La Zingarella: Through Romany Songland
Isabel Bayrakdarian; Gryphon Trio; Juan-Miguel Hernandez; Mark Fewer
Avie Records AV2506 (avie-records.com/releases/la-zingarella-through-romany-songland)

Gypsies, Romanies, Zigeuner, Gitans – however they were named, the peripatetic people from north India who entered and traversed Europe in medieval times were everywhere scorned as mountebanks, maligned as thieves. Nevertheless, the wanderers’ music, with its exotic timbres, vibrant rhythms and soulful melodies, has been an enduring source of inspiration for innumerable composers, including the 11 on this CD.

Multi-Juno-winning soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, singing here in German, Czech, Spanish, French and English, is joined by violinist Mark Fewer, violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez and the Gryphon Trio performing vigorous, freshly created instrumental arrangements by Peter Tiefenbach and John Greer.

Accounting for 15 of the disc’s 27 tracks are two song-cycle masterworks known in English as “Gypsy Songs” – Brahms’ Zigeunerlieder, Op.103 and Dvořák’s Cigánské melodie, Op.55 (including the much-loved Když mne stará matka – “Songs My Mother Taught Me”). Three sassy, saucy Spanish songs by Sebastián Iradier are especially ingratiating; the third, El arreglito (Canción habanera), was the tune Georges Bizet borrowed and slightly modified for the CD’s following track – the Habanera from Carmen!

Bayrakdarian is in fine voice and exuberant high spirits for these mostly high-spirited selections, yet poignant or sensuous when appropriate. Songs by Franz Liszt, Joaquín Valverde and Henry F.B. Gilbert, plus arias from operettas by Maurice Yvain, Franz Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán and Victor Herbert, all reflect these composers’ admiration (not “appropriation”) of a marginalized ethnic minority’s distinctively spicy, rhapsodic music. This exhilarating cross-cultural excursion is enthusiastically recommended!

Jonathan Berger; Harriet Scott Chessman – Mỹ Lai
Kronos Quartet; Vân-Áhn Vanessa Vo; Rinde Eckert
Folkways SFW CD 40251 (folkways.si.edu)

Every once and a while the invisible cosmic forces align in such a manner as to create art that is spectacularly dark and forbidding, yet utterly irresistible and monumental. For the operetta Mỹ Lai those forces fuelled its composers, the musician Jonathan Berger and the librettist Harriet Scott Chessman, who conspired to bring Mỹ Lai back to life with the great Kronos Quartet, traditional Vietnamese instrumentalist Vân Ánh Vanessa Võ and the ineffably brilliant vocalist Rinde Eckert. 

Ordinarily you would credit any operetta as having a fairly linear narrative line. But Mỹ Lai is no ordinary operetta. It is a revelation of an open wound in the history of the Vietnam War, one in which US soldiers’ massacred 504 South Vietnamese civilians in Mỹ Lai village. 

On this recording the terrifying narrative is woven into the howl of the Kronos strings and the roar of Eckert’s singing – voicing several characters who were involved in or witnessed the event. Meanwhile the evocative percussion colours of Võ’s instruments add an eerie contrapuntal voice, redolent of delicate tintinnabulation and ghostly echoes of mallets on metal keys,

Highly charged performances by the Kronos and Võ, employing the sound-mass textures of Berger’s orchestral work and the unearthing of the naked horror in Chessman’s libretto by Eckert, together make Mỹ Lai an unforgettable work of art. It is the most powerfully moving anti-war palimpsest since Picasso painted Guernica. 

Global Wagner: From Bayreuth to the World
A Film by Axel Brüggemann
Naxos 2.110708 (naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=2.110708)

German director/scriptwriter/filmmaker Axel Brüggemann made this documentary film almost 140 years after composer Richard Wagner’s death. Brüggemann offers a look at and listen to Wagner’s life, music and his Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, by exploring and filming backstage at rehearsals and performances, and including countless Wagnerite fans, international Wagner societies around the world today and individual viewpoints about the enigmatic, controversial composer. Mostly in German with no voiceovers, the subtitles in English (among other languages) are legible.

Brüggemann’s journalistic documentary approach, with colourful scenic visuals throughout, is to be commended. The film opens in Venice, where Wagner lived, loving the city’s calmness, with breathtaking city clips, including fascinating emotional footage from the room where he died in 1883. Then to Bayreuth with astounding aerial views. Other worldwide sites include Newark New Jersey, Riga Latvia, Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv and Tokyo, with these city visuals complementing interviews, concerts and fans, making this a “never leave your home” trip around the world. And the background Wagner music performances are perfect!

Lots to learn from the interviews with such Wagnerites as Bayreuth artistic director /business manager Katharina Wagner, conductor Christian Thielemann, operatic bass-baritone Kevin Maynor and American music critic Alex Ross, among others. Especially fun are day-to-day commentaries from Ulrike and Georg Rauch who own a butcher shop near the festival theatre. Emotional contrasting footage is of Jerusalem-based Jewish lawyer and chairman/founder of the Israel Wagner Society, Jonathan Livny, who is quoted in the liner notes as saying “Wagner was a terrible person but he wrote heavenly music.”

And viewers get up-close looks at rehearsals and performances. We see the Bayreuth orchestra musicians rehearse and set volume and dynamic levels, we watch stage hands move and place sets and hear director commentaries during sung/acted rehearsals and subsequent performance footage in the acoustically unique theatre. All are eye-opening. Lots of packed crowds of well-dressed fans of (surprisingly) all ages to see entering the theatre.

Short fragmented music, visuals and interview cuts are joined seamlessly together, making this an easy group of stories for all to follow about the world’s fascination for Wagner today.

Beethoven: The Symphonies
Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Deutsche Grammophon (deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/beethoven-the-symphonies-nezet-seguin-12724)

The summer of 2021 was not an easy one so it isn’t hard to imagine the excitement the Chamber Orchestra of Europe must have felt when it came together to record a new version of the nine Beethoven Symphonies with none other than Yannick Nézet-Séguin, one of the most expressive and thoughtful conductors on the scene today, someone capable of truly joyous music-making. Add to this the backing of Deutsche Grammophon and you have the makings of a wonderful project: the first recording of the New Complete Edition of the Symphonies, painstakingly prepared for the Beethoven celebrations in 2020.

What is new in this edition? As a contrabassoonist myself, I’m delighted to say that the program notes make quite a lot of the fact that the most noticeable change is a much-expanded role for the contrabassoon in the Ninth Symphony. Designated contrabassoon parts in Beethoven’s hand exist for the finales of the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies but the liner notes point out that Beethoven created tailor-made versions of the Ninth for various specific performances and that the new contra part is an amalgam of six different contra parts from Beethoven’s day. I was curious to find out if these changes are audible: bad contrabassoon playing quickly makes itself obvious but a well-rendered contra part can make a performance seem rich or deep without the listener knowing exactly why. Such is the case in this set. I deliberately listened to the Ninth without any clue as to where the contra has been added, just to see if I could hear anything new and I’m happy to say that I did. Behind the baritone‘s first solo after the recitative, there is definitely more of a “spine” in the bassline, and at the Turkish March, one can hear that the contra has been moved up an octave as it used to appear in older editions. 

Are there other audible changes in this edition? In the second movement of the Ninth, the repeats have been sorted out (559 bars total vs. 954) and there is a diminuendo in the tympani part which I don’t recognize. As far as the rest of the set goes, there is an unusual ornament in the third movement of the Seventh Symphony but otherwise most listeners won’t notice anything strikingly unusual. There are many lovely turns of articulation but it’s hard to say whether this is because of changes to the edition or just good musicianship. Tempos are not always what Beethoven called for but they are always appropriate with the exception of a rather slow third movement in the Fifth. Interestingly, this tempo gives a great sense of relief when it returns in the last movement so perhaps that was YN-S’s intent. Another surprise comes at the start of the second movement of the Eroica where the grace notes in the basses seem to arrive after the downbeat: an interpretation that is, well, puzzling.

The playing of the orchestra is wonderful: tight ensemble in the strings, characterful woodwind solos, discreet brass and incisive tympani playing. My main concern is with the way the orchestra has been recorded. Producer Andrew Mellor seems to prefer a mix that locates the listener very close to the first violin section often making the firsts too present and the rest of the orchestra too vague. This is particularly true of the lower woodwinds and the horns, making many of the chorale passages sound unblended and rendering more than one duet as more of a solo with only a hint of the second line. And before you dismiss me as being partisan, I can assure you that many other recordings sound, to my ears, much more homogenous and portray the winds and strings as more equal teams. Ultimately, the buck stops with YN-S, but I’m more inclined to question the engineering.

If you can listen past the balance issues, or if it sounds just fine to you on your system, you will be rewarded with much grace and humour and some thrilling moments: the whole First Symphony is a delight and the first movement of the Seventh is pure joy. The funeral march of the Eroica seems to have a special depth to it, as you might expect, and the singing in the Ninth is first-rate, possibly because of details added in this edition. I particularly love the qualities of Florian Boesch’s baritone voice which give an almost tenor-ish spring to his solo and I have never heard a more nuanced and articulate version of the Ninth’s celli/bassi recitative.

The Year That Never Was
Matei Varga
Sono Luminus DSL-93358 (sonoluminus.com)

An eclectic, highly personal recording from Romanian pianist Matei Varga is intended “to bring joy when we really need it… to take [the] mind away from current realities.” As such, Varga offers an attractively curated disc of miniature delights, from Gershwin to Chopin to Scarlatti. The contemporary content on this disc is sourced from the salon-styled pen of Cuban master, Ernesto Lecuona and Romanian composer, Andrei Tudor, whose Ronda alla Crazy is featured as a quirky micro-highlight. This three-minute swinging track encapsulates a veritable brand of crazy, born of pandemic freneticism. (It was even delivered to Matei by the composer via Facebook Messenger!) 

Ernesto Lecuona’s music was a new (pandemic) discovery for Varga, and one that centres the vision for the record. Varga is at home in this off-beat repertoire, imputing characteristic charm and improvisatorial ease to Lecuona’s 19th Century Cuban Dances. Here, interwoven with Chopin’s “salon” music, the pairing of both composers brings credibility to Lecuona. It is a clever juxtaposition, framing Chopin less seriously and Lecuona more so. Varga reminds us that much of Chopin’s art originated from smaller stages and gentil spaces, sporadically populated by aristocrats who desired to be amused, not feverously stirred.

Varga’s signature pianism is apt in arguing for seemingly disparate musical threads. More of a recital program than a thematically directed album, The Year That Never Was nonetheless achieves satisfaction, executed with much joy and a tasteful, rollicking fondness for this personalized set list.

Musical Remembrances
Neave Trio
Chandos CHAN 20167 (chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2020167)

Recorded in 2021 at Potton Hall, England and released on Chandos Records, their fourth for the label, Musical Remembrances by the Neave Trio (Anna Williams, violin; Mikhail Veselov, cello; and Eri Nakamura, piano) captures the trio in a reflective mood. The album is inspired by remembrance, both in terms of repertoire selection (Ravel’s Piano Trio in A Minor, Op.67 captures the French composer “remembering” his native Basque musical tradition) and in terms of remembering what a pre-pandemic world of touring and concertizing was like for musicians of the calibre and renown of the Neave Trio. And while speculative as this recording may be, it is anything but maudlin or melancholic – the dynamic chosen repertoire pops from the stereo speakers with the same clarity, purpose and confidence of delivery that earned their previous recording, Her Voice, a best recording of the year designation by both The New York Times and BBC Radio 3. 

Although the entire recording is excellent, it is the Brahms Piano Trio No.1 in B Major, Op.8 where the chamber group, to my ears, shines brightest, bringing out a range of musical emotions and drawing listener ears towards new musical ideas over four movements that always centre around excellence, but leave room for new discoveries. On the faculty now at the Longy School of Music of Bard College, let us hope that this terrific trio continues to find the time to mine the depths of the great chamber music repertoire of Western Art Music and make recordings such as this that both delight and surprise.

Virtuosa Project
Infusion Baroque
Leaf Music LM246 (leaf-music.ca)

The piquant new release by Virtuosa, a period ensemble form Quebec, is part of their notable Virtuosa Project, a series of concerts, lectures and web videos dedicated to women musicians prior to the 20th century. In itself, this is an impressive undertaking featuring 14 compositions, stylish interpretations and tons of heartfelt energy. Almost all of the female composers on this album remained in the shadows of their male counterparts but brought just as much knowledge, skill and talent to the European courts and concert stages. Many were courageous and imaginative performers and composers who led financially independent lives and acquired noble reputations. This album features an all-star list of powerful and talented women composers, some of whom remain relatively unknown to audiences today: Anna Bon, Anna Amalia of Prussia, Wilhelmine von Bayreuth, Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen, Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, Leopoldine Blahetka, Teresa Milanollo, Hélène Liebmann and the better-known Clara Schumann. 

Ensemble Virtuosa is daring in both their programming and performance. The beauty of structure and phrasing is emphasized through a fantastic array of colours; the ensemble and their guest artists perform with a great sensitivity to each of the individual compositional languages. The inclusion of the contemporary piece Versailles written for Baroque instruments by Canadian Linda Catlin Smith is perhaps a surprising inclusion, but it works well as it binds together meditative and enigmatic feminine qualities, resulting in uniquely beautiful textural layers. 

Intuitive and reflective, Infusion Baroque celebrates the vibrant creativity and lives of these women.

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Lisztomania Vol.2
Hando Nahkur
HN Productions (handonahkur.com)

Hando Nahkur is a remarkable American pianist of Estonian origin. Actually, he has been enthusiastically reviewed on these pages in 2018 – his Lisztomania Vol.1 – and with this Vol.2 I can only reiterate and add to those accolades.

Nahkur’s credentials are too numerous to mention. As soloist and accompanist he has enchanted audiences, won competitions and received international awards. Franz Liszt is his favourite composer, and listening to this recording he certainly does more than justice to the repertoire. In fact since Estonians and Hungarians (and the Finns) are related, coming from the same roots, he must have some Magyar blood in him as he has such tremendous affinity and love for the great Hungarian composer.

According to our pianist the key to understanding Liszt is “from darkness to light” and nowhere is this more apparent than in his iconic Hungarian Rhapsodies inspired by folk tunes he picked up during his many visits to his homeland. Actually Rhapsody as a musical genre was invented by Liszt and later used by many composers. Generally these start out slowly (Lassu’) in the lower registers and gradually work toward sunlight when the pace quickens and turns into some frenetic Hungarian dance like the Csárdás and becomes an extremely difficult virtuoso piece with a spectacular ending. Hando does two of these, No.10 and my favourite No.12, played with gusto, total Romantic abandon and astoundingly perfect technique. Typical Liszt, those grace notes, rapid decorative passages that are cascading up and down the keyboard, paced perfectly evenly and light as a feather. The Liebestraum No.3 is played with loving tenderness and ardent passion and the big guns come out at the end in the Spanish Rhapsody that will lift you out of your seat.

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Stravinsky – L’Oiseau de feu; Apollon Musagète
Luxemburg Philharmonic Orchestra; Gustavo Gimeno
Harmonia Mundi HMM905303 (store.harmoniamundi.com/release/318357)

In June of 2019, Gustavo Gimeno conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in a powerful performance of Stravinsky’s 1945 suite from The Firebird. Last May, he led them in an even more memorable Firebird. This time, he took the podium as music director of the orchestra. And the version he chose was the less frequently programmed original that Stravinsky wrote in 1910 for Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes. It’s more than twice the length of any of the three concert suites Stravinsky later made. But this performance left me with no doubt – more was better.

On his standout new recording of The Firebird with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (where he is also music director), Gimeno again opts for the original full-length ballet score. Every moment speaks persuasively. Stravinsky’s tapestry of evocative Russian folk melodies, angular textures and infectious rhythms becomes an edge-of-the-seat experience. Colourful solos, like the rhapsodic flute welcoming the 13 captive princesses, and the volcanic timpani driving the frenzied dance of the evil sorcerer Koschei’s subjects, enhance the drama.

The pairing with Stravinsky’s equally groundbreaking ballet Apollon Musagète, written 18 years later, works brilliantly. Like The Firebird, it draws on ancient tales. But these tales are from Greek mythology. In The Firebird, goodness must overcome evil to triumph. Here, goodness prevails unchallenged. Instead of conflict there’s serenity. Instead of mystery, there’s clarity. It’s all conjured up luminously by Gimeno and the exquisite strings of the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg in gorgeous, sweeping brushstrokes.

Nazareno – Bernstein; Stravinsky; Golijov
Chris Richards; Katia and Marielle Labèque; London Symphony Orchestra; Sir Simon Rattle
LSO Live LSO 0836 (lso.co.uk)

Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO have released, concurrent with their Stravinsky: Early Ballets collection, a record offering a brief survey of the Afro-Latin influence on “serious” music of the last century. It includes two curiosities for clarinet: Prelude, Fugue and Riffs (1949) by Leonard Bernstein, and Ebony Concerto (1945) by Stravinsky. Both were commissioned by Woody Herman, and each lasts under ten minutes. They remain somewhat overlooked, perhaps on account of their offhand treatment of the solo instrument, or the fact that they both feature big band, not full orchestra. The two works are given a lively ride by LSO lead clarinetist Chris Richards and the decidedly non-orchestral backup, mainly of brass and saxes. 

Most of the disc is taken up by Nazareno (2009) a beautifully rendered adaptation (by Venezuelan composer Gonzalo Grau) of Osvaldo Golijov’s scintillating La Pasión según San Marcos (2000); this new rendering omits the vocals of the original cantata. Commissioned by Katia and Mireille Labèque, it’s scored for two pianos, Latin percussion section, plus winds and cello. Without text, I still hear how the music conveys the story of the Christian sacrifice. Powerful rhythmic dances abound, but behind the upbeat samba movements lies a much more sombre tone, especially in the slow ballad Sur. I won’t be surprised if a choreographer selects this score for a new dance work. It might serve as an answer to Stravinsky’s pagan vision of the sacrifice, made roughly a century ago.

The LSO, or the sections performing on this disc, give the selections punch and vigour. The soloists and percussionists are stars.

Mythes
Ariane Brisson; Olivier Hébert-Bouchard
ATMA ACD2 2842 (atmaclassique.com/en)

The flute has had a long and illustrious history as far back as prehistoric times and its appeal is again showcased on this attractive ATMA recording featuring transcriptions of compositions performed by flutist Ariane Brisson and pianist Olivier Hébert-Bouchard. Brisson was selected as “Découverte de l’année” at the Prix Opus 2019-2020 Gala and Grand Prize winner of the Prix d’Europe competition in 2013, while award-winning pianist Hébert-Bouchard is a founding member of Trio Émerillon and Prisma.

As the title implies, the disc partly pays homage to the worlds of fantasy and magic as seen through the eyes of five composers. It opens with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ haunting The Lark Ascending, music inspired by George Meredith’s 1881 poem of the same name. Here, the listener is immediately struck by Brisson’s warm and sonorous tone with Hébert-Bouchard providing a solid and sensitive partnership.

Ravel’s Sonatine was completed around 1905, and although originally scored for solo piano, the combination of flute and piano is an appealing one, particularly in the vivacious finale animé. Both Janáček’s Pohádka (A Tale) from 1912 and Debussy’s renowned Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune clearly prove that skilful arrangements can be as convincing as the originals.

The three-movement Mity (Myths) by Karol Szymanowski was inspired by Greek mythology and was originally scored for violin and piano. Here, Narcissus, Pan and the dryads all make an appearance in this highly impressionistic score. Once again, Brisson and Hébert-Bouchard prove a formidable pairing.

These are challenging times, so Mythes just might be a perfect means of briefly escaping into a better place – a welcome addition to the catalogue.

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Souvenirs d’Auguste Descarries
Isabelle David
Leaf Music LM250 (leaf-music.ca)

The name Auguste Descarries is probably not a familiar one to Canadian music lovers outside Quebec, but during his lifetime he enjoyed a considerable reputation as a conductor, composer and pedagogue. Born in Lachine in1896, he studied piano and organ in his youth and began studying law at the Université de Montréal. Yet upon winning the Prix d’Europe from the Académie de musique du Québec in 1921, he set off to study music in Paris where he remained until 1929. Upon his return, he established himself in the local music scene, his endeavours included private teaching, choral conducting at the Église Ste. Viateur and helping to create the music faculty at the Université de Montréal in 1950.

This recording on the Leaf Music label features 14 of his compositions written between 1918 and 1956 performed by Isabelle David whose grandmother had the good fortune of being one of his pupils. And who better to address this unfamiliar repertoire? David has devoted four years to the study of Descarries’ piano works.

These are musical gems, very much in the manner of late-19th-century French piano music. Do I hear echoes of Fauré and a nod to César Franck? What strikes the listener almost immediately is the wide range of contrasting moods among them, from the introspection of Au gré de l’onde and the pathos of Nostalgie to the buoyancy of Étude en sol majeur. Throughout, David displays a natural affinity for this music, her performance poised and elegant. Her formidable technique is evident in such pieces as the virtuosic Rhapsodie canadienne (transcribed by David herself) – clearly, many of these compositions were not intended for amateurs.

Souvenirs is a delight – a grand merci to David, not only for a fine performance, but for bringing to light a composer whose music most certainly deserves greater recognition.

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Personal Noise
Sarah Plum
Blue Griffin BGR619 (bluegriffin.com)

This fantastic new release by an ardent proponent of the contemporary violin repertoire, violinist Sarah Plum, is a must-have for everyone who loves meaningful sonic adventures. Personal Noise features works for violin and electronics, delivered via the imagination and composing pen of Kyong Mee Choi, Jeff Herriott, Mari Kimura, Eric Lyon, Eric Moe, Charles Nichols and Mari Takano. 

Works on this album came as a result of a personal connection between Plum and each composer and were either written for or commissioned by her. The exciting mixture of electronically processed sounds and extended contemporary violin techniques is further enhanced by imaginative and dynamic performance by Plum. And if you think there are no beautiful melodies on this album, you are wrong; distinct melodies and elements of beauty are present throughout. Layers upon layers of textures and colours make the music rich, dreamy, sometimes unpredictable, sometimes probing. Each composition features the explorative element of some kind, be it the notion of serendipity in music (Herriot’s after time: a resolution), paraphrasing of the melody from Bach’s Violin Sonata in B-Minor (Choi’s Flowering Dandelion), or articulation of the musical cryptogram spelling Sarah’s name (Lyon’s Personal Noise with Accelerants). Interactive electronics in Kimura’s Sarahal, along with violin trills, pizzicatos, arpeggiatos and harmonics, create colours to die for and a full sonorous sound.

Sarah Plum offers complex yet conceptually clear interpretations of these works. Her distinct style of playing allows for passion and lyricism in one bow stroke, a perfect personal noise.

Calques: Morton Feldman; Karl Naegelen
Quatuor Umlaut; Joris Rüůhl
Umlaut Records UMFR-CD 37 (umlautrecords.com)

Connecting the common threads between French composer Karl Naegelen’s Calques and US composer Morton Feldman’s Clarinet and string quartet, Paris-based Quatuor Umlaut and clarinetist Joris Rühl emphasize indeterminacy but add enough variations to counter shifts towards the soporific. Together violinists Amaryllis Billet and Anna Jalving, violist Fanny Paccoud and cellist Sarah Ledoux project a unison sound. Yet with shaded glissandi plus expanding and compressing textures, their harmonies can crackle like electronics or vibrate like a single long string. This serves as perfect counterpoint to the split tones, near inaudible whistles, hollow puffs and clarion peeps from Rühl, who is equally involved with free improvisation. The resulting shaded drone adds a warmer thrust to Naegelen’s composition, especially when it’s completed with a concentrated pipe-organ-like throb from all five.

Feldman’s piece often cushions woody clarinet tones within luminous coordinated string harmonies for a warmer and gentler exposition. While this gentling motif reappears frequently, other sequences have the layered strings shimmering upwards or the clarinetist moving from mid-range acquiescence to project tongue slaps and higher-pitched trilling arabesques. Sliding among the unison string coordination, these timbral reed variations create a darker interface as low-pitched cello strokes are contrasted with pizzicato plucks from the others’ elevated tones. Return to the initial indeterminate but repeated introductory passage confirms both the underlying malleability of what could be a static form and the urbanity of the musicians’ interpretation and linkage to a more contemporary composition.

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William Bolcom – Trio for Horn; Solo Violin Suite No.2
Steven Gross; Philip Ficsor; Constantine Finehouse
Naxos 8.579102 (naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.579102)

William Bolcom – The Complete Rags
Marc-André Hamelin
Hyperion CDA68391/2 (hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68391%2F2)

William Bolcom (b.1938) is a renowned American composer whose works are wide-ranging, genre-bending and utterly fascinating. While Bolcom’s compositions from around 1960 employed a modified serial technique, under the influence of Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio whose music he particularly admired, in the 1960s he gradually began to embrace an eclectic use of a wider variety of musical styles. In addition to four large-scale operas and numerous concertos, Bolcom has also written nine symphonies, twelve string quartets, four violin sonatas, numerous piano rags, four volumes of gospel preludes for organ, four volumes of cabaret songs, three musical theatre works and a one-act chamber opera.

Chamber Works features two pieces, the Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano (2017) and the Suite No. 2 for Solo Violin (2011). The Trio showcases each instrument to its fullest in both soloistic and ensemble capacities and, while mostly atonal, the work incorporates brief moments of tonality that reorient the listener’s ears and provide a grounding element, especially in the more tumultuous movements. The Suite, conversely, is exquisitely tuneful and is clearly structured around the dance forms of Baroque solo violin suites, especially those of J.S. Bach. Rhythmic vitality and instrumental virtuosity reign supreme here, and the performance given by violinist Philip Ficsor is both admirable and noteworthy.

The piano rag, (i.e. ragtime), is a musical style that reached its peak popularity between 1895 and 1919. A precursor to the development of jazz, ragtime is characterized by its syncopated or “ragged” rhythm and was popularized during the early 20th century by composer Scott Joplin and his school of classical ragtime. Although it fell out of favour in the 1920s, composers and performers alike have revived the styles and forms of the genre in the decades since, including Bolcom. His collection of rags is among the finest adaptations of ragtime within contemporary music, achieving a blend of stylistic familiarity and artistic creativity that is unique while avoiding appearing derivative or gauche.

And who better to handle Bolcom’s ingenious rags than Marc-André Hamelin, perhaps Canada’s premier interpreter of contemporary music? As someone who successfully handled the seemingly insurmountable piano works of Kaikhosru Sorabji and Charles-Valentin Alkan, Hamelin’s name is synonymous with “unplayable” scores that transcend the conventional understanding of virtuosity. Here, however, he lends his deft touch to material that is considerably less demanding from a technical perspective yet has certain stylistic requirements, the challenges of which he meets with precision and sensitivity.

For those familiar with the music of Bolcom, both of these recordings are guaranteed to be a delight; they also serve as fine starting points for those who are unfamiliar. The Complete Rags adapts an old yet familiar style through a master performer’s touch, while Chamber Works provides a glimpse into Bolcom’s more modern approach, a perfect pairing for anyone interested in this icon of American modernism.