Beethoven - Symphony No.9
Erin Wall; Mihoko Fujimura; Simon O’Neill; Mikhail Petrenko; Choeur et Orchestre symphonique de Montréal; Kent Nagano
Analekta AN 2 9885

Unashamedly and unapologetically modern. Intended deliberately for the 21st century soul. There is nothing “authentic” about this performance by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under Kent Nagano, not as we understand the established practice of historically informed performances. Authentic, however, is the breath-taking emotional intensity channelled through this symphonic colossus. This performance leaves no doubt that Nagano has understood every nuance of Beethoven’s convictions about the world, indeed the universe around him. Every lost hope, every anger, every dream and inspiration the composer ever had seems embedded in the writing for Nagano to reveal with exquisite precision.

Perhaps the joy of familiar works is discovering new inner voices brought forward by fresh interpreters who uncover secret countermelodies that have eluded others. Nagano does this repeatedly with oboes and lower string phrases, especially against the solo vocal parts. The effect is astonishing and delightful.

Numbering some 92 players, the orchestra is massive but always lithe, agile and fully capable of every dynamic required by the score. The 60-voice combined chorus of the OSM and Tafelmusik Chamber Choir under Ivars Taurins sings beautifully with flawless diction. Every German word is there with clarity and intent.

It would be hard to find higher production values than those demonstrably evident on this recording. I haven’t heard a Ninth so moving, so exciting, in very many years. Recorded during the inaugural concerts at the OSM’s new home, the Maison symphonique de Montréal, this testament certainly bodes well for the orchestra’s future.

Schubert - String Quintet; Quartettsatz
Tokyo String Quartet; David Watkin
Harmonia Mundi HUM8074227

At the age of 16, Schubert was drawn to the string quartet and in that period he composed several works in this genre. He abandoned the form three years later, perhaps feeling that his own writing did not match the drama and intensity of the giant figure of Beethoven (“Who can do anything after Beethoven?” Schubert once complained to a friend). With Quartettsatz (Quartet Movement) D703, Schubert chose to revisit the form and to do so in the key of c minor, a key Beethoven loved and often used. Schubert abandoned the score after having composed about 40 bars of a slow movement and the opening Allegro was not published until 40 years after his death. This movement is somewhat unorthodox in form – opening measures are not heard again until the end of the piece – and it contains many elements that Schubert will further develop in Death and the Maiden and his other masterpiece, the String Quintet in C Major. The Tokyo String Quartet, whose members play on “The Paganini Quartet,” a group of Stradivarius instruments named after Niccolo Paganini, had no trouble crossing between the tension and agitation of the first theme to a much warmer and more serene second subject. Their performance is full of sparkles yet it contains an astonishingly wide range of string textures.

Schubert died shortly after completing his String Quintet in C Major and the quintet remained unnoticed until 1850, when the famous Hellmesberger Quartet started to promote it three years before it was published for the first time. This piece is full of very powerful contrasts – light is followed by darkness, serenity is interrupted by drama, and the whole work seems to be a wonderful yet unsettling interaction between two very different worlds. Schubert emphasized the contrasting sonorities by his use of the instruments - the first violin and first cello are often paired and playing in octaves, inner voices tend to be restricted to their lower registers and the second cello often brings in the darker textures.

Cellist David Watkin (of the Eroica Quartet) has a wonderful rapport with the members of the Tokyo on this recording. There is a sense of effortless playing, a unity of ideas and the near perfect crispness in bow attacks. Two cellos bring up a very expressive sound in the second theme of the first movement and in the third theme in the fourth movement. Throughout the second movement, possibly the most beautiful and complex slow movement of all Schubert’s works, there are points of stillness and feelings of being suspended in time that are so rewarding for the listener. Martin Beaver‘s violin at times comes very close to the human voice. The third movement, with an almost overwhelming difference of character between the Scherzo and Trio, allows the Tokyo Quartet and David Watkin to display a virtuosity and depth of emotion at the same time. The fourth movement is played very stylishly; the dance-like quality is uplifting and the tempo, along with a feeling of exuberance, accelerates at the end before it brings the turbulence back in the last bar. A fluid and extremely satisfying performance!

Grieg; Liszt - Piano Concertos
Stephen Hough; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; Andrew Litton
Hyperion CDA67824

Do we need another Grieg or Liszt CD? Yes we do, if it is Stephen Hough at the piano. Although the Grieg is usually paired with the Schumann Concerto in A Minor I prefer this combination of the Liszt concertos with the Grieg.

These works are perennial warhorses that can sound dated and mannered but not with Stephen Hough as soloist. Hough is a remarkable pianist with flawless technique and innate musicality and these performances live up to expectation. I love his intelligent and well-paced interpretations. He never descends to the affectation and overly mannered playing that some pianists use in this repertoire. Hough is always about the music and beautiful sound. He does not sacrifice the musicality for virtuoso tricks. The florid Lisztian passage-work is always an extension of the melodic line. The trills and roulades enhance the cantabile expression. The tonal quality of Hough’s touch on the piano has a clear ring to it which impresses in both the bravura octaves, trills and the slow lines. His sound is never harsh and the sensitive phrasing is never replaced by empty technical gestures. There is also a wonderful rapport between piano and orchestra. The ensemble is seamless and the music breathes naturally. Andrew Litton’s conducting is a soloist’s dream. The performances are stunning and I highly recommend this CD. The Grieg is an absolute gem.

Vaughan Williams - Symphony Nos. 4 & 5
Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Peter Oundjian
TSO Live (www.tso.ca)

If you think of Vaughan Williams only in terms of English folk song and church music, listen to this recording! Compelling live performances of the fourth and fifth symphonies by Peter Oundjian and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra reveal the composer’s wide range and continuing relevance. The Fourth is the darker of the pair, its semitonal theme generating dissonance and tension throughout. At numerous points the interlacing motifs and the accumulating contrapuntal weave create tremendous energy, which Oundjian captures without sacrificing clarity or losing the long view. He maintains the lyricism of the first movement’s second theme, and consistently brings out expressive moments within the overall turbulence. Contrasts are handled effectively, for example in the uneasy peace of that movement’s coda or in the quiet section before the finale’s climax. I like especially the slow movement, with its walking bass line and sense of a bleak journey towards a lonely close, which Oundjian paces perfectly.

Symphony No.5 shows a brighter side of Vaughan Williams. In the first movement rich textures and tone colours evoke a natural setting, but overall the personal exceeds the pastoral. Incorporating material from a planned opera based on Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, the work to me is suffused with integrity and spirituality. Handling transitions and their changes of dynamics, tempo and mood especially well, Oundjian indeed conveys the striving, committed voice of Vaughan Williams.

Fauré - Complete Chamber Music for Strings and Piano
Renaud Capuçon; Gautier Capuçon; Gerard Caussé; Michel Dalberto; Quatuor Ebène
Virgin Classics 5099907087523

The composer Aaron Copland once remarked that the music of Gabriel Fauré possessed all the earmarks of the French temperament: harmonic sensitivity, impeccable taste, classic restraint and a love of clear lines and well-made proportions. These qualities are no more evident than in Fauré’s chamber music for piano and strings, now presented in its entirety in this attractive five-disc box set on the Virgin Classics label. Is French music best interpreted by French musicians? That question is certainly open to debate, but in this case, it doesn’t hurt that most of those taking part in this recording are top-rated French artists, including violinist Renaud Capuçon, violist Gerard Caussé, cellist Gautier Capuçon, pianist Michel Dalberto joined by the Ebène Quartet and the American pianist Nicholas Angelich. Everything is included here: the pairs of violin and cello sonatas, the two piano quartets and quintets, the piano trio, as well as the sole string quartet.

The extensive notes rightly point out that Fauré’s chamber music was composed over the course of his lifetime, from the first of the two violin sonatas and the first piano quartet written when he was 30, to the second piano quintet and the Piano Trio in D Minor completed over 40 years later, when deafness and advancing age obviously weren’t hindering his creativity. The result is a wonderful sense of progression and development spanning a 45 year period. The Violin Sonata No.1, for example, contains all the optimism and freshness of a youthful composer, the quirky rhythms and modulations adeptly handled by Renaud Capuçon and Michel Dalberto. On the other hand, the Piano Quintet No.2 Op.115, completed in 1921, is dark and impassioned, surely the music of a composer resigned to the frailties of old age; one refusing to abandon his own musical idiom in favour of more modern trends. The performance here by Andelich and the Ebène Quartet is boldly assured, imbued with a deeply-rooted sensitivity to the demands of the music.

One of the most intriguing pieces in this collection is the String Quartet in E Minor, the only one Fauré ever wrote and the last of his works to be completed. It was written only at the request of several colleagues, including his pupil Ravel, and even then Fauré did not fully embrace the project. The end result is an angular piece that has a decidedly atmospheric quality to it – a haunting swan-song concluding a lifetime devoted to music.

An added bonus in this set is the inclusion of musical miniatures for which Fauré is justifiably famous, pieces such as the Élégie, Sicilienne and Romance. And as if great music superbly performed wasn’t enough, the attractive packaging - involving “Belle Époch” graphics and typeface on the covers - serves to further enhance this most appealing collection which will surely become a mainstay in the catalogue.

Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.3; Symphonic Dances
Garrick Ohlsson; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Robert Spano
ASO Media CD-1003

“After America, I’ll be able to buy myself that automobile,” Rachmaninov is reported to have explained when finally deciding to embark on his voyage to America in 1909, a tour that promised handsome financial compensation. It was for this trip that he composed the great Piano Concerto No.3 in D Minor, admirably presented here on this Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Media recording with Garrick Ohlsson and the ASO conducted by Robert Spano.

Ohlsson was a gangly 22 year old when he won first prize at the International Chopin Competition in 1970. Forty-one years later, he has come to be regarded as one of the American veterans of the concert stage. Despite his eclectic discography, ranging from Bach to Gershwin, Ohlsson has never spent much time with the Russian romantics, so this recording, which not only features the concerto, but also the three Symphonic Dances, is a journey into uncharted territory. And what a satisfying voyage it is indeed! The concerto - surely one of the most demanding in the repertoire - is a plethora of contrasting moods and tempos, but Ohlsson handles them all with aplomb. Piano pyrotechnics are treated with ease, while the quieter, more lyrical sections demonstrate an introspective elegance. Spano has been director of the ASO for ten years now, and here, his competent baton achieves a warmly romantic sound from the players. Concluding the disc is the set of three Symphonic Dances from 1941, the last works ever to be penned by Rachmaninov. The ensemble delivers a polished performance and the Direct Digital Stream sound further enhances this most satisfying recording.

The Montreal violinist Alexandre Da Costa is back with another outstanding CD of contemporary works, this time with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal under Pedro Halffter in Fire and Blood, featuring the music of the American composer Michael Daugherty (Acacia Classics ACA 2 0931). The title work is a violin concerto from 2003; commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, it was inspired by the “Detroit Industry” murals at the Detroit Institute of Art, painted in the early 1930s by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera on a commission from Edsel Ford. The opening movement – “Volcano” – invokes the fires of Mexican volcanoes and the blaze of factory furnaces. The beautiful second movement – “River Rouge” – is named for the Ford complex where Rivera spent several months sketching with his wife, artist Frida Kahlo; her long-term serious health problems – she almost died from a miscarriage while in Detroit with her husband – resulted in “the color of blood” being everywhere in her works of that period. The third movement – “Assembly Line” – is described by the composer as “a roller coaster ride on a conveyor belt,” with the violin representing the worker surrounded by a mechanical and metallic orchestra that includes a ratchet and brake drums! It’s stunning stuff with wonderful orchestration. It’s difficult to imagine it being performed any better. Two shorter works complete the CD: Flamingo, for two tambourines and orchestra; and Ladder to the Moon, for violin, wind octet, double bass and percussion. Da Costa is again outstanding in the latter, a two-movement work also inspired by art – this time a musical tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1925-30 paintings of New York skyscrapers and the Manhattan cityscape.

The latest CD from Canada’s James Ehnes sees him paired with the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy in an all-Tchaikovsky programme recorded live at Australia’s Sydney Opera House in December 2010 (ONYX 4076). I was lucky enough to catch this same team in a memorable performance of the Elgar violin concerto in Sydney in 2009, and it’s no surprise to find them continuing their relationship. Ashkenazy was also the conductor for the Ehnes CD of the Mendelssohn concerto in 2010. The Violin Concerto is obviously the main work here, and it’s a terrific performance, with Ashkenazy drawing idiomatic playing from the orchestra, and Ehnes always managing to find something fresh to say in the solo part while making the technical difficulties sound easy. The two other works with orchestra, the Sérénade mélancolique Op.26, and the Valse-scherzo Op.34, receive equally compelling performances from all concerned.

Ashkenazy returns to his first profession as pianist for the final work, accompanying Ehnes in the three-movement Souvenir d’un lieu cher Op.42. Again, the mutual understanding is there for all to hear. It’s another terrific addition to the already impressive Ehnes discography.

There are more live recordings featured on the latest CD from Christian Tetzlaff (ONDINE ODE 1195-2) which features the Violin Concertos of Mendelssohn and Schumann, with Paavo Järvi conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Tetzlaff was artist in residence with the orchestra when the recordings were made in September 2008 and February 2009. The Mendelssohn is a beautiful performance, never over-played, with an affecting slow movement and a finale that displays detailed, subtle and sensitive playing without ever losing a sense of line. The Schumann concerto has had a troubled history and waited 84 years for its eventual premiere in 1937. The beautiful slow movement is its saving grace, but the opening movement material is not the greatest, and with its demanding technical difficulty it’s not hard to see why the concerto continues to struggle to enter the mainstream repertoire. Tetzlaff, however, does a lovely job with this work, as he does with the Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra, which was also written in 1853 and quickly fell out of favour. It was originally felt to be a brilliant and cheerful piece, but Schumann’s mental illness and death within three years seemed to change the public perception of the work. In this repertoire, though, Tetzlaff is up against stiff competition from Ulf Wallin, whose definitive performances of these works on the BIS label were reviewed in depth in the September 2011 Strings Attached column.

The Kernis Project: Beethoven is the title of a new CD from a young American ensemble, the Jasper String Quartet (Sono Luminus DSL-92142). It pairs the Beethoven Op.59, No.3 with the String Quartet No.2 “musica instrumentalis,” by American composer Aaron Jay Kernis, the last movement of which is based on the finale of the Beethoven quartet. The Jasper Quartet gives a full-blooded, committed reading of the Beethoven, but the real treasure here is the Kernis. The three-movement work, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998, is an absolute stunner: deep, strong, rich,accessible. There are shades of Shostakovich in the slow movement, and the finale – “Double Triple Gigue Fugue (after Beethoven)” – is truly exhilarating. Although it wasn’t written for them, the Jasper Quartet comment that this was a work they connected with “right from the start.” It’s easy to hear why, and to share their connection. How reassuring – and what a thrill – to hear contemporary works that can hold their own against the classics.

Kernis also turns up on River of Light – American Short Works for Violin and Piano, a new Naxos release in the superb American Classics series (Naxos 8.559662). The title is slightly misleading, as two of the works – Philip Glass’ “Knee Play 2” from Einstein on the Beach and Patrick Zimmerli’s three-movement The Light Guitar – are for violin solo. Virtually all of the works are by living composers and written within the last 35 years, the exception being the 1953 Wistful Piece by Ruth Shaw Wylie, who died in 1989. Lev Zhurbin’s Sicilienne, Jennifer Higdon’s Legacy, Zimmerli’s piece and Richard Danielpour’s title track River of Light are all world premiere recordings. The Kernis Air, Kevin Puts’ Aria and William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost Rag complete a fascinating and predominantly lyrical programme. The American violinist Tim Fain, who was recently featured in the movie Black Swan, is in his element here, as much at home in the frenetic Glass piece as in the lyrical beauty of the Puts, Kernis and Zhurbin works. Fain grew up playing the standard 19thcentury short virtuoso pieces, and sees this CD as bringing the tradition into the present. Pianist Pei-Yao Wang is a perfect partner in music that is always thought-provoking and immensely satisfying, without ever resorting to the merely virtuosic.

English viola music has already been well-served by the Naxos label, and now there’s a new CD featuring the Viola Sonatas Nos.1 and 2 and the Phantasy of Edwin York Bowen in performances by the Bridge Duo (Naxos 8.572580). York Bowen, born in 1884, was a prodigiously-gifted musician and an outstanding composer, but – as was the case with several other British composers – his style came to be considered outdated in the years following the Great War. Bowen worked closely with Lionel Tertis, the man who was almost single-handedly responsible for establishing the viola as a legitimate solo instrument: Tertis premiered Bowen’s Viola Concerto in 1908, as well as these two sonatas a few years earlier. Both sonatas, No.1 in C Minor and No.2 in F Major, date from 1905. They are marvellous works, quintessentially English and exhibiting great strength and variety. The single-movement Phantasy was written in 1918 and was Bowen’s entry in the annual W. W. Cobbett Phantasy composition competition that produced so many outstanding English works. Tertis saw no reason to treat writing for the viola any differently than writing for the violin and as a result all three works are technically very challenging, a fact that no doubt contributed to their somewhat sparse performance history until fairly recently. The Bridge Duo – violist Matthew Jones and pianist Michael Hampton – are fully up to the challenge in a beautifully-recorded disc that makes a fine companion to their recital of English Music for Viola (Naxos 8.572579).

There is more viola music – again from a mostly overlooked composer and with another link to Tertis – on the CD of the Complete Works for Viola & Piano by Joseph Jongen (FUGA LIBERA FUG586). Jongen, born in 1873, was also a precociously-gifted musician, and met Tertis in London in 1914 after fleeing from occupied Belgium at the outbreak of the Great War. He also knew the great French viola player Maurice Vieux in the 1920s. Like Bowen, Jongen was a craftsman who produced works of the highest order, but whose reputation suffered as musical styles evolved through the middle of the 20th century. Both Tertis and Vieux were prominent in establishing the viola as a legitimate solo instrument, and both had a huge influence on Jongen’s viola works – and on their technical difficulty. The young Belgian violist Nathan Braude is simply outstanding in a recital that includes Jongen’s Allegro appassionato Op.79 from 1925, the Introduction & Danse Op.102 from 1935, the Concertino Op.111 from 1940, the two-movement Suite Op.48 and the Andante espressivo. His tone is deep and warm in the lower register, and brilliant and bright, though never thin or lacking in strength, in the upper register. Technically he is flawless and never less than completely musical. He is supported by some terrific piano playing by Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, who not only has his work cut out in the viola works, but also supplies outstanding performances of the two excellent piano solo pieces that complete the CD: the second Étude de concert Op.65 No.2 and the Soleil à midi Op.33 No.1. The booklet notes make an impassioned plea – and a strong case – for a reassessment of Jongen’s music, and of his place in 20th century music. The charming and beautiful works on this CD make an even stronger one.

The ever-reliable Hyperion label has issued two CDs by the Takács Quartet of String Quartets of Joseph Haydn, one featuring the three quartets Op.71 and the other the three quartets Op.74 (Hyperion CDA67781 and CDA67793). All six works were written in Vienna between Haydn’s visits to London in 1791-2 and 1794 and were clearly written for public – as opposed to private – performance, following the success of his Op.64 quartets at the Salomon subscription concerts in London. The Takács Quartet plays with precision, warmth and richness, as you would expect, but the real stars here are the works themselves, amply demonstrating the inexhaustible wit, humour and invention for which Haydn is so justly noted.

Southam - Returnings
Eve Egoyan
Centrediscs CMCCD 17211

This album marks the premiere recording of four piano works by the late Ann Southam. The music was chosen by Southam, among Canada’s finest composers, who died at age 73 in November 2010. The consummate Toronto pianist Eve Egoyan, for whom the works were created, makes a convincing and moving case for them.

I first heard Southam’s music in the 1970s when she became known for the electroacoustic works she made for Toronto Dance Theatre choreographers. I was surprised to hear later that we shared a mutual composition teacher, Samuel Dolin of the Royal Conservatory of Music. In Returnings I, the piano tolls in the low register while the consonant mid-keyboard chords support a disjunct melodic line. The haunting, though reassuring, music is over well before I want it to be. It hardly seems to last the quarter of an hour the CD timing states.

In Retrospect is like a broken harmonic series rearranged, a set of cubist impressions of bells ringing, their pitches ranging over most of the keyboard. One can imagine in the listening Southam’s abstracted, distanced and terse life in review, fastidious in its avoidance of dramatic overstatement and emotional sturm und drang. While her modernist colours are on display here, by the end of the work I am left with the feeling of unquiet, unnamed musical questions being posed rather than clear statements articulated and argued.

Qualities of Consonance, in contrast, has a dramatic agenda. It serves up dissonant, aggressive, loud musical gestures that would be quite at home in the mid-20th century, alternating with soft sostenuto passages. The resulting dialectic resonates on a deep emotional level. In the final work, Returnings II: A Meditation, Southam offers us a more refined aesthetic. Set in a haltingly rocking rhythm, it revisits the harmonic grammar of Returnings I.

Yes, I hear links in these last piano pieces to the more pattern-concerned jubilant minimalism of Southam’s earlier works, yet this mature autumnal music speaks to me with more conviction. They have the admirable gravitas and serenity of a full life well lived. These pieces, along with Southam’s Simple Lines of Enquiry (recorded by Egoyan on Centrediscs CMCCD 14609), should take their rightful place in the top tier of contemporary concert piano repertoire.

O Music - The Music of Allan Gilliland
New Edmonton Wind Sinfonia
Centrediscs CMCCD 17111

This disc by the well-established New Edmonton Wind Sinfonia contains a variety of music by prolific Edmonton-based composer Allan Gilliland. Conductor Raymond Baril maintains a high standard throughout, with soloists James Campbell and Dean McNeill making distinguished contributions. Included are jazz and Broadway suites as well as music based on the composer’s Scottish heritage. My main reservation is that, for a single-composer collection, I don’t hear enough of Gilliland’s “own” musical voice coming through.

Dreaming of the Masters I pays tribute to great jazz clarinettists including Benny Goodman, Pee Wee Russell and Buddy DeFranco. Perhaps better known as a classical clarinettist, James Campbell emerges here as also a fine jazz stylist and improviser. In Kalla (“call” in Norwegian), trumpeter and arranger Dean McNeill conveys brilliantly the role of a riverside trumpeter in New Orleans circa 1900 making echoing calls that are answered by other trumpets throughout the city (with jazz plunger mutes much in evidence). Fantasia on Themes from West Side Story demonstrates Gilliland’s inventive orchestration and idiomatic technique in what he calls a “re-composition” of material from the beloved musical. O Music, Loch Na Beiste, and Love’s Red Rose evoke the Scottish landscape and traditional melodic style. Overall, this disc would appeal to those who enjoy any or all of the above genres.

two + two
TorQ Percussion Quartet
Bedoint Records BR002 (www.torqpercussion.ca)

“Always complimenting or opposing” is the descriptive phrase that creative percussion quartet TorQ uses to describe the music on their debut recording project, two + two. Produced by TorQ (skilled percussionist/composers Richard Burrows, Adam Campbell, Jamie Drake and Daniel Morphy) and Ray Dillard, the CD is without question a fascinating and intense piece of work. According to TorQ themselves, their project explores harmonic and rhythmic concepts and the contrasting and complex relationships to their polar antithesis, e.g. pitched and un-pitched; tranquil and relentless; simple and complex.

two + two is comprised of five extended works, including the evocative Awakening Fire by Jason Stanford, which utilizes ephemeral vibes and marimbas, the drones of Tibetan meditation bowls and all manner of drums and percussion gizmos to create a primordial sonic landscape – replete with Neolithic thunderstorms. Also of note is the stark Tak-Nara by Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic, and the funky, marimba driven I Call Your Name: Rescue Me (Christos Hatzis), which integrates urbanized spoken word snippets as well as some thrilling auricular cacophonies. Also moving is an ethno-centric version of iconic avant-garde composer John Cage’s opus, Third Construction.

This conceptual, non-linear and visceral music may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it clearly extends beyond a mere auditory experience and into the realm of performance art. I’m sure that we can all look forward to the next magical multi-dimensional presentation from TorQ – highly musical percussive artistry without artifice or gimmicks.

Shamanic Journey
Deanna Swoboda
Potenza Music PM1013 (www.potenzamusic.com)

The noble tuba is the only instrument in the standard symphony orchestra that can claim that virtually all of its solo repertoire has been composed within the last 60 years. This is in large part due to the efforts of tuba players themselves, who often seek out the friendship of composers, who they then commission (or brow-beat) into composing these solo works.

American tuba player Deanna Swoboda is no exception to this: a professor of tuba and euphonium at Western Michigan University and the President of the International Tuba and Euphonium Association, she also is a fantastic performer, as this solo CD, her second, ably shows. Most of the featured repertoire is by women composers and most is of the “easy-listening” variety – a number of the works having a jazz or pop-infused feel. Particularly enjoyable is the Concert Piece for Tuba and Piano by the noted American composer, Libby Larsen.

A bonus for listeners on our side of the border is the inclusion of two works by Canadian composers, Elizabeth Raum’s Ballad and Burlesque (commissioned by Swoboda) and Barbara York’s Sonata for Tuba and Piano, subtitled “Shamanic Journey,” which gives Swoboda’s new CD its name.

Saariaho - D’om le vrai sens; Laterna Magica; Leino Songs
Kari Kriikku; Anu Komsi; Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Sakari Oramo
Ondine ODE 1173-2

Kaija Saariaho stands among today’s outstanding concert music composers. She was born in Finland (1952) but has been a long-time resident of Paris. Her research at IRCAM, the Paris institute where FM synthesis and electroacoustic techniques associated with spectral music have been developed, has had a profound influence on her compositions, which often combine live and electronic musical forces.

This CD features three recent all-acoustic works performed by some of Finland’s finest interpreters. Saariaho’s clarinet concerto D’om Le Vrai Sens, inspired by the famous La Dame à la Licorne medieval tapestries is almost operatic in scope, the solo clarinet virtuoso Kari Kriikku playing the protagonist to the orchestra’s lushly mysterious textures.

Saariaho’s dramatic orchestral piece Laterna Magica derives its title and theme from film director Ingmar Bergman’s memoirs, referring to an early type of manual film projector. The title underscores the composer’s fascination with boundaries: between observation and imagination; between objective light and subjective dream-like reality. The latter is represented in sound by shifting, colourfully orchestrated, alternating dense and wispy chords and evanescent hissing instrumental sounds. Whispered words uttered by the musicians, describing light’s effects both on objects and on human mood, are culled from Bergman, adding to the music’s mystery.

The four Leino Songs, built on texts by Finnish poet Eino Leino (1878-1926), were composed for the polished and nuanced voice of the Finnish soprano Anu Komsi and orchestra. Epigrammatic and voice-friendly, the songs follow the lyrics admirably, allowing the words to dictate the overall form and duration of each song. This is by far the shortest of the works here, yet its emotional impact is perhaps the greatest.

Concert Note: The Canadian Opera Company will present eight performances of Kaija Saariaho’s Love From Afar, featuring Russell Braun, Erin Wall and Kristina Szabó, February 2 to 22.

From the New Village
Duo Resonance
Woodlark Discs (www.silverflute.ca)

German Romanticism of the 19th century, in spite of much turbulence at the time, was a golden age for the arts, especially for music and poetry. Duo Resonance is composed of guitarist Wilma van Berkel and flutist Sibylle Marquardt. The title is derived from the first set of compositions on the disc, Songs and Dances from the New Village by Dusan Bogdanovic, pieces based on traditional music from south-eastern Europe. The rest of the repertoire, with the exception of Toru Takemitsu’s Toward the Sea, is similarly related to folk or traditional music.

There is some invigorating music-making on this CD. In the first movement “Bordel” of Astor Piazzolla’s L’histoire du tango, for example, Marquardt’s robust sound, incisive articulation and precise rhythmic sense, coupled with van Berkel’s dynamic and fluid playing, propel the music forward to an exciting climax. Van Berkel‘s solo at the beginning of the contrasting second movement, exquisitely languid, sensitive and touching, sets a sultry summer mood.

Van Berkel also excels in Toronto composer Alan Torok’s idiosyncratically spelled Native Rhapsody in Hommage of James Brown. The writing for guitar, while neither particularly “native” nor “folk” to my ears, is rhythmically sophisticated and works well with the modal flute line.

The notation of Takemitsu’s Toward the Sea, described in the liner notes as “annotated to the point of excess,” proves effective, nevertheless, in drawing Marquardt, playing alto flute, into a more expressive mode than elsewhere on the disc, exploring a greater variety of tone qualities, colours and dynamics.

Kudos to the duo for coupling some of the better known repertoire for their instruments with lesser known contemporary compositions that need to be heard.

Waltz for Bill
Tom Szczesniak
Independent SZC-27426-27 (www.tomszcz.com)

Waltz for Bill is veteran Toronto session player and arranger, Tom Szczesniak’s, love letter to the genius of Bill Evans. It is also the title of his very first CD under his own name after 40 years in the industry playing with everyone from Anne Murray to Thad Jones. Evans isn’t the only piano player to be honoured by Szczesniak, as the late and much-missed Doug Riley (Dr. Music) is remembered here both with a tribute song and a cover of one of his compositions, Dinosaurus. The progressive rock/bop fusion number is a bit of an incongruity, but a palate-cleanser amidst all the ear butterscotch that comes before and after. The disc is steeped in standards and even veers into chestnut territory a time or two, but is a class act from beginning to end. Starting with a mellow but harmonically fresh approach to What Is This Thing Called Love, we get taken on a lush, lovely journey of the likes of Gershwin and Hammerstein with lots of strings, a bit of sax (Michael Stuart and Vern Dorge) and the occasional velvety vocal from Doug Mallory and Cal Dodd.

Sounds and Silence - Travels with Manfred Eicher
A film by Peter Guyer and Norbert Wiedmer
ECM 5050 DVD 276 9886

Since I first heard Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert in the 70s, I have been listening to ECM records. My musical tastes have been influenced over the years by the artists the label represents. Although the recording artists’ names would always vary, the producer’s credit seemed to be a constant: Manfred Eicher.

This film offers an intimate view of the recording process both in studios, and in various reverberant spaces around the world. The filmmakers follow Eicher as he travels to produce his discriminately selected artists from Scandinavia to South America. He is shown in most recording sessions as a man deep in listening, rarely communicating verbally with the musicians. It’s as though his presence alone offers reassurance and companionship in the creative process.

Eicher imparts very few words throughout the film, which leaves the viewer feeling equally unfamiliar with him upon completion. Nonetheless, Sounds and Silence is quite beautiful to watch as we travel through the different coloured locales and listen to the respective musical sounds.

In his humble presence, it seems apparent that Eicher is very devoted to his craft. Composer Eleni Karaindrou says of Eicher, “Wherever Manfred works, he is 100 percent involved. That is the true nature of his passion. He devotes himself to the moment and is entirely committed to the artist he is recording.”