Voyages and vespers: new classical material

At Wellington City Libraries we have the antidote to being aurally overwhelmed by a surfeit of Christmas carols: recent additions to our classical music collection include many wonderful new CDs in November and December, and this blog will explore some of these acquisitions. A special highlight is the Emerson String Quartet’s Infinite Voyage, the final recording by a venerable ensemble that disbanded in late 2023 after nearly half a century together. We also have Norman Meehan’s outstanding and much-needed biography of composer Jenny McLeod

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0C5FM1P1Z/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21 Vespro della Beata Virgine / Monteverdi, Claudio
Raphaël Pichon founded the period-instrument ensemble Pygmalion in 2006, to explore the ‘filiations that link Bach to Mendelssohn, Schütz to Brahms or Rameau to Gluck and Berlioz.’ Since then, Pygmalion has demonstrated its ability to perform an enormous repertoire of music. The ensemble also holds a residency at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, and tours and records regularly. This recording of Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 opens with a veritable operatic explosion: the intonation ‘Deus, in adjutorium meum intende’ and the choral response ‘Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina’ suggest a lusty exhortation rather than a pious supplication. As the journey through Monteverdi’s Vespers continues, the overall mood remains operatic, but Pichon tempers bombast with moments of crystalline delicacy and tenderness. The instrumentalists and singers embrace their roles, expertly blending precision and expression to create a very memorable account of Monteverdi’s work.

Jenny McLeod : a Life in Music / Meehan, Norman
Norman Meehan’s biography of Jenny McLeod — one of the most extraordinary, innovative, and versatile talents in New Zealand music — is a welcome addition to our music and biography collection. As McLeod’s former student, Elizabeth Kerr, comments in her review, Meehan captures the enigmatic personality of his subject, drawing on many conversations, while also offering insightful and persuasive analyses of McLeod’s music, weaving together a narrative of her life with analyses of her music. Meehan’s depiction of McLeod is a compelling one, leading us on her journey: from Levin and Timaru to Wellington, then Paris and Olivier Messiaen, and Cologne and Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen, before McLeod’s return to New Zealand and a turbulent encounter with academe at Victoria University, arguably a milieu for which McLeod’s unique vision and prodigious musical intellect were both too great and too soon.
What emerges from A Life in Music is McLeod’s lifelong ‘search for meaning’ and fulfillment in her creative and spiritual life; her continuing quest for attaining these objectives could be intellectually and physically draining, but ultimately, as works like the opera Hōhepathe score for Whale Rider, her song cycles setting New Zealand poets, the hymns and choral works, and of course, the Tone Clock pieces demonstrate, McLeod always surmounted these challenges. Meehan’s study of McLeod is, therefore, a  readable, incisive, and sensitive account of one of New Zealand’s most remarkable musical lives.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0CBSSFJ6X/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21Infinite Voyage / Emerson String Quartet
The Emerson String Quartet was formed when its members were still students at the Julliard School, and endured for more than four decades as one of the world’s great string quartets. After countless international tours and recordings, the Emerson Quartet decided to disband in 2023, and made their final performance on 22 October at the New York Chamber Music Society.
As David Allen wrote in his review for the New York Times, the Emerson Quartet was far more than a string quartet,  ‘an establishment, a touchstone, a catalyst’ in the musical world. Although the repertoire choices in Infinite Voyage may appear disparate, this is all music that reflects the literal and figurative journies of the Emerson Quartet’s history.  The music is ideally chosen to reflect the Quartet’s collaborations, ambitions, and friendships.  Arnold Schoenberg’s Quartet No. 2 is a work that the Emerson Quartet had wanted to record since adding it to their repertoire, and in this recording they are joined by Barbara Hannigan. Hannigan also performs in Hindemith’s Melancholie, a song cycle setting four poems by Christian Morgenstern, and dedicated to Hindemith’s friend Karl Köhler who perished on the Western Front in 1918. Chanson perpétuelle by Chausson, here in its version for soprano, string quartet, and piano (Bertrand Chamayou), speaks of loss and separation, but also the comfort of memory. Berg’s String Quartet No. 3, completed in 1910 and premiered on 24 April 1911, is a work that still bristles with a sense of the avant-garde more than a century after its composition. The Emerson Quartet captures the audacious modernism of the work, as well as Berg’s immersion in and appreciation of lustrous late Romantic opulence. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0CB4XVTKJ/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21

 Mass in 40 parts = Missa Ecco sì beato giorno / Striggio, Alessandro
Alessandro Striggio (c. 1536/7–1592) was a virtuoso performer on the lute, viol, lira da braccio and lirone, as well as an adept and imaginative composer, and his music dominated the Medici court in Florence during the 1560s. For many years he was best known for his secular vocal music, including many madrigals and some intermedi (precursors to opera). However, Striggio’s reputation changed with I Fagiolini‘s 2011 recording of his Mass in 40 Parts, an extraordinary large-scale sacred work. That recording won several awards including the Gramophone Early Music Award and a Diapason d’Or de l’Année. In this new album, the original recording of Striggio’s Mass has been remastered, and it is complemented by the addition of Thomas Tallis’s great 40-part work Spem in Alium. In a departure from convention, Hollingworth has added continuo instruments to Spem in Alium, adding remarkable depth and resonance to the piece, and providing a rich foundation for the towering edifice of Tallis’s motet.

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0C98T5MYF/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21Sounds and Sweet Airs : a Shakespeare songbook
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone), and Joseph Middleton (piano) collaborate here on an array of settings of Shakespeare’s texts.  Their recording brings together such familiar songs as Schubert’s An Silvia (D. 106) and Haydn’s canzonetta She Never Told Her Love setting Viola’s words from Act 2 of Twelfth Night with newer responses to Shakespeare’s words, including Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s song cycle Rosalind, and Roderick Williams’s own Sigh No More, Ladies. The ingenious programming makes for diverting pairings of works: Michael Tippet’s Songs for Ariel alongside Arthur Honegger’s Deux chants d’Ariel, and Benjamin Britten’s Fancie next to Francis Poulenc’s Fancy (both setting the same text from The Merchant of Venice) demonstrate Shakespeare’s great reach across time and place. Representing the eighteenth century are J. C. Smith and Thomas Arne. The artists’ imaginative approach to this Shakespeare project makes for an illuminating song recital.

Choral Works / Cage, John
In 2022, BBC Music Magazine described performing this choral music by Cage as ‘the musical equivalent of climbing Mount Everest,’ and praised the Latvian Radio Choir for surmounting its ‘jagged, fragmented notes and pitches’ with accuracy and expression. Of particular interest is the work Hymns and Variations, in which Cage took two hymn melodies (‘Old North’ and ‘Heath’)  by William Billings that form part of the New-England Psalm Singer (1770) and manipulated the tunes by altering the note values and durations and erasing some notes. In each of the variations Cage altered these manipulations, so that a mere revenant of Billings’s original melodies haunts the texture. The result is evocative and veiled, attributes strengthened by the excellence of the Latvian Radio Choir and the intuition of their director, Sigvards Kļava.

Nocturnes & Barcarolles / Fauré, Gabriel
Recorded in 2022, these nocturnes and barcarolles by Fauré add to the more than seventy albums Marc-André Hamelin has made for Hyperion, alongside chamber music by Franck, Dohnányi, Shostakovich, Brahms, and Schumann, solo sonatas by Mozart, Haydn, Liszt, CPE Bach, and Chopin, concertos by Alkan and Strauss, and shorter works by Debussy and Catoire, Bolcom and Feldman, among many others. In these Fauré pieces, Hamelin reveals his ‘innate affinity‘ with French music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; his performance of these works explores the subtle dramas of Fauré’s music. Hamelin’s complete command of the pieces’ harmonic intricacies is almost painterly, tiny brushstrokes and choices of colour that coalesce into a large and beautiful poetic canvas.

December’s New Music for Te Awe


via GIPHY

Statler: Well, it was good.
Waldorf: Ah, it was very bad.
Statler: Well, it was average.
Waldorf: Ah, it was in the middle there.
Statler: Ah, it wasn’t that great.
Waldorf: I kind of liked it.”
-‘The Muppet Show’.

I’m Mark, the Music & Film Specialist at Wellington City Libraries. I buy music for the CD & Vinyl collections, and also run the Libraries’ Wellington Music Facebook page). My Music Specialist colleague Sam, and Fiction Specialist (and avid music fan) Neil, join me every month to cast an eye over the new material we have been buying for the music collection at our CBD Te Awe library. We pick out some interesting titles across a range of music genres, and try to limit our reviews to a few lines only. Can we encapsulate an entire album in just a couple of lines? [Ed. This is probably unlikely at this point]. Do we actually know anything about new music? Or, are we just too old to understand what most of this is banging on about? [Ed. This is more than likely]. Read on to find out…

My 21st century blues / RAYE
Mark Says: Debut full-length studio album from English artist Raye, who gained recognition as a songwriter-producer for other artists after she was signed to Polydor at age 17. A mini-album & series of EPs saw her nominated for a BRIT award 4 times, and and become one of the most streamed (2.3 billion) artists in the world. In 2019 she was awarded the BMI Impact Award in recognition of her ‘ground-breaking artistry, creative vision and impact on the future of music’. However after revealing that Polydor has been sitting on her debut for several years she split acrimoniously with the label and became an independent artist, releasing ‘My 21st century blues’ at the beginning of 2023 to universal acclaim. A darkly tinged musical journey through funky soul, hip hop vibes and many other genres, full of emotionally charged writing and unfiltered emotions it digs into various themes with candour, including experiences around alcohol & drug addiction, body dysmorphia, and sexual assault.
Sam Says: Rachel Agatha Keen (known professionally as Raye) is a singer/songwriter from the UK. Having released several EPs over the space of a near decade, in 2023 she has come forth with a debut full-length album entitled My 21st Century Blues. Fusing pop, dance, and R&B, with (true to the title) a notable blues flavour, the music bubbles with vigour and immediacy, the various musical styles fusing together in a way that enables the album to continue to feel fresh and exciting over its full forty-five-minute course. Raye’s vocals are equally energetic and emotive, providing a kaleidoscope of moods to the already colourful music. Overall, ‘My 21st Century Blues’ is a modern pop gem.

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Staff Picks CDs for December…

CDs on a grainy sand beach background

To round off the year, here are some Staff Picks of new & old CDs from the Library collection that out Staff have been enjoying.

Martin’s Picks:

Guts / Rodrigo, Olivia
Not a CD that needs much boosting from WCL, of course, but it surprised me by just how good a mainstream album created by a 20 year old can be. Wise and sharply witty, Rodrigo takes a wry look at her teen years, with droll lyrics and a musical nod to the pop/rock sounds of the 90s. Try ‘Bad Idea Right?‘ ‘Get Him Back!’ or the opener, ‘All American Bitch’.

The Leo Kottke anthology / Kottke, Leo
Born the same year that WW2 ended, Kottke released his first album in 1969 and his most recent in 2020. A master of the 12-string guitar as well as a self-effacing vocalist (who described his own voice as sounding like “geese farts on a muggy day”), this selection of instrumental and vocal tracks covers the first 15 years of his career. It has some of the best of his instrumental offerings, including ‘Mona Ray’ ‘Vaseline Machine Gun’ and ‘Airproofing’, all of which amply justify his place in the 12-string pantheon.

Begin to hope / Spektor, Regina
This 2006 album is a great introduction to the work of the idiosyncratic Russian/American songsmith. Her sideways view of the world and flawless ear for a hook are on display throughout. Check out ‘Fidelity’, ‘Better’ or ‘On the Radio’.

Bring it on / Gomez
My vote for ‘Greatest Band That Everyone’s Forgotten About’ goes to this lot from Southport in England. Blessed with four songwriters and three distinctive vocalists, there was almost too much talent for one band. This is their debut, and it won the Mercury Prize in 1998, beating out Massive Attack, Pulp and The Verve. Sadly – and despite a couple of equally excellent follow-ups – the band slowly slid from view over the following couple of decades. Check out the video for album single Whippin’ Piccadily to see legendary screen and TV actor Toby Jones fooling around on an escalator.

Continue reading “Staff Picks CDs for December…”

CDs From The Vault: Progressive Rock Special

Join us on this latest CDs from the Vault podcast episode as Wellington City Librarians Patrick, Sam & Neil dive into the illustrious history of progressive rock. From its rise to popularity in the early 1970’s through various evolutions and iterations in subsequent decades, progressive rock is an enigmatic and varied musical genre that continues to capture the hearts and minds of many music lovers globally. In this episode, we focus on three classic albums from different time periods to showcase how it has developed over time.

Listen to the podcast here:

These albums (along with tens of thousands of others) are currently available to be borrowed for free by reserving them from our catalogue to be sent from our Te Pātaka storage space to a Wellington City Libraries branch of your choice.

Close to the edge / Yes

Released on the 13th of September 1972, Close to the Edge, Yes’s fifth studio album, is widely regarded as one of the seminal albums of the progressive rock genre. The band at that time were experiencing a significant tailwind in the form of the success of 1971’s Fragile which featured their biggest hit to date, ‘Roundabout’. Lead singer Jon Anderson had for some time been envisioning a ‘long-form’ approach to composition which was previously hinted at. His song writing partnership with guitarist Steve Howe was now beginning to blossom and together they were sowing the seeds of a fully realised ‘concept album’ – which would take the listener on a journey from start to finish. It has all the hallmarks of the golden age of progressive rock – characteristics which have been lauded and lambasted by critics ever since.

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Red Moon: Inner Visions of Berg’s Wozzeck

Saturday 11 November 2023 sees the finale of Orchestra Wellington’s ‘Inner Visions’ season with a concert performance of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck. This will be the first performance of Berg’s complete work in New Zealand, nearly a full century after its premiere in Berlin in December 1925. Orchestra Wellington and Music Director Marc Taddei will be joined by a constellation of outstanding singers in the principal roles, as well as the Scholar Cantorum of St Mark’s School, and the Tudor Consort.

This blog will explore some of the background to Wozzeck and highlight some of the books and audiovisual materials in the Wellington City Library that will offer still more context for and analysis of Berg’s opera. Whether you are interested in the history of Wozzeck, Berg’s creative process and the structure of the work, atonality, Expressionism, or the early-nineteenth century play Woyzeck that provided Berg with his source and inspiration, there will be something here for you: Roger Parker, Carolyn Abbate, Theodore Adorno, and several other authors have all written perceptively and revealingly about Wozzeck.

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October’s New Music for Te Awe


via GIPHY

Statler: Well, it was good.
Waldorf: Ah, it was very bad.
Statler: Well, it was average.
Waldorf: Ah, it was in the middle there.
Statler: Ah, it wasn’t that great.
Waldorf: I kind of liked it.”
-‘The Muppet Show’.

I’m Mark, the Music & Film Specialist at Wellington City Libraries. I buy music for the CD & Vinyl collections, and also run the Libraries’ Wellington Music Facebook page). My Music Specialist colleague Sam, and Fiction Specialist (and avid music fan) Neil, join me every month to cast an eye over the new material we have been buying for the music collection at our CBD Te Awe library. We pick out some interesting titles across a range of music genres, and try to limit our reviews to a few lines only. Can we encapsulate an entire album in just a couple of lines? [Ed. This is probably unlikely at this point]. Do we actually know anything about new music? Or, are we just too old to understand what most of this is banging on about? [Ed. This is more than likely]. Read on to find out…

Messy / Dean, Olivia
Mark Says: ‘Messy’ is the debut album from East London’s Olivia Dean, another graduate of the famed Brit School. The hazy bedroom pop of vocoder opener ‘UFO’, perhaps gives the album a bit of a lo-fi expectation, but the rest of the album is very polished production wise, perhaps a little too much in places. Shades of Motown, the retro soul of Joss Stone, and the production & vocal techniques that reference a lot of 2010’s Neo-Soul, with some smokey Jazz touches. She has a great voice, and it’s mature-confessional-pop of the highest order. Some dead spots may mean it works better as a long EP than a full album.
Sam Says: ‘Messy’ may be Olivia Dean’s first full-length offering, however it displays a sense of musical versatility and vision that could easily be attributed to a more experienced artist. Released earlier this year, the album has already made waves in the UK scene and has even been shortlisted for the 2023 Mercury Prize. Musically, it is firmly rooted in the stylings of neo-soul, with a highly tangible sense of mainstream appeal. In saying that, Dean’s boldly creative approach comfortably sets her apart from many of her contemporaries. Containing twelve tracks over a mere thirty-five minutes, despite its title, ‘Messy’ is a neat and concise affair, with little room for filler. It will be interesting to see where Dean leads as her career develops.

Continue reading “October’s New Music for Te Awe”