Lauter!
Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
Serenade in D minor (1890)
inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993)
devour (2023)
Ying Wang (b.1976)
Freiheit ist der Atem der Kunst
Ensemble reflektor/Hooy Hyun Chloe
rec. live, 4 & 5 November 2023, Theater am Delphi, Berlin; 2024, SWR Funkstudio, Stuttgart (Serenade)
Solaire SOL1017 [58]
Ensemble reflektor “envisions itself as messenger of a musical culture without borders”, and with this album it focuses on works by female composers. Ethel Smyth’s Serenade in D is still very much a rarity on recordings and as such is emblematic of the relative neglect that her music still suffers. The texts around this release remind us that this work was ignored in it day, and that Smyth had to fight for recognition from male critics and even her own family. She was however involved in musical circles that included Brahms, Clara Schumann and Grieg, and the Serenade in D has plenty of Brahms-influenced colours and harmonies in its opening Allegro non troppo, which at around 13 minutes is by no means lacking in ambition or content. The following playful Scherzo has plenty of Beethoven in its DNA and, while there is a more heartfelt lyricism in the Allegretto grazioso third movement the mood remains up-beat and energetic. The Serenade in D is rounded of with an Allegro con brio finale with a great deal of rhythmic impact; the work as a whole leaving an impression of irrepressible inventiveness and youthfully eclectic openness but one that can be seen as a precursor of the more personal work Smyth would later go on to compose.
Commissioned by PODIUM Esslingen, inti figgis-vizueta’s devour has its origins in the composer’s “thinking about looking at the creation of a small universe and observing its history in fast motion.” Fragmentary notes dance around a slow harmonic development, both of which rise and fall in intensity to varying degrees without really going anywhere or communicating very much to my ears – indeed, very much “a representation of the idea of nothingness…”
Chinese of origin and currently based in Germany, Yin Wang’s Freiheit ist der Atem der Kunst is part of an aesthetic that “deals with global social grievances, persecution and our ambivalent relationship with technology.” In this case, the question is posed, “is human thinking taking over AI – or is it the other way around?” I’m always intrigued by different ways of integrating abstract ideas into what is after all a largely abstract art form, and Wang’s note for this recording avoids literary description, describing instead the work’s structure and the ultimate impossibility of making order out of something that ends up “dissolving all borders” in the organic development of its building blocks. There is a sense of stern and rather forbidding threat in the atmosphere of the piece, with orchestration that reaches out and grabs you by the throat and a dystopian, discomforting mechanical/industrial feel.
Conductor Holly Hyun Choe and ensemble reflector deserve much credit for this intriguing programme and the seriousness of intent with which they deliver all of this music. The only other recording of Ethel Smyth’s Serenade in D that I could find is with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Odaline de la Martinez on the Chandos label, and this is as you might expect a more opulent production than that from ensemble reflector. The latter is a top-notch performance albeit captured in a drier acoustic and with a lighter, more chamber-music sensibility, and this recording certainly stands its ground and is a welcome addition to the Smyth discography.
Dominy Clements
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