Gentle junctions

CROSSING PATHS

First, a few confessions – or better, admissions. I’ve known Tony Gould for about 50 years through our student days when working at a Master’s Preliminary year under Keith Humble at Melbourne University Conservatorium. Tony survived that ridiculously cavalier class and went on to greater things; I left the room and came back years later to take up the same degree with a real teacher. Further, I’ve known the Liaisons for a fair while: pianist Timothy Young since he took on the role of resident pianist at the Australian National Academy of Music in South Melbourne; the other Ensemble members – Svetlana Bogosavljevic and David Griffiths – since pretty close to the formation of this excellent group in 2007.

This CD is not so much a collaborative project but a set of juxtapositions. It begins with the Liaisons playing the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria in a straight arrangement – well, as straight as that sentimental hybrid can get. Then Gould and his colleagues – saxophone Angela Davis, bass Ben Robertson – give their version of the same piece. The Andantino middle movement from Faure’s Trio in D minor follows; again, turn and turn about. A change arrives with Satie’s Three Gymnopedies which the Ensemble plays complete, Young working the original No. 2 by himself with the outer pieces involving his partners. Gould and Co. offer their interpretation of No. 1 only.

Continuing the religious motif, we hear an ‘original’ version of Piazzolla’s Ave Maria before the jazz variant offers an essay in conciseness. We return to Faure with readings of the composer’s popular Apres un reve. Finally, we are treated to a transcription and a brisk interpretation of Schumann’s Traumerei. Then the CD seems to peter out in a version by the Liaisons of Schubert’s Ave Maria (what is it with this prayer?), followed by a piano solo from Gould of Gershwin’s Love Walked In.

All of this makes for what is called ‘easy’ listening, a sequence of tracks that raises no temperatures and plumbs no angst-ridden emotional depths. The Liaison group show their polish in a series of controlled tracks and this calm ambience is reflected in the contributions from Gould and his colleagues. Bach/Gounod’s golden oldie starts with the familiar piano ripples while Bogosavljevic outlines the French composer’s lavish melody with gentle authority and a carefully judged use of vibrato; second verse around, Griffith enters with an almost-not-there adjunct set of sustained notes that weave a most restrained counterpoint that informs but doesn’t intrude.

After a leisurely introduction, Davis generates a quiet meandering line over Gould’s re-invention of Bach’s arpeggio figure with Robertson following the Griffiths’ role of quiet subservience. The modulations are completely different and you’d be going to trace many parallels between the original tune and the sax’s quiet, breathy investigations. But the trio keeps in touch with the original material, a direct quote peeping through at various points.

For the Faure Piano Trio movement, Griffiths’ clarinet takes the original’s violin line with ultra-smooth results, nowhere better than those two points in this gentle movement where the non-keyboard lines operate on a single melody, most movingly in the last stretches from a bar after Number 8 in the Durand score of 1923 – the year of the work’s premiere. Oddly enough, the composer originally planned for a clarinet to take the violin’s usual place and (at least in this Andantino) there’s nothing that the wind instrument can’t achieve technically that makes the transcription a no-no. Faure’s score rises to two modestly passionate highpoints but the harmonic textures show as largely uncomplicated and the performance is suitably restrained in dynamic terms.

Gould and his colleagues’ reading is rather brief – about 2 minutes to the Liaison’s 6 – and the pianist appears to take his brief from bars 8 and 9 of the original, Robertson pattering away at a roving bass while Davis plays a short variant that I can’t source. Still, that’s part of the delight in this exercise where the mutations can take individual forms. Suffice to note that the jazz trio’s emotional stage is less fraught even than that even temper projected by Faure.

As you’d expect, Griffiths and Bogosavlyevic share melody duty in the first Gymnopedie: clarinet first, then cello each time. I’m indifferent to these pages, probably because it’s unclear what the Greek references do for the musical statements, if anything. The performance is clear and properly remote. Young’s solo exposition of the second in the series shows the requisite modesty and dynamic calm that typifies Satie’s prevailing sound-world, albeit with some more interesting chord juxtapositions than its predecessor. To end, clarinet and cello share the melody line turn and turn about while reinforcing the piano’s bass note when they aren’t in the ascendant.

To reiterate, this makes for an amiable enough experience, although I can’t see Satie’s little essaylets adding up to qualifying for inclusion for ‘their timeless beauty’ or ‘melodic and harmonic richness’, as the sparse CD cover text claims of the general content. The Gould Trio’s version of the first of these works is, for the piano, heavily based on the original, albeit with many harmonic changes; but the contours are obvious. Not so much with the sax’s delayed entry which introduces a novel spray of meandering arabesques, even if these settle down near the end of the operation to fall in line with the composition’s later melodic content. And the supple bass reinforcement-cum-elaboration from Robertson makes for a real pleasure as he follows Gould in the four-across-the-bar and duple-in-triple-time interludes in what amounts – in all three pieces – to a slow waltz.

Piazzolla’s setting (is it? I thought this was called Tanti anni prima) is placid enough – a simple ternary structure that begins in C and ends in F. The cello takes the melody at first; when a pronounced key change arrives at about bar 19, enter the clarinet; then both combine in unison/octave for the melody’s return. This last duet is distinguished by Griffiths’ sympathy with Bogosavljevic’s restrained timbre. To be frank, I enjoyed the jazz trio’s reading more than the original, especially when Davis got away from simply outlining the initial melody and introduced some rhythmic wiggles in collusion with Gould to brighten up some pretty bog-standard material.

No objections to the Liaisons’ account of Apres un reve. After the cello’s announcement of the first stanza – word-for-word according to Emmanuele Praticelli’s 2023 transcription of the original song – the clarinet joined in to play the rest of the piece’s melody in unison. All very even and an ideal example of how to match your performing parameters to your partner’s. But we didn’t really need the supplementary line, especially as the work is too well-known as a cello recital component or encore.

When Gould started his variant, you had to wonder what he was about as we heard a few bars of La fille aux cheveux de lin before he started his re-examination which turned out to be twice as long as the original and stuck to this latter’s outline for about half the track’s length, then doubling back for a looser appraisal with Davis’s instrument very breathy and close-miked. Again, the modern version intrigued for its unexpected formality and concentration of the composer’s resources in this most effective chanson.

Whoever did the Traumerei arrangement that the Liaisons played was happy to spread the joy. The marvellous melody with its risings and dying falls was given mainly to the clarinet, the cello vaulting between the various levels of the piano’s subsidiary lines. It looked as though Bogosavljevic was being entrusted with the gentle piece’s last sentence, but no: the clarinet got the last word. Now this was/is a work of timeless beauty and the ensemble’s handling here showed affection and insight.

Once again, Gould showed himself in playful mood, opening his trio’s reading with a reference to the Preambule to Carnaval, before weaving a path back for Davis to start her very individual take on this childhood scene. Just before the end of this extended review, Gould gave another reminiscence of the Op. 9 opening before he and Davis colluded in a reprise of the original’s last phrases almost as written. Yet again, we could relish a deft combination of the old and the relatively new, with some mildly left-field bursts from all three participants.

I missed a few of Schubert’s endless sextuplets from Young; they just failed to sound fully on occasions. Griffiths gave us the vocal line for stanza 1 of the lied, followed by Bogosavljevic in stanza 2, while the clarinet provided some very soft supporting sustained notes. We can all agree on the inestimable merit of this peerless melodic fluency and you could not wish for more benign treatment than that given by the Liaisons.

Gould’s final solo treats Gershwin’s classic liberally, inferring more than stating and an affectionate ramble on its chord sequences with occasional nods to the optimistic melody. Still, it makes for an off-centre rounding-out of this miscellany: a collection of emotionally placid works which kind of satisfies if you’re not looking for a dramatic confrontation in these crossing paths – which, more often than not, contrive to intersect satisfactorily.

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