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Baxter ‘Resistance’ Ballade for a Princessa. Could You Dream What I Dreamb. Des larmes encadréesc. Edge ieldd. From the Headwaterse. Il y a longtempsb. MacPherson’s Lamentf. Resistancea. Romance Without Wordsa. The Silver Rung g Melissa Wertheimer l cKenny Baik sax b Nicholas Currie vn bDiana Greene, cBonghee Lee, agAndrew Stewart pf fAzimuth Quartet; d Arabesque Guitar Duo; eWest Shore Piano Trio Navona F NV6202 (77’ • DDD)
Laurence Vittes, in his review of Garth Baxter’s songs ‘Ask the Moon’ (5/18),
rightly categorised his idiom as ‘simple, straightforward, old-fashioned romantic’. Here the focus is on chamber and instrumental works, although three – the violin-and-piano duets Could You Dream What I Dream and Il y a longtemps, plus the piano solo Romance Without Words – all derive from his two-act opera Lily.
So far as I can determine, the works are of relatively recent provenance, although no dates – or, indeed, useful information – are provided (Navona’s skimpy documentation, even on their website, remains a recurrent niggle). The composer’s website does provide background information but no dates of composition aside from – of the works featured here – Romance Without Words being premiered in 2011 and the guitar duo Edgefield three years later. Even his opera, which has its own website(!), gives no dates.
These 10 works provide a rounded picture of what Baxter (b1946) is about as a composer. Full of charm and melody, each is a miniature tone picture or character study (none runs to 10 minutes, the shortest barely past five), with little abstract compositional rigour. Sometimes the music takes rather saccharine turns, as in the ‘Lily’ pieces; several others have a feeling of popular light jazz about them. The most musically satisfying are the title-track, Resistance, and Ballade for a Princess, both expertly rendered by Andrew Stewart, who accompanies
talks to ... David Korevaar The renowned pianist talks about his discovery of a littleknown Italian composer
How did you come across Luigi Perrachio? When I irst came to the University of Colorado, 18 years ago, I became aware of a collection of scores in our library that had belonged to Ricardo Viñes, full of obscure music. I went through all 800-odd scores, and found several worthy of study, including Perrachio’s Nove Poemetti. I eventually had time to learn these pieces, and after further investigation I also fell in love with the 25 Preludi. With no one else playing this music, I am excited to be able to introduce it in this recording as well as in live performances.
Is it simplistic to think of the syle of this music as a kind of Italian Impressionism? The Poemetti certainly it in with an ‘Impressionist’ aesthetic, and were clearly written under the in luence of Ravel and Debussy, albeit with an Italianate twist. Other Italians were dabbling in this style (see the early piano music of Mario Castelnuovo-
Melissa Wertheimer in the diptych The Silver Run, as well as the piano trio From the Headwaters. I did not warm much to violinist Nicholas Currie’s rather edgy intonation in the duos (less problematic in the performance by the Azimuth Quartet – of which he is leader – of MacPherson’s Lament); otherwise the performances, recorded at five different locations on nine different dates during 2015-18, are captivating and the finished sound remarkably consistent. Guy Rickards
Mahler Symphony No 9 Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra / Benjamin Zander Brattle Media F b 731717 804826 (86’ • DDD)
Tedesco, for example). That said, the Preludi hardly it that mould, with their far cleaner textures and relatively spare sound.
Is this music within reach of the amateur? Some of the pieces are de initely in reach, especially in the Preludi. Although everything is out of print, the Poemetti are available through the University of Colorado library and the Preludi are held by several libraries.
Might you record a second volume? There probably isn’t enough for a second disc. There is a piano concerto (unpublished) that I am curious about, as well as a piano quintet and the irst violin sonata, both from the 1910s.
Recorded live at Symphony Hall, Boston, 11 March 2018
Benjamin Zander’s detailed immersion in both the letter and the spirit of Mahler’s
Ninth Symphony yielded a generally excellent live recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Telarc, 4/99), now out of print. None of Zander’s subsequent Philharmonia Mahler recordings lived up to that Ninth’s promise but this 2018 live remake with the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra recaptures the Philharmonia recording’s salient
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