Swell, Burst and Dye

Gabrielle McLaughlin; Lucas Harris

Independent (www.cdbaby.com/cd/gabriellemclaughlin)

The celebration of melancholy is as prevalent in music for singer and lute in the early 17th Century as the double-entendre. And the well-chosen title of this recording makes ample use of both. This phrase, “Swell, burst and dye” ends each of the three parts of Griefe keep within, composed by John Danyel for a funeral in which he advises the grieving wife “Mrs. M.E.” to shun excessive displays of sorrow. He then presents music as both the vicarious expression and the cure. This central piece is a wonderful find along with many others chosen by soprano Gabrielle McLaughlin and lutenist Lucas Harris to take the listener on a life journey through “pubescent drama toward the resignation of adulthood and the sometime despondency of middle age.” Selections by Danyel and John Dowland start sweetly and progressively lean toward a darker side, turning first to Dowland’s characteristic melancholy in I saw my Ladye Weepe, Semper Dowland Semper Dolens, pavan for lute and culminating in Thomas Campion’s spooky When thou must home to Shades of Underground and The Sypres Curtaine of the Night.

Gabrielle McLaughlin has a wonderful pure, even, declamatory style equally perfect for portraying smitten youth, heartbroken lover or gamine sprite. Her emotive qualities shine forth particularly well in her excellent phrasing. And the interplay between the singer and lutenist meet in perfect synchronicity. Cover design by Martin Chochinov is suitably disturbing and worth mentioning also are the playfully authentic spellings in the liner notes.

Haydn - Arias

Jane Archibald; Orchestre Symphonique Bienne; Thomas Rösner

ATMA ACD2 2661

Papa Haydn was an extremely successful musician - and not just by the standards of his era. He was, one could argue, the first musical entrepreneur. In the period of transition from “composer as a servant” to “composer as an artist” he took advantage of the circumstances to sell his works many times over and ended up a wealthy man. He also had a dramatic impact on the development of the Western European musical idiom and established his symphonies as ideals aspired to by many. It is however in the 20 years of service to the Duke Esterhazy when Haydn wrote over 20 operas. Most of them have disappeared from the standard repertoire, but like so many works of Papa Haydn, once brought back, they have a lot of staying power. I am talking here of the comedic Il Mondo della Luna, the classic Orlando Paladino and his last opera, yet another take on the story of Orfeo et Euridice, written in the year of Mozart’s death. Arias from these and other operas are brought to record by the Canadian coloratura soprano, Jane Archibald. Although a fair musical distance from her typical repertoire of Zebrinetta, Musetta, Olympia and Queen of the Night, they provide a showcase for her vocal agility and provide a foreshadowing of the COC performances of next season as Zebrinetta and Semele. An added bonus of the CD is the inclusion of overtures, played beautifully by the Swiss Bienne Symphony, presided over by Thomas Rösner, a very talented Viennese maestro.

Walter Braunfels - Die Vogel

Désirée Rancatore; Brandon Jovanovich; James Johnson; Martin Gantner; Los Angeles Opera; James Conlon

ArtHaus Musik 101 529

“Trust the text!” – this much repeated, often ignored theatrical incantation proves its wisdom in the Braunfels opera The Birds. Too frequently, composers, directors and producers think that the play’s strength is not nearly enough for its success. Hence, we are frequently left scratching our heads. Just a few seasons ago, the Stratford Festival staged the almost 2,500 year old play by Aristophanes in a truly bizarre fashion that led my seat companion to call it “Sesame Street on acid.” Fortunately, Walter Braunfels was a man of tradition. While the Viennese School was transforming music of the early 20th century with their atonal experiments, Braunfels fully embraced German Romanticism. When The Birds premiered in 1920, none other than Bruno Walter conducted and lavished extreme praise on the work and its author. Alas, Walter Braunfels, as one of Germany’s assimilated Jews, stood no chance against the regime that emerged in the 1930s. His brutal dismissal and almost complete purge of his works from the public realm, was not overturned in the composer’s lifetime and the first post WWII production of The Birds took place in 1971, seventeen years after his death.

In this production for the Los Angeles Opera, both conductor James Conlon and the stage director, Darko Tresnjak, treat Braunfels’ work with the same respect he had shown for Aristophanes. By playing up to its Romantic tradition and easy charm, the best of Braunfels the composer and Braunfels the author is on display. The strong cast, especially Désirée Rancatore as Nightingale and Brandon Jovanovich as Good Hope, only emphasize the reasons why Braunfels’ return to the stage, while long overdue, is much appreciated.

The Business of Angels - English Recorder Music from the Stuart Era

Alison Melville; Lucas Harris; Nadina Mackie Jackson; Borys Medicky; Joëlle Morton

Pipistrelle Music PIP1110

The recorder enjoyed great popularity in the Stuart Era and many instructional manuals and collections with repertoire of excellent quality were published in London. The preface of one such, The Genteel Companion, printed by Henry Salter in 1683, provided this recording with its title... “Musick, beloved of Heaven, for it is the business of angels; desired on earth as the most charming pleasure of men.” And while the recorder may have been fairly accessible, it takes a skilled and sensitive hand to do justice to an art of heavenly origins. And who better in modern times to lend a light and supple touch than local virtuoso Alison Melville, accompanied by Lucas Harris, guitar and archlute; Borys Medicky, harpsichord; Joëlle Morton, bass viol; and Nadina Mackie Jackson, baroque bassoon.

One of the delightful aspects of a cosmopolitan city like London in the 17th and 18th centuries was the constant trading and intermarrying of styles, creating new perspectives on traditional forms. Thus we have French-born composers like Luis Mercy setting Scottish ayres, and theatrical pieces such as Handel’s Rinaldo overture made especially delightful when transcribed for more intimate performance. Melville has scoured through ancient collections to gather sweet and refined sonatas by James Paisible, Godfrey Finger and William Topham set alongside Corelli’s well-loved Folia, and complemented by jaunty Divisions on popular grounds by Eccles and Tollett. A lively and charming portrayal of London’s sweeter side.

Bach - Famous Works on Pedal Harpsichord

Luc Beauséjour

Analekta AN 2 9970

This fascinating recording celebrates the essential triumvirate of a complete and satisfying musical experience: composer/performer/instrument. Recorded entirely on a pedal harpsichord completed in 2009 by the brilliant and prolific Montreal instrument-maker Yves Beaupré, the program tours some of Bach’s best-loved keyboard works.

The excellent French Canadian harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour enjoys an international career and is known for his virtuosity, as well as being a probing and thoughtful performer. He dives boldly into the full and rich sound world of the pedal harpsichord, a robust and powerful instrument that makes up in heft and colour what it lacks in delicacy.

From the profound and familiar opening notes of the D minor Toccata, Beauséjour’s playing sparkles with precision, intensity and beauty. Two substantial Prelude and Fugue sets (BWV 541 and 535) and a generous selection of chorale preludes follow. In the latter it is at times difficult to apprehend the chorale tunes in the midst of the surrounding material, the sound colours being so identical. The recording concludes however with a spectacular performance of the monumental C Minor Passacaille, BWV 582.

There is a relentless intensity to the sound of the pedal harpsichord which may make this recording not to everyone’s taste, but the remarkably free and deeply musical playing of Beauséjour carries the day for me, making this CD a unique and valuable effort.

Bach - Flute Sonatas

Joshua Smith; Jory Vinikour; Ann Marie Morgan; Allison Guest Edberg

Delos DE 3408

This is Joshua Smith’s second disc of Bach’s flute music, the first of which covered the sonatas with obbligato harpsichord (Delos 3402). This newer offering features the E major, E minor and C major sonatas for flute and basso continuo. Smith does a remarkable job with these, which so often suffer from heavy-handedness and lack of imagination when performed on the modern flute. His playing is delightfully devoid of extreme vibrato and heavy-handed articulation, and displays a consistently thoughtful understanding of the music’s underlying harmonic structure. In some of the faster movements the passagework could perhaps use a little more variety in its shaping, and some of the allegros were too close to presto for my taste. But Smith’s attentive phrasing and expressive delicacy, particularly in the slower movements, more than make up for these small caveats. He is also brilliantly accompanied by colleagues Jory Vinikour, harpsichord, and Ann Marie Morgan, baroque cello, and the trio’s teamwork is pretty close to flawless.

An extra treat included on this recording is the C minor trio sonata from the Musical Offering (BWV 1079), in which Smith, Vinikour and Morgan are joined by baroque violinist Allison Guest Edberg. Theirs is a first-rate recording of this magnificent piece, in which the bigger arcs of structure and harmony happily coincide with deftly outlined musical nuance.

It’s not every day that a modern flutist gives Bach a performance that makes a traverso player happy, but Joshua Smith does so with consummate skill and aplomb.

Moonlight Fantasies - Beethoven; Schumann; Chopin

Ian Parker

Azica ACD-71264

In Canadian music circles the name Parker has almost come to be synonymous with high standards of excellence in the field of piano performance, all stemming from the renowned Vancouver-based pedagogue Edward Parker. Edward’s two nephews, Jon Kimura and James, have already earned international reputations. Now Ian, his son, continues the tradition, and this new recording “Moonlight Fantasies” proves that he is indeed a worthy follower in the family footsteps.

Ian began studying the piano with his father, and later continued at the Juilliard School, where he was the winner of the Gina Bachauer Piano Scholarship Competition. He made his debut at Lincoln Centre in 2004, and has since gone on to perform throughout North America and Europe. This disc, which features music by Beethoven, Schumann, and Chopin, is a delight. Beethoven’s two sonatas Op.27, including the famous “Moonlight,” show a polished and sensitive approach, while the great Fantasie in C Op. 17 by Robert Schumann combines a technical brilliance with deeply-rooted sensitivity. Whether or not Chopin’s Fantasie Op.49 is his greatest work is open to debate, but Parker’s interpretation would surely meet with the approval of all Chopin aficionados, myself included. My only quibble – and it’s a minor one- is the speed at which he takes the thrice–heard lyrical secondary theme in this piece. Although I would have preferred a little easing up of tempo, this is a minor point, and in no way mars an exemplary performance.

Well done, Mr. Parker. Like your older cousins, you have proved yourself a credit to the family name.

Bruckner - Symphony No.8

Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montreal; Yannick Nézet-Séguin

ATMA ACD2 2513

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a young, very talented French Canadian conductor from Montreal, student of the great Giulini, who in a short few years has had a meteoric rise: first as Gergiev’s appointed successor for the Rotterdam Philharmonic and now as Chef d’Orchestre for the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra. Last fall he was invited to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic and with rousing success.

The Canadian recording company ATMA Classique has been lucky to snap him up and made several recordings with him, all given high esteem and international prizes. One of these is Bruckner’s immense 8th Symphony, a formidable task for even the most experienced conductor, and the result is spectacular.

“Bruckner is all about space” says the artist and the recording makes us feel it with its reverberant church acoustics. Nowhere have I heard the ending, where Bruckner’s gods make their triumphant entry to Walhalla, so full, so uplifting, and all bells ringing, like the whole universe coming together. “No, it’s not an end,” says the conductor, “but heralds a beginning of a new era” perhaps unintentionally paraphrasing Winston Churchill. There are many exquisite moments, like the pp fleeting rush of strings that introduce the scherzo theme, a theme that’s repeated endlessly, never twice the same, in a steady crescendo. Or the prayer-like, hushed Adagio, one of the most intensely beautiful selections of music ever written that builds over 23 minutes to an earth shattering ff climax.

A triumphant recording. Best yet in his Bruckner cycle.

Mahler - Symphony No.2

Kate Royal; Magdalena Kožená; Rundfunkchor; Berliner Philharmoniker; Simon Rattle

EMI 6 47363 2

Mahler - Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Sarah Connolly; Dietrich Henschel; Orchestre des Champs-Élysées; Philippe Herreweghe

Harmonia Mundi HMX 2901920

Mahler’s Second Symphony has a preeminent significance to Simon Rattle; it was the work that inspired him to become a conductor. Rattle’s interpretation of the work has always been refreshingly distinctive, with an organic plasticity that never descends into mere taffy-pulling. He takes some interpretive risks here, milking the impressive dissonance that heralds the recapitulation in the first movement at a very deliberate, stentorian pace while elsewhere revealing an obsession with details that are seldom heard in lesser interpretations. The Berlin musicians play like gods throughout. Rattle’s well-regarded 1987 EMI recording with the Birmingham SO is still revered for the presence of Arleen Auger and Dame Janet Baker as the vocal soloists. Alas, they don’t make voices like that these days; here the singers are Kate Royal and Magdalena Kožená (Sir Simon’s second wife), the latter quickly becoming a ubiquitous presence in several recent high-profile Mahler recordings. The symphony is spread over two discs, with the first movement alone occupying the first of these. The live performance (mercifully without applause or other audience intrusions) is exceptionally well recorded.

Harmonia Mundi has re-issued at a budget price Philippe Herreweghe’s 2006 recording of the orchestral songs from Mahler’s settings of folk poetry from the popular 19th century anthology known in English as The Youth’s Magic Horn. The string section of Philippe Herreweghe’s Champs-Élysées orchestra is a reduced ensemble that performs in the imperturbable, “historically informed” manner, lending an exceptional transparency to the orchestral texture – though it must be said that Mahler himself cared little for interpretive historical precedents. The powerful voice of Dieter Henschel brings a swaggering authority in the military songs while Sarah Conolly’s honey-hued tone provides ample rustic charm to the lighter numbers. While Herreweghe’s precise accompaniment falls a bit short dramatically in comparison to the classic Szell, Bernstein or Abbado performances this unique and admirably recorded disc is nonetheless well worth owning.

Live Recordings 1963-2006

Zubin Mehta; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Helicon Classics 02-9625

To honour Zubin Mehta’s 40th Anniversary as Music Director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Helicon Classics has assembled this set of thirty-seven live performances selected from Mehta’s expansive repertoire, from Vivaldi to now.

Heard are soloists Arie Vardi, Yefin Bronfman, Radu Lupu, Alicia de Larrocha, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Chaim Taub, Daniel Benyamini, Marjana Lipovšek, Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yehudi Menuhin, Lyn Harrell, Stella Richmond, Mischa Maisky, and many more. The set includes a disc of music by Israeli composers. Available space precludes listing the works but among the standouts is Bloch’s Schelomo, enjoying a blazing interpretation by cellist Mischa Maisky supported by Mehta and a white-hot orchestra. It’s one for the books. The Verdi Requiem was recorded at an open-air performance in July of 1968 given in Manger Square in front of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity following a call for peace in the Holy Land. The concert started late so as not to disturb the call to prayer from the adjacent Jamma El Omar mosque. The soloists are Martina Arroyo, Shirley Verrett, Richard Tucker, and Bonaldo Giaiotti. This performance generated headlines and is included as a significant event. The recorded sound in this case is merely adequate.

There is an overall characteristic bloom around each of these performances and a distinct impression that the musicians are attentive to each other. Perhaps it is this and their esprit de corps that has resulted in the orchestra’s identifiable patina on every performance heard on these discs.

This is an attractive collection of idiomatic performances of mostly familiar works, well played and well recorded. Complete details of the contents at www.heliconclassics.com.

Chausson - Concert; Mathieu - Trio & Quintette

Alain Lefèvre; David Lefèvre; Quatuor Alcan

Analekta AN 2 9286

Son of Montreal composer/pedagogue Rodolphe Mathieu, André (1929-1968) realized prodigious achievements as a child pianist and composer. Paris critic Émile Vuillermoz dubbed the ten-year-old Mathieu “The Canadian Mozart” following a piano recital of his original compositions.

The Piano Trio and Piano Quintet were written in his early 20s. The words “passionate” and “luxuriant” have stayed with me throughout my encounter with this music. Mathieu’s emotional range and the delicate interplay of instruments make the Trio absorbing listening. I especially enjoyed the slow sections, including some mystical proto-minimalism, as brought to life by pianist Alain Lefèvre, violinist Laura Andriani, and cellist David Ellis.

For the virtuosic Quintet the Alcan Quartet join Lefèvre in a powerful performance. In this exciting piece I hear Debussy and the Stravinsky of the Firebird. Would Mathieu’s career have progressed more effectively had he studied with Messiaen or Dutilleux? Regardless, we are now privileged to celebrate anew André Mathieu’s youthful musical genius.

Chausson’s similarly virtuosic Concert is described in Lucie Renard’s program notes as being “akin to a concerto for piano and violin” with string quartet; here violinist David Lefèvre joins the Quintet musicians. I love Chausson’s imaginative treatment of the stark three-note opening motif, which could have become clunky and maudlin in lesser hands. The assembled forces capture wonderfully the drama of the opening movement, antique glory of the Sicilienne, profundity of the slow movement, and intensity of the Finale on this outstanding disc.

Sir William Walton was still a teenage undergraduate at Oxford when he started his first string quartet in 1919. Completed in 1922, its few performances were unsatisfactory, and despite several cuts and revisions the quartet was withdrawn by the composer. It was revived in its revised version after Walton’s death in 1983, but the Doric String Quartet performs the premiere recording of the full-length original version on Walton String Quartets (Chandos CHAN 10661). Despite the composer’s negative assessment – it was, he said, “full of undigested Bartok and Schoenberg” – it’s a fascinating and extremely challenging three-movement work, with a massive and astonishing fugal finale that isn’t out of place besides Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge. Dating from the mid-1940s, Walton’s second quartet is, not surprisingly, from a different world, and more in the language that we associate with the mature composer. There is contrapuntal skill here too, though, together with Walton’s usual lyricism. The Doric Quartet is superb in both works, and beautifully recorded. This is a significant addition to the catalogue of 20^th century string quartet recordings.

The wonderful Philippe Graffin is back with another fascinating CD of little-known works. Last month it was English violin concertos, this time it’s Rare French Works for violin and orchestra, with Thierry Fischer conducting the Ulster Orchestra (Helios CDH55396). The works themselves may be little-known, but only Ernest Guiraud lacks stature as a composer. Fauré’s single-movement Violin Concerto in D minor is here – the second movement is lost, the third never written – as are Lalo’s three-movement Fantaisie norvegienne and his Guitarre, and Saint-Saëns’ Morceau de concert. The best surprises, though, are Guiraud’s beautiful two-movement Caprice, and Joseph Canteloube’s gorgeous Poème, the latter giving the lie to the composer’s apparent doubts about his melodic abilities. Graffin is superb throughout, with a rapid vibrato and a crystal-clear lustrous tone, dazzling in the higher registers, and with an obvious empathy for these seldom-heard but utterly delightful pieces. Recorded in 2001, this is apparently a re-issue of a 2002 disc; if you missed it the first time around, don’t make the same mistake this time.

JoAnn Falletta and Michael Ludwig, conductor and concert-master respectively of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, combined for an outstanding Naxos CD of the Dohnanyi Violin Concertos a few years ago, and now they’re back with the music of Czech composer Josef Suk (1874-1935), this time with their own orchestra (Naxos 8.572323). Suk studied with Dvořák, who later became his father-in-law, and continued the Czech school of Dvořák and Smetana while managing to accommodate the influences of his contemporaries Mahler, Richard Strauss and Debussy. Ludwig is outstanding in the Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra in G minor, and also takes the solo line in the opening movement of the four-movement suite Pohadka (Fairy Tale), compiled from incidental music Suk wrote for a theatrical work in 1898. The orchestral Fantastic Scherzo in G minor rounds out another immensely satisfying CD from this terrific team.

Fantasy is also the title of a new CD from the UK-based Japanese violinist Kaoru Yamada and pianist Sholto Kynoch (Stone Records 5060192780017) that features “Fantasy” works by Messiaen, Schoenberg and Schubert. The three Messiaen titles are early works springing from his relationship with the violinist Claire Delbos, with whom he toured in the early 1930s, and whom he married in 1932. La Mort du nombre, a setting of Messiaen’s own text, adds soprano and tenor to the duo; the influence of Fauré and Debussy is quite evident. Theme et variations is much more typical of Messiaen’s later (and instantly recognizable) style, with long, high melodic lines against steady, widely-spread piano chords and a wide dynamic range. Fantasie was believed lost, but recently discovered and published in 2007. Schoenberg’s Phantasy dates from 1949, and is typical late Schoenberg: assured, but technically challenging writing for both players. The two Schubert works seem a bit isolated after the fully committed performances of the 20^th century material. The four-movement Fantasie has a set of variations based on Schubert’s own song, Sei mir gegrusst!, a somewhat pedestrian performance of the song itself ending the CD. Soprano Rhona McKail is the soloist for the latter, and is joined by tenor Nicky Spence in the Messiaen.

I certainly wasn’t expecting a Best of James Ehnes CD, but that’s what Analekta has given us with SELECTIONS (AN 2 9768), consisting entirely of material from previous Ehnes CDs. The Saint-Saëns Havanaise and Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso, and the Massenet Meditation are the only sizeable complete works; everything else is basically snippets of Bach, Dvořák and Kreisler. Presumably the hope is that if you like this, you’ll rush out and buy the previous CDs, but if you do really like Ehnes then you’ve probably already got them. Well, at least they didn’t call it James Ehnes’ Greatest Hits.

In these days of specialized instrumental soloists we tend to forget that for hundreds of years virtually all of the major violin virtuosi were also quite competent – and sometimes outstanding – composers: Vivaldi, Corelli, Tartini, Viotti, Paganini, Joachim, Hubay, Vieuxtemps, Sarasate, Spohr, Wieniawski, Ysaÿe, Kreisler, Enescu… and that’s only a partial list. Most violinists know the music of Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831) only as students grappling with his Etudes, although his name is more famously attached to the Beethoven Op.47 Sonata, which Beethoven dedicated to him. Kreutzer, along with Viotti and Rode, was in at the start of the French violin concerto in the early 1780s, and Naxos has issued a CD of his last three Violin Concertos, Nos. 17-19, with the US-based German violinist Axel Strauss and the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra under Andrew Mogrelia (8.570380). No.17, in G major, is quite brief and sounds a lot like Paganini without the fireworks. No.18, in E minor, is more substantial, but in much the same vein, and No.19, in D minor, is somewhat reminiscent of Schumann and Mendelssohn. Axel Strauss does as well as you can possibly expect with material that, truth be told, does not immediately strike you as being anything other than wholly competent. The booklet notes tell us that “Kreutzer’s final three violin concertos are among his greatest achievements as a composer;” one is tempted to wonder what the other 16 are like. Apparently, we’ll be able to find out: Naxos plans to record all of them. Gulp.

Armenian cellist Alexander Chaushian is teamed with Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin on a hybrid SACD of Russian Cello Sonatas (BIS-SACD-1858), featuring works by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Borodin. Their playing has the strength, warmth and conviction that these pieces need, and they are beautifully recorded. The balance felt a bit “pro-piano” at first, but it only served to underline that these are piano/cello duos, and not solo cello pieces with piano accompaniment. Rachmaninov’s G minor sonata opens the disc, and his Vocalise closes it. In between we have two works that couldn’t be more different. The Borodin Sonata in B minor is a real oddity: the manuscript, apparently, has survived only in “fragmentary form” and this performance is of the version completed by Russian composer and musicologist Mikhail Goldstein in 1982, “with a slightly abbreviated finale” whatever that means. How much is Borodin, and how much Goldstein, who knows? An earlier Goldstein “discovery” turned out to be his own work. What’s more, the material itself is quite strange. While doing post-doctoral scientific research in Heidelberg around 1860, Borodin lived next door to a violinist who kept playing the Bach G minor unaccompanied violin sonata; the fugue subject fascinated Borodin, and it forms the basis for the cello sonata, appearing in each of the three movements – in fact, it starts the first and third movements. The second movement, however, opens as pure Norwegian Grieg! Quite a stylistic feat. The Shostakovich D minor sonata, his first major chamber work, points the way to the composer’s future in more ways than one: written in 1934, it hints at the distinctive style that was to come, but it was also the work Shostakovich was touring with the cellist Viktor Kubatsky in 1936 when Pravda printed the attack on his music that would forever change his life.

Brilliance

Duo Gaulin-Riverin

Analekta AN 2 9953

This aptly titled first release by Duo Gaulin-Riverin showcases the “brilliance” of saxophonist Mathieu Gaulin and pianist Jacynthe Riverin. Both musicians possess a love of their instruments and of the music they are playing. Their innate sense each other’s artistic strengths makes for passionate performances.

The repertoire featured could be described as “Saxophone and Piano Music 101,” a survey course of works written for the combination during the 20th century. The diverse compositional styles range from the parlour music sound of Rudy Wiedoeft's Valse Vanite to the romantic qualities of Fernande Breilh-Decruck's Sonata in C sharp to the more new music sounds of Piet Swerts’ Klonos. The strongest work is William Albright's Sonata which opens with a complicated Two-Part Invention that weaves its way through a number of moods to climax with the final movement Mad Dance, a short robust stomp that ends with a wail and a shout. Works by Jean Matitia, Paul Creston and Ida Gotkovsky are also featured.

The liner notes describe the duo’s goal of remaining accessible while presenting “an eclectic and varied repertoire.” Here’s hoping they now commission and record works written especially for them. That’s when their musical stars should really begin to shine brilliantly. In the meantime, Gualin’s impeccable breath control and Riverin’s singing florid phrases will keep the listener engaged.

Moto Perpetuo

David Childs

Salvationist Publications DOYEN DOY CD262 (www.davidchilds.com)

A few months ago I had the pleasure of attending a concert by the Hannaford Street Silver Band which featured euphonium soloist David Childs. With the memory of that breathtaking performance still fresh in my mind, I then received a CD by this amazing young Welsh virtuoso. From Paganini to Stephen Foster, David Childs shines a bright light on the broad spectrum of musical qualities of his instrument. Performing with the famous Cory Band, under the direction of his father Robert Childs, David explores the qualities of this underrated member of the brass family. The opening, dazzling, title track of the Paganini Moto Perpetuo left my head spinning. I could not operate my brain with such dexterity let alone my fingers. In contrast, the Lament by contemporary Welsh composer Karl Jenkins is one of the most lyrical solos I have ever heard on that instrument. Originally written as soprano solo in Jenkins’ Stabat Mater, this instrumental arrangement is my favourite on the record. Similarly, the Benedictus from Jenkins’ highly acclaimed The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace highlights the soloist’s ability to display the finest lyrical qualities of his instrument. The CD also features a new concerto for euphonium by Jenkins which was commissioned by David Childs.

The Hollywood Flute of Louise DiTullio

Louise DiTullio; Sinfonia Toronto; Ronald Royer

Cambria CD-1194 (www.cambriamus.com)

Louise DiTullio, the flutist of choice of many Hollywood film composers, including John Williams, over the course of a fifty year career, has played over 1,200 film scores. On this CD you can hear why she was in such demand: her sound, enlivened by a very organic vibrato, is pure and full and at the same time simple and unaffected. She plays the haunting themes from John Barry’s Dances with Wolves with enormous dignity, avoiding the temptation to slip into sentimentality. She is also capable of stunning virtuosity, as in The Lost Boys Chase, from John Williams’ score for Hook.

The CD was recorded two years ago with orchestra – Sinfonia Toronto augmented by woodwind and brass players from the TSO – conducted by Toronto conductor and composer, Ron Royer. Royer did all but one of the arrangements and also contributed a four-movement composition, Short Stories, one each for piccolo, concert, alto and bass flutes. In these the orchestration is masterful and the writing for all four solo instruments is fluent and idiomatic.

There is one other piece on the CD that was not composed for film, Laurence Rosenthal’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, for unaccompanied flute. Rosenthal, who is a film composer, gave a copy to Ms. DiTullio after a recording session. She has since performed it many times. This piece definitely deserves to become part of the standard repertoire for solo flute.