When Arraymusic artistic director Michael J. Baker died of leukemia last year Toronto lost a well-loved musical personage. On September 16 Arraymusic and the Music Gallery will mark the anniversary of Baker’s passing with a memorial concert. Under his direction Arraymusic developed strong ties with Toronto’s dance community, so it is only fitting that the concert will include several of Baker’s dance scores and excerpts from the multi-disciplinary work Big Pictures.

Arraymusic premiered Big Pictures, a theatrical work by Baker, choreographer Bill James and painter Dan Solomon, in 1992. Of course the CD presents only “music from” the production, but the selections go along way towards capturing the haunting essence of the work, a non-linear minimalist presentation utilizing texts by the painter Paul Klee. 

Scored for soprano, clarinet(s), trumpet, violin, piano, double bass and two percussionists in various combinations, Big Pictures serves as a marvellous introduction to the music of Michael J. Baker and to the possibilities inherent in the less than standard instrumentation of the Arraymusic ensemble. Highlights for me include the ensemble pieces Red Brick and Red Brick Reprise, Girl in Mourning and One Day (the first solo recordings of rising star soprano Barbara Hannigan) and Gate of the Deserted Garden, an extended duet featuring violinist Marc Sabat and pianist Henry Kucharzyk.

The September 16th event will also mark the release of a new Artifact CD of Baker’s music for dance, In Paradisum: The Music of Michael J. Baker.

David Olds

Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time Amici Ensemble Naxos 8.554824 (Budget Price)

It is rare in the world of con-temporary music that an ensemble has the opportunity to record a work a second time, even when dealing with such a “classic” as Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Congratulations are due to both Toronto’s Amici and to the Naxos label for recognizing merits of this project regardless of the fact that Amici’s earlier Summit recording of the work is still available. 

Messiaen composed the Quatuor in a German POW camp in 1941 for the only instruments available: clarinet, violin, cello and piano. Each of the instruments (with the exception of the accompanying piano provided most admirably here by Patricia Parr) is given an extended solo movement. Joaquin Valdepeñas is exemplary in The Abyss of the Birds, his clarinet arising from silence so seamlessly that it’s hard to know when the note actually begins. Cellist David Hetherington’s rendering of the Praise for the Eternity of Jesus, although markedly faster than on the earlier recording, somehow manages to capture the Messiaen’s seemingly conflicting performance instructions: “infinitely slow” and “ecstatic”. The core members of Amici are joined for this recording by violinist Scott St. John, who shines in the Praise for the Immortality of Jesus where his warmth of tone and brilliant control in the final passage convince us that we are, in Messiaen’s words, hearing “the ascension of man towards God”. 

Scott St. John joins Amici for their first concerts of the season: September 28 at Glenn Gould Studio and October 1 at Walter Hall. 

David Olds

R. Murray Schafer: Patria The Schafer Ensemble Opening Day ODR 9307 (Full Price)

What R. Murray Schafer has been working on for the last three decades under the banner Patria is the creation of a series of events designed to meet a live audience in the fullness of its senses and, it seems, at the height of its intellect. As love propels the principle characters (two halves of a soul questing for unity and the homeland), they journey through ancient, medieval and aboriginal cultures in various incarnations, allowing Schafer to investigate mystical themes in mythological worlds. 

Music, asserts Schafer, is at the centre of his monumental project and the album Patria provides examples from four of the works.  The sounds range from the eerie to the whimsical, as one guesses the soul’s progress must. Excerpts from Ra depict the final judgment of a departed Egyptian king whose famous heart is weighed against the feather of truth. The haunting repetition in the score sung by sopranos Wendy Humphreys and Tannis Scott is ominous.

The tale of Theseus, Ariadne, the Minotaur and the Labyrinth, is told in The Crown of Ariadne, a dance drama featuring Judy Loman on harp and percussion. Its sixth movement, Dance of the Night Insects, is a spacious and delightful abstraction. But the sounds of real forest creatures were captured in And Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon and The Princess’s Aria, both recorded in the wilds around Lake Muskoka. 

Like installations, the performances are site-specific.  The next spectacular, the world premier of The Palace of the Cinnabar Phoenix, will take place in the Wolverton Hills of the Oak Ridges Moraine September 13-16.

Deborah Rosen

Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto stands grandly in the tradition of the romantic virtuoso concerto, despite his use of the twelve-tone harmonic language and rigorous formal techniques of his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg.  It is lyrical, nostalgic, and deeply moving. It even tells a story. Not surprisingly, there are a number of terrific recordings, most notably, in recent years, by Itzhak Perlman and Gidon Kremer, but the outstanding performance on CD is by Anne-Sophie Mutter. 

Mutter may push the boundaries of Berg’s score in her quest for a compelling interpretation, but she knows what the composer wants and she communicates it with passion and insight. The Chicago Symphony, under James Levine, provides a responsive, richly coloured partner. 

No detail in the score eludes Mutter, from the poignant opening arpeggios, through the folk-dance motif, the turbulent cadenza, the plaintive Bach chorale It is enough, Lord, to the heart-breaking return of the arpeggio figures at the close. Yet relentlessly she drives home the narrative of the life—and tragic death—of the 18-year-old girl to whom Berg dedicated this elegy. 

This recording is available as a full-price single disc, coupled with Wolfgang Rihm’s Time Chant. It is also included in a well-priced boxed set of twentieth century masterworks for violin and orchestra, aptly titled Anne-Sophie Mutter: Back to the Future (DG 463 790-2). 

Berg’s Violin Concerto will be performed by Leonidas Kavakos and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on October 3, 4, and 5 at Roy Thomson Hall. 

Pamela Margles

A deranged woman searching the woods for her duplicitous lover—that is what audiences will encounter when the Canadian Opera Company revives its acclaimed production of Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung (“Expectation”) in performances beginning September 21. Previous recordings have featured a riveting Anja Silja, and, more recently, a gorgeous Jessye Norman. But for shattering dramatic impact soprano Alessandra Marc and conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli have the edge. Marc reveals the layers of hallucination with overwhelming conviction.  Her upper register can be harsh, and her low notes sometimes forced, but her rough edges are actually effective in conveying the disintegration of this woman’s vulnerable psyche. The text is a fragmentary series of her suggestions, outbursts, accusations and questions, and Marc achieves just the right note of delirium. 

But the glory of this live performance is Sinopoli’s orchestra.  It has been beautifully recorded, with the singer integrated into the texture, so that each instrumental line represents a voice emerging from the forest. The effect is staggering:  menacing ostinati, dissolving motifs, and, at the end, ominously rising chromatic scales. 

As a composer himself, (as well as psychiatrist and archaeologist), Sinopoli conducts as though he understands the mysteries of love, betrayal, and death expressed in this opera. Because this is one of his last recordings—he died in April just 56 years old—it is to be treasured all the more. As a bonus, this recording of Erwartung has been paired with a splendid performance of Schoenberg’s seminal masterpiece, Pierrot Lunaire. 

Pamela Margles 

J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Obbligato Harpsichord and a Melody Instrument, Vol.1
Geneviève Soly, harpsichord
Jeanne Lamon, violin
Jay Bernfeld, viol da gamba
Analekta fleurs de lys FL 2 3060 (Full Price)

CPE Bach states, “these [sonatas for violin and harpsichord] are the best works by my beloved father. They sound excellent and still give me much pleasure, even though over 50 years have passed.” 250 years later the sonatas still shine brilliantly in performances by Soly, Lamon and Bernfeld.

Bach is most often credited with being the great master of archaic forms, but in these sonatas we see otherwise. The old forms are revitalized and new forms are everywhere. There are cantabile movements where the harpsichord is not polyphonic continuo but elaborately textured harmonic support, as in the first movement of the c-minor violin sonata. Lamon floats on long intelligent phrases over the very “modern” accompaniment of the harpsichord. One wishes that the world would stop, take heed, and be healed by this balm.

The gamba sonata is darker, somber, deep.  Here the trio sonata influence is most conspicuous because the gamba plays the middle line and the harpsichord takes the treble.  Balance is always the problem in harpsichord sonatas.  The traditional baroque trio sonata has the harpsichord playing a schematically written figured bass part to be improvised, usually with another bass instrument for support.  In these sonatas, the harpsichord part is fully written out, dense and complex, and creates a full partnership with the melodic instrument. The current recording succeeds mostly, and only occasionally does the harpsichord fade into the background. Soly is brilliant throughout, clean and crisp with Bach’s tremendous scores. She establishes equal footing with each of the bowed soloists. Highly recommended. 

Geneviève Soly performs “Les Grandes Suites” of Handel, Bach and Graupner on October 1 at the Jane Mallett Theatre.

Dawn Lyons & Den Ciul

Prayers Sumi Jo Chor Köln, Gürzenich-Orchester, Kölner Philharmoniker/James Colon Erato 8573-85772-2 (Full Price)

The designation, coloratura refers to an agile and subtle voice flexible enough to meet the demands of improvisation and tricky trilling. It is one that may commonly be identified with a puffy soprano engaged in a duel with flute. My introduction to Sumi Jo—a CD called The Art of Sumi Jo that was suggested as a cure for the mid-winter blues—relieved me of such squirrelly associations replacing them with an appreciation of the enchantment her musical gift inspires. I love the way her voice gently cascades down after reaching extraordinary heights. Hers is a voice that soars and beckons.

Her most recent offering, Prayers, opens with Ravel’s Kaddisch. This sacred Hebrew prayer for the dead sets an elegiac tone that is particularly well supported by the Philharmonic Choir of Cologne on the tracks Sanctus by Charles Gounod and Zbigniew Preisner’s Lacrimosa, in memory of the director Krzysztof Keislowski. The choir and orchestra are also capable of enhancing a much livelier conversation to be found in Schubert’s, Gott! Höre meine Stimme!. In contrast Say a prayer for me tonight from Gigi is delivered with tender innocence.

The contingencies of mass marketing have required Sumi Jo to be photographed for the cover of Prayers with gilded eyes shut to alert the listener of her serious devotional intentions. Let’s scoot over to Massey Hall September 22 to witness the entirety of her face and magnificent voice in more secular surroundings. 

Deborah Rosen
 
 

Folia - Canadian Woodwind Quintets The York Winds Centrediscs CMCCD 7301 (Full Price)

It seems to me that there is a real dearth of woodwind quintets these days. The combination of colours—flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn—is distinctive, and extremely flexible. The York Winds were probably the best-known woodwind quintet in Canada during the seventies and eighties.

This CD reissue from the Canadian Music Centre gives us a glimpse back at the York Winds in peak form playing music by Canadian composers Brian Cherney, Bengt Hambraeus, Norman Sherman, Robert Aitken and Michael Parker. All the works employ a distinctly modern approach...no hints of neo-classicism here. The harmonic language is colourful, and at times dissonant, but never bland. 

My favourite piece on the CD is the title track Folia by Robert Aitken. The piece is a virtuosic display of extended technique in which the musicians are called upon to perform multiphonics, flutter tonguing and singing into their instruments while playing them. All of this may sound like an exercise in technical mastery, but the flurry of energetic sound that results is quite compelling.

The Canadian Music Centre is to be commended for reissuing the material on this CD. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea—if you like polite, happy classical period music this CD may not be to your taste—but if you feel adventurous, enjoy the sound of the woodwind quintet, and want music that expresses a wider range of moods and emotions, this is a recording that should be in your collection.

 Merlin Williams

Great Recordings of the Century: Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky
Alban Berg Quartet
EMI Classics CDM 67551-2 (Mid-Price)

Tully Potter’s liner notes for this hybridized reissue make a strong case for linking the works of the three composers included, but to my ear Stravinsky is somewhat out of place. The Debussy and Ravel quartets, modern classics by any definition, were written a few years before and after 1900 respectively. They are both undoubtedly forward-looking works but they share a sonic lushness that is worlds away from the angularity of Stravinsky’s writing. 

Dating from 1914, just a decade after Ravel’s quartet, Stravinsky’s Three Pieces reflect a different time, one in which the “war to end all wars” was just getting under way. Perhaps it is this fact that explains the dirge-like final movement. The Concertino of 1920 is quite reminiscent of more familiar Stravinsky works of that time, but the Double Canon of 1959, a dark work that utilizes some of Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic (serial) techniques, is yet another world removed. Somehow I just don’t get the connection to Debussy and Ravel.

That being said, I’m happy to look on the inclusion of these rarely performed Stravinsky pieces as a bonus, and there is no obligation to listen to them at the same sitting as the impressionist masterpieces. The ABQ gives us wonderful performances of all the works, although I would have preferred a somewhat faster tempo in the Ravel Assez vif pizzicato movement. EMI is to be applauded for this fine, affordable addition to catalogue.

David Olds

50 Great Recordings: Sibelius - Second Symphony/Beethoven - Fifth Symphony
Concertgebouw Orchestra, George Szell 
Philips 464682-2 (Mid-Price)

Years ago on the late CJRT-FM Paul Robinson and I regularly discussed “The basic repertoire.” We independently listened at home through umpteen versions of the piece under discussion and brought to the studio a handful of “finalists” for discussion. The reason I mention this is because often each of us believed we “knew” before the initial listenings began which version we preferred, and why.  It may come as no surprise that sometimes our fondest memories of cherished recordings were in grievous error. As this is not a foot race where only one recording can be in first place, there is often more than one “preferred” version of any piece. After all, this is an interpreter’s medium. 

In the early sixties we were thrilled with the LP of this Sibelius Second. The faultless playing and the overall arch of Szell’s reading leading to an almost overwhelming peroration were all evidenced in this sonorous recording. We were in Sibelius heaven.

Later came the Beethoven Fifth. Once again, orchestral perfection. One of the most telling aspects of this almost white-hot reading is the way the brass cuts through in the tuttis, much as Szell balanced his Cleveland Orchestra in the same repertoire. Here though the whole panorama is richer and deeper, no doubt a reflection of the Concertgebouw itself. That’s what we thought then.

This time the memories were correct. These two great performances, now on one mid-priced disc, are even better than before thanks to Philips’ “24/96” technology. Who would have guessed, over 30 years ago, that we’d be turning cartwheels over the re-issue?

Bruce Surtees
 

Retrospectives Vol. 1
Antonin Kubalek, piano 
Echiquier ECD 003 (Full Price)

These are brilliant, commanding performances marred only by the manner of their presentation. Remastered from LP recordings originally issued by the CBC in the 1970s, Retrospectives Vol. 1 is compiled solely from repertoire of Czech origin. This rather contrived theme is unfortunate as it perpetuates the stereotyping of a masterful artist whose musicality extends beyond national borders. 

The familiar Four Polkas by Smetana open this album, in stylish and beguiling performances. Milan Kimlicka’s singular exercise in total serialism, Four Pieces for Piano (1969) receives an incisive interpretation from Kubalek but is poorly served by being shoe-horned between Smetana’s dances and the equally pleasant though ephemeral early 19th century Impromptu No.5 by Jan Hugo Vorisek. Dating from the same year as Kimlicka’s Four Pieces, Oskar Morawetz’s Suite for Piano is couched in a more conventional, late Romantic style. Improvisatory, introspective and propulsive by turns, it receives a sympathetic and poetic interpretation.

The highlight of this recording is a captivating performance of Leos Janacek’s brilliant Concertino for piano and six instruments. Cast in the Baroque “concerto grosso” format that was undergoing something of a revival at the time, the attractive melodic profile of this 1925 composition is always richly folkloristic without stooping to parody. 

Echiquier’s very sketchy program notes promise a second volume of non-Czech repertoire will follow.

Daniel Foley

Marc Couroux, piano
Xuotavip Records (Mid-Price)

Since emerging from his Montreal practice lair some years back, Marc Couroux has been a confounding and necessary presence in Canadian new music.  While remaining sought-after as a performer of some of the most intricate new piano music written, his restlessness and perpetual redefinition have heightened initial comparison to a young Glenn Gould.  Each new work he tackles spawns numerous writings, discussions, and analyses, in which he seeks the core of the music and each layer to it (see http://pages. infinit.net/kore/couroux.html). This dedicated process of research and expression, new readings and studies take him mining elsewhere, into visual arts, film, cultural anthropology, and increasingly toward improvisation, where with his brilliant technique he can explore the cracks, fissures, and unpredictabilities of human experience.

American Dreaming is a live recording of Couroux improvising after the study of filmmaker John Cassavetes.  Herein, Couroux demonstrates his fascination with “areas in a seeming halfway-point between complete development and total underdevelopment… halfway states.”  To borrow Raymond Carney’s description of Cassavetes work and re-apply it to Couroux, he “offers us concatenated knowing in place of consolidating knowing.  Rather than rushing to a portable meaning, the [listener] is forced to live through a changing course of events.  It lives in endless, energetic substitutions of one interest and focus for another, in continuous shifts of tone, in fluxional slides of relationship”. 

American Dreaming is a fantastically unkempt truckload of ideas careening down a sometimes-frustrating thoroughfare, all revealed through Couroux’s inimitable keyboard “touch”. Despite his artistic preference of the process of becoming over the final result, I’m grateful that he chose to document this July 4th night and make it available on CD.

Paul Steenhuisen

Catalogues and review copies of CDs should be sent to:
The WholeNote, 60 Bellevue Avenue, Toronto ON M5T 2N4

For more information contact David Olds at dolds@interlog.com or call 416.535.7740.