As I write this in the early days of January it is fitting that I speak about my New Year’s resolution to be a better friend to my cello this year. With this in mind I’m getting together with my friends Anne (violin) and Adam (piano) for trio sessions after a lengthy hiatus. Having previously played music by Mendelssohn and Mozart, this year we have embarked upon Beethoven’s Piano Trio Op.1, No.2. It’s a piece that I worked on extensively some 20 years ago and have been inspired to revisit by a new release, Beethoven Complete Piano Trios performed by the Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio (Bridge Records 9505A/C bridgerecords.com). Yael Weiss (piano), Mark Kaplan (violin) and Peter Stumpf (cello) all have notable solo careers and have been playing together as a trio for more than two decades. What I particularly like about this 3CD package – in addition to the fabulous performances – is that in lieu of program notes for the familiar trios, the booklet includes essays by each of the three performers about their own connections to the music. In the case of Weiss, this involves a lineage of teachers reaching all the way back to Beethoven via her mentor Leon Fleisher, a student of Schnabel, who worked with Leschetizky, a student of Liszt, who studied with Czerny, a student of the great master himself. Kaplan and Stumpf each share their personal takes on the trios, and the occasion of the recording. 

Although not as frequently heard as the string quartets which span Beethoven’s entire career (some of which are among the last works he would compose), the piano trios represent his early and middle periods very well, from his earliest published works, to the mammoth “Archduke” Trio Op.97 of 1811 (my own introduction to the genre some 50 years ago in a recording featuring Emil Gilels, Leonid Kogan and Mstislav Rostropovich). This current recording reminds us however that Beethoven returned to the trio form in 1824 when he published the charming “Kakadu Variations” Op.121a, here paired with the very first trio from 1795. The eight trios therefore spanning three decades of Beethoven’s creativity, all in splendidly dynamic and idiomatic performances which kept me captivated for many hours over the course of the holiday season. 

It seems Beethoven also provided inspiration to composer Joan Tower whose 1985 Piano Concerto – Homage to Beethoven is the title track on a new portrait CD from Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP Sound 1093 bmop.org/audio-recordings). Soloist Marc-André Hamelin is in stellar form in the dramatic and often percussive work from 1985. Although there are no obvious quotations from Beethoven, Tower says “he had a huge influence on me in terms of how to try to create and motivate a strong dramatic structure.” She also says she included fragments from three Beethoven sonatas which are imbedded in the cadenzas. The most recent work is Red Maple, a bassoon concerto from 2013. Right from the extended solo opening, bassoonist Adrian Morejon establishes command, leading BMOP through the haunting quarter-hour virtuosic showpiece. There are two flute concertos bookending Red Maple, Rising for flute and string orchestra (2010, originally for flute and string quartet) and the 1989 Flute Concerto, both premiered by the outstanding Carol Wincenc who is the soloist here. This CD is a fitting tribute to Tower, the now 85-year-old American treasure whose successful career has spanned six decades. 

Joan Tower’s piano concerto put me in mind of one of my first exposures to modern (at the time contemporary) concertante works, more than half a century ago. I bought an LP of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G featuring Lorin Hollander with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf that also included the premiere recording of Norman Dello Joio’s 1961 Fantasy and Variations for Piano and Orchestra. I fell in love with the Ravel, especially Hollander’s tender performance of the slow movement, but it was the Dello Joio that really caught my attention. Although that recording has recently been remastered, it is a piano concerto by his son Justin Dello Joio that I want to write about here. Oceans Apart: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra features Garrick Ohlsson with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Alan Gilbert (Bridge Records 9583 bridgerecords.com). Composed in 2022, the title of the work refers, in part, to the “…the immensity, the oceanic vastness, of the polarization of our time. People seem to be moving irreparably apart. The waves of misinformation spreading relentlessly over the web, the belief that such a thing as ‘alternate facts’ can exist, and the swell of unharnessed power this has caused – these were in my thoughts.” Captured in a live performance, the work opens with “an unresolved tritone in the low register in the piano and the highest sounds, beyond any specific pitch, whispering incomprehensively and at the edge of audibility in the strings” which extends into a 20-minute dramatic contest between piano and orchestra. Ohlsson, for whom it was written, holds his own in a brilliant performance which, to paraphrase the composer, pits him like a surfer on a 100-foot wave against the daunting force of a large symphony orchestra. As the applause dies away we are treated to Due Per Due, two movements for cello and piano (Carter Brey and Christopher O’Riley), Elegia: To an Old Musician and Moto in Perpetuo. Written in 2011, three years after his father’s death, the first pays homage to Norman’s Prelude: To a Young Musician which Justin learned to play at the age of six. The second is as rambunctious and flamboyant as the title implies. This fine disc is completed by Blue and Gold Music written for the tricentennial of the Trinity School, in a sparkling performance by organist Colin Fowler and the American Brass Quintet. 

My first exposure to the music of Claude Champagne (1891-1965) was an educational LP on the Canadian Music Enrichment label, one side of which was an uninterrupted performance of Symphonie Gaspésienne and on the other the same work with cues for a slideshow depicting the landscape of the Gaspé peninsula that inspired the work. Although not much attention was given to him in English Canada, where his contemporaries included Healy Willan and Sir Ernest MacMillan, Champagne was an important figure in the annals of classical music in Quebec, where his students included Violet Archer, Roger Matton, Pierre Mercure, Serge Garant and Gilles Tremblay among other notables. I was very pleased to see a new recording of Champagne’s brilliant tone poem featuring L’Orchestre symphonique de Laval under Alain Trudel (ATMA ACD2 4053 atmaclassique.com/en). Starting eerily in near silence, Trudel leads his orchestra through the gradually building portrait of the fabled peninsula with dramatic turns and climaxes along the 20-minute journey. Although the program notes mention Debussy and the Russian school as influences, I also hear echoes of Delius and Vaughan Williams in this marvelous one movement work. You can access the digital-only recording for free on the ATMA website. 

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Chinatown (Leaf-Music LM281 leaf-music.ca) is a striking new opera featuring the words of Giller Prize laureate Madeleine Thien and music by multiple-award-winner Alice Ping Yee Ho. The project was initiated by City Opera Vancouver back in 2017 and developed over the next five years through a myriad of workshops and public consultations with Vancouver’s Chinese community. During that process the importance of the Hoisan language to the history of Vancouver’s Chinatown became evident as that was the province of China where many of the original immigrants came from. Writer Paul Yee was engaged to translate portions of the opera into the Hoisan dialect. The result is the first opera to depict a Canadian Chinatown, and the first libretto to combine Hoisanese, Cantonese and English. The orchestration features traditional Chinese and Western classical instruments. It tells the story of two families and a chorus of ghosts, beginning with the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad through to our own times. It deals with “violence and despair, the Head Tax, the Exclusion Act, paper sons, and paper promises.” The opera was staged in 2022 under the direction of Mary Chun and this is the original cast recording of the groundbreaking milestone of the musical stage. The booklet includes a synopsis for each of the 12 scenes of the two-act opera, program notes and biographies in English, French and Chinese pictograms. 

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Edmonton-born, Juno Award-winning composer Vivian Fung first studied with Violet Archer, went on to receive her doctorate from the Juilliard School and is currently based in California. Insects & Machines – Quartets of Vivian Fung (Sono Luminus DSL-92270 sonoluminus.com) features the Jasper String Quartet – who have admired Fung since first performing one of her quartets in 2019 – being “immediately captivated by the visceral energy and impeccable craft of her writing.” The four works included span 18 years of her chamber output. Fung, whose family survived Cambodian genocide, has travelled extensively in the Far East and drew on folk music of certain parts of Asia, including China and Indonesia, for her String Quartet No.1. It began as a short movement written on assignment at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2001 for performance by the American String Quartet. The success of that reading inspired her to add three more movements, also drawing on Eastern themes, to complete the quartet in 2004. To my ear is it reminiscent of the “night music” style of Béla Bartók, especially in the original pizzicato movement. (What young composer would not be influenced by Bartók’s incredible contribution to the string quartet genre? And, having spoken of musical lineage earlier in this column, I will mention that Fung’s teacher Archer was herself a student of that Hungarian master.) Fung states that “issues of my Asian identity underscore much of my work.” String Quartet No.2 (2009), also uses a Chinese folksong for its base, and String Quartet No.3 (2013) evokes “a non-Western song […] highly ornamented, powerful, and tuned to suggest the microtonal tendencies found in many non-Western scales.” String Quartet No.4: Insects & Machines is likewise inspired by travels to the Orient, this time Cambodia, where “I was especially attuned to the persistent noises of buzzing insects that accompanied my walk through the thick jungle.” The subtitle aptly describes the divisions of this one-movement work: Buzzing… whirring… glitching… ringing… thumping…. The members of the Jasper String Quartet – named after Canada’s Jasper National Park, although I cannot find another Canadian connection to the group – rise to the multiple challenges posed by Fung throughout these works, but especially in the unrelenting and virtuosic tour de force of this final quartet. But final is not the right word: Fung has recently completed a fifth for Victoria’s Lafayette String Quartet. 

Speaking of string quartets, later on in these pages you will find Terry Robbins’ take on Quatuor Molinari’s latest installment of the quartets of Philip Glass. The Molinari is not the only Montreal-based ensemble to have an ongoing interest in the American minimalist master, and Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà have just released a follow-up to their 2008 Philip Glass: Portrait album. Signature: Philip Glass (Analekta AN 2 8755 outhere-music.com/en/labels/analekta) is comprised of 16 short movements drawn from a dozen “signature” works spanning most of four decades. Dubeau says that for many years she has found Glass’ music “nourishing intellectually and musically” and for this, her 48th album, she chose works she finds “significant and compelling” from his vast oeuvre. Opening (appropriately) with Opening from 1981’s Glassworks, the earliest work on the disc, we journey through the years with stops at such classics as Symphony No.3, Koyaanisqatsi, The Somnambulist, A Brief History of Time, Candyman Suite and several movements from Bent. New to me, and of particular interest, is the extended movement from the 2018 Piano Quintet and two Duos for Violin and Cello from 2010 (featuring Dubeau and Julie Trudeau). The arrangements and adaptations are by Dubeau and François Vallières and they are compelling indeed. 

Around the same time that I was discovering the music of Philip Glass in the late 1970s I was also intrigued by the ambient compositions of Brian Eno such as Music for Airports. Glass had a seminal influence on Eno who, in 1971 along with David Bowie, heard Glass perform at the Royal College of Art in London. Glass would later acknowledge a reciprocal influence, composing three symphonies based on Eno and Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy of albums. In 2015 Bruce Brubaker released Glass Piano and with his latest, Eno Piano (infiné iF1088 infine-music.com) the connections continue. Whereas Eno used a variety of techniques and tape loops to create the drones and sustained notes of his ambient creations, in effect making the studio his instrument, with aid of new technologies such as the EBow (an electromagnetic device used to make long notes on the strings of a guitar or piano) and the latest spatialization techniques from IRCAM, Brubaker has effectively turned the grand piano into a studio to be played in real time. It’s quite a stunning achievement. The tracks on offer are the three parts of Music for Airports along with three shorter works, The Chill Air (from Ambient 2 with Harold Budd, 1980), By This River (Before and After Science, 1977) and Emerald and Stone (Small Craft on a Milk Sea, 2010). 

Another contemporary take on the ambient genre, Skjálfti (Quake) by composers Páll Ragnar Pálsson and Eðvarð Egilsson (sonoluminus-com/store/skjalf) extrapolates a 15-part suite from their soundtrack to the 2021 Icelandic film of the same name. Written and directed by Tinna Hrafnsdóttir, the film tells the story of Saga, an author and mother who, after an epileptic seizure, experiences memory loss at the same time as hidden memories of family secrets begin to resurface. The psychological drama the film explores is hauntingly realized in this effective expansion of the original soundtrack that comprised 40 very brief segments, developing them into a strikingly atmospheric stand-alone work. 

Having begun this column with Beethoven’s impressive cycle of piano trios, I will close with the world premiere recording of one of the latest contributions to that time-honoured genre. Renowned Danish composer Poul Ruders (b.1949) had written some two dozen orchestral works (including five symphonies), as many concertante works, and countless chamber pieces (including four string quartets), before embarking on his first Piano Trio in 2020. Written for the Trio Con Brio Copenhagen, featured here in a performance that lives up to the group’s name, the composer describes it as a Kantian “thing in itself” with no hidden agenda. As per the accompanying press release, “The outer movements zip by in a flurry of heightened virtuosity that verges on the ecstatic (or hysterical, depending on your mood).” The contemplative central movement, Slow Motion, provides some much-needed respite from the at times abrasive opening, and a chance to catch your breath before the whirlwind finale. This is a fine example of how older forms can serve contemporary purposes. Cudos to all involved in this exceptional project (Our Recordings 9.70892 ourrecordings.com). 

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

After a career of 47 years the renowned Emerson String Quartet is calling it a day and they have enrolled Canadian superstar Barbara Hannigan for their farewell offering, Infinite Voyage (Alpha 1000 outhere-music.com/en/albums/infinite-voyage). The disc opens gently with Paul Hindemith’s four-song cycle Melancholie, Op.13 which Hannigan’s pure soprano is the perfect vehicle for the poems of Christian Morgenstern. Set in memory of Hindemith’s friend Karl Köhler, whose death on the Western Front in 1918 left the composer devastated, noting “Everything is dreary and empty. I feel deathly sad.” This is followed by Alban Berg’s String Quartet, Op.3, with its references to Tristan und Isolde as a tribute to the composer’s beloved – and later its eerie prefiguring of the madness depicted in his own opera Wozzeck – in a deeply moving performance by the quartet. Pianist Bertrand Chamayou joins the others for Ernest Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle, a setting of abridged verses from Charles Cros’ Nocturne in which the narrator, abandoned by her lover, prepares for suicide. At nearly half an hour, Schoenberg’s String Quartet No.2, in F-sharp Minor, Op.10 is the most substantive work presented here. The first two movements are scored for traditional string quartet. The first movement expands the tonality of the key signature without venturing too far outside the lines. Things begin to go astray in the second movement, when toward the end a fractured, but recognizable rendition of the popular song O du Lieber Augustine with it’s refrain “All is over” is heard. The third and fourth movements both feature soprano and the poetry of Stefan George: Litany built on motives from the previous movements using a text that opens “Deep is the sadness that gloomily comes over me”; and Ecstasy, in which there is no longer a key signature and the words begin “I feel air from another planet” as the work indeed leads us into a new world of tonality. Once again Hannigan’s is the perfect voice for this powerful and haunting work, which provides a fitting end to the Emerson Quartet’s “infinite voyage.” Their journey lasted most of half a century and they produced nearly three dozen recordings. The Emersons will be missed, but what a legacy!

Transfigured featuring the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective and soprano Francesca Chiejina (Chandos CHAN 20277 chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2020277) presents a program of chamber music from the turn of the 20th century with and without voice. The disc begins with Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Maiblumen blühten überall for soprano and string sextet from 1898, a setting of Richard Dehmel’s gruesome poem that translates to Lilies-of-the-valley blossomed everywhere, which ends “and the sun burned him to death in the corn.” Anton Webern’s 1907 Quintet for Piano and Strings, at 13 minutes is one of the composer’s most sustained works. Written early in his studies with Schoenberg, it shows some influence of Zemlinsky, his orchestration teacher, and certainly an appreciation of Brahms, as well as an understanding of his new mentor’s ideas. Zemlinsky, Schoenberg’s teacher and later his brother-in-law, also numbered among his students Alma Schindler, who became his lover before her marriage to Gustav Mahler in 1902. She wrote a variety of compositions before her marriage, but Mahler decreed that his wife would have to give up composing. He later relented somewhat and in 1910 sent her music to Universal Edition who published some of the songs recorded here. Kaleidoscope pianist Tom Poster has arranged them quite effectively for soprano and string sextet and in this form they perfectly complement the other repertoire on the disc. Chiejina’s dark, dramatic voice is well suited to these songs which actually show more affinity with the world of Zemlinsky and Schoenberg than that of Mahler. In 1899 Schoenberg wrote the string sextet Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) which remains his most celebrated work, with the possible exception of the mammoth Gurrelieder published a decade later. Like Zemlinsky’s Maiblumen and the first of Alma’s songs presented here, Die stille Stadt, it is based on an emotionally charged poem by Dehmel. In this case however, the text is interpreted solely through music in an extended and gripping tone poem replete with sturm und drang. As the notes tell us, “indebted to Brahms in its string sextet form, the work seemed to be a deliberate repudiation of such a soundworld and its harmonic rules.” Although still some years away from his development of the “atonal” 12-note system of composition, and still using a traditional key signature (D minor), in this seminal work Schoenberg expands the tonality, stretching it almost to the breaking point while still conveying the depths of emotion in this star-crossed love story. Kaleidoscope rises and falls exquisitely with all the rollercoaster twists and turns of the plot until eventually, a half hour later, the quiet and compassionate resolution brings this very satisfying disc to a resplendent close. 

I have spent some time in recent months sorting through several thousand LPs in my basement and came across Glenn Gould’s two iconic recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I took the opportunity to give them both a spin and was surprised at just how much I appreciated Gould’s “mature” 1981 version (51 minutes) with its leisurely approach versus the sprightly, often breakneck tempos of his youthful 1955 debut (38 minutes). A few days after this comparative listening session a new recording of the Goldbergs by Icelander Vikingur Ólafsson arrived at my desk (Deutsche Grammophon 486 4553 vikingurolafsson.com) and to my surprise, I now have a new favourite of this much-recorded work. As the opening Aria began, I got the impression that, as with the elder Gould, I was in for another treat and settled in for a smooth and relaxing ride, but soon had to fasten my seatbelt; a number of the 30 variations proved to be as nimble and breathtaking as the young Gould’s renderings. It is simply astounding to me that fingers can actually move that quickly and articulately. That notwithstanding, the relationship between the slow and fast movements and overall arc of the trajectory from opening aria to closing reprise gave the impression of a thoughtful, relaxed and balanced performance. It has always surprised me that a work commissioned by an insomniac to ease him through long, sleepless nights is quite so active and engaging. I would have expected the intention to be more of a sleep-aid than an entertainment. In spite of his virtuosic dexterity in the faster variations, I found Ólafsson’s interpretation to be more in keeping with my own sensibilities in this regard. I was quite surprised to find that this new recording is virtually twice as long as Gould’s original, despite Ólafsson’s equally fast tempos in some of the variations. I had to refer to the score to confirm my suspicion that, as is somewhat common practice, Gould omitted the second (and I think even some of the first) repeats, whereas Ólafsson plays them all, giving an outstanding performance that lasts some 74 minutes.

One of my great pleasures this past summer was reading Ma vie heureuse (My Happy Life) by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974). I was quite surprised to discover that this prolific French composer, a member of Les Six, is sadly underrepresented in current commercial recordings and on websites like YouTube and Spotify. My own collection, built over the past half century, is thankfully more complete than what’s out there currently, so I was nonetheless able to revisit some of Milhaud’s wonderful compositions in conjunction with his delightful memoire. That being said, I was pleased to receive a new disc from clarinetist Yevgeny Dokshansky recently featuring Milhaud’s Suite for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano Op.157b (1936), comprising charming movements excepted from the music for a play by Jean Anouilh. Around the World: Trios for Clarinet, Violin and Piano performed by Ensemble Next Parallel (Heritage Records HTGCD170 heritage-records.com) also includes work by Milhaud’s contemporary, Armenian Aram Khachaturian, and living composers Peter Schickele (USA) and Roger J. Henry (Trinidad and Tobago). Khachaturian’s trio has a Romantic sensibility, and its final movement draws on an Uzbek folk melody. In Serenade for Three, Schickele is up to his usual tricks, particularly in the final movement’s perpetually rising variations on a theme from his alter ego PDQ Bach’s oratorio Oedipus Tex. Henry’s Caribbean infused music is actually not dissimilar to the sounds of Brazil that so inspired Milhaud most of a century earlier. 

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Yevgeny Dokshansky also included his earlier Heritage release featuring another of my mid-century favourite composers – From Jewish Life: The Music of Ernest Bloch – on which he is accompanied by pianist Richard Masters. Another welcome addition to my collection.

Regional Roots Roundup

As I write this in early November, I have just enjoyed a heady evening at the new Hugh’s Room Live. It was my maiden voyage to the venue on Broadview Avenue, and I must say I was mightily impressed with the layout and the acoustics of the former Broadview Avenue Congregational Church, an 1894 structure designed by iconic Toronto architect E.J. Lennox. Unfortunately the venue is not yet wheelchair accessible, but press releases assure us it is a priority to rectify this as soon as possible. 

The occasion of my outing involved the launch of the Andrew Collins Trio CD The Rule of Three (andrewcollinstrio.com). The musicianship of this band is outstanding; between the three of them they cover mandolin(s), mandola, mandocello, string bass, guitar and fiddle(s). As to what kind of music they play, Collins is the first to admit it’s hard to describe. He’s even written a song about it that you can check out on YouTube: I Don’t Know (But I Like It). The influences are diverse. While leaning heavily to bluegrass, there’s a healthy mix of western swing, old-time, folky singer/songwriter, a bit of pop – including a tune by Pink Floyd – and straight up classical, with a remarkable rendition of Debussy’s Clair de Lune on this new album. Although mostly a string band, not all of the repertoire is instrumental. Vocals are mostly taken care of by Collins, with bass player James McEleney providing sweet harmonies and occasional leads. The Rule of Three opens with Contranym, which Collins explained refers to words which are also their own opposites, such as cleave or sanction. It’s not a word I was familiar with, but in one of life’s little synchronicities Contranyms came up as a category on the episode of Jeopardy I watched the very next day. Other highlights for me include the raucous How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall, the balladic title track, the dizzyingly virtuosic Fleabag and That Jethro Really Burns!, a swinging tribute to Kenneth C. “Jethro” Burns of Homer and Jethro fame. 

Collins also spoke about the strange experience of sheltering in place during the pandemic, a time spent playing alone and writing mandolin tunes. The result was the 2022 solo release Love Away the Hate on which he performs admirably as a one-man band, combining mandolin, mandola, mandocello, violin and guitar arrangements of ten tunes also available in notation and tablature in an accompanying book of sheet music. I look forward to using this to hone my own mandolin skills!

The new Hugh’s Room doesn’t have a kitchen, so rather than the dinner club aspect of the original venue, focus is on the intimate concert hall setting so well appreciated by the audience. One potential casualty of this format is Ken Whiteley’s Gospel Brunches, a treasured monthly feature at the old location. Fortunately, Whiteley has adapted his approach. The first Gospel Matinee took place on Sunday November 12 and presumably will continue in the new year. The first installment served as a launch for Whiteley’s latest CD So Glad I’m Here (kenwhiteley.com) featuring a special guest – Iranian tar and oud master Davod Azad – giving an ecumenical take on the gospel genre. On it, Whiteley plays a host of instruments, including guitar and resophonic guitar, accordion, mandolin and Hammond organ among others, with George Koller on bass, Bucky Berger on drums and half a dozen supporting musicians and singers, all making “a joyful noise unto the Lord.” The repertoire involves traditional gospel tunes adapted and arranged by Whiteley, along with several originals, including the anthemic (My God Is) Bigger Than That (a sentiment I much prefer to the one more common in this troubled world, “My God is Bigger than Yours!”). One of the real rockers is Gospel Ship which is kind of a family affair with brother Chris Whiteley on harmonica and son Ben on bass, along with full chorus. Azad’s ethereal introduction to Reverend Dan Smith’s This Is The Lord’s House sets the stage for a truly welcoming invitation for everyone to come in and “taste the bread of life.” Each of the nine songs is a treasure, but a highlight is the title track with Whiteley’s finger style guitar intro and Azad’s solo, which is a true stunner. The penultimate track, It’s Gonna Rain, is superb. 

There are several connections to the preceding in Constellations, the new album by Canadian Appalachian clawhammer-style banjo playing, guitar picking singer/songwriter Meredith Moon (True North Records TND807 meredithmoon.com). The CD was recorded, mixed and mastered by Andrew Collins and the Toronto launch took place at Hugh’s Room Live back in October. Eight of the ten tracks are self-penned, mostly self-accompanied ballads with an old-time feel. One exception is Soldier’s Joy including bass and subtle drums and a fiddle break from Tony Allen, with strangely dark lyrics about the whiskey/beer/morphine concoction used in the 19th century in lieu of anesthetic for battlefield surgeries. I had not heard the words before and only knew it as an upbeat traditional fiddle tune. Quite a surprise! The other is Needlecase Medley, another traditional offering, in this case solo banjo with Moon accompanying herself with podorythmie (foot tapping common in Québécois and Acadian music). Other highlights include the beautiful title track, a nostalgic look back at the wanderlust of Moon’s earlier days, and the closer, Slow Moving Train, a haunting depiction of time rolling on. 

I’m surprised and a little embarrassed to say that I had never heard of Canadian singer/songwriter Noah Zacharin until his ninth CD Points of Light (noahsong.com) landed on my desk. I’m sorry to have come so late to the parade because Zacharin is really something. In addition to his solo career in which he has opened for the likes of Odetta, Dave van Ronk and Fairport Convention, he has appeared as a musician or producer on some 65 albums by artists from across North America. This latest disc showcases his outstanding finger-style guitar chops accompanying his solo vocals in storytelling ballads, as well as full band versions of another half a dozen songs in various styles from the gentle and gorgeous (My Love is a) Red Red Bird featuring Denis Keldie (B3) and Burke Carroll (pedal steel) to some rollicking blues and honkytonk tunes to me reminiscent of the late Mose Scarlett and (Chris and Ken Whiteley’s) Original Sloth Band, with help from Gary Craig (drums), Russ Boswell (bass) with cameos from Kevin Turcotte (trumpet) and Roly Platt (harmonica). The disc opens in solo mode with Ten Tons of Road, a paean to love and the call of the road, and continues with one of my favourites 17 Minute, an anti-lament of sorts for past loves. Zacharin seems content to let the past go, with no hard feelings putting me in mind of Tom Rush’s iconic No Regrets. Something Like a River is a solo acoustic guitar instrumental depicting a stretch of the York River in the Canadian Shield where Zacharin spends time in an off-grid cabin. The disc ends quietly with the lovely Been a Long Day, just guitar and voice complemented by an inobtrusive, though lush, string arrangement by Drew Jurecka. I’m so glad that Points of Light found its way to me.

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

Enigmatic Variations consists of Canadian works performed by Calgary-based violist Margaret Carey and pianist Roger Admiral (Centrediscs CMCCD 32723 cmccanada.org/product-category/recordings/Centrediscs), opening with a piece by Malcolm Forsyth (1936-2011), Steps for Viola and Piano (1978). Traditionally melodic and idiomatically well-suited to the viola, the five movements are self-explanatory: Buoyant, Strange Light, Violent, Colours and Jocular, all played adeptly by Carey and Admiral. Milton Barnes (1931-2001) is featured on three tracks, Ballade for Solo Viola (1978) and Lament and Hymn Tune Pavane for Viola and Piano (1976). Barnes was a traditionalist by nature who was schooled in the 12-tone tradition but chose to avoid avant-garde idioms in favour of tonally based expression. The pieces included here, especially Ballade, are playfully rhythmic and melodic, at times reminiscent of childhood chants and songs. 

The title of the disc is taken from a 2021 work commissioned from Sean Clarke (b.1983). Clarke and Carey both studied at Mount Royal University Conservatory and the variations are inspired by the “virtuosity, playing and teaching style” of several of their teachers and colleagues, as well as a landscape drawing by Carey featuring Canadian flora and fauna imbedded in a Peruvian Inca Cross. Apart from occasional sharp outbursts, the variations remain as dark and enigmatic as the opening theme. 

The most substantial work on this disc is the Viola Concerto Op.75 by one of the most prolific composers from Quebec, Jacques Hétu (1938-2010). Hétu composed 16 concerted works for most of the instruments usually found in an orchestra and several that are not, such as ondes Martinon, amplified guitars and marimba, plus a Rondo for cello and string orchestra and a Symphonie concertante for flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, bassoon and strings. Not to mention four full symphonies. I don’t believe any Canadian composer has come close to this orchestral output. The Viola Concerto (performed here in a piano reduction) is in four contrasting movements. Although Admiral does a fine job with the piano accompaniment, the lush colours of Hétu’s original orchestration are a bit lost in the translation. Carey’s solo viola is however, here as throughout the disc, full and present with all the nuance we would expect. 

In response to Carey’s request for a solo viola work, Stewart Grant (b.1948) transcribed his Two Poems – Breath of Life and The Rear View Mirror – originally composed for cello (2004). The disc concludes with a second 2021 commission, A Three Dog Night by the youngest composer represented here, Benjamin Sajo (b.1988). It’s another contemplative work, with the piano and dark-hued viola line perfectly balanced. 

Another Canadian disc that has been in frequent rotation here this past month is Kevin Lau: Under a Veil of Stars featuring the St. John | Mercer | Park Trio (Leaf Music LM273 leaf-music.ca). Born in 1988, Lau is on track to give Jacques Hétu a run for the money in orchestral output. An almost ubiquitous figure on the GTHA music scene, Lau has served as composer-in-residence or affiliate composer with the Toronto, Mississauga and Niagara Symphony Orchestras, the Banff Centre and currently, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. In addition, his works have been performed by the National Arts Centre, Winnipeg Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic and Tampa Bay Symphony Orchestras and the National Ballet of Canada, for which he has composed two major works. This release is devoted to his chamber music, including works for piano trio and subsets thereof. 

The extended title work is in three movements that are evocatively brought to life in the music: The Stars are Never Still; Land of Poison Trees and In that Shoreless Ocean. In his intimate program note Lau describes the impetus for the work, and how it changed with the death of the dedicatee, violinist Yehonatan Berick. Berick, along with his life partner cellist Rachel Mercer and pianist Angela Park comprised the AYR Trio who commissioned the work. Lau says the three movements depict a life cycle chronicling childhood, adulthood and old age. Renowned soloist and chamber musician Scott St. John has taken on the emotionally difficult task of replacing Berick in this trio’s configuration, not only in the trio works but also in Intuitions No.2, a violin and cello duo written for Berick and Mercer, and If Life Were a Mirror for violin and piano. This latter work comprises reflections on Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the Mirror), in which we hear numerous echoes of familiar tunes from Bach and other icons, “musical artifacts that reflect one another like a hall of mirrors.” The former was composed as part of a set of pieces designed to be played by partners living in the same bubble during the pandemic lockdowns, and the latter was completed just before the COVID-19 outbreak. 

The other trio works include two from 2007, Piano Trio No.1 and Timescape Variations, and A Simple Secret from 2019. The Dreamer for solo piano fills out the disc. Mercer and Park have worked together in various combinations over many years, including the piano quartet Ensemble Made in Canada, and their compatibility and intuitive partnership are on fine display here. St. John’s playing fits with these two like a glove, partly I’m sure due to Lau’s idiomatic and skilfully crafted music. A very satisfying release.

Gerald Cohen – Voyagers presents chamber music by this American composer performed by the Cassatt String Quartet with guest soloists Narek Arutyunian (clarinets) and trombonist Colin Williams (innova 090 innova.mu). Cohen (b.1960) is a Jewish cantor and professional baritone as well as a composer and his music often reflects his religious roots. Playing for Our Lives was written for the Cassatt for a 2012 concert devoted to music by composers interned at the Nazi concentration camp Terezin (Theresienstadt) near Prague. The quartet asked for a contemporary memorial and tribute to the musical life at that place, a transit camp on the road to Auschwitz and other death camps. The three movements draw on material related to Terezin: a Yiddish folk song Beryozkele (Little Birch Tree) which had also been set by Viktor Ullmann who perished in Auschwitz; a lullaby from Hans Krasa’s children’s opera Brundibar, composed and performed at Terezin; and Verdi’s Requiem, a piece championed at the camp by conductor Rafael Schachter, from which Cohen fashioned his Dies Irae (Day of Wrath). The music is at once angry, contemplative, full of angst, uplifting and haunting, ultimately ending in sublime quietude. 

The title work for clarinet and string quartet is a tribute to the Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977 and headed to the outer reaches of the solar system. It was inspired by the music of the Voyager Golden Record, an audio time capsule intended to give extraterrestrial beings an impression of human culture on Planet Earth. Cohen “chose several of these [sound samples]: a Beethoven string quartet (Cavatina), an Indian raga (Bhairavi) and a Renaissance dance (Galliard), weaving them together in a composition that celebrates humanity’s quest to explore the universe, and the power of music to express the rich emotions and cultures of human life.” The final movement Beyond the Heliosphere brings back aspects of the first three using the Beethoven as its central element and ending with a direct quote from the Cavatina of Beethoven’s Op.130 quartet before fading out with a repeated high note from the bass clarinet “as if the signal of the Voyager keeps going, ever fainter, as it continues its interstellar voyage.” 

The disc ends with Preludes and Debka, written in 2001 for the unusual combination of trombone and string quartet. Three contrasting preludes lead to the concluding debka, a Middle Eastern dance popular in both Arab and Israeli communities, introduced by a trombone cadenza. This finale is “mostly lively and playful, eventually becoming rather wild before reprising the debka theme at the conclusion” bringing this intriguing and sometimes surprising disc to an end. 

The early 20th century was an exciting time in the development of European concert music, with a plethora of new approaches. With Divergent Paths – Schoenberg & Ravel (Azica ACD-71360 azica.com) the Telegraph Quartet has embarked on a project to present and juxtapose some of these diverse directions. Although born one year apart, Ravel (1875-1937) and Schoenberg (1874-1951) could in many ways not be farther apart, and the same could be said of the quartets presented here, written around the same time (1902 and 1907 respectively). The excellent and extensive liner notes claim that this is the first time the two have been recorded together, and point out that they rarely, if ever, appear on the same concert program. Following in the footsteps of Debussy’s quartet of a decade earlier, Ravel’s is the epitome of French Impressionism while Schoenberg’s expanded tonality points the way to his later development of the 12-note system adopted by the Second Viennese School; together they paint a telling portrait of the changing times. Although there is some sturm und drang in the vif et agité final movement of the Ravel, the overall impression is that of beauty and balance. Schoenberg’s String Quartet No.1 in D Minor, Op.7 starts stormily, in the relative minor key to Ravel’s F Major, making a good case for their pairing, but there the similarities stop. There is a lushness in the Schoenberg, especially in the third movement, but it is a much darker mood than the mostly playful Ravel. Heard now, more than a century after it was composed, the Schoenberg no longer sounds shockingly abrasive and there is even a Romantic sensibility in its quieter moments, making me wonder why it is still so infrequently heard in the concert hall. Fortunately, there are a number of historic recordings available of Schoenberg’s four quartets by the likes of the Juilliard, LaSalle, New Vienna, Schoenberg and Pražák string quartets. Hopefully this committed and thoroughly nuanced performance by the Telegraph Quartet will bring this first to a wider audience. I look forward to where they take us next in their exploration of Divergent Paths. 

Although relegated to obscurity in recent decades, the prolific composer Leopold van der Pals is currently undergoing a renaissance, thanks in large part to the efforts of cellist Tobias van der Pals, the great-grandson of Leopold’s younger brother, conductor Nikolaj. Leopold was born in St Petersburg in 1884. His father was the Dutch consul there, while his Danish-born maternal grandfather was Julius Johannsen – composer, music theorist, professor at and later director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Music had a central role in the van der Pals home, where the composers Glazunov and Tchaikovsky were regular guests, and it was on Glazunov’s recommendation that the young Leopold began his tuition as a composer. At Rachmaninoff’s suggestion he went to study with Reinhold Glière in Berlin, under whose tutelage he completed a symphony that was accepted for performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, an auspicious beginning indeed. The outbreak of WWI forced him to leave Germany and the October Revolution in Russia meant he could not return there either. Van der Pals settled in Switzerland where he remained until his death in 1966.  

Tobias van der Pals has been immersed in his great uncle’s life and legacy for more than 20 years and in 2018 had the opportunity to move Leopold’s entire archive to Copenhagen. There are now over 700 compositions being prepared for publication by Edition Wilhelm Hansen with Tobias as editor. Following a CD of orchestral works and another of solo concertos, CPO has recently released Leopold van der Pals – String Quartets Vol.1 performed by the Van Der Pals Quartet, of which Tobias is a member (CPO 555 282-2 vanderpalsquartet.com). Van der Pals completed six quartets and the first three are included here, along with a brief late work, In Memoriam Marie Steiner. Born a decade after Ravel and Schoenberg, he too wrote his first quartet around the age of 30, beginning it shortly after his move to Switzerland. That decade seems to have made a difference in the confluence of styles, and in van der Pals’ writing we see something of a blending of the cultural differences of the elder masters. 

Although van der Pals returned to the medium at several points in his life, the first three quartets were completed within a span of a dozen years. Strangely he didn’t publish the second and only heard a fragment of it performed in his lifetime. It was given its world premiere by this ensemble in 2018. The lyrical third quartet dates from 1929 and was very well received by public and critics alike as, it seems, was all his music. This makes its disappearance during the latter part of the century even harder to fathom. Kudos to Tobias van der Pals and his colleagues and to the folks at CPO for bringing these forgotten gems to light. I am eager to hear more.

I had hoped to include one more disc, but I see I have run out of space so I will just give it honourable mention here. Stravinsky | Poulenc | Debussy (LAWO Classics LWC1260 lawo.no) features excellent performances by Norwegian cellist Amalie Stalheim and pianist Christian Ihle Hadland of Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, an arrangement of Baroque-inspired dances extracted from his ballet Pulcinella, and cello sonatas by Poulenc and Debussy, the latter being one of the Impressionist master’s final works. A collection to treasure, with immaculate sound, balance and ensemble playing. 

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

Jumping the gun a wee bit, I’d like to start with a world premiere recording of Leonard Bernstein’s “long lost” Music for String Quartet (1936) that will not be released officially until September 8 (Navona Records nv6577 navonarecords.com). Composed by an 18-year-old Bernstein during his studies at Harvard, the piece has been “steadfastly shepherded from its re-discovery to this historic release” by former Boston Symphony Orchestra librarian John Perkel who discovered it in the Library of Congress. The two-movement work lasts just over ten minutes, beginning with an extended angular, though melodic, dance-like fast movement followed by a brief and somewhat mournful slow one. It’s not clear whether this latter, recently found in the Library of Congress, was intended as a final movement – it ends somewhat inconclusively with a pizzicato pattern fading into oblivion. Complete or not, this is an interesting addition to the string quartet repertoire and an important key to understanding the young Bernstein who would go on to become such an iconic figure in American music. It is convincingly performed by violinists Lucia Lin and Natalie Rose Kress, violist Danny Kim and cellist Ronald Feldman. Kress and Kim are also featured in the contemplative duo Elegies for Violin and Viola by Aaron Copland, a musical mentor, collaborator and dear friend of Bernstein’s.

Sticking with American music for string quartet, Bright Shiny Things has recently released Shatter, three world premiere recordings performed by the Verona Quartet (BSTD-0186 brightshiny.ninja). The works include Julia Adolphe’s Star-Crossed Signals, Michael Gilbertson’s Quartet and Reena Esmail’s Ragamala, which features Hindustani singer Saili Oak. It is this latter four-movement work that opens the disc and comprises almost half its length. Ragamala interweaves Eastern and Western traditions. Each movement opens the same way, inspired by Esmail’s experience of attending concerts in India, with traditional drones here provided by the string quartet. Each movement is based on a different raag: Fantasie (Bihag); Scherzo (Malkauns); Recitative (Basant); and the Rondo (Jog) all sung by the sultry Oak over the lush textures of the strings. Adolphe’s Star-Crossed Signals juxtaposes issues of empowerment and the assertion of dominance with a yearning for connection. The movement titles, DELTA X-RAY and KILO KILO come from nautical signal flags used by ships at sea, which the composer’s father used in his early paintings. The first, which means “keep your distance” and “watch for my signals,” is quite aggressive in contrast to the second, “I wish to communicate with you” in which the composer says “the strings gently reach for one another, enveloping and folding each line in a kind of dance.” Gilbertson’s Quartet was in progress during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, after which it became a personal reaction to those events. Feeling the need to compose something comforting, Gilbertson chose as the basis for the first movement Mother Chords a gesture like the pulsing chords that open Sibelius’ Second Symphony. The second movement Simple Sugars, which Gilbertson describes as “carbs that are metabolized quickly and provide an immediate rush, but no nutritional substance” is an allusion to the movement’s restless energy. The Verona Quartet rises to all the challenges of these diverse works. 

From quartets to octets now, in a manner of speaking. My first exposure to Steve Reich’s music for multiple instruments of the same family was Vermont Counterpoint for solo flute and an ensemble of ten flutes, or pre-recorded tracks of the piccolos, flutes and alto flutes as performed by the soloist, this latter being the case in the 1982 Ransom Wilson EMI release. In 2003 Reich composed Cello Counterpoint for eight cellos on a joint commission for Maya Beiser (who will appear later on in the column). On the recent New Focus Recordings release 8-Track (FCR373 newfocusrecordings.com) we are presented with Ashley Bathgate’s layered realization of the work, along with new compositions in the same format by Canadian/Icelandic composer Fjóla Evans and Americans Emily Cooley and Alex Weiser. Evans’ Augun was inspired by a traditional Icelandic song and features overlapping motives to create shimmering, undulating textures. Cooley tells us that composing Assemble was like “assembling a sort of puzzle;” only at the end do the pieces come together in one voice. Weiser’s Shimmer unfolds through gradual and dramatic changes, in a waxing and waning of the canonic relationship between each cello and the soloist. This is the closest in minimalist spirit to Reich’s original which concludes this inspired disc. Bathgate’s technical control and musicality shine through each of these contrasting works within a common context, resulting in a mesmerizing recording. My only concern is that the two most similar sounding works, Weiser’s and Reich’s, are placed side by side. I would have preferred the disc to begin with Cello Counterpoint thus presenting a context for the project.

Listen to '8-Track' Now in the Listening Room

Kate Ellis’ Strange Waves is a digital release that takes this same approach to the cello ensemble, but this time presenting an extended six-movement work by collaborating Irish composer Ed Bennett (Ergodos Records ergodos.bandcamp.com). Ellis has been a member of Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s leading new music group, for the past two decades and currently serves as its artistic director. Strange Waves is a predominantly ambient work with the multiple cellos blending in a dreamlike texture of glissandos and drones creating a foggy haze into which field recordings from the County Down coast and Ireland’s northernmost island, Rathlin in the North Atlantic, are subtly integrated. A truly meditative experience.

Infinite Bach is Maya Beiser’s very personal take on the iconic Suites for Solo Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach (Islandia Music Records IMR012 islandiamusic.com/releases). In the words of Beiser, best known for her work as an avant-garde cellist, “I spent 2022, my 60th year of life, immersed in recording, and rerecording, deconstructing and decontextualizing, experimenting and exploring sounds, reverberations, harmonics in my converted barn in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, engaging with Bach’s cello Suites. Having dedicated the past 35 years to creating new music, work that reimagines the cello on a vast canvas in multiple disciplines, I radically departed from the conventional classical cello sound. Yet, the Suites were ingrained in my daily practice. Even as I was getting ready to perform a new work by Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, or David Bowie, I would still begin every day playing a movement from the Suites. Over the years I was experimenting with the process of unlearning the doctrine I was taught about this music, until last year when I took the time to relearn it anew.” The result takes some getting used to, sounding at times as if recorded from a different room, with extreme reverberation sometimes supplemented with sympathetic drones and overlays, and some radically altered tempos. I also find the arrangement of the suites surprising. Spread over three discs (itself not unusual) Beiser has chosen to pair the suites according to major and minor tonality, the G major and C majors (nos.1 and 3) on the first disc, the D minor and C minor (2 and 5) on the second and the E-flat major and D major (4 and 6) on the last. While my initial reaction was that this was too much of the same mood on each disc, I eventually came around to appreciate the continuity. And once I let myself let go of expectations and prejudice about how these works were supposed to sound, I was able to immerse myself in Beiser’s vision and enjoy the ride. Although Infinite Bach is available in Full Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio via Apple Music and in an Immersive Binaural Mix for enhanced headphone listening, I must say the plain old-fashioned CDs sound pretty good on my old stereo system too.

Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir is another cellist who has made the Bach Suites “her own,” re-interpreting them, although in a much less radical way than Beiser. In the liner notes to Marrow – The 6 Suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach (Sono Luminus DSL-92263 sonoluminus.com) she says “There is an Icelandic saying, ‘mergur málsins,’ which directly translates to ‘the marrow of the matter,’ and these Suites, to me, speak directly to the essence of being human. As for many cellists, these Suites have been my steady companion throughout my life with the cello, first as a vehicle to learn counterpoint, style, and harmony, then as material with which to explore personal expression and interpretation, and today they are a mirror, reflecting the deeper truth of the human experience, revealing more layers of meaning each time I come back to them.” Thorsteinsdóttir feels Bach “pushes the boundaries of the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument with each succeeding Suite.” As she began playing the Suites as a set, she heard a dramatic through-line begin to emerge, finding the first “innocent” and the second as a “first taste of bitter disappointment,” in the third a “renewed optimism,” the fourth “bold and brash,” with “dark tragedy” in the fifth and “glorious redemption” in the sixth. To clearly illuminate this arc, she presents the Suites without the printed repeats “so that we may more closely follow this universal storyline.” This also has the advantage of making it possible to present them all of a piece, in one sitting. The two CDs of this set clock in at 90 minutes, and present the suites in numerical order conserving the original major-minor-major groupings. The performance is exhilarating and makes for a satisfying, if intense, listening session.

The final selection also features solo cello, but in a very different context. In a trip down memory lane, Portrait (mikeherriott.com/bwg_gallery/discography) featuring cellist Ofra Harnoy and her life partner trumpeter Mike Herriott, takes me back to my days as a music programmer at CJRT-FM. Harnoy’s RCA discs of Haydn and Vivaldi concertos (several of which were world premiere recordings) with the Toronto Chamber Orchestra under the direction of former CJRT music director Paul Robinson were staples of our library. The current disc with the H&H Studio Orchestra, a hand-picked ensemble of Toronto’s finest studio musicians, features many of the jewels of the operatic repertoire that were often heard during CJRT’s exhilarating all-hands-on-deck fundraising campaigns. These include Una Furtiva Lagrima from L’elisir d’Amore, The Flower Duet from Lakme, Au Fond du Temple Saint from The Pearl Fishers, along with several selections from Porgy and Bess and Somewhere from West Side Story. These vocal treasures have been masterfully arranged by Herriott and feature cello and trumpet alternating in the solo roles. All the performances are outstanding and my only quibble is that overall mood, lyrical and slow moving, is a bit too similar from track to track. That being said, it’s still a marvellous journey, which ends with Harnoy’s moving transcription for cello and trumpet of Larry Adler and Itzhak Perlman’s languid duet arrangement of the iconic Summertime. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

Aux deux hémisphères features two sonatas and three stand-alone works by Quebec cellist and composer Dominique Beauséjour-Ostiguy, accompanied by pianist Jean-Michel Dubé, (Société Métropolitaine du disque SMD 311-1 dominiquebeausejourostiguy.com). Although the CD’s extensive liner notes are unilingual French, the composer’s website gives detailed context in English for the project from which I take the following: “The title is a reference to two of my main sources of inspiration, namely the lyricism and the torment found in Russian post-Romantic music as well as the relentless rhythmic energy of Argentinian tango music. These two hemispheres are very present in my music and represent the two poles of my musical personality. Indeed, my compositions frequently alternate between introversion and extroversion [creating] a cinematographic flavour with a lot of intensity and contrasts. The two hemispheres are also a way of expressing the duality and the complicity between the cello and the piano, constantly in dialogue and each occupying a place of equal importance.” On repeated listening to this disc, the word that kept coming to my mind was “soaring.” The music itself is enthralling, both conventional and adventurous at the same time, and the multi-award-winning performers, are in top form. As pointed out by Terry Robbins elsewhere in these pages, the facilities at Domaine Forget where it was recorded in late 2021 “guaranteeing top-level sound quality,” this album is a real treat for chamber music enthusiasts. 

Nuages is another outstanding Canadian cello and piano disc, showcasing Noémie Raymond-Friset and Michel-Alexandre Broekaert respectively, collectively known as Duo Cavatine (KNS Classical KNS A/121 duocavatine.com). The title for this debut disc, which translates as clouds, comes from its centrepiece, producer David Jaeger’s Constable’s Clouds for solo cello. I spoke in my February column about a reworking of this piece with electronics for violist Elizabeth Reid, so I welcomed the opportunity to get to know this original set of variations inspired by the cloud studies of John Constable. Jaeger tells us the variations “of widely differing character” were inspired by the “magical and endless variation we see in the shapes of clouds streaming by.” Raymond-Friset, who gave the work’s premiere, rises to all the technical challenges Jaeger presents in these nuanced nuages. The disc opens with a rarely heard yet charming sonata by Francis Poulenc dating from the occupation years of the Second World War. It’s from the gentle second movement Cavatine that the duo has taken its name. Alfred Schnittke’s powerful Sonata for Cello and Piano No.1 reverses the normal order of things by starting and ending with Largo movements bookending a diabolic moto perpetuo Presto. Throughout the disc, whether in the lyricism of Poulenc or the abrasiveness of Schnittke, Raymond-Friset and Broekaert shine, with technique and musicality to burn. Recorded at Glenn Gould Studio the sound is, as we have come to expect from engineer Dennis Patterson, impeccable.

Listen to 'Nuages' Now in the Listening Room

In the Pot Pourri section this month you will find Andrew Timar’s thoughtful and informative account of three new discs by the California based Gamelan Sinar Surya, an ensemble devoted to preserving the traditional gamelan music of Indonesia and its diaspora. In contrast, following in the footsteps of his West Coast predecessor Lou Harrison, American composer Brian Baumbusch has created his own instruments in the Balinese tradition while also envisioning new performance practices through innovative building designs and special tunings. He has worked closely with the Balinese ensemble Nata Swara and in 2022 donated his instruments to them and shipped – 1,800 pounds of them – to Bali. He then went to Bali himself to record the album Chemistry for Gamelan and String Quartet with Nata Swara and JACK Quartet (New World Records 80833-2 newworldrecords.org/search?q=Brian+Baumbusch). The disc opens with the exhilarating Prisms for Gene Davis for gamelan, completed in 2021, the most recent work presented. This is followed by Three Elements for String Quartet (2016), Helium, Lithium and Mercury. Performed by JACK, the work, an extreme example of Baumbusch’s “polytempo” style, features close harmonies and some abrasive textures amid doppler effects and the breakneck speed of its final movement. The disc closes with Hydrogen(2)Oxygen (2015) featuring both ensembles. The work reconsiders the earlier Bali Alloy for quartet and gamelan in which the composer attempted to unite the disparate instruments. This later work takes into consideration the irreconcilability of its two sound worlds, i.e. the harmonic overtone series naturally produced by the string instruments and the inharmonic series of partials of the steel and cedar bars of the gamelan instruments. This allows the string quartet and gamelan to exist side-by-side, exploiting their combinations and contrasts for expressive effect; in the words of Stephen Brooke after the premiere, “building from an ethereal opening into a raging torrent of asymmetrical rhythms, phase-shifting patterns and beautifully strange harmonies [...] magnificent, and as intoxicating as a drug.” 

There are times when Baumbusch’s textures sound unearthly and it’s hard to reconcile the sounds with acoustic instruments. The same is true of Jason Doell’s Becoming in Shadows – Of Being Touched (Whited Sepulchre Records WSR043 jasondoell.com), although in this instance there are electronic manipulations at work. All the sound materials originate from the composer’s daily piano improvisations recorded while in residency at the Banff Centre in early 2020 (although some of it seems to have been performed by Mauro Zannoli on a “frozen” piano, exhumed from a snowbank). These are, to greater and lesser degrees, subjected to a piece of simple generative music software developed by Doell. The program blends user-defined parameters with decision-making procedures to determine how sounds from an audio database are strung together, layered and transformed, all the while guided by the composer’s aesthetic. A kind of humanized AI design. The result is a dreamlike landscape, a labyrinthine journey where microtonal pitches are blended with soft percussive sounds, all recognizable as emanating from a piano, albeit an otherworldly one. 

Concert Note: On June 18 at Array Space the TONE Festival features Jason Doell as he launches his album Becoming In Shadows ~ Of Being Touched. 

Although there is an electronic aspect on one of the tracks of Christina Petrowska Quilico’s latest CD Blaze featuring piano music of Alice Ping Yee Ho (Centrediscs CMCCD 31323 cmccanada.org/product-category/recordings/Centrediscs), the rest are purely acoustic. Ho tells us “The eight works in this collection have short, descriptive titles, with inspiration drawn from abstract paintings, forces of nature, the last journey of a female pilot, a horror film, plus a show piece from a piano competition. These compositions are both introspective and personal, designed to elicit evocative ‘images’ or ‘impressions,’ visually and psychologically. It is a great honour to have these works recorded by Christina Petrowska Quilico, an astounding musician as well as an acclaimed visual artist. The poetic metaphors in these pieces not only showcase her powerful performer’s persona but also uniquely resonate with her beautiful and vibrant paintings.” Among the paintings depicted are Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. Erupting Skies evokes Amelia Earhart’s last journey: “The solo piano is a symbolic representation of a female voice; […] the electronic track is a combination of Earhart’s voice with multiple layers of engineered acoustic and synthesized sounds.” The range of emotions depicted and the sheer virtuosity of several of the works make demands on the pianist that a lesser musician would find daunting. Petrowska Quilico, still at the top of her game after more than 50 recordings, rises to every challenge without breaking a sweat. Stay tuned for the upcoming Centrediscs release Shadow & Light, a double concerto CD with Petrowska Quilico and violinist Marc Djokic with Sinfonia Toronto under Nurhan Arman featuring music by Ho, Christos Hatzis and Larissa Kuzmenko. 

If it is due to the efforts of Christina Petrowska Quilico that we are aware of as many Canadian women composers as we are, it is thanks to American pianist Sarah Cahill that the world is becoming increasingly aware of the presence of women composers throughout history. The Future is Female (firsthandrecords.com) is a project launched in March 2022 encompassing 30 composers ranging from Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) to the more familiar 19th and early 20th-century names of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and Germaine Tailleferre, and on into modern times with two dozen more including Betsy Jolas and Meredith Monk to name just a couple. Bringing the series to a close, Vol. 3 At Play (FHR133) was released in May 2023 and features works by Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836), Cécile Chaminade, Grażyna Bacewicz, Chen Yi, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Pauline Oliveros, Hannah Kendall, Aida Shirazi and Regina Harris Baiocchi, pieces by the last four having been composed in the 21st century. Cahill says “Like most pianists, I grew up with the classical canon, which has always excluded women composers as well as composers of color. It is still standard practice to perform recitals consisting entirely of music written by men. The Future is Female, then, aims to be a corrective towards rebalancing the repertoire. It does not attempt to be exhaustive, in any way, and the three albums represent only a small fraction of the music by women which is waiting to be performed and heard.” Each of the three volumes has a theme – In Nature, The Dance and At Play – and is arranged chronologically, with ten works spanning three centuries per CD. In this way each recital brings a fresh perspective and expands our understanding of the history of Western music from the classical to the modern era. Kudos to Cahill for convincing performances of the music of all these diverse styles and composers, for giving them voice and for opening our eyes and ears. 

Some half a century ago I spent many hours at my kitchen table trying to figure out a song from Bruce Cockburn’s eponymous first album, the inaugural release on Bernie Finkelstein’s True North Records label. That song, Thoughts on a Rainy Afternoon, has recently come back into my repertoire thanks to guitarist Brian Katz who attended one of my backyard music gatherings last fall. It’s taken a while to get my chops back for Cockburn’s intricate chord progressions and finger patterns, but it’s been worth the effort. So imagine the pleasure I felt to find Cockburn’s O Sun O Moon (True North Records TND811 truenorthrecords.com), in my inbox last month. Over the years Cockburn’s music has gone through changes from that pristine acoustic first offering through many sides of pop music and hard-edged songs, but he has always maintained his moral compass, celebrating life and protesting abuse and ignorance. On his latest album the opening track On a Roll is reminiscent of some of his rockier outings, but the overall feel of the disc is gentle and, as always, thoughtful and thought-provoking. Predominantly acoustic, Cockburn plays guitar, resonator guitar and dulcimer and is joined by a handful of A-list musicians including guitarist Colin Linden, who also produced the recording, with vocal support from Shawn Colvin, Susan Aglukark, Allison Russell and Ann and Regina McCrary. Highlights include the mournful yet anthemic Colin Went Down to the Water, When the Spirit Walks In the Room with violinist Jenny Scheinman and Janice Powers on B3 organ, the cryptic King of the Bolero – who is it plays like that? – and the instrumental Haiku. Cockburn’s voice has weathered somewhat over time, but he uses the gruffness to good effect, and he has not lost any of his musical charm or character. “O Sun by day o moon by night | Light my way so I get this right | And if that sun and moon don’t shine | Heaven guide these feet of mine – to Glory…”

That first True North Record was produced by Eugene Martynec, as were many of the label’s subsequent offerings including, in that same inaugural year, the haunting track December Angel on Long Lost Relatives by Syrinx, a seminal Toronto electronic ensemble featuring the synthesizers of John Mills-Cockell. Martynec is still an active part of the Toronto music scene, albeit after spending some years abroad, and his current project is the free improvising collective Gilliam | Martynec | McBirnie in which he’s in charge of electroacoustics, with pianist Bill Gilliam and flutist Bill McBirnie. Their latest release, Outside the Maze (gilliammcbirniemartynec.bandcamp.com/album/outside-the-maze), consists of ten diverse tracks, no two of which sound the same. While the piano and flutes (C and alto) are pretty much distinguishable throughout, Martynec’s contributions vary from atmospheric to percussive. At times it is hard to imagine the convincing sounds are not being created on physical drums and cymbals; at others it’s hard to imagine what their origins are. It’s also hard to imagine that these cohesive “compositions” are being created spontaneously in real time without premeditation or formal structure. The results are entrancing. 

A final quick note about Toronto’s Latin diva Eliana Cuevas’ latest release Seré Libre (Alma Records ACD472323 shopalmarecords.com). The Venezuelan-Canadian singer is accompanied by the Angel Falls Orchestra – named for the world’s highest waterfall located in Canaima National Park, Venezuela – conducted by the album’s producer Jeremy Ledbetter. Cuevas says “I created this 27-piece orchestra, as it was the one missing piece to realize my dream of fusing the incredibly rich traditions of Venezuelan folk rhythms and classical music.” The album explores loss – the deaths of Cuevas’ father and grandfather – and her mission to continue the centuries old folk music traditions they taught her. The title song, which translates as “I shall be free,” is a nine-minute epic journey which Cuevas says she always dedicates to her troubled homeland, but “it can be interpreted as being about finding freedom from whatever is holding you back.” With Cuevas’ gorgeous voice and the lush orchestrations played by an orchestra that includes many of Toronto’s finest pit musicians, this is truly a glorious album. There will also be a theatrical film release of the project which will be available online by the time you read this. 

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We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

As a folk singer of sorts I was intrigued to read somewhere that Franz Schubert sometimes accompanied his songs on guitar. For several issues now I’ve meant to write about a new version of Die schöne Müllerin but each time I’ve run out of space, or it just didn’t seem appropriate to the theme of the column. Guitarist David Leisner has adapted the original piano score for guitar and is joined by baritone Michael Kelly in a compelling performance (Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0175 brightshiny.ninja). I wrote back in December that the lack of texts for Victoria Bond’s song settings on the album Blue and Green Music was not an issue due to Kelly’s clear diction. I’m sure if I were conversant in German the same would be true in the case of the current recording, but as I’m not I’m glad that there is a QR code linking to full lyrics and translations. Leisner’s clever adaptation of the accompaniment and his clear and fluent playing provide a transparent, yet supportive framework for Kelly’s nuanced interpretation. The sparser textures produced by the guitar allow Kelly to really shine, especially in the tender, quieter moments, without compromising the effect of the more dramatic sturm und drang aspects of the song cycle.

It seems that, like me, David Leisner got his start singing folk and pop songs, accompanying himself on guitar as a teenager. As his horizons expanded through choral singing and composition studies, he established himself as an accomplished classical guitarist and composer, with a focus on art song. On Letters to the World (Azica ACD-71353 davidleisner.com/composition-recordings) we are presented with four examples of this spanning the 1980s to 2011. The disc opens with Confiding, a cycle of ten songs for soprano and piano, featuring Katherine Whyte and Lenore Fishman Davis, with texts by Emily Dickinson and Emily Brontë, four each, and single offerings from Elissa Ely and Gene Scaramellino. The disc’s title is taken from the final song of the cycle, Dickinson’s This is my letter to the World (That never wrote to Me). Dickinson is also the source of the texts of Simple Songs from 1982, for baritone and guitar featuring Michael Kelly and the composer. Leisner chose (and rendered into English for the programme booklet) five selections from Richard Wilhelm’s German translation of Lao Tzu’s Tao te Ching for the cycle Das Wunderbare Wesen (The Miraculous Essence) for baritone and cello. Leisner says, “The songs emerged less out of deference to the melodic line and more in response to a structure established in the cello part, e.g., a repeated alternating metric pattern or a melodic theme that is repeated in the fashion of passacaglia throughout a movement.” Once again Kelly shines, in equal partnership with cellist Raman Ramakrishnan. The final track is the powerful Of Darkness and Light, written in response to the 9/11 tragedy. Leisner says, “To ‘know the light’ and ‘know the dark’ is essential, especially in times of trouble.” Of Darkness and Light uses five poems by Wendell Berry written between 1968 and 1970 which the composer found to “have special resonance in 2002 as well.” Set for tenor, violin, oboe and piano, this moving performance features Andrew Fuchs, Sarah Whitney, Scott Bartucca and Dimitri Dover respectively, drawing this intimate composer-portrait disc to a successful close. 

Schubert’s songs have been subjected to many diverse interpretations and adaptations over the past two centuries. One of the most effective that I have had the pleasure to witness was Chimera Project’s Winterreise featuring bass baritone Philippe Sly as staged during the 21C festival at Koerner Hall just a couple of months before the COVID lockdown in 2020. I have just encountered another intriguing evening-long production conceived and staged by Christof Loy for Theater Basel. Eine Winterreise (A Winter Journey) features soprano Anne Sofie von Otter accompanied by pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout and a sparse cast of silent characters representing various aspects of the drama (Naxos DVD 2.110751 naxos.com/Search/KeywordSearchResults/?q=Eine%20Winterreise). Loy writes, “Anne Sofie plays the soul of Schubert in a kind of fictionalized account of the composer if he had lived to grow old rather than dying so young. Other characters gather round her, played by non-speaking actors and dancers. Like shadows from the past, inspired by Schubert’s biography. There is a double who is kind of a younger mirror image of the ‘mature Schubert’ – a melancholy soul for whom life is complex in its beauty but also in its difficulty. The other man, Schober, is based on Schubert’s friend, a reckless young man with a freewheeling lifestyle who […] a number of biographers even accuse of having taken Schubert to the prostitute who gave him the syphilis infection that killed him. In this sense, the courtesan in A Winter Journey is associated with death though conversely she’s also full of vitality. The other female character, whom we christened Viola, imparts a gentle, hopeful strength to the whole production.” Stand alone songs – the play opens with Die Sommernacht – and selections from the cycles Schwanengesang and Winterreise, are interspersed with solo piano works and text fragments taken from Schubert’s Mein Traum, often with dramatically choreographed accompaniment. The evening ends quietly and mournfully with the beautiful Des Baches Wiegenlied (The Brook’s Lullaby) from Die schöne Müllerin as snow falls on the darkened set and the cast slowly disperses into the night. There is a momentary respite from the gloom as von Otter steps out of character and recites Wilhelm Müller’s sardonic epilogue from that cycle of poems arresting the audience’s suspension of disbelief and bidding them a safe journey home. A stunning performance.

One of the most striking usages of Schubert’s music in another medium is Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden which he later adapted for Roman Polanski’s 1994 mystery-drama film. But it was Schubert himself who first reinterpreted his 1817 song Death and the Maiden and used it as the theme for a set of variations in the slow movement of his 1826 String Quartet No.14 in D Minor. It is this work which is the cornerstone of a new (digital only) release by Brooklyn Rider, a New York-based string quartet, titled The Wanderer (In A Circle Records ICR025 brooklynrider.com). The title refers to another Schubert lied that the composer incorporated into a late work, the devilishly difficult Wanderer Fantasy for solo piano. The album is “bound together by the dualities of memory and remembrance, melancholy and bliss, old and new, and life and death” made all the more poignant by the fact that the disc is a recording of a live performance in eastern Lithuania shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It opens with Aroma a Distancia, a work composed for the quartet by Gonzalo Grau. The composer lived the first 20 years of his life in Venezuela before moving to the United States. He says, “the aroma, the remembrance of my past, is what makes me who I am today. After all, it often happens when I am in Venezuela, I miss Madrid or New York, or if I’m in Boston I miss Caracas.” The brief work incorporates flavours from these various influences. Another South American transplant, Argentinian Osvaldo Golijov’s Um Dia Bom (A Good Day) “depicts the story of a life from morning to midnight and beyond, but as told to a child” with movements titled Hovering in the Cradle, While the Rain, Around the Fire, Riding with Death and Feather. Acknowledged influences include a traditional Yiddish song, a sparse painting by Basquiat of a horse carrying the Death Rider, Blind Willie Johnson’s song Dark was the Night and the spirit of the late Chick Corea. The crowning glory is a stunning performance of Schubert’s masterpiece, his penultimate contribution to the string quartet genre, especially nuanced during the variations on the tune that gives the work its name and the flamboyance of the breakneck galloping horse-like finale.

Banjo is the glue that binds the remaining discs in this column. When I was preparing for retirement from my day job at New Music Concerts four years ago, I began to collect instruments I thought I would enjoy getting to know better, including mountain dulcimer, accordion and banjo. Although I did gather some instruction books, took a few lessons and even learned a few banjo songs, I must admit that when COVID hit and my work at The WholeNote expanded into a near-fulltime job organizing CD reviews to fill the void left by the empty concert halls, my best laid plans fell by the wayside. 

All that is to say that I’m envious of guitarist and singer Kate Weekes who took advantage of her isolation in the Gatineau Hills during the pandemic to learn how to play clawhammer (old-timey, rather than bluegrass style) banjo and pursue new directions in song writing. The result is a new CD, Better Days Ahead (kateweekes.com), featuring ten original songs all penned by Weekes. Although not flashy, there is nothing about Weekes’ banjo playing to indicate her neophyte status; the banjo provides rhythmic and harmonic structure to the quirky songs and supports her simple soprano voice lines. She is accompanied by a trio of accomplished musicians who play nearly two dozen instruments, primarily sousaphone and other brass (Brian Sanderson), fiddles, bass and mandolin (James Stephens, who also produced and engineered the disc) and various exotic percussion instruments (Rob Graves). The arrangements are simple and straightforward, always complementing Weekes’ singing and not interfering with the clarity of the lyrics. I particularly enjoy the use of sousaphone (marching tuba) for the bass line on most songs. Highlights for me include Liminal Space about sheltering in place; the haunting title work co-written with Brenda Berezan; Floating Face Down, a cryptic and surprisingly upbeat, quasi-English ballad about the narrator’s drowning in the Thames “wearing my mother’s dress”; and Time by the Moon, a song written during a month-long banjo tune writing workshop hosted by Chris Coole during the late fall of 2021. Videos for these last two can be seen at youtube.com/results?search_query=kate+weekes. It’s well worth the visit. 

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One of my problems with the traditional five-string banjo is trying to get my head around the counterintuitive fact the highest sounding string is on top, whereas on every other stringed instrument I’ve played it’s on the bottom. One day about five years ago I found myself at the corner of Danforth and Broadview where I was met by the intriguing sight of a young man playing a banjo with six strings. I asked if it was tuned like a guitar, and he said yes. Well, I thought to myself, that’s cheating! I’d also like to think that I’m not too old to learn a new trick or two, so it was a five-string banjo I eventually bought. I’m still stymied though because when my ear knows a high note is called for, I instinctively pluck the first string instead of the fifth… 

My mother is a big fan of the late Leon Bibb, folksinger, actor and civil rights activist – he marched at Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – and through her interest I became familiar with his son, renowned bluesman Eric Bibb. Eric’s youth was spent immersed in the Greenwich Village folk scene. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger were visitors to his home, and he was deeply influenced by Odetta, Richie Havens and Taj Mahal. Mom and I had the pleasure of seeing him perform at Hugh’s Room some years ago and my biggest takeaway from that evening was his statement “I just need one guitar… more!” Imagine my surprise when I watched a video from his new album Ridin’ (Stony Plain SPCD1472 stonyplainrecords.com) and saw him playing a six-string banjo (aka banjitar). Bibb plays it more like a blues guitar than a traditional banjo, but the snare drum-like membrane of the banjo head and the hollow round body give it a very distinctive sound. 

It this sound that opens the disc in a paeon to kith and kin, aptly titled Family, the lyrics of which nicely sum up the overall message of the album: “I am like you – born of a woman | I am like you – a child of God | You are like me – here to learn from History | You are like me – Family.” Bibb says, “As a songwriter, studying African American history has always been a deep well of inspiration. The true stories of my ancestors and their communities are at the heart of many of the songs on my new album. Together with co-writer/producer Glen[vin Anthony] Scott, we’ve created a concept album focusing on the ongoing task of understanding systemic racism and purging it from our world.” The history lessons include songs about the 14-year-old Emmett Till, kidnapped, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 (the title track); another about the white author who underwent skin pigment transformation to write Black Like Me, and the persecution he faced from his own community as a result in The Ballad of John Howard Griffin; and the destruction of “Black Wall Street” by white mobs in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma in Tulsa Town, among others. These are interspersed with traditional folk songs like 500 Miles and Sinner Man. I cannot find credits for the backup band, but there are a number of identified cameos throughout the album including star turns by Taj Mahal and Jontavious Willis on Blues Funky Like Dat. Bookending the disc is People You Love (People you love pass on, but they’re not gone | the ones who love you, stay by your side…) bringing a bittersweet but hopeful portrait of a troubled land to a gentle close. 

I see I have not left myself much space for the final disc, TumbleWeedyWorld, the latest from Canadian country icon Lynn Miles (True North Records TND802 lynnmiles.ca). On this, her 16th studio album, the Juno Award-winning and three-time Canadian Folk Music Awards Songwriter of the Year is accompanied by an outstanding band featuring Michael Ball (bass), Joey Wright (mandolin/acoustic guitar), Stuart Rutherford (dobro), Rob McLaren (banjo) and James Stephens (violin). Wright’s mandolin is front and centre on one of my favourite tracks Cold, Cold Moon which features Miles’ signature octave breaks in the moving melody line. Although at times during the disc I felt that this vocal effect was a little overused, it is particularly moving and effective on Moody, where it borders on yodelling. Julie Corrigan and Dave Draves contribute harmonies on the upbeat Sorry’s Just Not Good Enough This Time and dobro and banjo come to the fore in All Bitter Never Sweet with Rebecca Campbell providing duet vocals. This traditional country-flavoured disc comes to a poignant conclusion with Miles in fine voice on the ballad Gold in the Middle. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

I received the sad news shortly before Christmas that my friend, iconic Canadian composer John Beckwith, had died at the age of 95 from complications of a fall. I had seen him some ten days earlier when I dropped by to have him autograph my copy of his latest book – his 17th! – MUSIC ANNALS: Research and Critical Writings by a Canadian Composer 1974-2014 (Institute for Music in Canada 2022) which you likely read about in last September’s issue of The WholeNote. You may also have read the many insightful CD reviews John contributed to this magazine between 2001 and 2016, running the gamut from early Canadiana (1753 – Livre de Montreal) and period performance practices (Haydn – Five Sonatas on Fortepiano performed by Malcolm Bilson), through Beethoven Late String Quartets (Takács Quartet), Schubert’s Winterreise (Russell Braun) and Chopin Nocturnes and Impromptus (Angela Hewitt) to 20th-century American composers (Toch, Persichetti, Bolcom) and his Canadian contemporaries Harry Somers, Henry Brant and Eldon Rathburn to name but a few. These can all be found on thewholenote.com website. Of course, numerous recordings of his own music were also reviewed in these pages. 

John’s career was many faceted, encompassing a range of fields from music critic, composer, teacher, writer, historian, administrator – he served as Dean of the Faculty of Music at U of T and Director of the Institute for Music in Canada – and performer, but he preferred to refer to himself simply as a musician. His knowledge and breadth of interest was vast, and his own compositions tended to incorporate and synthesize several of these at a time. John’s oeuvre spanned virtually all genres of art music from folk-song arrangements to art songs, choral works and operas, symphonic works, chamber music, duets and solo pieces. Although his stage works are strikingly underrepresented, recordings of a good cross section of his other works can be found at the Canadian Music Centre (cmccanada.org). Also available from the CMC is his moving personal autobiography, Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer, which I highly recommend.

One work that I have particularly enjoyed revisiting in recent days is Quartet as recorded by the Orford String Quartet (John Beckwith Centrediscs CMC-CD 5897). Back in 1986 I had the pleasure of interviewing John on my radio program, Transfigured Night at CKLN-FM. When speaking about Quartet John mentioned that, like Bartók, who had drawn on his Hungarian heritage and had the string instruments mimic the sounds of cimbaloms and hurdy-gurdies, he wanted to reflect the traditional music of Canada in his string quartet. Although John was not particularly well versed in popular music, his father had played the mandolin and his oldest son played guitar, so he had a bit of a head start and as usual was willing to do some homework. He began researching fiddling styles and attended the finals of the Canadian Open Fiddle Championship in Shelburne, Ontario. The resulting work, while not sounding like fiddle music per se, draws on gestures and nuances of fiddle technique and adds a surprising innovation. The two violinists share a third instrument in an alternate tuning enabling different open string chords and unexpected harmonics and producing a “distorted fiddle tune at the same time as the real one” towards the end of the piece. It’s quite a stunning effect. 

Hear! Hear! Remembering John Beckwith takes place at 7:30 on February 28 at Walter Hall, U of T. Performers include Choir 21, Monica Whicher, New Music Concerts Ensemble, Opus 8, Robert Aitken, Peter Stoll and others.

As mentioned, Beckwith’s Quartet doesn’t sound like traditional fiddle music, but I had no shortage of the “real” (or should that be “reel”) thing over the past month or so. I was inundated with folk recordings by local artists in a variety of styles and from a variety of traditions. First up, a disc simply called Fiddle Music by Elise Boeur and Adam Iredale-Gray (Fiddlehead Recordings FHR013 eliseandadam.ca). Boeur plays both fiddle and hardingfele (Norwegian hardanger fiddle) while Iredale-Gray alternates on fiddle and guitar. They are accompanied by upright bassist Robert Alan Mackie, who also provides lyrical solos on some of the numbers. The personal liner notes give the authors and origins of each of the tunes and how they came to be in the group’s repertoire. The disc begins with a medley of lively traditional Irish tunes featuring fiddle and guitar. This is followed by La Coccinelle (ladybug), a bourrée by French fiddler Jean Blanchard combined with a tune by Norwegian accordionist Kristoffer Kleiveland, performed on two fiddles with added bass. The lyrical valse à cinq Evening Glory, penned by Belgian Toon Van Mierlo, is arranged here for fiddle, guitar and bass. Other eclectic offerings include more traditional Irish, American and Swedish tunes and several for hardingfele – a rull and a Setesdal Gangar – that Boeur learned while studying folk music in Norway. The disc concludes with a stark tune by the Icelandic jazz band ADHD, followed by another medley that starts slowly with the melancholic Frank Thornton, gets moving with Cock and the Hen and finishes with a rousing rendition of Cottage in the Grove. All in all, a feast for the ears, with fine playing from all concerned.

Bassist Robert Alan Mackie reappears as a member of Vinta on the next disc, Beacons (vintamusic.com). Other members include Emilyn Stam (fiddle and piano accordion), John David Williams (clarinet, diatonic accordion, bass clarinet) and Nathan Smith (fiddle and viola). One might expect hints of Klezmer from the ensemble’s instrumentation, but Vinta is based in the folk-dance traditions of Europe, especially those of France and Sweden. Growing out of Balfolk gatherings in the High Park neighbourhood of Toronto, the enforced isolation of the COVID lockdown also provided an aspect of the group’s inspiration. “At a time when joy and celebration were far away, the four of us came together and shared everything we could. First came the old tunes, hot meals and loud laughter – sure enough, then came the new tunes.” The result is an album of original music in traditional style(s), and one cover – Seduction, a 1929 waltz by Frenchman Mario Cazes, which is combined with Mario and Everest by Stam, “a wedding waltz written for dear friends.” A highlight for me is another waltz, Rosedale Valley by Mackie, once again paired with a composition by Stam, Regent Street Parade. Other pieces of note include High Park by Williams, and the group composition Le réveil des coccinelles, yes, those ladybugs again. Producer (and mandolinist extraordinaire) Andrew Collins praises Vinta’s “unique aesthetic driven by their original composing, arranging and virtuosic playing. […] one certainty is that you will have a smile on your face.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. 

The next disc features half the members of Vinta, Emilyn Stam and John David Williams performing as a duo. I thought Stam was a familiar name and searching back a few years I found a disc by a local group called The Shoeless – a “cross-cultural stew, combining the sounds of Klezmer, French, Celtic, Appalachian and English music” in a trio with fiddle (Stam), banjo and cello – so obviously her roots spread far afield. The current album focuses on her Dutch heritage and draws on a collection of tunes published in the early 1700s, the title of which translates as Old and New Farmer Songs and Contradances from Holland. On The Farmer Who Lost His Cow and other old Dutch tunes (emilynandjohn.com) Stam plays five-string fiddle, piano and piano accordion, while Williams adds harmonica to his arsenal of clarinet and diatonic accordion. To 21st-century ears there is a certain sameness to the melodies, but differing tempos and the way the duo switches up the accompaniments makes for an entertaining listen that kept my attention. I’m not sure if it is just the novelty of the titles, but highlights included The Pig Scratches His Hole, The Mullet Fish and, of course, the title track, along with the almost minimalistic The Friction Drum and the haunting Farewell My Love with its harmonica lead. As well as songs, there are numerous Gaillardes interspersed throughout this compelling disc. And I feel I must mention, the graphic art includes… ladybugs!

David Greenberg’s Multiple voices for One (Leaf Music DG2022A davidgreenbergviolinist.bandcamp.com/album/multiple-voices-for-one) is another disc that combines traditional fiddling styles with dance forms, contemporary arrangements and compositions. For over three decades, Greenberg has enjoyed a double career as a Baroque violinist and Cape Breton fiddler. His international career spans continents and his Toronto connections have included performing as a member of Tafelmusik and Toronto Consort among others. This disc features movements from Bach’s partitas and sonatas for solo violin and other classical movements intercut with a variety of jigs, reels and marches from various sources and original tunes by Greenberg and his son Owen, as well Toronto’s late legendary fiddler Oliver Schroer’s Enthralled. Greenberg plays both Baroque and octave violins on the album, both tuned in period style at A414. There is no overdubbing involved, he just plays one or the other on each track, but the booklet includes a clever picture in which he appears to be playing both at once with the smaller one tucked under his chin, the other on his shoulder and the bow spanning both instruments. Greenberg is an acknowledged master of violin and fiddle techniques and, as this recording attests, possesses a consummate musicality that spans genres and styles. An accomplished clinician, he offers a variety of online tuition opportunities, that latest of which is “Making Tunes with Intention,” a three-week course exploring the composition and arrangement of traditional style tunes – Celtic, Baroque, and classical – beginning February 26. You will find details and registration at davidgreenbergviolinist.com/mti-home.

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Sticking with the violin family, but moving away from the fiddle tradition, the next disc features music for solo viola by longtime CBC producer and frequent contributor to The WholeNote, David Jaeger. In the spirit of full disclosure I will say that I have had a lengthy professional relationship with Jaeger over the years as the administrator of New Music Concerts but of course almost everyone in the contemporary music community could say the same. Since retiring from the CBC, Jaeger, when not busy producing independent recordings for some of Toronto’s finest musicians, has expanded his activities as a composer and there has been a wealth of new work in recent years. Conjuring: Viola Music of David Jaeger (Redshift Records TK524 redshiftrecords.org) spans four decades. The soloist is Hamilton native, now Vermont resident, Elizabeth Reid who rises to the various challenges the works present with aplomb and conviction. She is accompanied by Alison Bruce Cerutti in Sonata, Tristan and Isolde, written in 1992 in honour of the 70th birthday of the composer’s mother (and her dog and cat), and Sonata No.1 for viola and piano written just four years ago. The Six Miniatures for unaccompanied viola are based on verses by Scottish poet David Cameron, the texts of which are included in the booklet, with the violist “in effect, playing the role of the reciter.” As befitting a founding member of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, Jaeger’s three remaining works involve the use of technology in one form or another. Constable and the Spirit of the Clouds is an adaption of a work originally for solo cello. At the suggestion of Reid, Jaeger reworked the cello score for viola and added an electronic track “composed using a similar process,” i.e., examples of linear variation observed in the work of English Romantic artist John Constable. The result is intriguing. The final two works were written for the internationally renowned Israeli violist Rivka Golani who made her home in Toronto for some years. Favour for viola and live digital delay controlled by the performer was composed in 1980. Sarabande was composed to address the issue of the complicated set-up required for the live electronics aspect of Favour, here replaced by a single playback track for the performer to play against. Favour was originally released on Golani’s Viola Nouveau (Centrediscs CMCCD 0883), still available from the Canadian Music Centre, providing a rare opportunity to compare two interpretations of a contemporary Canadian piece. By pairing these two works we are presented with Jaeger’s “second take” on the same material and also a second performer’s take on them both. It’s great to see a new generation of musicians taking up the mantle and championing existing works along with the new. 

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Mid-career American super-star composer Missy Mazzoli "inhabits an exquisite and mysterious sound-world that melds indie-rock sensibilities with classical traditions… [equally at home in] concert halls, opera houses and rock clubs." Dark with Excessive Bright (BIS-2572 missymazzoli.com) is a portrait disc spanning 15 years of Mazzoli’s international career, featuring Norwegian violinist Peter Herresthal. Once again, we are presented with a composer’s alternate takes on several works. The title piece was originally a concerto for double bass and string orchestra that at Herresthal’s request Mazzoli reworked for violin, “essentially flipping the work upside down.” Dark with excessive bright is a phrase from Milton’s Paradise Lost, a surreal and evocative description of God’s robes, written by a blind man. Mazzoli says: “I love the impossibility of this phrase and how perfectly it describes the ghostly, heart-rending sound of strings.” It appears here twice, bookending the disc, opening with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by James Gaffigan and closing with a reduced version for solo violin, string quartet and double bass performed by members of Norway’s Arctic Philharmonic under the direction of Tim Weiss. Both versions are extremely powerful, with a sound palette that belies the all-string instrumentation, and it’s hard to comprehend that in the latter all that sound is being created by just six players. Vespers for Violin is a reimagining of the earlier Vespers for a New Dark Age, in which “sampled keyboards, vintage organs, voices and strings from that composition, drenched in delay and distortion,” are used to create an effective work for a solo violinist. Full orchestral resources are utilized in Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) with music “in the shape of a solar system.” The title draws on two meanings of the word sinfonia: a Baroque work for chamber orchestra and the old Italian term for a hurdy-gurdy. Mazzoli describes it as “a piece that churns and roils, that inches close to the listener only to leap away at breakneck speed, in the process transforming the ensemble into a makeshift hurdy-gurdy, flung recklessly into space.” There’s a Toronto connection in Orpheus Undone. It’s an orchestral suite, fragments of which have their origins in Orpheus Alive, a work composed for the National Ballet of Canada back in 2019. In its present form, it depicts “a single instant in Orpheus’s life, in the immediate aftermath of his wife Eurydice’s death. I have used the Orpheus myth… to explore the ways traumatic events disrupt the linearity and unity of our experience of time.” It was composed in 2021, no doubt in response to the trauma of COVID-19. Concert Note: Speaking of Toronto, Mazzoli’s Dark with Excessive Bright will be performed in its original double bass version by the Toronto Symphony and guest conductor Kerem Hasan, with TSO principal Jeffrey Beecher as soloist on March 1 and 2 at Roy Thomson Hall. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

You may have read Max Christie’s article “John Beckwith Musician” two issues ago (The WholeNote Volume 28/1) about the launch of Beckwith’s latest book Music Annals: Research and Critical Writings by a Canada Composer 1973-2014, and Christie’s sequel “Meanwhile back at Chalmers House” in the following issue. The evening of the launch at the Canadian Music Centre included a live performance by SHHH!! Ensemble and provided my first exposure to this duo from Ottawa: Zac Pulak (percussion) and Edana Higham (piano). Dedicated to performing and commissioning new works, their debut CD Meanwhile has recently been released by Analekta (AN 2 9139 analekta.com/en). Comprising works by five mid-career Canadian composers including Monica Pearce (whose leather was also included on that composer’s portrait disc Textile Fantasies reviewed in this column last month), Jocelyn Morlock, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Micheline Roi and John Gordon Armstrong, plus one relative newcomer on the scene, Iranian-Canadian Noora Nakhaie, and the current grand old man of Canadian music, Beckwith himself. All of the works were written for the pair, with the exception of Murphy’s Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine which was Pulak’s first commission back in 2016 “fresh out of school and out of my depth.” Murphy, who had never written for solo percussion, eagerly took on the project and created a dynamic and almost relentless work for unpitched drums with only a brief respite in metal and bell sounds. This is followed by Roi’s Grieving the Doubts of Angels, a motoric, minimal and mostly melodic work which ends dramatically with a pounding pulse. 

A highlight for me is Nakhaie’s Echoes of the Past, inspired by Sister Language, a moving book by Martha and Christina Baillie. This testament to the triumphs and struggles experienced by a family dealing with profound mental illness and to the bond between siblings is sensitively interpreted by the composer. Meanwhile concludes with the title piece, the duo’s first commission, a 2018 work for marimba and piano (both inside and out) by Beckwith in which the then 91-year-old shows no signs of compromise in his approach. There are echoes of earlier works – Keyboard Practice comes to mind – yet we are left with the impression that the composer is looking forward as much as back. Forward is definitely the direction of SHHH!! Ensemble and we’re glad to be along for the ride. 

Kelly-Marie Murphy reappears on the next disc, de mille feux (a million lights) featuring the Andara Quartet (leaf music LM262 leaf-music.ca). Murphy’s Dark Energy was commissioned by the Banff Centre and the CBC as the required work in the 2007 Banff International String Quartet Competition, won that year by Australia’s Tinalley String Quartet although the prize for best performance of the Canadian commission was awarded to the Koryo String Quartet (USA). The Andara Quartet would not be formed until seven years later when the members met at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. They have subsequently gone on to residencies at the Banff Centre, the Ottawa Chamberfest and the University of Montreal. The quartet’s debut disc opens with Benjamin Britten’s all too rarely heard String Quartet No.1 with its angelic opening high-string chorale over pizzicato cello before transitioning into a caccia-like Allegro vivo. The extended Andante calmo third movement eventually leads to a playful finale in which the strings seem to be playing tag. This is contrasted with Samuel Barber’s gorgeous Molto Adagio extracted from his String Quartet in B Minor Op.11. Of course we are familiar with this “Adagio for Strings” in its standalone string orchestra and a cappella choral versions, but I must admit to have mixed feelings about having it cherry-picked in the context of a string quartet recording. Generous as the disc’s 65-minute duration is, there was ample space available to have included the quartet’s outer movements as well (less than ten minutes between them), but that is a minor quibble. Murphy’s single-movement work is next up, opening forebodingly, as many of her works do, before changing mood abruptly to a rhythmic and roiling second half featuring abrasive chordal passages and Doppler-like effects. The final work, producer James K. Wright’s String Quartet No.1 “Ellen at Scattergood” is in four somewhat anachronistic movements. It could have been written a century ago, but is none the worse for that. A pastoral depiction of life at the cottage of a couple of friends, it was commissioned by the husband as a gift for wife Ellen. 

This maiden voyage for the Andara Quartet with its warm and convincing performances bodes well for their future, and for chamber music in this country. I also note that the triennial Banff Competition is still going strong 30 years after its inauguration – the first prize winner in 2022 was the Isidore Quartet (USA) and the Canadian Commission Prize went to Quatuor Agate (France). This year’s required work was by Dinuk Wijeratne and it’s great to realize that all nine of the competing quartets from around the world have taken that new Canadian work into their repertoires. Even more exciting is when a young quartet like the Andara takes on an earlier competition’s work and gives it new life as they have done with Dark Energy. 

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Blue and Green Music features two string quartets by American composer Victoria Bond performed by the Cassatt String Quartet along with the song cycle From an Antique Land and the standalone song Art and Science, both featuring baritone Michael Kelly with Bradley Moore, piano (Albany Music TROY1905 albanyrecords.com). The title work takes its inspiration from a painting of the same name by Georgia O’Keeffe, in the words of the composer an “abstract study in motion, color and form, with the interplay of those two colors that dance with each other in graceful, sensuous patterns.” The four movements endeavour to represent that interplay, and to these ears succeed gracefully and gleefully in the final movement Dancing Colors. Art and Science takes its text from a letter which Albert Einstein wrote to the editor of a German magazine that the composer says “even though it was written as a letter, the organization of thoughts was startling. There was such logic […] and such a sense of form that it was as though Einstein had composed a poem….” More traditionally, From an Antique Land does use poetry, with Recuerdo and On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven by Edna St. Vincent Millay bookending poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The accompaniment in the final song cleverly incorporates echoes of the third movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Although texts are not provided in the booklet, there are synopses, and frankly, Kelly’s lyric baritone voicing is so well articulated that the words are clearly understandable. 

Dreams of Flying was commissioned by the Audubon Quartet and Bond took the name of the ensemble as inspiration to create a piece about birds. The opening movements, Resisting Gravity and Floating are as their titles describe and set the stage for the playful and boisterous The Caged Bird Dreams of the Jungle, which, after a gentle opening becomes truly joyous, replete with chirps, whistles and cries as the birds of the jungle awake. The work and the CD end exuberantly with Flight, featuring rising motifs, high glissandi and repeating rhythmic patterns. Here, as throughout this entertaining disc, all the performers shine. 

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After 20 years working alongside Robert Aitken you might be forgiven for thinking I’d have heard enough flute music to last a lifetime and indeed there are times when I have said that a little flute goes a long way. That sentiment notwithstanding I encountered a lovely disc this month that put the lie to that. Through Broken Time features Jennifer Grim in contemporary works for solo and multiple flutes, some with piano accompaniment provided by Michael Sheppard (New Focus Recordings FCR346 newfocusrecordings.com). I had put the disc on while cataloguing recent arrivals without paying undo attention until the bird-like sounds and Latin rhythms of Tania León’s Alma leapt out at me. I had just finished listening to Victoria Bond’s disc, and it was as if I were back in the jungle dreamed of by the caged bird mentioned above.

I suppose it was inevitable that I would find Julia Wolfe’s Oxygen for 12 flutes (2021) reminiscent of Steve Reich’s Vermont Counterpoint for flute and tape or 11 flutes, which I first heard in Ransom Wilson’s multi-tracked recording some four decades ago I don’t mean to say that Wolfe’s work is derivative of that classic, but that the orchestra of flutes, in this case involving all the regular members of the flute family rather than Reich’s piccolos, C and alto flutes, and especially the consistency of sound from part to part as a result of them all being played by one flutist, has a familiarity, especially in the context of Wolfe’s post-minimalist style. The addition of bass flute to the mix fills out the wall of sound, the density of which can at times be mistaken for a pipe organ. The liner notes also liken the piece to Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments but whatever the forebears, Wolfe has made this flute choir her own and Grim rises to the occasion in spades. 

David Sanford is represented by two jazz inspired works, Klatka Still from 2007, and Offertory (2021), the first a homage to trumpeters Tony Klatka and Tomasz Stanko, and the second inspired by the extended improvisations of John Coltrane and Dave Liebman. The disc also includes solo works by Alvin Singleton and Allison Loggins-Hull – this latter a haunting work that meditates on the devastation wreaked by hurricane Maria, social, political and racial turmoil in the United States, and the Syrian civil war – and Wish Sonatine by Valerie Coleman, a dramatic work that conveys brutality and resistance and which incorporates djembe rhythms symbolizing enslaved Africans. Grim proves herself not only comfortable but fluent in all the diverse idioms and the result is a very satisfying disc. 

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If Jennifer Grim’s CD can be considered diverse within the context of contemporary composition, Origins, featuring rising super-star recorder virtuoso Lucie Horsch, takes musical diversity to a whole ‘nother level (Decca 485 3192 luciehorsch.com). Most of the works are arrangements, opening with Coltrane’s classic Ornithology followed by Piazzolla’s Libertango. The accompaniments vary, ranging from orchestra and chamber ensemble to bandoneon, guitar, kora and, in Horsch’s own arrangement of Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances Sz.56, cimbalom (Dani Luca). There is an effective interpretation of Debussy’s solo flute masterpiece Syrinx and more Horsch arrangements of works by Stravinsky. Traditional material includes Simple Gifts and the Irish tunes She Moved Through the Fair and Londonderry Air. Like Grim with flutes, Horsch plays all the members of the recorder family and although I don’t see a bass there, she is pictured with five different instruments in the extensive booklet. At home in seemingly all forms of music, including such unexpected treats as improvisations on traditional Senegalese songs (with kora master Bao Sissoko) and one of contemporary composer Isang Yun’s demanding unaccompanied works, Horsch is definitely a young artist to watch. 

The final disc I will mention is the EP Water Hollows Stone, a compelling work for two pianos by American composer Alex Weiser (Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0176 brightshiny.ninja), which takes its title from a quotation by Ovid that the composer saw inscribed in Latin on the wall of a subway station in NYC. Performed by Hocket (pianists Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff) the three movements are Waves, a quietly roiling texture from which “phrase, melody and harmony” eventually emerge, Cascade, a series of rising and falling arpeggios based on “a misquotation” of one of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, and Mist, which uses “an evocative keyboard technique borrowed from Helmut Lachenmann “where the notes of a chord are released individually so that the decay is as important as the initial sounds.” It is a very effective technique, a kind of juxtaposition of positive and negative space, and it is further developed in Fade, a standalone piece for solo piano conceived as a postlude to the 18-minute Water Hollows Stone, performed here by Gibson. A very immersive disc. 

I began this article with a mention of John Beckwith’s Music Annals and I’d like to turn now to another book that documents an important moment in the cultural annals of Quebec. When Paul-Émile Borduas published his manifesto Refus Global in 1948 it was a harbinger of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution and the changes that would come in the following decades. The 16 signatories included artists, dancers and actors who were associated with the Automatiste movement, previously known as the Montreal Surrealists. Among them was the writer Claude Gauvreau (1925-1971) whose arcane and often invented language used “[s]craps of known abstract words, shaped into a bold unconscious jumble.” 

Toronto’s One Little Goat theatre company, in association with Nouvelles Éditions de Feu-Antonin, has just published the libretto of Gauvreau’s 1949 opera Le vampire et la nymphomane/The Vampire and the Nymphomaniac in a bilingual edition brilliantly translated by Automatiste scholar Ray Ellenwood (onelittlegoat.org/publications). Although Gauvreau originally planned to work with Pierre Mercure on the opera, that composer withdrew from the project and it was never realized during Gauvreau’s lifetime. The absurdist libretto – “A new concrete reality where music and meaning meet” – makes for difficult comprehension – “Gauvreau is marshalling his creative powers to explode the profundities of human consciousness…”  – but simply put, in the words of the translator, it is “[a] love story. Star-crossed lovers kept apart by the forces of patriarchy: church, husband, police, psychiatry.” 

“Gauvreau’s opera opens the possibility of a renewed push towards the purely sonic dimension of language.” In his own words “This work is vocal, purely auditory. […] It’s an opera exclusively for the ear […] not conceived with anything else in mind but music.” It was only after Serge Provost became interested in Le vampire et la nymphomane two decades after Gauvreau’s death – he first composed L’adorable verrotière using fragments from it in 1992 – that the opera began to take shape. In 1996 Montreal’s Chantes Libres presented the first production with baritone Doug MacNaughton and soprano Pauline Vaillancourt in the title roles and a supporting cast that included, among others, mezzo Fides Krucker and actors Albert Millaire and Monique Mercure, under the stage direction of Lorraine Pintal. Provost’s score was performed by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne with founder Lorraine Vaillancourt at the helm. It is a striking production and thankfully it is available in its two-hour entirety on the Chants Libres website (chantslibres.org/en/videos). It is a perfect complement to this important new testament to the creative powers of Gauvreau, his unique voice in both the cultural history of Quebec and Canadian literature.

[Quotations are taken from the informative essays by Ray Ellenwood, Adam Seelig and Thierry Bissonnette which provide useful contextual information for Gauvreau’s opera in the One Little Goat publication.]

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

As a fairly accomplished amateur cellist and former classical radio programmer, I consider myself well-versed in the traditional cello repertoire. Imagine then my surprise to receive not one, but two, discs this month featuring works from 19 th- and early 20th-century France of which I was previously unaware. Even three of the five composers were unfamiliar to me, although they were each celebrated in their lifetime. 

Édouard Lalo | Paul Lacombe | Fernand de La Tombelle – Sonates pour piano et violoncelle (ATMA Classique ACD2 2873 atmaclassique.com/en) features two highly regarded Quebecois performers, cellist Paul Marleyn and pianist Stéphane Lemelin. Of course I was familiar with the Cello Concerto in D Minor of Lalo (1825-1892) which has graced the standard repertoire since 1877, but his Sonata for Piano and Cello in A Minor from two decades earlier has languished in relative obscurity. Listening to the dynamic work, it is hard to understand why. It is a substantial offering with contrasting movements, lyrical and dramatic by turns, with memorable melodies and virtuosic flare. The same is true of the other works included here and it is surprising they, and their composers, are not better known. Although Lacombe was born only a dozen years after Lalo his Sonata for Piano and Cello Op.100 was written about 50 years after Lalo’s, in the early years of the 20th century. For all that, it shares a sensibility and language with Lalo, not reflecting the turbulent aesthetic changes happening around him, although there is Debussy-like melody in the opening movement un peu animé. This is followed by a lyrical Largo and concludes with an ebullient Allegro con fuoco. Baron de La Tombelle (1854-1928), numbered among his mentors Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saëns and he himself went on to count revered organist Marcel Dupré and composer/pedagogue Nadia Boulanger among his own pupils. Not only an accomplished musician and teacher, La Tombelle was also a distinguished poet, painter, sculptor and astronomer. His Cello Sonata in D Minor Sonata (1905) opens with an exuberant Allegro, followed by a gentle lullaby-like Lentement movement before its rousing Allegro vivace finale. Here, as throughout the disc, Marleyn and Lemelin’s playing is nuanced, articulate and totally convincing as it meets all the demands of this lovely music. 

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From the strident opening notes of the Sonata for Cello and Piano No.2 in A Minor (1919) by Guy Ropartz (1864-1955) the new Le Palais des Dégustateurs release Guy Ropartz | Albéric Magnard (PDD029 lepalaisdesdegustateurs.com) commands the listener’s attention. As with the previous disc, little known gems are presented in stunning performances by Alain Meunier and Anne le Bozec. To say the Ropartz opens stridently is not to suggest that the work is abrasive however, and the subsequent movements – Lent et calme and Très lent – Assez animé – are warm and lush.  Ropartz and Magnard were neighbours and friends, both proud of their Breton heritage. Magnard (1865-1914) died defending his home from invading Germans in the early days of the First World War. In the attack his house was burned and several manuscripts destroyed but fortunately Ropartz was able to reconstitute from memory the orchestration of Magnard’s opera Guercoeur. The Sonata for Cello and Piano Op.20 in A Major from 1910 is in four movements, opening traditionally with a fast movement Sans lenteur – Alla zingarese followed by a brief Scherzo lasting less than three minutes. The Funèbre third movement is followed by a boisterous finale bringing a wonderful disc to a rollicking close. 

I was surprised to hear from the Dégustateurs label founder and renowned vintner Èric Rouyer, that he finds it hard to produce recordings of French music, presumably due to market pressures, although further on in these pages you will see another of his recordings featuring the piano music of contemporary Frenchman Guy Sacre, with soloist Billy Eidi. I commend Rouyer for his efforts to unearth neglected repertory pieces and, with such outstanding performers as here, he is to be congratulated and encouraged to continue his exploration of “the road less travelled.”

Full disclosure, my days at Thornlea Secondary School half a century ago briefly overlapped with those of composer David Eagle and more recently I was the general manager of New Music Concerts when he was invited to curate a concert in 2013 and commissioned to compose one of the works on the next recording. As mountain winds (Centrediscs CMCCD 30722 centrediscs.ca) features four compositions spanning 2011-2019 for ensembles of varying sizes. All include live computer processing and diffusion of the sounds of acoustic instruments, and, in the case of Unremembered Tongues the work mentioned above, soprano soloist (Xin Wang in the original Toronto performance). This 2021 recording features the powerful voice of Robyn Driedger-Klassen with the Turning Point Ensemble under the direction of founder Owen Underhill. It is in this complex work that we are most aware of the computer’s presence as the soloist’s voice is replicated, distorted, layered and distributed throughout space via an eight-speaker sound system (effective even in this stereo mix). Eagle tells us the initial inspiration came from thinking about the “many forgotten and endangered languages that are disappearing in our relentlessly modernizing society and monoculture. Sonic evocation of these lost modes of expression is a main focus of the work.” The languages he draws on are Iwaidja and Kayardild from northern Australia, Latin, Blackfoot, Basque, Cree and Hawaiian. The resulting “Tower of Babel” is very effective indeed. This is followed by Altered States and, such is the density of the computer manipulations, it takes careful listening to discern that the only instruments involved are those of the traditional piano trio, although at times the textures thin out and the violin, cello and piano of the Land’s End Ensemble become more easily discernable. The title track, which opens the disc, is an interactive composition for octet and computer, again with surround-sound projection. Instrumental phrases are processed in Eagle’s signature style to create “fluctuating and volatile sonic textures through filtering, granulating, delays, and transposing and harmonizing with just and microtonal intonation.” A Kinect motion sensor tracks the composer/interpreter’s hand movements to expressively transform and extend the ensemble, here Aventa under Bill Linwood. The disc closes with the earliest work, Two Forms of Intuition, an orchestral work (with computer) taking its inspiration and title from Immanuel Kant’s proposition of the same name that says we always perceive the world as phenomena in time and space. Commissioned by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 2012, it was subsequently performed and later recorded for this CD by Turning Point Ensemble. They have certainly made it their own. Kudos to all involved in this excellent portrait of one of Canada’s most adventurous composers, one who has embraced technology and successfully and creatively integrated it into live instrumental performance. 

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As far as I can tell, it was Béla Bartók who first wrote for the combination of piano and percussion in his Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion of 1937, later enlarged to include those soloists with orchestra in his concerto transcription of 1940. More about Bartók later, but he certainly started a significant trend for that combination, with such notables as George Crumb, Luciano Berio, Dieter Mack and, most recently, Canadian Monica Pearce contributing to the genre. Centrediscs has just released Textile Fantasies (CMCCD 30322 centrediscs.ca) comprising a cycle of chamber works for keyboards (harpsichord, piano, toy pianos) and percussion (a plethora of mallet instruments, plus tabla with tambura drone) in various combinations. Each piece is inspired by the particular texture of a specific fabric or pattern such as silks, velvet and houndstooth. My late father used to complain that Baroque music sounded to him like just so many sewing machines, referring to the ostinatos of the continuo. While I don’t agree, I do understand what he was getting at. I thought of him fondly while listening to the first of the Textile Fantasies, toile de jouy for solo harpsichord, exuberantly performed by Toronto keyboardist Wesley Shen. I know Dad would have found it disturbing (as does my wife), but not so his number one son. I find its relentless mechanical pounding, and I mean that in a respectful and musical way, quite fortifying in its journey towards an eventual vanishing point. This is followed by leather for piano and percussion performed by Ottawa’s SHHH!! Ensemble in which the piano is mostly used as a percussive instrument though various extended techniques, dampening the strings and such. I find it wonderfully reminiscent of Bartók’s seminal work. There are two pieces for multiple percussionists featuring Toronto’s TorQ Percussion Quartet; two contrasting works for solo piano, one aggressive and percussive played by Barbara Pritchard and the other, contemplative, featuring Cheryl Duval; another, Damask, for tabla (Shawn Mativetsky) and piano (Shen) which hints at the Middle Eastern origins of that fabric; and the concluding denim for two percussionists and two toy pianos. Did I mention that Pearce was a co-founder of the Toy Piano Composers collective? She has also penned works for Bicycle Opera (who toured extensively by pedal power across Ontario) and New Fangled Opera; pieces for new music specialists Thin Edge New Music Collective, junctQín, Array, New Music Detroit and the International Contemporary Ensemble among many others; but also for such mainstream organizations as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. This disc provides an intriguing introduction to her smaller works and if you’re not familiar with Pearce it would be a great place to start. Concert note: There will be performances and a reception to launch Textile Fantasies at the Canadian Music Centre, 20 St. Joseph St., Toronto on November 10 at 4pm. 

Getting back to Béla Bartók (1881-1945) for my final selection, a new recording by the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under Pietari Inkinen (SWR Classic SWR19110CD naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=SWR19110CD) features two fairly late large works, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936) and the Divertimento for Strings (1939). The final two of Bartók’s six string quartets, a cycle renowned for its craggy complexity, were composed around this same time – 1934 and 1939 respectively – but in spite of their proximity, these larger works are much more listener friendly than the quartets. This is not to say that they don’t have their moments of angularity and darkness, but unlike the quartets in which the four instruments often seem to go their own way, here there is more of a sense of unity and homogeneity. In these new recordings, made in Saarbrücken in 2020 and 2021, the orchestra captures all the nuances of the two works’ contrasting moods, especially in the spooky passages featuring the celesta. But more interesting to me in the context of this article are three transcriptions of Bartók solo piano pieces for percussion ensemble performed by members of the orchestra. These effective new adaptions were done by Bernhard Wulff, professor of percussion at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg and long-time associate of Toronto’s legendary flute soloist and pedagogue Robert Aitken. Wulff is the founder and artistic director of a number of international music festivals, including Two Days and Two Nights of New Music in Odessa (Ukraine), Roaring Hooves in Mongolia, Silk Sound Road in Kyrgyzstan, Caspian Fires in Azerbaijan and Cracking Bamboo in Vietnam, many of which included Aitken in the roster of performers. The works here make a striking bridge between large ensemble pieces, beginning with the dynamic second of Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from the final volume of Mikrokosmos, published the same year as the Divertimento. This is followed by the calm and quiet, almost pastoral, The Night’s Music from Out of Doors (1926), incidentally the year the first volume of Mikrokosmos was published. I was amused to hear a toy piano among the instruments. The percussion suite ends with a rambunctious rendition of the bombastic Allegro Barbaro, the first work to bring Bartók to international attention back in 1911. All in all the entire disc is a treat for the ears! 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com 

Russian composer Nicolai Korndorf (1947-2001) was a co-founder of the “new” ACM (association for contemporary music) in Moscow in 1990, but upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union he emigrated to Canada the following year. Russia’s loss was Canada’s gain and for a decade, until his sudden death in 2001, Korndorf was an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre and an integral part of Vancouver’s contemporary music scene. The Smile of Maud Lewis (Redshift Records TK516 redshiftrecords.org), released to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the composer’s birth, features three works “that mark a creative highpoint and artistic rite of passage from his native Russia to Canada.” As the liner notes point out, all three are based on thematic material from earlier works. The booklet includes notational examples of these themes from Con Sordino for 16 strings and the included Lullaby, both dating from 1984, which became a sort of signature for Korndorf in his later works. 

The disc begins with the title work, a tribute to the Nova Scotia folk artist who lived from 1903 until 1970. Korndorf said in an interview in 1998: “Discovering the art of Maud Lewis was the most important cultural experience for me since moving to Canada.” The Smile of Maud Lewis captures the sunny disposition and sense of wonder inherent in Lewis’ paintings, with a joyous ostinato of mallet percussion, celesta, flute/piccolo/recorder and full strings underpinning long, melodious horn lines. Somewhat reminiscent of early John Adams, with swelling cadences à la Philip Glass, the work builds dynamically Bolero-like throughout its quarter-hour length, only relaxing in its final minute to a glorious, gentle close. Conductor Leslie Dala captures both the exuberance and the nuance of this sparkling work.

Triptych for cello and piano opens abruptly with raucous chords in the cello which gradually resolve into an extended solo Lament in which Ariel Barnes is eventually joined by pianist Anna Levy. Levy begins the second movement Response with an ostinato once again drawing on Korndorf’s signature themes, this time supporting an extended melody line in the cello. Quiet pizzicato opens the final Glorification before arco cello and piano counterpoint gradually grow into celebratory ecstasy. Jane Hayes joins Levy for the final two tracks, Korndorf’s above-mentioned ebullient, though quiet, Lullaby for two pianos, and the gentle half-light, somnolent rains for piano duo by his former student Jocelyn Morlock, written in tribute to her mentor on the fifth anniversary of his death. These marvellous performances are a strong testament to the importance Nicolai Korndorf and his legacy. 

The title of this next disc, ppp (i.e. pianississimo), led me to expect a quiet and contemplative experience; it turns out, however, to be an acronym for the last names of the Latvian composers involved: Pēteris Plakidis, Kristaps Pētersons and Georgs Pelēcis. ppp features Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica (LMIC/SKANI 139 skani.lv) in works for various chamber combinations and for full ensemble. It begins with Little Concerto for two violins (1991) by Plakidis (1947-2019), a three-movement work performed by Kremer and Madara Pētersone, which reminds me of Bartók and Berio violin duos with its folk-like idioms and exuberance. Pētersons (b.1982) performs his own craggy Ground for double bass solo and is joined by Iurii Gavrilyuk and Andrei Pushkarev for π = 3,14 for two double basses, percussion and recording, a work somewhat suggestive of a sci-fi soundtrack. Pētersons’ Music for Large Ensemble is performed by Kremerata Lettonica, a nine-piece string ensemble supplemented with electric guitar played by the composer. This too seems to have electronic aspects, presumably executed by the guitarist since no recording is mentioned. It is in three movements, the last and lengthiest of which is nominally minimalist and features violin solos themselves reminiscent of electric guitar lines. 

Three pieces from Fiori Musicali (2017-2022) by Pelēcis (b.1947) prove to be the most traditional on the album, the use of vibraphone as soloist with string orchestra notwithstanding. Pelēcis named his “blooming garden” after a collection of liturgical organ works by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643). The middle movement Dance of the Peonies has definite shades of Respighi about it. Cosmea Melancholy features Kremer as soloist, and once again we hear the vibraphone in an unusual context in this gloomy finale to a somewhat surprising disc.

Speaking of string ensembles, the All-American Cello Band performs the title track of the CD The Strange Highway featuring music by Iranian-American composer Gity Razaz (b.1986) (BIS-2634 bis.se). (I feel compelled to point out that this so-called all-American band includes the Halifax-born Denise Djokic of the famed Nova Scotia musical dynasty, and also Icelander Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, although admittedly they both currently reside in America.) The Strange Highway takes its title from a poem by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño: “You wish the angst would disappear / While rain falls on the strange highway / Where you find yourself.” Razaz says she was “moved by the potent sense of desolation and vulnerability expressed through the poem’s imagery.” The cello octet she has created, beginning with a driving, almost violent, moto perpetuo that gradually shifts into lyrical melancholia before coming full circle and effectively “capture[s] and recreate[s] these emotions.”

The next three works are for smaller forces – Duo for violin and piano, Legend of the Sigh for cello and electronics and Spellbound for solo viola – composed in 2007, 2015 and 2020 respectively. Francesca daPasquale and Scott Cuellar shine in the two movements of the Duo that explores contrasting aspects of a single melody. Inbal Segev is the dedicatee of Legend and he performs the challenging yet lyrical live and pre-recorded cello parts against an eerie and effective electronic backdrop. Katharina Kang Litton is the soloist in the haunting Spellbound, based on an original melody that “evokes the improvisatory lyricism of traditional Persian music.” 

The final work, Metamorphosis of Narcissus for chamber orchestra and fixed electronics dates from 2011. Haunting again comes to mind as an apt descriptor, as solo woodwinds rise above a dense texture of strings, gongs and cymbals. Perhaps it is the surface similarity to George Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape that suggests the term. At any rate, Andrew Cyr and the Metropolis Ensemble are stellar in this culminating work on an excellent portrait disc. Razaz is definitely a young composer to keep an eye (ear) on.

Cellist Claire Bryant’s Whole Heart (Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0178 brightshiny.ninja) represents both sides of her mandate as Assistant Professor of Cello and Coordinator for Community Engagement at the University of South Carolina. Bryant also directs the criminal justice initiative “Music for Transformation,” spearheaded by Carnegie Hall’s affiliate ensemble, Decoda, of which she is a co-founder. The seven works she has chosen, all by friends and colleagues, span 20 years of her career. Bryant says: “All these passionate works reflect love and the great human experience. Whole Heart is a reminder of the collective challenges we face and the resilience and strength that live inside each of us.” 

Andrea Casarrubios’ SEVEN was composed in 2020 and was inspired by the early pandemic ritual in New York City of citizens celebrating and encouraging frontline workers by banging pots and pans each evening at 7pm. Ayudame (2004) by Adam Schoenberg was the first piece that Bryant ever commissioned, back when she was a student at Juilliard. Schoenberg says the Spanish title translates as “’help me’ and refers, in part, to my struggle in composing the piece,” which also pushed the cellist with its juxtaposition of extreme virtuosity and high emotional output. They have both risen admirably to the challenge. Delta Sunrise by Jessica Meyer is a gentler, at times ethereal piece, inspired by the view from an early morning airplane journey after the composer’s inaugural trip to New Orleans. The other solo works are Varsha (Rain) by Reena Esmail, based on Hindustani ragas sung to beckon rain, and the playful And Even These Small Wonders by Tanner Porter which was “conceived in a trying time, but looks brightly towards the future.” 

Bryant is joined by violist Nadia Sirota for the quietly boisterous Limestone & Felt by her longtime friend Caroline Shaw. Shaw and Bryant met as young children as summer campers and Suzuki collaborators. There’s lots of pizzicato and some rolling unison passages in this piece which explores two “contrasting, common textures – resonant, gleaming limestone and muted, soft felt.” The final work on this excellent and intriguing disc, Duo for violin and cello by Jessie Montgomery, features Ari Streisfeld, another longtime friend and colleague. The opening and closing movements, – Meandering and Presto – are virtuosic and playful, while the contrasting middle Dirge is melancholy and contemplative. Montgomery says “the piece is meant as an ode to friendship with movements characterizing laughter, compassion, adventure, and sometimes silliness.” A perfect ending to an enticing disc. 

Violinist Johnny Gandelsman embarked on a similar, although more ambitious, voyage during the pandemic by commissioning works from a number of his colleagues that would “reflect in some way on the time we were all living through,” a time that was overshadowed not only by COVID-19, but also by escalating racism, police brutality and the ever-increasing effects of climate change. This is America – An Anthology 2020-2021 (In A Circle Records ICR023 inacircle-records.com/releases) is a 3CD set of works for mostly solo violin by some two dozen composers ranging from five to 24 minutes in length. I say mostly solo violin because some tracks involve voice(s) and/or electronics, and some call for Gandelsman to perform on alternative instruments including acoustic and electric tenor guitars and five-string violin. Clocking in at nearly three and a half hours, one might expect the set to grow tiresome after a while; but I must say there is more than enough diversity to command and hold attention, at least when consumed one disc at a time. 

There are far too many tracks to enumerate here, but some of the highlights for me include the following. Disc one opens with O for overdubbed voices and violin by Clarice Assad. It is a hauntingly lyrical meditation on oxygen (“O”) referencing not only the respiratory distress and failure brought on by COVID-19 but also George Floyd’s last words “I can’t breathe.”  Layale Chaker’s Sinekemān, in which the solo violin evokes the spirit of the Ottoman ancestor of the violin (sinekemān) characterized by its seven sympathetic strings, is a study on solitude, “an ongoing flux of moments of self-sufficiency and struggle, lucidity and confusion, power and despair, already depicted by the aloneness of the solo instrument.” Nick Dunston’s percussive and scratchy Tardigrades was inspired by the phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals that can survive lack of food or water for up to three decades, withstand extreme temperatures and have even been reported to be able to survive the vacuum of outer space (although those on board Israel’s Beresheet mission, which crash-landed on the moon in 2019, are thought not to have survived). 

Disc two begins gently with Gandelsman singing and whistling while strumming a tenor guitar on Marika Hughes’ With Love From J, commemorating the life of Jewlia Eisenberg with the lyric “…The sky above us / the ground below / 360 support around us / cut discursive thought. Can you hear / What we’ve learned / Through the years? That love, sweet love / Reminds us / What to listen for.” Angélica Negrón’s A través del manto luminoso (Through the luminous mantle) takes its inspiration from dark-sky photographs of the heavens taken in Puerto Rico. It juxtaposes the acoustic violin with synthetic sounds meant to replicate audio recordings of ancient stars made using data from NASA’s Keppler/K2 missions. The eerie sounds and the “lonely” violin suggest the depths of space and the wonder of the universe. The minimalist pioneer Terry Riley is one of the few composers on this anthology with whose music I would have said I am familiar. But I must say that Barbary Coast 1955 for five-string violin is unlike anything else of his that I have heard. Riley gives a blow-by-blow description of the genesis and development of the work in his 11-part program note, including a number of false starts and rejected ideas. What we are left with is a kind of tango-tinged South American melody “that might have found itself drifting into the weed-scented room of a Beat poet” in North Beach (San Francisco’s “Barbary Coast” section) in the 1950s. This slowly morphs into a rollicking Bach-like quasi-contrapuntal section before gradually winding down. Quite a striking work. 

Disc three begins with the brief Stitched by Matana Roberts that seems to pick up right where Riley’s piece left off, opening very quietly with a longing melody that develops gently over its four-and-a-half-minute length before fading. With a seamless segué, Aeryn Santillan’s Withdraw is a work “reflecting on the state of society in 2020 through an intimate lens.” These two relatively short works are followed by more extended pieces by Tyshawn Sorey – For Courtney Bryan, strangely the only piece to not have a contextual program note in the otherwise quite detailed booklet – Anjna Swaminathan, Conrad Tao and Akshaya Tucker. The disc concludes with Breathe by Kojiro Umezaki, another meditation on the “world being brought to its knees by an inconspicuous peril replicating exponentially (and paradoxically) through the life-giving/sustaining act of breathing.” 

Throughout this impressive undertaking Gandelsman rises to all the myriad challenges, be they technical, stylistic or emotional. This is a compelling snapshot, or rather compendium, of America in the depths of a very troubled time, expressing anger, remorse, anguish and, most importantly, hope. Kudos to all concerned, especially Gandelsman who conceived the project and brought it to glorious fruition. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

Here we are at the summer issue, the final installment of Volume 27 (the completion of our 27th year of publishing The WholeNote). This means my last chance until September to try to make it through the pile of excellent discs that have caught my attention. I have winnowed them down to a top ten, but even so I will be hard pressed to cover them all within my allotted space. Of course it would be a much simpler task if I restricted myself to talking more about the discs and less about my own connections to them, but as regular readers know, the chances of that are slim at best.

The latest release by Montreal’s Quatuor Molinari is Philip Glass – Complete String Quartets Volume One (ATMA ACD2 4071 atmaclassique.com/en). Glass continues to add to the repertoire – he has eight quartets so far – heedless of those artists who have already published “complete” recordings. The first four are arranged here in a non-sequential, but quite effective order. String Quartet No.2 “Company” – with its haunting opening – is first up, followed by No.3 “Mishima” which was adapted from the soundtrack of the film by that name. Both of these works reflect Glass’ mature minimalism and it comes as a bit of shock when they are followed by his first venture into the genre, written in 1966 before he developed his signature style. This quartet is more angular and searching, although it too features a cyclical return to its starting point, a feature that the notes point out may “evoke for some the mythical Sisyphus, condemned to eternal repetition.” String Quartet No.4 “Buczak” – commissioned as a memorial for artist Brian Buczak – returns us to more familiar ground – its slow movement is even reminiscent of the opening of the second quartet – and brings an intriguing disc to a fitting close. 

This Molinari release is digital only at the moment, but on completion of Volume Two, ATMA says they will be issued together as a double CD. Although founder Olga Ranzenhofer is the only remaining original member of the quartet, which has undergone myriad personnel changes in its 25-year history, the Molinari sound remains consistent and exemplary, and their dedication to contemporary repertoire is outstanding. Molinari’s impressive discography now numbers 14 in the ATMA catalogue, and includes such international luminaries as Gubaidulina, Schnittke, Penderecki, Kurtág and Zorn, along with Canadians Jean-Papineau Couture, Petros Shoujounian and the 12 quartets of R. Murray Schafer.

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Canadian Soundscapes: Schafer; Raminsh; Schneider (CMCCD29722 cmccanada.org/shop/cd-cmccd-29722) opens with The Falcon’s Trumpet, a concerto R. Murray Schafer wrote for Stuart Laughton, a longtime participant in Schafer’s Wolf Project in the Haliburton Forest. Schafer wrote the piece while working at Strasbourg University in France and says “no doubt my nostalgia for Canadian lakes and forests strongly influenced the conception of this piece.” Certainly it is evocative of the wilderness, as the trumpet soars above the orchestra like a falcon in flight. In this performance soloist Guy Few joins the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra (OSO) under the direction of Rosemary Thomson. Thomson has been music director of the OSO since 2006, previously serving as assistant conductor of the Canadian Opera Company and conductor-in-residence of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. The OSO is the third largest professional orchestra in B.C. and this is its inaugural recording. A striking feature of Schafer’s concerto is the wordless soprano obbligato in the final minute, in this instance sung by Carmen Harris. Perhaps more surprising, considering Schafer has frequently used high sopranos in his wilderness pieces, is the inclusion of a soprano in a vocalise duet with the soloist in Imant Raminsh’s Violin Concerto.  Raminsh, best known and well-loved for his lush choral music, says he felt some trepidation when approached to write a piece for Vancouver Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Robert Davidovici. He felt no affinity for works of “flash and little substance” but ultimately felt comfortable creating something “more along the Brahmsian line – a symphonic work with solo violin obbligato.” At more than 40 minutes in four movements, it is truly grand in scope and lusciously Romantic in sensibility. Soprano Eeva-Maria Kopp is first heard in the final minute of the Agitato Appassionato movement and throughout the following Andante con moto. She re-enters briefly towards the end of the Con Spirito finale. The shared timbres are scintillating and violinist Melissa Williams shines throughout this remarkable work. Ernst Schneider’s self-proclaimed Romantic Piano Concerto is the earliest piece here, dating from 1980, at a time when the composer was immersing himself in the study of piano concerti of the Baroque, classical and Romantic eras. It is just as advertised and young Canadian soloist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko rises to the occasion admirably. I was particularly taken with the Adagio Molto Espressivo second movement, to my ears reminiscent of the same movement in Ravel’s Concerto in G. 

The Canadian Music Centre’s latest release is a digital EP, Mascarada by Alice Ping Yee Ho (Centrediscs CMCCD 29922 cmccanada.org/shop/cd-cmccd-29922) featuring cellist Rachel Mercer, flamenco dancer Cyrena Luchkow-Huang and the Allegra Chamber Orchestra under Janna Sailor. The press release included a link to a video of Mascarada (youtube.com/watch?v=3hb7fvsAJ2o) and at first I was confused as to whether this was a video or an audio release. It seemed strange to credit a dancer in an audio-only recording, but once you hear it you will understand why. The flamboyant, percussive choreography is an integral part of the composition and is very present on the recording. Watching the video where all the performers are masked and socially distanced, it seems likely that this is yet another result of the current pandemic, but it is also an apt touch for a piece called a masquerade. Ho has successfully captured the flamenco spirit and it could just as easily have been called “My Spanish Heart.” I first met Mercer as a young artist while working as a music programmer at CJRT-FM in the early 90s. Since that time she has gone on to a stellar solo and chamber career, and now serves as principal cellist for Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. She shares the spotlight with Luchkow-Huang here, and it’s hard to decide who is stealing the show from whom in this stunning performance. 

I will venture out of my field of expertise for this next one, but not so much out of my comfort zone. Joel Quarrington – The Music of Don Thompson (Modica Music joelquarrington.com/store) is a fabulous collaboration between two of Canada’s top musicians. Although the overall feel of the disc is rooted in Thompson’s more-than-half-century career as jazz bass, vibes and piano player, he is featured here as composer and accompanist to Quarrington, a world-renowned musician who has served as principal double bass player for the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto Symphony, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and most recently the London Symphony Orchestra. The first four tracks feature Quarrington with Thompson on piano, beginning with Thompson’s arrangement of the classic A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, followed by three Thompson originals. Quarrington’s tone is sumptuous and his ability to swing is truly impressive, as rarely heard from a classical musician. 

The album notes comprise an extended reminiscence from Thompson in which he tells of early meetings with Quarrington and how their paths continued to cross over the years. One example was in 1989 when Quarrington asked him to write a piece for a gig he was doing for New Music Concerts involving multiple bass players, including Wolfgang Güttler, principal of the SWR Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden and Freiburg. The result was Quartet 89 for four double basses. Thompson, who was to play pizzicato in the ensemble, says “I knew I couldn’t write a real ‘classical’ piece, so I just tried to come up with something we could play that might be fun. I wrote a big part for myself with a solo intro, a solo in the middle plus a cadenza, and left it up to the rest of them to decide who played [what].” I was at that concert, although it was before my association with NMC began, and I can tell you they had fun indeed. In the current iteration, which completes the disc, Thompson sits out and Roberto Occhipinti takes his spot with aplomb, and great sound, with Quarrington, Joseph Phillips and Travis Harrison on the arco parts. Not a classical piece per se, but somewhere between that and the world of jazz with a foot in both camps, much like this unique collaboration.

Another disc that falls between two worlds is Im Wald conceived by, and featuring, pianist Benedetto Boccuzzi (Digressione Music DCTT126 digressionemusic.it). In this instance the two worlds are the piano music of the late classical/early Romantic era, juxtaposed with contemporary works by Jörg Widmann, Wolfgang Rihm and Helmut Lachenmann. While purists will likely be offended by the imposition of sometimes abrasive works into such beloved cycles as Schumann’s Waldszenen and Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin (in a piano arrangement) I personally find it refreshing and even invigorating. The first half of the disc involves a complete performance of the Schumann (Forest Scenes in English) with selected movements from Widmann’s Elf Humoresken (11 Humoresques) interspersed. Then as a “palette cleanser” Boccuzzi inserts an electronic soundscape of his own creation, Im Wald (Into the Woods). In the second half of the disc we hear eight of the 20 movements of the Schubert, this time “interrupted” by a Ländler by Rihm and Fünf Variationen über ein Thema von Schubert (not from Die schöne Müllerin) by Lachenmann. This latter is of particular interest to me as it is an early melodic work (1956) that predates the mature style I am familiar with in which Lachenmann focuses mainly on extra-musical timbres achieved through extended instrumental techniques. Boccuzzi is to be congratulated not only for the overall design of this project, but for his understanding and convincing realization of the varying esthetics of these diverse composers. 

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Speaking of Die schöne Müllerin, I was surprised when no one spoke up when I offered Gerald Finley’s new Hyperion recording with Julius Drake to my team of reviewers (CDA68377 hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W1922_68377). I was also surprised to find that the renowned Canadian bass baritone had not previously recorded the cycle, familiar as I am with his other fine Schubert recordings. As we have come to expect from Finley and Drake’s impeccable performances of Winterreise and Schwanengesang, this latest release is everything one could ask for: nuanced, emotionally moving, pitch-perfect and well balanced. Finley is in top form and Drake is the perfect partner. 

I was unfamiliar with the Bergamot Quartet before their recording In the Brink (New Focus Recordings FCR316 newfocusrecordings.com). Founded at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 2016, the quartet is “fueled by a passion for exploring and advocating for the music of living composers” and this disc is certainly a testament to that. It opens with a work by American cellist and composer Paul Wiancko, commissioned by the Banff Centre for the Toronto-based Eybler Quartet during the 2019 Evolution of the Quartet festival and conference. (The Eybler were on the faculty and the Bergamot were participants in the program that year.) Ode on a Broken Loom is evocative of a spinning wheel and its rhythmic drive is compelling. Tania Léon’s Esencia (2009) is a three-movement work that incorporates influences from the Caribbean and Latino America, cross-pollinated with Coplandesque harmonic overtones. Suzanne Farrin’s Undecim (2006) is the earliest work here, and is in some ways the most intriguing. The composer says it was written “when I was thinking about how memory could be applied as a process in my music. I was fascinated by the long lifespan of stringed instruments. In this work, I liked to imagine that the bow remembers all of the repertoire of its past and could […] utter articulations of older pieces in an ephemeral, non-linear [gloss on] the present.” It’s a wild ride. The final work, the group’s first commission, is by first violinist Ledah Finck. In the Brink (2019) adds a drum set (Terry Feeney) to the ensemble, and requires the string players to vocalise, exclaim and whisper while playing. Not your traditional string quartet!

Listen to 'In the Brink' Now in the Listening Room

The San Antonio-based SOLI Chamber Ensemble has been championing contemporary music since their founding in 1994. They are comprised of violin, clarinet, cello and piano, the formation immortalized in Messiaen’s iconic Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Their latest CD presents The Clearing and the Forest (Acis APL50069 acisproductions.com), “an evening-length, staged work that dramatizes the relationship between landscape, migration and refuge through music, theater and sculpture” by Scott Ordway. A very brief Prologue featuring quiet wind chimes leads into Act I – we must leave this place forever in five instrumental sections, mostly calm but with occasional clarinet and violin shrieks reminiscent of ecstatic passages in Messiaen’s work. The six-movement Act II – we must run like wolves to the end begins with quiet solo clarinet, once again echoing Messiaen. In Ordway’s defence it must be virtually impossible to write for this combination of instruments without referring to that master; however, there is much original writing here in Ordway’s own voice. A contemplative Intermezzo – a prayer of thanksgiving leads to the final Act III – the things we lost we will never reclaim. This single extended movement gradually builds and builds before receding and fading once again into the sound of chimes. Ordway says “I have tried to create a work which honors and embodies the values of welcoming, of care and concern for others, of keen attention to the small and secret phenomena unfolding around us in the living world every day.” I would say he has succeeded, as has the SOLI Ensemble in bringing this work to life. 

I first listened to Vicky Chow’s CD Sierra (Cantaloupe Music CA21174 cantaloupemusic.com/albums/sierra) without reading the press release or the program notes and initially assumed I was hearing a remarkable piano solo. It turns out however that the compositions by Jane Antonia Cornish presented here are actually works for multiple pianos (up to six) with all the parts overdubbed by Chow in the studio. The lush, and luscious, pieces are beautifully performed, their multiple layers seamlessly interwoven to produce an entrancing experience. The five pieces, Sky, Ocean, Sunglitter, Last Light and the extended title work for four pianos, comprise a meditative, bell-like suite that I found perfect for releasing the tensions of everyday tribulations. Hmm, tintinnabulations as antidote to tribulations, I like that. 

I did not know what to expect from the title Quatuors pour trois instruments (Calliope Records CAL2195 calliope-records.com). I am familiar with trio sonatas – which, while called trios, actually require four musicians, two melody instruments and continuo often made up of a keyboard and a bass, kind of a Baroque rhythm section – but in this instance “quartet for three instruments” refers to a piano trio – violin, cello and piano – with two players in piano four hands formation. Evidently it was a common 19th-century grouping, which has since virtually disappeared. Violinist Hector Burgan and cellist Cyrielle Golin are joined by Antoine Mourlas and Mary Olivon sharing the piano bench in delightful multi-movement works by Hermann Berens (1826-1880) and Ferdinand Hummel (1855-1928). (Hummel is not related to Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the only composer of that name of whom I was previously aware.) The only composer represented here whom I did recognize is Felix Mendelssohn, whose Ruy Blas Overture was written in 1839 for a Leipzig production of Victor Hugo’s play of the same name. Fresh and sprightly, Hummel’s Sérénade Im Frühling from 1884 depicts Vienna in sunny springtime, while Berens’ two quartets from the 1860s are in a more classical style, harkening back to the aforementioned Mendelssohn. I was initially concerned that the four hands on the piano would make for muddy textures, hiding the two string instruments, but these well-balanced performances put the lie to that. I’m pleased to have made the acquaintance of these composers, and these fine players, in this great introduction to some little-known repertoire. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

In Terry Robbins’ Strings Attached column this month he reviews two new recordings of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, each paired with more recent pieces of the same name. Further on in these pages Matthew Whitfield and Tiina Kiik discuss very different approaches to the setting of traditional liturgical texts by György Ligeti, Martins Vilums, Heidi Breyer and Jóhann Jóhannsson. With this in mind, it seemed fortuitous when I also found intriguing new takes on these themes by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė and Cheryl Frances-Hoad on my desk. 

Frances-Hoad (b.1980) composed the solo cello piece Excelsus (Orchid Classics orchidclassics.comreleases/orc100188-excelsus/) for Thomas Carroll in 2002 on the occasion of his Wigmore Hall YCAT debut. She says, “I’d known Tommy for over a decade: arriving at the Yehudi Menuhin School in 1989 as an eight-year-old cellist, I was soon very much in awe of this much more grown-up player. I have memories of playing many of the great string repertory works […] with Tommy leading the section and me right at the back. These experiences shaped me as a musician, and I still look back with astonishment at the opportunities I was given at such an early age. By the time Tommy asked me to write something for his Wigmore concert (coincidentally my first premiere at the hall too) my dreams of being an international concert cellist had long since been diverted: Excelsus would be the first piece in my portfolio towards my Composition PhD at Kings College London. […] Quite why I thought a Requiem Mass was the appropriate vehicle for a Young Concert Artist’s debut is beyond me these days. But I’m still proud of this early work which seems full of exuberance and utterly lacking in self-consciousness.  […] Musically the entire work is based on two themes: one melodic, the Rex Tremendae or ‘King of Awful Majesty’ theme, heard at the very opening; and one chordal, the Lux Aeternum (Light eternal) harmonies, not revealed in their pure form until the pizzicato passage that concludes the suite. Other subliminal influences were the Bach and Britten cello suites, which I loved to play as a teenager.” 

The composer’s self-described exuberance is an apt description of Excelsus, strange as that may seem for a requiem; perhaps more fitting for a celebration of life than a funeral service. The seven-movement work is uncompromising in the technical demands placed upon the soloist, but Carroll rises to the challenges with seeming ease in a mesmerizing and exhilarating performance of a breathtaking addition to the cello repertory.

The Martinaitytė disc includes not only her own version of the cycle of the seasons, Sielunmaisema for solo cello and strings, but also instrumental works based on Latin texts, Ex Tenebris Lux (out of darkness, light) and Nunc fluens. Nunc stans., its title taken from The Consolation of Philosophy by Severinus Boethius: “Nunc fluens facit tempus. Nunc stans facit aeternitatum.” (roughly “the now that passes creates time; the now that remains creates eternity”). 

Martinaitytė is a mid-career Lithuanian composer based in New York City whose 2020 awards included a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts. When I reviewed her previous Ondine recording Saudade in March 2021, I said “evoking stark landscapes, there is a wonderful lushness to the music, which seems to grow inherently out of the initial quiet in vast arcs of sustained tones and tremolos, occasionally erupting like bubbles exploding from some primordial soup. The music builds and recedes in many-textured layers with no melodies per se, just shifting moods and colours that draw us in with a sense of yearning.” Incidentally, Esprit Orchestra gave the Canadian premiere of Saudade earlier this year at Koerner Hall.

That description of her music could equally be applied to Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Ex Tenebris Lux with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under Karolis Variakojis (Ondine ODE 1403-2 naxosdirect.com/search/ode+1403-2). All the works here date from the past three years and are scored for string orchestra. Nunc fluens… includes a percussionist (Pavel Giunter), but his myriad instruments merely add to the dense, though gentle, textures. The title work, completed in 2021, involves 18 individual strings and was conceived as a commentary on the current world health crisis. The most substantial work is Sielunmaisema, which the composer says is a Finnish word meaning “soul-landscape, a particular place that a person carries deep in the heart and returns to often in memory. […] Soul-landscape is related to questions of identity and place which resonate with two parallel cultural identities that I carry within – my native Lithuanian and later acquired American. In this case, the piece itself becomes an ideal soul-landscape reflecting a native environment as seen through the prism of four seasons.” Scored for “at least” 21 strings and solo cello, as in nunc fluens… the soloist (Rokas Vaitkevičius) is not a protagonist in some mythic battle with the orchestra, but floats above the ensemble often playing tremolo monotones and simply adding textures to the whole. The work extends beyond half an hour and the four movements, which may also be taken as stand-alone pieces, are played without pause when performed together. While three of the seasons share the quiet density of Martinaitytė’s signature style, Spring bursts forth with an ebullience reminiscent of John Adams’ Shaker Loops before the work returns to rich, dreamlike swells and respites. Stunning!

I reviewed Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s earlier Sono Luminus disc Enigma last September, noting her music “is replete with extended techniques, extra-musical effects, unusual timbres and juxtapositions. There are few melodies per se, but rather moments and strings of events that constantly surprise and command rapt attention.” That release has been followed by the Sono Luminus (SL) reissue of the 2014 Deutsche Grammophon disc Aerial with the six original tracks supplemented by the addition of Aura from an earlier SL release featuring the LA Percussion Quartet. All the tracks have been remastered by Daniel Shores for this reissue (SLE-70025 sonoluminus.com). The sound is exceptional, but unfortunately the packaging is just as sparse as the original, with no program notes or biographical information. Fortunately the publicist was able to provide an article by Doyle Armbrust from Music + Literature dating back to the DG release that includes his extensive analysis of the works and interview excerpts with the composer, which provided a welcome context for this quite abstract fare. 

Much like Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Thorvaldsdottir’s music is all about textures and colours. It moves at a seemingly glacial pace, or perhaps that of a cooling lava flow. In the pieces on offer here, the instrumentation is mostly sparse although the timbres are rich and dense. Aeriality, performed by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov, is the only work for forces beyond a small chamber ensemble. As a matter of fact the opener, Into – Second Self for seven brass and four percussion, is performed by only three players through overdubbing, one each of percussion, trombone and horn. The overall effect is similar to R. Murray Schafer’s Music for Wilderness Lake where 12 trombonists positioned around the periphery of a small lake play meditative music at dawn or dusk. 

The longest work, at 15 minutes, is Trajectories for piano (Tinna Thorsteinsdóttir) and an electronic track is which we seem to hear, amongst other things, the tinkling of ice crystals as if in an arctic cove before freeze-up. True to its name, Shades of Silence for violin, viola, cello and harpsichord, written for and performed by Nordic Affect, is deeply meditative once again. The whole album unfolds as if in slow motion, but if you surrender to its pace, Aerial can be a transcendental experience. 

The final classical selection this month is Olivier MESSIAEN QUATUOR pour la FIN DU TEMPS (Our Recordings 6.220679 ourrecordings.com). The quartet is the only chamber-ensemble piece composed by Messiaen, and was written during his internment at a Silesian German POW camp in 1940-41. It is scored for musicians who were fellow prisoners in the camp, a violinist, a clarinettist and a cellist, with Messiaen himself at the piano. Messiaen was a deeply religious person and served as organist at l’Église de la Trinité in Paris for most of his career, even after he became world renowned as a composer. The eight movements of the Quatuor, with the exception of a brief Interlude, are based on biblical themes with titles such as Liturgy of Crystal, Praise for the Eternity of Jesus and Dance of Fury for the Seven Trumpets (of the Apocalypse).

The musicians on this recording, violinist Christina Astrand, clarinettist Johnny Teyssier, cellist Henrik Dam Thomsen and pianist Per Salo are all principals in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and their performance is flawless. (My only quibble is the abrupt cutoff of the final note of the opening movement). Their unisons are so aligned that I keep finding myself straining to try and figure out just how many of them are playing at any given time. And Teyssier’s dynamic control when building from absolute silence in his solo movement, Abîme des oiseaux, is amazing! But the real reason to add this disc to my extensive Messiaen collection was the excellent essay by Jens Christian Grøndahl. It incorporates passages based on eyewitness testimony, descriptions and statements from Rebecca Rischin’s book For the End of Time: The Story of Messiaen’s Quartet, as well as Messiaen’s own preface to the score and excerpts from the Book of Revelation. There is also a translation of three stanzas of the poem Enfant, pale embryon (Child, pale embryo) by Messiaen’s mother Cécile Sauvage who said “I suffer from an unknown distant music” before the composer’s birth. It’s truly enlightening.  

Listen to 'Messiaen: Quartet pour la Fin du Temps' Now in the Listening Room

I recently read Permanent Astonishment, the latest from acclaimed playwright and novelist Tomson Highway. It’s a memoir of his first 15 years, growing up in northern Manitoba where it borders Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and what is now Nunavut. Far beyond where all roads end, access to the outside world was only by bush plane and local transport (i.e. a several hundred mile radius) was by dog sled and canoe. In spite of the hardships growing up in the bush with little-to-no amenities, Highway tells a charming story beginning with his birth (and near death) in a snowbank in December 1951. And later, of spying on his older sisters as they gather round a transistor radio to listen to country music from down south thanks to aberrant AM radio waves reflected through the atmosphere late at night. Even his time spent at a residential school is told fondly, albeit without glossing over the abuses perpetuated by some of the Christian Brothers.

Highway’s latest project is a CD – Cree Country (tomsonhighway.com) – featuring a dozen of his songs in classic country style sung by his frequent collaborator Patricia Cano. I first heard that incredible Peruvian-Canadian singer in Highway’s play The (Post) Mistress in which she sang in English, French and Cree and for which she won the Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2017. In this outing it’s all Cree, but thankfully, English translations are included. As I say, it’s in classic country style and I imagine it’s not much different than the music he would have heard growing up in the 1950s on those long nights in the sub-Arctic. Highway penned all the music and lyrics, but the production and arrangements are by Toronto jazz singer John Alcorn, who also adds some background vocals. The band includes some big names in Canadian country music: Mike “Pepe” Francis (guitars and direction), John Dymond (bass), Steve O’Connor (piano), Sean O’Grady (drums), Don Reed (fiddle) and Steve Smith (steel guitar). Reed and Smith are stellar throughout, with authentic down-homey solos, and Francis’ high-string acoustic accompaniment on Sassay Tipi-Skow (It’s Night Already) is a real treat. Most of the songs are up-tempo, and even the ballads and laments are hopeful and uplifting rather than maudlin. No “high-lonesome” moaning here, even in Ateek Igwa Adele (Ateek and Adele), the story of 20-year-old Ateek, affianced to Adele, who drowns one day when “A wind came up | and the waves grew in size | He started sinking, Ateek’s canoe started sinking | He drowned. He drowned. | Adele!”  Interestingly Highway also gives us his take on the four seasons in the contemplative Ooma Kaa-Pipook (When It’s Winter) “When it’s winter, there is snow everywhere | But when it’s spring, the snow disappears | When it’s summer, the sun shines | But in the fall, the Earth will soon sleep. Life on this Earth | It works the same way | You are born, you live | But in the fall, you, too, begin to die.” 

Concert note: Tomson Highway hosts the launch of Cree Country at the Horseshoe Tavern on May 23. It’s a digital release available now on all streaming platforms.

It’s too late to attend the launch of Thieves of Dreams: Songs of Theresienstadt’s Secret Poetess, the latest by Toronto-based Czech singer Lenka Lichtenberg (lenkalichtenberg.com) which took place at the Paradise Theatre on Mother’s Day. That date had a double significance for Lichtenberg because it was also the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi “camp-ghetto” Theresienstadt (Terezin), where Lichtenberg’s mother, grandmother and grandfather were interned during the Second World War. Although her mother and grandmother survived, her grandfather was transported to Auschwitz where he was executed in a gas chamber. 

Lichtenberg says “When my mother Jana Renée Friesová passed away in 2016, I was sorting

through her desk in Prague and discovered two small notebooks. They were filled with poetry my grandmother, Anna Hana Friesová (1901-1987), wrote in the Terezín concentration camp. I knew that both my mother and grandmother were imprisoned in Terezín during the war — my mother wrote a book about it in 1996, Fortress of My Youth. However, I knew nothing of my grandmother’s experience. Most of us, if we’re lucky enough, have a brief window with our grandparents. That time isn’t typically spent listening to their traumatic stories. But there before my eyes were tattered pages with the handwritten dreams of my grandmother — and her nightmares in the camp, stories she never told me. So, I embarked on a quest to share her writing from the ‘hell on earth,’ to quote Primo Levi, and to bring her voice back to life in the way I best knew how: as music, in a project spanning eight decades and three generations.”

Thieves of Dreams is the culmination of this project to set the poems of her grandmother to music. She wrote eight of the 16 tracks, produced the album and is responsible for most of the arrangements. The remainder of the songs were composed by her collaborators Milli Janatková, Rachel Cohen, Jessica Hana Deutsch, Shy-Anne Hovorka, Zita Petrak and Lorie Wolf. The styles range widely from pensive ballads and torch songs to jazz-tinged sketches, folk-inspired chorales and anthems. The vast cohort of musicians involved includes many familiar names such as David Buchbinder (trumpet and flugelhorn), Jessica Deutsch (violin, viola, cello), Beverley Johnston (marimba), George Koller (double bass), Fern Linzon (piano), Tomáš Reindl and Anita Katakkar (tablas) among a host of others, with harmony vocals by Auri Fell, Murray Foster, Milli Janatková and Andrew McPherson. Mám vlastni trud (I have my own grief) features narration by Lichtenberg’s late mother. All of the songs are sung in Czech as in the original texts. The booklet includes facsimiles of the pages of Friesová’s notebooks and full English translations. This is a glorious achievement and a wonderful tribute to Lichtenberg’s forebears.  

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

Just as Terry Robbins’ column is named “Strings Attached,” this month mine could be called “Strings Galore.” First up is Matangi: Outcast – Schnittke | Silvestrov | Shostakovich (Matangi Music MTM04 matangi.nl), an album devoted to “musical troublemakers and outsiders, three Soviet-Russian composers who wrote music that went dangerously against the tastes of the regime under which they lived.” 

The Matangi string quartet has been at the forefront of contemporary music in the Netherlands since its founding at the turn of the current century. In their own annual (Un)heard Music Festival in The Hague they present works that are rarely if ever heard in Dutch concert venues, venturing beyond the realm of traditional concert music to include jazz, dance and pop while still embracing the classical canon. A recent guest at the festival was the reclusive Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov (b.1937), a polystylist whose early works ranged from serialist to pointillist, resulting in him being branded avant-garde and refused entry to the Union of Soviet Composers. He has said of his early contrarian works “composing radical music was like working with a mountain of salt that you used up completely. Now I take a handful of salt, just for the taste.” Silvestrov’s delicate, indeed at times barely audible, 1974 extended one-movement String Quartet No.1 provides a gentle bridge between the more familiar works by Schnittke and Shostakovich on this disc, which opens with the former’s String Quartet No.3. Schnittke was also influenced by a plethora of styles, often rooted in Western culture, and likewise deemed unacceptable by the Soviet powers that be. He often incorporated what he called “forgeries” of other compositions and his quartet opens with quotes from Orlando di Lasso, Beethoven and Shostakovich which reappear throughout the quartet. Of particular note is the Agitato second movement that layers a ghostly hint of Lasso’s Stabat Mater into an angular waltz often interrupted by strident echoes of Shostakovich’s eighth string quartet. It is this latter work that concludes the disc. The Quartet in C Minor, Op.110 was sketched in three days in 1960 in Dresden where the composer was deeply affected by the ruins left by the Allies’ firebombing of the city during the late days of the Second World War. It is one of Shostakovich’s darkest works, opening with a Largo movement although, as mentioned, it also has strident moments in the Allegro molto second, and features a lilting waltz third movement, before returning to the glacial pace of the first in the final two Largo movements. The Matangi give outstanding performances of all three works on this particularly timely release.

Listen to 'Outcast' Now in the Listening Room

Russian/American pianist Olga Kern is featured with the Dalí Quartet on Brahms & Shostakovich Piano Quintets (Delos DE 3587 delosmusic.com). In an impassioned statement accompanying the release Moscow-born Kern, whose grandfather was Ukrainian and great-grandmother an opera singer in Kharkiv, says “I defy war. It’s heartbreaking to witness the tragedy that is unfolding before our very eyes in Ukraine. It’s ugly and brutal beyond words and it also brings us together in the face of injustice. […] Please stop this madness! Please say NO to war!”

Unlike the later string quartet discussed above, Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G Minor, Op.57, is a sunny work. It was composed in 1940, before Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, “a time of deceptive optimism among the Russian people [when] even the despair-prone Shostakovich was hopeful that he could maintain his [newfound] status as [a] favoured composer.” This work did indeed prove popular with the public and even won Shostakovich the inaugural Stalin Prize. In homage to Bach, the quintet opens with a Prelude introduced by the piano, followed by a second movement Fugue in which the strings intertwine until about the two-minute mark when the piano joins in. The contemplative spirit of the opening movements is interrupted by a truly joyous, ebullient Scherzo lasting a brief three minutes. A languorous Intermezzo follows before a playful and melodious Finale brings this beloved half-hour work to an end. 

It seems to have been Robert Schumann who first combined solo piano with string quartet, giving birth to the genre of piano quintet in 1842. Some 20 years later Brahms, by then a familiar member of the Schumann household, composed his own Piano Quintet in F Minor but in this instance opting for two cellos. The work was not well received and he went on to make a two-piano version that was equally unsuccessful before finally settling on the more usual arrangement of piano, two violins, viola and cello, which became the lush and lyrical work we now know as Op.34. 

Known for its championing of Latin American repertoire – the quartet members hail from Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the United States and the group received the Atlanta Symphony’s Aspire Award for accomplished African American and Latino musicians – the Dalí Quartet shows itself here to be just as thoroughly at home with European repertoire in these sparkling performances. Kern, among whose awards is a Gold Medal from the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, shines throughout. 

Speaking of lush, a work Glenn Gould once called “the most moving piece of the 20th century” gives the title to the next disc: Metamorphosen – Strauss | Korngold | Schreker featuring Sinfonia of London under John Wilson (Chandos CHSA 5292 naxosdirect.com/search/chsa5292). Of course Gould also referred to Metamorphosen as “23 wayward strings in search of a cadence” or some such pithy phrase, but he does seem to have had great admiration for Richard Strauss’ 1945 study for 23 solo strings. Wilson leads his ensemble flawlessly through the meandering journey which lasts 28 minutes, negotiating the waves of sturm und drang – at times reminiscent of Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night – without ever losing the thread or floundering into troubled waters. It’s a truly transcendent voyage. 

Hans Schreker’s brief and lyrical Intermezzo, Op.8 from 1900 lightens the mood and sets the stage for Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Symphonic Serenade for String Orchestra Op.39 (1947-48). If we thought that the 23 strings of the Strauss were sufficient, Korngold disagreed. He scored his serenade for 16 each of first and second violins, 12 violas, 12 cellos and 8 double basses. Somehow Wilson manages to keep these 64 string instruments from turning into an indecipherable wash of sound, even in the densest passages. The sprightly pizzicato second movement provides welcome contrast to the lyrical opening and the languorous third, but it is the hold-on-to-your hats rollercoaster finale that is the icing on the cake; a flourishing finish to a thoroughly satisfying disc.

After immersing myself in the dense, lush – I keep wanting to say “at times lugubrious,” but that’s not right, they are simply thick, rich and gorgeous – textures of Brahms and Strauss, I found I needed a palette cleanser. A new Analekta release, Early Italian Cello Concertos featuring Elinor Frey and Rosa Barocca under Claude Lapalme (AN2 9163 analekta.com/en), proved just the thing. In her extensive and informative booklet notes Frey discusses the development of the violoncello, describing it as actually a family of instruments originating with the violone, a small type of bass violin current in the 17th century. “Only beginning in the 1720s did a sort of ideal compromise instrument, of a size halfway between the smallish Baroque violoncello and the larger violone, establish itself as our current standard cello. The term violoncello piccolo, often used today to denote the typical Baroque violoncello, is in part a modern invention – an anachronistic misnomer […which] only makes sense when used in comparison with our larger modern instrument.” She also discusses the differences between four- and five-string versions of the cello.

For this recording – which includes works by Sammartini (1700-1775), Vivaldi (1678-1741), Tartini (1692-1770) and Leonardo Leo (1694-1744) – Frey uses two different instruments, the smaller Baroque size in the Sammartini and Tartini, and the modern size for Vivaldi and Leo. These latter she says “have inspired quite a few modern-day cellists to perform on a five-string instrument, in part because of the fiendishly difficult passagework that ascends into the upper register. […] Over time I came to view these works as demanding and thrillingly virtuosic concertos that belonged to the larger four-string cello repertoire.” Thrilling virtuosity is especially true of Leo’s Concerto No.2 in D Major, which I first encountered in Anner Bylsma’s recording with Tafelmusik back in my days at CJRT-FM; it became a favourite and I programmed it frequently, both on Music Before 1800 with Peter Keigh and during regular morning broadcasts with Alex Baran. As seminal as that recording was in my developing an interest in Baroque music, I must say that Frey and Rosa Barocca, a Montreal ensemble of which I was not previously aware, surpass this forerunner in terms of crispness, energy and articulation. From start to finish this disc is enthralling; my only quibble is the choice to end the recital with a minor key Andante cantabile movement from a violin sonata by Tartini, one of two Frey transcriptions to grace the disc. I would have preferred it to end with a bang, not a whimper, lovely though it is. 

Listen to 'Early Italian Cello Concertos' Now in the Listening Room

Palette cleansed, I returned to our current century with Nicolas Altstaedt’s performance of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Dima Slobodeniouk (Alpha ALPHA627 naxosdirect.com/search/alpha627). This riveting 2017 work was co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Barbican Centre (London) and the Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) for cellist Yo-Yo Ma to whom it is dedicated. Altstaedt, who was in London at the time of the British premiere, attended the rehearsal and performance by Yo-Yo Ma and was later invited to give the Finnish premiere under the composer’s direction at the Helsinki Festival. He says “Performing with the composer himself is always a special moment. Burning full of questions you have always wanted to ask, there is also a magic space of nonverbal communication that needs to take place. Not to mention I was a bit starstruck in this situation, Esa-Pekka made it extremely easy for me; the week of rehearsals and the performance were pure joy. Joking about his quotation of Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony’s Scherzo ‘I should [only] compose when I am sober,’ gave me a glimpse into a composer’s life as well as his description of the beginning of the piece: ‘I always wanted to compose something like the opening of Alban Berg’s Altenberg Lieder.’” 

In his own notes, Salonen tells us “Some of the ideas for my Cello Concerto can be traced back at least three decades, but the actual material for the piece was mostly developed in the summer of 2015 when I decided to spend a few months researching for new kinds of textures without a concrete plan how to use them. I decided to use some phrases from my 2010 solo cello work ...knock, breathe, shine... in the second and third movements as I always felt that the music of the solo piece was almost orchestral in its scope and character, and would function well within an orchestral environment. […] I happen to like the concept of a virtuoso operating at the very limits of what is physically (and sometimes mentally) possible. I have learnt, however, that virtuosity doesn’t limit itself to the mechanics of playing an instrument. A true virtuoso can also capture the beauty and expression in the quietest moments, to fill near-stasis with life through a musician’s imagination and ability to communicate.” Altstaedt rises to all the challenges thrown at him throughout the 36-minute work, holding his own against incredibly dense orchestral textures, sensitively realizing the most quiet passages, which include seagull-like glissandi, and a flamboyant extended cadenza shared with bongo drums and woodblocks. The result is exhilarating.

The recording includes a striking performance of Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello with Pekka Kuusisto. I spoke earlier about the denseness of the string writing in Brahms and Strauss. Ravel’s Duo (its original name) is so dense it would be easy to think you were hearing a string quartet. So dense in fact that Roland Manuel once joked about making a “reduced version for orchestra.” Altstaedt states “Working with [Kuusisto] on this piece felt like coming home, although differently — it felt like a place that I knew but never visited before. […] Pekka had fresh ideas each time we picked up the piece, connecting every gesture in the music to an experience from real life. He never repeated himself; rehearsing with him was not only infinitely inspiring but also very entertaining. ‘Let’s create the sound of a vacuum cleaner’ might sound criminal to some musicians, but Ravel’s own description of the theme of the last movement as ‘like a mechanical rabbit’ or ‘clowneske improvisation’ in the second movement, puts other ideas firmly in their place. Random accidents became virtues, (at least from our perspective) and led us to discover the character that we had actually sought.” Evidently Ravel expressed fears of “being assassinated by amateurs.” He need not have worried in this instance. Altstaedt and Kuusisto are consummate professionals, fearless of risk taking, who ask us to open our ears to a new approach to this familiar music, one which Ravel would have evidently approved.

And this just in: As I was up against the deadline writing this column, I found in my inbox a very timely release from recorder virtuoso Michala Petri that I simply must share with you: Galina Grigorjeva – Lament (Our Recordings 9.70894 ourrecordings.com). I will let the press release speak for itself. 

“As we all know the world has changed since February the 24th. What is going on with Putin’s atrocities against the free people of an independent nation is beyond our imagination. War is the antithesis of art and music and anathema to everything we represent and hold sacred – and it is difficult to find a way to respond to such a disaster. Everyone involved suffers on both sides – and the consequences affect the whole world – especially the most vulnerable. Since that tragic day Michala Petri has featured a very special work on all her concerts, Lament for recorder solo by the Ukrainian-born composer Galina Grigorjeva – and for the duration of this atrocity, she will continue to do so!

“Born in Crimea, Ukraine, Grigorjeva (b.1962) is one of the most original composers on the contemporary soundscape, creating timeless, ethereal music whose roots lay deep within Slavonic and Western sacred music traditions. Lament, for solo tenor recorder (2000), is a remarkable work, wonderfully engaging with a definite Slavic quality evoking the sounds of the Ukrainian overtone flute, the kalyuka. Beginning with an octave-and-a-half cry of anguish, wisps of melody become increasingly passionate and frantic [...] before retreating in resignation and acceptance.”

I encourage you to seek out this stunning work, and to support artistic contributions to Ukraine’s struggle wherever you encounter them. All involved in the recording worked for free; no expenses were incurred producing this moving digital release and all proceeds from the sale of Lament will be donated to the Kyiv Contemporary Music Days Foundation. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

The iconic American composer George Crumb died peacefully, at home with his family on February 6. He was 92. Of the many world-renowned composers I had the privilege to meet during my two-decade tenure at New Music Concerts, Crumb was among the most affable, knowledgeable and accomplished. In 2003 he spent most of a week working with NMC musicians, accompanied by his wife Elizabeth, son Peter and daughter Ann, who was the soloist in our Canadian premiere performance of Unto the Hills. It was a magical week and one that remains a cherished memory. Crumb had a long relationship with NMC and on a previous visit in 1986 he supervised the first performance of An Idyll for the Misbegotten, performed by its dedicatee Robert Aitken and three percussionists. You can find NMC’s recording of that work among others on George Crumb (Naxos American Classics 8.559205 naxosdirect.com/search/8559205). In a tribute published by NMC, Aitken says “The music of George Crumb has the quality of an elixir, which keeps drawing you back through intricacies in time to a world you feel you know and look forward to enjoying but as many times as you have experienced it, the slightest change takes you to a different place, somewhere you have never been before and never thought of, but will never forget.” I said something similar in a July 2020 review of Metamorphoses Book I: “There are many references to Crumb’s earlier compositions and in many ways these new works sound familiar. One sometimes wonders ‘Why does Grandpa keep telling the same stories?’ but listen carefully; you’ll find vast new worlds buried within them.”

In December Bridge Records released Volume 20 in their ongoing series devoted to Crumb’s complete works (BRIDGE 9551). Metamorphoses Books I & II features a remastering of Book I (2015-2017) and the first recording of Book II (2018-2020) performed by Marcantonio Barone, to whom the second book is dedicated. Subtitled Fantasy Pieces (after celebrated paintings) for amplified piano, each of the 20 depicts a different painting by such artists as Picasso, Chagall, Dali and Gauguin. In the excellent and extended booklet notes by Crumb scholar Steven Bruns we learn that “Rather than aiming for precise musical analogs, Crumb responds to the ethos, the characteristic tone of the painting, and often to the title as well. The music explores a dazzling expressive range, and Crumb positions the movements in each Book with the mastery of an expert gallery curator.” You can read my impressions of those in the first book here: thewholenote.com/index.php/booksrecords2/editorscorner/30201-editor-s-corner-july-2020. Book II opens with two paintings by Paul Klee and includes others by Andrew Wyeth, Simon Dinnerstein, Gustav Klimt, Georgia O’Keeffe and the abovementioned Gauguin, Picasso and Chagall. The set ends with a stunning and ethereal interpretation of van Gogh’s The Starry Night. 

As always with amplification in Crumb’s pieces, the purpose is not to produce loud effects, although there are a few jarring interpolations, but rather to make the most subtle effects audible. The pianist is required to venture inside the piano to pluck and strum and dampen strings, use fists and other implements, vocalize and employ a variety of small instruments to expand the solo piano into a real orchestra of timbres. Barone worked extensively with Crumb for two decades and his understanding of the sensibility, and his command of the techniques required, and often invented, by the composer makes this recording definitive. Bridge Records here provides an exhilarating tribute and important addition to the recorded legacy of this master composer. The Complete George Crumb Edition now numbers 21 CDs and one DVD and is currently available at a special price (US$190) from the Bridge Records website (bridgerecords.com). 

The oratorio Am I Born by David T. Little with libretto by Royce Vavrek (Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0152 brightshiny.ninja) is another spectacular work that finds its inspiration and context in a painting. The painting in question is Francis Guy’s 1820 Winter Scenes in Brooklyn, depicting a neighbourhood destroyed for the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Originally composed in 2011 for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Am I Born was the first collaboration between Little and Vavrek, who went on to great success with the operas Dog Days and JFK. This SATB version of the oratorio was commissioned by Trinity Church Wall Street where it premiered in 2019. Opening with big bass drums blazing and full fortissimo chorus reminiscent of Carmina Burana, the listener is captivated immediately. Throughout its half-hour duration the drama does not let up, although there are moments of respite along the way and beautiful soprano solos by Mellissa Hughes before the haunting denouement. The libretto draws on Ananias Davisson’s 1816 hymn Idumea with its lyric “And am I born to die? / To lay this body down! / And must my trembling spirit fly / Into a world unknown?” The solo soprano personifies Guy’s painting, which hangs in the Brooklyn Museum. She gradually draws consciousness and understanding from the crowds of spectators passing by each day, until, urged on by the chorus, she is “born” out of the frame and enters a confusing and lonely present-day reality. At that point, the philosophical speculation “am I born to die?” is modified to the much more pressing and immediate: “am I born?” Hughes and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street are accompanied in this powerful performance by the NOVUS NY orchestra, all under the direction of Julian Wachner. 

Like George Crumb, Sofia Gubaidulina (b.1931) has shown no signs of slowing down creatively in her later years. To honour her 90th birthday Deutsche Grammophon has released a disc of world premiere recordings of two recent works and the earlier The Light of the End, written in 2003 for the Boston Symphony (deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/gubaidulina-nelsons-repin-12472). Andris Nelsons conducts the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig for which Gubaidulina has served as composer-in-residence since 2019. The last-mentioned work is based on a fundamental conflict that characterizes the physics of music, namely, the irreconcilability between the natural overtone series, played here by the horns, and the tempered tuning of the rest of the orchestra. This conflict leads to a series of dramatic crescendos and climaxes and is illustrated to exemplary effect in a duet between solo horn and solo cello. 

The disc opens with Dialog: Ich und Du (Dialogue: I and You // Violin Concerto No.3). It was written for Vadim Repin in 2018, and he is the soloist here. This and the companion piece The Wrath of God are extrapolated from Gubaidulina’s oratorio On Love and Hatred (2016-2018), which constitutes her appeal to humankind to follow God’s commandments and to overcome hatred through the conciliatory power of love. The title of the violin concerto deliberately recalls religious philosopher Martin Buber’s Ich und Du (I and Thou) which describes the world as “dichotomous,” contrasting two things that are opposed or entirely different, here represented by a conversation, often interrupted, between the solo violin and the orchestra. The Wrath of God is a shimmering depiction of the Day of Judgement, or Dies Irae, for enormous orchestral forces. “God is wrathful, He’s angry with people and with our behaviour. We’ve brought this down on ourselves,” the composer explained in the preamble to the first performance in an empty Vienna Musikverein in November 2020, a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Gubaidulina has dedicated the piece “To the Great Beethoven” and we can hear hints of the Ninth Symphony peeking through in the dramatic finale.

Speaking of Beethoven, following on their recording of his complete works for cello and piano, Yo-Yo Ma has once again teamed up with Emanuel Ax, this time with violinist Leonidas Kavakos, on Beethoven for Three – Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5 (Sony Classical yoyoma.lnk.to/SymphoniesNos2and5). The arrangements are by Ferdinand Ries, under Beethoven’s supervision (No.2), and the contemporary British composer Colin Matthews (No.5). 

It must be a daunting task to adapt the full resources of a symphony orchestra to just three players, even if we concede that the pianist’s two hands can render separate independent lines. Still we must realize that in Beethoven’s day arrangements were the norm, and in many instances the only opportunity to experience great works of orchestral repertoire. Recordings were still a hundred years in the future and orchestral concerts beyond the reach of most people. I am pleased to report in this instance both of the arrangements are convincing and satisfying. On the one hand I am amazed at how the trio is able to convey the musical scope and range of emotion of these familiar orchestral masterworks. On the other, I was intrigued to realize how reminiscent some of the movements were, especially the scherzo of the second symphony, of Beethoven’s early actual piano trios. I suppose that’s not really a coincidence.  

Satisfying as I found this recording, likely another result of COVID-imposed restrictions, I must confess it inspired me to revisit the cycle of nine symphonies in all their orchestral majesty, and for this I chose Simon Rattle’s live set from 2002 with the Vienna Philharmonic (EMI Classics). So thanks to Kavako, Ma and Ax for an inspirational and illuminating experience, and for an excuse to look up some old friends.

Founded 20 years ago, the Claremont Trio (Emily Bruskin, violin; Julia Bruskin, cello; and Andrea Lam, piano) has been commissioning works for much of its existence that expand the repertoire and in some instances push the traditional boundaries of the contemporary piano trio. Queen of Hearts (Tria Records amazon.com/Queen-Hearts-Claremont-Trio/dp/B09RQDVRVV) brings six of these works together with compositions by Gabriela Lena Frank, Sean Shepherd, Judd Greenstein, Helen Grime, Nico Muhly and Kati Agócs. Frank’s Four Folk Songs draws on her Peruvian heritage on her mother’s side for a set that ranges from lyrical to playful and to frankly disturbing. Shepherd’s Trio was commissioned for the opening of Calderwood Hall in the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum, Boston. It was inspired by the architecture of Renzo Piano and the three movements consider different aspects of the construction. Most compelling is the finale, Slow Waltz of the Robots.  

Muhly’s Common Ground (2008) and Agócs’ Queen of Hearts (2017) mark the earliest and latest works on this compelling CD. Muhly’s title refers to the ground bass à la Purcell that appears in the final section of the work. Agócs also employs a repeating bass line, in this case alternating with a lyrical melody. She tells us that “A life fully lived may see challenges that can seem insurmountable. The work’s variation structure, by representing tenaciousness and ingenuity – continuously finding new ways to respond – ultimately reveals an inner strength and an emotional core that hold steadfast and unshaken no matter how they are tested. The title Queen of Hearts […] symbolizes resilience, magnetism, nobility, empathy, decorum, a flair for the dramatic, and a distinctly feminine power.” This piece makes a powerful end to a diverse disc with fine performances right across the board.

I spoke earlier about musical works inspired by paintings. I have experienced two artistic epiphanies in my life, one visual and one audial. The first was on a family trip to Washington in my teenage years when I turned a corner in the National Gallery and came face to face with Salvador Dali’s The Sacrament of the Last Supper. I gasped and said to myself “Oh, that’s what they mean by a masterpiece!” The second was in 1984 when I attended the CBC Young Composers’ Competition and had the most visceral musical experience of my first 30 years. Paul Dolden’s The Melting Voice Through Mazes Running, which won the only prize in the electroacoustic category that year, was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Although it sent some audience members rushing to the exits with hands pressed over their ears, it held me riveted to my seat and ultimately inspired me to commission a new Dolden work (Caught in an Octagon of Unaccustomed Light) for my radio program Transfigured Night at CKLN-FM. Now, some three and a half decades later, Dolden has published his entire catalogue of works and writings and I’m very pleased that Nick Storring has agreed to review The Golden Dolden Box Set in these pages. Storring is a composer in his own right, a generation younger than Dolden, who uses some similar techniques in his own work. I believe his insights are extremely apt and articulately expressed and I welcome him aboard the WholeNote team. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

Elsewhere in these pages you will find reviews of new recordings of music by Bach: the English Suites performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy, Autour de Bach, woodwind arrangements of a number of his works as recorded by Pentaèdre, and two sets of Goldberg Variations, one with Sarah Hagen on piano and one with Cameron Carpenter in his own transcription for grand organ. The Goldbergs are arguably the most recorded, most transcribed and most adapted for other purposes of Bach’s works, and certainly the most often reviewed in The WholeNote. With the two reviews mentioned above I count 25 in as many years and here comes number 26. 

When Karlheinz Essl (b. Austria 1960) was approached by the Orpheus Trio in 2002 to arrange an existing string-trio version of the Goldberg Variations with the addition of live electronics, his initial reactions were “astonishment and bewilderment: how could that be possible with this music? Was there any artistic necessity of doing so? The idea of manipulating the sound of the live instruments electronically, of ‘spicing it up,’ seemed almost sacrilegious.” The trio was persistent however and this eventually led to the first of four (so far) realizations of Gold.Berg.Werk: for string trio; for harpsichord; for saxophone quartet; and, most recently, for piano. It is a recording of this last variety, featuring Xenia Pestova Bennett (Ergodos ER33 essl.at/records/goldbergwerk-2021.html), that arrived on my desk last month. In Gold.Berg.Werk – a pun on Goldberg Work and Gold Bergwerk (to mine, as in mining for gold) – Bach’s Goldberg Variations are “confronted with electronic sounds that are played between groups of variations, bridging the gap between the sound world of the Baroque era and the sonic reality of the third millennium.” The electronics are based on the harmonic progression of the fundamental Aria, from which the composer stripped all figurations and ornaments. Through manipulation of the overtone spectrum and the use of granular synthesis – compressing, stretching, and stopping forward motion ad libitum carried out in real time with the help of compositional algorithms – Essl has created five electronic interludes, which in live performance are spatially projected in surround sound throughout the auditorium. Even in the binaural mix for CD the sound is immersive and compelling. Pestova Bennett’s outstanding performance of the selected movements, 20 variations chosen by Essl and arranged in groups of five, bookended by the signature Aria, is beautifully integrated into the overall fabric of this “new” work. Regarding Essl’s question as to whether there was any artistic necessity to enhance such an iconic piece in the first place, I suppose we each have to decide for ourselves. For me, Gold.Berg.Werk has brought a new perspective that, after initial resistance to the idea, I have embraced and found enchanting. 

Listen to 'Gold.Berg.Werk' Now in the Listening Room

And speaking of Bach, you would be excused for thinking that after last month’s column I might have had enough cello for a while, but not so gentle reader. Julia MacLaine’s Preludes would have fit nicely in that cello-centric column but it has only now been released by Analekta (AN 2 8914 analekta.com/en). MacLaine says that she found the inspiration for this project in a Juilliard recital by Bonnie Hampton some years ago in which the Preludes from Bach’s Solo Cello Suites were interspersed with contemporary works. With funding from the Canada Council, MacLaine commissioned six Canadian composers to write works “in response” to the Bach preludes. The result is an intriguing CD with six very different responses, from Airat Ichmouratov whose quite traditional Praeludium for Cello Solo in G Major, Op.69 quotes freely from Bach before venturing onto less familiar paths, through a gamut of approaches before culminating in Post Bach by Prince Edward Island fiddler and composer Roy Johnstone. This last work features rollicking dance sections juxtaposed with what MacLaine describes as a “grumbly […] glimpse of the underworld, the murky place that gave rise to the motives that permeate Bach – and Johnstone.” Along the way we are treated to Gabriel Dharmoo’s sarasaraahat, a piece inspired by the Prelude from the Suite in D Minor that uses the Indian Carnatic music of the composer’s cultural heritage to put the sound produced by the cello under a microscope, exploring the “very limit between pitch and white noise.” Carmen Braden’s Play Time asks the cellist to “play the score as if you just heard the Bach Cello Suite No.3 for the first time and now sit down and improvise, playful as a child.” In her signature way, Nicole Lizée employs technology to expand the palette of the cello, in the words of MacLaine “a marvellous, fantastical electronic world [with the cello] singing expressively above it, weaving in and out of it, and chasing after it.” Cris Derksen states “LAND BACH is my response to Bach’s fifth prelude as an Indigenous composer and cellist.” Her treatment includes a section of “looped rolled chords” which MacLaine says is characteristic of Derksen’s music. 

As I have said before, it must be extremely hard for a performer these days to find a way to present Bach’s iconic works – that have been recorded countless times – in a new light. I find MacLaine’s performances of both the Bach originals and the new companions insightful and convincing. While I have mixed feelings about “cherry picking” just the preludes from the Bach Suites, in this context where the composers are specifically reacting to the movements in question I find the project as a whole very well-considered and satisfying. I’ll give MacLaine the last words: “My hope is […] that you will hear Bach differently, as though past and present composers were having a conversation across the years, across the ocean.” 

Nicole Lizée is also among the seven composers commissioned by Vancouver’s venerable Standing Wave ensemble for its project 20C Remix (Redshift Records standingwave.ca) in which a number of iconic 20th century works are reimagined for the new millennium. With three decades under its belt, Standing Wave is touted as Western Canada’s foremost contemporary chamber ensemble. 20C Remix – a digital release with a limited edition vinyl run – opens with Stone’s Throw, Jocelyn Morlock’s ebullient take on Ann Southam’s Glass Houses No.9, adapted for full ensemble: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion. It’s a roller coaster ride for all concerned and I particularly enjoyed finding hints of Stravinsky in the mix. Jennifer Butler enhances Messiaen’s Le merle noir for piano and flute with the other members of the ensemble in a fairly straightforward and effective homage to the French master. Walking in Claude’s Footsteps is Jordan Nobles’ gentle take on Debussy’s Des pas sur la neige and Jared Miller finds Guilty Pleasures in his interpretation of John Adams’ China Gates. Unlike most of the works here which enlarge the original forces, Chris Mayo and Bekah Simms take orchestral textures and adapt them for the sextet. Mayo’s Oh Come Now! There is a Beautiful Place! is an arrangement “on a relatively miniature scale” of Reinhold Glière’s mammoth Symphony No.3. Although the liner notes tell us that the title is taken from a poem by Kenneth Patchen, there is no explanation of how this relates to the symphony and I’m left scratching my head. Simms’ Tenebrose explores the “night music” from the third movement of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta with “approaches that I feel the composer would have been likely drawn to had he lived into the 21st century,” including microtonal glissandi and the use of non-tempered pitches while incorporating familiar motifs from the original. Lizée is represented with two tracks, her own inimitable treatments of songs by pop icons Dead or Alive (You Spin Me Round) and Justin Timberlake (Cry Me a River). While certainly a different sensibility from the other offerings here, they somehow manage to fit in seamlessly. I particularly enjoyed the bass clarinet and vibraphone lines in Epiphora, her take on Timberlake’s classic, which bring this very satisfying disc to a close.

Listen to '20C Remix' Now in the Listening Room

The next release features two relative newcomers on the contemporary music scene, composer Xander Simmons and Montreal’s Collectif Novart. Simmons’ second release Inner Landscapes (xandersimmons.com) features five works for varying ensembles, opening with the contemplative Three Points for piano trio which gradually builds to a dramatic peak before receding. Pink Mountain is a four-movement work – Dawn, Daylight, Drift and Dusk – which is one of two works here that take direct inspiration from the painted landscapes of Peter Doig, the other being Grande Riviere, a work that adds ambient electronic textures to acoustic instrumentation. Solstice is in two parts, and utilizes the largest ensemble here, a nonet. Winter opens with a dark duet between contrabass and bassoon, slowly brightening as if the pale sun were shining through. Summer opens with busy flute over a bassoon ostinato and continues in a minimalist melisma of insect sounds with birds soaring above in the cloudless sky (my imagery). The composer describes the closing Vortices as a “collage of string performances mixed with synthesizers and field recordings.” As with the other pieces here, the language is consonant and tonal, but here the extra-musical materials add an edge to the layers of sound. Overall this is a strong release from a young composer, showing a breadth of interest and understanding that bodes well for future endeavours. The collectif is in fine form, with convincing performances and solid ensemble work.

Listen to 'Inner Landscapes' Now in the Listening Room

I first heard the music of Petar Klanac (then known as Pierre-Kresimir Klanac) at Glenn Gould Studio back in November 1997 as part of New Music Concerts’ contribution to the Made In Canada Festival, and then in 2000 on the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal CD Nouvelles Territoires 1. In the intervening years he had fallen off my radar until a few weeks ago when he reached out to me about his new CD. 

Klanac has a surprisingly small presence on the Internet. The little biographical information I’ve been able to glean tells me that his principal instruments are violin and electric guitar and that he studied composition with Gilles Tremblay at the Montreal Conservatoire from 1992 to 1995 and later with Gérard Grisey and Marco Stroppa at the Paris Conservatoire and Denys Bouliane at the Rencontres de musique nouvelle du Domaine Forget in Charlevoix (Québec). He was a child chorister in the Maîtrise des Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal (Saint-Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal) for nine years and this seems to have strongly informed his compositional aesthetic. That first piece I heard was titled Le ressuscité de Béthanie (on the subject of the resurrection of Lazarus), a theme to which he returned two decades later in a work for Ensemble Nahandove. Many of the works in his oeuvre focus on religious themes, such as Agnus Dei for men’s choir, Pater Noster for tenor and string quartet and Sancta Parens for two saxophones and cello. When commissioned by the Société de musique contemporain du Québec to compose a new work for its 55th anniversary concert last December he presented the 18-minute chamber ensemble work Yerushalayim. 

Klanac has made his home in France for some time and his latest project, Pozgarria da (petarklanac.bandcamp.com), was commissioned by Ensemble 0, a group whose members are based in different cities in France, Catalonia and Belgium, as part of 30th anniversary celebrations for the Institut Culturel Basque. Pozgarria da (How wonderful it is) is a setting of four poems by the Basque Franciscan Father Bitoriano Gandiaga for voice (Fanny Chatelain singing in the original language) and an unusual ensemble consisting of flutes, rebec and nyckelharpa, four organs, gamelan selunding and percussion. There is a sparse instrumental prelude and two interludes, all titled Maite dut bizitza (I love life), separating the first three poems, whose sparse and subdued settings are vaguely reminiscent of medieval music. The final movement, also Maite dut bizitza, is the most expansive by far at almost 17 minutes, and is also the most exuberant; a flamboyant minimalist – think cinematic Philip Glass – paean to “The joy of life / To my surroundings / that are alive. / I wish the joy of being alive / To everyone who lives / the grace of life.” Amen! A very welcome anthem and reminder in these unjoyful times.

Listen to 'Pozgarria da' Now in the Listening Room

And now for something completely different, although I find joy here too. “What if Dark Orchard (Jim Casson’s experimental music project) and ‘The Blues’ got together in New Orleans and watched Twin Peaks with Daniel Lanois?” That’s the premise behind Davis Hall & The Green Lanterns (greenlanterns.ca). Originally conceived in the early days of COVID-19 as a remote collaboration with bass player Russ Boswell, Casson laid down drum tracks in his home studio that he shared with Boswell who added funky bass licks and a song outline. They invited Bernie LaBarge to add some guitar lines and Brent Barkman on organ; and Marshville Station, the second track on the current album, was born. Although the project was shelved for a while, the ongoing pandemic has provided the perfect opportunity to revisit the idea. 

I’ve been a sucker for blues tuba since I saw Taj Mahal at the Mariposa Festival 40-some years ago backed by a quartet of tubas headed by the late, great Howard Johnson (1941-2021). Well, that’s how this adventure begins, with the funky, N’awlins-flavoured Temperanceville co-written by Casson, tuba player N. Jay Burr and guitarist Wayne DeAdder, with Mike Branton sitting in on slide guitar. The personnel of the Green Lanterns changes from track to track, with Casson on drums, keyboards, autoharp and even theremin the only constant, but the result is always bluesy and frequently scorching. Burr, DeAdder, Boswell and Brandon make numerous contributions and guests include Steve Marriner and Al Lerman on harmonica, Stephen Miller on dobro, and an archival appearance by 60s DJ Bob Bowland from CHOW radio in Welland, Ontario. Casson explains the name of the group, and of the songs, as a tribute to the Niagara Peninsula, the stomping grounds of his formative years. “Davis Hall” was the name of the community centre in his hometown where he attended nursery school, “The Green Lantern” was the soda shop in town when he was a kid and the names of all the songs correspond to place names on the peninsula. Who knew that the fruit belt could be so darn funky? This one is guaranteed to lift your spirits (and your heels)! 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com