Modern and Contemporary

to you through
India Gailey
Redshift Records (indiayeshe.com)

Halifax-based cellist India Gailey’s first album includes a diverse mixture of contemporary composers, including a McGill colleague and a work of her own. Though sometimes sounding improvised, each piece is fully scored for cello, some with voice and occasionally multitracked with electronics. Gailey’s album flows like poetry, and she includes in her CD booklet descriptions of each track as a collection of thoughts and photographs that reads more like a journal, giving the collection almost a gallery setting, as if you could walk room by room to experience each work. Gailey’s writing includes personal reflections on her own feelings of place, being uprooted by the pandemic, emotions of disconnection and loneliness, the difference between a material home and feeling at home, and letting go of the perpetual search for a place to land.

While the album is an excellent introduction to Gailey’s breadth of skill as a cellist, the most outstanding tracks for me were the more recent works: compositions by Fjóla Evans, Yaz Lancaster and Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti. Gailey’s own 2020 composition Ghost, for acoustic cello and voice, is a delicate lament for the destruction of the Earth inspired by the Australian bush fires. Michael Gordon’s 2004 Light is Calling, written after the destruction of 9/11, is outstanding. Making use of stereo panning and seven layers of electronics plus cello, it encapsulates the climate of moving somewhere while staying rooted in place, much like our recent years, and ends with a sublimely organic deconstruction. If I could have a soundtrack playing the next time I am surfing a standing wave in a canoe, this would be it.

Mark Ellestad – Discreet Angel
Cristián Alvear; Mark Ellestad; Apartment House
Another Timbre at185 (anothertimbre.com)

Hesitancy, or possibly abstract detachment, might describe the communicative mode of Mark Ellestad’s Discreet Angel. Instead of passages, we are presented with spaces between notes, plucked one or two at a time by guitarist Cristián Alvear. At just over 20 minutes in length, this is the second longest work presented. I’m reminded of Linda C. Smith’s music, or Martin Arnold’s. A more active middle section buoys one along on something more like a quiet brookside walk in a treed ravine, following the sleepy spring dawn.

Sigrid features Ellestad performing this short work on Hardanger fiddle and pump organ. Disagreement between pitches seems almost to be the point of the thing, the reed organ tuned one way and the fiddle strings another. Underlying the plain chorale is the ceaseless counter rhythm of the foot pedals, pumping the organ’s bellows full. Imagine Ellestad bowing and pedalling simultaneously while elbowing the organ keys (or more likely overdubbing). It’s pretty and quirky.

In the Mirror of this Night, a duet for violin and cello, weighs in at nearly 46 minutes. Opening in a misterioso unison (well, in octaves) passage, the chant-like melody spins beautifully in tune, senza vibrato, then begins to refract into parallel pitches, sounding sometimes almost like the pump organ. It’s a workout for the attention span, or a soundtrack for meditation.

Canadian Ellestad (b.1954) abandoned composing for nearly 20 years; he wrote these pieces in the 1980s and 90s but never recorded them to his satisfaction. He’s now brought them to light, encouraged by the quality of performance of his collaborators. Kudos especially to Mira Benjamin (violin) and Anton Lukoszevieze (cello, as well as the cover art).

All Worlds, All Times
Windsync
Bright Shiny Things BST-0167 (brightshiny.ninja)

It’s not every day woodwind quintet music will make you want to get up and dance. Seize this disc and the day, says me. Opening things, Theia from Apollo by Marc Mellits, almost literally bops from the get-go. The piece is moon-themed – modern and ancient references abound – but mostly it all feels like a set list of a really good and interesting dance band. If rhythm is their strong suit, pitch is not. The second movement, Sea of Tranquility, opens with intonation issues so glaring one is left wondering whether it’s intentionally spectral, but I doubt it. It’s a flaw that could have been addressed prior to releasing the recording. Chords do not settle, unisons clash. But carping aside, the music itself is just so darned chipper. The finale, Moonwalk, scoots along; if this was the pace those first moonwalkers took, I’m an Olympic sprinter. Toe-tapping fun. 

Composer and percussionist Ivan Trevino joins the ensemble for his Song Book Vol.3, and the dancing just gets better. The titles refer to singer-songwriters: St. Annie (St. Vincent) is really sweet. Byrne (David) captures that enigmatic manchild’s spirit. Jónsi (Birgisson, of Sigur Rós from Iceland) is better than the original, and Thom (Yorke) is, of course, the coolest.

Miguel del Aguila’s Wind Quintet No.2 matches the character of the rest of the disc, but it has less depth and seems more gimmicky. It’s nice to hear the voices of the instrumentalists chant alongside the flute melody in Back in Time, the first movement. (They sing in tune!)

Kārlis Lācis – Piano Concerto; Latvian Symphony
Agnese Eglina; Artūrs Noviks; Liepāja Symphony Orchestra; Atvars Lakstīgala
LMIC SKANI 133 (skani.lv)

“Extreme emotions” and “maximalism” are well-chosen words that Latvian composer Kārlis Lācis (b.1977) uses to describe his 30-minute Piano Concerto (2013). The opening Allegro alternates fierce orchestral barrages with rapid, folk-dance-flavoured melodies played by pianist Agnese Eglina; both elements then merge, building to a motorized, near-cacophonous climax. In Crossroad, the piano’s slow walking pace over grey orchestral chords suggests a pensive stroll through a misty landscape. Despair mixes brutal, wildly syncopated polyrhythms, aggressive brass, percussion and musicians’ shouts. Lullaby quotes a traditional melody, but at an energized velocity and volume antithetical to sleep. The rustic romp finally subsides; the lullaby, now gentle and sweet, ends the concerto.

Although lacking a stated program, Lācis’ 37-minute Latvian Symphony (2019) features compelling, evocative episodes reflecting the movements’ titles. Paraphrases of the “Fate” fanfares from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony open The Night is Dark; a propulsive struggle ensues, ending peacefully. The Lake shimmers Impressionistically, framing a brass-heavy, grandiosely imposing central section. Of the rumbustious folk tunes in the Latvian Scherzo, amply spiked with dissonances, Lācis says, “I took all the songs that are still in my head from childhood and I threw them all together.” Hurry, Dear Sun is clearly Nature-music: throbbing “forest murmurs” slowly crescendo to a grand, climactic sunrise; a brief, violent storm bursts, followed by folk-song-based music of relief and thanksgiving, ending with the musicians’ unaccompanied, chant-like humming.

Conductor Atvars Lakstīgala generates real excitement in these very colourful works. Enthusiastically recommended!