United Strings of Europe’s Renewal

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Renewal (BIS-2549) is United Strings of Europe’s second release – soon to be out in January of 2022- is the first I have ever had the pleasure of hearing.     

The title of this BIS album by the London-based ensemble implies on one level that all but one of the works it includes are arranged by Julian Azkoul, first violinist and director of the group. But renewal can also be taken to mean a process of refreshing rediscovery, which this recording is.

In Winter’s House by Joanna Marsh and Caroline Shaw’s and the swallow are both originally choral works while Shaw’s Entr’acte, was written for string quartet, but is here heard in the composer’s own version for string orchestra.

Joanna Marsh’s In Winter’s House is set to mysterious, somewhat arcane, lyrical, modal-inflected, amply melodic music that often evokes sounds from centuries ago.

Caroline Shaw’s and the swallow and Entr’acte are both written in an enticingly melodic language that does not restrict the composer from occasional forays into spicy dissonance and minimalistic passages.

Mendelssohn’s F minor String Quartet, one of the composer’s final works, written in reaction to the unexpected death of his beloved sister Fanny, and three months before his own passing is here adapted for string orchestra and heard in an emotionally compelling performance that brings out the composer’s distraught response to the inevitability of death.

Osvaldo Golijov’s Three Songs, are also heard here for the first time with string orchestra accompaniment.

They are sung here by the wonderful soprano Ruby Hughes, an artist with an endless assortment of vocal colors and a flawlessly instrumental technique.

Night of the Flying Horses starts as an unaccompanied lullaby that soon develops into a Romani Doina that in turn builds into agitated music that depicts the flight of fantastical winged horses.

In Rosalia de Castro’s poem Lúa descolorida (Discolored Moon), written in the language of the Galician people, a desolate soul addresses the moon to haunting music by Golijov: If you know where Death has its dark dwelling, tell her to carry me body and soul as one to the place where no one will ever remember neither this world where I am nor the one above me.

How slow the wind a gentle poem by Emily Dickinson brings a felicitous closure to this incomparable, inky-dark song group.

Rafael de Acha      ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”