Customer Reviews

Kaija Saariaho: Château de l'âme / Graal Théâtre / Amers

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kaija Saariaho is well known to Los Angeles audiences as her fellow countryman and music spiritual partner Esa-Pekka Salonen has provided many performances of this gifted composer's output in the Los Angeles Philharmonic's seasons. It is well to hear these two collaborate on this recording as there is a special affinity obviously present. Saariaho's music is an acquired taste. Not that it is unapproachable on first hearing: she is after all an impressionist of wondrous colors and a titan of orchestration. The acquired taste in this instance is like a reference to drug addicition. Once the listener relaxes with the relative lack of meter and just bathes in the luxury of her created sound, the works beg for encores. Though all three works on this disc are very fine, for me the pinnacle is the song cycle 'Chateau de l'ame' which benefits from the impeccably beautiful art of soprano Dawn Upshaw. This is a song cycle that should stand with Ravel's "Sheherazade" and Berlioz' "Nuits d'ete". Finland remains a rich resource for some of the best music and musicians before us today. Highly recommended.

The music of Kaija Saariaho was almost too much for me to absorb at once, when I first listened to this disc. This isn't because it's busy or overblown, although there's plenty of detail and sumptuous orchestral beauty to her music. Rather, on the first piece in particular, it's almost as if different moods are overlayed, translucent and continuously shifting from foreground to background,with severe modernist abstraction (which I love, by the way) and lush neo-romanticism bleeding over into one another. Saariaho makes "Graal Theatre"'s continuous transformations work much more subtly than that grasping description makes it sound. The piece has an almost ritualistic quality to it, with the decisively rigorous violin moving with fluid angularity amongst a variegated landscape of orchestral color and occasional tension. "Chateau De L'Ame" is the most accesible piece, with Dawn Upshaw's lovely soprano supported by understated orchestrations that, while beautiful, carry an uncanny tinge. "Amers" closes out the disc with the most obscure music here, with incredible explorations of timbre within a bright sound haze. According to the liner notes, it has more in common with Saariaho's earlier work than the other pieces. After managing to let myself sink into this hauntingly beautiful music, I certainly plan on exploring more of what is available from this amazing composer.

Here we have 3 pieces by contemporary Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho performed by each work's dedicatee--Gidon Kremer, Dawn Upshaw, and Anssi Karttunen--and three excellent ensembles--the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Chamber Choir & Symphony Orchestra, and the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra--all conducted by long-time associate Esa-Pekka Salonen. I've been unhappy with Saariaho's recent work, where she has seemingly abandoned electronics and concentrated increasingly on melody, but the music of the early 90s, with its focus on gorgeous timbre and frequent use of electronic possibilities, is a standout of contemporary music. Two works here show Saariaho at her best, but one is the harbinger of her lesser music of today.

All things considered, "Amers" for cello, orchestra, and electronics (1993) is for me Saariaho's masterpiece. With its prominent cello part written for Anssi Karttunen, the two-movement piece can be considered a cello concerto, but the relationship between soloist and orchestra that Saariaho aims for here is richer than any other concerto I've ever heard. While the orchestra bangs out gentle and ghostly ocean-like rhythms ("amers" is a French word for "navigation buoy"), the cello plays "as a sailor charting a course through a sea of sounds". The piece makes use of a special microphone specially developed by IRCAM that is capable of isolating each of the cello's four strings and amplifying or electronically altering each separately, which expands the cello's sound to new levels: furious bowing across the bridge gives bell-like chimes, a sound produced by pizzicato elastically reverbs. Over the course of the work, electronic alterations pull the cello "off-course"; in the first movement, only minor interference occurs, while in the powerful second movement the sound of the cello is violently shaken about. Karttunen and Avanti! give a moving performance that alone serves to make this a highly recommended disc.

I should mention that if you like "Amers" you should check out Saariaho's related "Pres" for solo cello, whose material is mainly taken from the solo part of "Amers" with some additions of even greater beauty, allowing one to concentrate on this particular element of the concerto separate from the orchestral elements.

"Graal Theatre" for violin and orchestra (1994) more closely approaches the concerto tradition than "Amers", but has its own twist: during the first movement instead of a dialogue between soloist and orchestra, the orchestra emulates the material displayed by the soloist. Saariaho puts it that the soloist "leaves tracks" that the ensemble follows. Only in the second movement, "Impetuoso", do we find confrontation. Gidon Kremer performs superbly here as always, and I was impressed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It is a pity that this performance, recorded in 1996, sat around for five years before being released. A version for chamber orchestra was later written that is featured on a recent Ondine disc and is worth hearing, although I find this original version for full orchestra works better due to its greater percussion.

"Chateau de L'ame" for solo soprano, 8 female voices and orchestra (1996) marks the end of Saariaho's overall concern with otherworldly timbre and the beginning of her disappointing turn to overt melody. The text of these five songs come from Vedic love poems and magical writings from Ancient Egypt. In spite of the divine voice of Dawn Upshaw, I find this music bland. One only has to look at "Lonh" for soprano and electronics of the same year, also written for Upshaw (and wonderfully performed by her on an Ondine disc) to see how limited this new music is. With the certain exception of "Sept Papillions" for solo cello and the cautious exception of her first opera "L'amour de loin", most of what I've heard from Saariaho recently is of considerably lesser quality than what she wrote before.

In spite of the weak "Chateau", however, the two earlier works on this disc are of great elegance and beauty. If you've never heard Saariaho's music before, I'd recommend first trying the discs "Du crystal ...a la fumee/Nymphea/Sept Papillions" or "Private Gardens", both on Ondine. Still, this disc is worth hearing once you've fallen in love with her writing.

This is a VERY GOOD disc of modern music.

It has is similarities with Salonens own "LA variations" Salonens is in my opinion better) but this is, even if you compare with Salonen a very good disc. Gideon Kremer plays on this and he is fantastic even if I THINK his violin is a BIT too "loud" over orchestra but mayby Saariaho like it that way?

Salonen conducts modern music very good -as usual- and sound is excellent, music is stunning and Cello player Karttunen plays with bravura and Dawn Upshaw singing with grace.

Otherwise this booklet give us, what I think, some kvasi-intellectual nonsence about Saariahos works (Sony "forget" give us more vital info instead about this importent composer). If you could stand that Sony treat modern importent works like this in what I think is a bad manner and listen too this music instead this IS importent modern music and a must have.

Of course this is highly recommended disc but dont forget Salonens "LA Variations"

Kaija Saariaho has one of the most colorful and expressive orchestral palates out there today. These pieces are amoung her best, especially the final piece Amers. The performances are, I assume, definative. A very important release by one of the most important composers out there.

Kaija Saariaho is, together with Magnus Lindberg, perhaps the greatest Finnish composer in the generation after Sallinen and Rautavaara - and indeed one of the greatest and most interesting contemporary composers, period. That said I am less sure this disc is the ideal introduction to her music (L'amour de Loin is perhaps the safest bet). This is surely wonderful, beautiful, captivating music, but it does - at least to me - come across as a little inconsequential and perhaps lacking the big, strong ideas I have encountered in Saariaho's music elsewhere. Still, it is often utterly gorgeous - enthralling, even - and the reason the disc fails to obtain a five-star rating is mostly due to Sony's poor presentation; a compelling reason for beginning one's exploration of this composer elsewhere.

Graal Théâtre is a violin concerto (I cannot be bothered to try to find out what the title is supposed to signify - apparently I would have to read a book by Jacques Roubaud, and since I have not I may have missed something significant) cast in two movements. The first is meditative, almost dreamlike, like a wonderfully, otherworldly landscape, quietly pastoral, slightly ominous, living, breathing but coldly glittering with showers of light percussion instruments like ice crystals stirred up by the organically unfolding, contemplative solo line. The second movement is more active and (apparently) goal-directed, sounding sometimes somewhat like Lutoslawski. But it is the luscious, luminous, lavish but light textures and gorgeous colors that are overall the main attractions of the work.

Amers is a cello concerto and structurally similar to the violin concerto. It is a slightly earlier work and has even less melody than the violin concerto (the scoring is augmented by electronics) - again, it is a work focused on changing, beautiful textures, and although the coloration is subtly different from the sound tapestries of the violin concerto, I frankly found the sameness a little disheartening. Maybe the reason I prefer the violin concerto is because I heard it first, but it does come across as fresher and more sparkling than the earlier work. Château de l'Âme is a song cycle for soprano, women's voices and orchestra based on ancient texts from Egypt and India (the texts are not printed in the booklet, so I have no idea what it is all about). As opposed to the two concertante work, this work is rather melodically based, even though it is the imaginative use of textures that is most striking. It is, again, a thoroughly beautiful, almost mesmerizing work, but again I am unsure that it really adds up to anything in particular.

The performances are very good. The orchestral playing is impeccable and Esa-Pekka Salonen seems to have a thorough understanding of the music. Gidon Kremer is convincing in the violin concerto, but his upper register is a little harsh - presumably mostly because he is recorded a little bit too close; the slight imbalance here is actually quite unfortunate, since some of the detail of the wonderful scoring is also lost when the soloist is playing. Anssi Karttunen's cello playing is beautiful but concentrated and appropriately energetic, and he sounds better balanced than Kremer. Dawn Upshaw is her usual, fully convincing self in the songs. Overall, then, these are quite gorgeous works, finely performed in variable but generally good recordings. The lack of texts for the songs is disappointing, and the booklet notes are frankly rather worthless overall - which is a major drawback for any release of contemporary music.