What's New in St. Louis!
Just Published: Rhapsody Ritmico for Brass Quintet with Art of Sound Music!
Rhapsody Ritmico for Brass Quintet opens majestically with fanfare punctuations. The second section is a gently lilting lullaby with imitation in the upper brasses and a melodic and rhythmic ostinato in the lower brasses. The horn introduces a merry fugue subject, and then each instrument joins the frolic. The various themes and sections are richly interwoven before a dramatic final flourish.
CD Releases:
Rhapsody Ritmico for Brass Quintet opens majestically with fanfare punctuations. The second section is a gently lilting lullaby with imitation in the upper brasses and a melodic and rhythmic ostinato in the lower brasses. The horn introduces a merry fugue subject, and then each instrument joins the frolic. The various themes and sections are richly interwoven before a dramatic final flourish.
CD Releases:
Music of Barbara Harbach – Symphonies and Soundings,
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Volume IX,
MSR Classics 1519, 2014
Organ Music for the Synagogue (Album 13 of Volume 4:
Cycle of Life in Synagogue and Home), Milken Archives, 2015
120 Harpsichord Sonatas by Antonio Soler
MS1300, 14-CD Box Set, 2015
Bach: Art of the Fugue and Pachelbel: Canon, Chaconnes & Chorale Preludes,
2-CD set, MSR Classics 1442, 2015
New Reviews:
New Antonio Soler Harpsichord Review
*Fanfare Magazine* by Bert van Boer September/October 2015
New Antonio Soler Harpsichord Review and Interview
*Fanfare Magazine* Lynn René Bayley September/October 2015
New Orchestra II Review
* Music & Vision* by Howard Smith, February 2015
New Art of the Fugue Reviews
New Chamber IV Review
New Book: Women in the Arts: Eccentric Essays II,
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Barbara Harbach: SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1-120 Fanfare Magazine: Bert van Boer, September/October 2015
SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Ÿ Barbara Harbach, hpd Ÿ MSR CLASSICS 1300 (14 CDs: 1041:09)
There is no doubt that Padre Antonio Soler was one of the foremost composers in Spain during the 18th century. Born in Catalonia in 1729, he was schooled as a youth in the monastery of Montserrat at the age of five, and by 1744 had embarked upon a career at a young age at the cathedral in Seo de Urgel, finally becoming a monk in 1752, moving to Madrid to become active in the Hieronymite order. His association with the Royal Court meant access to the Royal Family, while his duties at El Escorial as maestro di capilla relieved him of the necessity to become involved in the various musical intrigues on the outside. As a result, he was able to hone his skill, achieving a formidable reputation for his theoretical knowledge (including a treatise on modulation written in 1762), and moreover corresponded with some of the musical pedagogues of his time, such as Padre Martini in Bologna.
As a composer, Soler has been most known in our day for his keyboard sonatas, of which at least 120 survive and possibly many more have been lost. Although well-known as the doyen of Catalan music during the period, his international reputation has largely been linked with a fellow resident in Madrid, Domenico Scarlatti, whose own collections of keyboard sonatas marked a seminal development in the rise of that genre (not to mention formal and stylistic developments as the Classical period emerged). In this, Soler has often been considered sort of as Scarlatti’s lesser colleague, and although there is some slight evidence that Soler might have studied (or at least interacted) with Scarlatti, his music shows not only a penchant for native melodies and rhythms throughout, but also a sequential formal development from single- movement works (such as Scarlatti generally wrote) to full-fledged two and three-movement sonatas in a mature Classical style.
There are a number of issues surrounding Soler’s sonatas that have made their dissemination as a group difficult. First, his music was circulated readily throughout Europe, and while the sources are widespread, they are not always consistent in terms of authenticity, given that no Soler autograph appears to have survived. This means that the bulk were disseminated in loose manuscript copies, sometimes with awkward attributions. Musicologist Padre Samuel Rubio has created a seven-volume edition of works, which are used for this recording as they are probably based upon the best musicological research. In terms of which instrument Soler intended, it should be noted that many of the copies only require an “instrumento de tecla,” or generic keyboard. This is the same sort of conundrum that one finds with Scarlatti’s sonatas, but at least several of the later works dating stylistically from towards the end of the composer’s life (he died in 1783) would be better played on a fortepiano rather than a harpsichord or clavichord; I am not certain after hearing them that the suggestion that perhaps an organ might also have been a possibility is particularly convincing. Barbara Harbach has chosen to do this entire set on the harpsichord, which given the uncertainty is probably as close to a ubiquitous keyboard in Europe as one might find during the period. A final ambiguity concerns the title “sonata” itself, given the variety of these works in terms of structure, form, and content. Because this term is so generic to the age, however, it might be a fruitless exercise to try and differentiate the works generically, and thus I find this issue rather moot.
Although Soler’s sonatas have been recorded often before, no one has attempted a complete set of the 120 works, and therefore Harbach’s project has taken on monumental proportions. Pieter-Jan Belder has started a set with Brilliant Classics in 2008 but I can find only four volumes that have been released. The same exists with Gilbert Rowland’s set for Naxos, which has a parallel project recording them for modern piano by Denis Zhdanov. As these plod along, Harbach has done the world an immense service by releasing the entire bunch as follows:
Disc 1: Sonatas 1-13 (78:24)
Disc 2: Sonatas 14-23 (76:03)
Disc 3: Sonatas 24-35 (77:54)
Disc 4: Sonatas 36-49 (73:04)
Disc 5: Sonatas 50-60 (66:48)
Disc 6: Sonatas 61-63 (75:44)
Disc 7: Sonatas 64-66 (62:51)
Disc 8: Sonatas 67-73 (76:27)
Disc 9: Sonatas 74-83 (74:32)
Disc 10: Sonatas 84-92 (first two movements; 79:45)
Disc 11: Sonatas 92 (last two movements)-94 (74:15)
Disc 12: Sonatas 95-97 (72:59)
Disc 13: Sonatas 98-106 (76:26)
Disc 14: Sonatas 107-120 (75:57)
In case one is keeping track of the total time, it is over a thousand minutes or 17 hours of music. Clearly, this is a reference set, to be savored over a larger amount of time (unless one is inured to marathons by Der Ring). To produce this is a labor of love and dedication, and the results are extremely fine. In the extensive booklet notes, Harbach, herself both a musicologist and composer as well as performer, has even given minute descriptions of 36 of her favorites, each of which she outlines in a brief sentence or two as to stylistic and technical contents. But there is more, much more hidden in all of the sonatas. For example Sonata 117 has a nicely imitative line that seems to echo Sonata 114, both in Dorian mode, save that the latter twists in rather flexible directions (and makes one wonder if Sonatas 114, 115, and 117 ought not to belong together, as they have a musical congruity that is quite apparent, to this author anyway). The three-movement sonatas, probably composed somewhat later in his career, are all mature works with good thematic contrasts. For instance, the Sonata 67 in D major opens with a bell-like theme in which one can imagine the bells of El Escorial, and a lyrical secondary theme that Mozart might have written. This is followed by a lively rondo with cascading triplets that are distinctly gigue-like. The finale is a fugue based upon a theme that wanders, and here Soler makes something that would be hard to imagine as counterpoint into flowing, easy-going tapestry. In the single- movement Sonata 37, subtitled “Pastoril,” the mischievous opening trills devolving into a sprightly triple-meter dance practically evokes bucolic pleasures and gamboling sheep. I even detect a slight Spanish tone to the work, as if one is now out on the altiplano. As each of these works is unique and individual, one might reiterate that Harbach has her favorites (all amply and accurately described) but the remainder are all equally as brilliant and interesting in and of themselves.
In terms of the performance, Harbach’s playing is precise and crystalline, with each phrase, each turn of harmony, and each ornament clearly and cleanly defined. Even without the monumental aspect of this entire set, her performance is some of the best harpsichord playing I’ve encountered, for it is articulate and passionate, energetic and careful to bring out all of the hidden subtleties in Soler’s music. This set is a must have, and there is no higher recommendation that I can give. One does not have to absorb all 14 discs all at once, but one can be rest assured the temptation with such excellent playing will be to hold a Soler marathon. Get it. Period. Bertil van Boer
Fanfare Magazine: Bert van Boer, September/October 2015
*****
SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1–120 •
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn René Bayley, September/October 2015 Barbara Harbach (hpd) • MSR 1300 (14 CDs: 1,041:09)
This massive 14-CD set of 120 sonatas ostensibly written by Antonio Soler was a labor of love for harpsichordist Harbach. As she points out in the extensive liner notes, there are multiple problems identifying how many sonatas Soler actually wrote as well as their dating because none of these works exist in his own hand. They were all written down by copyists, and the scores are rife with errors: missing or wrong notes, missing pages of music, and missing or added bars of music. Both Padre Samuel Rubio, whose edition is used here (originally published in 1957 by the Spanish Music Union), and Frederick Marvin did their own independent cataloguing of Soler’s music in the 20th century; later there were Robert Gerhard and Macario Santiago. Harbach doesn’t say why she chose this edition over the others, but admits that there are duplications of movements within it: “Sonata No. 41 also exists as No. 96, Movement II; No. 42 as No. 96, Movement IV; No. 45 as No. 94, Movement III; No. 60, Movement I as No. 99, Movement I; No. 60, Movement II as No. 99, Movement III; and No. 54 (transposed from C major to D major) as No. 92, Movement I.”
I suppose Harbach chose to stick to these duplications and idiosyncrasies not only to present Padre Rubio’s work intact, but also because, as one reads into accounts of Soler’s life and personality, he may actually have done these things himself. He entered the Escolania of the Monastery of Montserrat at age seven to study music and took holy orders at age 23, where he spent the rest of his life, and apparently had zero ego and didn’t really care if his music was published and admired or not. He never assigned numbers of any sort (neither opus nor catalog numbers) to his works, nor did he date them, so when he died in 1783 everything was in a state of disarray. Some handwritten copies of his sonatas are dated 1786, which meant that he apparently wrote them posthumously.
But as careless as Soler was in the business end of music, he was just that meticulous on the musical side. Harbach mentions that in one of his rare surviving treatises, Llave de la Modulación from 1762, he mentions Domenico Scarlatti, so he certainly knew and admired the Italian’s equally brief sonatas and possibly even studied with him. And there is something more, as Harbach notes: “The later sonatas were written for a wide range, such as F1 to G6 (or as high as C7 as in the fourth movement of Sonata No. 61)—well out of the range of the harpsichord and early pianoforte.” So there go the best-laid academic theories of the historically informed crowd, right out the window. If Soler’s music was composed for a harpsichord, but neither the standard harpsichords nor the early pianofortes of his time had this range … what did he play them on?
Harbach commissioned harpsichord maker Willard Martin of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to build a two-manual instrument for her that could reach G6, “a copy of an 18th century two-manual French double designed by François Blanchet.” The amusing part of this story is that Martin delivered the new harpsichord to Harbach at her home in St. Louis in a long black hearse, prompting many of her neighbors to drop by “over the next few days to offer their condolences!” But here we go again: How did an 18th-century Spanish monk, who obviously took a vow of poverty, end up with a fancy, state-of-the-art French harpsichord to compose his sonatas on?
Maybe he won it on Let’s Make a Deal?
As for the performances, they are bright, lively, and beautifully articulated, recorded very well so as to capture the full range of the instrument with just enough natural room ambience. Harbach, who also plays quite a bit of modern music (I previously reviewed her CD of music by Arnold Rosner and Daniel Pinkham on MSR 1443), takes a very modern approach to phrasing, which is to play everything in a straightforward tempo with no modifications of rallentando or rubato.
Certainly the music can take this approach; after all, Soler is not Domenico Scarlatti or Diedrich Buxtehude, whose music cries out for such modification of the line. We must remember that Soler was Spanish, that a great deal of his music was based on Spanish dance rhythms, and thus a lack of tempo modification would be appropriate, particularly in the fast movements. That being said, a little gypsy swagger now and then would have been welcome. As in the case of Scarlatti’s sonatas, extended listening to this set, as I had to do in order to review it in time, is not recommended. Listen to a sonata, hit pause or stop, and let it sink in before moving on to the next one. This will give you a chance to absorb the multiple beauties and the sparkle of Soler’s music. Despite the brevity of most of these works, Soler uses a surprising amount of repeats of themes, so within their four-to-five-minute length one hears quite a bit of music that sounds alike.
Harbach made a list in the booklet of the sonatas she particularly liked, and by and large I agreed with her. Like many composers who wrote a lot of music—even J. S. Bach—not all of Soler’s sonatas are of equal value. Some were probably written for his royal pupil, the Infante Don Gabriel, who was the son of King Carlos III (and who may also have been one of the principal scribes who jotted some of these sonatas down), and thus would be fun to play without being especially challenging. Think of this massive collection as being a combination of imaginative works written for Soler himself to play and simpler études composed for his royal student … and possibly other students we don’t know much about as well. Too often people seem to think that composers have some sort of divine channel to the deity who inspires them to write Music For The Ages. In the real world, it just doesn’t work like that. Some of these sonatas may even have been dinner music.
To my mind, there is a lot more of the Baroque in Soler’s music than the Classical, but this probably stemmed from his admiration of Scarlatti and his cloistered life. I don’t know if he ever heard or knew of the more modern music written in the 1770s and early 1780s by Haydn, Mozart, or C. P. E. Bach. Although his later, multi-movement sonatas are a bit more Classical, they still rely on such traditional Baroque devices as repetition an octave lower or higher, canons, and fugues. Some musical prodigies grow and develop and others stay within their comfort zone. Little of his music is harmonically adventurous, not only for his time but also by comparison with Scarlatti or Bach. Yet Soler was apparently a happy person, because most of his music sounds happy.
As I said earlier, listening to all these CDs sequentially over a period of several hours is not a recommended way of savoring this set, but I had to do it. Among the more interesting sonatas is No. 3 with its quirky use of arpeggios and appoggiaturas, the wide musical leaps and odd key changes in No. 5, the rising scale passages in thirds and descending scales in the right hand of No. 11, and the “strumming accompaniment and Bolero rhythms” of No. 12. Although Harbach makes it clear that the harpsichord is not able to make many dynamics changes, I detected occasional louder passages here and there in these performances, which were welcome in order to break up the repetitions of themes. (Harbach explains this: On a two-manual harpsichord, one can play soft passages on the upper manual to achieve an echo effect.) In Sonata No. 41, I also heard a few Luftpausen as well as an interesting metallic or chime-like sound (I’m not sure how she produced that), and in the second movement of Sonata 98 she uses the damper pedal to make the harpsichord sound almost like a Spanish guitar. As I said, even when I didn’t know exactly which sonata was coming up next, I found myself agreeing with Harbach on the quality of various works. For instance, she describes Sonata No. 15 as “Spanish sounding with great Soler artistry,” but what I liked about it was the way he continually “bounced” his themes around from hand to hand and used syncopation to propel the music. I also heard syncopation in Sonata 18 that, if played with a little more looseness, could have approached a jazz beat. Sonata 20 also has an interesting, loping beat, and Sonata 21 has a lot of swagger with its rollicking triplets and asymmetric rhythmic feel. Other sonatas I liked, for various reasons, were Nos. 24, 26, 30, 35, 38, 40 (which almost sounds like a little symphony), 44, 48, 52, the last movement of 61, 69, 72,
73, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 88, 90, 92, 93, 98, 100–101, 104–106, 108, 110, 113–114, 116–118, and 120. Several of the others start off with good musical ideas, but then suffer from too many repetitions and/or not enough interest or development (e.g., Sonata No. 85). Incidentally, I should mention that several of his sonatas are, unusually for that time, written in the Dorian mode: Nos. 15, 18, 19, 25, 32, 36, 39, 47–49, 57, 100, 102–104, 114–115, 117, and 120.
Pieter-Jan Belder, in his complete set on Brilliant Classics, divides the sonatas between harpsichord and fortepiano. He plays with enthusiasm but has a tendency to “mow ‘em down,” driving the rhythm so hard that it resembles a semi on the interstate with a load of potatoes to get to market by midnight. Gilbert Rowland, in his set of the sonatas for Naxos, has a peculiar sound, both very dry and overly resonant (whether due to the instrument or the mike placement I’m not sure), and plays them in a style similar to Harbach except that he “rounds off” the ends of choruses with decelerandos whereas Harbach does not. Sometimes these sound good, at other times affected. But there are other differences: Rowland apparently goes up to Sonata No. 130 and his slow tempos are generally (but not always) slower than Harbach’s and his fast tempos faster (Sonata No. 81 almost twice as fast!). Rowland’s set is also (at the time of writing) only available as 14 single CDs in thick jewel boxes, each selling for $8.99 on Amazon, and the sonatas were released all out of order (Vol. 7, for instance, including Sonatas Nos. 3, 10, 39, 81, 108, 113, 11, 80, 82, 97, and 112), whereas Harbach’s set is fully integral and comes in an attractive box with each disc in a cardboard sleeve. Each CD presents the sonatas in Rubio’s original order, running sequentially from Sonata 1 to Sonata 120, and sells on Amazon for $96.42 which breaks down to $6.88 per disc, so it is the better value. Whether you are a Soler fanatic who wants it all or a performer or scholar who wants a handy reference to this music, this set is a valuable resource. Lynn René Bayley
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn René Bayley, September/October 2015
*****
Interview: Meet Barbara Harbach
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn René Bayley, September/October 2015
Soler Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1-120
Pennsylvania native Barbara Harbach, who studied organ and harpsichord at Penn State, received a master’s degree at Yale, and then a doctoral degree in organ and composition from the Eastman School of Music, has been one of the busiest performers in America. Her Wikipedia page tells us that following graduation she also studied organ at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule with the legendary Helmut Walcha. Interestingly, he told her that “he did not believe that women belonged on the organ bench.” That statement has been more than refuted by her being ranked in 1992 by Keyboard magazine as second to Keith Jarrett as “Top Keyboard Artist” in classical music, as well as her numerous organ and harpsichord recitals in North America, Asia, Europe, and Siberia. As also indicated on Wikipedia, she presented a weekly television series, Palouse Performance, broadcast in the northwest U.S.
Her many compositions in various genres and forms, from solo works to orchestral and choral pieces, have received awards. The Music of Barbara Harbach, Vol. 1 was named “record of the year 2008” by MusicWeb International and received a Critics’ Choice award from American Record Guide. Her works have also been praised in the pages of this journal by David DeBoor Canfield, and I was very impressed with her previous recording of works by Arnold Rosner and
Daniel Pinkham. She is a staunch champion of women composers: in 1993 she co-founded the Women of Note Quarterly and is now editor of WomenArts Quarterly Journal, despite her busy duties as Curators’ Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she teaches performance, composition, and related classes.
I was fortunate enough to be able to catch up with Harbach via e-mail for this interview.
Q: Barbara, I hardly know where to begin with this interview! You wear so many hats and have accomplished so much. Perhaps I should start by asking you which of your accomplishments you are personally most proud of: performing, composing, teaching, or proselytizing for other women composers?
A: I love them all! Whatever I am doing at the moment is the one that captures my imagination and energy. I do have to admit that teaching, composing, and editing is a bit easier than sitting at the organ or harpsichord for seven straight hours, but I do love to do it anyway! I have found my career changing over the years. At first, I thought I wanted to be a performing and recording artist, and played many recitals and performances beginning in the 1970s. In the 1980s I went to the British Library and ordered and received reels of historical women and men keyboard composers, and thus was born Vivace Press. (This was before the era of pdfs and e-mail.) My vision was to recover, record, and publish the music of these talented women composers. What really charged my ambition to do this was an incident at an eastern university. I was asked to give an organ recital, and at the reception after the performance, I mentioned to a musicologist that I was interested in recovering the music of historical women composers. He said to me, “If there were any women composers, they wouldn’t be very good.” That was the gauntlet! In addition, the review headline of that night’s recital read, “Tight Slacks, Organist in Good Form.”
Q: I can’t imagine that a double major in harpsichord and organ is as common as that of harpsichord and piano. What drew you to the organ as your other instrument, rather than the more similar piano?
A: I played for my first church service when I was nine years old. I was sufficiently tall to be able to reach the pedals. The first hymn I played was Bringing in the Sheaves, and to this day I can play it in any key. The church service was held in my grandparent’s “saloon,” where there was an old harmonium that you had to pump with your feet, and I certainly developed great calf muscles! The “saloon” was in the hotel that my grandparents owned in central Pennsylvania, and since the county became dry, it was a saloon in name only. I graduated to a Hammond organ a few years later when we went to another church, and then in high school came one of the loves of my life, the pipe organ. The sound of the pipe organ still gives me a thrill, whether soft strings or drowning out the orchestra as in Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra.
I should mention that I took piano lessons beginning when I was four. My mother was my first teacher, and it was a wonderful way to bond with her. She was a terrific supporter of my musical career. I knew I wanted to be in music since I began lessons, and I enjoy the various facets that my career has led me.
I think I was drawn to the harpsichord because of the similarity of touch between the harpsichord and the tracker organ. When you press a key on the harpsichord, the pluck of the string gives a slight resistance similar to the feel of depressing a key on a tracker organ. Also, harpsichordists and organists use much less wrist and body motion than pianists, and we do not need the upper body muscles required by pianists.
Q: I suppose the next question should be who were the organists and/or harpsichordists who influenced you—the ones who inspired you to take up these instruments?
A: For 20th century harpsichordists, I particularly admire and respect Wanda Landowska, as well as Gustav Leonhardt, Raymond Leppard, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Igor Kipnis, Ton Koopman, Sylvia Marlowe, Daniel Pinkham, Colin Tilney, Rosalyn Tureck, Fernando Valenti, Elisabeth Chojnacka, and many others.
For organists, I came of age with Helmut Walcha, Virgil Fox, E. Power Biggs, Marie-Claire Alain, and Gillian Weir; and now there is a whole crop of extremely talented contemporary organists. I still marvel that pipe organs, both large and small, are being built and installed in many churches in this rather cynical and perhaps non-church age.
Q: If I may, I would like to ask a couple of questions regarding Helmut Walcha, since he is such an icon to so many of our critics and readers. I know that you had difficulties with him, but was there anything positive that you were able to get from the experience?
A: Oh, absolutely! He was a gifted organist, improviser, and composer! He would play Evensong every week at his church for free, the Dreikönigskirche in Frankfurt, where the audience would consist of only six or so of us students. When he would give a public recital that had a hefty ticket price, the church was packed. Go figure! At Yale, I studied with Charles Krigbaum, who had studied with Walcha, and I admired the articulations and interpretations of Krigbaum, which fueled my desire to study with Walcha. I was fortunate to be awarded a Deutscher Akademischner Austausdienst to study with Walcha. Interestingly, Russell Saunders, with whom I studied at Eastman, was Walcha’s first American student, and I was his last. While at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule, I was fortunate to receive the Konzert Diplom under Walcha. For my qualifying concert, Walcha would not coach Widor or any American compositions. In his defense, his forte was Germanic composers, and his forte was really a fortissimo!
Q: And now, a different question, same topic: did Walcha really have no respect even for those women organists who had become famous? I doubt that he would have heard of such organists as Mary Cherubim Schafer, but as a European-based organist he might have heard of Anne Maddocks, who worked at the famed Chichester Cathedral from 1942 to 1949, and he had to have known of Marie-Claire Alain (who, incidentally, was one of my personal heroes when growing up).
A: These are all wonderful women organists! And Marie-Claire Alain is one of my icons, also. Perhaps Walcha responded to the culture of his time, by not believing that women could be outstanding organists, so why teach them? Women would only get married and not use their training, so why waste a spot in the academy for them? The culture of suppressing women
composers and performers goes centuries back in Germany and other countries. Just think of Fanny Mendelssohn and the struggles she and many other women had to endure to get their music recognized. How many women’s compositions were left to languish in attics, only to be thrown out by future generations! So much has been lost over the centuries.
Q: On a different topic, I was very happy to learn of your support for women composers. Nancy Van de Vate once told me that the unwritten rule in most American symphony orchestras is that perhaps one major composition per year by a woman composer is programmed; otherwise, it’s back to the men. A friend of mine who considers himself enlightened once told me that he thinks this is only fair because “men write so much more music”!!! I would guess that you disagree with this as much as I do?
A: Absolutely; just check out the International Alliance for Women in Music, New York Women Composers, Society of Composers Inc., Donne in Musica, and American Composers Forum, just to name a few, and there are many, many women composers. According to the League of American Orchestras, only 1–2% of pieces played by orchestras in the United States are composed by women—what a shame! We write exciting, visceral, and beautiful music but cannot get it programmed. In the introduction to my book, Women in the Arts: Eccentric Essays II (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2015), I tried to address the issue of why there is a need for books about women in the arts, exhibitions of women painters, readings of women’s poetry, concerts of music by women composers, and conferences highlighting women in the arts. It is an ongoing struggle for equity.
Q: I guess I really should ask where you come down on the recent revelation that Anna Magdalena Bach may have composed some of her husband’s music—an article in The Telegraph by Ivan Hewitt suggests the Cello Suites. I can’t imagine that living with and even playing her husband’s music on a daily basis wouldn’t have rubbed off on her, as it did on his sons?
A: I think this is a fascinating thesis! Anna studied with the best, and I believe that Bach’s creativity ignited hers! Or consider some other 18th century women composers such as Elizabeth Billington, Anna Bon, and Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, who wrote music as teenagers and then went on to have other careers or dropped out of composition or got married and tended to a large estate. Elizabeth Billington, (1765/1768–1818) wrote her Opus 1 at the tender age of eight years old, and her mature Opus 2 at age eleven. Her sonatas compare favorably to Mozart’s at the same age. Elizabeth went on to become one of England’s most outstanding operatic sopranos. The CD I recorded, half Billington and half Mozart, is still available as Classical Prodigies: Elizabeth Weichsell Billington/Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Hester Park, CD 7703, Vivace Press (www.vivacepress.com) I enjoyed working with Elizabeth’s music, and her second marriage was tumultuous. She and her husband would separate and then reconcile, until in the last reconciliation he took her to Italy and then murdered her. I talked with one of her descendants in England and asked if the story were true, and she told me that it was true. Elizabeth’s story and career, from child prodigy composer to famous soprano, a jealous husband, and a murder, is a made-for-TV movie waiting to happen!
Q: If I may ask about Palouse Performance, which I’ve never seen: what kind of show is it?
Performances by you, or a music discussion show with musical guests like the once-famous radio show St. Paul Sunday?
A: As the host of the show, Palouse Performance was a wonderful opportunity for me in the Palouse in the 1990s when I was professor of music at Washington State University, which is a region located in eastern Washington surrounding Pullman. It is a large wheat-growing area, and each day the rolling fields of wheat seemed to change in color and depth. Palouse Performance showcased talent from Washington as well as performers passing through the region. We did everything from classical to blues, jazz, rock, and I also did performances on clavichord, harpsichord and organ. One of my favorite shows was a woman composer/performer who wrote her country-western song, I’m Gonna Fax My Baby Some Love (faxing was still new in the 1990s). The fertile Palouse region inspired my Frontier Fancies for Violin and Orchestra.
Q: To briefly discuss your CD of music by Rosner and Pinkham, I was really wowed by the fact that such interesting modern music was composed for the harpsichord. Do you also work for more pieces like this? A body of modern works for harpsichord in addition to the 18th-century repertoire?
A: Yes, I am totally supportive of contemporary harpsichord composers and music. I recorded four CDs of contemporary harpsichord music featuring the music of Van Appledorn, Borroff, Zwilich, Diemer, Starer, Stern, Read, Rose, Martinu, Thomson, Albright, Adler, Sowash, Templeton, Fine, Near, Jones and Locklair. I think Rosner’s Musiqe de Clavecin is an incredible piece and not for the faint-of-heart technically! His portraits of women are fascinating and intriguing.
I have also recorded contemporary organ composers such as Adler, Locklair, Bitgood, Marga Richter, Zwilich, Julia Smith, Ethel Smyth, Violet Archer, Gardner Read, Gwyneth Walker and Jeanne Demessieux.
Q: How would you characterize your style on the harpsichord, as compared to other well-known harpsichordists currently active?
A: It seems to me I incorporate a lot of articulations and performance practices, and I pay close attention to melodic contours and harmonic foundations, which probably stems from my organ technique. I like to hear the harpsichord played with a fluid technique, and let the music speak for itself, without imposing the performer’s personality on it.
Q: In your new set of the keyboard sonatas of Antonio Soler, how did you go about sorting through the manuscripts and deciding the correct performance style?
A: It was a long process. For some reason, I bought the entire works of Soler some time before I even thought of recording the sonatas. I used the Samuel Rubio edition of his 120 sonatas for the recording. I am glad I got them when I did, since you can no longer get the Rubio editions. First, I analyzed all the movements for form and melodic repetitions. Then I listened to many recordings of Soler by various artists, and all had some fine interpretations, but when I sat down
to record, I knew how I was going to interpret them – somewhere between Baroque and early Classical. I enjoyed the journey of researching and recording them, and it took two decades to get them all done. At one point, I didn’t know if I would ever complete them, but various serendipitous events allowed me to continue. I am happy I persevered, and I thank Rob LaPorta and Richard Price of MSR Classics and Candlewood Digital, respectively, who did a superb job on the final mastering and packaging, and I thank Roy Christensen of Gasparo Records, who started and believed in the recording project.
Q: I’m particularly curious about the various repeated movements that you enumerated in your liner notes to the Soler set: Sonata 96 duplicating Sonata 41, and movements in Sonatas 42, 45, 54, and 60 being recycled in later sonatas. Do you suspect, as I did, that Soler himself might have actually done this? And if not, why include the duplications?
A: I wrestled and struggled with whether or not to include the duplicates, and decided that whether Soler put the duplicates together, and/or Rubio did, it seems to make the sonatas more complete when they contain the duplicates. On the lighter side, perhaps Soler or Rubio had so many sonatas and movements to contend with that they forgot they had included them earlier!
Q: I’m wondering how on earth you balance all your activities in the course of a year. I can’t imagine that it’s particularly easy to be teacher, researcher, performer, editor, and composer. Somewhere along the line, there has to be less time for one of these activities. How do you manage it?
A: A good question! Luckily, I am a morning person and start work, whether composing, rehearsing, preparing syllabi/tests, or proofing an article or manuscript, early in the morning before the flood of e-mails, phone calls and disturbances (usually by my four cats!). Summer is a good time for academics to recharge and do all the creative endeavors that had to be put off during the academic year. I like to do projects that I can become passionate about—women in the arts and mentoring students. Like all of us, if we enjoy what we are doing, it’s not work, and we might even get paid for it!
Q: Do you have any immediate plans, as performer or in the recording studio, that you would like to share with our readers?
A: I have some excellent 18th-century manuscripts tucked away of women and men composers that seem to be insisting I should introduce them to the listening public, so I will begin the editing, publishing and recording process with them.
Thank you for your stimulating questions and letting me recall the gentle past, which none of us does in these aggressive and motivating times.
SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1–120 • Barbara Harbach (hpd) • MSR 1300 (14 CDs: 1,041:09)
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn Bayley, September/October 2015
*****
Orchestral Music II by Barbara Harbach
Soundly Constructed
Music & Vision: Howard Smith, 2015
'... the LPO is wholly admirable in this music ...'
This second MSR Classics recording of Barbara Harbach's orchestral music follows an earlier programme played by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra with conductor Kirk Trevor (MS 1252).
The present release has three concise 3-movement symphonies and Harbach's atmospheric Night Soundings for Orchestra lasting fifteen-and-a-half minutes. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is directed by Boston Lyric Opera conductor David Angus, and illustrates Harbach's soundly constructed tonal style.
Composer, harpsichordist, organist and teacher, Harbach is Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She founded Women in the Arts-St Louis to highlight women's work and gain more performances for musicians and composers. In 1989 she founded the small Vivace Press, publishing music by underrepresented composers.
Night Soundings for Orchestra is largely programmatic, with its first movement, 'Cloak of Darkness', full of shadows and menace. In 'Notturno' the darkness is less immediately apparent with faint similarities to Bartók’s extraordinary 'night music'. The final movement, 'Midnight Tango', brings to life the intrinsic Latin rhythm, popularized in the 1920s and given a revived lease of life by Astor Piazzolla and Gidon Kremer.
The Gateway Festival Symphony begins with 'Confluencity', in which two great rivers — the Missouri and Mississippi — meet some eight miles north of the St Louis Arch. Harbach suggests the many moods and fusion at the conjunction: the site of Confluence Point State Park, home for a myriad waterfowl.
'Sunset: Saint Louis' is inspired by thepoem of the city's ill-fated poet, Sara Teasdale (1884-1933). It begins:
Hushed in the smoky haze of summersunset When I came home again from far off places How many times I saw my western city Dream by her river
'After Forever' is bookended with a clarion call trumpet. Harbach was reminded of the dramtic story surrounding Dred and Harriet Scott, the St Louis slaves who sued for freedom only to be denied by the 1857 US Supreme Court. Missouri ranks third in Civil War battles and engagements. The tuneful central section is particularly effective.
The Jubilee Symphony w as commissioned for the University of Missouri-St Louis fiftieth jubilee anniversary, 1963-2013. Its first movement, titled 'Bellerive', refers to Bellerive Country Club, a golf country club moved to its current site with a newly designed course, opened on Memorial Day 1960.
'Mirth Day Fiesta' is unique to the University where Mexican influences are much in evidence. Here cultures and ethnicities are showcased. The focus is on Cinco de Mayo ( Spanish for 'fifth of May'), a celebration held on 5 May. Mexicans and Americans also often see the day as a source of pride: one way they can honor their ethnicity. Listen for hints of Mariachi music.
The symphony culminates with 'Triton's Ascending' in which Harbach's fugal writing is present almost throughout. This movement brings the programme to an impressive and though nothing here is especially profound, much remains to admire.
As one might reasonably expect, the LPO is wholly admirable in this music, and David Angus is clearly at ease in Harbach's accessible works. Angus spent his early years in Belfast. He was a boy chorister at King's College, Cambridge under Sir David Willcocks and finished his training with a fellowship in conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he won several prizes for his opera conducting.
His professional career began as a repetiteur with Opera North (UK) , before becoming Chorus Master and Staff Conductor for Glyndebourne Festival Opera with numerous engagements throughout Europe.
Music & Vision: Howard Smith, 2015
*****
Art of Fugue on the organ—always the best bet, and Harbach brings it home. Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, 2014
BACH: Art of Fugue, BWV 1080; PACHELBEL: Canon in D; Chaconne in F; 13 Chorale Preludes; Chaconne in D – Barbara Harbach, organ – MSR Classics MS 1442 (2 CDs), 148:53 [Distr. by Albany]
*****
Barbara Harbach, Professor of Music at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, has toured extensively as both concert organist and harpsichordist throughout the United States and Canada, and overseas in Belgium, Bosnia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Romania, Serbia and Russian Siberia. For this recording of the Bach she has chosen the Fisk Organ at Downtown United Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York, and for the Pachelbel the Fisk Organ at Slee Hall at the State University of Buffalo, Buffalo, New York.
The arguments over Bach’s Art of Fugue will never end; what was it for, what instrument should it be played on, should it be completed, on and on it goes. As far as I am concerned, and despite the supposedly “didactic” nature of the work—which one could really claim about all of Bach’s work to a certain extent, I think this was meant to be played. Bach’s entire life testifies against any idea of time spent on a theoretical piece—especially of this size—simply as an academic exercise or a meditation on “pure” fugal composition for the sake of intellectual pondering. It would be the first time he ever did this if it proves to be the case. No; he meant the thing to be performed, for music was a palpable and resonating art form that demanded performance in Bach’s view.
So which instrument? It seems to me obvious that the most practical and comprehensive instrument to be found for such an undertaking is right here on this recording. Only an organ can loftily cover all the demands of this piece, and it greatly expands the idea of color and registration within the confines of one person’s imagination. I have heard many worthy contenders on other instruments and for other combinations, but the organ remains the most convincing.
What about the ending? This has perplexed artists for years, especially as the original manuscript version does have an ending, fully in place ten years before the published version.
But evidence shows that Bach was not content with the work, revising it, and finally dying before the last quadruple fugue was completed. I have never found the newly-composed completions of this work to be satisfactory and the ending of a chorale prelude sounds out of place in a piece like this. The sudden cutoff, so profoundly a reminder of genius stopped, adds a pathetic dimension of great emotion and drama, and I am happy that Harbach does that here.
This is an excellent reading of this work done with thoughtfulness and a lot of passion.
The Pachelbel works might seem a little superfluous in such a setting, but they actually serve as a nice come-down from the fugal complexities and utter perfection of the Bach. The famous Canon is nicely presented, not in the same contrapuntal web as the original scoring, and it proves very enjoyable even if it hardly replaces the original. The two Chaconnes are fine works, very involved and dramatic, the D-minor of an exquisite fiery sensibility that Pachelbel nonetheless keeps under control. He is best known for his chorale preludes, and these thirteen selections show why; an ever-inventive nature that is able to wed seasonal requirements to music that is fully descriptive and yet brilliantly independent make for enthralling listening on a number of levels. The tonal characteristics of the Fisk organ at Slee Hall offer lots of opportunities for experimentation and a truly crisp presentation of these works.
The engineers have captured both venues very well, and Harbach is to be congratulated on a fine offering.
Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, July 2014
*****
J.S. Bach: The Art of Fugue BWV 1080, Komm Suesser Tod BWV 478;
Pachelbel: Canon in D (arr. Wolff), Chaconne in F, Chaconne in D, Chorale Preludes
Fanfare Magazine: Bertil van Boer, September 2014
As a composer, organist, and scholar, Barbara Harbach is of course quite well known and needs no introduction to either the scholarly world or public at large. She has championed women composers for many years, and she is perhaps solely responsible for an interesting and progressive repertory. Moreover, her journal is well respected and her recordings run a considerable gamut, from the Baroque to contemporary composers. It is therefore somewhat surprising to receive this disc of Bach’s iconic Art of Fugue. Surely, there is no lack of recordings of this venerable collection, first published in 1751, and counterpoint students for at least a century and a half have diligently studied them. Perhaps it is the use of the Fisk organs in Rochester and Buffalo, New York that ought to be the real focus of this two-disc set, and when one listens, the voicing is indeed rather clear and resonant, though I find them lighter in tone than, say, the larger cathedral organs of Europe upon which many of the current recordings available are performed.
That alone might be an incentive, but what I find more attractive is that the second disc is devoted largely to the music of Johann Pachelbel, whose infamous canon (here also performed) has become arguably the earworm of the century. Harbach at least makes her adaptation a sort of gigantic crescendo that seems particularly apt for the organ, but it still doesn’t help the overexposure of the piece. More interesting, however, are the other works, such as the two chaconnes, which like the canon, are based upon ostinato basses. No earworms here, for one can find a solid, even sensitive set of works. The F-Minor Chaconne begins with a soft palette of sounds, wherein the bass line is virtually imperceptible. As the texture begins to build the registrations outline each variation with definition. By the time one gets to the two penultimate variations, the sound has become a surging wave, which then vanishes seemingly into the mist, with a sudden thinning of the texture, to disappear as quietly as it came in the beginning. The D- Major Chaconne has some rather gnarly opening harmonies above the ostinato, which swells until it too attains a massive sound wave, only here it does not vanish but rather concludes triumphantly. The chorale preludes all have a nice sense of contrapuntal line that is often marked by suspensions and chromatic variation. These are every bit as worthy of performance as those by Bach, demonstrating that Pachelbel was no slouch when it came to serious Lutheran church music.
I am quite taken with Harbach’s choice of registration, and, as noted, the Fiske organs have a nice transparent sound which in turn allows for the individual lines to become audible. Perhaps such would be (and sometimes are) lost in some of the great cathedral organs, but intimacy replaces grandeur. One has so many versions of The Art of Fugue from which to choose, and so this portion of the set might be more of a matter of personal choice, but I would get it solely for the Pachelbel, which, apart from the exorable canon, is something of an eye-opener.
Fanfare Magazine: Bertil van Boer, September 2014
*****
Harbach continues her series with MSR, well-received in many quarters including this one.
Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, 2014
Music of Barbara Harbach, Chamber Music IV (Vol. 8) = Incantata; Harriet’s Story; Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin; The Sounds of St. Louis – Marlissa Hudson, sop./ St. Louis Ch. Players/ St. Louis Low Brass Collective/ James Richards – MSR Classics
“Music of Barbara Harbach, Chamber Music IV (Vol. 8)” = Incantata; Harriet’s Story; Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin; The Sounds of St. Louis – Marlissa Hudson, sop./ St. Louis Ch. Players/ St. Louis Low Brass Collective/ James Richards – MSR Classics MS 1259, 74:33 [Distr. by Albany]
[Excerpt]
Three pieces on this disc are from 2011. The style is remarkably similar, especially in the chamber ensemble pieces, and they all remind me of Stravinsky in his more pastoral and calmer moments. Incantata is inspired by a Paul Muldoon poem of the same title, and the music seeks to reflect the emotions found therein in movements”Perplexities”,”Nocturnes”, Ireland Remembered”, “Bitter-sweet”, and”Coda”. I enjoyed it a lot. When the last work on this disc, Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin appears, based on Nikos Stabakis’s translation of the Embirikos Blast Furnace (1935), I was expecting something far dreamier—as this is what the composer was looking for at the time—than what I got. Perhaps it’s the percussive nature of this score, complete with glockenspiel, castanets, triangle, bell tree, crotales, timpani, and suspended cymbals that makes Harbach’s notion of dreaminess different than mine—and that is certainly a valid comment—which throws me off. Anyway, it is still fascinating music, and again, one hardly wants to leave it while it is playing.
The Sounds of St. Louis incorporates a series of American folk songs with Harbach’s own considerable skill in fugal writing for a low brass ensemble. The results are not as folksy as you would think, being dominated by the bluesy feel of W.C. Handy’s own St. Louis Blues, with a pseudo-rock beat.
Yet the strongest piece here, the short song cycle Harriet’s Story for soprano, piano, and violin, is quite the stunner, with soprano Marlissa Hudson delivering a splendid performance. The lyrics by the composer are put in the voice of Harriet Scott (of Dred Scott fame) while the third movement uses the genuine texts of Harriet Tubman, the former slave and African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. The music is affecting and lyrical, passionate and versatile, making me wonder if Harbach shouldn’t spend more time than she has in this genre—she certainly seems to have an innate talent for it.
Harbach is well worth hearing…I sincerely doubt if anyone will be disappointed with what they find on this disc, recorded with great consistency and presence.
Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, 2014
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Volume IX,
MSR Classics 1519, 2014
Organ Music for the Synagogue (Album 13 of Volume 4:
Cycle of Life in Synagogue and Home), Milken Archives, 2015
120 Harpsichord Sonatas by Antonio Soler
MS1300, 14-CD Box Set, 2015
Bach: Art of the Fugue and Pachelbel: Canon, Chaconnes & Chorale Preludes,
2-CD set, MSR Classics 1442, 2015
New Reviews:
New Antonio Soler Harpsichord Review
*Fanfare Magazine* by Bert van Boer September/October 2015
New Antonio Soler Harpsichord Review and Interview
*Fanfare Magazine* Lynn René Bayley September/October 2015
New Orchestra II Review
* Music & Vision* by Howard Smith, February 2015
New Art of the Fugue Reviews
New Chamber IV Review
New Book: Women in the Arts: Eccentric Essays II,
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Barbara Harbach: SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1-120 Fanfare Magazine: Bert van Boer, September/October 2015
SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Ÿ Barbara Harbach, hpd Ÿ MSR CLASSICS 1300 (14 CDs: 1041:09)
There is no doubt that Padre Antonio Soler was one of the foremost composers in Spain during the 18th century. Born in Catalonia in 1729, he was schooled as a youth in the monastery of Montserrat at the age of five, and by 1744 had embarked upon a career at a young age at the cathedral in Seo de Urgel, finally becoming a monk in 1752, moving to Madrid to become active in the Hieronymite order. His association with the Royal Court meant access to the Royal Family, while his duties at El Escorial as maestro di capilla relieved him of the necessity to become involved in the various musical intrigues on the outside. As a result, he was able to hone his skill, achieving a formidable reputation for his theoretical knowledge (including a treatise on modulation written in 1762), and moreover corresponded with some of the musical pedagogues of his time, such as Padre Martini in Bologna.
As a composer, Soler has been most known in our day for his keyboard sonatas, of which at least 120 survive and possibly many more have been lost. Although well-known as the doyen of Catalan music during the period, his international reputation has largely been linked with a fellow resident in Madrid, Domenico Scarlatti, whose own collections of keyboard sonatas marked a seminal development in the rise of that genre (not to mention formal and stylistic developments as the Classical period emerged). In this, Soler has often been considered sort of as Scarlatti’s lesser colleague, and although there is some slight evidence that Soler might have studied (or at least interacted) with Scarlatti, his music shows not only a penchant for native melodies and rhythms throughout, but also a sequential formal development from single- movement works (such as Scarlatti generally wrote) to full-fledged two and three-movement sonatas in a mature Classical style.
There are a number of issues surrounding Soler’s sonatas that have made their dissemination as a group difficult. First, his music was circulated readily throughout Europe, and while the sources are widespread, they are not always consistent in terms of authenticity, given that no Soler autograph appears to have survived. This means that the bulk were disseminated in loose manuscript copies, sometimes with awkward attributions. Musicologist Padre Samuel Rubio has created a seven-volume edition of works, which are used for this recording as they are probably based upon the best musicological research. In terms of which instrument Soler intended, it should be noted that many of the copies only require an “instrumento de tecla,” or generic keyboard. This is the same sort of conundrum that one finds with Scarlatti’s sonatas, but at least several of the later works dating stylistically from towards the end of the composer’s life (he died in 1783) would be better played on a fortepiano rather than a harpsichord or clavichord; I am not certain after hearing them that the suggestion that perhaps an organ might also have been a possibility is particularly convincing. Barbara Harbach has chosen to do this entire set on the harpsichord, which given the uncertainty is probably as close to a ubiquitous keyboard in Europe as one might find during the period. A final ambiguity concerns the title “sonata” itself, given the variety of these works in terms of structure, form, and content. Because this term is so generic to the age, however, it might be a fruitless exercise to try and differentiate the works generically, and thus I find this issue rather moot.
Although Soler’s sonatas have been recorded often before, no one has attempted a complete set of the 120 works, and therefore Harbach’s project has taken on monumental proportions. Pieter-Jan Belder has started a set with Brilliant Classics in 2008 but I can find only four volumes that have been released. The same exists with Gilbert Rowland’s set for Naxos, which has a parallel project recording them for modern piano by Denis Zhdanov. As these plod along, Harbach has done the world an immense service by releasing the entire bunch as follows:
Disc 1: Sonatas 1-13 (78:24)
Disc 2: Sonatas 14-23 (76:03)
Disc 3: Sonatas 24-35 (77:54)
Disc 4: Sonatas 36-49 (73:04)
Disc 5: Sonatas 50-60 (66:48)
Disc 6: Sonatas 61-63 (75:44)
Disc 7: Sonatas 64-66 (62:51)
Disc 8: Sonatas 67-73 (76:27)
Disc 9: Sonatas 74-83 (74:32)
Disc 10: Sonatas 84-92 (first two movements; 79:45)
Disc 11: Sonatas 92 (last two movements)-94 (74:15)
Disc 12: Sonatas 95-97 (72:59)
Disc 13: Sonatas 98-106 (76:26)
Disc 14: Sonatas 107-120 (75:57)
In case one is keeping track of the total time, it is over a thousand minutes or 17 hours of music. Clearly, this is a reference set, to be savored over a larger amount of time (unless one is inured to marathons by Der Ring). To produce this is a labor of love and dedication, and the results are extremely fine. In the extensive booklet notes, Harbach, herself both a musicologist and composer as well as performer, has even given minute descriptions of 36 of her favorites, each of which she outlines in a brief sentence or two as to stylistic and technical contents. But there is more, much more hidden in all of the sonatas. For example Sonata 117 has a nicely imitative line that seems to echo Sonata 114, both in Dorian mode, save that the latter twists in rather flexible directions (and makes one wonder if Sonatas 114, 115, and 117 ought not to belong together, as they have a musical congruity that is quite apparent, to this author anyway). The three-movement sonatas, probably composed somewhat later in his career, are all mature works with good thematic contrasts. For instance, the Sonata 67 in D major opens with a bell-like theme in which one can imagine the bells of El Escorial, and a lyrical secondary theme that Mozart might have written. This is followed by a lively rondo with cascading triplets that are distinctly gigue-like. The finale is a fugue based upon a theme that wanders, and here Soler makes something that would be hard to imagine as counterpoint into flowing, easy-going tapestry. In the single- movement Sonata 37, subtitled “Pastoril,” the mischievous opening trills devolving into a sprightly triple-meter dance practically evokes bucolic pleasures and gamboling sheep. I even detect a slight Spanish tone to the work, as if one is now out on the altiplano. As each of these works is unique and individual, one might reiterate that Harbach has her favorites (all amply and accurately described) but the remainder are all equally as brilliant and interesting in and of themselves.
In terms of the performance, Harbach’s playing is precise and crystalline, with each phrase, each turn of harmony, and each ornament clearly and cleanly defined. Even without the monumental aspect of this entire set, her performance is some of the best harpsichord playing I’ve encountered, for it is articulate and passionate, energetic and careful to bring out all of the hidden subtleties in Soler’s music. This set is a must have, and there is no higher recommendation that I can give. One does not have to absorb all 14 discs all at once, but one can be rest assured the temptation with such excellent playing will be to hold a Soler marathon. Get it. Period. Bertil van Boer
Fanfare Magazine: Bert van Boer, September/October 2015
*****
SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1–120 •
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn René Bayley, September/October 2015 Barbara Harbach (hpd) • MSR 1300 (14 CDs: 1,041:09)
This massive 14-CD set of 120 sonatas ostensibly written by Antonio Soler was a labor of love for harpsichordist Harbach. As she points out in the extensive liner notes, there are multiple problems identifying how many sonatas Soler actually wrote as well as their dating because none of these works exist in his own hand. They were all written down by copyists, and the scores are rife with errors: missing or wrong notes, missing pages of music, and missing or added bars of music. Both Padre Samuel Rubio, whose edition is used here (originally published in 1957 by the Spanish Music Union), and Frederick Marvin did their own independent cataloguing of Soler’s music in the 20th century; later there were Robert Gerhard and Macario Santiago. Harbach doesn’t say why she chose this edition over the others, but admits that there are duplications of movements within it: “Sonata No. 41 also exists as No. 96, Movement II; No. 42 as No. 96, Movement IV; No. 45 as No. 94, Movement III; No. 60, Movement I as No. 99, Movement I; No. 60, Movement II as No. 99, Movement III; and No. 54 (transposed from C major to D major) as No. 92, Movement I.”
I suppose Harbach chose to stick to these duplications and idiosyncrasies not only to present Padre Rubio’s work intact, but also because, as one reads into accounts of Soler’s life and personality, he may actually have done these things himself. He entered the Escolania of the Monastery of Montserrat at age seven to study music and took holy orders at age 23, where he spent the rest of his life, and apparently had zero ego and didn’t really care if his music was published and admired or not. He never assigned numbers of any sort (neither opus nor catalog numbers) to his works, nor did he date them, so when he died in 1783 everything was in a state of disarray. Some handwritten copies of his sonatas are dated 1786, which meant that he apparently wrote them posthumously.
But as careless as Soler was in the business end of music, he was just that meticulous on the musical side. Harbach mentions that in one of his rare surviving treatises, Llave de la Modulación from 1762, he mentions Domenico Scarlatti, so he certainly knew and admired the Italian’s equally brief sonatas and possibly even studied with him. And there is something more, as Harbach notes: “The later sonatas were written for a wide range, such as F1 to G6 (or as high as C7 as in the fourth movement of Sonata No. 61)—well out of the range of the harpsichord and early pianoforte.” So there go the best-laid academic theories of the historically informed crowd, right out the window. If Soler’s music was composed for a harpsichord, but neither the standard harpsichords nor the early pianofortes of his time had this range … what did he play them on?
Harbach commissioned harpsichord maker Willard Martin of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to build a two-manual instrument for her that could reach G6, “a copy of an 18th century two-manual French double designed by François Blanchet.” The amusing part of this story is that Martin delivered the new harpsichord to Harbach at her home in St. Louis in a long black hearse, prompting many of her neighbors to drop by “over the next few days to offer their condolences!” But here we go again: How did an 18th-century Spanish monk, who obviously took a vow of poverty, end up with a fancy, state-of-the-art French harpsichord to compose his sonatas on?
Maybe he won it on Let’s Make a Deal?
As for the performances, they are bright, lively, and beautifully articulated, recorded very well so as to capture the full range of the instrument with just enough natural room ambience. Harbach, who also plays quite a bit of modern music (I previously reviewed her CD of music by Arnold Rosner and Daniel Pinkham on MSR 1443), takes a very modern approach to phrasing, which is to play everything in a straightforward tempo with no modifications of rallentando or rubato.
Certainly the music can take this approach; after all, Soler is not Domenico Scarlatti or Diedrich Buxtehude, whose music cries out for such modification of the line. We must remember that Soler was Spanish, that a great deal of his music was based on Spanish dance rhythms, and thus a lack of tempo modification would be appropriate, particularly in the fast movements. That being said, a little gypsy swagger now and then would have been welcome. As in the case of Scarlatti’s sonatas, extended listening to this set, as I had to do in order to review it in time, is not recommended. Listen to a sonata, hit pause or stop, and let it sink in before moving on to the next one. This will give you a chance to absorb the multiple beauties and the sparkle of Soler’s music. Despite the brevity of most of these works, Soler uses a surprising amount of repeats of themes, so within their four-to-five-minute length one hears quite a bit of music that sounds alike.
Harbach made a list in the booklet of the sonatas she particularly liked, and by and large I agreed with her. Like many composers who wrote a lot of music—even J. S. Bach—not all of Soler’s sonatas are of equal value. Some were probably written for his royal pupil, the Infante Don Gabriel, who was the son of King Carlos III (and who may also have been one of the principal scribes who jotted some of these sonatas down), and thus would be fun to play without being especially challenging. Think of this massive collection as being a combination of imaginative works written for Soler himself to play and simpler études composed for his royal student … and possibly other students we don’t know much about as well. Too often people seem to think that composers have some sort of divine channel to the deity who inspires them to write Music For The Ages. In the real world, it just doesn’t work like that. Some of these sonatas may even have been dinner music.
To my mind, there is a lot more of the Baroque in Soler’s music than the Classical, but this probably stemmed from his admiration of Scarlatti and his cloistered life. I don’t know if he ever heard or knew of the more modern music written in the 1770s and early 1780s by Haydn, Mozart, or C. P. E. Bach. Although his later, multi-movement sonatas are a bit more Classical, they still rely on such traditional Baroque devices as repetition an octave lower or higher, canons, and fugues. Some musical prodigies grow and develop and others stay within their comfort zone. Little of his music is harmonically adventurous, not only for his time but also by comparison with Scarlatti or Bach. Yet Soler was apparently a happy person, because most of his music sounds happy.
As I said earlier, listening to all these CDs sequentially over a period of several hours is not a recommended way of savoring this set, but I had to do it. Among the more interesting sonatas is No. 3 with its quirky use of arpeggios and appoggiaturas, the wide musical leaps and odd key changes in No. 5, the rising scale passages in thirds and descending scales in the right hand of No. 11, and the “strumming accompaniment and Bolero rhythms” of No. 12. Although Harbach makes it clear that the harpsichord is not able to make many dynamics changes, I detected occasional louder passages here and there in these performances, which were welcome in order to break up the repetitions of themes. (Harbach explains this: On a two-manual harpsichord, one can play soft passages on the upper manual to achieve an echo effect.) In Sonata No. 41, I also heard a few Luftpausen as well as an interesting metallic or chime-like sound (I’m not sure how she produced that), and in the second movement of Sonata 98 she uses the damper pedal to make the harpsichord sound almost like a Spanish guitar. As I said, even when I didn’t know exactly which sonata was coming up next, I found myself agreeing with Harbach on the quality of various works. For instance, she describes Sonata No. 15 as “Spanish sounding with great Soler artistry,” but what I liked about it was the way he continually “bounced” his themes around from hand to hand and used syncopation to propel the music. I also heard syncopation in Sonata 18 that, if played with a little more looseness, could have approached a jazz beat. Sonata 20 also has an interesting, loping beat, and Sonata 21 has a lot of swagger with its rollicking triplets and asymmetric rhythmic feel. Other sonatas I liked, for various reasons, were Nos. 24, 26, 30, 35, 38, 40 (which almost sounds like a little symphony), 44, 48, 52, the last movement of 61, 69, 72,
73, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 88, 90, 92, 93, 98, 100–101, 104–106, 108, 110, 113–114, 116–118, and 120. Several of the others start off with good musical ideas, but then suffer from too many repetitions and/or not enough interest or development (e.g., Sonata No. 85). Incidentally, I should mention that several of his sonatas are, unusually for that time, written in the Dorian mode: Nos. 15, 18, 19, 25, 32, 36, 39, 47–49, 57, 100, 102–104, 114–115, 117, and 120.
Pieter-Jan Belder, in his complete set on Brilliant Classics, divides the sonatas between harpsichord and fortepiano. He plays with enthusiasm but has a tendency to “mow ‘em down,” driving the rhythm so hard that it resembles a semi on the interstate with a load of potatoes to get to market by midnight. Gilbert Rowland, in his set of the sonatas for Naxos, has a peculiar sound, both very dry and overly resonant (whether due to the instrument or the mike placement I’m not sure), and plays them in a style similar to Harbach except that he “rounds off” the ends of choruses with decelerandos whereas Harbach does not. Sometimes these sound good, at other times affected. But there are other differences: Rowland apparently goes up to Sonata No. 130 and his slow tempos are generally (but not always) slower than Harbach’s and his fast tempos faster (Sonata No. 81 almost twice as fast!). Rowland’s set is also (at the time of writing) only available as 14 single CDs in thick jewel boxes, each selling for $8.99 on Amazon, and the sonatas were released all out of order (Vol. 7, for instance, including Sonatas Nos. 3, 10, 39, 81, 108, 113, 11, 80, 82, 97, and 112), whereas Harbach’s set is fully integral and comes in an attractive box with each disc in a cardboard sleeve. Each CD presents the sonatas in Rubio’s original order, running sequentially from Sonata 1 to Sonata 120, and sells on Amazon for $96.42 which breaks down to $6.88 per disc, so it is the better value. Whether you are a Soler fanatic who wants it all or a performer or scholar who wants a handy reference to this music, this set is a valuable resource. Lynn René Bayley
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn René Bayley, September/October 2015
*****
Interview: Meet Barbara Harbach
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn René Bayley, September/October 2015
Soler Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1-120
Pennsylvania native Barbara Harbach, who studied organ and harpsichord at Penn State, received a master’s degree at Yale, and then a doctoral degree in organ and composition from the Eastman School of Music, has been one of the busiest performers in America. Her Wikipedia page tells us that following graduation she also studied organ at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule with the legendary Helmut Walcha. Interestingly, he told her that “he did not believe that women belonged on the organ bench.” That statement has been more than refuted by her being ranked in 1992 by Keyboard magazine as second to Keith Jarrett as “Top Keyboard Artist” in classical music, as well as her numerous organ and harpsichord recitals in North America, Asia, Europe, and Siberia. As also indicated on Wikipedia, she presented a weekly television series, Palouse Performance, broadcast in the northwest U.S.
Her many compositions in various genres and forms, from solo works to orchestral and choral pieces, have received awards. The Music of Barbara Harbach, Vol. 1 was named “record of the year 2008” by MusicWeb International and received a Critics’ Choice award from American Record Guide. Her works have also been praised in the pages of this journal by David DeBoor Canfield, and I was very impressed with her previous recording of works by Arnold Rosner and
Daniel Pinkham. She is a staunch champion of women composers: in 1993 she co-founded the Women of Note Quarterly and is now editor of WomenArts Quarterly Journal, despite her busy duties as Curators’ Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she teaches performance, composition, and related classes.
I was fortunate enough to be able to catch up with Harbach via e-mail for this interview.
Q: Barbara, I hardly know where to begin with this interview! You wear so many hats and have accomplished so much. Perhaps I should start by asking you which of your accomplishments you are personally most proud of: performing, composing, teaching, or proselytizing for other women composers?
A: I love them all! Whatever I am doing at the moment is the one that captures my imagination and energy. I do have to admit that teaching, composing, and editing is a bit easier than sitting at the organ or harpsichord for seven straight hours, but I do love to do it anyway! I have found my career changing over the years. At first, I thought I wanted to be a performing and recording artist, and played many recitals and performances beginning in the 1970s. In the 1980s I went to the British Library and ordered and received reels of historical women and men keyboard composers, and thus was born Vivace Press. (This was before the era of pdfs and e-mail.) My vision was to recover, record, and publish the music of these talented women composers. What really charged my ambition to do this was an incident at an eastern university. I was asked to give an organ recital, and at the reception after the performance, I mentioned to a musicologist that I was interested in recovering the music of historical women composers. He said to me, “If there were any women composers, they wouldn’t be very good.” That was the gauntlet! In addition, the review headline of that night’s recital read, “Tight Slacks, Organist in Good Form.”
Q: I can’t imagine that a double major in harpsichord and organ is as common as that of harpsichord and piano. What drew you to the organ as your other instrument, rather than the more similar piano?
A: I played for my first church service when I was nine years old. I was sufficiently tall to be able to reach the pedals. The first hymn I played was Bringing in the Sheaves, and to this day I can play it in any key. The church service was held in my grandparent’s “saloon,” where there was an old harmonium that you had to pump with your feet, and I certainly developed great calf muscles! The “saloon” was in the hotel that my grandparents owned in central Pennsylvania, and since the county became dry, it was a saloon in name only. I graduated to a Hammond organ a few years later when we went to another church, and then in high school came one of the loves of my life, the pipe organ. The sound of the pipe organ still gives me a thrill, whether soft strings or drowning out the orchestra as in Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra.
I should mention that I took piano lessons beginning when I was four. My mother was my first teacher, and it was a wonderful way to bond with her. She was a terrific supporter of my musical career. I knew I wanted to be in music since I began lessons, and I enjoy the various facets that my career has led me.
I think I was drawn to the harpsichord because of the similarity of touch between the harpsichord and the tracker organ. When you press a key on the harpsichord, the pluck of the string gives a slight resistance similar to the feel of depressing a key on a tracker organ. Also, harpsichordists and organists use much less wrist and body motion than pianists, and we do not need the upper body muscles required by pianists.
Q: I suppose the next question should be who were the organists and/or harpsichordists who influenced you—the ones who inspired you to take up these instruments?
A: For 20th century harpsichordists, I particularly admire and respect Wanda Landowska, as well as Gustav Leonhardt, Raymond Leppard, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Igor Kipnis, Ton Koopman, Sylvia Marlowe, Daniel Pinkham, Colin Tilney, Rosalyn Tureck, Fernando Valenti, Elisabeth Chojnacka, and many others.
For organists, I came of age with Helmut Walcha, Virgil Fox, E. Power Biggs, Marie-Claire Alain, and Gillian Weir; and now there is a whole crop of extremely talented contemporary organists. I still marvel that pipe organs, both large and small, are being built and installed in many churches in this rather cynical and perhaps non-church age.
Q: If I may, I would like to ask a couple of questions regarding Helmut Walcha, since he is such an icon to so many of our critics and readers. I know that you had difficulties with him, but was there anything positive that you were able to get from the experience?
A: Oh, absolutely! He was a gifted organist, improviser, and composer! He would play Evensong every week at his church for free, the Dreikönigskirche in Frankfurt, where the audience would consist of only six or so of us students. When he would give a public recital that had a hefty ticket price, the church was packed. Go figure! At Yale, I studied with Charles Krigbaum, who had studied with Walcha, and I admired the articulations and interpretations of Krigbaum, which fueled my desire to study with Walcha. I was fortunate to be awarded a Deutscher Akademischner Austausdienst to study with Walcha. Interestingly, Russell Saunders, with whom I studied at Eastman, was Walcha’s first American student, and I was his last. While at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule, I was fortunate to receive the Konzert Diplom under Walcha. For my qualifying concert, Walcha would not coach Widor or any American compositions. In his defense, his forte was Germanic composers, and his forte was really a fortissimo!
Q: And now, a different question, same topic: did Walcha really have no respect even for those women organists who had become famous? I doubt that he would have heard of such organists as Mary Cherubim Schafer, but as a European-based organist he might have heard of Anne Maddocks, who worked at the famed Chichester Cathedral from 1942 to 1949, and he had to have known of Marie-Claire Alain (who, incidentally, was one of my personal heroes when growing up).
A: These are all wonderful women organists! And Marie-Claire Alain is one of my icons, also. Perhaps Walcha responded to the culture of his time, by not believing that women could be outstanding organists, so why teach them? Women would only get married and not use their training, so why waste a spot in the academy for them? The culture of suppressing women
composers and performers goes centuries back in Germany and other countries. Just think of Fanny Mendelssohn and the struggles she and many other women had to endure to get their music recognized. How many women’s compositions were left to languish in attics, only to be thrown out by future generations! So much has been lost over the centuries.
Q: On a different topic, I was very happy to learn of your support for women composers. Nancy Van de Vate once told me that the unwritten rule in most American symphony orchestras is that perhaps one major composition per year by a woman composer is programmed; otherwise, it’s back to the men. A friend of mine who considers himself enlightened once told me that he thinks this is only fair because “men write so much more music”!!! I would guess that you disagree with this as much as I do?
A: Absolutely; just check out the International Alliance for Women in Music, New York Women Composers, Society of Composers Inc., Donne in Musica, and American Composers Forum, just to name a few, and there are many, many women composers. According to the League of American Orchestras, only 1–2% of pieces played by orchestras in the United States are composed by women—what a shame! We write exciting, visceral, and beautiful music but cannot get it programmed. In the introduction to my book, Women in the Arts: Eccentric Essays II (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2015), I tried to address the issue of why there is a need for books about women in the arts, exhibitions of women painters, readings of women’s poetry, concerts of music by women composers, and conferences highlighting women in the arts. It is an ongoing struggle for equity.
Q: I guess I really should ask where you come down on the recent revelation that Anna Magdalena Bach may have composed some of her husband’s music—an article in The Telegraph by Ivan Hewitt suggests the Cello Suites. I can’t imagine that living with and even playing her husband’s music on a daily basis wouldn’t have rubbed off on her, as it did on his sons?
A: I think this is a fascinating thesis! Anna studied with the best, and I believe that Bach’s creativity ignited hers! Or consider some other 18th century women composers such as Elizabeth Billington, Anna Bon, and Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, who wrote music as teenagers and then went on to have other careers or dropped out of composition or got married and tended to a large estate. Elizabeth Billington, (1765/1768–1818) wrote her Opus 1 at the tender age of eight years old, and her mature Opus 2 at age eleven. Her sonatas compare favorably to Mozart’s at the same age. Elizabeth went on to become one of England’s most outstanding operatic sopranos. The CD I recorded, half Billington and half Mozart, is still available as Classical Prodigies: Elizabeth Weichsell Billington/Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Hester Park, CD 7703, Vivace Press (www.vivacepress.com) I enjoyed working with Elizabeth’s music, and her second marriage was tumultuous. She and her husband would separate and then reconcile, until in the last reconciliation he took her to Italy and then murdered her. I talked with one of her descendants in England and asked if the story were true, and she told me that it was true. Elizabeth’s story and career, from child prodigy composer to famous soprano, a jealous husband, and a murder, is a made-for-TV movie waiting to happen!
Q: If I may ask about Palouse Performance, which I’ve never seen: what kind of show is it?
Performances by you, or a music discussion show with musical guests like the once-famous radio show St. Paul Sunday?
A: As the host of the show, Palouse Performance was a wonderful opportunity for me in the Palouse in the 1990s when I was professor of music at Washington State University, which is a region located in eastern Washington surrounding Pullman. It is a large wheat-growing area, and each day the rolling fields of wheat seemed to change in color and depth. Palouse Performance showcased talent from Washington as well as performers passing through the region. We did everything from classical to blues, jazz, rock, and I also did performances on clavichord, harpsichord and organ. One of my favorite shows was a woman composer/performer who wrote her country-western song, I’m Gonna Fax My Baby Some Love (faxing was still new in the 1990s). The fertile Palouse region inspired my Frontier Fancies for Violin and Orchestra.
Q: To briefly discuss your CD of music by Rosner and Pinkham, I was really wowed by the fact that such interesting modern music was composed for the harpsichord. Do you also work for more pieces like this? A body of modern works for harpsichord in addition to the 18th-century repertoire?
A: Yes, I am totally supportive of contemporary harpsichord composers and music. I recorded four CDs of contemporary harpsichord music featuring the music of Van Appledorn, Borroff, Zwilich, Diemer, Starer, Stern, Read, Rose, Martinu, Thomson, Albright, Adler, Sowash, Templeton, Fine, Near, Jones and Locklair. I think Rosner’s Musiqe de Clavecin is an incredible piece and not for the faint-of-heart technically! His portraits of women are fascinating and intriguing.
I have also recorded contemporary organ composers such as Adler, Locklair, Bitgood, Marga Richter, Zwilich, Julia Smith, Ethel Smyth, Violet Archer, Gardner Read, Gwyneth Walker and Jeanne Demessieux.
Q: How would you characterize your style on the harpsichord, as compared to other well-known harpsichordists currently active?
A: It seems to me I incorporate a lot of articulations and performance practices, and I pay close attention to melodic contours and harmonic foundations, which probably stems from my organ technique. I like to hear the harpsichord played with a fluid technique, and let the music speak for itself, without imposing the performer’s personality on it.
Q: In your new set of the keyboard sonatas of Antonio Soler, how did you go about sorting through the manuscripts and deciding the correct performance style?
A: It was a long process. For some reason, I bought the entire works of Soler some time before I even thought of recording the sonatas. I used the Samuel Rubio edition of his 120 sonatas for the recording. I am glad I got them when I did, since you can no longer get the Rubio editions. First, I analyzed all the movements for form and melodic repetitions. Then I listened to many recordings of Soler by various artists, and all had some fine interpretations, but when I sat down
to record, I knew how I was going to interpret them – somewhere between Baroque and early Classical. I enjoyed the journey of researching and recording them, and it took two decades to get them all done. At one point, I didn’t know if I would ever complete them, but various serendipitous events allowed me to continue. I am happy I persevered, and I thank Rob LaPorta and Richard Price of MSR Classics and Candlewood Digital, respectively, who did a superb job on the final mastering and packaging, and I thank Roy Christensen of Gasparo Records, who started and believed in the recording project.
Q: I’m particularly curious about the various repeated movements that you enumerated in your liner notes to the Soler set: Sonata 96 duplicating Sonata 41, and movements in Sonatas 42, 45, 54, and 60 being recycled in later sonatas. Do you suspect, as I did, that Soler himself might have actually done this? And if not, why include the duplications?
A: I wrestled and struggled with whether or not to include the duplicates, and decided that whether Soler put the duplicates together, and/or Rubio did, it seems to make the sonatas more complete when they contain the duplicates. On the lighter side, perhaps Soler or Rubio had so many sonatas and movements to contend with that they forgot they had included them earlier!
Q: I’m wondering how on earth you balance all your activities in the course of a year. I can’t imagine that it’s particularly easy to be teacher, researcher, performer, editor, and composer. Somewhere along the line, there has to be less time for one of these activities. How do you manage it?
A: A good question! Luckily, I am a morning person and start work, whether composing, rehearsing, preparing syllabi/tests, or proofing an article or manuscript, early in the morning before the flood of e-mails, phone calls and disturbances (usually by my four cats!). Summer is a good time for academics to recharge and do all the creative endeavors that had to be put off during the academic year. I like to do projects that I can become passionate about—women in the arts and mentoring students. Like all of us, if we enjoy what we are doing, it’s not work, and we might even get paid for it!
Q: Do you have any immediate plans, as performer or in the recording studio, that you would like to share with our readers?
A: I have some excellent 18th-century manuscripts tucked away of women and men composers that seem to be insisting I should introduce them to the listening public, so I will begin the editing, publishing and recording process with them.
Thank you for your stimulating questions and letting me recall the gentle past, which none of us does in these aggressive and motivating times.
SOLER Harpsichord Sonatas Nos. 1–120 • Barbara Harbach (hpd) • MSR 1300 (14 CDs: 1,041:09)
Fanfare Magazine: Lynn Bayley, September/October 2015
*****
Orchestral Music II by Barbara Harbach
Soundly Constructed
Music & Vision: Howard Smith, 2015
'... the LPO is wholly admirable in this music ...'
This second MSR Classics recording of Barbara Harbach's orchestral music follows an earlier programme played by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra with conductor Kirk Trevor (MS 1252).
The present release has three concise 3-movement symphonies and Harbach's atmospheric Night Soundings for Orchestra lasting fifteen-and-a-half minutes. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is directed by Boston Lyric Opera conductor David Angus, and illustrates Harbach's soundly constructed tonal style.
Composer, harpsichordist, organist and teacher, Harbach is Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She founded Women in the Arts-St Louis to highlight women's work and gain more performances for musicians and composers. In 1989 she founded the small Vivace Press, publishing music by underrepresented composers.
Night Soundings for Orchestra is largely programmatic, with its first movement, 'Cloak of Darkness', full of shadows and menace. In 'Notturno' the darkness is less immediately apparent with faint similarities to Bartók’s extraordinary 'night music'. The final movement, 'Midnight Tango', brings to life the intrinsic Latin rhythm, popularized in the 1920s and given a revived lease of life by Astor Piazzolla and Gidon Kremer.
The Gateway Festival Symphony begins with 'Confluencity', in which two great rivers — the Missouri and Mississippi — meet some eight miles north of the St Louis Arch. Harbach suggests the many moods and fusion at the conjunction: the site of Confluence Point State Park, home for a myriad waterfowl.
'Sunset: Saint Louis' is inspired by thepoem of the city's ill-fated poet, Sara Teasdale (1884-1933). It begins:
Hushed in the smoky haze of summersunset When I came home again from far off places How many times I saw my western city Dream by her river
'After Forever' is bookended with a clarion call trumpet. Harbach was reminded of the dramtic story surrounding Dred and Harriet Scott, the St Louis slaves who sued for freedom only to be denied by the 1857 US Supreme Court. Missouri ranks third in Civil War battles and engagements. The tuneful central section is particularly effective.
The Jubilee Symphony w as commissioned for the University of Missouri-St Louis fiftieth jubilee anniversary, 1963-2013. Its first movement, titled 'Bellerive', refers to Bellerive Country Club, a golf country club moved to its current site with a newly designed course, opened on Memorial Day 1960.
'Mirth Day Fiesta' is unique to the University where Mexican influences are much in evidence. Here cultures and ethnicities are showcased. The focus is on Cinco de Mayo ( Spanish for 'fifth of May'), a celebration held on 5 May. Mexicans and Americans also often see the day as a source of pride: one way they can honor their ethnicity. Listen for hints of Mariachi music.
The symphony culminates with 'Triton's Ascending' in which Harbach's fugal writing is present almost throughout. This movement brings the programme to an impressive and though nothing here is especially profound, much remains to admire.
As one might reasonably expect, the LPO is wholly admirable in this music, and David Angus is clearly at ease in Harbach's accessible works. Angus spent his early years in Belfast. He was a boy chorister at King's College, Cambridge under Sir David Willcocks and finished his training with a fellowship in conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he won several prizes for his opera conducting.
His professional career began as a repetiteur with Opera North (UK) , before becoming Chorus Master and Staff Conductor for Glyndebourne Festival Opera with numerous engagements throughout Europe.
Music & Vision: Howard Smith, 2015
*****
Art of Fugue on the organ—always the best bet, and Harbach brings it home. Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, 2014
BACH: Art of Fugue, BWV 1080; PACHELBEL: Canon in D; Chaconne in F; 13 Chorale Preludes; Chaconne in D – Barbara Harbach, organ – MSR Classics MS 1442 (2 CDs), 148:53 [Distr. by Albany]
*****
Barbara Harbach, Professor of Music at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, has toured extensively as both concert organist and harpsichordist throughout the United States and Canada, and overseas in Belgium, Bosnia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Romania, Serbia and Russian Siberia. For this recording of the Bach she has chosen the Fisk Organ at Downtown United Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York, and for the Pachelbel the Fisk Organ at Slee Hall at the State University of Buffalo, Buffalo, New York.
The arguments over Bach’s Art of Fugue will never end; what was it for, what instrument should it be played on, should it be completed, on and on it goes. As far as I am concerned, and despite the supposedly “didactic” nature of the work—which one could really claim about all of Bach’s work to a certain extent, I think this was meant to be played. Bach’s entire life testifies against any idea of time spent on a theoretical piece—especially of this size—simply as an academic exercise or a meditation on “pure” fugal composition for the sake of intellectual pondering. It would be the first time he ever did this if it proves to be the case. No; he meant the thing to be performed, for music was a palpable and resonating art form that demanded performance in Bach’s view.
So which instrument? It seems to me obvious that the most practical and comprehensive instrument to be found for such an undertaking is right here on this recording. Only an organ can loftily cover all the demands of this piece, and it greatly expands the idea of color and registration within the confines of one person’s imagination. I have heard many worthy contenders on other instruments and for other combinations, but the organ remains the most convincing.
What about the ending? This has perplexed artists for years, especially as the original manuscript version does have an ending, fully in place ten years before the published version.
But evidence shows that Bach was not content with the work, revising it, and finally dying before the last quadruple fugue was completed. I have never found the newly-composed completions of this work to be satisfactory and the ending of a chorale prelude sounds out of place in a piece like this. The sudden cutoff, so profoundly a reminder of genius stopped, adds a pathetic dimension of great emotion and drama, and I am happy that Harbach does that here.
This is an excellent reading of this work done with thoughtfulness and a lot of passion.
The Pachelbel works might seem a little superfluous in such a setting, but they actually serve as a nice come-down from the fugal complexities and utter perfection of the Bach. The famous Canon is nicely presented, not in the same contrapuntal web as the original scoring, and it proves very enjoyable even if it hardly replaces the original. The two Chaconnes are fine works, very involved and dramatic, the D-minor of an exquisite fiery sensibility that Pachelbel nonetheless keeps under control. He is best known for his chorale preludes, and these thirteen selections show why; an ever-inventive nature that is able to wed seasonal requirements to music that is fully descriptive and yet brilliantly independent make for enthralling listening on a number of levels. The tonal characteristics of the Fisk organ at Slee Hall offer lots of opportunities for experimentation and a truly crisp presentation of these works.
The engineers have captured both venues very well, and Harbach is to be congratulated on a fine offering.
Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, July 2014
*****
J.S. Bach: The Art of Fugue BWV 1080, Komm Suesser Tod BWV 478;
Pachelbel: Canon in D (arr. Wolff), Chaconne in F, Chaconne in D, Chorale Preludes
Fanfare Magazine: Bertil van Boer, September 2014
As a composer, organist, and scholar, Barbara Harbach is of course quite well known and needs no introduction to either the scholarly world or public at large. She has championed women composers for many years, and she is perhaps solely responsible for an interesting and progressive repertory. Moreover, her journal is well respected and her recordings run a considerable gamut, from the Baroque to contemporary composers. It is therefore somewhat surprising to receive this disc of Bach’s iconic Art of Fugue. Surely, there is no lack of recordings of this venerable collection, first published in 1751, and counterpoint students for at least a century and a half have diligently studied them. Perhaps it is the use of the Fisk organs in Rochester and Buffalo, New York that ought to be the real focus of this two-disc set, and when one listens, the voicing is indeed rather clear and resonant, though I find them lighter in tone than, say, the larger cathedral organs of Europe upon which many of the current recordings available are performed.
That alone might be an incentive, but what I find more attractive is that the second disc is devoted largely to the music of Johann Pachelbel, whose infamous canon (here also performed) has become arguably the earworm of the century. Harbach at least makes her adaptation a sort of gigantic crescendo that seems particularly apt for the organ, but it still doesn’t help the overexposure of the piece. More interesting, however, are the other works, such as the two chaconnes, which like the canon, are based upon ostinato basses. No earworms here, for one can find a solid, even sensitive set of works. The F-Minor Chaconne begins with a soft palette of sounds, wherein the bass line is virtually imperceptible. As the texture begins to build the registrations outline each variation with definition. By the time one gets to the two penultimate variations, the sound has become a surging wave, which then vanishes seemingly into the mist, with a sudden thinning of the texture, to disappear as quietly as it came in the beginning. The D- Major Chaconne has some rather gnarly opening harmonies above the ostinato, which swells until it too attains a massive sound wave, only here it does not vanish but rather concludes triumphantly. The chorale preludes all have a nice sense of contrapuntal line that is often marked by suspensions and chromatic variation. These are every bit as worthy of performance as those by Bach, demonstrating that Pachelbel was no slouch when it came to serious Lutheran church music.
I am quite taken with Harbach’s choice of registration, and, as noted, the Fiske organs have a nice transparent sound which in turn allows for the individual lines to become audible. Perhaps such would be (and sometimes are) lost in some of the great cathedral organs, but intimacy replaces grandeur. One has so many versions of The Art of Fugue from which to choose, and so this portion of the set might be more of a matter of personal choice, but I would get it solely for the Pachelbel, which, apart from the exorable canon, is something of an eye-opener.
Fanfare Magazine: Bertil van Boer, September 2014
*****
Harbach continues her series with MSR, well-received in many quarters including this one.
Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, 2014
Music of Barbara Harbach, Chamber Music IV (Vol. 8) = Incantata; Harriet’s Story; Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin; The Sounds of St. Louis – Marlissa Hudson, sop./ St. Louis Ch. Players/ St. Louis Low Brass Collective/ James Richards – MSR Classics
“Music of Barbara Harbach, Chamber Music IV (Vol. 8)” = Incantata; Harriet’s Story; Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin; The Sounds of St. Louis – Marlissa Hudson, sop./ St. Louis Ch. Players/ St. Louis Low Brass Collective/ James Richards – MSR Classics MS 1259, 74:33 [Distr. by Albany]
[Excerpt]
Three pieces on this disc are from 2011. The style is remarkably similar, especially in the chamber ensemble pieces, and they all remind me of Stravinsky in his more pastoral and calmer moments. Incantata is inspired by a Paul Muldoon poem of the same title, and the music seeks to reflect the emotions found therein in movements”Perplexities”,”Nocturnes”, Ireland Remembered”, “Bitter-sweet”, and”Coda”. I enjoyed it a lot. When the last work on this disc, Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin appears, based on Nikos Stabakis’s translation of the Embirikos Blast Furnace (1935), I was expecting something far dreamier—as this is what the composer was looking for at the time—than what I got. Perhaps it’s the percussive nature of this score, complete with glockenspiel, castanets, triangle, bell tree, crotales, timpani, and suspended cymbals that makes Harbach’s notion of dreaminess different than mine—and that is certainly a valid comment—which throws me off. Anyway, it is still fascinating music, and again, one hardly wants to leave it while it is playing.
The Sounds of St. Louis incorporates a series of American folk songs with Harbach’s own considerable skill in fugal writing for a low brass ensemble. The results are not as folksy as you would think, being dominated by the bluesy feel of W.C. Handy’s own St. Louis Blues, with a pseudo-rock beat.
Yet the strongest piece here, the short song cycle Harriet’s Story for soprano, piano, and violin, is quite the stunner, with soprano Marlissa Hudson delivering a splendid performance. The lyrics by the composer are put in the voice of Harriet Scott (of Dred Scott fame) while the third movement uses the genuine texts of Harriet Tubman, the former slave and African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. The music is affecting and lyrical, passionate and versatile, making me wonder if Harbach shouldn’t spend more time than she has in this genre—she certainly seems to have an innate talent for it.
Harbach is well worth hearing…I sincerely doubt if anyone will be disappointed with what they find on this disc, recorded with great consistency and presence.
Audiophile Audition: Steven Ritter, 2014
CD Release! MUSIC OF BARBARA HARBACH ~ Orchestral Music II
Symphonies, Soundings & Celebrations
Recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestral, David Angus conducting
Vol. IX MSR 1519
Night Soundings for Orchestra
I. Cloak of Darkness
II. Notturno
III. Midnight Tango
A State Divided - a Missouri Symphony
I. Missouri Compromise - a slave state
II. Skirmish at Island Mound - African-American regiment
III. The Battle of Westport - the battle that saved
Gateway Festival Symphony
I. Confluencity
II. Sunset: St. Louis
III. After Forever
Jubilee Symphony
I. Bellerive
II. Mirth Day Fiesta
III. Tritons Ascending
Symphonies, Soundings & Celebrations
Recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestral, David Angus conducting
Vol. IX MSR 1519
Night Soundings for Orchestra
I. Cloak of Darkness
II. Notturno
III. Midnight Tango
A State Divided - a Missouri Symphony
I. Missouri Compromise - a slave state
II. Skirmish at Island Mound - African-American regiment
III. The Battle of Westport - the battle that saved
Gateway Festival Symphony
I. Confluencity
II. Sunset: St. Louis
III. After Forever
Jubilee Symphony
I. Bellerive
II. Mirth Day Fiesta
III. Tritons Ascending
CD Release! MUSIC OF BARBARA HARBACH ~ Chamber Music IV
Music for Strings, Winds, Brass, Piano & Soprano
Vol. VIII MSR 1259
Incantata for Chamber Ensemble
Harriet's Story (Soprano, Violin and Piano)
Phantom of the Dreams' Origin for Chamber Ensemble
Sounds of St. Louis - a Suite in One Movement for Low Brass
Available at MSRCD.COM and AMAZON.COM
Music for Strings, Winds, Brass, Piano & Soprano
Vol. VIII MSR 1259
Incantata for Chamber Ensemble
Harriet's Story (Soprano, Violin and Piano)
Phantom of the Dreams' Origin for Chamber Ensemble
Sounds of St. Louis - a Suite in One Movement for Low Brass
Available at MSRCD.COM and AMAZON.COM
