Modern and Contemporary

Sara Schoenbeck
Sara Schoenbeck; Harris Eisenstadt; Roscoe Mitchell; Mark Dresser; Peggy Lee et al
Pyroclastic Records PR 16 (pyroclasticrecords.com)

As a pioneer of contemporary bassoon, Sara Schoenbeck’s self-titled album of duet collaborations reads almost like a list of party invitees who just happen to be the who’s who of modern improvisers.  

Longtime friendships and musical partnerships culminate in a colourful quilt as Schoenbeck travels to recording studios across North America during a global pandemic to reach each collaborator.  While her pairings are unique and intimately connected with each artist, Schoenbeck shares that her “deepest musical relationship is with the bassoon itself, the kernel of [her] inspiration.” It might be obvious by now, but it is worth noting that no more important a relationship can be intensified than an artist with their instrument during a pandemic, and each collaboration shines a spotlight on Schoenbeck’s skillful microtonal and multiphonic explorations. Long, arcing tones of bending, creaking, edgy vocalizations and melodic expressions are showcased across a wide and beautiful canvas of both scored and improvised duets. 

The haunting and beautiful Lullaby with improvising guitar legend Nels Cline is soaked with a darkly sublime blend of bassoon and ambient electronic extensions that at times feels like one voice, where Suspend A Bridge, with cellist Peggy Lee, seesaws a fine balance between intertwined harmonies and vast textural space. The Sand Dune Trilogy, with Nicole Mitchell on flute, seductively reminds us of Schoenbeck’s symphonic past while simultaneously teasing it apart. 

Other collaborators include Harris Eisenstadt, Roscoe Mitchell, Mark Dresser, Matt Mitchell and Wayne Horvitz. The closing track, Robin Holcomb’s Sugar, is a beautiful and unexpected finale – but then, parties do sometimes end with the most interesting, quiet conversations.

New Jewish Music Vol.3
Sharon Azrieli; Krisztina Szabó; Nouvel Ensemble Moderne; Lorraine Vaillancourt
Analekta AN 2 9263 (analekta.com/en)

The Azrieli Foundation has released their recording of this year’s composition prize for new Jewish music, along with recordings of commissioned works in the categories of Canadian Composition and Jewish Music: Yotam Haber’s Estro Poetico-armonico III  in the latter, Keiko Devaux’s instrumental work Arras in the Canadian category. Yitzhak Yedid’s Kadosh Kadosh and Cursed won the prize for an existing work of Jewish Music. Dissidence, a concise and somewhat anachronistic work for small orchestra and soprano (Sharon Azrieli, a fine soprano and founder of the prize) by the late Pierre Mercure, rounds out the disc.

Kadosh… is concerned with Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the place shared as sacred by three major religions. Embattled chattering and shouts introduce Yedid’s work, followed by brassy bombast and unison modal melody in alternation, depicting conflict, even violence. A middle section provides relief, insofar as mourning relieves cataclysm. The individual players of Montreal’s excellent Nouvel Ensemble Moderne get a brief chance to sing before hostilities recommence, devolve into a nasty Hora, returning tragically to increasing strife. By the end of the movement, we’re hoping, nay praying for peace. Hope deferred, the heart is sick. A chant melody in the piano calls through maddened violin scratches and braying brass. Yedid seems pessimistic; in spite (or because) of the spiritual importance of the Temple Mount, hostilities persist.

The formidable mezzo Kristina Szabó joins the ensemble for Haber’s work, a complex piece with so much historical/textual weight it deserves a review unto itself. Highly effective writing. 

Arras is a woven tableau, relying on breath and bow effects, microtonal vibrato and dissonances, and shifting background textures to frame lush, even lurid melody. A single movement of nearly 25 minutes’ length, it makes a patient argument for beauty.

Listen to 'New Jewish Music Vol.3 ' Now in the Listening Room

Andrew Staniland – Reddened by Hammer (Earthquakes and Islands Remixed)
Robin Richardson; Tyler Duncan; Martha Guth; Erika Switzer
Centrediscs CMCCD 29121 (andrewstaniland.com)

Andrew Staniland is on the faculty of music at Memorial University where he teaches composition and electronic music. He is director of the Memorial ElectroAcoustic Research Lab which has produced the Mune digital instrument. Reddened by Hammer: Earthquakes and Islands Remixed is based on Staniland’s earlier song cycle for soprano, baritone and piano with the poetry of Robin Richardson. In fact “Side B” of this album features a selected set of recordings from that cycle (performed by soprano Martha Guth, baritone Tyler Duncan, pianist Erika Switzer) remastered for vinyl. “Side A” uses those recordings as a source, but overlays many electronic effects to both obscure and reinvent the original compositions.

Meditations is contemplative and I am reminded of standing beside a river with trees creaking, wind blowing and a storm working its way closer Reddened by Hammer is more industrial sounding and the original recording with piano and singers is more immediate (as if someone is performing music in another room). The vocals, emerging from behind the electronics, bring a resonant, ethereal and sometimes spooky quality to the proceedings (particularly in All the Grey Areas are God). All five of the remixes are fascinating and their effects range from intense/ambient to edgy and percussive. Listening to the whole album allows us to first hear the reinventions which then inform our appreciation of the acoustic originals. The digital release is available now from the Canadian Music Centre, with a limited-edition vinyl pressing to come early in 2022.

Chamber Works by Dmitri Klebanov
ARC Ensemble
Chandos CHAN 20231 (rcmusic.com/arc-ensemble)

After his Symphony No.1 (1947), “dedicated to the memory of the martyrs of Babi Yar,” was performed in his native Kharkiv and then in Kyiv (where, in 1941, Nazis had massacred over 30,000 Jews at the Babi Yar ravine), Jewish-Ukrainian composer Dmitri Klebanov (1907-1987) was vilified as “unpatriotic” for memorializing Jewish civilians rather than Soviet soldiers. The Union of Soviet Composers banned the symphony and Klebanov lost his posts as chairman of the Composers Union’s Kharkiv branch and head of the Kharkiv state conservatory’s composition department. He was eventually “rehabilitated.”

This latest in the Music in Exile series by Toronto’s ARC Ensemble (Artists of the Royal Conservatory) presents violinists Erika Raum and Marie Bérard, violist Steven Dann and cellist Thomas Wiebe in Klebanov’s String Quartets Nos.4 and 5. The joyous No.4 (1946), filled with singable, folk-like tunes, is dedicated to the memory of composer Mykola Leontovych, a Ukrainian separatist murdered by the secret police in 1921. It includes two melodies by Leontovych familiar to Ukrainian listeners, one of them known in the West as the Christmassy Carol of the Bells.

No.5 (1965) is more “serious,” its melodies tinged with dissonance and pessimism, with heavily accented rhythms – it’s strong, attention-riveting music. Pianist Kevin Ahfat joins Bérard and Wiebe in the highly Romantic Piano Trio No.2 (1958). Here, warm, tender lyricism alternates with splurges of invigorated celebration, ending as sweetly as it began.

There’s real beauty on this disc, all beautifully played.