Frank / Mendelssohn / Weir / Wheeler: Songs for a New Century
Navona Records

Songs for a New Century features world premiere recordings of pieces by Judith Weir, Gabriela Lena Frank, Scott Wheeler, and … Felix Mendelssohn? That's but one of many striking things about this chamber collection of duos performed by violinist Lucia Lin, cellist Jonathan Miller, and pianists Randall Hodgkinson and Marc Ryser. Each of the pieces seems to grow out of the one preceding it, with Mendelssohn's Song without Words, Op. 109 the seed from which the recording blooms. Miller, a forty-three-year veteran of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the founder and Artistic Director of the long-standing Boston Artists Ensemble, appears in all five of the pieces, co-commissioned (with Diane Fassino) three of them, and is clearly a driving force of the project. He's accompanied by Ryser on Mendelssohn's lyrical opener, whose sweetly singing melodies are easy to warm to. The vocal-like character of Miller's romantic expression is undeniable, even if words are absent, and the pianist shows himself to be a sympathetic partner, closely attending as he does to the cellist's every gesture.

The opener's followed by the similarly titled Songs without Words, Miller again augmented by Ryser and playing arrangements by the nineteenth-century cellist Alfredo Piatti, upon whose Venice-made 1700 cello Miller plays. It's here where the Mendelssohn premieres occur, with three of the five heard on record for the first time. The existence of such material should be a definite cause for excitement for cello-and-piano duos when “No. 13,” “No. 37,” and “No. 9” are so abundant in melody and feeling. Those previously heard, “No. 25” and “No. 1,” are no less expressive. It's certainly hard to believe that something as lovely as “No. 37” has never been recorded until now. All five of these luminous, song-like miniatures are capable of inducing swoon.

Gabriela Lena Frank's Operetta builds on the “song without words” concept with an “opera without words” setting that evokes characters and scenes through the interplay of violin and cello. While she's Berkeley-born, this self-described “multi-racial Latina, pianist/composer” is of Peruvian, Chinese, Lithuanian, and Jewish ancestry and possesses a writing style deeply informed by South America travels. Despite the change in instrumentation from the first two pieces to this one, Operetta feels like a natural outgrowth from Songs without Words, even if Frank's creation exudes a palpable contemporary quality in its incorporation of darker tonalities and a chromatic dimension. One could mistake its first aria, for example, as something by Bartók, not just for its nocturnal aura but for its stabbing string flourishes. Memorable for its declarative power is the haunting central movement “Recitativo”; whereas the second aria catches the ear by undergirding its explorative lead part with an insistent 3/4 pulse, the concluding part does the same with agitated figures and devilish drive.

In being a three-part meditation on images from religious poetry, Weir's Three Chorales, performed by Miller with Hodgkinson, is a different animal altogether. The title of the first chorale, “Angels Bending Near the Earth,” derives from an Edmund Sears' carol that begins “It came upon the midnight clear,” but as the complete reference is to “angels bending near the earth/to touch their harps of gold” the London-based composer chose to have piano arpeggios sprinkle downwards to conjure the image. In similar manner, the second part, “In Death's Dark Vale,” paraphrases the familiar words, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Initially inhabiting the instrument's lower register, Miller's cello ascends as if escaping or rising from death, while smatterings of surrounding piano chords add to the cryptic atmosphere. Unlike the other two parts, “O Sapienta” references a musical original, Hildegard of Bingen's hymn “O virtus sapientiae” (O strength of wisdom); it's most noteworthy, however, for the elegiac beauty of its closing minutes.

July 2024