Bruce Surtees

I’m writing this the day after saying a fond farewell to a beloved colleague in the company of his family and a large cohort of friends from the music community. Bruce Surtees, best known in these pages for his contributions over two decades in the form of his column Old Wine in New Bottles, died peacefully on December 28 surrounded by family at Humber River Hospital after a brief illness. 

Bruce’s legacy began in 1961 when he and his wife Vivienne opened The Book Cellar in the basement of a music store on Yonge Street, a shop that would become a mainstay of Toronto’s literary industry for the next three decades. The store moved several times, eventually to its flagship location (there were several subsidiaries) across from the Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville. With the bookstore thriving, Bruce branched out to embrace his first love, music, opening The Classical Record Shop, as the first tenant and cornerstone of the tony Hazelton Lanes complex. 

Bruce and I first crossed paths during my tenure at CJRT-FM in the mid-1990s where he was the co-host of Records in Review, first with the station’s music director, conductor Paul Robinson, and later with Toronto Star music critic William Littler. But it was not until I invited him to become part of the review team here that I really got to know Bruce. In July 2001, for the inauguration of the DISCoveries section, he wrote his first review for us under the banner “Worth Repeating: Older Recordings Worthy of Note,” writing about one of his favourite pieces, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, in an EMI reissue with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Janos Ferencsik. Some 75 stand-alone reviews followed over the next four years. April 2005 marked the beginning of a new chapter, when his Old Wine column became a monthly feature in the magazine. By the time of his final column in October 2023 Bruce had brought more than a dozen historic performances of Gurrelieder to our attention, along with countless opera sets, symphonic cycles and lieder recitals—nigh on 1,000 reviews, in many cases involving multiple discs. 

I don’t know how he found the time to listen to it all, but listen he did. 

Over the course of the last two decades, Bruce and his family became very special friends to my wife Sharon and me, as they attended chamber recitals by amateur groups I played cello in, under the auspices of University Settlement Music and Arts School, and joined us for musical gatherings in our backyard. One treasured memory is learning Taylor Swift’s Safe and Sound on my guitar in order to accompany Bruce’s granddaughter Alexis, but there are so many memories of Bruce and “his girls” that I will cherish forever. Especially the visits to Baycrest where his caregivers took such good care of Bruce over the past year (thank you Christine and Kristine!) making him comfortable and making us feel welcome. Bruce my friend, we miss you so.

Ives at 151

2024 marked both the sesquicentennial of the birth of Charles Ives in 1874, and 70 years since his death at the age of 80. I’ve spent the last month immersed in a set that would in happier days have fallen into the purview of Bruce Surtees’ Old Wine in New Bottles – although in this particular case perhaps Old Wine in Old Bottles would be more apt.

I say that because Charles Ives: The RCA and Columbia Album Anthology – Recordings for the Analog Era 1945-76 (Sony Classical 19658885962 amazon.ca/Charles-Ives-Columbia-Album-Anthology/dp/B0DBP3VXTH) is a 22-CD boxed set that consists of reissues of more than 30 vinyl records packaged in miniature reproductions of the original LP jackets. Although the booklet includes recording details and release dates for all the pieces and has a five-page introductory essay by Kevin Sherwin, the only actual program notes are those printed on those original LP covers which are reduced to a size nearly impossible to read even with a strong magnifying glass. And in cases where a CD contains material from more than one LP, only one cover is included, leaving some works with no notes at all. So, there’s my quibble out of the way right from the start. Other than that, I find it a marvellous collection. It spans three decades of recordings during which time Ives went from being perceived as an esoteric crackpot with his integration of marching band themes, popular tunes and hymns into his erstwhile “classical” compositions, to being a revered visionary, the epitome of the American composer.

I wrote last month about Ives’ Piano Sonata No.2 “Concord, Mass. 1840-1860” and its first champion John Kirkpatrick. Disc One contains Kirkpatrick’s historic 1948 recording of the sonata (made 11 years after he had given its first public performance), along with a brief movement from the first sonata. Disc Two features William Masselos’ 1951 78rpm recording of Piano Sonata No.1 which appeared on LP in 1953 (reissued in 1961). For comparison of the approaches and developments in understanding these extremely complicated works by the two performers over the period of two decades, Disc 8 presents Masselos’ 1967 revisiting of the first sonata and Disc 13 gives Kirkpatrick’s 1968 second recording of the “Concord.” Masselos’ 1951 recording is accompanied by Patricia Travers, and the disc also includes Otto Herz’s 10” recording of the Sonata for Violin and Piano No.2 from the same year. I’ll mention that this is the only one of Ives’ four violin sonatas included in this mostly comprehensive collection (Tone Roads No.1 is also conspicuous by its absence). 

That being said, there is a CD (Disc 16) of chamber music that includes a piano trio, A Set of Three Short Pieces for string quartet, four diverse pieces for piano quintet, his Largo for Violin, Clarinet and Piano, and another largo for violin and piano. The two numbered string quartets appear on Disc 10 performed by the Juilliard Quartet (1967), with the second of the two reappearing on the final collection’s final CD, performed by the Cleveland Quartet (1976), paired with Samuel Barber’s String Quartet in B Minor with its iconic molto adagio second movement. 

Ives’ vocal music is amply represented with a CD of songs (Disc 17) sung by soprano Evelyn Lear and baritone Thomas Stewart, and Disc 7 features choral works performed by the Gregg Smith Singers and the Columbia Chamber Orchestra, among others; a highlight of the disc for me is General William Booth Enters into Heaven featuring the gorgeous bass voice of Archie Drake. There is also a disc (18) of “Old Songs Deranged” which comprises familiar tunes refashioned for theatre orchestra with Ives’ usual cryptic wit. There are four recordings of Variations on “America” (same tune as God Save the King), one in the organ version with E. Power Biggs, and William Schuman’s arrangement for orchestra conducted by Morton Gould (1966), Eugene Ormandy (1969) and André Kostelanetz (1976). 

The bulk of the set, though, is devoted to Ives’ original music for orchestra. Ives wrote four numbered symphonies and another entitled A Symphony: New England Holidays. He also wrote three orchestral “sets” (the first of which is subtitled Three Places in New England), the surprisingly boisterous Robert Browning Overture, the mostly subdued and at times ghostly Central Park in the Dark, and The Unanswered Question, as well as a number of smaller works. Some of these orchestral works also include choral movements (Symphony No.4, Orchestral Set No.2, A Symphony: New England Holidays) and most of the pieces appear in multiple performances. Most notable among these are the Symphony No.4 in a 1968 performance under the baton of Leopold Stokowski with assistants José Serebrier and David Katz (because Stokowski felt it too difficult for one conductor to realize) and one from 1974 with Serebrier alone at the podium. Also notable: Symphony No.2 conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1960 and Eugene Ormandy in 1974. The Bernstein recording is supplemented with a lecture by the maestro extolling the virtues (and difficulties) of Ives’ music.

I must say that listening to 25 hours of the quirky music of Ives is daunting and not for the faint of heart. To paraphrase the sometimes-cantankerous composer you need to be able to “stand up and take your dissonance like a man.” An invaluable tool I found for approaching the task is a book that was published in 2021, Listening to Charles Ives: Variations on his America by past president of the Charles Ives Society J. Peter Burkholder (Amadeus Press charlesives.org/listening-charles-ives-variations-his-america). It’s a marvellous resource, especially when read in conjunction with the listening tools on the Charles Ives Society website (charlesives.org). My only frustration came when I could find neither Piano Sonata No.1 nor Symphony No.4 in the detailed discussion of Ives’ works.

The same year that Burkholder published his book, the current president of the Ives Society Donald Berman published Charles E. Ives: Piano Studies - Shorter Works for Piano, Volume 2 - Ives Society Critical Edition (Peermusic Classical), and in 2024 Berman released what may be, thus far, the definitive recording of the “Concord” Sonata, Charles Ives - Sonata No.2; The St. Gaudens (Avie Records AV2678 avie-records.com/releases/ives-piano-sonata-no-2-concord-mass-1940-1860-•-the-st-gaudens-black-march).

I say”thus far” because it is likely there will never be such a thing as definitive where Concord is concerned. As I said in last month’s column, Ives continued to revise the work until 1947 when he published a supposedly definitive second edition after a decade of collaboration with John Kirkpatrick who had given the first public performance of the complete sonata in 1937 and would go on to record it in 1948. But the evolution of the sonata did not stop there, with scholars like Kirkpatrick and later Jay Gottlieb continuing to make “improvements” based on Ives’ innumerable sketches and notebooks. With the resources of the Charles Ives Society at his disposal, Berman has been able to draw on most of a century’s scholarship to foster his understanding of the iconic work and the result is stunning. He has chosen to pair the sonata with The St. Gaudens which is subtitled “Black March.” The music depicts marching soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th, one of the first Union armies of African Americans during the Civil War and one that suffered heavy casualties. In an annotation to the score Ives pays tribute to the regiment and says “Your country was made from you – images of a divine law carved in the shadow of a saddened heart.” Berman offers it as a prelude to the Concord, and it is an effective set-up for an outstanding disc. 

And these just in

In September 2007 I reviewed composer/pianist Frank Horvat’s first CD and said his “compositions are diverse enough that it’s hard to describe exactly what the disc is about. Sometimes bordering on the improvisations of Keith Jarrett (but without the audible humming), at moments reminiscent of boogie-woogie, at others dark ballad-like musings and occasional fugal passages, this is truly an eclectic mix.” Over almost two decades since then, with 22 releases in his discography (16 of which have been reviewed in DISCoveries), Horvat has persisted in his eclecticism and is still hard to pin down.

His latest release, More Rivers (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6689), explores yet another side of his creativity in a tribute to Ann Southam inspired by her ebullient and rollicking series Rivers. Southam’s frequent collaborator Christina Petrowska Quilico is the pianist here, as she was so often for Southam’s pieces. Her discography, which numbers more than six dozen releases, includes Southam’s Rivers, Pond Life, Glass Houses, Glass Houses Revisited and Soundspinning, a collection of early works including my introduction to Southam’s music, Three in Blue, which was included in the Royal Conservatory of Music syllabus when I was studying piano more than half a century ago.

Horvat says that although “Southam’s work in the area of minimalist composition has been a big influence on my life […] More Rivers is not intended to be a sequel or continuation of Rivers, but my hope is that my own unique musical minimalist voice will be a tribute to this body of work that has impacted me so profoundly.” The set comprises seven pieces constructed with overlapping looping textures evoking water; murmuring, babbling, racing or gently flowing. A number of the movements are calm and meditative, reflecting in the composer’s words “a spiritual sentiment,” but there are also dynamic and forceful moments reminding us of the power of water. Petrowska Quilico rises to all the challenges, making even the most intricate passages sound effortless and natural.

In his programme note Horvat implores us to remember “Water is intrinsic to life. As living beings on this planet, it is one of our most important resources that requires our full respect and protection.” Amen to that.

Elsewhere in these pages you will find reviews of guitar-centric discs featuring “classical” composers Graham Flett and Tim Brady, and jazz guitarists Jocelyn Gould and the late Emily Remler. Each of those discs showcases, primarily, one style of music, albeit there is quite a range in each of the presentations. The next disc also focuses on guitar, but in this case it appears in many forms and contexts. ADJACENCE – new chamber works for guitar (new focus recordings FCR 423 danlippelguitar.bandcamp.com/album/adjacence) features the talents of Dan Lippel on traditional and microtonal classical guitars, electric guitar and electric bass in a variety of ensembles and settings.

The 2CD set features the work of a dozen living composers and includes pieces by the late Mario Davidovsky (Cantione Sine Textu for wordless soprano, clarinet/bass clarinet, flutes, guitar and bass) and Charles Wuorinen (Electric Quartet performed by Bodies Electric in which Lippel is joined by electric guitarists Oren Fader, John Chang and William Anderson). There are works for solo guitar, multi-tracked guitars, an unusual string trio comprised of guitar, viola and hammer dulcimer, a variety of duets such as piccolo and guitar and percussion and guitar, and a number of quartets of varied instrumentation.

One of my favourites is Tyshawn Sorey's homage to a Seattle-based pianist/composer. Titled Ode to Gust Burns it is an extended work scored for bassoon, guitar, piano and percussion, with the bassoon adding a particularly expressive note to the tribute. Another is Lippel’s own Utopian Prelude that opens the set, on which he plays both electric guitar and a micro-tonally tuned acoustic instrument. Ken Ueno’s Ghost Flowers is another extended work, composed for the unusual trio mentioned above. It begins with eerie string rubbing sounds from the guitar before droning viola and percussive dulcimer join the mix. The next ten minutes get busier and busier with overlapping textures and rhythms before subsiding gradually into gentle harmonics.

Peter Adriaansz’s Serenades II to IV (No.23) for electric guitar and electric bass ends the first disc, with Lippel playing both parts. Sidney Marquez Boquiren’s Five Prayers of Hope is performed by counter)induction, a quartet consisting of violin, viola, guitar and piano. The haunting opening prayer Beacon is juxtaposed with a variety of moods in the subsequent Bridges, Silence Breakers, Sanctuary and Home. The second disc ends with Dystopian Reprise which Lippel describes as “a fusion-inspired improvisation using the final minutes of Adriaansz’s Serenade IV as a canvas.”  Throughout the more than two hours of Adjacence Lippel and his colleagues kept me enthralled with the breadth and range of an instrument it is all too easy to take for granted.

Listen to 'ADJACENCE: new chamber works for guitar' Now in the Listening Room

In closing I will mention one guilty pleasure of the past month. Although I certainly didn’t need another recording of Olivier Messiaen’s mammoth symphonic work, as it is one of favourites I was pleased to add Messiaen – Turangalîla Symphony (Deutsche Grammophon deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/messiaen-turangalla-nelsons-13655) to my collection. Featuring Yuja Wang, Cécile Lartigau and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Andris Nelsons, the recording offers all the excitement, scintillating effects and dynamic range that this exhilarating work requires. Another one for the ages! 

We invite submissions. CDs and DVDs should be sent to: DISCoveries, The WholeNote c/o Music Alive, The Centre for Social Innovation, 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4. Comments and digital releases are welcome at discoveries@thewholenote.com. 

Baroque violinist Marie Nadeau-Tremblay admits to having an obsessive personality and to having crafted her new album Obsession with that in mind. She is supported by Mélisande Corriveau on viola da gamba, Eric Milnes on harpsichord and organ, and Kerry Bursey on lute (ATMA Classique ACD2 2825 atmaclassique.com/en/product/obsession).

Nadeau-Tremblay notes that obsessive characteristics are present in each of the works here – as themes and variations, repeated ground bass lines or returning rondo themes – with the album consisting entirely of minor key pieces adding to the feeling of being stuck in an obsessive loop. 

An engrossing recital of predominantly late 17th-century works includes two by Biber – his Sonata No.2 in D Minor, C139 and Rosary Sonata No.1 in D Minor, “Annunciation” – two by Buxtehude – his Trio Sonata in A Minor, BuxWV272 and Trio Sonata in G Minor, BuxWV261 – Michel Farinel’s Faronells Division Upon a Ground (La Folia) and François Francœur’s Sonata for Violin and Continuo in G Minor, Op.2 No.6.  

Bursey is the tenor soloist in the lovely, anonymous Une jeune fillette, and Nadeau-Tremblay is terrific in Louis-Robert Guillemain’s extremely difficult Amusement for violin solo, Op.18 No.1 “La Furstemberg” from 1755.

Nadeau-Tremblay plays with outstanding clarity and beauty, her flawless technical facility married to an innate and sensitive musicianship in a superb release.

One – New Music for Unaccompanied Violin, a collection of world premiere recordings, is violinist Patrick Yim’s third album of solo violin music and features six works commissioned between 2020 and 2023 (New Focus Recordings FCR411 newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue/patrick-yim-one-new-music-for-unaccompanied-violin).

Ilari Kaila’s high-energy moto perpetuo Solitude opens the disc. Juri Soo’s title track One is a cycle of 12 widely-varied vignettes representing the months of the year. All four opening works on the CD were written during the pandemic lockdown, Takuma Itoh’s A Melody from an Unknown Place and Páll Ragnar Pálsson’s Hermitage are both meditations on the loneliness and spirituality of the isolation. Matthew Schreibeis’ Fragile Remembrance and John Liberatore’s Strange, High Sky are both from 2023, the former essentially an ABA arc and the latter inspired by Lu Sun’s Wild Grass stories.

“Yim plays with virtuosity and powerful expression,” says the release blurb in a perfect assessment.

Listen to 'One: New Music for Unaccompanied Violin' Now in the Listening Room

On the digital release Viola Fantasies violist Mischa Galaganov presents the 12 Fantasies for Bass Viol (1735) by Georg Philip Telemann, the first recording on viola of the only known solo works from a major Baroque composer to almost ideally complement the modern viola’s range and tonal characteristics (Navona NV6692 navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6692).

Galaganov uses gut strings and modern tunings in his own arrangements of the works, with such issues as dynamics, tempi and ornamentation being determined by his research, experience and instincts. If you are familiar with Telemann’s12 Fantasies for Solo Violin then you will know what to expect here: a set of short, inventive works, mostly of three brief and contrasting movements, that require a great deal more technical skill than you might imagine given the deceptively easy flow of the music. Galaganov is superb throughout a fascinating recital, with the two Vivaces and the Presto in the four-movement Fantasie No.2 particular standouts.

The release publicity referred to these works as “soon-to-be viola standards,” and it’s easy to see – and hear – why.

Violinist Francesca Dego completes her celebration of Ferruccio Busoni’s centenary year with Busoni Violin Sonatas & Four Bagatelles, accompanied by her regular recital pianist Francesca Leonardi (Chandos CHAN 20304 chandos.net/products/reviews/CHAN_20304).

The two sonatas, No.1 Op.29 K234 and No.2 Op.36a K244 are both in E minor and reflect the composer’s grounding in the German Romantic tradition. The first, from 1890 is close to the Brahms D minor sonata in feel, while the second, from 1900 is a more complex work centred on a chorale from the Anna Magdalena Notebook and feeling like a single-movement arc, its ten mostly short sections played without a break.

The Four Bagatelles Op.28 K229 from 1888 that end the disc are brief – only just over six minutes in total – early works written for the 7-year-old child prodigy Egon Petri, who would later become a Busoni student. 

As always, Dego plays with warmth and style, sensitively supported by Leonardi. 

Inspired by her research project “Latvian Classical Violin Music in Transition, c.1980-2000” the Australia-based Latvian violinist Sophia Kirsanova presents world premiere recordings of stylistically diverse works for violin by Latvian composers on The Morning Mist, a musical reflection on a significant period that saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and Latvia regaining its independence (SKANI LMIC167 sophiakirsanova.com).

Three works represent music of today’s Latvia: Ēriks Ešenvalds’ title track, with pianist Agnese Eglina; Linda Leimane’s Architectonics of a Crystal Soul, with the Syzygy Ensemble; and Platon Buravicky’s Angel’s Gaze, with pianist Georgina Lewis. Amir Farid is the pianist for Pēteris Vasks’ Little Summer Music, a set of five brief but delightful pieces, but the highlight here is Aivars Kalējs’ monumental Toccata for Solo Violin Op.40, a striking work, heavily influenced by Bach, that draws particularly outstanding playing from Kirsanova, who handles a variety of styles and techniques with ease and musical intelligence throughout the CD.

James Ehnes switches to viola on Ehnes & Armstrong Play Brahms & Schumann, accompanied by his regular recital partner Andrew Armstrong – and it’s not just any viola, but the 1696 “Archinto” Stradivarius viola on loan from the Royal Academy of Music (Onyx ONYX4256 onyxclassics.com/release/ehnes-armstrong-play-brahms-schumann-brahms-sonatas-op-120-weigenlied-schumann-marchenbilder).

The Schumann work that opens the disc is the Märchenbilder (Fairy-Tale Pictures) Op.113, a group of four pieces written in a mere few days in March 1851. They create a sense of fantasy rather than depicting specific scenes, and are full of strong rhythmic and melodic contrast.

Brahms had advised his publisher that he was considering retirement when he encountered the exceptional playing of clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, the four works he wrote for him – the Clarinet Trio Op.114, the Clarinet Quintet Op.115 and the two Clarinet Sonatas Op.120 – being the last chamber compositions of Brahms’ career. It’s the latter works that are featured here: the Sonata in F Minor Op.120 No.1 and the Sonata in E Major Op.120 No.2, both in the arrangements made by the composer. His Wiegenlied Op.49 No.4 – the well-known Brahms Lullaby – completes the recital. 

The playing is all that you would expect: warm, expressive perfection from Ehnes and sensitive, resonant support from Armstrong.

Encircling, the new CD from violist Daphne Gerling and pianist Tomoko Kashiwagi, features music by the English violist and composer Rebecca Clarke and three of her female contemporaries. It was inspired by Gerling’s doctoral research that celebrated the centennial of the 1919 Berkshire Composition Competition in America (Acis APL53974 acisproductions.com/encircling-daphne-gerling).

Clarke’s Passacaglia on an Old English Tune opens the disc. The Viola Sonata Op.7 by the virtually unknown English composer Kalitha Dorothy Fox (1894-1934) was rediscovered as one result of the project to find as many of the 72 entries in the 1919 competition as possible; it’s a world premiere recording.

The Viola Sonata Op.25 by the French composer Marcelle Soulage (1894-1970) may possibly have been entered in the competition, although the entry deadline preceded the sonata’s November 1919 completion. The Fantaisie Op.18 by Hélène Fleury-Roy (1876-1957) completes the CD.

There’s nothing spectacular here, but it’s still a beautifully played and recorded recital of finely crafted and fascinating works.

Listen to 'Encircling' Now in the Listening Room

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein and her longtime recital partner Inon Barnaton are in fine form on Brahms Cello Sonatas, pairing the two works with their own arrangement of one of the violin sonatas (Pentatone PYC5187215 pentatonemusic.com/product/brahms-cello-sonatas).

The Cello Sonata No.1 in E Minor, Op.38 from 1865 clearly illustrates Brahms’ intention to treat the piano as an equal partner in the duo – it should “under no circumstances assume a purely accompanying role.” The Cello Sonata No.2 in F Major, Op.99 from 1886 is a mature work, although not with the autumnal nature of so many of his late chamber works.

In between the two sonatas is the duo’s arrangement of the Violin Sonata No.1 in G Major, Op.78. There was a contemporary arrangement of this work, transposed into D major, by Paul Klengel, but Barnaton always felt that the loss of the original key’s timbre and colour, together with the changes to the piano part and the high register cello writing rendered it unconvincing. 

Played here in the original key with the cello mostly an octave lower, Barnaton feels that “those dark colours” are restored, albeit more so now that the cello part is in the middle of the piano range for much of the time. Still, there’s no doubting the quality of the playing on a simply lovely CD.

The Oslo String Quartet launches their very own label with Learn To Wait, a digital-only release that features music by Benjamin Britten, György Ligeti and Nils Henrik Asheim, whose third quartet gives the project its title (OSQ01 stringquartet.com).

Britten’s String Quartet No.1 from 1941 was written while he was in the United States, having left England at the start of the war. Although a relatively early work, its brilliance of invention, scoring and technique is a clear indicator of how the composer’s career would develop.

The central work in the recital is Asheim’s String Quartet No.3, Learn To Wait, composed during the pandemic lockdown. It’s a ten-minute single movement featuring note clusters, harmonics and extended bowing techniques that apparently seemed a logical choice for the disc as the Oslo players happened to be working on it at the same time as the other two quartets; however, it has trouble holding its own in such company.

Ligeti’s String Quartet No.1, Métamorphoses nocturnes from 1953-54 clearly has more to say right from the start, the range of its fascinating soundscape showing a personal voice emerging from the influence of both Bartók and Schoenberg’s 12-tone system.

Listen to 'Learn To Wait' Now in the Listening Room

Works by Vivaldi and the Irish composer Ailbhe McDonagh (b.1982) are featured on The Irish Seasons, the debut solo album from the Irish violinist Lynda O’Connor. David Brophy conducts the Anamus string ensemble (Avie AV2688 avie-records.com/releases/the-irish-seasons-ailbhe-mcdonagh-•-antonio-vivaldi).

O’Connor feels that there are similarities between Irish and Baroque music, both structurally and in ornamentation, and the pairing of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with the world premiere recording of McDonagh’s The Irish Four Seasons was a natural choice. The former is an intimate, warm and upbeat performance, but it’s really the McDonagh work that drives the CD – and it’s a real gem.

Each of the four seasons is represented by a single movement. The lovely Spring – Earrach (pronounced AH rakh) has a slow Irish air on each side of a lively reel, the ABA form mirroring the fast-slow-fast pattern of each of the Vivaldi concertos. Summer – Samhradh (SAU rah), also in ABA form, is in the same G minor key as Vivaldi’s Summer, and quotes from the latter’s third movement. Autumn – Fómhar (FOHR) with its jig and turbulent cross-string patterns, has a clear Vivaldi feel, and Winter – Geimhreadh (GEE rah) includes themes from the three previous movements.

“Has there ever been a composer of more consistent eloquence?”, says cellist Steven Isserlis about the subject of his new CD Music of the Angels – Cello Concertos, Sonatas & Quintets by Luigi Boccherini on which he also directs the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Hyperion CDA68444 hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68444).

Boccherini (1743-1805) spent most of his adult life in Spain in what Isserlis, in his customary exemplary booklet essay calls “his own idyllic realm of the senses.” The CD’s title comes from a musical dictionary published a few years after Boccherini’s death that described his adagios as giving one “an idea of the music of the angels.”

Faithful editions of Boccherini’s music, however, are a relatively recent development. The two concertos here – the Concerto No.2 in A Major G475, the authenticity of which was originally questioned, and the Concerto No.6 in D Major G479, are from Boccherini’s early years as a touring virtuoso. 

Maggie Cole is the harpsichordist in the Sonata in C Minor G2b, and Luise Buchberger the second cellist in the gorgeous Sonata in F Major G9. The String Quintet in D Minor G280 is at the centre of the recital, and the famous Minuetto & Trio from the String Quintet in E Major G275 ends an outstanding CD of beautiful – and, yes, eloquent – playing. 

There’s more fine cello playing on Dvořák Cello Concerto & Pieces, with cellist Benedict Kloeckner accompanied by the Romanian Chamber Orchestra under Cristian Măcelaru and by pianist Danae Dörken in a recital of Dvořák’s cello works “all of which,” it is claimed, “are collected here for the first time on a CD.” There’s no sign of the Slavonic Dance Op.48 No.3, though (SWR Berlin Classics 0303412BC berlin-classics-music.com/en/album/885470035130-dvorak-cello-concerto-pieces).

Kloeckner’s warm tone and outstanding technique make for a fine reading of the Cello Concerto in B Minor Op.104, recorded in a live single-take performance in the Stadttheater Koblenz and featuring a particularly lovely middle movement. The cello and piano versions of Waldsruhe Op.68 No.5 (Silent Woods) and the Rondo in G Minor Op.94 were both used in Dvořák’s farewell tour of Bohemia before leaving for America.

The Slavonic Dance Op.46 No.8 and the rarely-performed Polonaise in A Major Op.Post.B94 are both Dvořák originals, and Kloeckner’s own arrangements of Songs my mother taught me Op.55 No.4 and Leave me alone Op.82 No.1, the song that makes a crucial emotional contribution to the concerto, are the remaining tracks on an excellent disc.

A warm and finely-judged performance of Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op.129 anchors the 2CD set Love Letters – Tribute to Clara & Robert Schumann, with cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca supported by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Raphaël Merlin and pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuberger (Naïve V7364 christianpierrelamarca.com/en/music). 

Described as “an anthem to eternal love” the release was inspired by the intimate love letters exchanged between Robert and Clara Schumann, while seeking to root those letters in a modern context by inviting four contemporary composers to add their own vision of love in a world of digital connection.

CD1 opens with the concerto and also includes Robert’s Fantasiestücke Op.73 and his Adagio and Allegro Op.70. It ends with La Marca’s arrangements of the two movements from the collaborative F-A-E Sonata written by Schumann, Brahms and Albert Dietrich for the violinist Joseph Joachim: the Intermezzo by Schumann and the Scherzo by Brahms, the latter a close associate of both Schumanns.

CD2 is a somewhat less successful mixed bag, with three works by Clara and four by Robert interwoven with world-premiere recordings of Fabien Waksman’s Replika, Michelle Ross’ Désenvoyé, Neuberger’s Vibrating and Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s Klingelnseel & Choral and SMS. 

Art Choral Vol.2 – Baroque I
Ensemble Artchoral; Matthias Maute
ATMA ACD2 2421 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/art-choral-vol-2-baroque-i)

Those seeking the mesmerizing and magical in their choral listening will enjoy this album of works by 16th and 17th century experimenters such as Gesualdo, Schütz, Monteverdi and Purcell —part of an ATMA series comprising fifteen volumes of music from 16th to the 21st centuries. Matthias Maute and Quebec’s Ensemble ArtChoral achieve a deft ensemble dynamic while also delivering the soloist flair that is so needed in this repertoire. 

The opening track, Il Lamento d’Arianna by Claudio Monteverdi, sparkles with the “meraviglia” (wonderment) which the composer sought to depict, as discussed in the recent book Monteverdi and the Marvellous by Canadian scholar Roseen Giles. From the first words, (“Lasciatemi morire / Let me die”), their intensity and precision dissolves at times to sweetness, as it should.

Carlo Gesualdo’s music is known for its colourful word-painting, involving shifts from exaggerated chromaticism to melodious diatonicism. Especially effective on this recording is the reading of Tristis et anima mea, a church responsory set with the florid and dramatic style of a madrigal and delivered with the panache that Gesualdo deserves. 

Maute approaches the Purcell pieces differently than this reviewer has heard or sung before. Especially with Man that is Born of a Woman – and In the Midst of Life, into which it segues without credit – the pace feels so rushed that in places the dissonances and text settings fly by rather than lingering painfully as seems apt for a funeral piece. It is a bold choice, but the madrigal-like delivery is effective in such sections as “He fleeth as it were a shadow / and ne’er continuith...” One can’t imagine that the choir of Westminster Abbey sung it this way at Queen Mary’s funeral, for which it was composed, but this performance cleverly points to Purcell’s Italian influences and stands as an alternate interpretation of this rich and beloved repertoire.

Monteverdi – The “Lost” Vespers
The Thirteen; Matthew Robertson
Acis APL54148 (acisproductions.com/the-thirteen-monteverdi-lost-vespers)

The Thirteen is an acclaimed professional orchestra and choir of soloists that reimagines vocal music, from early chants and masterworks to contemporary world premieres. Their most recent recording, The ‘Lost’ Vespers, is the culmination of a five years passion project by the ensemble’s artistic director and founder, Matthew Robertson. The ‘Lost’ Vespers is a curated compilation that draws from Monteverdi’s end of life volumes, Selva morale e spirituale (1640-1641) and Missa et salmi (1650). With Robertson as conductor and Adrienne Post as concertmaster, The Thirteen presents a meticulously historically informed performance of Monteverdi’s sacred work. The ensemble is comprised of eight singers and seven instrumentalists, including violin, organ, cello, cornetto and theorbo. The songs alternate in the typical style of a vespers, generally between joyful celebrations and solemn reflections. 

The carefully considered musical choices are reflected throughout the album; the exquisite push-pull of pure sonorities that represents different parts of a vespers; the word painting, specific shape of sounds and rhythms executed with craftsmanship and precision, especially noteworthy in the Magnificat primo and in the Nisi Dominus; and the virtuosity that not only creates the expected beautiful outcome of technical capacities, but also a deeply intimate and affecting musical experience. 

The liner notes of the album provide a valuable source of information on the project. Robertson first shares the journey that led to the recording of The ‘Lost’ Vespers and Dr. Steven Plank, Professor of Musicology at Oberlin College and Conservatory, then provides a wealth of information that can guide or enhance the listener’s experience.

The ‘Lost’ Vespers was recorded at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America in Washington, DC in October 2023.

Remember – 130 Years of Canadian Choral Music
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir; Jean-Sebastien Vallee
ATMA ACD2 2882 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/remember-130-years-of-canadian-choral-music)

Fifteen a cappella works, variously sung in English, French, Latin, German, Hebrew and Arabic, offer what Rena Roussin, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s musicologist-in-residence, calls in her booklet notes “a time capsule of musical touchstones and reflections across 130 years of Canadian choral music history,” the span of the choir’s existence. (Seven selections are performed by the choir’s 24-member professional nucleus, the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers.)

The two-CD set opens with the collection’s title work, Stephen Chatman’s hauntingly beautiful Remember, the second of his Two Rossetti Songs. It’s followed by the gentle hymn, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, by the TMC’s founder and first conductor, Augustus Stephen Vogt. The one piece not by a Canadian, Mendelssohn’s robust setting of Psalm 43, Richte mich, Gott, was performed at the eponymous choir’s debut on January 15, 1895. 

Other standouts are Harry Somers’ elaborate arrangement of She’s Like the Swallow, Healey Willan’s much-loved An Apostrophe to the Heavenly Hosts (at nine minutes, the collection’s longest work) and Imant Raminsh’s luminous Ave verum corpus. Also represented are Ernest MacMillan, Srul Irving Glick, Peter-Anthony Togni, Christopher Ducasse, Andrew Balfour, Jocelyn Morlock, Stuart Beatch, Shireen Abu-Khader and Stephanie Martin, the last six by pieces composed between 2018 and 2022.

At only 84 minutes, this wide-ranging collection could easily have been augmented with works by three significant Canadian choral composers, surprisingly absent – R. Murray Schafer, Ruth Watson Henderson and Eleanor Daley. Nevertheless, there’s much lovely music and lovely singing here to enjoy.

John Burge – The Mata Hari songbook
Patricia O’Callahan; John Burge
Centrediscs CMCCD 34424 (cmccanada.org/shop/cmccd-34424)

The early 20th century erotic Javanese dancer and European courtesan, Mata Hari (1876-1917) is still surrounded by an aura of mystery, more than a century since her passing at the hands of a French firing squad, following her rather dubious and hasty conviction on charges of spying for Germany during World War I. Notorious is the word irrevocably tied to this fascinating and complex character… was it her so-called traitorous activities that caused her downfall, or was it a generalized male fear of her seductive, political powers? Thrilling, versatile and accomplished soprano Patricia O’Callahan in a creative partnership with composer/pianist John Burge and writer/director Craig Walker explore these questions (and more) in their brilliant one-woman, two-act, high-end cabaret production One Last Night with Mata Hari. The recording of that presentation has resulted in the stunning ten-song collection presented here, focused on the night before Hari faced her death.

The plot sees Hari recalling her life and times for the staff and holy sisters in the place of her internment. First up is the lilting An Officer to Marry where O’Callahan deftly captures the irony of young Hari’s desire to upgrade her social situation by her assignation with the sadistic and vile Rudolph McLeod.  Burge’s superb pianistic skill injects each composition with energy and verity, while the equally superb libretto by Walker paints a sometimes terrifying and complex picture of Hari’s life. Of special beauty is the love song to her sickly child, You’ll Be My Sun, where Burge and O’Callahan perform with a near telepathic communication and O’Callahan soaring to the outer reaches of her remarkable register.   

Each of the compositions here contain undeniable elements of German Art Song. O’Callahan creates a three-dimensional portrait of a survivor, traumatized by her times as well as by her peripatetic and unstable reality. This is a thoroughly compelling and satisfying cycle of songs – expertly performed and recorded.

Listen to 'John Burge: The Mata Hari songbook' Now in the Listening Room

D.D. Jackson – Poetry Project
D.D. Jackson; various  artists and vocalists
Independent (ddjackson.bandcamp.com)

D.D. Jackson is a JUNO and Emmy winning composer, producer and jazz pianist. In the spring of 2021, eminent Canadian poet George Elliott Clarke commissioned Jackson to set music to one of his poems. This initial collaboration snowballed into The Poetry Project, an album of 13 songs mostly arranged for piano and voice with small ensembles of varying instruments. The last song in the set, Daedalus’ Lament (Giovanna Riccio) is performed by D.D. Jackson and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra via Musiversal. 

In addition to Clarke and Riccio, The Poetry Project features poems by Canadian writers Ayesha Chatterjee, Luciano Iacobelli, Irving Layton, Micheline Maylor, Bruce Meyer, Al Moritz, Libby Scheier, Choucri Paul Zemokhol and Chinese poet Xiaoyuan Yin. The performers on the album include many well-known names, including Laila Biali, Dean Bowman, Yoon Sun Choi, Ethan Cronin, Sammy Jackson, John Lindsay-Botten and Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez.   

The Poetry Project includes a variety of themes. For example, I call (Zemokhol) is about the poet rediscovering his mother’s Egypt. Daylight Shooting in little Italy (Iacobelli) is about an incident Iacobelli and his family witnessed. On Silence (Chatterjee) is a layered and imaged interpretation of silence and how in its stillness we can truly hear. Self-Composed (Clarke) is a song from a father to his daughter and 2641 Fuller Terrace (also by Clarke) is an homage to guitarist Gilbert Daye. 

For all of the intensity of the words chosen for The Poetry Project, Jackson writes surprisingly dynamic and rhythmic music with both fluid and, at times, challenging vocal lines that sway in all of the right places. Kudos to him for transforming sometimes long pages of poetry with its own rhythmical pacing into song length material that has retained the writers’ intentions and emotions.

Song of Songs
Anastasia Minster; Canadian Studio Symphony Orchestra; Felipe Tellez
Independent (anastasiaminster.com)

The title of this disc Song of Songs by Anastasia Minster may suggest it contains works based on The Song of Songs, that biblical book sometimes attributed (albeit erroneously) to King Solomon, legendary for his superlative wisdom and extraordinary wealth. But don’t let that distract you for it does – in a not-so-oblique way – reference themes of love, the heart and soul and metaphor of its biblical namesake. 

Moreover, what the recording is may also not be everyone’s idea of an orchestral one – although it is quite extraordinary. Survey the performance of pianist and vocalist Minster, and you will discover someone incapable of being temperamentally innocuous, bland or emotionally disengaged from the black-velvet-dark content. With her silvery timbre – lustrous in the high notes and like molten lava in the lower ones – Minster rises to the challenge; nay she bursts through the glass ceiling of this impassioned, shadowy repertoire.

In the artistic execution – vocal and orchestral – and in the warmth and detail of its recording, the disc is flawless. I do miss printed lyrics and believe (too punctilious a demand on my part perhaps) that every vocal disc ought to come with a booklet of texts. In her defense, I have to say that this gorgeously poetic disc may be a worthy exception. Minster is an uber-articulate vocalist and it is not particularly difficult to follow these contemporary art songs without the guide of printed lyrics.

Benedict Sheehan – Akahist
Choir of Trinity Wall Street; Artefact Ensemble; Novus NY
Bright Shiny Things (BSTC-0210 brightshiny.ninja/akathist)

Benedict Sheehan’s epic oratorio came to be as a poignant reminder of the dark days of the Stalinist purges. The language of this work has at its heart Akathist: Glory to God for All Things, an Eastern Orthodox service in plainchant, as a hymn of thanksgiving. However, the musical topography traversed by Sheehan’s work references all of fallen humanity – from the earliest times to that of our day. 

The sweeping chorales on two discs centre on the theology of Ecclesia (the community of the church) and Sapientia (holy wisdom) and appear to proffer the blinding light of God’s invisible spiritual wisdom emanating from the Heavens as a salve to heal the grief of the evils on earth. 

Melding liturgical songs (antiphons, responsories, sequences and hymns) sung by the glorious voices of several soloists and choral groups, accompanied by an instrumental ensemble into a modern-day symphonia harmoniae caelestium revelationum (a symphony of heavenly revelations) Sheehan has created a harmonious combination of different musical sounds, woven into the divine cosmic harmony. 

In fact Sheehan has created a powerful metaphor that unites the physical and the spiritual realms that brings both participant and listener into a closer – mystical – relationship with the divine. The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, the Trinity Youth Chorus, combined with the voices of the Artefact Ensemble and the Downtown Voices, together with instrumental ensemble NOVUS NY bring the spontaneity of Akathist to life.

Zibuokle Martinaityte – Aletheia: Choral Works
Latvian Radio Choir; Sigvards Klava
Ondine ODE 1447-2 (ondine.net/index.php?lid=en&cid=2.2&oid=7307)

On Aletheia, celebrated Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė has used the wordless language of the heart to drive the emotional spirituality of these four outstanding choral works. Using thrillingly sensuous music of bright acoustic colours and resonant fades, she has created a vocabulary defined by note durations, attack and intensities through throat-singing, drones and other vocal devices. In fact, she has brought new meaning and beauty to the mystique of spiritual music. 

In the titular first work on this disc Martinaitytė evokes the horrors of the Russian invasion of Lithuania, a personal trauma that was triggered by the more recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ululations is a work similar to Aletheia. Although it is not born of the despair and trauma of the latter work, it is born of an elemental, “ululating” wail. 

Chant des Voyelles employs voices to mimic the curves of sculptures by the cubist sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. And although The Blue of Distance has no particular setting, this sweeping Whitmanesque piece completes the exquisite cycle of mystical chorales vividly interpreted by the Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Kļava.

Scherzi Forastieri
Flute Alors!
ATMA ACD2  2818 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/scherzi-forastieri)

Speaking as a former recorder player, I can say, with good authority, that it can be a frustrating instrument: limits to timbre and dynamics can quickly outweigh the joys of how easy it is to make your first decent sounds. The Montreal-based recorder quartet Flûte Alors! is a shining example of the other side of this coin, revealing for years now how astonishing this instrument can be when it’s well played. 

Although known for its eclectic repertoire, the latest offering from the quartet focuses solely on Italian music of the early Baroque. The title is taken from a collection of canzoni written in 1611 by Giovanni Cangiasi and translates roughly as “pleasantries of a foreigner.” Of the 18 tracks on this CD, ten are by Cangiasi and they really are very cheerful and inventive. Like most music from this period, the curiosity for modern ears lies in all the ways in which the conventions of the high baroque have not yet been formed: vestiges of renaissance harmonies and dance forms present themselves again and again. 

I particularly liked the “clucking hens” of Cangiasi’s La Furugada and the athletic and sinuous theme of Nicolò Corradini’s La Bizzarra; both of these feature that light-speed tonguing only possible on the recorder. Execution throughout is spectacular: virtuosic and tasteful ornaments, spot-on tuning, infallible passage work. Yes, the colours are limited but the group has selected interesting and varied music and as far as taking the listener back in time, it is thoroughly and delightfully convincing.

More Bach, Please!
Concerto Italiano; Rinaldo Alessandrini
Naïve OP8454 (arkivmusic.com/products/more-bach-please)

Over the years, composers and performers as diverse as Anton Webern, Procol Harem and the Modern Jazz Quartet have all drawn inspiration from the music of J.S Bach. The Rome-based Baroque ensemble Concerto Italiano directed by Rinaldo Alessandri is the latest ensemble to refashion the music of the Leipzig cantor in this intriguing Naïve label recording titled More Bach, Please!. The aim of the endeavour was to create three new works based upon pre-existing material by Bach with Alessandrini drawing from a number of sources.

The Ouverture in the French Style BWV831 for solo keyboard was originally published in 1735 as the second half of the Clavier-Übung (paired with the Italian Concerto). Here, the appeal is three-fold. Not only are Alessandrini’s arrangements meticulously constructed but the movements were thoughtfully chosen. Furthermore, the playing itself is stylish and elegant with the ten-member ensemble producing a warmly cohesive sound in which violinist Boris Begelman and violist Ettore Belli deliver particularly polished performances.

The Partita for flute, strings and continuo and the eight-movement Ouverture in G Major for strings and continuo utilize various sources including those from the Violin Sonata BWV1016, the keyboard Partitas BWV825 and 828 and the Ouverture BWV820. Again, the ensemble performs with a solid conviction with flutist Laura Pontecorvo’s sensitive and controlled tone melding perfectly with the string ensemble.

How could Bach not have approved of these arrangements? He himself frequently transcribed and reused his own music (and that of others). With modern technology AI can undoubtedly produce a competent refashioning of a composer’s work, but there is still ample room for the human touch and creativity, as this recording so admirably demonstrates.

Schumann: Carnaval and Kinderszenen
Edna Stern
Orchid Classics ORC100338 (edna-stern.com/recordings)

The Young Schumann
Charles Owen
Avie Records AV2647 (avie-records.com/releases/the-young-schumann-carnaval-op-9-•-papillons-op-2-•-intermezzi-op-4-•-abegg-variations-op-1)

The evergreen Carnaval is the main work on two new recordings of music for solo piano by Robert Schumann. There is an exciting sense of youthful impetuousness in Edna Stern’s recording, with fast movements taken very quickly and slower movements treated flexibly, with a generous use of rubato throughout. The quirkiness of Schumann’s language is brought to the fore as Stern emphasizes Schumann’s many sudden accents and contrasts of dynamics. Listen to the sense of improvisation in the Valse noble and the breathtaking abandon Stern brings to the infamously difficult Paganini. The final pages of the closing March are truly thrilling. This is high-octane playing, capturing a sense of live performance on the wing in a warmly recorded acoustic.  

In comparison, Charles Owen’s performance prizes sensitivity of phrasing and clarity of texture over sheer visceral excitement. Accents and inner voices are less prominent, and tempos are less extreme. This is a carefully considered performance, though this serious-mindedness doesn’t always translate into the same thrill of excitement that Stern produces. Owen fills out his album with Schumann’s first two published works, the Abegg Variations, Op.1 and Papillons, Op.2. I find Papillons, in particular, a much fresher performance, with light textures and dancing rhythms that emphasize this music’s roots in the ballroom. Owen also includes the rarely heard Intermezzi, Op.4, in a committed performance that makes one wish these six pieces were heard more often. The confident swagger of the first piece, the syncopated playfulness of the second, and the varied moods of the fifth are all vintage Schumann. The clarity of the recorded sound complements Owen’s overall textural precision and beauty of tone.

Stern’s coupling is the popular and often-recorded Kinderszenen, Op.15. These “Scenes from Childhood” can sound overly precious in the wrong hands, but Stern manages an appealing freshness and innocent charm. There is originality too, in Stern’s own composition which ends her recording. The title, To-nal or not-to-nal, refers to the pull in contemporary writing between tonal and atonal harmonies. In five short sections inspired by literary quotations (Schumann, too, took much inspiration from the literature of his time), Stern’s work is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of textures and colours. 

Lovers of Schumann’s piano music will enjoy the contrasting approaches Stern and Owen bring to these inspired works.

Chamber Works by Frederick Block
ARC Ensemble
Chandos CHAN 20358 (shop.rcmusic.com/products/chamber-works-by-frederick-block)

After fleeing from Europe to New York City in 1940, Vienna-born Friedrich Bloch (1899-1945) resumed composing as “Frederick Block.” In the few remaining years before his death from cancer, Block busily composed many works, including three symphonies, his seventh opera and the brief, five-movement Suite, Op.73 for clarinet and piano (1944) in which jaunty playfulness alternates with wistful lyricism. 

Far more substantial are three works dating from 1928-1930, filled with the lush songfulness of Viennese late-Romanticism. In the Piano Quintet, Op.19, two buoyant movements, with melodies resembling those of Erich Korngold, frame a nostalgia-perfumed slow movement. The sweet, slightly decadent sentimentality of a fin-de-siècle Viennese ballroom permeates the four lively movements of Block’s String Quartet, Op.23.

Echoes of Korngold re-emerge in the opening Andante of Block’s Piano Trio No.2, Op.26, followed by a sprightly scherzo marked Molto vivace, a ruminative Adagio and the cheerful Vivace-Tango, not only pre-dating but also, for me, more entertaining than anything by Astor Piazzolla.

This is the latest in the Music in Exile series curated by Simon Wynberg, artistic director of Toronto’s ARC Ensemble, devoted to unheralded composers displaced or suppressed by war or dictatorship. Wynberg discovered Block’s compositions while exploring archives at the New York Public Library. Thanks to him, and the ensemble’s fine musicians – violinists Erika Raum and Marie Bérard, violist Steven Dann, cellist Thomas Wiebe, clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas and pianist Kevin Ahfat – the music of yet another deserving composer lives again.

Works for Piano and Orchestra – Prokofiev; Rimsky-Korsakov; Tsfasman
Zlata Chochieva; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Karl-Heinz Steffens
Naïve V8448 (zlatachochieva.com/music)

Recordings of two of the three composers (certainly not these compositions, though), may be abundant and varied. They may be performed with attention to historical practices or conceived as a series of romantic flights. But what strikes you through her performances of Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Tsfasman is that Zlata Chochieva doesn’t impose doctrinaire impulses on these three orchestral works but explores – with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Karl-Heinz Steffans – a range of expressive and rhythmic nuances. 

Her playing is absorbing and sensitive, full of insightful phrasing, reflective subtlety and joie de vivre. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Piano Concerto in C-sharp Minor, Op.30: Note that the choice of this work (not operatic extracts from Scheherazade) puts a spotlight on the composer’s genius for infusing his works with primary instrumental colours, and progressive harmonies, particularly in the third, Allegro movement.

Prokofiev, on the other hand, was a genius of the piano, but his concertos – among the most inventive ever written –  are rarely performed. This Piano Concerto No.2 in G Minor, Op.16 is a case in point. It begins as an almost backward-looking composition but the performer in him soon takes over and by the time we get to the Finale - Allegro tempestoso movement we are presented with the composer’s barnstorming prowess. 

Tsfasman’s Jazz Suite is a glowing echo of his idol, Gershwin. Consummate performances by pianist and orchestra bring an alluring dénouement to this programme.