describe their disc in exalted terms: 'The rare combination of drum songs from Greenland, chain-dances from the Faroe Islands, wedding music from the island of Fanø and new sounds by three living composers'. This becomes 'an opportunity to dance, listen and immerse yourself in worlds of sound that surprisingly and enrichingly elucidate one another'.

Thoughts

This was a whole new venture for me, taking on a very intriguing mix of music from Scandinavia and the Arctic Circle. Dacapo give them a grand introduction indeed, but it is largely accurate, as the venture looks to compare and contrast traditional songs with new compositions for the less than usual combination of violin, recorder and accordion. The result is a sound world that was completely new and original to me.

The traditional songs complement the contemporary pieces perfectly. Gáman start with two Danish Svabo Polonaises, which ebb and flow with the rise and fall of the accordion, the trio making a bright sound with very little bass. The bright first Polonaise is countered by a more reflective second.

Ormurin langi, the first of the Faroese traditional songs, has a really attractive triple time lilt but still feels a bit off kilter, and has a really nice earthy feel from the accordion that goes with it. The second song, Regin Smiður is a slower, warm-hearted canon, performed over a drone. The other Faroese songs are rather winsome too, including the softly voiced Goodnight and farewell with which the disc ends.

The Greenlandic traditional songs give an idea of the remoteness of the far north, and the Qivittoq Song after Jakob Dorph in particular has a very distant quality to it. For these it is better to be sat in a quiet acoustic, then you can fully appreciate the pictures they draw.

At the centre of the disc lie Three Bridal Pieces of Danish origin, and these are light and fragile, at times as if they are traced with ice - but very tuneful at the same time.

Of the contemporary pieces, Rune Glerup's Objets/décalages explores some very weird sounds. The accordion sounds like a piece of machinery at times, making a chugging sound like a train. Then at around the three-minute mark there is an eerie quiet, with a very soft held note from violin and recorder alike, before feathery plucking sounds are heard. This is totally in keeping with the description of the composer above, alternating graceful and more violent thoughts, and is both fascinating and odd.

I was not so keen on Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's Together or Not, which I found became a little wearing with its reliance on the violin's opening strings in the closing section, despite a promising start with a reverberant recorder solo and some intersting timbres. The weary cough that the accordion makes is strangely charming, too – it sounds a bit like a sleepy animal.
Again this is a composer responding imaginatively to the constraints of the ensemble, but the material is stretched just that bit too far.

Rasmussen's Accvire hurries around at the start, the music sounding like a flock of birds jostling for position. This is the most substantial of the three new pieces for the ensemble, and in its central section it moves slowly and ponderously, the violin melody in slow motion. Then, leading up to the end, its energy returns, the lines darting in and out of each other until right at the end, where we suddenly and unexpectedly find a tonal centre, changing the outlook completely.

Verdict

One of the most invigorating things in music is listening to something completely new, something that opens your ears out further to music whose existence had passed you by. This is one of those discs, a captivating and at times hypnotic listen, painting in musical terms a strong sense of the cold experienced by these regions – but also the warmth they find in response.

For a completely different listening experience it is heartily recommended, especially to those already keen to dabble in world and folk music.

Further Listening

The Early & Late album can be heard in its entirety on Spotify here, and the liner notes are reproduced in their entirety by Dacapo here

Next week's listening - tbc