06 Messiaen Vingt RegardsMessiaen – Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus
Kristoffer Hyldig
Our Recordings 6.220677-78 (ourrecordings.com)

Another pianist passionate about Olivier Messiaen, has released his recent take on Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, a 20-piece solo piano cycle which – to some enthusiasts – represents a mighty pillar of mid-century modernism. The striking Danish pianist, Kristoffer Hyldig, recorded this disc at Vor Frekser’s Church in Copenhagen during a severe pandemic lockdown in March of 2021, an ideal locale to capture the spiritual and mystical aspects of this music.

Hyldig’s approach is a one of reverence and fortitude. He comes to this work with admiration and a veritable desire to unlock its secrets. One attribute, immediately noticeable, is his command of distinct pianistic colours. He has competently etched out each movement in the cycle, allocating unique profiles, characters and sonorities. Messiaen’s keyboard music responds well to such attention and technical detail. 

This devotional music has become familiar to many 21st-century audiences and divining new identity within such a score can be challenging for any interpreter. Hyldig brings integrity to his performance with an earnest smattering of detail and refinement, through articulation, dynamic shadings and intricate realization of tempo relationships. The savvy listener might also ascertain unique palettes in play, born of northern pastels and Hanseatic hues, gleaned under the high Nordic sun. Compare these to the warmer, deeper equatorial chroma of Messiaen’s southern France and the result bears novel acoustic fruit indeed. In further augmentation of such qualities, Hyldig’s 2-disc release was recorded in the immersive DXD Format.

07 John Luther AdamsJohn Luther Adams – darkness and scattered light
Robert Black double bass
Cold Blue Music CB0067 (coldbluemusic.com)

Renowned award-winning American composer John Luther Adams’ album Darkness and Scattered Light is an unusual one, consisting of three major works for double bass. Two scored for solo double bass and one for bass quintet, each attractive piece is a substantial contribution to the bass repertoire.

Superbly performed by the late bassist Robert Black (1956–2023) these virtuoso works call not only on the majesty of the lowest of the string section, but also on its ability in the right hands to evoke near-orchestral multi-part textures – as in the serene solo Three High Places (2007). Fascinatingly, all the sounds in this work consist of bowed natural harmonics or open strings, the musician’s fingers never touching the fingerboard.  

Darkness and Scattered Light (2023), Adams’ 16’32” single-movement score for five double basses (all played by Black), wades deeply into orchestral textures, employing both the harmonic and subharmonic overtone series. Marked by merging long tones transfigured onto a tonally ambiguous harmonic terrain, Adams’ aesthetically sophisticated, historically informed work is masterful.

The other solo is Three Nocturnes (2022), evoking the dark side of the harmonic series and of nature herself. Dedicated to Black, he gave the premiere outdoors, amid red rock canyons.

Composer Michael Gordon wrote that Black “has single-handedly reinvented the technique and repertoire of the double bass, bringing it bursting into the 21st century.” Black’s no-nonsense, committed, masterful playing of Adams’ music is his beautiful, lasting legacy.

08 Edward CowieEdward Cowie – Where the Wood Thrush Forever Sings
Anna Hashimoto; Roderick Chatwick
Metier mex 77104 (divineartrecords.com)

When one walks every morning through wooded areas, one hears the seasons changing in the calls of birds. Spring is as raucous as winter is silent, a muted summer leads to the random cries of migration in fall. One is hardly likely to find this strange chorale upsetting unless one suffers hypersensitivity to sound, as some poor souls no doubt do. 

Composer Edward Cowie has found the alchemical formula for transmuting various bird cries into duets for clarinet and piano. Played mellifluously on E-flat and B-flat clarinet by Anna Hashimoto, with Roderick Chadwick at the keyboard, this group of four “songbooks” are a series of short explorations of various birds’ musical identities. Hashimoto manages the higher register with accuracy that is sometimes piercing yet never shrill. Chadwick is sure-handed with the understated piano writing. Cowie’s harmonic language is both new and sometimes familiar.

Birds and their environment have inspired composers before now, of course. Beethoven wrote a quartet of characters into the coda of the second movement of his Sixth Symphony, giving the poor clarinetist the role of Cuckoo (which some might find quite appropriate). Olivier Messiaen was noted for his sometimes-verbatim quotes from the aviary, and his Abyss of the Birds is a tour-de-force for solo clarinet. Cowie’s settings do more than quote the melodic arc of any of the 24 birds represented here, but they are meticulously researched, as his field notes in the accompanying booklet indicate. This is his third collection, focused on North American species. Divided over two discs, six species per “book,” the tracks range between two and six minutes. I can’t decide whether it’s better to know which bird is singing as the disc plays or to simply enjoy the walk while trying to guess. 

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01 Shadow and LightShadow & Light – Canadian Double Concertos
Marc Djokic; Christiana Petrowska Quilico; Sinfonia Toronto; Nurhan Arman
Centrediscs CMCCD 31823 (cmccanada.org/product-category/recordings/centrediscs)

Originating in the early 1700s, during the later portion of the Baroque era, the concerto presented composers of the time with an instrumental compositional structure (a formula if you will) perfectly suited to feature an instrumental soloist. A double concerto, therefore, shines the spotlight equally on two soloists, accompanied by different aggregations, providing composers with another voice of possibility to help realize their creative intentions. How nice then, in our time of near constant and rapid change, that this formula is still meaningful and relevant, particularly so in the capable compositional hands of Alice Ping Yee Ho, Christos Hatzis and Larysa Kuzmenko. 

Writing for the pairing of violin and piano (the dependably terrific Christina Petrowska Quilico and violinist Marc Djokic backed capably by Sinfonia Toronto under the direction of conductor Nurhan Arman), the aforementioned compositional triumvirate bring Shadow & Light to life with influences ranging from Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms, to Hitchcock foil Bernard Herrmann and the author Jules Verne. If the range of this description sounds expansive and beyond categorization, that’s because it is! The result, released on Centrediscs and supported by any number of Canadian arts-based granting agencies, is a truly post-modern affair that plays in the margins that lie between the binary of the traditional double-concerto form and a set of influences that escape categorization. Whatever the conceit, the result is a satisfying and extremely fine recording that expands the canon of both Canadian composition and the rare double-concerto pairing of violin and piano for future repertoire consideration.

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02 Frank HorvatFrank Horvat – A Village of Landscapes
Sébastien Malette (bassoon); Allison Wiebe (piano)
I Am Who I Am Records (frankhorvat.com)

I’ve reviewed several albums by prolific Toronto composer and pianist Frank Horvat for The WholeNote. His often Romantically inclined, emotionally charged music often also employs a dizzying array of heartfelt, compelling extra-musical themes. These range from the personal (love, mental health), to the social (environment, social justice), and a combination of the two (dealing musically with pandemic isolation). 

A Village of Landscapes, perhaps his 21st album, features a suite of 13 compositions stylishly and convincingly performed by bassoonist Sébastien Malette, in five movements accompanied by Allison Wiebe on piano. The 13 pieces are furthermore divided into three mini-suites: for bassoon with piano, unaccompanied bassoon and bassoon with electronics.

For example, the atmospheric movement Smoking Hills is scored for hazy basso profundo contrabassoon sounds and bass-heavy piano, while Sharbot Lake features a continuous high bassoon melody over shifting, phasing synth chords. Top of FormTop of Form

In this album Horvat’s thematic inspiration was supplied by photographs of places in the Canadian landscape by Michelle Valberg, representing each of the country’s ten provinces and three territories. Horvat writes, “Our present world is at a precipice when it comes to protecting our natural resources, so as an artist, I feel I have a duty to have my compositions reflect this.

“The bassoon is a VERY versatile instrument. It has a wide range of notes, timbre contrasts and dynamics,” avers Horvat. In A Village of Landscapes he successfully explores many less-known characteristics of the instrument, working against stereotypes of buffoonery and jollity that too often plague the bassoon.

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03 Graham Campbell Palms UpwardGraham Campbell; Palms Upward
Various Artists
Independent (grahamcampbell.ca)

Graham Campbell is a good composer. His music is open-hearted and enjoyable to listen to. There is no apparent need to shock or jar the listener, while there is every success in moving them or bringing them peace. Call me jaded or just old, but if someone writes well, stays within conservative conventions of metre and tonality, whose sincerity of expression is their primary calling card, I’m on their side. The music is pleasing, while not especially haunting or challenging.

Pianist Angela Park provides beautiful colour on many of the tracks, most especially in the haunting Lost Souvenir, a movement from an unnamed larger work. Violinists Mark Fewer and Valerie Li, violist Caitlin Boyle and cellist Amahl Arulanandam join her for three brief pieces for piano quintet: Between Breaths, Snow Rider and Dive. Whether out of modesty or budget concerns, the digital release includes no accompanying booklet. 

Palms Upward, the title track, might have been commissioned by or written for Graham’s father, clarinetist James Campbell, but without liner notes one is left guessing. It’s an unusual grouping that works well: clarinet with violin, viola, double bass and guitars (Rob MacDonald and Tracy Anne Smith of ChromaDuo). 

The track titles are evocative enough to allow the imagination room to fill in the blanks. Still, I’m curious to know a little more, like what does Driftless Sea mean? This is the final track, featuring klezmer-coloured clarinet playing a folk-like melody alongside a string quartet, guitars (played by Campbell fils) and Jaash Singh on darbuka. Kettle Vapours (Park on solo piano) might suggest reflections on watching a pot boil, but it’s more eventful, more solid than vapid. Barely an intermezzo, it works. 

Double bass playing is ably supplied by Charles James on several tracks, while the composer supplies guitar and piano on tracks 7 and 8 respectively.

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