Peaks and Valleys
Teri Parker’s Free Spirits
Modica Music (teriparkermusic.com)

Paying homage to two irreplaceable legends of improvised music, Peaks and Valleys is about as refreshing, moving and ingenious as a tribute can be. Playing two pieces each from the expansive works of Geri Allen and Mary Lou Williams, Toronto pianist Teri Parker’s group makes the absolute most of them, with these renditions being sobering in their clarity and the care taken in bringing out every nuance of the original recordings, while feeling like something entirely new is constantly taking place. 

Geri Allen’s classic Drummer’s Song starts out as exactly that, with Mackenzie Longpre’s exhilarating drum intro slyly and gradually implying the song’s central pulse, and then when Allison Au enters with the saxophone ostinato near the one-minute mark, everything somehow perfectly falls into place, a moment that captures that intangible feeling of rhythmic alchemy unique to Allen’s music, where a listener is fully along for the ride without ever entirely reaching an understanding of why all these moving parts are so perfect for each other. 

Parker’s own original pieces comprise the other half of the tracklist, with some containing more easily identifiable parallels to the album’s influences (Gemini II for example, both shares a title with an iconic Mary Lou Williams piece and an opening progression that could easily be a nod to her later period). Others, like the mesmerizing, goosebump-inducing Bear Hug, sound like a heartfelt message expressed entirely sonically, the kind that offers receiving ears a sense of belonging.

Brett Hansen – Confluence
Brett Hansen; Mallory Chipman; Chris Pruden; Murray Wood; Joel Jeschke; Luis Tovar
Independent (bretthansen.bandcamp.com/album/confluence)

Confluence, the debut album from Edmonton guitarist and composer Brett Hansen, has its roots in jazz, but also injects many folk, rock and impressionistic elements. Most of the tunes feature the voice of Mallory Chipman. Perfect Intentions floats through its opening with Chipman singing the wordless melody, rocks out briefly, and then quiets down for Hansen’s solo which works through several restrained jazz moods. Chris Pruden adds a sparkling piano solo before it ends as it began. Starbathing is a winding and exploratory duet featuring Joel Jeschke (drums) and Luis Tovar (percussion). Moonshower begins with some nice guitar work before evolving into another Brazilian-influenced melodic section with Chipman singing. Jane’s Song is more folk influenced beginning with an arpeggiated guitar section before moving into a jazzy sung melody. 

Confluence is an engaging album where all the musicians contribute to the jazz/folk/fusion vibe giving it a coherent and identifiable sound. I look forward to Hansen’s next release and wonder what other moods he and his musicians will conjure.

Portrait of Right Now
Jocelyn Gould
Independent JGCD2405 (jocelyngould.com)

Sporting a water-tight tracklist, a phenomenal rhythm section, captivating soloing and a swing feel that never ceases to compel the feet to move, Portrait of Right Now is yet another exceptional offering from guitarist Jocelyn Gould, who yet again is in complete control of her craft. 

Alongside a pair of beautifully interpreted standards, eight Gould originals can be found here, all featuring a thoroughly catchy approach to melodicism, as well as harmony that beguiles and eludes in equal measure, forcing the listener’s hand at keeping the repeat button firmly pressed as their day progresses. Largely exchanging solos between them for most of the album’s runtime, Gould and pianist Will Bonness are equal parts inimitable and playful, wowing with their fleet-fingered runs, while constantly turning heads with the clarity and audacity of their rhythmic ideas. 

Accompanying them is a linkup of Jared Beckstead-Craan on bass and Curtis Nowosad on drums, simply a beautiful partnership. They effortlessly sit directly on top of the time, providing a sturdy foundation for the adventurous phrasings of the chordal voices, while also exhibiting deep listening, never missing a beat, a notion or an opportunity to jump on a synchronized comping figure. This album has the added benefit of sounding virtually perfect, with each instrument given ample room in the mix to articulate everything to the last syllable, and the physicality of every note played is palpable. What a breeze.

Cookin’ at the Queen’s Live in Las Vegas 1984 &1988
Emily Remler
Resonance Records HCD-2076 (resonancerecords.org/product/emily-remlercookin-at-the-queens-live-in-las-vegas-1984-1988-2cd)

Gifted jazz guitarist, Emily Remler, left this earthly coil in 1990 at the tender age of 34, having already established herself as one of the finest jazz musicians of her time. Embodying elements of the guitarists that she idolized, she blazed her own successful trail. Remler once said, “I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, but inside I’m a 50-year-old, heavyset black man with a big thumb, like Wes Montgomery.”  

This archival, two-disc recording project just released on Resonance Record is co-produced (along with Zev Feldman) by noted jazz writer Bill Milkowski. Both discs were recorded live at The French Quarter Room in The Four Queens, located on the old Vegas strip on May 28, 1984 and September 19, 1988. It features a quartet with Remler on guitar, Cocho Arbe on piano, Putter Smith on bass and Tom Montgomery on drums, and also a trio format with Remler on guitar, Smith on bass and John Pisci on drums.  

Stand out tracks include a tasty, up-tempo, swinging arrangement of Autumn Leaves, with Remler fluidly incorporating influences here of Herb Geller all-the-while completely prescient of her own style. Also on this track is superb solo work from Arbe and Smith. Polka Dots and Moonbeams is a tender and vulnerable take on the Van Heusen and Burke classic, bringing to mind the great Lenny Breau, another guitar genius gone way too soon. Particularly inspired is the cooking medley of Tad Dameron’s Hot House and Cole Porter’s What Is This Thing Called Love. Remler is fearless, and takes no prisoners here – channeling her hero, Montgomery, all the while literally burning up the stage with her stultifying technique, taste and communicative sensibility. 

Incredibly moving is Gene DePaul’s You Don’t Know What Love Is. On this languid ballad, Remler’s emotional maturity and interpretive skill comes to the fore, while another stellar track is an up-tempo arrangement of Jerome Kern’s Yesterdays. Remler’s facile soloing is nothing short of breathtaking, and her intensity wrings the nuance out of every single note played or implied. This recording not only displays a great artist at perhaps the peak of her skills, but is also an essential part of jazz history.

Verdi Remix
Le Mirifique Orchestra; Alban Darche; Emmanuel Bénèche
Pepin & Plume P&P 009 (pepinetplume.bandcamp.com/album/verdi-remix)

Putting a new spin on the oeuvre of Giuseppi Verdi (1813-1901) is daunting, especially, if as French saxophonist Alban Darche has done, the transformation involves Le Mirifique Orchestra, which is only a nonet. Yet by inserting his own compositions among the familiar tunes and using different harmonies, polyrhythms and internal cycles to reorchestrate others, he’s created a standalone work. Transcending history these 14 melodies comfortably fit an ensemble of four brass, two reeds, plus flute, guitar and drums.

Without being reductive, the Verdi themes often move with a bouncy oomph, propelled by Matthias Quilbault’s tuba burps, and are given a swing and marching band foundation by Meivelyan Jacquot’s measured drumbeats. With many tracks expressed tutti or with emphasis such as Darche’s tremolo alto sax bites following Hervé Michelet’s trumpet fanfare and preceding a swelling reed/brass crossover on Variations sur la marche triomphale d’Aïda, the distance between village square brass band and chamber orchestra is minimized. So is the gap between opera and traditional songs.

Within a piece like La Forza del Destino/Destino variations may include blasting crescendos contrasted with guitarist Alexis Thérain’s lyrical finger picking and Thomas Saulet’s flute flutters, but the changes don’t suppress the initial themes. Other tracks include faint circus music or film score inferences. 

Deepening not destroying the composer’s canon is the aim here so that Verdi Remix honours both the composer and the interpreters.

Feel With Blood – Echoes of Theresienstadt
Lenka Lichtenberg
Six Degrees (open.spotify.com/album/6Dj5Uf3eCSgVNUCOePO6fr)

This album of songs is a continuation of the experiences of Anna Hana Friesová (1901-1987), and of Lenka Lichtenberg, her granddaughter. These stories of Friesová’s life in a concentration camp were first sung in the Czech language on Thieves of Dreams (2022) by Lichtenberg, an artist with a gorgeously spellbinding and agile soprano that sometimes swoops down into a dark lower register, eminently suited to bringing the elemental sadness of Friesová’s poetry to life. 

The crimson-coloured outer package is the first sign that what you are about to hear are especially heartbreaking songs based on Friesová’s diaries that documented life during the Holocaust. In Feel With Blood, Lichtenberg has grown to deeply inhabit more than just her grandmother’s character, but her very life. She sings with great feeling and intensity and an always vivid response to the text documented in Friesová’s diaries. Lichtenberg’s voice is sharp as a knife, penetrating the depth of life and poetry with each beauteously soft – sung or recited – phrase. The vocalist often employs chilling chest tones as she draws us into Friesová’s world, making her Holocaust life leap off the page. 

The superb song poetry features matchless depictions of Friesová’s loneliness and suffering. Lichtenberg displays sublime artistry, with an uncanny ability to make the North Indian tabla and its polyrhythms perfectly suited to the ululations of a voice soaked in Czech folk melodies on this wonderfully orchestrated recording.

Azadi
Tamar Ilana & Ventanas
Lula World Records LWR04551A (lulaworldrecords.ca/product-page/azadi-by-tamar-ilana-ventanas-cd)

Toronto-based multilingual singer and dancer Tamar Ilana, of Jewish, Indigenous, Romanian and Scottish descent, grew up on the road learning from and performing with her ethnomusicologist mother Dr. Judith Cohen. 

In three well-received previous albums Ilana’s world music band Ventanas (“windows” in Spanish), drew on her multiple roots and those of her Toronto bandmates. Their new studio album Azadi vividly extends the group’s musical purview, effectively mixing highly contrasting vocal and instrumental numbers over 12 tracks. As well as showcasing traditional Flamenco, Sephardic, Balkan and Brazilian songs in inventive arrangements, compositions by Ventanas members contribute contemporary themes. Ilana renders the lyrics in an impressive range of languages: Spanish, Ladino, French, Urdu, Greek, Portuguese and Bulgarian. 

Meaning “freedom” in Urdu and Farsi, the album’s title track was inspired by the women’s freedom movement in Iran opening with the uplifting lines, “Sun breaks through the darkened and cloudy skies / Shining bright on open and peaceful eyes / Moving free with liberty…” As for the song Ventanas Altas, within the charm of its vocal melody lies a secret earworm power. I was compelled to listen to it several times. This old wedding-courtship song, popular among Sephardic Jews of Salonika Greece, was collected by Cohen in Montréal. Ilana’s unaffected light soprano sounds just right.

Ilana shares that she’s “always struggled with my multiple identities, both cultural and genetic. As the world also struggles with these issues on multiple fronts, this album is a deep reflection of these questions, and a musical response in the form of peace, collaboration and acceptance.” I’m feeling it too.

Often thought of as our rough-hewn, republican cousins from down under, Canadians and Australians share a similar history as the best-known outposts of the former British Empire now on our own within the Commonwealth. Situated on their own continent, distant from many other countries, Aussies have arguably had an easier time establishing their own cultural identity not being stuck beside the American behemoth as we are. Australia’s creative scene reveals variations of sounds you’d hear elsewhere as well as those unique to the continent-country, as the following discs prove.

Probably the most genuinely Australian of this group is With Weather Volume 2: Gadigal Country (Split Rec 32 CD splitrec.bandcamp.com/album/with-weather-volume-2-gadigal-country), part of a recorded musical trilogy by Jim Denley and the Eternity Orchestrating Sonoverse. Recorded in various locations in rural parts of Australia, it features the flute, wooden flute and voice of Denley with the so-called Eternity Orchestrating Sonoverse actually being sonic reproduction using two hard disc recordings of his improvisations in the context of nature’s avian, mammalian, arboreal, amphibian, industrial and elemental sounds. Captured in real time in Gadigal Country, a harbour area just east of the city of Sydney, the two-CD set makes natural sounds the backdrop, partner and contrapuntal motif alongside Denley’s restrained and consistent playing. What that means in essence is that widening hollow puffs, transverse flutters, triple tonguing and circular breathed interludes share aural space with ever-changing rustic and natural occurrences. In this way instrumental and vocal textures are framed by or play alongside the cacophony caused by impending storms, watery gurgles from nearby ponds, lapping waves, children nattering, seagull squawks, cockatoo and other aviary cries, excited dog barks, cricket songs, pelting and dripping rain droplets, distant boat whistles and other Arcadian interruptions. One notable sequence is when a couple of crows nearby decide to add their penetrating caws to Denley’s flute motif leading to a pseudo bird-and-human jam session. Singular itself, With Weather specifically defines the true sound of non-urban Australia.

While there’s also plenty of conventional jazz in Oz – as there is in Canada – more meaningful are those musicians in both countries who stretch the form. A fine example of this is Tapestry (Earshift Music EAR 092 vazesh.bandcamp.com/album/tapestry) by the Vazesh trio which unites locals tenor and soprano saxophonist/bass clarinetist Jeremy Rose – who often switches among the horns on single tracks –  and bassist Lloyd Swanton, who is also one-third of The Necks, and Iranian-born, Sydney-based Hamed Sadeghi, an adept player of the Persian tar, a long-necked lute with three double courses of strings and 28 adjustable gut frets. On 14 tracks, in length from slightly over two to more than seven minutes, the tunes logically flow one into another almost without pause. Crucially, there are no gaps among the textures of the so-called exotic instrument with the conventional ones during these notable improvisations. Rose’s chalumeau register clarinet slurs, feathery soprano saxophone soars and Swanton’s paced pizzicato strops or sul tasto elaborations, harmonize, contrast or meld with the tar’s deep strums or advanced finger picking. While a track such as Azure includes faint ney-like twitters from Rose, despite being coupled with Sadeghi’s widening strokes, thick double bass stops keep it from becoming Persian music. Additionally while multiple tracks such as Zircon and Calabash for instance feature the tar’s pinched picking and ringing clicks that could come from a banjo, any intimations of Bluegrass or Dixieland are swiftly dispensed by undulating tenor sax tongue stops as Swaton’s arco buzzes create call-and-response interludes joining slurred fingering from the tar. Overall the program takes into account multiple string interaction and a reed output that is alternatingly gritty and glossy. This is storytelling that is as deliberate as it is dashing, and confirms the trio’s strategy when the low pitches of the concluding Saffron harken back to similar basement tones that began the suite. 

The country’s geographical location doesn’t preclude Australian improvisers from collaborating with sympathetic international players, on home turf, overseas or telematically. For example since Vancouver drummer Dylan van der Schyff is now a professor at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, his wife cellist Peggy Lee is a frequent visitor. Not only have the two formed a quartet with local improvisers, but also via the internet are able to collaborate with associates in B.C. and elsewhere. That’s precisely what Forever Stories of Moving Parties (Earshift Music EAR 098  peggyleecoleschmidt.bandcamp.com/album/forever-stories-of-moving-parties) preserves. An outgrowth of the band Lee and Vancouver guitarist Cole Schmidt lead at home, it expands the 14 tracks with affiliated sounds from players in Vancouver, Montreal, Gothenburg, Amsterdam and Melbourne. While there are some understated folksy sequences from the two principals plus locals such as drummer Mili Hong and trumpeter JP Carter, other tracks are more striking. An example is for Ron Miles, where widening tones from Carter and Vancouver violinist Meredith Bates plus Lee and Schmidt are supplemented by van der Schyff’s steady drumming. Van der Schyff also provides the backing on it will come back to intersect with a formal cello sweep and country-styled guitar licks, yet the vocalizing is from Melbourne’s Sunny Kim. More geographically unique is mercy. Synth bass pacing is from Vancouver’s James Meger, crackling electronics from Amsterdam’s Frank Rosaly, with the elevated trumpet and cello harmonies complementing intersecting wordless vocals sung by Montreal’s Erika Angell and Kim. Variations of this multi-continent mix and match are prominent throughout the disc. Yet the electronic wizardry never interferes with the cohesion or flow of the disc. Notwithstanding interjections in some tunes from unexpected sources like Swede Lisen Rylander Löve’s mixture of electronically fractured Nordic chanting and saxophone flutters or Wayne Horvitz’s keyboard pressure, balance in the form of Carter’s linear portamento trumpet, Schmidt’s finger-style comping and glissandi sweeps and stops from Lee, equilibrium is maintained. Instances of rocking out uniting Schmidt’s elevated riffs and Horvitz’s pressurized organ pumps from Vancouver and splash cymbals and drum backbeat from Melbourne via van der Schyff are also taken in stride.

Homebody Aussies are also members of international ensembles as evidenced by Sydney-based keyboardist Alister Spence. While he leads his own bands and is involved in other collaborations, since 2017 he’s  been part of the Kira Kira quartet, which on Kira Kira Live (Alister Spence ASM 015 alisterspence.bandcamp.com/album/kira-kira-live) includes Japanese players trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, pianist Satoko Fujii and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. Unlike many Tamura/Fujii combos, a good part of this CD’s five tracks focuses on the oscillations created by Spence’s fender Rhodes piano, effect pedals, preparations and percussion. These slippery and shifting dynamics mated with Yoshida’s drum strategies, ranging from cymbal shivers to brawny backbeats, means that Fujii’s acoustic patterns are responsible for the lyrical, formalist and ultimately linear evolution of the sequences. Forthright, the trumpeter’s interpolations include jagged bites, sudden rips, half-valve strains and plunger expositions. Supple or striated interconnections are frequently set up between say drum paradiddles and trumpet riffs or jiggling slaps from the electric keyboard challenged by triplet skyrockets from Tamura. With interludes such as those on Bolognaise where motifs encompass both jittery nonsense syllables vocalized by all, the drummer’s understated swing beat and an antique harpsichord-like interlude from Fujii’s prepared piano jabs, discord is sometimes suggested, but is finally rightened to horizontal progression. More subtle than showy, these textural shifts can involve tempo redefinition with electro-acoustic wriggles, gutbucket brass emphasis and cascading acoustic piano runs. Yet more spectacularly, on the extended Kite, and hovering elsewhere, rappelling or plummeting group sequences usually led by robust Rhodes keyboard dabs settle into a persistent groove cemented by drum pops and trumpet peeps.

Because of the distances involved, some Aussie musical innovators expatriate permanently when they find a sympathetic situation. That’s the case with Melbourne percussionist Steve Heather who has been based in Berlin since the turn of the century. Part of multiple bands, a notable one is **Y**, whose group Four Star Y (Grammar Phone Records GPHLP 102 danpetersundland.bandcamp.com/album/four-star-y) also includes Norwegian electric bassist Dan Peter Sundland and American synthesizer player Liz Kosack. Sophisticated drone-improv, the six selections include an underlying low-pitch throb, with Kosack using her instrument to also add seeping pipe-organ-like undulations, elevated squeaks and stops, tremolo jabs and celestial-styled signal processing. Alternating between surging pacing, occasional stops and jagged runs, Sundland maintains the rhythmic core, often in tandem with Heather’s backbeat. When not in that mode, the drummer’s Mylar and metal fluctuations keep the buzzing expositions from becoming too oppressively repetitive, with rim shot clicks, snare pitter patter, hi-hat slaps and extra beats from wood blocks. These roles are most obvious on the oddly placed at midpoint Closing Credits. Still, the concluding Dream Picnic wraps up the session in distinctive form by concentrating synthesizer keyboard stabs, metallic percussion jutting and electrified bass string glides into a triple defined timbral termination.

Often confused as residents of other English speaking countries, as Canadians are, creative Australian musicians continue to produce exceptional music at home and abroad.

Two monumental sonatas from the early 20th century are presented on Dialogues, the superb new CD from cellist Noémie Raymond and pianist Zhenni Li-Cohen (Leaf Music LM295 leaf-music.ca/music/lm295).

Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op.19 from 1901 is a glorious four-movement work full of the rich sentimentality and Romanticism so typical of his music. Raymond has a wonderfully deep, warm tone that perfectly illustrates the comment in the booklet note that Rachmaninoff gave the cello line “an expressiveness and intensity previously unheard in the repertoire for cello and piano.” The piano is certainly an equal partner here – in fact, it’s hard to think of a duo sonata in which the piano part is more demanding and more crucial, and Li-Cohen delivers an outstanding performance.

There are times when Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata from 1919, heard here in her own transcription for cello, inhabits the same Romantic world as the Rachmaninoff, but influences of Debussy, Ravel and Vaughan Williams are also there. Again, superb playing and ensemble work – a true dialogue indeed – make for a terrific performance.

Recorded at the beautiful Domaine Forget concert hall in Saint-Irénée, QC the exemplary sound quality completes as fine a cello and piano CD as I’ve heard in a very long time.

Listen to 'Dialogues' Now in the Listening Room

American Sketches is the remarkable debut solo album from the Korean-American violinist Kristin Lee, brilliantly supported in all but one of the tracks by pianist Jeremy Ajani Jordan (First Hand Records FHR147 firsthandrecords.com/products-page/upcoming/american-sketches-kristen-lee-violin-jeremy-ajani-jordan-piano).

From the moment that John Novacek’s dazzling Intoxication, the first of his Four Rags from 1999, explodes from the speakers you know you are in for something very special, and the standard never drops throughout a mesmerizing and beautifully-recorded CD. The duo swings through Jordan’s arrangements of Gershwin’s But Not for Me and Joplin’s The Entertainer, melts your heart with J. J. Johnson’s lovely 1954 Lament and Henry Thacker Burleigh’s gorgeous Southland Sketches from 1916, and acknowledges contemporary works with Jonathan Ragonese’s fascinating non-poem 4 from 2017/18 and Kevin Puts’ Air from 2000. The final track is Thelonious Monk’s sultry Monk’s Mood from 1943/44, Lee noting that Jordan improvised throughout the Gershwin, Johnson, Joplin and Monk recordings.

The only track on which Jordan is not the pianist is Amy Beach’s lovely Romance Op.23, recorded with Jun Cho in 2023; all other tracks were recorded in November 2019 and March 2020. I’m not sure why we had to wait so long but boy, was it ever worth the wait!

Souvenirs, the new CD from the Swedish-Norwegian violinist Johan Dalene with pianist Peter Friis Johansson is a recital of pieces that have been with him since his childhood, and that he has played in competitions and concerts (BIS-2770 johandalene.com/recordings/souvenirs).

Three virtuoso works form the foundation of the programme: Ravel’s Tzigane opening the disc with Bizet’s arrangement of Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Op.28 at its centre and the “other” Carmen Fantasy, by Franz Waxman and not Sarasate, as the final track. In between are Massenet’s Méditation from Thaïs, Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Falla’s Spanish Dance No.1, Kreisler’s dazzling solo Recitative and Scherzo-Caprice Op.6 and the delightful Allegro molto by the Swedish violinist/composer Amanda Maier, who died of tuberculosis in 1894 at the age of 41.

Dalene is clearly in his element here in works that he has known and loved for years, ably supported by Johansson.

Navigator of Silences sees American violinist Francesca Anderegg join Brazilian pianist Erika Ribeiro on an album described as exhibiting the cadence and choreography of Brazilian instrumental music, blending samba, chôro and forró with classical music and inspiration from folk, Indigenous and African traditions (Rezurrection Recordz RZRC-0122 rezrecordz.com/navigator-of-silences).

Included are works by Yamandu Costa, Radamés Gnattali, Léa Freire, André Mehmari, Luca Raele, Toninho Horta, Bianca Gismonti, Salomão Soares and Clarice Asad, most of them in arrangements and transcriptions by the performers. It’s a selection of really lovely pieces with Anderegg’s strong, warm and bright violin and Ribeiro’s rich, resonant piano providing gorgeous playing on a highly entertaining CD.

On the 2CD release Corelli Violin Sonatas Op.5 violinist Rachel Barton Pine is joined by period instrument specialists David Schrader, John Mark Rozendaal and Brandon Acker in historically informed performances of Arcangelo Corelli’s seminal set of 12 sonatas for violin and continuo from 1700 (Cedille Records CDR 90000 2320 cedillerecords.org/albums/corelli-violin-sonatas-op-5).

Pine’s research led to her holding the violin against her chest, and not on her collarbone, the resulting difference in position for the left hand and – in particular – the bowing arm creating a noticeably different and extremely effective sound.

To capture the nuances of Corelli’s music the performers used a variety of period instruments, Schrader alternating between harpsichord and positive organ, Rozendaal between cello and viola da gamba and Acker between theorbo, archlute and baroque guitar to produce 24 different combinations throughout the recital. In addition, Pine plays the final “Follia” variations on an original-condition six-string Gagliano viola d’amore, made from the same tree as her original-condition Gagliano violin. It provides a dazzling conclusion to a quite superb release.

All of the works on Shapes in Collective Space, the new CD from Tallā Rouge, the Cajun-Persian duo of violists Aria Cheregosha and Laura Spaulding, are world-premiere recordings. Motivated in part by experiencing a close relative lose their memory to dementia, the album is described as a search for light in the passage of time, reflecting on life’s fleeting yet profound moments and drawing from a kaleidoscope of diverse American influences (Bright Shiny Things BSTC-202 brightshiny.ninja/shapes-in-collective-space).

Works include Karl Mitze’s Seesaw, Kian Ravaei’s four Iranian-influenced Navazi, Gemma Peacocke’s Fluorescein, Gala Flagello’s Burn as Brightly, Akshaya Avril Tucker’s Breathing Sunlight and Leilehua Lanzilotti’s silhouette, mirror. The title track by inti figgis-vizueta is a particularly fascinating and inventive soundscape.

The playing throughout an engrossing CD is of the highest level.

Partita party – a collaborative work for viola is the new CD from violist Atar Arad and four other violist-composers, all of whom studied with Arad. Inspired by Bach’s Partita No.2 for Solo Violin, it features five movements, each played by the particular composer (SBOV Music SBO224 sbovmusic.com/partita-party).

The concept of an innovative celebration of Bach’s masterpiece featuring new compositions for solo viola was inspired by Arad’s pandemic work on Bach’s monumental Chaconne, Arad having written his own Ciaccona as a commission for the 2021 Hindemith International Viola Competition. Duncan Steele’s Allemanda opens the collection, followed by Yuval Gotlibovich’s Corrente, Melia Watras’ Sarabanda and Rose Wollman’s terrific Giga (the closest to the Bach original); Arad’s original Ciaccona ends the disc.

It’s a brief – just short of 25 minutes – but fascinating CD, rightly described in the publicity release as an exciting new addition to the viola repertoire and a celebration of Bach’s enduring legacy.

The Calidore String Quartet continues its Beethoven project with the 3-CD set Beethoven The Middle Quartets, the second issue in their recording of the complete cycle, having issued The Late Quartets in February 2023 and with the final volume The Early Quartets planned for January 2025 (Signum Classics SIGCD872 signumrecords.com/product/beethoven-quartets-vol-2-middle-string-quartets/SIGCD872).

This set contains the three “Razumovsky” quartets Op.59 and the Op.74 and Op.95 works. CD1 has the String Quartet in F Major, Op.59 No.1; CD2 has the String Quartets in E Minor Op.59 No.2 and in C Major Op.59 No.3. The final disc has the String Quartet No.10 in E-flat Major Op.74 “Harp” and the String Quartet No.11 in F Minor Op.95 “Serioso.”

The first set generated extremely positive reviews, and it’s easy to hear why. The quartet members have been together for 14 years, having immersed themselves in Beethoven’s quartets during that time. The unity of the ensemble playing is of the highest quality, and there’s a wonderfully varied dynamic range.  

The outstanding series of complete string quartets of the Danish composer Vagn Holmboe (1909-96) continues with Vagn Holmboe String Quartets Vol.3, Denmark’s Nightingale String Quartet again presenting superb performances of warmth, depth and sensitivity. Included on this current disc are two works from the peak of his creativity –String Quartets No.4, Op.63 (1953-54) and No.5, Op.66 (1955) – together with the String Quartet No.16, Op.146 from 1981 (Dacapo Records 8.226214 hbdirect.com/products/holmboe-string-quartets-vol-3).

Holmboe’s 21 numbered quartets preoccupied him throughout almost half a century, moving from early influences of Bartók and Shostakovich to his distinctive personal method of metamorphosis of thematic and motivic fragments. The Nightingale Quartet’s committed performances of these strongly tonal and immediately accessible works continue to make the strongest case for their recognition as one of the major quartet series of the 20th century. 

The Quatuor Diotima celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of Anton Bruckner with Bruckner & Klose String Quartets, presenting the three works Bruckner wrote as composition exercises when studying with Otto Kitzler in 1861-63 together with the only string quartet written by his student Friedrich Klose (1862-1942) (Pentatone PTC5187217 pentatonemusic.com/product/bruckner-klose-string-quartets).

The main Bruckner work is his String Quartet in C Minor, WAB111, with the Rondo in C Minor, WAB208 a possible alternative finale. The Theme with Variations in E-flat, WAB210 is the third work. They are solid and accomplished pieces – as you would expect from a composer nearing 40 years of age – and despite tending to sound more concerned with structure than content have a great deal to offer.

Klose studied with Bruckner from January 1886 to July 1889 and wrote his lengthy String Quartet in E-flat in 1908-11. Subtitled “A tribute paid in four instalments to my stern German schoolmasters” it clearly references classical forms and structures, but with what the booklet note calls “an almost unprecedented wealth of musical ideas.”

Sibelius: Works for Violin and Orchestra is the new CD from James Ehnes and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner (Chandos CHSA 5267 chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHSA%205267).

Ehnes’ playing in the Violin Concerto Op.47 is, as always, seemingly effortless perfection, with a smooth warmth – no icy Finnish landscape here – but also strength and power. Gardner and the orchestra provide spirited accompaniment, but this is perhaps one concerto that doesn’t need a sheen of perfection to be most effective. Still, Ehnes is always a force to be reckoned with.

He certainly shines throughout the short pieces which, although beautifully written, don’t come close to the concerto in stature: the Two Serenades Op.69; the Two Pieces Op.77; the Two Humoresques Op.87; the Four Humoresques Op.89 and the Suite in D Minor Op.117.

There’s a tragic modern-day relevance to the new CD Thomas de Hartmann Rediscovered, with one of the two concertos by the Ukrainian composer (1884-1956) written in 1943 in occupied France described as mourning the destruction of Ukraine by war (Pentatone PTC5187076 pentatonemusic.com/product/thomas-de-hartmann-rediscovered).

Joshua Bell is the soloist in the 1943 Violin Concerto Op.66, with the Ukrainian INSO-Lviv Symphony Orchestra under Dalia Stasevska. It’s the world-premiere commercial recording of a cinematic, four-movement work, with Bell calling it heart-wrenching and uplifting, and commenting that he was “astonished that such a powerful work could have escaped me and most classical music listeners until now.”

The Cello Concerto Op.57 from 1935 is a lush, Romantic work with an even more cinematic feel than the violin concerto, at times evoking Hollywood biblical epics. Matt Haimovitz is the soloist, with the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies. Haimovitz notes that de Hartmann was deeply affected by Jewish music and culture, and while Ukrainian folk idioms pervade the finale the prayerful middle movement channels the voice of a Jewish cantor.

Goodness knows where the viola repertoire would be without Lionel Tertis. Not only did the English violist almost single-handedly establish the viola as a solo concert instrument, he was also the recipient of numerous works written specifically for him. Two of these are presented on the outstanding CD York Bowen & William Walton Viola Concertos, with soloist Diyang Mei, principal viola of the Berlin Philharmoniker, and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie conducted by Brett Dean, himself a violist (SWR Music SWR19158CD naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=SWR19158CD).

The orchestral music of Bowen is surely overdue for reappraisal, his strongly tonal and Romantic style resulting in his larger works being essentially ignored following his death in 1961. The Viola Concerto in C Minor, Op.25 from 1907 is the real gem here, a rhapsodic work that sweeps you along with it, leaving you wondering how on earth it isn’t at the front and centre of the concerto repertoire. It’s wonderful playing from all concerned.

Walton’s Concerto in A Minor was written in 1929 at Thomas Beecham’s suggestion but surprisingly premiered by Paul Hindemith and not Tertis, who initially found the work to be too modern. It’s not lacking for top-notch recordings, but this superb performance will take some beating. 

Nightscapes, the first album from harpist Magdalena Hoffmann was reviewed here in April 2022, and the beautifully nuanced and virtuosic playing noted at that time is once again fully evident in her new CD Fantasia (Deutsche Grammophon 00028948659128 deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/fantasia-magdalena-hoffmann-13555).

The focus this time is on the Baroque period, with a collection of fantasias and preludes originally composed for keyboard or lute by J. S. Bach, his sons Wilhelm Friedmann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, plus contemporaries George Frideric Handel and Silvius Leopold Weiss.

Hoffmann uses the music here to explore the resonance and versatility of her instrument in a delightful recital of predominantly brief works, Bach’s sons providing the three more substantial offerings: W. F. Bach’s Fantasia in D Minor, F19; and C. P. E. Bach’s Fantasia in E-flat Major, H348 and in particular his remarkable Fantasia in F-sharp Minor, H300, “C. P. E. Bachs Empfindungen.”

It’s more outstanding playing from a supremely-gifted performer.

On Pastiches guitarist John Schneider adopts a fascinating and innovative approach to pieces that pay homage to music of the past (MicroFest Records M-F 27 microfestrecords.com/pastiches).

Schneider wondered how works written “in the style of” pastiches would sound if performed in the appropriate temperaments of the period they evoke. The result is a CD using a variety of refretted guitars and Well-Tempered, Meantone and Just Intonation tunings.

There are older works by Manuel Ponce, Alonso Mudarra and Mauro Giuliani, with Dusan Bogdanovich’s Renaissance Micropieces from 2014 the most recent. Percussionist Matthew Cook provides support on six short pieces by Lou Harrison and Benjamin Britten’s Courtly Dances from Gloriana, all arranged by Schneider. Gloria Cheng adds harpsichord to Ponce’s Preludio in E.

It’s an interesting experiment, but I’m not sure that it ever amounts to anything more than that; despite the fine playing there’s a resulting and understandable loss of brightness to many of the pieces – most of which were after all written for a modern instrument – and consequently a limited dynamic range. 

Walter Braunfels – Jeanne d’Arc
Juliane Banse;  Salzburger Bachchor and Kinderchor; ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; Manfred Honeck
Capriccio C5515 (naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=C5515)

Her brief but eventful life and agonizing death have been depicted in paintings, books, plays, films and several operas, most notably those by Verdi and Tchaikovsky. In 1943, Walter Braunfels completed the three-act opera he titled Szenen aus dem Leben der Heilige Johanna (Scenes from the Life of Saint Joan). It wasn’t heard, however, until 2001 in a concert performance in Stockholm conducted by Manfred Honeck (since 2008 the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra). At the 2013 Salzburg Festival, Honeck again conducted a concert performance, preserved in this two-CD set.

Braunfels’ self-written libretto traces, in seven scenes, Joan’s life from when she first receives her marching orders from Saints Catherine, Margaret and Michael until her immolation at the stake. It’s dramatically compelling throughout, illuminated by Braunfels’ powerful score, composed in the post-Wagnerian Germanic idiom that Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker employed in their increasingly admired operas – rapturous flights of vocal lyricism amid intense, tonally indecisive harmonies and boldly-coloured orchestral strokes.

The chorus provides some of the opera’s most thrilling passages – the stirring scene as the entire ensemble prepares to march off to the besieged city of Orleans, singing of the victory to come; the exalted grandeur of King Charles’ coronation; and the angry mob of Rouen’s townspeople demanding Joan’s death. The opera’s closing minutes are extraordinarily emotion-wrenching – Joan’s ecstatic, final outburst at her trial for heresy (Braunfels quoted her words from the actual trial documents), Gilles de Rais’ anguished aria as he witnesses Joan’s execution and the chorus of townspeople, having seen Joan’s heart unburned and a dove rising from her ashes, proclaiming a holy miracle.

Leading the superb cast are soprano Juliane Banse (Joan), her light, bright voice perfect for the teenage heroine, tenor Pavel Breslik (King Charles), bass-baritone Johan Reuter (Gilles de Rais) and bass Ruben Drole (Duke of La Trémouille). As the opera requires an additional 12 soloists plus chorus and children’s chorus, in today’s economic climate the expense of mounting a fully-staged production of such an unfamiliar opera may be too risky an enterprise. But it surely deserves to be seen as well as heard! (Texts and translations are included.)

Silenced – Unsung Voices of the 20th Century (Schreker; Ullmann; Kapralova; Zemlinsky)
Ian Koziara; Bradley Moore
Cedille CDR 90000 231 (cedillerecords.org/albums/silenced-unsung-voices-of-the-20th-century)

They were enjoying successful careers as composers and conductors until their Jewish ancestry resulted in their “voices” being “silenced” by the Nazis, their music banned, their podium engagements cancelled, their lives altered. Franz Schreker (1878-1934) suffered a fatal stroke; self-exiled Vitežslava Kaprálová (1915-1940) succumbed to disease in France; Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) died, forgotten, in New York; Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944) was murdered in Auschwitz. But their music survives, here performed with operatic fervour by American heldentenor Ian Koziara; Bradley Moore scintillates in the often elaborate, extended piano accompaniments.

Three early songs by Schreker are highlighted by the surging, ecstatic Frühling (Spring), celebrating “spring’s splendour.” Heightened drama imbues five songs by Zemlinsky – two filled with reverential religiosity, two bitterly sardonic about wartime mutilation and mortality; the fifth, a despairing “dance of death.” Of the ten chromatic, emotionally-laden songs by Kaprálová, the first Czech woman to conduct professionally, I particularly enjoyed the rhapsodic Jitro (Morning), the wild, surrealistic Jamí Pout’ (Spring Fair), the regretful Navždy (Forever) and the passionate Čím Je Můj Žal (What Is My Grief).

Ullmann, despite studying with Arnold Schoenberg (who studied with Zemlinsky!), never embraced serialism, although his music is tonally ambiguous. Three of this CD’s seven songs stand out: the robust Schnitterlied (Reaper-Song), the satiric Die Schweitzer (The Swiss) and the ruminative Abendphantasie (Evening Fantasy). Abendphantasie, composed during Ullmann’s internment in Terezin, ends with the supremely ironic words, “my old age will be peaceful and serene.”

Where Waters Meet
Canadian Chamber Choir; Sherryl Sewepagaham
Independent (canadianchamberchoir.bandcamp.com/album/where-waters-meet)

Formed in 1999, the Canadian Chamber Choir has a unique approach to music making. Under the direction of Julia Davids and associate conductor Joel Tranquilla, the ensemble draws members from all parts of the country and convenes periodically in different cities across Canada spending three or four days in rehearsal before presenting concerts or workshops. 

This newest recording titled Where Waters Meet featuring singer Sherryl Sewepagaham is an homage to Canadian Indigenous culture and appears at a particularly fortuitous time when the Indigenous presence in Canada is receiving long-overdue recognition.

Sewepagaham, a Cree-Dene artist from Little Red River Cree Nation in Northern Alberta, opens the recording with the haunting Morning Drum Song. The remainder of the pieces appropriately have an aquatic theme, including Hussein Janmohamed’s Sun on Water which comprises a true melding of cultures in its use of texts from Hindi, Islamic, Christian and Cree cultures.

The major piece in the program, Where Waters Meet by Canadian arctic composer Carmen Braden with texts by First Nations playwright Yolanda Bonnell, is in four movements, interspersed throughout the recording. The words are inspired by various sources, with the third movement based on a 2022 Toronto Star article focusing on the issue of poor water quality found in many Indigenous communities.

What a wonderful sound this ensemble achieves, at all times demonstrating a keen sense of dynamics and phrasing. All the while, Sewepagaham, as a soloist either with or without the choir, delivers a compelling performance, the voice of a culture too long under-acknowledged. Attractive packaging and detailed notes further enhance an already fine recording.

Listen to 'Where Waters Meet' Now in the Listening Room

Luna Pearl Woolf – Jacqueline
Marnie Breckenridge; Matt Haimovitz
Pentatone PTC5187341 (pentatonemusic.com/product/jacqueline)

“It is with a heavy heart that I must cancel my engagements,” announces Jacqueline du Pré towards the end of Canadian-American composer Luna Pearl Woolf’s gripping chamber opera, Jacqueline. It’s 1973, and the incomparable British cellist is only 28 years old. But the ravages of MS have forced her to stop performing.      

Woolf and her librettist, Canadian Royce Vavrek, focus on du Pré’s most significant relationship – with her cello. There are just two performers. It’s a daring artistic choice, and it works brilliantly here. The charismatic American soprano Marnie Breckenridge is du Pré, and cellist extraordinaire, Montreal-based Matt Haimovitz, is her cello. It is as dramatic as it is moving.      

Other performers will undoubtedly want to take on these two challenging roles. But it’s hard to imagine anyone surpassing either Breckenridge or Haimovitz. Breckenridge evokes du Pré with untethered intensity. Yet her voice retains its luminous allure throughout. Haimovitz does full justice to du Pré’s matchless sound with his richly expressive tone and effortless technique. 

Vavrek, newly-appointed Artistic Director of Against the Grain, shows why his work is in such demand by composers today. His libretto is unsparing. But it’s poetic and playful enough to offset the grimness of du Pré’s struggles, recalling joyful childhood memories and key works that defined her career.

Pentatone has produced an especially attractive CD set, with a booklet containing the full libretto and photos of the original staging by Toronto’s Tapestry Opera in 2020.

Kris Defoort – The Time of Our Singing
Claron McFadden; Mark S. Doss; Simon Bailey; Levy Sekgapane; La Monnaie Chamber Orchestra; Kwamé Ryan
Fuga Libera FUG837 (outhere-music.com/en/albums/kris-defoort-time-our-singing)

Belgian composer Kris Defoort’s multilayered opera The Time of Our Singing follows members of a mixed-race family through the years 1939 to 1992. Repeatedly they are torn apart by the pernicious effects of the racism they each have to confront in their lives. But their shared passion for music always brings them back together. 

Defoort and his compatriot, librettist Peter van Kraaij, have adapted a 629-page novel by Richard Powers, published over 20 years ago. In contrast to the novel, which jumps around in time, the opera follows a traditional chronological narrative. The harmonic language is familiar, the rhythmic structure clear. Yet it sounds startlingly new, and fundamentally of our time. 

The many musical references are taken directly from Powers’ novel. Since they are integral to the story, Defoort weaves them right into the texture of the opera. The sounds of Dowland, Purcell, Bach, Puccini, spirituals, cool jazz, rock, hip-hop, free jazz and rap all shape the characters in this African American-Jewish family. The hip-hop beat that drives the activist daughter Ruth’s sensational I will tell you about Blackness has an urgency that intensifies her fury. Exquisite modernist textures colour the heartbreaking deathbed scene between the father, David, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, and younger son Joey, a pianist. The transformation of Purcell’s Music for a While into an infectiously catchy vocal ensemble is used to bring the three siblings together for what turns out to be the last time. “Classics meets the street,” the eldest son Jonah, an opera singer, says. “People need this,” he adds. Indeed.

Defoort and van Kraaij draw on key historic events in the never-ending struggle for civil rights in America. Inevitably what happens globally impacts each character directly. Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 brings hope and joy to Delia, an African American singer, and David when they first meet there. But the Rodney King riots in 1992 bring tragedy for Jonah. 

This live recording was made during the first staged production at La Monnaie in 2021, which won the the International Opera Award 2022 for Best World Premiere. The excellent cast, with Claron McFadden, Abigail Abraham, Lilly Jørstad, Levy Sekgapane, Simon Bailey, Peter Braithwaite and Mark S. Doss, the jazz quartet featuring Mark Turner’s melancholy tenor saxophone, the La Monnaie Chamber Orchestra and choirs, are all led by Canadian-Trinidadian conductor Kwamé Ryan with palpable insight and versatility.

Henri-Joseph Rigel and the Winds of Revolution
Magali Simard-Galdes; Nicholas Scott; Melisande McNabney; Arion Baroque Orchestra; Mathieu Lussier
ATMA ACD2 2828 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/rigel-and-the-winds-of-revolution)

The name Henri-Joseph Rigel is probably an unfamiliar one today, but during his lifetime he was a highly esteemed composer and conductor in 18th century France. Born Heinrich-Joseph Riegel in Wertheim am Main in 1741, he moved to Paris in 1767 where he soon earned a reputation in musical circles for his harpsichord pieces, symphonies and concertos, in addition to 14 operas.

It seems particularly appropriate that the Montreal-based Arion Ensemble Baroque has chosen to uncover the music of this deserving but largely forgotten composer on this splendid recording titled Le Souffle de la Révolution under the direction of Mathieu Lussier. Collaborating with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, the group presents a program not dissimilar to a concert of the period in its attractive mix of orchestral works, concertos, arias and duets. 

Leading off the program are the overture and three arias from Rigel’s 1781 pastoral comedy Blanche et Vermeille, the vocal pieces artfully performed by Québec soprano Magali Simard-Galdès and British-born tenor Nicholas Scott. The singers both do justice to this unfamiliar repertoire and return later in the program for arias from Rigel’s revolutionary period operas Pauline et Henri and Alix de Beaucaire.   

The Symphony Op.12 No.2 and the Fortepiano Concerto in F Major are fine examples of the Viennese classical style – do I detect echoes of Haydn? The concerto features soloist Mélisande McNabney who offers a stylish performance and provides a convincing cadenza while under Lussier’s competent baton, Arion proves a solid and sensitive partner. 

Like finding a treasure in an attic, the discovery of this hitherto unknown music is a delight and a big merci to the AOB not only for some fine music making, but for rescuing it from oblivion.