13a Schoenberg On the BeachSchoenberg on the Beach
Jeff Lederer with Mary LaRose
Little i Music LIM CD 111 (littleimusic.com)

Balls of Simplicity – Jeff Lederer Notated Works 1979-2021
Morningside Tone Collective
Little i Music LIM CD 112 (littleimusic.com)

In 1909 the intrepid Arnold Schoenberg brought the hammer down on the Wagnerian concept of tonality, in favour of musical expression that abandoned tonal centres, key signatures and traditional application of harmony. He did so through a system in which all the notes of the chromatic scale were assigned equal importance. The result was music that sounded so radical to the ear that one critic went as far as describing the sound of Schoenberg’s music as if “someone had smeared the score of Tristan whilst the ink was still wet”. 

In his closest approximation (in deferential homage really) of what might be Schoenbergian music – or rather how the composer might have responded to the more salubrious climate of his music today – Jeff Lederer gives us – what else? – Schoenberg on the Beach. Joined by his wife, the fearless, boundary-blurring vocalist Mary LaRose, Lederer combines the burnished sound of his clarinet and high-wire act on the flute, with LaRose’s often-dissonant vocal glissandi. Together Lederer and LaRose, and other instrumentalists, have deeply interiorized these works and offer wonderfully idiomatic performances, bringing to life Lieder by Schoenberg, Webern and others. With lyrics from Goethe, Rilke, Nietzsche, et al, highlighting the musically radical Second Viennese School, all of which feed Lederer’s and LaRose’s equally radical artistry. While Lederer’s arrangements and LaRose’s interpretations respectively, are likely to have as many naysayers and refusniks as Schoenberg’s Three Pieces for Piano Op. 11 had in its day, songs such as Blummengruss and Summer Evening do thrill. 

Moreover, this repertoire is redolent with outstanding performances by vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, cellist Hank Roberts, bassist Michael Formanek, drummer Matt Wilsson and the redoubtable Marty Erlich on The Pale Flowers of Moonlight. All of this makes this disc unmissable.

13b Jeff Lederer Balls of SimplicityLederer has not been well represented – or so it may seem – solely for his compositions. Balls of Simplicity – Jeff Lederer Notated Works (1979-2021) will certainly remedy that lapse. These five (extended) works for reeds, winds, strings and piano clearly trace the dominant pattern of Lederer’s career, from chromatic Romanticism through atonality to serialism. Persistence of Memory (2015) and the seductive Piano Piece (1979) lay the groundwork for Bodies of Water for flute, cello and piano (2020). The darkest work, Song for the Kallyuga for piano, clarinet, violin and cello (1984) which marks the chemical disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killing almost 4,000 and maiming half a million others, is quite the artistic apogee of this album.

01 John RobertsonJohn Robertson – Portraits
Bratislava Symphony Orchestra; Anthony Armore
Centrediscs CMCCD32623 (cmccanada.org/product-category/recordings/centrediscs)

Kingston-based John Robertson (b.1943) creates colourfully scored, neo-Romantic music that succeeds in sounding freshly minted, avoiding Hollywood clichés or borrowings from other composers. This CD presents six pieces, all but one under 12 minutes long.

Overture for a Musical Comedy, Op.15 evokes, for me, the song-and-dance of a 1930s cabaret. Salome Dances, Op.32 is more subtly suggestive of that legendary unveiling than Richard Strauss’ frenetic version. Cyrano, Op.53 affectionately depicts scenes of love and strife from Edmond Rostand’s classic play.

The Death of Crowe, Op.30 describes an episode in Timothy Findlay’s novel Not Wanted on the Voyage in which Mrs. Noah laments the death of her blind cat’s dear friend. The music is fanciful and poignantly lyrical, featuring an extended clarinet solo wandering over repeated descending strings. The melancholy, perturbed Overture to Robertson’s ballet Lady Jane – A Fable, Op.66 includes, writes Robertson, “various themes that will be heard later in the work.”

The 31-minute, six-movement Suite from Robertson’s opera Orpheus – A Masque, Op.64 suggests that his take on the familiar myth is closer in spirit to that of the irreverent Offenbach than to Monteverdi or Gluck, its insouciant lack of gravitas offsetting the tender beauty of Orpheus’ and Euridice’s love music. (The rocking, bittersweet waltz tune of Dancing in the Elysian Fields has become, for me, a recurrent, invigorating earworm!)

Anthony Armoré, conductor of four CDs of Robertson’s compositions on the Navona label, continues to champion Robertson’s music with enthusiasm, entirely merited.

02 Paramorph CollectiveAll we are made of is borrowed
Paramorph Collective
Redshift Records TK534 (redshiftrecords.org)

Montreal-Ottawa musicians and multidisciplinary artists, An Laurence (guitar, voice, etc.) and Kim Farris-Manning (piano, voice, synthesizer, etc.), comprise the Paramorph Collective. “Paramorph” in mineralogy refers to the process of transformation of a mineral through the reorganization of its molecular structure only. Analogously, the collective aims to transform itself and its audience through “rearranging inner feelings or thoughts… seeking new perspectives.” The Collective’s nine-track debut album All we’re made of is borrowed shows the duo in twin roles: music creators and performers of scores by Canadian composers Rodney Sharman and Linda C Smith, and California-based Margot George. 

Smith’s remarkable Thought and Desire is an engaging piano solo until 3’45” when the pianist begins singing in her soft soprano. At that moment the piano’s identity suddenly shifts, its role thereafter is to accompany. It’s a delightful perceptual shift for listeners. Four of the tracks are original works by the Collective, evoking an overall peaceful, soft and layered aesthetic space through spoken word, electronics and guitar-supported song. Margot George’s rousing Fruiting Bodies forms the album’s centerpiece. Farris-Manning’s custom-built organ synthesizer’s sustained chords are animated by Laurence’s crashing electric guitar clusters and sustained single tones. This 21-minute commission presents dichotomic extremes: of sound pressure and distortion, sustained keyboard vs plucked strings – counterpointed by shimmering stacked organ chords evoking ecclesiastical regions.

The album notes ask listeners to reflect on the title – All we’re made of is borrowed – and to hold onto “the time we have left as medicine.”

03 Live in TorontoLive in Toronto
Spindle Ensemble; Evergreen Club Gamelan Ensemble
Hidden Notes (spindleensemble.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-toronto)

Live in Toronto, the 2022 collaboration between the seven-musician Toronto group Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan and the UK Spindle Ensemble (violin, cello, piano, marimba), is nothing short of captivating.

Spindle pianist Daniel Inzani’s composition Lucid Living firmly establishes ECCG’s degung gamelan voice, amplified by Spindle’s tight harmonies. Evoking monochrome hues of early morning light, the musical palette is enhanced with the addition of Spindle’s marimba and piano before opening into full daylight. Inzani’s music took me on an impressionistic Joycean journey.

Orpheus by Spindle’s Harriet Riley begins as an homage to Stravinsky’s ballet of the same name. Its Western roots however soon give way to ECCG’s Southeast Asian tones, reminding me of American composer Lou Harrison’s gamelan-centric approach in some of his works. Riley found exquisite ways to blend the 11 instruments at her disposal: the strings (violin and cello) overlap ECCG’s wind (suling, a ring flute) making for an enchanting sonic exchange.

ECCG suling soloist Andrew Timar’s composition Open Fifths: Gardens takes us to the EP’s summit, a work featuring complexity of a kind I associate with the best modal jazz improvisation. The performers play off one another with a sensitivity that finds the fruitful common ground between the musical worlds the two ensembles inhabit. When Timar’s low-sounding suling gambuh invites the cello into the conversation we witness an unanticipated aural blending and the unfolding sound palette celebrates all the voices present.

My only question lies in Open Fifths’ ending. The suspended silence before the last note – reminiscent of a certain Chopin piano Prelude in E Minor – caught me off guard. Open Fifths, like the rest of this EP, is filled with happy surprises.

04 Composing IsraelComposing Israel – The First Three Generations
Various Artists
Neuma 177 (neumarecords.org)

Ten compositions spanning six decades present an overview of “the first three generations” of Israeli composers, variously performed by 24 musicians including members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and five different pianists.

Toccata, Op.34, No.5 for piano (1943) is a wild, whirlwind dance by Paul Ben-Haim (né Paul Frankenburger, 1897-1984), a German refugee who helped found the “Eastern-Mediterranean School” of Israeli composition. German refugee Tzvi Avni (né Hermann Steinke, b.1927) studied with Ben-Haim and dedicated his Capriccio for piano (1955, rev.1975) to his mentor. Like Toccata, it embraces the volatile rhythms of Middle-Eastern music.

Arabesque No.2 for flute and harp (1973) by Ben-Haim student Ami Maayani (1936-2019) mixes Arabic rhythms with glissandi suggesting quarter-tones in its exultation of exoticism. Bashrav for chamber orchestra (2004) by Betty Olivero (b.1954), based on classic Persian music, while clearly Middle-Eastern in mood and materials, is less “folkish,” filled with explosive bursts and sudden silences.

I enjoyed all these much more than the non-Middle-Eastern-sounding piano pieces by Abel Ehrlich (1915-2003), Arie Shapira (1943-2015) and Ari Ben-Shabetai (b.1954) or the electronic collage of Bedouin children speaking by Tsippi Fleischer (b.1946), all dating from the 1980s.

In the 19-minute Wire for soprano and chamber ensemble (1986) by Oded Zehavi (b.1961), Denise Lundine keens a Hebrew poem, her “voice crying in the wilderness” over bursting percussion, the French horn emulating liturgical shofar (ram’s horn) elephantine trumpetings making this, by far the CD’s longest work, also its most “Jewish.”

Listen to 'Composing Israel: The First Three Generations' Now in the Listening Room

05 Heinz Hollliger EventailÉventail
Heinz Holliger; Anton Kernjak
ECM New Series ECM 2694 (ecmrecords.com)

From one of the most recorded oboists of all time, Heinz Holliger’s newly released album, Éventail, is a colourful exploration of both the vocal and expressive qualities of the oboe and oboe d’amore in early 20-th-century French music. Opening the “richly coloured fan” of little-known French Vocalise-Études by some of the most important French composers including Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Jolivet, Casadesus, Messiaen, Koechlin and Milhaud, Holliger is joined by pianist Anton Kernjak and harpist Alice Belugou.

Characteristic of his specialty in 20th- and 21st-century-works, Holliger’s wide range of extended techniques and tonal texturing shine in Éventail, with gleaming performance and elements ranging from the traditional to the virtuosic. Having had personal relationships with many of these composers, Holliger’s performance provides a distinct approach and understanding of these works while showcasing his artistic personality and flare. 

Beginning with Ravel’s Pièce en forme de Habañera and Saint-Saëns’ Sonate pour hautbois et piano, Holliger and Kernjak set the stage with two standard pieces in the oboe repertoire. Holliger chose some surprisingly slow tempos in the Saint-Saëns yet still showed command over the instrument.

Jolivet’s Controversia and Messiaen’s Vocalise-Étude and Morceau de lecture is where Holliger really shines. Although able to play the standard repertoire well, Holliger’s transcending nature seems to seek out every opportunity to explore and test the technical possibilities of the oboe.

Éventail also beautifully showcases Charles Koechlin, one of the first composers to use the oboe d’amore after the Baroque era, and explores his unique use of muted timbre in Le repos de Tityre, recalling Debussy’s masterpiece for solo flute, Syrinx. Holliger then enhances this mood by transcribing and performing Syrinx on the oboe d’amore.

The album concludes with Robert Casadesus’ Sonate. Originally written for his teacher, Émile Cassagnaud in 1954, Holliger decided to do what his teacher had intended and record this important work, bringing it to life as a standard in oboe repertoire.

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