John-Henry Crawford: CORAZÓN: The Music of Latin America
Orchid Classics

Whereas John-Henry Crawford's 2021 debut album Dialogo presented material from the standard cello repertoire—sonatas by Brahms, Ligeti, and Shostakovich, specifically—his follow-up focuses exclusively on music associated with Latin America. If you're wondering why a Shreveport, Louisiana-born cellist would devote his sophomore effort to works by Astor Piazzolla, Manuel Ponce, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Manuel Ponce, Egberto Gismonti, and others, the mystery's easily solved.

When Crawford traveled to Mexico in 2019 for the 'IX International Carlos Prieto Cello Competition,' he was familiar with Latin American music; however, after winning first prize and then returning to Mexico to deliver a number of performances, his immersion in the country's culture, history, language, and, of course, music deepened, so much so he begin to feel like something more than a mere visitor. That transformative experience is now captured in an hour-long album whose material spans 140 years and offers listeners a tour though Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico. Two long-form works, Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango and Ponce's four-part Sonata in G minor, are major attractions, but the shorter settings by Leo Brouwer, Gismonti, Villa-Lobos, and Carlos Guastavino possess as much, if not even more, appeal. Of the six composers featured, two, Cuban guitarist Brouwer (b.1939) and Brazilian composer Gismonti (b.1947), are still with us.

Perhaps another reason why Crawford gravitated to this music is because his playing style matches so splendidly the character of the pieces performed. His “singing sound” (aptly noted by the Philadelphia Inquirer) and vocal-like execution align perfectly with compositions grounded in melody and emotional expression. The poise with which this Juilliard School graduate plays also intensifies the feelings of longing and romance that are so much a part of the works performed. He's naturally front and centre throughout, but he's not alone. Returning from Dialogo is distinguished pianist Victor Santiago Asunción, and on three pieces the cellist's joined by South Korean guitarist JIJI. Enhancing the resonance of the performances are Crawford's 200-year old European cello and a French bow from 1790.

Sometimes referred to as the “Afro-Cuban Lullaby,” Brouwer's Canción de cuna (Berceuse) is rendered magnificently by Crawford and JIJI to initiate the recording on a high. Its innocence and melodic grace make the piece irresistible, and the cellist's sensitive voicing of the material is flawlessly rendered. As affecting is Villa-Lobos's O canto do cisne negro (Song of the black swan) for how beautifully the vibrato-rich cello line stretches across rippling piano patterns; arriving later in the set-list, Villa-Lobos's Ondulando (Rippling) was originally written for solo piano, but Crawford's arrangement amplifies the beauty of its flowing melodic content. Por ti mi corazón (For you my heart), the first of three Ponce settings, aches with romantic yearning, after which a cello-and-guitar arrangement by Crawford of Gismonti's Água e Vinho (Water and Wine) suitably mesmerizes. With JIJI accompanying the cellist, Ponce's Estrellita (Little star) charms as deliciously as it did when originally popularized by Jascha Heifetz.

A single-movement work for cello and piano, Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango (1982) spreads its ‘Nuevo tango' wings for eleven engrossing minutes, its every searing rhythm and elegiac episode emblematic of the Argentine composer's style. Crawford shows himself as adept at executing Piazzolla's jagged phrases as he does the gentler lyrical pieces featured elsewhere on the release. A treatment of Piazzolla's well-known Oblivion concludes the release, this one a silken, multi-strings arrangement that accentuates the affecting melancholy in the writing. The work that comes closest to formal classical material is, predictably, Ponce's Sonata in G minor (1922) for the way it methodically works through four spirited movements and with Asunción again buoying Crawford. Executing a comparatively more formally structured work doesn't mean the two deliver the material any less passionately, however, or with any less poise and conviction (or, as its third movement “Arietta” shows, any less romantically).

CORAZÓN impresses from start to finish and leaves no doubt as to Crawford's command of its Latin-American programme. While the talent he possesses guarantees he would excel equally well were he to give his attention to a full album of cello works by French or Russian composers, there's no question his connection to those on CORAZÓN is powerful.

September 2022