Prokofiev - Sonates pour flute et piano
Ariane Brisson; Philip Chiu
ATMA ACD2 2884 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/prokofiev-sonatas-for-flute-and-piano)

Prokofiev may have once defined a modern classical composer as “a madman making works that his generation won’t understand” but he himself achieved significant recognition during his lifetime, and today, remains one of the most renowned composers of the 20th century.

Among his extensive output are a number of chamber works, including two violin sonatas and one for flute, all of them composed during the Second World War. The first Violin Sonata Op.80 in F Minor was actually the second to be written for that instrument, and is presented here in an arrangement for flute by Ariane Brisson. Brisson performs it with pianist Philip Chiu along with the Flute Sonata Op.94 on this ATMA Classique recording. Brisson was first prize-winner in the Prix d’ Europe in 2014 and Chiu is a JUNO award winner and recipient of the Order of Ontario.  

The Sonata Op.80 was completed in 1946 and was awarded the Stalin Prize the following year. This a dark and intense four-movement work opening with a mysterious Andante Assai which the composer likened to “wind passing through a graveyard.” Together, the two artists comprise a formidable pairing with Brisson’s warm tone aptly conveying the dramatic mood with Chiu providing a sensitive partnership. The strident second movement is followed by a lyrical Andante and a finale with an unexpectedly calm conclusion. 

In comparison, the Flute Sonata Op.94 is decidedly more optimistic in spirit. Completed in 1943, the work is a demanding one, but the two performers easily meet the innumerable challenges with respect to technique and nuance. The score is affable and pleasant from the languorous opening to the sprightly finale demonstrating formidable interaction between the performers, as is the case throughout this exemplary disc.

Échos
Charles Richard-Hamelin
Analekta AN 2 9149 (charlesrichardhamelin.com/en/discography)

Charles Richard-Hamelin has accomplished much during the past decade or so. Not only did the Quebec-born pianist win third prize at the Seoul International Music Competition in South Korea in 2014, but was also silver medallist at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw the following year. Since then, he has appeared in concert with such orchestras as the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and was described by a Montreal critic as “a national treasure.”

Richard-Hamelin’s newest recording, Échos, is the 11th on the Analekta label and features an appealing programme of music by Granados, Chopin, and Albéniz. The set of eight Valses Poéticos Op.43 by Enrique Granados is aptly named – the music is indeed poetic and evocative, and Richard-Hamelin does it full justice. The playing is elegantly conceived, at all times displaying a keen sense of phrasing.

Chopin’s Allegro de Concert in A Major Op.46 is a bit of a curiosity. Originally intended as a piano concerto, the orchestral part was never written and despite some brilliant pianistic writing and numerous revisions, the work has languished in relative obscurity

Albéniz’ La Vega from 1897 and the Allegro de concierto in C-sharp Major Op.46 by Granados are further proof of Richard-Hamelin’s affinity for Spanish repertoire. He deftly captures the highly impressionist mood of La Vega, while the Concierto radiates freshness and vitality. Rounding out the programme is a selection of eight waltzes by Chopin, a fitting conclusion to a most satisfying recording.

Rainbow
LMNL
People Places Records PPR | 062 (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/rainbow)

Rainbow is the debut release by LMNL, a new experimental collective project led by Canadian multi-instrumentalist performer/composer Jerry Pergolesi. Here Pergolesi plays percussion, trumpet and electronics with Louise Campbell on clarinet and electronics. They both created and facilitated Rainbow,

a 60-minute post-modern ambient treatment of Judy Garland’s Wizard of Oz classic performance of Over the Rainbow, a song whose symbolism deeply resonates within the queer community and beyond. 

Garland’s deconstructed fragments were used to create a notated, text-based score and fixed audio track written for any instrumentation and any number of performers, regardless of their musical style, literacy, and/or performance and improvisational experience. 

From calm to tense, this is music for everyone. Opening and closing held single notes envelope the meditative soundscape. Garland’s vocals resound throughout in short sung repeated “minimalist flavoured” takeout phrases, accompanied at times by instrumental and electronic held notes and lines at different pitches and volumes. The full electronic washes mixed with the clarinet are colourful. Ringing percussion and low held clarinet add intrigue to the vocals. Nice contrasts between tonal and more atonal sections from classical, contemporary, experimental, rock, pop and improvised styles add to the diversity. The vibrating electronics keep the intriguing vocals and music grounded.

Pergolesi’s innovative musicianship creates spectacular electroacoustic tracks. His instrumental playing is supported by Campbell’s lush clarinet sounds. Repeated listening and/or playing along with Rainbow is a memorable experience.

Berio - Complete String Quartets
Quatour Molinari
ATMA ACD2 2848 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/berio-complete-string-quartets)

Serial winners of awards often tend to give something back. Quite often that means donating money to a deserving cause and – to all intents and purposes – being done with it, and that’s not nothing. 

In the case of the much-celebrated Quatuor Molinari, giving something back is a continuation of their collective lives, of the philosophy that has governed every day since 1997 when they first dedicated those very lives to breaking musical ground in “devoting themselves to string quartets of the 20th and 21st centuries.” This endeavour continues with Intégrale des quatuors à cordes, (The Complete String Quartets) of Luciano Berio (1925-2003). 

From the (complete quartets) of R. Murray Schafer, the repertory work of Bartók, Berg and Britten, Gubaidulina and Ligeti, Penderecki, Schoenberg and Webern this quartet – so named after the legendary Canadian painter Guido Molinari – has lit a crackling flame for the avant-garde. Their Kurtág cycle which won them the Ecko Klassik Award (now Opus Klassik) in 2017 is one of many prestigious international awards to adorn their proverbial mantlepiece,

Sparks fly when Quatuor Molinari – Olga Ranzenhofer (first violin and artistic director), Antoine Bareil (violin), Frédéric Lambert (viola) and Pierre-Alain Bouvrette (cello) – take to the stage, challenged by Berio. His work would push musicians with even the most sublime technical skill to the limits, with his love of the theatrical, fascination with the voice, and his constant willingness to engage with art of the past –Monteverdi and Dante – and the present – jazz and electronic music. His unique “future-past” musical sojourns certainly define these seemingly omnivorous works. 

The expressive breadth of Berio’s music is beautifully captured in these sumptuous performances. The dazzling semantic and musical labyrinths concocted by each work demand pyrotechnical skill from the Molinari. The miraculously lucid performance of Notturno is the highlight of this fascinating disc.

Walter Boudreau - Chaleurs
Quasar
Independent (quasar4sax.bandcamp.com/album/chaleurs)

Rupture
Quatuor Nelligan
Centrediscs CMCCD 32823 (cmccanada.org/shop/cmccd-32823)

The Quebec hills are alive with the sounds of saxophone quartets: Quasar and Nelligan are both based in that province and both have new and exciting releases. 

Quasar was founded in 1994 and has performed instrumental music, employed improvisation and used electronics. They perform as an acoustic quartet, but have also “plugged-in,” have been accompanied by an orchestra and have commissioned many pieces while continuously working for new music experimentation. Walter Boudreau’s Chaleurs was originally written in 1985 (predating the formation of Quasar by nine years) and was somehow forgotten until rediscovered in the Concordia University archives in 2019! This piece was originally “inspired by Paul-André Fortier’s choreography and his dancers’ work.” Boudreau revised Chaleurs for the tenth edition of Festival MNM in 2021 and Quasar premiered this new version at Salle Pierre-Mercure. It is a long, meditative piece of 50 minutes, and travels though many moods from quiet, sinuous and overlapping lines, to sections with playful interactions and onto more tentative and exploratory nuances. 

Listen to 'Chaleurs' Now in the Listening Room

Quatuor Nelligan was also founded in 1994 (apparently a banner year for sax quartets) and has been committed to championing both classical and contemporary repertoire. Rupture showcases the work of four Quebec composers and their different takes on quartet repertoire. Yoel Diaz Avila’s Concerto en 6 préludes contains several exciting sections which showcase lively ensemble playing. This piece is reminiscent of much standard saxophone quartet repertoire but with modern tonalities and sharp rhythmic departures. Alexandre David’s Essences begins with a quiet blending of the instruments and then opens up with individual flourishes and edgy statements before working back to a softer and thoughtful ending. Victor Herbiet’s Danse des Dragons begins slowly with intertwining melodies and then adds a percussive section with much pad clicking which appears to wake up the dragons as a vibrant dance section emerges containing Celtic influences. Rupture ends with Robert Lemay’s Verticales, the longest and most experimental piece which includes abrupt rhythms, subtle multiphonics, squeaks and quick dynamic shifts. This is my favourite piece on the album because it contains so many changes and surprises.

Nick Storring - Mirante
Nick Storring
We Are Busy Bodies (nickstorring.bandcamp.com/album/mirante)

Composer and cellist/multi-instrumentalist Nick Storring has numerous recordings to his credit, but his latest solo album Mirante (Lookout in Portuguese) has a beauty and complexity that is transfixing. Storring’s compositional skills are matched only by his imagination; the fine balance of nature, acoustic instruments and multi-tracking is a specialty of Storring’s, but this luscious, pulsing album brings in a more personal tone with field recordings from his second home of Brazil.  

Track one, Roxa, is dreamy and enticing; you are being hypnotized to follow the sweet ocarina calls, the percussion, the handclaps… (are they handclaps?). Just give in, and you’ll be smoothly led to track two, Roxa ll. The xylophone, drums, flute, chimes…. There is no fighting the call. 

Track three Mirante’s gentle swaying of the breeze, the birds and kites over the water… unknowingly you will be transformed, brought gently into town with vocals, drum beats, cowbells. You’ll find yourself dancing through narrow stone passageways, and along the beach and back. Children play, water washes over you… will you swim, sleep, or take a walk? Here, the ocarina will sing to you, the flute, the drum, the whistle will call. Roxa lll is the most melancholy of the tracks; rich, textured, filled with heavens and skies, teaching you to be patient. It will be worth it. 

The whole album organically draws you in further and further until you find yourself surrounded by people… walking, pausing, walking, swimming, dancing, Storring gently takes you by the hand into a world of music and wonder that is almost indescribable, and before you know it, you’ve passed through the whole travelogue and are pressing repeat. This album is even better savoured with headphones to appreciate the expert mastering and Storring’s delicate layering. 

I had to look up a few of the nearly 50 instruments in use on the album. The amount of listening and editing involved in such a solo project would be overwhelming for most, but Storring is right at home.

(At one point I was searching the list of instruments for the perfectly timed kettle whistle I was hearing, until I realized it was my own.)

Réflexions
Francis Choinière
GFN Classics (forteartmusic.com/product/reflexions-francis-choiniere)

Multi-talented Quebec-based Francis Choinière is an awe-inspiring musician, renowned as the conductor of Quebec orchestras Orchestre FILMharmonique and the Orchestre Philharmonique et Chœur des Mélomanes, and as a concert producer, composer and pianist. Here, in his solo debut Réflexions, he performs five of his beautiful solo piano compositions with exquisite musicality and technical expertise. As he explains, the pieces paint a soundscape of memories, a timeline of his past and present, as he draws on and/or arranges melodies composed from his childhood to present.

Each composition is perfect, memorable and calming. Coup de foudre starts with a lyrical melody accompanied by rippling single notes with slight rubato. High note flourishes add a change in colour. Similar lower pitched sections add drama with alternating slower and faster sections leading to closing high pitched soft notes. There’s a change in mood in the following track Unveiled as the single line lower pitched melody and slight accents create a more dramatic touch. Dancelike storytelling Renaissance features a happy harmonized melody that builds to a louder midsection and then a faster section leads to a slow emotional high note ending. Rêverie is a contemporary music flavoured melody with numerous lines leading to a sudden abrupt ending. The tonal I’ll be Here is romantic, softer gentle music. A very orchestral sounding work with different musical ideas that Choinière performs clearly with compassion and sensitivity.

Choinière’s breathtaking piano playing results in beautiful, reflective performances which deserve repeated listenings.

Phoenix Rising
Angel Wang; Phoenix Orchestra
Leaf Music LM299 (leaf-music.ca/music/lm299)

The talented violinist Angel Wang has assembled a chamber ensemble, Phoenix Orchestra, in a debut project that includes the notorious Butterfly Lover’s Concerto (written by committee) that marked the beginning (in the ‘50’s) of the Chinese détente, embracing collaboration with Western Art Music, which has since transformed and stimulated world musical culture. Wang includes a few other Chinese ethnic folk tunes, and these pieces are all arranged for her tidy little group by conductor Claudio Vena.

The Butterfly Lover’s Concerto has become famous and we can find several performances on YouTube, usually using orchestras augmented with Chinese folk instruments where the solo part can get lost amongst all the sonorities. I have never really been able to follow this piece through all its dense tangle of sweet sounding lines, but Wang plays with such purpose and concentration that she negotiates all the potentially cloying and swooning portamenti with cool accuracy and taste. The folk tunes are similarly handled with simple orchestration and no gimmicks. The pentatonic sound of all these provides a recognizable Chinese identity.

To complement this repertoire Wang commissioned Chinese Canadian veteran composer Alice Ping Yee Ho to provide a contemporary balance. The result is the lyrical, lightly orchestrated Phoenix Rising, conceived to fit in with some of the sonorities of the other works, except that the violin part is more fragmented and allusive. The piece is gentle overall, and it is a welcome addition to Ho’s output. Sound and production are almost slick. This really grows on you.

Listen to 'Phoenix Rising' Now in the Listening Room

Alive
John Pulchiele Ensemble
Independent (johnpuchieleensemble.bandcamp.com/album/alive)

Alive is the seventh recording by John Puchiele Ensemble. Created by the eponymous Toronto composer/performer, it was made during the past year when he was ill with cancer and during his subsequent treatment. His personal music here is not overly dramatic or intense but instead is very ambient, minimalist, reflective and at times powerful. His orchestral, electronic, contemporary classical, new age soundscape is composed, performed and mixed to perfection, all by him.

Opening track, I’m Alive is a superb introduction to the unique storytelling orchestral music here. It starts with a quiet, “distant,” haunting held note drone. Then fast repeated flutelike warbling detached lines set a contemplative yet powerful sound. Other contrapuntal lines join in with louder, slightly accented and lower in pitch music. The tempo is fast, yet the hypnotic repeated note lines are calming until they gradually disappear to a decrescendo fast ending, like it’s time to rest … 

Still begins quietly as slow held harmonic notes slightly move in a comforting, and not boring, manner.  An arpeggiated and slightly louder and higher pitched middle section leads to crescendo to end. In is an under two-minute track with the same held note, calming orchestral drone idea. Slightly moving higher pitches add a positive emotional tint to the listening colour.

Puchiele has done phenomenal work here. His knowledge of synthesizers has made his music gorgeous. Each note has been performed with his in-depth ability to layer sounds that are clear and resonating after mixing. This is memorable ambient “orchestral” music.

Listen to 'Alive' Now in the Listening Room

Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Ubique
Claire Chase; Cory Smythe; Katinka Kleijn; Seth Parker Woods
Sono Luminus SL | Editions DSL-92280 (sonoluminus.com/sonoluminus/ubique)

“Ubique" is a Latin word meaning "everywhere" (and even at every time too). But Ubique is also recording of works by the brilliant Icelandic composer Anna S. Þorvaldsdóttir (or Anna Thorvaldsdottir to the English-speaking world), which has added layers of meaning because of its all-star cast: a stellar quartet led by the generational wundkerkind and Princess Royal of the flute family: Claire Chase. 

Chase has done, for the flutes, what Steve Lacy did for Sidney Bechet’s beloved soprano saxophone; what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar and Dame Evelyn Glennie has done for orchestral percussion. Like them Chase has revolutionised the flute family, changing the range and scope of each variant, vocalising the instrument by projecting throat and chest voices through the flute, employing pizzicato and percussive multiphonics. In short Chase can sound like a whole wind section.

The 45-minute Ubique was commissioned for the tenth cycle of Chase’s Density 2036 project, a 24-year initiative to create new repertory for the flute, to commemorate the centennial of Edgard Varèse’s seminal 1936 flute solo Density 21.5. On this iteration Chase is in vaunted company with the extraordinary pianist Cory Smythe, and prodigious cellists Katinka Kleijn and Seth Parker Woods. 

Added to that is the expressive lyricism, spectral mystique, and richly refined humanity of Thorvaldsdottir’s ingenious work, and here’s an album that’s nothing short of miraculous.

Pas de Trois
Venticordi (oboe, violin, piano, viola)
Navona Records nv6680 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6680)

Since 2009, oboist Kathleen McNerney and violinist Dean Stein, artistic directors of Portland, Maine-based VentiCordi Chamber Music, have discovered and performed neglected works involving their instruments. Joining them on this, VentiCordi’s debut CD, are pianist Pamela Mia Paul and violist Susan Dubois.

Pas de Trois for oboe, violin and piano by Pulitzer Prize-winning American Ned Rorem (1923-2022) is a kaleidoscope of changing moods and vividly contrasted instrumental colours. Its six movements encompass a melancholy serenade; an aggressive, syncopated dance; a fanciful ambulation; a sentimental waltz; a wild scramble; echoes of Satie’s Gymnopedies and a bubbling finale, mildly spiced with piquant discords. It’s all very entertaining.

In 1938, the Jewish Hans Gál (1890-1987) left his now Nazi-occupied native Austria, settling in Edinburgh. There, in 1941, he composed his Trio for Oboe, Violin and Viola, Op.94, nostalgic music recalling happier times. The gentle, folk-flavoured Pastorale is followed by Intermezzo grazioso, a light-hearted, occasionally wrong-footed folk dance. Intermezzo agitato is hardly “agitated,” merely suggesting clouds gathering amid the sunshine. Introduzione. Meditation on a Scottish Tune begins pensively before a set of variations on a traditional melody ends Gál’s grateful tribute to his newly-adopted land.

Air, Variations & Finale for oboe, violin and piano by Birmingham-born Dorothy Howell (1898-1982) is very much in the British folk-inspired idiom. With the oboe in the forefront, the music is successively reflective, cheerful, sprightly, plaintive, rollicking, languid, ponderous, disquieted, jaunty, rhapsodic and triumphant. It’s really quite a trip!

Mary Kouyoumdjian - Witness
Kronos Quartet
Phenotypic Recordings PR-2501-CD (marykouyoumdjian.com/discography.html)

Is the proverbial darkness and despair of Armenian history so all-pervasive that it is impossible for anyone to escape it? Listening to this music by the Armenian American Mary Kouyoumdjian entitled Witness, performed by the legendary Kronos Quartet, you have not lived if you have not lived through the wailing – and the silence – of the Armenian Genocide during the early 20th century. Nor will you ever be the same if you live through what Kouyoumdjian and Kronos have recreated (lyrically and musically) to memorialise it. 

This is music that is brilliantly – and disturbingly – paced. It has all the constituent parts of a Homeric epic beginning with the feathered oracle – the Gourng (an Armenian crane) – a feathered messenger in the tradition of the antediluvian birds once believed to have been released by the proto-historic Noah to bring the good news after the great flood.

The second piece – Bombs of Beirut – puts to wildly agitating music the first near-annihilation of Beirut. This thundering three-part suite builds up to the monumental architecture of Silent Cranes, a return to the featured Armenian messenger (the Gourng). Only this time, in a stunning, relentless crescendo the Kronos pit their agitated strings against the voices of old women and men who have survived that massacre only to tell of its devastation in painful detail. Celebrated Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s superb booklet notes and Osheen Harruthoonyan’s foreboding cover photograph are masterful contributions.

Scott Brickman - Baltic Sketches (collected symphonies 2006-2020)
Various Orchestras
Navona Records nv6698 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6698)

American composer/music and education professor Scott Brickman is inspired by his Baltic and Slavic ethnic background in Baltic Sketches, his five symphonies composed between 2006 and 2020.

The three movement Symphony No.5 (2019) is influenced by his experiences with Latvian culture and history. Latvian folk songs, dances and Lutheran music inspire first movement Allegro con Spirito, with its loud, fast and dramatic sections employing the full orchestra. The attention grabbing rhythmic percussion parts and dance-along feel contribute to its accessibility.  There is gentle, slower tonal melody and accompaniment in Cantabile (Valse Melancholique). Energetic loud effects in Energico with shifting meters, textures and a crashing percussive full orchestral ending.

The four movement Symphony No.1 (2006) is based on neoclassical 12-tone rows. Brickman writes that it “tells a story of a struggle,” scored with aggressive strings and horns in the final movement.

The single movement Symphony No.4 “Restoration” (2018) is inspired by folksongs from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine who celebrated the 100th anniversary of independence of the Baltic states in 2018. Although there are no direct musical quotations, the dramatic marching music, modern orchestration, alternating dynamics and closing high pitched held note makes for memorable listening.

Symphony No.6 Sinfonia for Wind Ensemble (2020) was composed after Brickman finished chemotherapy treatments. Diverse instrumental textures, colours, and quieter held notes add to the solemnity of the second movement Cantabile: Risoluto. 

Each symphony is performed perfectly by a different world-class orchestra. Brickman’s talented composing encompasses diverse forms and stylistic influences, which include loud, percussive sections and quieter relaxing, tonal and atonal listening.

Lei Liang - Dui
Wu Man; Steven Schick; Maya Beiser; Cho-Liang Lin; Zhe Lin; Mark Dresser; loadbang;
Islandia Music Records IMR015 (islandiamusic.com/lei-liang-dui)

The expert in the qin (seven-string zither) Dr. Liang Mingyue tell us that the Chinese word for music is yue. In its inclusive meaning, yue refers to the “arts” and to “music,” and, together with morals, law, and politics, was considered to be one of the four fundamental societal functions. The repertoire of Dui (meaning “to face”) composed by Lei Liang most certainly has a connotation so all-encompassing that this music must be listened to and understood with “big” ears. 

Such a characteristic is not necessarily the exclusive domain of only the most discerning of aficionados. However, it begs employing the heart and mind and requiring the inner ear to open, a tall ask of cultures not as ancient and erudite as that of Central/East Asia. This would explain why (for instance) the celebrated Japanese performance artist Yoko Ono is so misunderstood. Her incorporation of Noh and (aragoto or “rough style”) Kabuki into her music mean nothing to the uninitiated.

This may not be true of Lei Liang’s music – albeit the fact that some may be more difficult even for sophisticated, academically-qualified listeners. However, other works here may be more accessible. I want to go on record and say that I am besotted by the charms of this composer – not simply with word paintings such as Luminosity and Landscape V but especially the album’s apogee, Mongolian Suite which demands intensely deep listening.

Dark Moon
Holly Cole
Rumpus Room Records 0246557815 (umusic.ca/products/dark-moon)

Gifted chanteuse Holly Cole has just released her 13th studio album – a project that promises to be one of her most notable musical offerings to date. Cole serves as producer here and has also assembled a stellar coterie of musical colleagues that includes Aaron Davis on piano, George Koller on bass, Davide DiRenzo on drums, Johnny Johnson on sax as well as eminent guitarist Kevin Breit, harmonicist Howard Levy (famed member of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones), and the Nashville-inspired harmonic stylings of the Good Lovelies.

There are 11 exquisitely produced and performed tracks here, including compositions from Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Bert Bacharach, Henry Mancini and Peggy Lee – all presented on a tasty platter of originality, and the highest musicianship. Steppin’ Out With My Baby is voiced at the bottom of her contralto register and supported by sweeping arco bass lines from Koller; Cole imbues this classic with a languid, contemporary eroticism. Moon River is performed with honesty and pure melodic integrity, while soulful and facile work from Davis is the icing on the cake.

Another shining gem is the moving, re-imagining of Bacharach and David’s Message to Michael. The forthright arrangement and Breit’s guitar contribution propel this Brill Building hit into a contemporary anthem of loss and longing. The rarely performed title track is a deft odyssey into Southern Swing motifs, replete with appropriate guitar support from Breit as well as vocal harmonies from the Lovelies that harken back to the incomparable Boswell Sisters. Cole’s take on the classic, Walk Away Renée is another triumph, as well as a fine piano/vocal duet featuring sublime intonation, communication and creative entanglement from Cole and Davis.