Henry Cowell: Instrumental, Chamber and Vocal Music, Vol. 1

Henry Cowell (Composer), Joel Sachs (Conductor, Performer), Continuum (Performer), Ellen Lang (Performer), Cheryl Seltzer (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Joel Sachs, Continuum, Ellen Lang, Cheryl Seltzer
• Conductor: Joel Sachs
• Composer: Henry Cowell
• Audio CD (February 22, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos American
• ASIN: B00076SHHA
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,288 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An overview of Cowell's various compositional styles - but not always his most innovative and interesting music, March 24, 2007

By 

Discophage (France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Henry Cowell: Instrumental, Chamber and Vocal Music, Vol. 1 (Audio CD)

This disc - a Naxos re-release of a recording made in 1990 and first published by Musical Heritage Society - provides a good overview of Cowell's various compositional styles - but not always his most innovative and interesting music.

The sunny Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord (1954) would make a fine companion piece to Manuel de Fallas's Concerto for Harpsichord. Its neo-classical style (including a Bach-derived melody erupting at 1:40 in the 1st movement and a kind of medieval court dance at 0:50 in the finale) and somewhat rarefied textures are close to Falla's, but without the Spaniard's unique compositional voice. It is the kind of music that Poulenc, Milhaud, Sauguet or Françaix at their lightest could have written. "Polyphonica" (1930) is a short (3:45) study in dissonant counterpoint, again sounding quite neo-classical in its perky sonorities and rhythmic sprightliness.

The 6-movement Suite for Violin and Piano from 1925 again is modeled after the baroque suite. While the piano part (especially in the 1st and 5th movements) has some of the traits so characteristic of Cowell's compositions for the instrument, like deep sounding tone clusters, the violin melodies are mostly Bach-derived, making it all sound like the kind of Bach transcription so much in favor in the fifties. The suite's concept reminds me of George Antheil's 2nd violin and piano sonata (see my review of George Antheil: Violin Sonatas 1, 2 & 4), in which the violin part is supposed to represent the trite music of past and present and the piano, the pounding, dissonant music of the future - but Antheil's composition is much more original, provocative and fun than Cowell's. In the same style, Stravinsky's Suite Italienne (an arrangement of his Ballet Pulcinella after music attributed - at the time of the composition - to Pergolesi) is also a more endearing composition. Violinist Mia Wu's pitch is not always perfect and her tone verges on the sour.

The three "Anti-Modernist" (e.g. anti modern music) Newspaper poems that Cowell set to music in 1938 are hilarious - and there is obviously a personal message in their selection by the composer: the first, written in 1884, castigates the "clang, clash, clatter, clatter, clang and clash" of... Wagner's music, the second, from 1909, denounces the "Symphonic cyclones", the unchained "dogs of war", "the wild sarrusophones", the heckelphone suggesting "the crack of doom", the earthquake-producing "tonitruone" in... Richard Strauss' operas, and the last, in 1924, berates the "crash, clash, cling, clang, bing, bang, bing" - "what right had he to write the thing?" - of... Stravinsky's "fiendish" Rite of Spring! So Cowell makes it clear that new and innovative music like his own is always first decried and accused of being mere noise, before gaining universal acceptance (which sadly is not yet really the case with his). That said, the three songs are somewhat disappointing, in that they are couched in a musical idiom that is far removed from Cowell's customary "crashes, clashes and bangs", but quite traditional, full of grand Romantic gestures. Mezzo Ellen Lang acquits herself serviceably but with a voice of no particular bloom.

Ultimately, the most interesting pieces on this disc are those in which Cowell the experimenter and innovator is more in evidenceevidence: the four piano pieces and the Irish Suite for "String piano" (as Cowell called it) and Small Orchestra - actually an arrangement in form of a concerto of three of the solo string piano pieces, and a fascinating etude in mysterious sonorities. Sachs is excellent in the piano pieces, with a breath-taking dynamic progression from pianissimo to fortissimo in the clusters of "Deep color", a hauntingly slow tempo in the keyboard questions and harped string answers of "The Fairy Answer" (an approach very different from the composer's faster paced own), precise in his voicing of the polyrhythmic and dreamy "Fabric", frenzied in the massively pounding "Tiger" and with superb rendition of the mesmerizing resonances produced with silently depressed keys. But still, for Cowell's extraordinary piano music, arguably his major contribution to the history of the instrument and of music in general, the 1963 composer-performed selection of 19 of them on a Smithsonian/Folkways CD of Piano Music, despite the disc's sonic insufficiencies, is a better choice, and an insdispensable acquisition for any one interested in 20th-Century music, or in the piano, or just in music (see my review).

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars About Time, January 8, 2006

By 

Allan J. Cronin "francis gerard" (Alameda, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Henry Cowell: Instrumental, Chamber and Vocal Music, Vol. 1 (Audio CD)

It is indeed about time that we get recordings of this American Master's work. His centennial passed in 1997 with all too little fanfare and many of his works unavailable to the listening public.
But leave it to the wonderful folks at NAXOS to bring such essential music from unjust obscurity and make it available at such friendly prices.
The venerable new music ensemble "Continuum" has recorded much obscure, difficult (at least to perform) and essential American music. Past recordings have included the works of Ives, Babbitt, Kirchner, Seeger, Wolpe, etc. And NAXOS is planning to re-release their recording of music by the expatriate genius Conlon Nancarrow as well.
This disc and its companion volume 2 (both apparently re-releases)contain great performances of this listenable repertoire by a composer whose work inspired the likes of John Cage, Lou Harrison, Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions and a host of significant composers. His experimental work gave rise to new musical techniques he later outlined in his seminal book "New Musical Resources".
These chamber works come from a range of times in Cowell's career and are representative of his talents in the chamber and solo repertoire.
Joel Sachs and Cheryl Seltzer along with their colleagues have given us great musicianship and fine recordings. Anyone interested in American classical music of the early and mid-twentieth century will not be disappointed. These discs belong in your collection.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Beguiling Portrait of a True Original, October 30, 2009

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G.D. (Norway) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Henry Cowell: Instrumental, Chamber and Vocal Music, Vol. 1 (Audio CD)

Henry Cowell's music is nothing if not individual, ranging from radiant beauty to clangs and bumps and the most avant-gardish of the surreal in terms of sound-world (often within the same piece). The two Naxos releases together give a fair overview over his stylistic range - the composer was extremely prolific, and not everything he wrote were of the same quality, but these discs are consistently fascinating and imaginative and well worth acquiring. Most interesting are, perhaps, the pieces that utilize tone clusters (particularly the solo piano works here - excellently performed by Joel Sachs, by the way), extended playing techniques and (somewhat Ivesian) use of musical lines with no discernible relationship, least of all tonal relationship, played simultaneously, although Cowell's music could never really be mistaken for Ives's. Perhaps the most obvious stylistic trait is his use of contrast - the more abrasive, modernist elements rarely permeate a whole piece, but is used to contrast the other, usually rather conservative, material. And it is indeed to his credit that Cowell is, more often than not, able to pull that trick off successfully and without destroying the unity or formal cohesion of a piece. Rather effective is, for instance, the use of playing directly onto the piano sounding board, usually with a rather raucous, scraping effect, but very effectively done (notice also that `piano with strings' means `prepared piano'). The disc at hand also includes a sort of meta-commentary in the Anti-Modernist Songs and the neo-classical, conservative but supremely well-written quartet for flute, oboe, cello and harpsichord. The performances are generally scintillating, and the sound quality is good, if not perfectly clear. Anyone interested in Cowell should perhaps start with the Banshee if they can obtain a performance of it, but this disc is a very decent candidate for being the next step.