Music and Recording Reviews

Mahler: Symphony 9
Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, David Bernard (cond.)
Recursive Classics RC3691873 (CD). 2025. James Bernard, prod.; Thom Beemer, eng.
Performance ***½
Sonics *****

I was unprepared for the easy, peaceful opening of the Park Avenue's Ninth, with its blended, coolly lyrical violins and focused lead horn. Within clear textures, Bernard shapes and tapers the short motifs to fine effect, and the clarinet makes a point of phrasing its countertheme "across the bars." The brief transitional passage unexpectedly injects an off-kilter dance lilt.

In the development, overly present brass motifs dispel the lower strings' mystery; forward surges aren't always coordinated precisely. Creditably, the music never feels becalmed. The recapitulation is satisfying.

In the Ländler, the players dig into the down-bows, sacrificing dance feel for tonal weight; the horns' graces are woozy. Tempo II rides nicely over the barlines; the faster Tempo III is looser, with less pointed landings. Bernard has to jerk the music abruptly back into Tempo I.

The Rondo-Burleske is rather slurry and smoothed out. Bernard guides it with purpose, but the moving parts require more alertness than the players can muster "at speed." The slower middle section, shoe-horned awkwardly into tempo, lacks reflective space; it finds repose, but its climax is a thud rather than a clean landing.

The violins that summon the Finale, while slightly rough-edged, have the right intensity. Bernard avoids the trap of a too-andante tempo, which works initially but doesn't hold up; inner parts push the eighth notes, which doesn't augur well, but the conductor brings the subsequent returns back to the original pulse. Oddly, the movement reaches a valedictory expressiveness prematurely, some five minutes too soon. The ensuing climax, though, is in good order, and the actual coda gradually evanesces into a proper farewell.

Vivid, directional sonics. It's nice to both hear and feel the contrabassoon in the Ländler.—Stephen Francis Vasta

Anna Clyne: Abstractions
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop (cond.)
Naxos 8.574620 (CD; reviewed as 24/96). 2025. Rick Jacobson, prod., eng.
Performance *****
Sonics ***½

In her 45 years on planet Earth, London-born Anna Clyne has amassed an impressive catalog of music, full of color, excitement, and feeling. I was blown away by the definitive renditions on this album of some of Clyne's major works; they enthrall despite the recording's less-than-demonstration-class transparency, depth, and dynamics. I urge you to give this engaging music a listen.

The recording opens with Within Her Arms for string ensemble (2008–2009). A heartfelt elegy occasioned by the death of Clyne's mother, it is among her most frequently performed pieces. Its consoling sadness contrasts with the energized writing in the world premiere recording of Abstractions, a suite of five movements inspired by contemporary works of art. Abstractions' gorgeous opening movement, "Marble Moon," which was inspired by Sara VanDerBeek's digital chromogenic color prints, resounds on a different level than the excitement of "River" and the ecstasy of "Three." Abstractions was recorded live at a rehearsal and performance that took place two years after Alsop premiered the piece in Maryland with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

The collection ends with two Alsop orchestral premieres. The powerful grunts, stomps, shouts, and vocalizations in the four-minute Restless Oceans (2018), commissioned by the Taki Concordia Orchestra, which Alsop founded in 1984, segue perfectly into Color Field (2020), commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Alsop.

Color Field was inspired by Mark Rothko's 1961 Orange, Red, Yellow, one of the most famous of his Color Field paintings. I was struck by the visceral power of "Red," the shimmering radiance of "Yellow," and the brilliance of "Orange." Fabulous stuff.—Jason Victor Serinus

Steve Reich: Jacob's Ladder | Traveler's Prayer
Synergy Vocals, New York Philharmonic, Japp van Zweden (cond.); Synergy Vocals, Colin Currie Group, Colin Currie (cond.)
Nonesuch 7559789912 (CD; reviewed as 24/96). 2025. Ian Dearden, Lawrence Rock, Steve Reich, prods.; Daniel Halford, Lawrence Rock, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****

As Steve Reich approaches his ninth decade, his music remains as fresh and vital as ever, but his methods continue to evolve—specifically, the increasingly refined means by which he blends the visceral and the spiritual into a compelling sound world that's unmistakably his.

The texts for the five-movement Jacob's Ladder (2023) and the single-movement Traveler's Prayer (2020) arise from the Old Testament. The former, which describes Jacob's dream of a giant ladder on which angels travel between heaven and earth, revels in the magical and wondrous. As the angels travel up and down, the rhythmic propulsion and repetition we expect from Reich grows ever more joyful, exciting, and ecstatic.

In his brief liner note explication, to which Timo Andres adds additional commentary, Reich points to William Blake's winding staircase, the ladders in Bruegel's "Tower of Babel," and the later works of Philip Guston. Reich, though, moved beyond imagery and concepts and allowed intuition to lead the way. Roughly half the work is strictly instrumental; the rest drawn from Genesis 28:12. I couldn't stop listening.

Traveler's Prayer (2020) sounds like a sincere prayer that expands and grows over 12 minutes, 30 seconds. Synergy Vocals' two tenors, Benedict Hymas and Will Wright, project innocent sincerity, and the ensemble of eight strings, two vibraphones, and piano sounds intentionally spare and spiritually chaste. I had to listen to this magnetic music several times before my consciousness fully wrapped itself around the mystical blend of three melodies, including one by Reich, that animate Traveler's Prayer's three prayers.—Jason Victor Serinus

Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem; Winter Words; The Prince of the Pagodas
Nicky Spence, tenor; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Gardner (cond.)
London Philharmonic LPO-0134 (CD). 2025. Nick Parker, Andrew Walton, prods.; Mike Hatch, Deborah Spanton, engs.
Performance **½
Sonics ***

The chief interest here is in the song cycle Winter Words, performed to Robin Holloway's orchestration of the piano original. Nicky Spence's voice is sometimes ringy, sometimes muffled; his presentation is heartfelt, but emphatic articulation interferes with the legato line, noticeably in "The tenor man's story." In "The journeying boy," the melisma on "whence" is semidetached and uneven, and the next bit is too syllable-y. Register shifts can be awkward.

Gardner's accompaniment brings out the jaunty bounce of track 5, the dignity of the winds in 8, the repose at the start of the final song. But the colors are much the same from piece to piece; only the reeds' flourishes in track 9 break up the monochrome.

The elusive Sinfonia da Requiem is stoic, even bleak, for two movements, grasping toward light in the third. Gardner has the sense of the episodes, whether yearning or ominous; yet, while brass interjections have impressive depth, the tuttis never really expand. Only with the later, aspirational writing—especially in the Coplandesque string-led passage—do the textures fill out.

The conductor's own suite from the ballet The Prince of the Pagodas is, I suppose, no better or worse than any other. There are no blatant "Orientalisms"; the Act II opening could as easily be British nautical music. The selections provide rhythmic firmness and propulsion: the brisk, dashing "Fool and the Dwarf," the ominous oom-pah and fleet charm in "The Hunt." But it's mostly orchestral wallpaper, with few actual tunes. Gardner summons lovely blended string textures in the Variation and sets the high reeds in sharp relief in Act II. But the tuttis still don't really fill out. At peak moments, the trumpets consistently have a sharp edge.—Stephen Francis Vasta