Edna Michell: The Compassion Project
Innova

This encompassing, decades-spanning anthology could as easily have been titled The Passion Project for the dedication demonstrated by violinist Edna Michell in bringing it into the world. The idea for the collection originated in 1993 when she responded to Yehudi Menuhin despairing over “atrocities of the world” by suggesting a project that would feature short classical works inspired by the theme of universal compassion. The idea took hold, resulting in an initial set containing fifteen works released by EMI/Angel in 2001; the Innova release updates the earlier one by presenting the original fifteen on disc one with ten more on the second. The 142-minute collection in toto could be regarded as a portrait of late-twentieth century classical composition, considering the composers involved: among those featured are John Tavener, Hans Werner Henze, Poul Ruders, Wolfgang Rihm, Luciano Berio, Chen Yi, Lukas Foss, György Kurtág, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Kaija Saariaho.

Though not everything will be to a given listener's taste, there's little doubt much will be. As the so-called Compassion works were written for and dedicated to Menuhin and Michell, it little surprises that violin is central to almost all of it, with Michell appearing on almost every piece; consequently, whatever the contrasts between the works themselves, her stellar playing acts as a unifying thread, though she's not the only violinist featured on the release. She began her career, incidentally, as a protégé of Menuhin's before becoming his colleague and a significant musical force in her own right. A renowned pedagogue who's taught in the United States, Israel, and Europe, the Israel-born Michell has had more than forty new works written for her as a soloist and chamber music ensembles with which she's been associated.

Familiar names such as sopranos Susan Narucki and Patricia Rozario also appear, as does Allen Ginsberg, who contributes narration to the Glass setting; Foss is not only represented by two compositions, he conducted seven of disc one's performances. The release concludes with a work he wrote for the opening of the 1980 Winter Olympics, a fascinating curio that includes Orson Welles narrating words by W. H. Auden and features the set's sole Menuhin appearance. The presentation ranges from expansive orchestral and chamber settings to duet, trio, and solo performances. Whereas recording dates for those on the first disc extend from 1999 to 2001, those for the second range from 1982 (the Foss piece featuring Welles) all the way to 2016 (Berio and Sean Hickey). In the global spirit of the project, the material was recorded in Prague, Germany, Israel, and the United States.

Highlights? Too many to mention, but perhaps a sampling will suffice. With a supplicating Narucki and violinist Ulf Hoelscher supported by the strings of the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Song of the Angel is quintessential Tavener, a prayer-like meditation that introduces the set on a sublime note. Rozario and Michell become hushed, ethereal presences within Somei Satoh's transfixing Innocence, and thereafter grace Foss's delicate and more earthbound Romance as memorably. As haunting are Shulamit Ran's Yearning, which Michell and cellist Michal Kanka elevate with expressive outpourings, and Ruders' dramatic Credo, whose slow-shifting metamorphoses clarinetist Ludmila Peterková and violinists Hoelscher and Shlomo Mintz likewise elevate with engaged performances (many of these pieces back the soloists with a string orchestra). Echorus, the Ginsberg-Glass piece, plays naturally like a microcosmic version of Hydrogen Jukebox, even if in this case a string orchestra takes the place of the Glass ensemble, while Reich's 1995 Duet, performed by Michell and Hoelscher and structured around unison canons for two violins, is an inordinately pretty piece by the NY composer.

The slightly shorter second disc opens strongly with an intimate, soprano-and-violin rendering of Saariaho's Changing Light by Michell and Luyba Petrova, advances through a spirited treatment by clarinetist David Shifrin and violist Ettore Causa of Berio's short Glossa, and then re-presents Michell and Petrova with cellist Ole Akahoshi for Boris Tishchenko's Wild Honey Smells of Freedom, a brief romance with text by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. In a welcome change on a collection where strings dominate, different timbres illuminate Hickey's elegant Lunula when flautist Tara Helen O'Connor duets with English hornist Claire Brazeau. Foss's Round a Common Center wasn't actually written for The Compassion Project but rather in 1980 when Michell asked if he'd be interested in composing a new piece to be premiered at the U.S. Winter Olympics. Foss responded with an animated, wide-ranging setpiece whose text is drawn from Auden's “The Runner” and which in this iteration's performed by the Cantilena Piano Quartet (featuring Michell), Menuhin, mezzo-soprano Elaine Bonazzi, and narrator Welles. Spoken word and sung passages (the latter including whispers and solfeges) alternate with nimble violin and piano parts during the thirteen-minute performance of this tonal, rhythmically charged shapeshifter.

November 2018