T. Patrick Carrabré - War of Angels
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra
Centrediscs CMCCD 18513
T. Patrick Carrabré’s accessible, modernist music is characterized by angular lines and apt, dissonant sonorities orchestrated with clarity and balance. Inuit Games (2002) is an engrossing work in which Inuit throat singers Pauline Pemik and Inukshuk Aksalnik together weave continuous vocal patterns. Around them Carrabré emphasizes the low and high orchestra registers in mysterious, menacing sonorities. A unique and strong piece. In Symphony No.1: The War of Angels (1996), the opening movement’s fast triplet motion initially struck me as suggesting a finale. But then, shouldn’t wars happen differently in angel space and time? The sombre slow movement has profound moments, while the concluding one needs more intensity, in my view. The Winnipeg Symphony brass and winds shine in this work.
Hearing the workmanlike first movement of Symphony No.3 (2003) left me with some qualms about the composer’s propensity for the moto perpetuo process. But the second one is richer and more expansive; the Winnipeg winds give their numerous atmospheric solos loving treatment. And the finale is dramatic and varied, with some intricate counterpoint that builds to an impressive climax. The Dragon’s Tail (1997) is the exciting closer on this disc, featuring percussion passages performed energetically as the other sections of the orchestra also generate plenty of menace! Kudos to Carrabré for his compositions and his work (along with conductors Andrey Boreyko and Bramwell Tovey) for the annual Winnipeg New Music Festival, which has helped composers, orchestra and audiences for contemporary music flourish.
