Oboist Alex Klein and Pianist Phillip Bush Play Works Spawned Amid Political Peril on New Cedille Records Album Available March 11

‘When There Are No Words: Revolutionary Works for Oboe and Piano’ features compositions by Hindemith, Haas, Bolcom, Britten, Siqueira, and Slavický

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Klein and Bush are also heard on the commercial recording premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s ‘Song Without Words,’ to be released as a Cedille digital-only single on same day as their album

Grammy Award-winner Alex Klein, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal oboe emeritus, and pianist Phillip Bush perform works by composers from both sides of the Atlantic who were caught up in or deeply moved by 20th-century political turmoil on When There Are No Words: Revolutionary Works for Oboe and Piano, available March 11, 2022.

The Brazilian-born oboe virtuoso’s poignant project, with its underlying appeal for tolerance, encompasses works by German, Czech, American, British, and Brazilian composers.

The program includes Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano, Pavel Haas’s Suite for Oboe and Piano, William Bolcom’s Aubade – for the Continuation of Life, Benjamin Britten’s Temporal Variations, José Siqueira’s Three Etudes for Oboe with Piano Accompaniment, and Klement Slavický’s Suite for Oboe and Piano (Cedille Records CDR 90000 208).

Much of the music evinces a calm lyricism and melodious beauty that belie the composers’ difficult circumstances. Some were exiled from their native countries, others despaired of impending war. Haas died in Auschwitz.

One of the world’s best-known oboists, Klein says he drew on available musicological research and his own interpretive insights as a performing artist to assess the extent to which each score was intended to express the composer’s political passions, anxieties, or personal peril.

“Several times in this repertoire, we see situations where a calamity cannot better be expressed than through sound,” Klein says in a Cedille Records podcast with label founder and President James Ginsburg, the album’s producer. “Music has this benefit. It can express things that words can’t.” The complete podcast can be streamed at https://bit.ly/3p1hbnb.

Hindemith’s 1938 Sonata for Oboe and Piano, written in Swiss exile, is said to represent a vision of brighter days in his native Germany. Haas’s Suite for Oboe and Piano, composed at the outset of Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, shares the complex musical language of his teacher, Leoš Janácek.

Haas’s Suite helped inspire the album’s title When There Are No Words. The Jewish composer reportedly wrote it originally as a set of patriotic Czech songs for voice and piano. Given his precarious circumstances, Haas destroyed the song texts, which have never surfaced, and repurposed the score for oboe and piano.

Bolcom’s ultimately hopeful Aubade – for the Continuation of Life, written amid early 1980s fears of nuclear war, forges a fragile coexistence between oboe and piano. Britten’s nine Temporal Variations, written on the eve of World War II, expresses the composer’s anti-militarism.

Siqueira wrote his tuneful Three Etudes for Oboe with Piano Accompaniment shortly before fleeing Brazil’s military dictatorship. Slavický’s professional musical career had been derailed by the Czech Communist regime by the time he wrote his virtuosic Suite for Oboe and Piano in 1960, while a virtual political exile in his own country.

The album’s 20-page booklet includes, for each composer and work, historical notes by Leon Shernoff and interpretive commentary by Klein.

Recording Team

When There Are No Words was recorded by the Grammy Award-winning team of producer Ginsburg and sound engineer Bill Maylone July 12–14 and 16­–18, 2021, in Allen Recital Hall, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois.

‘Lyrical, Elegant, and Poignant’ Piece by Augusta Read Thomas

In addition to performing on the new album, Klein and Bush are heard on the commercial recording premiere of Chicago composer Augusta Read Thomas’s “Song Without Words,” to be released as a digital-only single track March 11 on Cedille Records, available for streaming and download (Cedille Records CDR 3012).

The similarity between the title of Read Thomas’s piece and that of the new album is coincidental, according to Cedille’s Ginsburg.

In its program note, the label describes “Song Without Words” (2018) as “chamber music shared between equal partners, oboe and piano, who work together to create a beautiful performance of a lyrical, elegant, and poignant composition that is immediate while, at the same time, holds deep, rich sonic meanings.”

Alex Klein and Phillip Bush

Oboist Alex Klein and pianist Philip Bush made their Cedille Records debut as a duo with their 2019 release Twentieth Century Oboe Sonatas (Cedille Records CDR 90000 186).

Stereophile called it “a recording to cherish” and “a program overflowing with free, energetic playing.” Gramophone admired Klein’s “elegant articulation and rich lucid tone” and praised Bush as “an alert and sympathetic partner.” Classical Music Daily declared, “This is a great disc — any wind player, and particularly oboists, must buy this. What a fantastic and inspiring team Alex Klein and Phillip Bush make.”

Klein’s Cedille Records discography includes ten albums on which he appears as headliner or guest soloist in repertoire spanning the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th Century, and contemporary eras.

He won a Grammy Award in 2002 for Best Instrumental Solo Performance (with Orchestra) for his recording of Richard Strauss’s oboe concerto with conductor Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Teldec.

Klein served as the CSO’s principal oboe from 1995 to 2004 and was later given “Emeritus” status by music director Riccardo Muti.

Chicago Magazine wrote that Klein possesses a “tone so unique and beautiful that musicians from around the globe would flock to [Chicago’s] Symphony Center to hear him play.”

Klein is currently principal oboe of the Calgary Philharmonic in Alberta, Canada, and maintains an active international career as recitalist, chamber musician, and teacher. Website: www.alexoboeklein.com.

Bush, a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, where he studied with Leon Fleisher, launched his career upon winning the American Pianists Association Fellowship Award and his subsequent New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Applauded as “a pianist of exceptional, cherishable finesse” (Los Angeles Times), Bush has appeared as a recitalist throughout North America as well as in Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. His discography includes the complete Beethoven violin sonatas with Aaron Berofsk and the Brahms viola sonatas with David Harding. For more information, visit https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/music/faculty-staff/Bush.php

Cedille Records

Launched in November 1989 by James Ginsburg, Grammy Award-winning Cedille Records (pronounced say-DEE) is dedicated to showcasing and promoting the most noteworthy classical artists in and from the Chicago area. The label’s catalog of more than 200 front-line albums brims with attractive, off-the-beaten-path repertoire from the Baroque era to the present day. Works from the classical canon, when they do appear, are usually heard in particularly imaginative pairings.

Cedille has recorded more than 180 Chicago artists and ensembles, with over 80 making their professional recording debuts on the label. Its catalog includes the world premieres of more than 400 classical compositions.

The audiophile-oriented label releases every new album in multiple formats — physical CD, 96 kHz, 24-bit, studio-quality FLAC download, and 320 Kbps MP3 download — and on major streaming services.

An independent nonprofit enterprise, Cedille Records is the label of Cedille Chicago, NFP. Sales of physical CDs and digital downloads and streams cover only a small percentage of the label’s costs. Tax-deductible donations from individual music-lovers and grants from charitable organizations account for most of its revenue.

Cedille’s headquarters are at 4311 N. Ravenswood Ave., Suite 202, Chicago, IL 60613; call 773-989-2515; email: info@cedillerecords.org. Website: cedillerecords.org.

Cedille Records is distributed in the Western Hemisphere by Naxos of America and its distribution partners, by Naxos Music UK, and by other independent distributors in the Naxos network in classical music markets around the world.