I begin this month with a hot-off-the-press solo violin release on the ATMA label. Solo Seven (ACD2 2748 atmaclassique.com) features works by seven Canadian composers including several written for the soloist, young scion of one of Atlantic Canada’s most respected musical families. After initial studies with his father, renowned violinist Philippe, Marc Djokic continued his studies in the United States at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Young Artist Program, the New England Conservatory, and with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University. Winner of the 2017-2018 Prix Goyer, a Prix Opus and a former Instrument Bank recipient from the Canada Council, Djokic is currently artist-in-residence at CAMMAC (the Canadian Amateur Musicians association) and was recently named principal violin of the McGill Chamber Orchestra. Solo Seven marks his recording debut.

The disc begins with two virtuosic, moto perpetuo movements from Richard Mascall’s Sonata for solo violin & Digital FX. The first movement, Labyrinth for amplified violin and digital reverb, which Mascall wrote in 1992 at the age of 19 while a first year undergraduate student, went on to success at the CBC Young Composers’ Competition. In 1993 it was chosen to represent Canada at the International Rostrum of Composers and that same year Mascall completed the five-movement sonata. At The Corner House, a reference to a chic Toronto restaurant where the composer worked for a time, is the final movement and it culminates with a blazing cadenza-like “guitar solo,” actually a transcription of an infamous passage from Eddie Van Halen’s iconic Eruption. I must say that it translates effectively to violin, especially in the hands of this young master.

We are also presented with selections from Noncerto RR3, Noncerto Notre-Dame-de-Grace by Matthias Maute. I was familiar with Maute as the director of Ensemble Caprice and as a flute and recorder soloist, but this was my introduction to his work as a composer. The opening Sparkle – Andantino is a warm and gentle movement where the sparkle is more reflective than effervescent. Chopin – A tempo giusto juxtaposes ebullient arpeggiated sections with contemplative melodic moments. Casareccia – Chaconne Prestissimo, is as you would suspect, primarily boisterous although not without some elongated double-stopped melodic passages, providing an exciting finale.

Vincent Ho’s brief Morning Song, evidently begun and finished while watching a single sunrise, gives respite from the whirlwinds that precede it, somewhat reminiscent of The Lark Ascending. Serbian-born Ana Sokolovic is also represented by excerpts, in this case two movements from Five Dances for Violin Solo which the composer tells us, although modelled on the Baroque suite are actually imaginary dances based on the rhythmic improvisations that are characteristic of the folk music of the Balkans. There are echoes of the Baroque in Kevin Lau’s Tears as well, which he says draws inspiration from Bach’s Chaconne in D minor, “whose dramatic three-part arc influenced the architecture and tonal centre of my own piece”; but also from Berio’s Sequenza VIII, “whose searing narrative made a stunning impression on me as a student.” Lau wrote the piece while a student at U of T in 2006, but revised it in 2017 for the purpose of this recording.

Murray Adaskin’s Vocalise No.1 was composed for clarinet solo in 1989 and adapted three years later for violin and dedicated to Andrew Dawes, founding first violinist of the Orford Quartet. Throughout this work, the composer uses a melody which reoccurs in undulating variations, gradually rising in pitch and giving the impression of moving from darkness to light. Incidentally, it was Andrew Dawes who performed Mascall’s Labyrinth during the CBC Young Composers Competition.

This in effect brings the disc full circle, but wait, there’s more, in the form of an “encore” piece Dystopia by Christos Hatzis. Hatzis tells us that, “Hidden behind the hyper-virtuosity and relative brevity,

this piece is a meditation on the causes of religious intransigence, disenchantment and, ultimately, jihad. The literal meaning of the title (a ‘terrible plac’) refers to the current conflict between narrowly defined religious creeds, particularly the conflict between the Moslem world, and the so-called Western civilization, or modernity.” It provides a timely and fitting coda to this fine recording.

I look forward to further releases from Marc Djokic, and to hearing the other movements of Mascall’s, Maute’s and Sokolovic’s suites on some future occasion.

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One of the first works I ever heard that integrated electronics with live performance was American composer Leon Kirchner’s 1966 String Quartet No.3 with electronic tape. It was an epiphany for me and an introduction to a brave new world. On Into the Light (Centaur CRC 3651 centaurrecords.com), the Telegraph Quartet performs an earlier work by Kirchner, the String Quartet No.1 from 1949, a gnarly modernistic composition, that while lacking any electronic extensions of the sound world manages to push the envelope in its own ways. The third movement Divertimento seems to foreshadow the world of Schnittke’s “ghost waltz” and the Adagio final movement anticipates late Shostakovich. Another revelation to me, or more accurately a reminder, as I know I have this piece in my vinyl collection and first heard it nearly half a century ago, of how forward-looking Kirchner was in those early postwar years.

This new disc pairs the Kirchner with Anton Webern’s Funf Satze (Five Movements) for String Quartet, Op.5 from 1909 and Benjamin Britten’s Three Divertimenti (1936). I will borrow from Kai Christiansen’s note about the Webern because “I couldn’t have said it better myself!” He tells us in part that the music is “atonal, exquisitely colourful, shockingly brief and so mysteriously evocative. Like five epigrammatic character pieces from outer space, they conjure eerie landscapes, fantastic atmospheres as well as ineffable inner spaces.” The Telegraph Quartet’s realization of these “jewels” (Stravinsky) is crystalline and thoroughly engrossing. The Britten miniatures – although relatively epic when compared to Webern’s haikus – provide a dramatic contrast: an angular and majestic March, lilting Waltz and playful presto Burlesque. All in all, a welcome addition to my string quartet collection (with apologies to Terry Robbins).

Some Consequences of Four Incapacities (new focus recordings FCR205 newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue/douglas-boyce-some-consequences-of-four-incapacities) features extremely esoteric – I would say old school new music – chamber compositions by American composer Douglas Boyce. The disc opens with 102nd & Amsterdam, performed by members of the Aeolus Quartet. The work honours the composer’s father and his love of New York City. It begins in near silence with nervous scratching and harmonics in the high strings. Ever so gradually, melodies emerge and a cello solo comes to the fore. Later the violin and viola join in a furious round of glissandi and dense choppy rhythms. Eventually the eerie atmosphere of the opening returns as “this portrait of an urban crossing beautifully captures how one spot in a city can contain an entire universe.” Members of counter)induction perform the brief but intense Piano Quartet No.1 which is a splendidly raucous homage to Boyce’s youthful love of Bartók and King Crimson.

The final work, filling more than half of the disc, is the intriguing Fortuitous Variations, in four movements performed by Trio Cavatina. There are literally pages of program notes about this piece in the covering letter I received from Boyce, on the one-sheet press release and in the extended notes on the new focus website (the disc itself has none). Boyce writes “The CD’s title is borrowed from an essay of C.S. Peirce, the inaugurator of philosophical Pragmatism and its particularly ferocious rethinking of the potential of thought in comparison to practice. […] There is a darkness here, as there is in so much of Peirce – a seeming submission to human finitude, to limits both cognitive and biological. And, I think, that gothic and mournful mood carries across all the works on the disc.” The movement titles – every deduction involves the observation of a diagram; the vastness hitherto spoken of is as great in one direction as in another; so it is rather the whole river that is place, because as a whole it is motionless and the dawn and the gloaming most invite one to musement – presumably refer further to Peirce and his development of “America’s great contribution to philosophy.” The web notes tell us (in part): “Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) is a fascinating figure philosophically, historically, and biographically. [...] founder of an intellectual enterprise committed to disrupting all foundations. His most inventive work addressed language, communication, and symbology; the pure volume of his output on pretty much everything is quite belittling to one’s own sense of capacity – mathematics, mathematical logic, physics, geodesy, spectroscopy, astronomy, psychology, anthropology, history, and economics.” How this actually relates to the music and its composition is beyond me, but Boyce, who is associate professor of music at George Washington University, has found in it inspiration to create a compelling cycle of works. Recommended for those who are not concerned with finding hummable tunes in their craggy contemporary music. The performances are all outstanding.

The final disc this month provides a bit of a “guilty pleasure” or at least a nostalgic trip down memory lane. I believe I first heard Offenbach’s Gaîté parisienne in my early teenage years on my mother’s Reader’s Digest collection of great classical favourites (I don’t remember the exact title, but it was about ten LPs and had more or less what you’d expect in a sampler). A new ATMA release by the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec under the direction of Fabien Gabel – Gaîté Parisienne (ACD2 2757 atmaclassique.com) – features that cancan-filled work along with Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales and Poulenc’s suite from Les Biches in spirited performances. Paris-born Gabel, director of the OSQ since 2012, brings with him an innate love and understanding of French repertoire as witnessed in this, OSQ’s fifth ATMA, and 25th overall release, recorded live in Salle Louis-Frèchette, Grand Théâtre de Québec in May of this year.

Ravel’s love of the waltz, “You know my great liking for these wonderful rhythms,” resulted in a set of eight piano pieces in 1911, titled in homage to Schubert who had published two collections, Valses nobles and Valses sentimentales. Ravel orchestrated his set and in 1914 it was premiered under the direction of the legendary Pierre Monteux (who incidentally conducted the OSQ in 1962). Less well known is Poulenc’s ballet suite, but it provides an appropriate bridge to the final work that is the icing on the cake, Offenbach’s Gaîté parisienne, created in 1938 for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo with choreography from Léonide Massine, one of the leading lights of the former Ballet Russes. We are here presented with a half-hour long suite arranged at Massine’s request, by Manuel Rosenthal drawing on the best of Offenbach’s operettas, although primarily La vie parisienne. It ends with the gorgeous Barcarolle from Les contes d’Hoffmann, and a good time is had by all!

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The chamber music of the Hungarian composer Ernő Dohnányi is featured in outstanding performances by the Nash Ensemble on a new Hyperion CD (CDA68215 hyperion-records.co.uk).

Dohnányi was a central figure in Hungarian musical life in the 1930s, but unfounded Nazi sympathiser accusations by the post-war Communist government essentially destroyed his reputation. It was not until the 1990s that it began to recover.

The works here are from three periods of Dohnányi’s career. The Serenade in C major for string trio Op.10 is an early work, inventive, masterful and humorous. The String Quartet No.3 in A Minor Op.33 is a nationalistic and modernist work from 1926, the composer having returned to Hungary from Berlin at the start of the First World War.

The absolute gem here, though, is the Sextet in C major for piano, clarinet, horn and string trio Op.37 from 1935, the last chamber work Dohnányi completed. It’s absolutely stunning, with writing that’s brilliant and passionate throughout – at times overwhelmingly so. The incredible performance here simply takes your breath away.

Pianist Joyce Yang joins members of the Alexander String Quartet – violinist Zakarias Grafilo, violist Paul Yarbrough and cellist Sandy Wilson – in Apotheosis: Mozart Vol.2 The Piano Quartets (Foghorn Classics CD2018 FoghornClassics.com). Volume 1 featured the Late String Quartets, and Volume 3 will feature the Late Quintets.

Mozart was not the first to write quartets for piano and strings, but his two contributions – the Piano Quartet in G Minor K478 and Piano Quartet in E-flat Major K493 from 1785 and 1786 respectively – are the first two great works in the genre. They are given simply beautiful performances here, with sensitive, expressive playing all round. The outstanding Yang plays with crystal-clear articulation and a fine sense of melodic line and phrase; the string playing – as one would expect from this ensemble founded in 1981 – is warm and stylish, with generous but never excessive vibrato.

The recorded sound, ambience and balance are all that you could wish for.

There’s another quite outstanding set of the Bach Cello Suites in the version for viola on J. S. Bach Six Suites for Viola Solo BWV1007-1012 with American violist Kim Kashkashian (ECM New Series ECM2553/54 ecmrecords.com). The viola is tuned an octave above the cello, so this arrangement, while not altering the music’s physical relation with the instrument, creates a different range of tonal colour.

Kashkashian plays a modern viola by Stefan-Peter Greiner and – for Suite V – a 1989 five-string viola by Francesco Bissolotti. Both instruments have a glowing, lustrous tone.

Kashkashian plays these dance suites with an unerring sense of movement, with faultless technique, and with warmth, flexibility, smoothness and a controlled emotionality that mines the depths of these remarkable creations.

Three viola concertos usually attributed to the 18th-century German composer Georg Benda but now believed by the soloist here to be by Benda’s nephew are presented on Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Benda Viola Concertos 1-3 (cpo 555 167-2 naxosdirect.com/items/benda-viola-concertos-nos.-1-3-455473). The Quebec-born violist Jean-Eric Soucy is the soloist with the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiberg under Bernard Labadie, with whom Soucy was a co-founder of Les Violins du Roy.

Soucy’s excellent notes trace the intricate but fascinating research journey that led to his opinion regarding the true source of these concertos. They’re simply lovely works which Soucy rightly calls magnificent additions to the viola repertoire.

Concerto No.1 is in F Major; Concerto Nos. 2 and 3 are in E-flat Major. Soucy plays with a lovely warm tone, agility and clear articulation. Labadie creates a perfect setting for him, with the delicate harpsichord sound in particular adding to a transparent orchestral texture to create a perfect period feel.

The always outstanding Steven Isserlis plays works by Chopin, Schubert and Franchomme on Chopin & Schubert Sonatas with pianist Dénes Várjon (Hyperion CDA68227 hyperion-records.co.uk). Isserlis is one of the most insightful and intelligent cellists around, and his warm, expansive playing is evident from the opening work, Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C Major Op.3.

Chopin met the French cellist Auguste Franchomme in Paris and the two became close associates, the latter joining Chopin in the premiere performance of the Cello Sonata in G Minor Op.65, the last work published in Chopin’s lifetime. Isserlis, in his customary insightful booklet notes, describes Franchomme’s Nocturne in C Minor Op.15 No.1 as a nice bridge from the youthful Chopin to the inward-looking composer of the late, dark sonata. There’s impassioned playing by Isserlis and Várjon in the Chopin Cello Sonata, especially in the lengthy opening movement.

The Schubert work is the Arpeggione Sonata in A Minor D821. The arpeggione, sometimes called the cello-guitar, was a fretted instrument held between the knees and played with a bow. It was an awkward invention that would probably be forgotten by now were it not for this sonata; certainly its awkwardness isn’t reflected in Schubert’s music.

Two songs in transcriptions by Isserlis complete the CD: Chopin’s Nie ma czego trzeba Op.74 No.13; and Schubert’s Nacht und Träume D827.

I don’t recall ever hearing any music by the German late-Romantic composer Friedrich Gernsheim (1839-1916), so the new CD of his Complete Cello Sonatas with cellist Alexander Hülshoff and pianist Oliver Triendl came as a welcome – and pleasant – surprise (cpo 555 054-2 naxosdirect.com/items/gernsheim-complete-cello-sonatas-455471).

This is the first recording of all three of Gernsheim’s cello sonatas, presented here along with two short pieces for cello and piano. The Sonata No.3 in E Minor Op.87 was a direct result of Gernsheim’s dissatisfaction with the Sonata No.2 in E Minor Op.79 from 1906, the composer reworking the finale in 1914 and replacing the original first two movements with completely new ones. The Sonata No.1 in D Minor Op.12 is an early work from 1868 that still inhabits the world of Mendelssohn.

That Gernsheim could clearly write beautiful slow movements is amply illustrated by the two short works here. The Andante in D Major Op.64bis from 1898 is a transcription of the Brahmsian slow movement from the Violin Sonata Op.64, and Elohenu – Hebraic biblical song from1881 was inspired by Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei for cello from the previous year.

Hülshoff is noted for his “great expressive force and a powerful, warm and nuanced tone,” says the booklet bio, and these works certainly afford him every opportunity to display those qualities. For his part, Triendl handles the ferociously difficult piano writing with a commanding assurance.

Voices in the Wilderness – Cello Concertos by Exiled Jewish Composers is the subtitle of another cpo cello CD, Reizenstein & Goldschmidt Cello Concertos, with Rafael Wallfisch and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin led by Nicholas Milton (cpo 555 109-2 naxosdirect.com/items/goldschmidt-reizenstein-cello-concertos-455472). The same performers were featured on an earlier release of cello concertos by Hans Gál and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

Both Franz Reizenstein and Berthold Goldschmidt fled Berlin for England in the mid-1930s, but while the 32-year-old Goldschmidt arrived as a mature composer the 23-year-old Reizenstein was still keen to continue studying, which allowed him to find a place in British musical development that eluded Goldschmidt.

Reizenstein’s concerto was written in 1936, two years after his arrival, but not heard until its premiere in 1951 with cellist William Pleeth. In almost all respects – thematic material, harmony, orchestration – it absolutely screams Hindemith, with whom Reizenstein studied in Berlin, but there are also touches of Vaughan Williams, Reizenstein’s teacher in England.

Goldschmidt’s concerto was written for William Pleeth in 1953, using material from a lost pre-war cello sonata he had written for Emanuel Feuermann. Goldschmidt conducted the 1954 premiere with Pleeth as soloist.

Wallfisch has a strong personal connection to these works: his German musician parents also settled in England and knew both composers as well as Hans Gál. His performances of these two fascinating but rarely-heard works are quite outstanding.

The Chopin Cello Sonata comes paired with works by Robert Schumann and Edvard Grieg on a new Avie Records CD with Israeli-American cellist Inbal Segev and Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen (AV2389 avie-records.com).

While all three works are by Romantic-era composers whose musical thinking was shaped instinctively by the piano, Segev notes that they “focus on the cello’s lyrical properties and I feel that here a beautiful tone is of paramount importance.” That’s certainly what we get from her 1673 Francesco Ruggieri instrument in a rich and passionate performance.

The Schumann 3 Fantasiestücke Op.73 were originally written for clarinet and piano and were transcribed for cello by the composer.

Grieg’s Cello Sonata in A Minor Op.36 is full of the folk-inspired melodies so typical of the composer. The cello writing is comparatively straightforward, but the sonata has a simply huge and challenging piano part that at times sounds like Grieg’s Piano Concerto. The Scandinavian Pohjonen is in his element here, and quite superb. Segev’s playing in the really beautiful slow movement is absolutely gorgeous.

A really nice ambience and instrumental balance complement an excellent CD.

String quartets may not be what immediately spring to mind when you hear the name Charles Gounod, but he wrote five, two of which remained unpublished. All five are recorded together for the first time on the 2CD set Gounod: Complete String Quartets (Aparté AP177 apartemusic.com). The Quatuor Cambini-Paris performs on period instruments.

The quartets are: No.1 in C Major CG561, No.2 in A Major CG562, No.3 in F Major CG563, No.4 in A Minor CG564, and No.5 in G Minor CG565. They are very much in the Viennese tradition, and while perhaps not sounding particularly French, are clearly well-crafted and highly entertaining. Performances are top-notch, with a resonant recorded ambience.

The Polish ensemble the Royal String Quartet plays String Quartets Nos.1-3 by the 59-year-old Sir James MacMillan on a new Hyperion CD (CDA68196 hyperion-records.co.uk).

String Quartet No.1 Visions of a November Spring, written in 1988 and revised in 1991, is described as displaying a sense of lyricism in the face of aggressive turbulence; MacMillan calls it “sheer frenzy, craziness.”

String Quartet No.2 Why is this night different? from 1998 takes its inspiration from the question Jewish children ask on Seder Night. Running a fine line between elation and anguish, it creates a feeling of celebration against a perilous backdrop.

String Quartet No.3 from 2007 marked a return to absolute music – “Just the notes and nothing but the notes,” said the composer – but if anything is more approachable and effective than the previous two. The quite beautiful final movement marked Patiently and painfully slow ends with a high, quiet, ethereal and striking soundscape.

Performances and recording quality are all first class.

Stephen Dodgson String Trios, which includes Works for Solo Violin, Solo Viola and Solo Cello, features music by the English composer, who died in 2013 at the age of 89 (Naxos 8.573856 naxos.com). Three members of the UK chamber ensemble Karolos – violinist Harriet Mackenzie, violist Sarah-Jane Bradley and cellist Graham Walker – are the excellent performers.

The two string trios, from 1951 and 1964 respectively, act as bookends on the CD around the brief Sonatina in B Minor for Solo Violin from 1963, the 1978 solo viola set of variations Caprice after Puck and the lengthy Partita for Solo Cello from 1985. These are all predominantly tonal works with fine writing, the slow movements of the two trios being particularly attractive.

All but the String Trio No.2 are world premiere recordings.

Christina Petrowska Quilico’s new recording Soundspinning – Music of Ann Southam (Centrediscs CMCCD 26018 musiccentre.ca) brings her discography to nearly 50 CDs and adds another item to the Canadian Music Centre’s already enormous collection of recorded Canadian works. Petrowska Quilico and Southam were close friends and frequent collaborators. Their relationship has given Petrowska Quilico a unique point of access to Southam’s world and established her as a respected interpreter of Southam’s piano compositions.

The repertoire on the disc includes five cycles of miniatures, many of which are based on a 12-tone row that Southam used extensively. But the recording also includes two “Bluesy” sets, Three in Blue and Five Shades of Blue, that are particularly intriguing for their obvious reflection of jazz influences. All of them are delightfully playful creations that Petrowska Quilico plays with superb technique and unbridled joy.

The most substantial item is Altitude Lake, written in 1963. It provides a considerable contrast to the shorter pieces on the rest of the disc. As a larger conception it comes across as episodic and complex. Petrowska Quilico spends generous amounts of time exploiting Southam’s technique of sustained resonances and dramatic contrast. Remembering Schubert is of nearly equal length but more meditative. Southam uses a Schubert-like figure strongly reminiscent of an art song accompaniment to cycle through numerous tone row wanderings.

Soundspinning is an important recorded document in the compilation of Southam’s piano works and is masterfully performed by Petrowska Quilico.

Canadian pianist Lucille Chung has released her 11th recording, Liszt (Signum Classics SIGCD533 signumrecords.com), that includes a variety of short works before launching into the Sonata in B Minor S178. Chung writes a portion of the liner notes to explain her personal understanding of Liszt’s music as it has evolved over her career. The B Minor Sonata reveals, for Chung, the composer’s mature voice and dispenses with the extravagant scale of virtuosic pianism often found in his earlier writing. Her argument acknowledges that the sonata in Liszt’s hands is an evolutionary new form but also stresses that he is stripping away the “razzle-dazzle” in favour of his introspective quest.

Consequently, Chung takes every opportunity to explore the moments of repose with softer touch, intimacy and plenty of hesitation. She brings a different kind of intensity to the sonata than is usually heard, one with less bombast – but not less impact. She sets out to play the sonata with a different intent, to explore the depths rather than conquer the heights. Her playing is brilliant and entirely up to the technical demands of the piece. Her new appreciation of the composer’s personal presence in the music makes the sonata, despite her lifelong acquaintance with it, entirely fresh and alive.

Luisa Guembes-Buchanan’s new 2CD set Robert Schumann – Perspectives (Del Aguila Records DA 55312 luisagbuchanan.com) is going to attract a lot of attention for several reasons. Guembes-Buchanan plays with a remarkably wide expressive range. She embraces every opportunity that Kinderszenen Op.15 gives for imitate expression and pulls the music deeply into a very private place. It’s an amazing effect that’s supported by very close and clean recording. She performs on a Fazioli 228, which is a little smaller than a full concert grand. It has a harmonically rich bass and mid-range, and suits this repertoire and the performer’s playing style extremely well.

Guembes-Buchanan explodes into the opening segment of Kreisleriana Op.16 with breathtaking technique. She brings this level of energy to all the fast movements in this cycle, creating a stark contrast to the atmosphere of Kinderszenen.

The second disc includes the Sonata Op.22 in G Minor and the Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op. 26. In the latter, Guembes-Buchanan plays the Scherzino with an arresting lightness and the Finale with another demonstration of her raw keyboard power. She also includes some rarely heard fragments from Schumann’s papers to conclude the disc.

The whole package is set in a beautifully bound book with photographs of letters, manuscripts and other historical images along with quotes by prominent pianists, and pertinent liner notes for the program.

Meiczyslaw Weinberg – Piano Sonatas Opp 8, 49bis, 56 (Deutschlandfunk Kultur CPO 555 104-2 naxosdirect.com/items/weinberg-piano-sonatas-opp.-8-49bis-56-448637) is the fourth recording in Elisaveta Blumina’s project to record the piano works of this Russian composer. Although Polish-born, Weinberg’s writing strongly reflects his upbringing and education under the Soviet regime. Centralized authorities are threatened by creative expressions that challenge broadly imposed norms on a society, and for Weinberg this meant finding ways to work within established constraints without drawing too much official criticism that might derail his career and livelihood. Consequently, Weinberg and other composers struggled to find ways of expressing their modernism that would sustain their efforts in the long term rather than jeopardize them. Weinberg’s music is a fascinating example of how this compromise was struck. His writing uses traditional forms with a strong tonal centre that includes some careful exploration of unconventional melodic lines. There’s a hint of atonality but nothing jarring. His rhythmic structures are largely traditional but open to extended experimentation.

Blumina chooses three sonatas that offer a clear picture of Weinberg’s development. The earliest is Sonata No.2 Op.8 in A Minor written in 1942. Its beautiful melodic ideas are plentiful and their development easy to follow. The latest in the set is from 1978. The Sonata Op.49bis shows a general disregard for the caution and compromise in the earlier work. Here, angular clusters of dissonant notes freely interrupt melodic ideas that themselves are only distantly related. Blumina plays this sonata with all the boldness and discontent that Weinberg wrote into it. Her performance is powerfully intriguing.

Shi-An Costello has a new recording that is more a concept than a performance. Rounded Binary – Preludes and Fugues of J.S. Bach and Dmitri Shostakovich (Blue Griffin Records BGR463 bluegriffin.com) finds relationships in works from very different historical periods and links them to explore that kinship. J.S. Bach is the launch point for the experiment and Dmitri Shostakovich is the destination. Costello first plays Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Major BWV846 at a conventional speed, then repeats the Prelude at four times the speed and just a fragment of the Fugue at half speed. Here he makes the transition to the Shostakovich Prelude in A Minor Op.87 which uses the same rhythmic pattern as the Bach prelude and is now familiar because of the high-speed version of the Bach on a previous track.

Costello explores other linkages that include the shared emotional world of Schumann’s Träumerei and the Bach C-major fugue already heard. He also ties together another pair of works by Bach and Shostakovich. Mostly interestingly, he steps more fully into his role as composer/performer in a combination of the now-familiar Bach Prelude in C Major BWV846 and the Shostakovich Prelude in C Major Op.87, blending the harmonic progression of the latter with the rhythmic patterns of the former.

It’s a creatively curious exercise and should spark some discussion among cognoscenti.

Matei Varga’s latest recording Early Departures (sonoluminus.nativedsd.com/albums/DSL92223-early-departures) pays homage to pianists who died young and whose potential remained unfulfilled. Not all the names in the program are well known. Varga’s performance of their work is a welcome document on great talents we might have watched grow into towering maturity. Tudor Dumitrescu, for example, killed at the age of 19 in the 1997 earthquake that struck Bucharest, was, by a few recorded accounts, another Van Cliburn. His 7 Preludes, Preludes in C Sharp Minor and B Minor are heartfelt works revealing a fluid writing style, and profound understanding of his instrument. His emotional maturity is striking. Regardless of whether his future would have evolved as a composer or a performer, the world is poorer for having lost him.

Dinu Lipatti lived to age 33. While he made his reputation principally as a brilliant performer, his deeper desire was to compose. His 15 works represent a variety of forms. Among his piano compositions are two works included on this disc as world premiere recordings: The Little Suite: Prelude, WoO B.35 and the Sonata Romantica, WoO B.13.

Another dimension of early loss is the grief of surviving parents. Hence Varga’s inclusion of Janáček’s In The Mists. The composer wrote this brief four-movement suite in the wake of his 21-year-old daughter’s death from typhoid fever.

Varga appropriately includes J.S. Bach’s serenely simple Adagio from the Concerto in D Minor, BWV 974 as the closing track in this homage.

Organist Tom Winpenny plays the organ of Église Saint-Martin, Luxembourg in his latest recording, Messiaen – Livre d’orgue (Naxos 8.573845 naxos.com). The instrument dates from 1912 and is a synthesis of the German symphonic and French Romantic organ-building styles. It’s a big instrument with 85 ranks over 5 divisions.

Winpenny’s choice for the opening track is the Verset pour la Fête de la Dédicace. Messiaen composed it in 1960 as a test piece for the Paris Conservatory. While it opens with a plainsong Alleluia, the piece is intended as an essay in birdsong. Winpenny has a field day pulling the organ’s most colourful stops for the effects the composer wanted. This recording of it is a world premiere, as is the CD’s final track, the Love Theme from Tristan and Isolde which Messiaen wrote as incidental music for a play.

The Livre d’orgue is as challenging for the listener as it is for the performer. Its seven movements require more than just impressive keyboard technique. The registration demands (orchestral colours) are complex and nearly overwhelming. Computerized, programmable registration is a welcome feature and this instrument has it. Winpenny masters the technical issues as well as the intellectual ones. Multiple thematic lines of varying tempi, texture and structure challenge the ear, especially with music that is starkly out of its ecclesiastical context. Nothing here for the faint of heart.

Anna and Dmitri Shelest make a welcome return to this column with their latest recording, Ukrainian Rhapsody (Sorel Classics SC CD 011 sorelmusic.org/Sorel/Recordings). As a piano duo they occupy less than half the disc, giving the majority of the program to Anna alone for some rarely heard works by Ukrainian composers. Mykola Lysenko, an avid collector of Ukrainian folk music, wrote the Suite on Ukrainian Themes Op.2 on the model of the Baroque dance suite. Its Toccata and Scherzo are particularly impressive for the relentless energy and sparkle Anna Shelest brings to them. While more contemporary, Levko Revutsky’s voice is still post-Romantic with the exception of his highly attractive Waltz in B-flat Minor. Anna recognizes the modern twists in the piece and lets it lean a little in the direction of music theatre.

The really impressive tracks on the disc are the Three Extravagant Dances for piano four hands by Myroslav Skoryk. With fancifully cumbersome titles like Blues: Almost American, Can-Can: as from an Old Gramophone Plate, and Entrance and Dance: Almost Spanish-Moorish, these three pieces are huge. The writing is big, dense and loud – very loud. This is raw pianism and as thrilling as four hands performance can get. Be warned – it will knock you right off your seat!

Un Sospiro – Italian Art Songs
Julie Nesrallah; Caroline Leonardelli
Cen Classics CEN1469 (carolineleonardelli.com)

It is wonderful to hear distinguished Canadian mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah together with celebrated harpist Caroline Leonardelli perform the Italian art song repertoire. In this disc’s opening Bellini group, Nesrallah’s rich, secure voice brings ardent expression to these three love lyrics of which Lovely moon, you who shed silver light shines with melodic appeal. As with the disc’s other songs, the original piano accompaniments are replaced by fine harp arrangements, many by Leonardelli, that lend a dignified antique ambience. In Verdi’s setting of Gretchen’s prayer to the Virgin Mary (Oh, with mercy) from Goethe’s Faust, Nesrallah contributes dramatic power and vocal colour to the heartfelt plea. I particularly appreciate hearing both artists bring to life song groups by Puccini and Leoncavallo, each of which includes a mattinata (morning song). Puccini’s (Sun and love) is through-composed and has a gorgeous melody, while Leoncavallo’s cheerful romance, Mattinata, is in a more popular style with verse-and-refrain structure and conventional harmony.

Song composer Paolo Tosti is also known for his lighter style, and yet the two examples here make me wonder, especially his setting of d‘Annunzio’s Lasciami! It attains the peak of impassioned vocalism in Nesrallah’s interpretation, echoed by Leonardelli’s concluding harp solo. Following this work is Monteverdi’s well-known Lasciatemi morire (Arianna’s Lament), perhaps suggesting the high level of Tosti. Early songs by Respighi, including the uncanny Nebbie (Mist), are yet another revelation on this CD – highly recommended!

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Chansons d’amour d’Acadie et de France
Choeur Louisbourg; Skye Consort; Monique Richard
ATMA ACD2 2776 (atmaclassique.com)

New Brunswick’s Louisbourg Choir celebrated its tenth anniversary in this collaboration with the Skye Consort, a gifted early music ensemble whose mandate is to craft their own contemporary arrangements of seldom-heard vocal and instrumental pieces. For the first section of this recording, cittern-player Seán Dagher has arranged a number of charming selections from the Chansons folkloriques d’Acadie-La fleur du rosier and Chansons d’Acadie collections. Songs of love, travel, adventure and everyday life are delightfully and unreservedly performed by this accomplished choir, interspersed with spirited instrumentals by the ensemble.

The second half of the recording features chansons by little-known composer Jacotin Le Bel (1495-1556), who served in the royal court of France during the reigns of François I and Henri II. Here, the choir shines as director Monique Richard deftly leads them through the complexities of vocal polyphony and luxuriant voicings reminiscent of Josquin des Prés. In these renderings, one appreciates the small size of the chorus. With four or five to each vocal part, the singers are better able to navigate the fluidity of long melismas and realize greater clarity of text. Again, the Skye Consort intersperses with enchanting interludes.

Bethany Beardslee sings Schubert; Schumann; Brahms
Bethany Beardslee; Richard Goode; Lois Shapiro
Bridge Records 9504 (bridgerecords.com)

The American soprano Bethany Beardslee, perhaps best known for her work with many of the major figures of 20th-century composition – most notably her interpretations of the work of the Second Viennese school and the American composer Milton Babbitt – tackles a decidedly Romantic compositional set on this 2018 Bridge release of a set of mid-1980s recordings. Although Beardslee is on record eschewing music that is simply entertainment and for the masses (articulating a similar proclamation to the 19th-century French slogan “Art for Art’s Sake” with her 1961 declaration, “Music is for the musicians”), Beardslee reveals herself to be a sensitive and appropriate interpreter of these Romantic-era masters.

Well accompanied by the fine pianists Richard Goode and Lois Shapiro, modernism be damned, as Beardslee teases out the subtle nuances and effervescent rhythmic feeling of these composers, particularly so on Franz Schubert’s bridging work between the Classical and Romantic eras. Of note here is the beautiful minor lied Gretchen am Spinnrade, which reminds listeners of the fact that the Faust legend remains relevant fodder for interpretation and exploration. With able accompaniment and clarity of recording, these compositions are not presented as ossified period-piece repertoire, but rather joyful texts capable of lifting the spirit.

Fantasia Incantata
Ensemble Libro Primo; Sabine Stoffer; Alex McCartney
Veterum Musica VM018 (veterummusica.com)

In the 17th century shortly before the unfettered Baroque genius of J.S. Bach began to unfold, the violin consolidated its position as expressively the most wide-ranging of non-keyboard instruments. In the age of the great violin makers – Amati and Stradivari – and performers such as Corelli, Italy was the centre of instrumental prowess and the art of improvising, referred to in the treatise Musurgia universalis by the highly respected pedagogue of the day, Athanasius Kircher.

And among the finest composers and virtuosos of the day was Heinrich Biber, with whose lesser-known Sonata IV the eloquent duo of violinist Sabine Stoffer and theorboist Alex McCartney close their remarkable Fantasia Incantata. Released both on CD and vinyl – an infinitely more rewarding experience for the audiophile – this album of Renaissance sinfonies, sonatas, aires, and other period songs and dances is a riveting account of music of the day, where improvisation was key to the prevailing sense of musical adventure and joie de vivre tempered by the amazing sonorities of violin and theorbo.

Biber’s Sonata IV is preceded by performances of music by violinists Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, Nicola Matteis, Biagio Marini, Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli and theorboist Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger. All the works were written as vehicles for those instrumentalists’ own prodigious virtuosity. As treated here by Stoffer and McCartney, they are stunning, highly inventive and the finest examples today of technically demanding works played with ease. Both play as though they have this music in their veins, so assured and full of flair are these performances.

François Devienne – Flute Concerto No.13; Symphonies concertante for two flutes; Giovanni Battista Viotti – Violin Concerto No.23 (transcribed for flute)
Patrick Gallois; Per Flemstrøm; Swedish Chamber Orchestra
Naxos 8.573697 (naxos.com)

Here are two composers who deserve a wide audience. Devienne’s training comprised service with a French army regiment, the orchestra of the Opéra in Paris and the chamber orchestra of a French cardinal. In 1782, aged 23, Devienne made his first solo appearance, probably performing his own Flute Concerto No.1.

It is this and Devienne’s 12 subsequent flute concertos that Patrick Gallois has undertaken and now completed with the current release. After a vigorous Allegro, Gallois interprets the Romance: Andante with a sensitivity enhanced by the accompanying strings. Another Allegro movement concludes this lively interpretation of Devienne’s final flute concerto.

At this point, Per Flemstrøm joins Gallois in Devienne’s Symphonies concertante Nos.3 and 6. This is bittersweet, as Flemstrøm died in 2017: the CD is dedicated to his memory and his spirited flute playing becomes apparent in the Allegro of No.6. More studied is his interpretation of the Moderato in No.3, played with thoughtfulness and feeling.

And then there is Giovanni Battista Viotti, back to Gallois as soloist aided by his own cadenzas. This is perhaps the most demanding composition on this CD, with its complex scoring in both the opening Allegro and the concluding Rondo: Allegro. It is, in fact, the string section that creates the more intense quality of this concerto as a whole.

All in all, a display of the overlooked talents of Devienne and Viotti – and a worthy tribute to Per Flemstrøm.

Mussorgsky/Gorchakov – Pictures at an Exhibition; Prokofiev – Cinderella
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra; Miguel Harth-Bedoya
FWSO ((LIVE)) (fwsymphony.org)

Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is probably the most popular piece of Russian Romantic program music and nowadays one of the most often recorded. Initially written for piano solo, it is the orchestral version of 1923 by Maurice Ravel that made the big hit in the symphonic repertoire. Ravel by this time was a name to conjure with particularly in the field of orchestration, with his scintillating palette of French Impressionism. There were other orchestral versions, but the phenomenal success of the Ravel score overshadowed them all, including this particular one by Sergei Gorchakov. During the height of the Soviet era in 1955, Gorchakov aimed at a more Russian character by concentrating on the lower strings, deeper textures and sonorities, and heavy percussion, thus emphasizing the struggles of the working man. For example, The Oxcart (Bydlo) is far weightier in steady fortissimo than Ravel’s more subtle crescendo/calando line. This trend is consistent, culminating in The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba Yaga), a real blockbuster and more ghoulish then I’ve ever heard it. We get the idea fairly quickly but are we sure this would be an improvement on Ravel’s brilliance?

The Fort Worth Symphony’s enthusiastic and charismatic conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, however, was on the right track in showing the instrumental skills of his band by choosing a showpiece and being a bit different at the same time, proven by the enthusiastic ovation of the Texas audience.

A happier choice is Prokofiev’s radiantly beautiful Selections from Cinderella – partly because the selections are by the conductor and arranged in chronological sequence, following the story faithfully and illuminating the arch-like pattern of one of the world’s beloved fairy-tale love stories. The excellent acoustics of the concert hall make this CD an audiophile’s delight.

Transfigured Night
Alisa Weilerstein; Trondheim Soloists
Pentatone PTC 5186 717 (pentatonemusic.com)

The Trondheim Soloists is a Norwegian chamber orchestra formed in 1988, now recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting groups in the country and fervent performers of Scandinavian music. Alisa Weilerstein was appointed artistic partner in 2017 and this is the first recording in their new exclusive agreement for Pentatone Music. The performances and recording are exemplary in every respect. A brilliant debut.

The contrasting choice of repertoire, Haydn and Schoenberg, each an apt foil for the other, works well. Weilerstein was taken with the Haydn concertos when performing them the previous September in their first collaboration. The buoyant and inspired performances and translucent recordings are more than satisfying.

Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Transfigured Night, is a programmatic string sextet in one movement, composed in 1899, inspired by the Romantic poem of the same name by Richard Dehmel. As in the poem, the work is in five sections. Dehmel tells the tale of a man and a woman, lovers, walking through the woods. She confesses to him that the child she is carrying was conceived in an embrace with a stranger. After much turmoil the man tells her that the depth and warmth of their love will transfigure the stranger’s child to be his… theirs. Resolved, they walk, his arm about her, through the high, bright night.

In 1943 Schoenberg scored the work for a string orchestra, which is the version heard here. Although I have listened to and absorbed this favourite work many, many times over the years, I am newly thrilled and quite taken with this brilliantly recorded, poignant performance. The fourth section, Adagio, where the transfiguration begins, blending into the fifth section’s molto tranquillo, quite literally took my breath away. The musicians are consistently responsive and dedicated, sounding like true believers.

I had not read the accompanying booklet before listening but later leafing through it found Weilerstein’s notes. Her account of the recording sessions concluded, “While recording Verklärte Nacht, at the end of a day spent working through details, we concluded with one final concert play-through – a tradition where the fatigue of a long session often outstrips artistic goals. This time, however, it was the most vibrant and focused rendition of the whole afternoon. As the final note decayed in the rounded echo of that old church, everything was completely still and everyone completely silent.”

Richard Strauss – Eine Alpensinfonie
Frankfurt Radio Symphony; Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Pentatone PTC 5186 628 (pentatonemusic.com)

With Ein Heldenleben and Macbeth released in 2016, Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony already showed themselves to be impressive Straussians. And now, with Eine Alpensinfonie, Orozco-Estrada and the orchestra have continued to uncover the feverishly ardent harmonics and melodic tuneful artistry of the last great German Romantic composer with electrifying brilliance. Unravelling this work with subtle note-spinning, both conductor and orchestra have infused it with febrile energy and hip-swinging seductiveness through to a finale that is properly shattering.

Completed in 1915, Eine Alpensinfonie turned out to be the last of Strauss’ large-scale non-operatic works, crafted with masterful use of horns. Orozco-Estrada’s approach here is unrushed and often expansive. But there is no shortage of dynamism: though leisurely by the clock the performance is spectacularly punctuated by enormous Straussian shock and shudder. At its peak this performance takes the composer’s atmospherics of Eine Alpensinfonie completely seriously, and achieves a quality of sound so rich and incisive as to overcome Strauss’ proverbial bombast and prolixity.

What the conductor cannot disguise – indeed he revels in it – is the impetuosity of Strauss’ orchestral writing. Moments of awe swell in Eintritt in den Wald and the thrill of adventure soars in the prophetic colour and expression, especially in Auf dem Gipfel and the thunderous Gewitter und Strum, Abstieg. This work is well-suited to Orozco-Estrada’s flamboyant style, and the orchestra’s rich refulgent tone as both conductor and orchestra hit the mark in thrilling fashion.

Bartók & Kodály – Concertos for Orchestra
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin; Jakub Hrůša
Pentatone PTC 5186 626 (pentatonemusic.com)

Two works of the same title and genre by the two most important composers of 20th-century Hungary, yet as different as can be. Bartók is a genius and now is being fully appreciated. He successfully achieved a synthesis of modern trends between tonal and atonal music, consonance and dissonance, infusing both with inspiration from mid-century turmoil and anguish. Kodály is in no way close to this level though highly skilled, very competent and dedicated to Hungarian folk music, suffusing it with his own considerable melodic richness and compositional skill and also achieving international fame.

Kodály’s Concerto (1940) has only recently come to widespread worldwide attention with some worthy new recordings. It combines contrapuntal fireworks of Baroque architecture with a high-stepping Hungarian folk dance, alternating fast and slow movements, all with a jaunty good forward momentum and an increasing complexity. It is also highly entertaining, and young, dynamic Polish conductor Jakub Hrůša makes the most of it with his energetic, brisk tempi and natural affinity for Eastern European music. This performance will make many converts to the piece.

But the ultimate appeal for this new Pentatone issue (famous for recording excellence today) is this atmospheric, beautifully detailed, thoroughly convincing and passionate performance of the Bartók Concerto (1943). Hrůša sure has what it takes and reminds me of the great Georg Solti in his prime, but with an even more virtuosic orchestra and superior recording technology. Bartók was a very sick man in America when he wrote this amazing work, but just listen to the incredible energy of the rustling strings, the bold utterances on the brass and the vitality of superhuman energy outpouring in the last movement. An unshaken faith for a better world and unconquerable humanity.

American Romantics
Gowanus Arts Ensemble; Reuben Blundell
New Focus Recordings FCR 166

American Romantics III
Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra; Reuben Blundell
New Focus Recordings FCR166C (newfocusrecordings.com)

Lovely melodies and evocative tone-painting fill the first and third volumes of the American Romantics series created by conductor Reuben Blundell. Together these two CDs present first recordings of 19 pieces by 14 mostly forgotten late-19th- and early-20th-century composers born or active in the U.S.

In the first volume, Blundell leads the Gowanus Arts Ensemble, ten string players who also perform on American Romantics II, reviewed in The WholeNote this past February. In the latest release, Blundell appears as music director of the Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra, a professional-sounding community orchestra in Philadelphia.

Two composers, Ludwig Bonvin and Carl Busch, are featured in both discs under review. Swiss-born Bonvin (1850-1939) emigrated to Buffalo, where he served as music director of Canisius College. He’s represented by the hymn-like Christmas Night’s Dream for strings and the very Wagnerian Festival Procession for orchestra. Busch (1864-1943), from Denmark, settled in Kansas City, finding inspiration in North American Indigenous melodies. Volume I contains two movements from his Indian Tribal Melodies: Four North American Legends; Volume III includes two richly coloured, dramatic tone poems, Minnehaha’s Vision and The Song of Chibiabos, both based on Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha.

Another composer who wrote many works on First Nations subjects was Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881-1946), one of the few recognizable names in the American Romantics series. His five-movement Thunderbird Suite, said to incorporate Blackfoot melodies, is, at 21 minutes, by far the longest work on these two discs. The highly cinematic Suite dates from 1918, well before sound arrived in Hollywood, but it’s not surprising that, in later years, Cadman moved to Los Angeles where he would indeed go on to compose music for films.

Gena Branscombe (1881-1977), the only woman and only Canadian on these discs, was born in Picton, Ontario (not PEI, as the notes state) but left for the U.S. as a teenager to pursue her musical studies. There, she composed prolifically in all genres, founded and conducted the Branscombe Chorale, and commissioned and performed works by many other women composers. Her brief, bittersweet waltz, A Memory, a miniature Valse Triste, was originally for violin and piano; it’s heard in an arrangement for harp and strings.

Like A Memory, all of the predominantly short pieces on these two CDs are well worth hearing, though they tend to fall into the Easy Listening category. This series is obviously a labour of love for conductor Blundell and I hope he continues his pattern of one release per year. I look forward, however, to hearing more extended, substantial yet unfairly forgotten works by these unfairly mostly forgotten composers.

Srul Irving Glick – Suites Hébraïques
James Campbell; Angela Park; Elissa Lee; Sharon Wei; Cameron Crozman; Barry Shiffman; Wallace Halladay; Susan Hoeppner
Centrediscs CMCCD 24817 (musiccentre.ca)

Srul Irving Glick (1934-2002) composed six Suites Hébraïques between 1961 and 1984, each a multi-movement work ranging between ten and 20 minutes in length. Three are written for solo instrument with piano accompaniment, and three for a variety of chamber ensembles. This release is the first to compile them all under one cover, and features some of Canada’s finest instrumental performers.

Modest in means and range, the pieces are nonetheless pure expressions of the composer’s love for Jewish traditional melodies, harmonies and forms. Not one movement exceeds six minutes, while most are much shorter. Glick didn’t write them to claim a place atop Parnassus, but rather to celebrate the music he heard and loved growing up the son of a cantor, singing in his father’s choir and at home. For that reason, pay particular note to Suite No.4, for saxophone and piano, played (sung) by Wallace Halladay with Angela Park on piano. Also on the second disc is the final suite, played by violinist Barry Shiffman with Park again at the piano. Both soloists perfectly express the singing quality called for in Glick’s music. Park took on the lion’s share of playing on this recording. She performs beautifully in four of the six suites.

Because they are based in the traditional forms, there is a repetitiveness to the titles: Circle Dance occurs in five and Cantorial Chant in four of the six suites; other titles, such as Nigun and Hora, variously find their way into several of them. It’s not a stretch to compare this to the work of Baroque composers, who also explored forms repeatedly in dance suites. However, nowhere does the music repeat itself. In fact, Glick seems to have been one of those composers for whom there was little effort in devising new material. In the jacket note Dorothy Sandler-Glick is quoted thus: “The melodies came easily as if they were waiting for him to lift them out of his soul.” So they sound.

Apogee – Music of Farshid Samandari
Mark Takeshi McGregor; Ariel Barnes; Brian Nesselroad; Marcus Takizawa; Joy Yeh
Redshift Records TK453 (redshiftrecords.org)

Vancouver-based composer Farshid Samandari (b. Tehran 1971) arrived in Vancouver in 2001. He quickly embedded himself in the regional contemporary concert music scene, serving in 2013 as composer-in-residence of the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra. That position has helped him build bridges with global musicians resident in the culturally diverse hub of the greater Vancouver area.

Apogee features Samandari’s works for conventional Western instrumentation stylishly played by Onyx Trio’s Mark Takeshi McGregor (flute), Marcus Takizawa (viola), and Joy Yeh (harp), plus Brian Nesselroad (percussion). His compositions primarily reflect his interest in contemporary Western musical vocabulary, spectral analysis, as well as extended instrumental techniques. But Apogee also provides a window into subjects that inform his work, including modal Persian classical music and literature.

Another key ingredient is referred to in the liner notes: the autobiographical nature of the compositions played here. Exile and the search for a home are recurring narratives. And it’s the orchestral flute which takes centre stage in many of the five works here, serving as the composer’s voice. The flute is also the listener’s guide through Samandari’s life journey, connecting his old and new worlds. My favourite moments on the album are in the lonely, expressive and virtuoso flute solos of Apogee (2005) and the very substantial 16-minute Nuclide (2014), both sparkling played by Takeshi McGregor. These works belong in the Canadian flute solo playbook.

Samandari’s moto is “Unity in Diversity.” We get a sense of his personal peregrinations from Iran to Canada’s west coast in Apogee.

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