This article originally appeared in Issue 40:2 (Nov/Dec 2016) of Fanfare Magazine.

SCORDATURA • Hannah Addario-Berry (vc) • AEROCADE 004 (77:09)

KODÁLY Sonata for Solo Cello, op. 8. B. MILLER Miniatures, Book 3: Koans. A. ROSE Lands End. E. CLARK Ekpyrotic: Layerings IV. JUSTEN Sonaquifer. COONS Myth’s Daughter. LIU Calor

Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello dates from 1915. An early twentieth century answer to Bach’s music for unaccompanied cello, it shows the influences of Claude Debussy and Béla Bartók had on him. This sonata also shows the way he used the native Hungarian folk music that he and Bartók loved to work into their pieces. Over a hundred years later on this recording, the solo cello sonata becomes a base that undergirds the varied styles employed by twenty-first century composers of music for the solo cello. The recording is called Scordatura because all of the featured works use the same altered tuning required by Kodály in his solo cello sonata.  Kodály’s music requires the cellist to cover the instrument’s entire range from the highest delicate tones to the strongest bass notes, so this fine rendition of his solo cello sonata gives the listener an idea of Hannah Addario-Berry’s superb virtuosity. Janos Starker, who actually played the Kodaly sonata for its composer, recorded it for Delos in 1992. That is the most definitive recording but, because of technological improvements over the years, not necessarily the easiest one to enjoy. I would suggest owning the Starker for study and the Addario-Berry for simple enjoyment.

Hannah Addario-Berry commissioned each of the six widely varying new works heard on this disc. Composer Brent Miller, managing director of The Center for New Music in San Francisco, describes “koans” in Book 3 of his Miniatures. Koans are stories, dialogues, questions, or statements used in Zen practice to test students’ progress. Miller scores the piece for cello, voice and dice. The text is from The Gateless Gate, a collection of Zen koans and commentary compiled by Chinese Zen master Wumen Huikai.

Alisa Rose’s Lands End is a musical hike along Northern California’s Lands End Trail that leaves city and suburbs for the untamed nature of a dirt trail that skirts the Pacific Ocean. Rose’s rhythmic fiddling has an old time feeling because she uses open strings as drones and drums. Violinist Eric Kenneth Malcolm Clark specializes in new and experimental music. His Ekpyrotic Layerings IV for Solo Cello and Tape requires the cellist not only to change the tuning of the strings but also to place pins on them that give them bell-like tones. The result is a fascinating romp through inventive composition. Gloria Justen’s Sonaquifer makes my mind see a dance of celebration when dusty travelers find a source of clean drinking water for humans and animals in the middle of California’s broiling desert.

If you remember a parent reading a fairy tale to you, Myth’s Daughter will whisper sweet sonorities in your welcoming ears.  Step into the musical garden and it will hold you in its thrall.

Addario-Berry’s final work for this performance is Jerry Liu’s Calor, which is Spanish for heat. Here the cellist mesmerizes the listener with hot rhythms and shows us the beauty of an unrestrained sun. The pristine sound on this Aerocade recording allows cello, voice and percussive sounds to be heard as clearly as if the listener was in a well built recital hall. I enjoyed the variety of compositions Addario-Berry commissioned and hope she will continue to help talented composers get their cello music in front of the public. Maria Nockin

This article originally appeared in Issue 40:2 (Nov/Dec 2016) of Fanfare Magazine.

SCORDATURA • Hannah Addario-Berry (vc) • AEROCADE 004 (77:09)

KODÁLY Sonata for Solo Cello, op. 8. B. MILLER Miniatures, Book 3: Koans. A. ROSE Lands End. E. CLARK Ekpyrotic: Layerings IV. JUSTEN Sonaquifer. COONS Myth’s Daughter. LIU Calor

Canadian cellist Hannah Addario-Berry, now working in the San Francisco area, has put together a stunning program for the solo cello, celebrating the centennial of Zoltán Kodály’s milestone Cello Sonata, op. 8. Scordatura, the title of the release, denotes the retuning of a stringed instrument to change its character and tonality. Kodály requires, in his sonata, the G- and C-strings to be tuned a half-step lower, so that the open strings sound a B-Minor seventh chord. This facilitates the shifting B Minor/B Major tonality of the work—including the use of open-string drones—increases the resonance in those keys, and emphasizes the darker timbres of the instrument. Inspired by these qualities, Addario-Berry commissioned 10 friends—“dynamic young composers”—to create new works for the identically tuned solo cello, to be performed with the Kodály. Working on a short timeline, six finished the works in time for inclusion here and in ongoing tours. Composing to complement one of the greatest works for any solo instrument was no doubt daunting. All wisely avoided producing works that invite direct comparison, opting instead for contrasting, occasionally very modern, works.

Listeners familiar with János Starker’s final recording of the Kodály Sonata (1970, Delos) and the first recording by Miklós Perényi (Hungaroton), another Kodály protégé, will find Addario-Berry’s approach quite different. It is more improvisatory in approach, more monumental—her term in promotional material—and considerably more measured, running, at 34:50, a full four minutes longer than either. The soloist doesn’t slight the Hungarian folk qualities, and maybe even enhances them, while making much of the expressive opportunities that a slower tempo affords, so that the sonata, especially the central Adagio, takes on the nature of a dark lamentation. It is not out of character, even if it perhaps goes beyond what the composer envisioned. The arpeggiated chord work in the Allegro molto vivace, which Starker objected to and cut in all but his last recording, is here made intensely effective, and other figures, which go by very quickly at the marked tempo, are allowed to more fully register at Addario-Berry’s freer tempos. Of course, Kodály declared a Starker performance of the sonata just short of “the Bible performance” because of an unscored ritard in the third movement. Heaven knows what he would think of this reading, but I must say—despite my usual respect for composers’ preferences—that it is immensely satisfying.

Such is my enthusiasm for the Kodály, I’m afraid I’ve left little room for comment on the other six works. It is an eclectic lot in style, but all are essentially tonal. Possibly because she is good at it, two involve reading by the soloist, between and sometimes during the music. In Miniatures, Book Three: Koans, Brent Miller incorporates Zen meditation statements, on which the music reflects in the styles that evoke several of the composer’s influences: Ligeti, Schnittke, Crumb, Tenney, Xenakis, and Pärt. In Myth’s Daughter, Lisa Renée Coons lifts phrases from familiar Grimm’s fairytales nostalgically recalled from her youth, which the soloist states, whispers, and sings as a sort of enhanced narrative in time to the music. Alisa Rose finds inspiration in the topography of a San Francisco trail for the contours of Lands End, and in Appalachian fiddle bowing to establish its essential bluegrass personality. Gloria Justen’s vivacious Sonaquifer is more Eastern European, with gestures from the Bach Suites providing contrasting ideas. Rock music seems to be the starting point for Calor by cellist/composer Jerry Liu, as he experiments with indeterminacy by eliminating note values and meter.

Eric Kenneth Malcolm Clark’s Ekpyrotic: Layerings IV, is, however, the only truly experimental composition. He uses overlapping multiple takes of the same music to create musical complexity out of inevitable variations, as the soloist plays a prepared cello—miniature clothespins on the strings to create a bell-like ringing—and vocalizes. (I have only a vague sense of what this all might have to do with ekpurosis, or the ekpyrotic universe model.) This is a short four-minute version of the work. A longer version, at over 11 minutes, can be downloaded after purchase of the release.

Recommendation, then? Absolutely: The outstanding Kodály Sonata performance alone would be reason enough to purchase this CD. The new works add plenty of creative and agreeable music to be explored, and Addario-Berry’s performances rivet attention. The recording emphasizes the rich lower range of the cello, and is attractively clear and rather close in a resonant space. Notes are succinct, but are expanded upon at scordaturacello.com and a linked Bandcamp download page. Ronald E. Grames