62 GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 gramophone.co.uk
ORCHESTRAL REVIEWSand assistant to Mahler at the Vienna
Court Opera and taught composition
to pupils including Korngold, Eisler and
Zeischl. Following the Anschluss of Austria
with Germany in 1938, he fled with his
family to the United States, where he
continued to compose and held a
number of teaching positions until
his death in 1949.
Considering Weigl’s personal
associations, including a close friendship
with Schoenberg, not to mention the
remarkable developments taking place in
the Viennese musical scene of the time,
the First Symphony is a surprisingly
conservative affair for a work composed
in 1908. Indeed, the music’s almost total
avoidance of chromaticism and general
lack of harmonic sophistication is more
suggestive of a piece written several
decades earlier. The writing is for the most
part tuneful and well constructed rather
than distinctive or inspiring, although a
degree of Dvo∑ákian radiance and charm
makes for a pleasant listen in the third-
placed slow movement.
Composed for piano in 1909 and
orchestrated in 1922, Pictures and Tales is a
six-part suite of miniatures depicting scenes
from fairy tales. As in the symphony, the
work’s musical idiom harks back to earlier
times, the second and sixth pieces especially
suggestive of the influence of Mendelssohn.
The fourth movement, an easeful lullaby, is
particularly charming. Taken as a whole,
however, this is not music that I found
particularly memorable, despite the lively
and engaging performances from
conductor Jürgen Bruns. Christian Hoskins
Mari Samuelsen
JS Bach Invention No 13, BWV784. Prelude,
BWV850. Solo Violin Partita No 2, BWV1004 –
Chaconne. Solo Violin Sonata No 1, BWV1001 –
Presto Badzura 847 CS Clark Mammal Step
Sequence Eno/Hopkins/Abrahams Emerald
and Stone Eno/Roedelius/Moebius By this
River Glass Einstein on the Beach – Knee Play 2.
Violin Concerto – 2nd movt P Gregson Lullaby.
Sequence (Four) Jóhannsson Good Night, Day.
Heptapod B Martynov The Beatitudes. Come in!
- 2nd movt Richter Dona nobis pacem 2.
Fragment. November. Vocal Vasks Vientuļais
eņġelis (Lonely Angel)
Mari Samuelsen vn Berlin Konzerthaus
Orchestra / Jonathan Stockhammer
DG M b 483 5869GH2 (106’ • DDD)
Don’t be deceived by
the slick packaging,
stylised poses, smug
self-titling, blandbooklet notes and banal, FM-friendly
musical contents of Mari Samuelsen’s latest
release. Delve beneath the surface and
there’s some seriously impressive playing
going on here.
This two-disc set sees the Norwegian
violinist straying beyond the relative
comfort zone of ‘Nordic Noir’ (11/17)
in order to explore a more varied musical
landscape. For evidence, look no further
than Samuelsen’s supercharged, energy-
sapping rendition of ‘Knee Play 2’ from
Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach –
coruscating repeating patterns leaping off
the soundboard as if fingers were treading
on hot coals – or the nervous, agitated
ostinato figurations found in Christian
Badzura’s 847. Samuelsen’s Bach isn’t
bad either, as heard in her performance
of the Chaconne from the composer’s
D minor Partita, BWV1004, full of
sweeping parabola-like shapes and
nuanced shadings; or the almost
lilting motion she imparts to the
Presto movement from the Sonata
in G minor, BWV1001.
Some listeners will no doubt regard
these Bach moments as high points on
an album whose music occasionally flatters
to deceive in terms of its emollient
efficaciousness. Still, if the set’s chocolate-
box contents may appear too saccharine
to many, one would be hard-pressed not
to admire the hand-crafted precision
and meticulousness of these musical
confections. Standout moments include
Pe ̄teris Vasks’s haunting Lonely Angel,
high-altitude solo lines against a backdrop
of gently rising and falling string
accompaniment and affect-laden
glissandos; Jóhann Jóhannsson’s tender
Good Night, Day, a salutary reminder of
a career cut short in full bloom; or the
sombre, valedictory mood of Peter
Gregson’s quiescent Lullaby for solo
violin. Adequately supported by the
Konzerthausorchester Berlin under
Jonathan Stockhammer, there’s more
to the glossy surface than meets the eye.
Pwyll ap Siôn‘American Recorder
Concertos’
Hickey A Pacifying Weapona Newman Concerto
for Recorder, Harpsichord and Stringsb R Sierra
Prelude, Habanera and Perpetual Motionc
Stucky Etudesd
Michala Petri rec bAnthony Newman hpd bNordic
Quartet; dDanish National Symphony Orchestra /
Lan Shui; aRoyal Danish Academy of Music
Concert Band / Jean Thorel; cTivoli Copenhagen
Philharmonic Orchestra / Alexander Shelley
OUR Recordings F 8 226912 (73’ • DDD)
cRecorded live, July 1, 2018Danish recorder
doyenne Michala
Petri turns to
America for the
latest instalment in her international
concerto series, and it’s a stylistically varied
quartet of recent works. First up is Roberto
Sierra’s Prelude, Habanera and Perpetual
Motion, a 2018 expansion and development
of a 2006 composition for recorder and
guitar, for which Petri is ably joined by the
Tivoli Copenhagen Philharmonic under
Alexander Shelley. The recorder occupies
centre stage from the off; and with its
ornate melismas circling over a pizzicato-
strong accompaniment of ghostly
harmonies, it’s the perfect vehicle for
Petri’s clean, smooth, precise sound.
Likewise the final bongo-accompanied
‘Perpetual Motion’, whose shrilly ducking
and diving virtuosities are a reminder if any
were needed of Petri’s capacity to get her
fingers around absolutely anything, no
matter how fast, and make it sound like
liquid mercury.
The Danish National Symphony
Orchestra and Lan Shui join her for Steven
Stucky’s Etudes for recorder and orchestra
(2000, written for Petri herself), whose
trio of movements – ‘Scales’, ‘Glides’
and ‘Arpeggios’ – explore the orchestra’s
palette of colours in a variety of interesting
directions, all of which are attacked with
artistic gusto by the DNSO. We then
switch ensembles once more, as Anthony
Newman himself takes the harpsichordist’s
part for his 2016 Concerto for recorder,
harpsichord and strings: a perkily inventive
old-meets-new celebration of the
recorder’s Baroque heyday. We wind up
with Jean Thorel conducting the Royal
Danish Academy of Music Concert Band
in Sean Hickey’s A Pacifying Weapon for
recorder, winds, brass, percussion and harp:
a 2015 work which has the recorder playing
the role of an ancient, gentle protester
against the menacing, harsher forces of
the contemporary world.
This is a multicoloured, multi-textured,
multi-ensemble presentation of interesting,
little-known repertoire, casting the
recorder in all sorts of different stylistic
and emotional guises – which makes it all
the more surprising that the actual
listening experience has ended up being so
very samey throughout. Certainly Petri’s
phenomenal technique is as polished and
en pointe as ever, and her sound as clear and
sweet. However, perfection alone does not
make a performance, and there’s a lack of
emotional fire and conviction from her