Liszt – Harmonies Patriotiques et Religieuses
Eva Polgar
Hunnia Records HRCD2101 (evapolgar.com)

In contrast to Liszt-the-magician-of-the-keyboard’s turbulent side of his heyday, this interesting new recording shows his quiet and contemplative persona. It came about that the aging Liszt, disappointed that by order of Pope Pius IX he was unable to marry his beloved Princess Carolyne, a divorcee, he took religious vows and withdrew to a monastery near Rome. He actually lived in a cell with minimal furnishings and an old beat-up piano with the middle D key missing.

Eva Polgar, a very talented and celebrated Hungarian pianist praised for her intelligent interpretations and emotional power, here performs pieces that resonate with the deep-seated Catholicism and patriotic aspect of Liszt’s late works. This new style is most noticeable by strange unearthly harmonic progressions bordering on the atonal, like the very first piece, Sursum Corda Erhebet eure Hertzen (Lift up your Hearts) and the Coronation Mass, composed for the coronation of Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Religion notwithstanding, his love for his homeland is manifest in the Hungarian Rhapsodies, here represented (and gracefully performed) by No.11 a quiet, gentle piece that only turns into a lively Hungarian dance at the very end.

Liszt’s wandering around the Eternal City inspired some works I love most on this album, namely Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este, an impressionistic piece depicting the play of water of the hundreds of beautiful fountains of the unbelievable Baroque gardens of Villa d’Este in Tivoli. Another lovely piece, Legend No.1, is where St. Francis of Assisi preaches to the birds, an exercise of trills and a real test for the flying fingers of our master pianist.

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Consolations
Antoine Malette-Chénier
ATMA ACD2 2855 (atmaclassique.com/en)

There are perhaps no more beautiful sounds in European art music then the classical pedal harp, particularly so when the instrument is masterfully played, exquisitely recorded and gorgeously captured within a naturally resonant acoustic environment such as the Église St-Benoît in Mirabel, Quebec. Further, there are few more intimate musical experiences than the solo performance. Here, with the artist alone and exposed, one traverses a performative tightrope as both artist and listener, edging on the precipice of exhilarating beauty and potential pitfall. Thankfully, it is the former, rather than the later, that is the case on this fine 2022 recording from the Quebec-based harpist, Antoine Malette-Chééénier.

Principal harpist for the l’Orchestre Symphonique de Trois-Rivières and a graduate of McGill, the University of Montreal, Yale and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon, France, Malette-Chénier brings experience, considerable education and training, as well as valuable artistic interpretation to Consolations, his first disc of solo harp pieces for the ATMA Classique label. In addition to achieving his “central desire… to touch souls, to communicate heart to heart” by prefiguring music that resides at the nexus of romance, Christian spirituality and beauty, Malette-Chénier has also used this platform to shine a light on the compositions of fellow harpists Albert Zabel, Charles Schuetze and Henriette Renié, programming their exquisite (and new to me) music alongside such better-known 19th-century composers as Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt. The album’s title, Consolations, comes from the 1830 Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve poetry collection, Les consolations, which provides the needed conceit for Malette-Chénier to delve into the themes of romantic spirituality and divine power that he mines so gracefully here.

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Things Lived and Dreamt
Francine Kay
Analekta AN 2 9004 (analekta.com/en)

There are relatively few Czech composers regularly featured within the Classical canon, and the majority of these are renowned for their large-scale orchestral and choral works. Antonín Dvořák’s symphonies, Bedřich Smetana’s Má vlast and Leoš Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass are all examples of such composers and their expansive, oft-performed music.

In addition to these great works, each of these composers also wrote a variety of piano music, featured here on Canadian Francine Kay’s Things Lived and Dreamt. With repertoire by Dvořák, Smetana and Janáček, as well as Josef Suk and Vítězslava Kaprálová, this recording provides a comprehensive overview of 19th- and 20th-century Czech piano music.

Each selection on this disc is notable for its expressive power and poignancy, from Janáček’s solemn and profound Sonata 1.X.1905 – written after the composer witnessed the killing of an unarmed Czech protester by a German soldier – to the levity of Dvořák’s Humoresques, which are both delightful and ingenious little pieces. Suk’s Things Lived and Dreamt is a Schumann-esque diary portraying people, places and events through lyrical movements that express far more in three or four minutes than some composers can in 30 or 40.

Kaprálová’s April Preludes is a highlight of this recording, a stunning suite of pieces by a quite unknown composer. Kaprálová studied in Prague and Paris, passing away at the age of 25 while fleeing the Nazi occupation. Despite her young age, the April Preludes are strikingly mature and complete, demonstrating a mastery of late-Romantic technique that stretches the limits of tonality through dissonance and bitonality.

A testament to the greatness of Czech music, Kay’s recording is fertile ground for those who are interested in the Czech symphonic tradition – from Dvořák’s Humoresques to Kaprálová’s April Preludes, this disc goes from strength to strength.

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Sonatas by Medtner; Rachmaninov; Scriabin
Kenny Broberg
Steinway & Sons 30198 (kennybroberg.com)

The music of three Russian composers – Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Medtner – all of whom worked against the backdrop of a particularly turbulent political scene, and each with dissimilar ideals, are presented here on this Steinway & Sons recording featuring American pianist Kenny Broberg. Born in Minneapolis, he was the silver medalist at the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and won bronze at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019.

Rachmaninov completed his Piano Sonata No.2 in 1913 and although the piece was well received, he revised it in 1931, shortening the length and simplifying many of the difficult passages. The original must have been daunting indeed, as technical challenges still abound from the very beginning. Nevertheless, Broberg demonstrates a formidable technique, delivering a polished and exuberant performance. 

No less daunting is the Scriabin Sonata No.5 Op.53 from 1907. Scriabin, a piano virtuoso, infused his music with mysticism resulting in a thoroughly modern style which closely paralleled Symbolist literature of the period. The one-movement piece – barely 12 minutes in length – has long been regarded as among his most difficult.

A younger contemporary of Rachmaninov and Scriabin, Medtner was born in Moscow in 1880. His Sonata Op.25 No.2 “Night Wind” written in 1912 is his most extended of the genre. The score is archly Romantic with a second movement Allegro molto sfrenatamente which is no less demanding than the first – the night wind never ceases. The third movement Danza Festiva proves a rousing conclusion that Broberg performs with great bravado.

In all, a fine recording by a young artist from whom we can hope to hear again.

Arc II: Ravel; Brahms; Shostakovich
Orion Weiss
First Hand Records FHR1128 (firsthandrecords.com)

This FHR CD titled Arc II featuring American pianist Orion Weiss, is the second in a projected three-disc set, all of which aim to address the ways composers come to grips with the emotion of grief. A native of Cleveland, Weiss studied at the Cleveland Institute and the Juilliard School and has an impressive list of awards including winner of the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year.

The disc opens with Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin, an homage not only to the French Baroque tradition, but to fallen friends in the First World War. Weiss’ playing is elegant and thoughtfully nuanced where he artfully captures the spirit of the early clavecinists.

Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Schumann from 1854 was written when the composer was all of 20, shortly after his introduction to the Schumann family and just four months prior to Schumann’s attempted suicide. The piece is very much a study in contrasts which ultimately lead to a gentle finale.

In complete contrast is the Piano Sonata No.2 by Dmitri Shostakovich, composed in 1943 and dedicated to the composer’s teacher and friend Leonid Nikolaev who perished that year in the mass evacuation from Leningrad. The opening movement is raw and emotional with Weiss easily handling the formidable technical demands, while the second movement largo is clearly a haunting epitaph for his late friend. The finale opens with a sombre theme followed by nine variations and a quiet conclusion.

The final two choral preludes from Brahms Preludes Op.122 written shortly after the funeral of Clara Schumann round out a well-chosen program, masterfully performed – we can look forward to the third disc in the series.

Mahler | Guđnadóttir | Elgar – Music from and inspired by the Motion Picture Tár
Cate Blanchett; Sophie Kauer; Dresdner Philharmonie; London Contemporary Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra
Deutsche Grammophon 486 3431 (deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/tar-hildur-gunadottir-12805)

Hildur Guđnadóttir – Women Talking
Various Artists
Decca B0037031-02 (shop.decca.com/artist.html?a=hildur_gudnadottir)

Listening to and critiquing music written for film – in other words, a “soundtrack-only” compact disc – especially without having seen the film(s) in question – comes with not insignificant challenges. This is something score composers and film directors think about; certainly directors Todd Field (Tár) and Sarah Polley (Women Talking), and Hildur Guđnadóttir (who is credited with composing both soundtracks). Why, even eager record labels think about this. Field knows this all too well and alludes to it in his booklet notes for Tár, positing that listening to the music for the film without having it seen it can, indeed, be an altogether unforgettable experience: “Simply sit back and listen to the wonderful artistry on these tracks” he beckons. For the record, Polley hasn’t offered an opinion on booklet notes to the disc relating to Women Talking, but it is highly unlikely that she would disagree.  

Moreover, it is difficult enough to compose music; to put together a truly great soundtrack for one film, let alone two. However, the inimitable Icelandic composer Guđnadóttir has done just that. Leonard Bernstein, who would know what composing for film was like, once used the words: “most awesome” to describe a celebrated effort by Igor Stravinsky for the film Oedipus Rex. He might have handed down the same judgement for Guđnadóttir’s too, for she has succeeded in conveying astute ideas and observations about humanity with exacting drama and in truth I, for one, would go further and suggest that this is exactly what Aristotle demanded of art and artists in his Poetics: he regarded this exact kind of artistic integrity as a model of formal dramatic perfection. Guđnadóttir’s soundtracks bring out that (Aristotelian) truth of both films with uncommon perfection. 

In the case of the soundtrack for Tár, riveting drama is maintained throughout, thanks to snippets of dialogue from the film that are interspersed with the music. This is enhanced by cutting into a musical sequence, or better still, taking Cate Blanchett’s dialogue relating to musical direction during rehearsals and overlaying it on the score – particularly poignant in the rehearsals of Mahler’s Symphony No.5 in C-sharp Minor. This device is also repeated to great effect in the recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor Op.85. The use of this during poignant bits of dallying, repeated phrases in the Largo movement of Tár is similarly affecting. 

Meanwhile, for ardent lovers of the cello, the genius of the young cellist, Sophie Kauer shines bright everywhere, suggesting that she could hold court with the finest – Misha Maisky, Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Isserlis and Jacqueline du Pré, notwithstanding the fact Du Pré’s high watermark recording of the Elgar occupies so prominent a place (in cello literature and) on this recording. Kauer’s dolorous lines in the performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 is further proof of her prodigious craft. And then there are the choice bits of Blanchett (as actor) during the Bach piece and Elisa Vargas Fernandez’s beautifully forlorn Cura Mente. I could go on ad infinitum.

The ingenuity of Guđnadóttir’s score for Polley’s film Women Talking is of quite another kind. Here the composer uses a more contemporary musical vernacular – enhanced by a sweeping colour palette – to alternatively darken and brighten the despair contained within the film. For instance, Guđnadóttir makes particularly emotional use of the radiant sound of bells, contrasting this with the lonesome sound of pizzicato guitar lines. This music provides us with a sense of time and place, and setting for the unfolding drama, just as (once again) the use of a desolate sounding cello takes us to a place of loneliness and foreboding.

Clearly the challenge here is not only to provide colour and context in cinematic proportions, but in two or three minutes – or sometimes in mere seconds – to express a nuanced mood or emotion and to do it in a manner that is almost symphonically dramatic and trance-like. Guđnadóttir’s compositional style does all these things in both scores. Finally, both films are unmissable and so experiencing these soundtracks whilst watching them would almost certainly take you into whole new worlds. But that is quite another story.

Maxime Goulet – Symphonie de la tempête de verglas (Ice Storm Symphony)
Orchestre Classique de Montréal; Jacques Lacombe
ATMA ACD2 2866 (atmaclassique.com/en)

January 1998 – a meteorological disaster leaves millions across eastern Ontario, southern Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia without power, many for weeks. It’s recalled now in the 40-minute Ice Storm Symphony by Maxime Goulet (b. Montreal 1980). (Titles appear in French and English; I’ll give the English.)

Turmoil describes the storm with icy crackles, surging rhythms, crescendoing dissonances and pounding percussion. In Warmth, a raucous Quebec folk dance represents people finding refuge with others having access to fireplaces or electricity. Goulet wants the lights off during performances of the sombre, spookily pulsating music of Darkness to evoke “the feeling of ultimate vulnerability that seized us during those dark nights.” Returning lights, fanfares and tolling bells in Light celebrate the restoration of “normal life,” a happy ending to this vivid, colourful symphony.

Two shorter works by Goulet employ theatrical visual effects, described in the booklet. The cinematically scored, 13-minute What a Day, using ticking clocks, conflates one day with an entire lifetime, from Joyful Morning (birth) to Long Day at Work, Tête-à-Tête Evening and Serene Night (death). The nine-minute Fishing Story for clarinet (here, Kornel Wolak) and strings, inspired by Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, veers from moody waves and seagull cries to repeated slapstick splashes.

These works, all commissioned by Orchestre classique de Montrėal, are spiritedly conducted by Jacques Lacombe. Goulet dedicates this CD to the late Boris Brott, who conducted the premieres of What a Day and Fishing Story.

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Steve Reich – The String Quartets
Mivos Quartet
Deutsche Grammophon 486 3385 (store.deutschegrammophon.com/p51-i0028948633852)

Influential American composer Steve Reich’s portfolio contains three string quartets – Different Trains, Triple Quartet and WTC 9/11 – completed between 1988 and 2010. Reich recently suggested the Mivos Quartet revisit them for this album. Working in close collaboration with the composer, they make a powerful case for fresh interpretation of these quartets, bringing admirable clarity and taut precision to their performance.

The masterful Different Trains is a deeply biographical work. The title refers both to the American trains the young Reich took shuttling between separated parents, before the USA entered World War II and also the “different trains” destined for European death camps. 

The fast, motoric first movement effectively captures the exciting, abruptly shifting energy of Reich’s train rides. Judiciously interspersed with recordings of voices (porters, his governess), and of train horn blasts, they imbue the string quartet with a compelling narrative and sense of geography and time.

A key feature of this quartet, as well as of WTC 9/11, is Reich’s “speech melody” technique. In it he crafts melodic phrases and metric structures mimicking the tonal contours and rhythms of sampled voices, turning them into instrumental motives, then superimposing them on the spoken word passages. 

In movement II, train horns transform into a polyphonic shriek of sirens. Human voices here are survivors of the Holocaust describing their train trips to the death camps. 

The final movement, set after the War, interweaves European and American voices aiming to recap previous stories and musical elements, valiantly trying to make sense of what happened – as many of us also are.

Éliane Radigue – Occam Delta XV
Quatuor Bozzini
Collection Quatuor Bozzini CQB 2331 (actuellecd.com)

French composer Éliane Radigue has for much of her long career made electronic music, but 2004 marked a turning point. She has dedicated herself since then to composing for acoustic instruments, resulting most notably in over 80 (!) works for various forces in her extended Occam cycle. These compositions were inspired by William of Ockham’s (c.1287-1347) Occam’s razor principle, which in its most succinct form states that the simplest proposition is very likely the best. Premiered by Montréal’s Quatuor Bozzini in 2018, Delta XV for string quartet is among the latest in Radigue’s Occam series. 

For over two decades Bozzini has been a staunch advocate for contemporary string quartet music. They’re known for cultivating experimentation and collaboration, fearlessly nurturing an impressively large and diverse repertoire including those on the 2015 album Higgs Ocean with Toronto’s Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan.

Fascinatingly, Radigue developed Occam Delta XV through a collaborative “oral composition process” with the quartet. Dispensing with a fully notated score and relying on its oral transmission may well have been the most straightforward approach here – in the spirit of Occam’s razor – especially for a composer steeped in synthesizer music.

This premiere recording of Occam Delta XV offers two distinct Bozzini interpretations. Seemingly a slowly unfolding series of stacked chords sustained throughout, the music tests the four musicians’ skills in ensemble intonation, microtonal beating, string harmonics and group dynamics. Bozzini’s deeply attentive performance reaches through the recording, touching this listener. As for Radigue’s work, it effectively challenges expectations of music creation, performance and listening.

Ascenso
Santiago Cañón Valencia
Sono Luminus SLE-70028 (sonoluminus.com)

Cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia is no stranger to the world stage, being an award-winning performer beyond his native Colombia. This is an artist from whom sound and texture flow with ease and authenticity. Ascenso is a fantastical album filled with scenic tours through countrysides, congested cities, mountain regions and flightpaths of monarch butterflies. The album is solo cello but feels full and rich, due in part to the compositions themselves, but mainly in response to Cañón-Valencia’s chameleon-like ability to inhabit the culture and place of each piece and execute them with stunning skill. 

La ruta de la Mariposa, commissioned from Damián Ponce de León, is a piece in three movements describing a reverence for the flight of the butterfly, the murder of an environmentalist devoted to protection of monarch butterflies in Mexico and the discovery of the shape of the thyroid gland. Mesonoxian (relating to midnight) is a melodic study of dark and light, commissioned by the cellist from Jorge Humberto Pinzón Malagón, followed by the only “vintage” composition on the album, Asturias by Isaac Albéniz, originally written for piano and transcribed for cello by the artist. 

Urban Rhapsody, inspired by the city of Bogota (which the composer Leonardo Frederic Hoyos describes as “Heaven and Hell”) is simply stunning. Using a scordatura tuning, meaning the cello is retuned in this case to A, D, F, B-flat, this already difficult piece brings new challenges but rewards us with an openness to the sonority of the cello and new possibilities for chord structures. The result is a breathless account of a single day within this major city, a closeup of microcultures full of contrasts between classes, social structures and people.  

The final track Ascenso Hacia Lo Profundo, composed by Cañón-Valencia, has an improvisatory feel, with energetic, cascading rhythmic flow, rounding out a beautiful and accessible album and letting us down gently.

[in]verse
Arlen Hlusko; Fall for Dance North
Bright Shiny Things (brightshiny.ninja)

How does one create a singularly audio dance project in isolation? [in]verse, by Grammy-award winning and current Bang on a Can Canadian cellist Arlen Hlusko, was conceived in lockdown and produced by Toronto’s Fall for Dance North dance festival. Hlusko’s dream collaboration delivers an album beautifully paired between dance artists, poetry and compositions. The texts were chosen and thoughtfully delivered by Canadian and international dance artists, merged with classical and contemporary selections curated and performed by Hlusko and a select few musical contributors. There are so many wonderful readings and performances, the collection of 26 tracks takes time to fully appreciate, and though the text and music are paired like wine to food, they each stand out on their own. 

The reading of Blue Head by Asisipho Malunga with dancer/choreographer Mthuthuzeli November is a standout moving tribute to loneliness and the self as home. Pairing it with the Sarabande from J.S. Bach’s fifth solo cello suite makes an interesting and introspective communion, and provoked thoughts on home through a colonialist lens, (whether intended or not). Another standout for me was transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey’s reading of his original poetry, excerpted from the sound score of his full-evening production Uncovered: The Diary Project. This powerful work is both heartbreaking and illuminating and was informed and inspired by a year-and-a-half long community research process researching diaries of transgender and queer people, with original music composed by Alex Kelly. This track is so perfectly delivered it’s worth the album alone.   

With readings chosen by the movement artists themselves, from dance legend Peggy Baker and a long list of award-winning dancers and choreographers, each selection is thoughtfully tied to wonderful music, reimagined as if walking through the text while listening. Whether or not you delve deeper, it’s a beautiful album.  

One caveat: the album notes included do not seem to contain more than the basic credits or tracklists; for full notes, including the composers and text translations, you will need to go to the album’s website. It is worth the time to check them out properly.

I and Thou
VC2
Leaf Music LM255 (leaf-music.ca)

Toronto cellists Amahl Arulanandam and Bryan Holt have been the busy and well-loved duo V2 since meeting in 2008 while at the University of Toronto; after both completed their master’s degrees at McGill, they reconvened to continue their musical partnership.

Their latest album I And Thou sets out to explore what has become the post-pandemic theme of relationships between humans and the world around us. Including several Canadian commissions, the album opens with composer Jocelyn Morlock’s (2016’s Juno for My Name Is Amanda Todd) Violet Hour, a lush and picturesque sound painting of the time just before sunset, written in three short movements for cello quartet and featuring guests Andrea Stewart and Paul Widner. Vincent Ho’s Heist 2, a moto-perpetuo duet inspired by the duo’s improvisations, was expressly written to highlight the individual characteristics of both cellists and is dynamically accompanied by drummer Ben Reimer. Laura Sgroi’s Discord paints a painful portrait of not belonging in one place, beautifully depicted by blending classical, jazz and pop sensibilities with pianist Stephanie Chua. Chris Paul Harman’s Suite for Two Cellos, with seven powerful movements styled after Bach, is a subtly organic and energetic re-interpretation of traditional early harmonies that solidly anchors the middle section of the album. Followed by Duet for Two Cellos by Youell Domenico, and the final duet I And Thou by Kati Agócs, based on a book by Martin Buber, a fusion of both cellos spun into a single, tightly wound rope.

My favourite track is Kelly-Marie Murphy’s challenging Final Glimpse, a fantastical exploration of the 1937 crash of the Hindenburg. Her experimental addition of recorded materials and sounds flows seamlessly with the duo’s interpretation and personal style, creating one of the strongest pieces on the album.

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Frank Horvat – From Oblivion to Hope
Odin Quartet
I Am Who I Am Records (frankhorvat.com)

Frank Horvat has been successfully exploring states of the human condition in contemporary times; with each new album this exploration takes on a different musical form/genre. This prolific composer keeps surprising us with diversity and an extent of musical expression, language and themes. From Oblivion to Hope, as performed by the Odin Quartet, is a gorgeous collection of Horvat’s string quartet music and his ideas. Here his message is clear: music is an important tool in raising the level of positivity and hope on this planet as well as in our individual lives. Change is possible. 

Horvat’s string quartet music, covering a span of over 20 years, features compelling rhythmical elements and engaging melodies. The album follows a trajectory of personal growth – from oblivion and anxiety through awareness of the preciousness of time and love of nature to the final destination of hope. Each piece tells a story, and none has a traditional form. String Quartet No.2 is a percussive, textural ball of high energy seeking more stable expression. Four Seasons…in High Park, inspired by the seasons in High Park in Toronto and Vivaldi’s iconic Four Seasons, contains many literal quotes but its strength lies in dismantling the original ideas into building blocks of unique compositional language. The album closes with Hope, a peaceful, harmonious rhapsody with bright colours.

Odin Quartet, a strong ensemble with close-knit synergy, is a perfect collaborator. Their sensible interpretation of Horvat’s music highlights the composer’s ingenuity.  

Theory of Becoming
Evgueni Galperine
ECM New Series 2744 (ecmrecords.com)

Minimalist in nature and deeply personal, Theory of Becoming reveals a turn in Evgueni Galperine’s musical direction. Primarily known for his gorgeous film music, Galperine turns inward on this album, shifting from compositions inspired by cinematic images and stories to music that brings in focus shades of the human condition through inner experience. This new world is grandly rich in depth and variety of ideas. Galperine uses both real and virtual instruments to create an architecture of sound, expanding colours, textures and possibilities of acoustic instruments and establishing a mixture of textural, exciting and somewhat oracular elements with electronic and manipulated sounds. This world is so visceral that each composition feels like a minimalist diorama. It is rare to hear such a strong emotional expression in the realms of electronic music and Galperine recognizes the power of that rarity. 

There is a strong imaginative element in all compositions and threads that involve magical settings supported by electronic sounds. In Loplop im Wald, inspired by Max Ernst’s paintings, we meet a magical bird called Loplop that inhabits a mystical forest humans cannot cross. Oumuamua, Space Wanderings is a sonic exploration of travelling through space in search of answers. This Town Will Burn Before Dawn, describes the aftermath of a war, destruction embedded in deep ominous sounds coming from the belly of the beast (war) and hope floating above in the string’s layers. 

While Galperine creates and directs the electronics and sampling, the guest artists, Sergei Nakariakov (trumpet), Sébastien Hurtaud (cello) and Maria Vasyukova (voice), each leave their signature marks. In some aspects, Theory of Becoming is a musical/philosophical treatise on the depth of the human experience.

Susurrus
Anthony Tan
gengseng records GS004 (anthonytan.bandcamp.com/album/susurrus)

How does one listen to music that is not meant to be listened to? This question may seem rhetorical, if not absurd, but it is one that is presented to us when faced with the genre of ambient music. To many, ambient music is equivalent to elevator music, easy listening pop or soft jazz that pads the other ambient sounds of shopping malls, elevators and airports. In fact, the concept of ambient music was first used by Brian Eno in his 1978 album Ambient 1: Music for Airports and has since grown to encompass a range of electroacoustic compositions.

According to Wikipedia, ambient music “is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm.” Anthony Tan’s Susurrus embodies this description very well, augmenting fragmented pianistic passages with real-time electronics. This is atmospheric music at its finest, and is simultaneously foreboding and calm, never resolving, but also never developing the tension that necessarily needs a resolution.

Both pieces on this recording, endlessnessnessness and sublime subliminal sublimate are constant paradoxes, the net result being equal to the effort put in by the listener: focusing on the small scale reveals minute repetitions and rhythmic patterns, while listening to the larger forms provides a rather vague overview of works that forgo conventional structures in favour of constantly shifting acoustic events. 

If this review appears inconclusive, that is because ambient music, much like the minimalist works of Glass, Reich and others, is so highly subjective and the experience of it so dependent on the individual. I encourage everyone to explore Tan and Susurrus, whether one is familiar with this genre or not, and explore how you listen to and experience music that is not meant to be listened to.