Stephen Chatman; Tara Wohlberg – Choir Practice
University of British Columbia Opera Ensemble; Nancy Hermiston; UBCSO; Jonathan Girard
Centrediscs CMCCD 22616 (musiccentre.ca)

Anyone involved in community choirs will appreciate this lighthearted parody of the personalities we both encounter and display during rehearsals; from establishing a pecking order amongst ourselves to our complicated relationships with music directors, for better or worse. Stephen Chatman, well familiar with the milieu, and his writing partner Tara Wohlberg exaggerate the dynamic hysterically in this one-act opera, premiered and recorded at the University of British Columbia.

Under the direction of faculty members Nancy Hermiston and Jonathan Girard, the opera ensemble and instrumentalists clearly enjoy quite a lark with the performance, producing dissonant chaos, artless arpeggios and pursuing their own agendas with opinions on repertoire, with a liberal sprinkling of famous musical snippets from favourite pieces that serve as insider jokes for the audience as they recognize quotes from Mozart, Wagner and Philip Glass. Sexual innuendo and double entendre abound as well, in ridiculous manifestations with appearances from characters such as the clown, the diva, the belly dancer and the stutterer. Of course, eventually, out of the cacophony and bad behaviour, conductor “Willy Stroker” patiently coaxes out a harmonious and unified performance with the help of one of his more “visionary” choristers. Simple, unabashed fun and slapstick entertainment.

Carlisle Floyd – Wuthering Heights, An Opera in Three Acts
Jarman; Markgraf; Mentzer; Rideout; Buck; Shelton; Florentine Opera Company; Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Joseph Mechavich
Reference Recordings FR-721SACD (referencerecordings.com)

In 1955, soprano Phyllis Curtin was the first Susannah in what would become Carlisle Floyd’s most performed opera. Floyd then composed an aria for Curtin’s New York recital, setting words of Cathy Earnshaw from Emily Brontë’s classic novel. The fervent aria, I’ve dreamt in my life, inspired the Santa Fe Opera to commission this full-length work, the aria appearing in the second of the opera’s three acts. In 1958, Curtin created the role of Cathy in Santa Fe and New York, yet this two-CD set is the opera’s first commercial release, recorded in concert in January 2015, with Floyd, in his 89th year, acting as artistic advisor.

Wuthering Heights surely merits many more productions than it’s received in the past, with listener-friendly melodies leading to rhapsodic or powerful cinematic-style climaxes, supporting intensely dramatic characters and confrontations. Floyd’s self-written libretto omits the novel’s many chapters about Heathcliff’s childhood and later life, the opera ending with Heathcliff’s lament over Cathy’s death.

Among the cast, only the bronze baritone of Kelly Markgraf as Heathcliff stands out, though to be fair, the poorly balanced “hybrid surround-sound” reduces the clarity and presence of all the voices, the orchestra often submerging the distant-sounding singers. The accompanying libretto is therefore essential for following the action. Nevertheless, this premiere recording should help realize Floyd’s hope, expressed in his booklet notes, that it “will result in new audiences here and abroad.”

Zachary Wadsworth – The Far West
Lawrence Wiliford; Luminous Voices; Timothy Shantz
Bridge Records 9466 (bridgerecords.com)

Beethoven – Symphonies 1-9
Berliner Philharmoniker; Sir Simon Rattle
Berlin Philharmoniker Recordings BPHR 160091

When setting out to listen to these new performances from Berlin one would reasonably expect to hear, yet again, the familiar, well-known sonorities of the Philharmonic in this basic repertoire. After all, with five complete cycles available with this orchestra directed by Herbert von Karajan and versions by Claudio Abbado and André Cluytens, we may be pretty sure what, with some interpretive differences, the timbre will be. EMI had recorded the complete cycle with Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic in concert in the Musikverein in April and May of 2002, the year he assumed his new post in Berlin. Those performances broke no new ground. This one most certainly does.

Starting with, as usual for me, the Fourth and Seventh Symphonies, the ensemble sounded distinctly textured, noticeably different from the suave sonorities of so many admired performances one hears both in concert and on recordings. Listening to all nine confirmed that here are performances that bloom from inside Beethoven’s scores versus the subjective smoothing-out-the-details fashionable today. In these performances every symphony sounds newly minted. There are felicities in each and every one that capture and hold even the most jaded listener. No, particularly the most jaded listener!

For instance, the Pastoral is quite special. After the opening pages there comes a palpable feeling of serenity, a moment I don’t recall hearing before. More so than in other versions, this delicate-where-appropriate performance allows us to experience the surroundings that inspired the composer. Throughout the entire work we are with Beethoven and not looking out from a Mercedes, with the windows closed.

Bound into the sumptuous edition are five audio CDs, two Blu-ray videos of the concerts with additional material including rehearsals and observations on each symphony from conductor and players, and an engrossing impromptu talk by Rattle on Beethoven, problems of tempo, what size orchestra to employ, etc. Also a high definition Blu-ray audio disc of the nine; and included in the bound-in book is a piece by Jonathan Del Mar on his edition used in these performances.

This package is pricey … but priceless.

Mahler – Symphony No.10
Seattle Symphony; Thomas Dausgaard
Seattle Symphony SSM1011 (seattlesymphony.org)

Mahler’s final work, composed in the summer of 1910, survived in a complete though sometimes skeletal short score form before his death at the age of 50. A facsimile of the sketches was eventually published in 1924. Several efforts have been made to reconstruct the work, the most well-regarded being the three editions issued by Deryck Cooke from 1960 to 1976 (this last in use here). Questions of authenticity aside, the symphony remains a deeply moving, intensely personal and profound last testament.

Thomas Dausgaard, principal guest conductor of the re-invigorated Seattle Symphony, has a special affinity for this work, which he has performed frequently around the world. His interpretation is among the finest I have ever heard and the gorgeous sound he draws from the Seattle forces is outstanding. Their expanded string section in particular has never sounded better. The engineering of the live performance from November 2015 is peerless, surpassing that of the acclaimed 1999 Rattle/Berlin DG pressing. Wildly recommended.

Ravel – L’enfant et les sortilèges; Shéhérazade
Isabel Leonard; Susan Graham; Saito Kinen Orchestra; Seiji Ozawa
Decca 478 6760

This new Decca release marks Seiji Ozawa’s 80th birthday and gives a nod to the particularly fruitful career of a conductor with a lifelong rapport with Ravel’s music. The pairing of a lyric fantasy, a triptych for mezzo-soprano and orchestra and an orchestrated movement from a solo piano suite creates an impressionistic jewel of tonal patterns and colours, oriental elements and imaginative stories.

Colette’s libretto for L’enfant et les sortilèges is whimsically charming and particularly suited to Ravel’s music. It tells the story of a young boy whose misbehaviour brings objects and talking animals to life. The opera is full of interesting characters – the armchair, the clock, the teapot, the Chinese cup and a whole array of animals (cats, frogs, squirrels and dragonflies). Ravel underscores the fantastic elements with indisputably beautiful orchestration. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard’s portrayal of the mischievous child is light and playful and, even more notably, the whole cast is outstanding.

Ravel’s affinity for the oriental world is evident in Shéhérazade, a trio of vocal works set to expressively romantic poems by his friend and fellow member of the avant-garde artist group Les Apaches, Tristan Klingsor. The music is dreamy, sensuous, in full rapport with the text. Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham is powerful yet full of emotional nuances.

Alborada del gracioso, showcasing Saito Kinen Orchestra’s engaging interpretation of Ravel’s world, completes this highly recommended recording.

Passion For Brass: Brassroots at 30
Brassroots; Bram Gregson
Independent CB-B-07 (brassroots.ca)

Although they are little known outside of their home community of London, Ontario, Brassroots is one of the finest brass ensembles in Canada. With this recording they are celebrating their 30th anniversary. In 1986 when the famous Philip Jones Brass Ensemble disbanded, Karl Hermann, a trombone student at the Western University, organized a brass ensemble with the same instrumentation of four trumpets, one horn, four trombones, one tuba and percussion. Over the years there have been changes in personnel, but the only significant change has been an enlargement of the percussion to enable performance of a more expansive repertoire. Under the direction of veteran conductor Bram Gregson, Brassroots can certainly be proud of this 30-year-celebration recording.

The CD opens with the Music for His Majesty’s Sackbuts and Cornetts by Matthew Locke (1621-1677), arranged for modern instruments. This is a stunning performance in its precision. It’s followed by works by Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli and Tylman Susato, a composer from Antwerp in the same period. Then, the recording moves on to Point Pelee by Howard Cable. One minute you are hearing Baroque and Renaissance music. Then you are ushered in to contemporary music from Billy May, Harold Arlen and George Gershwin. For a radical departure, with The Cat by Jimmy Smith, the ensemble is turned into a hard-driving big band complete with a Hammond B-3 organ.

The CD comes with excellent program notes which are not printed on the package but are on a separate brochure. Unfortunately, the listing of the selections does not indicate track numbers. To select and play a specific track it is necessary count down the listings to determine the track.

In all, this recording covers a great spectrum. My personal favourites are the Locke work and a stunning rendition of the famous Czardas of Vittorio Monti. The soloist, Michael Medeiros, proves that a tuba in the right hands can be a fine lyric solo instrument. Over all this is a first-rate CD covering music over three centuries.

Scriabin – Symphonies 1&2
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Valery Gergiev
LSO LSO0770

Those who love to classify composers into neat categories will certainly have a stumbling block with Scriabin. He is Russian, but doesn’t sound a bit Russian (more like Richard Strauss if anyone, yet the Slavic spirit is unmistakable); his music doesn’t follow any rules and for the casual listener it all sounds more or less the same. He has been bypassed and rarely performed at concerts, as conductors do not like to take chances, but I suspect very few of them are capable of interpreting it, as the music is completely free with no comprehensible structure. But with total engagement and absorption, repeated listening and a great conductor like Gergiev, this music will conquer and you’ll never tire of it.

Gergiev has already recorded the better-known symphonies, the Third and Fourth (Poem of Ecstasy), with the London Symphony, one of the best orchestras in the world, in state-of-the-art sound, and here we have the two earlier symphonies from his formative years. The five movement Symphony No.2 is already a mature work and so makes a deep impact while Symphony No.1 has a vocal ending fashionable in those days à la Liszt, Berlioz or Mahler, with fine soloists and chorus, but so poorly received by the public at its premiere (1900) that it was condemned to oblivion.

Gergiev however quickly convinces us to the contrary. Luckily I have seen him a few times and can just picture him conducting without a baton as he hypnotizes the orchestra by his razor sharp gaze and with his undulating body and they follow his every movement. He and the orchestra become one organic unit with an inner logic that this indeed exalted, passionate music demands. A wonderful new issue I’ve enjoyed tremendously.

Florent Schmitt – Antoine et Cléopâtre; Le Palais hanté
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta
Naxos 8.573521

Leonard Bernstein – Larger than Life
(A Film by Georg Wübbolt)
Cmajor 735908

The beauty of Wübbolt’s documentary is the decision not to show Leonard Bernstein’s life in chronological order but rather in random, visually pleasing segments which drive the storyline, regardless how much one knows about his life.

Footage of Bernstein conducting illustrates that he put everything – mind, body, listening and soul – into his work. The swaying, jumping and arm swinging are not affectations but the means to achieve a great orchestral performance. It wasn’t always easy for him, as seen in a clip of orchestra members chatting during his verbal direction of his beloved Mahler. Composing was a great love. Bernstein loved to work with the musical teams, as shown by driving footage from the timeless West Side Story and comments by Stephen Sondheim. Bernstein is seen leading conducting classes with enthralled participants while fun clips from his television show Omnibus and Young People’s concerts convey his passion for youth, storytelling, conducting and piano performance.

Interspersed is footage from Bernstein interviews. Illuminating comments feature his children, Jamie, Nina and Alexander, and professionals such as Sondheim, Kent Nagano, Marin Alsop and Gustavo Dudamel, who are positioned in front of eye-catching Bernstein photographic stills from private and professional settings. In dramatic visual contrast, a bonus section has Nagano, Alsop and Dudamel speaking minus the backdrop.

This film’s uncanny strength lies in its ability to create a personal viewing experience; one may feel that Leonard Bernstein is speaking and performing only to you.

Leo Zeitlin – Yiddish Songs, Chamber Music and Declamations
Rachel Calloway; Guenko Guechev; Daniella Rabbani; Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival
Toccata Classics TOCC 0294 (toccataclassics.com)

Joachim Stutschewsky – Chamber Music
Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival
Toccata Classics TOCC 0314 (toccataclassics.com)

The Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival (PJMF), in conjunction with Toccata Classics (an independent British label dedicated to producing recordings of first-rate yet overlooked classical music), has undertaken an ambitious and honourable project: releasing a series of CDs focussing on the largely forgotten and neglected music of members and composers affiliated with the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music. As PJMF founder and director (and the CDs’ producer), cellist Aron Zelkowicz, explains in a delightful radio interview he gave this past July on WQED’s Voice of the Arts – and as noted in the meticulously researched booklet accompanying each volume – the Society, which operated between 1908 and 1918, sought to elevate the music of the shtetl – klezmer, liturgical, cantorial, religious songs in Yiddish and Hebrew – to the highest level of Jewish art music, by creating scores, hosting symposiums, lectures and concerts, and most critically, publishing the works (about 80) of its affiliates.

Russian Jewish Classics, Volumes One and Two, are the PJMF’s first two commercial albums, and Zelkowicz promises a total of “at least” five in the series, to be released gradually over the next few years. Each album features the music of a single composer. Volume One offers a rich variety of works by Leo Zeitlin (1884-1930), a violinist, violist, conductor, arranger, impresario and teacher, who studied with Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. Volume Two explores the compelling chamber music of musicologist, arranger, pedagogue and cellist, Joachim Stutschewsky (1891-1982). The exhaustive notes in the aforementioned booklets provide a comprehensive biography of each composer.

With the limited space available, it’s not possible to do justice to the impressive breadth and depth of the music presented on each CD. Clearly, though, Zelkowicz’s assemblage of accomplished musicians (all members of esteemed orchestras and university music departments, who performed the music both live at the PJMF and in the studio recordings), executes this haunting, evocative, melodic, joyous, plaintive, gorgeous and freilach music with tremendous passion and intelligence. From Guenko Guechev and Daniella Rabbani’s dramatic recitations in Zeitlin’s unique “declamations” – affecting piano music underscoring spoken Yiddish and Russian poetry (once a popular genre) – and mezzo Rachel Calloway’s glorious interpretations of several of his Yiddish songs in various arrangements, to the masterful performances, by the musicians of the PJMF, of the rhapsodic and sophisticated chamber works of Stutschewsky, these CDs represent a wealth of material that demands renewed exploration and attention, attention it once commanded, briefly, in a bygone age.

I look forward to the rest of the series, and say “Bravo” and “Mazel Tov” to Zelkowicz, the PJMF and Toccata Classics.

Shostakovich – Under Stalin’s Shadow: Symphonies 5; 8; 9
Boston Symphony Orchestra; Andris Nelsons
Deutsche Grammophon 479 5201

Shostakovich – Piano Trios 1 & 2; Viola Sonata
Ashkenazy; Viontay; Lidstrom; Meinich
Decca 478 9382

The three chamber music works featured on this recording were written during three distinct stages in Shostakovich’s life (1923, 1943, 1975), showing the development of what was to become his unmistakably unique musical expression. Shostakovich wrote Piano Trio No.1 at the tender age of 17 and dedicated it to the girl he was in love with. Already in place are the typical Shostakovich elements that became more pronounced in the Piano Trio No.2 – singing melodies, textural use of string pizzicatos, percussive piano, chromatic scales and a hint of the grotesque. The second trio was dedicated to Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky, Shostakovich’s greatest friend who had died suddenly shortly before. The opening theme is ethereal, muted and lonesome. Nestled in between two lively, swaying and occasionally dense movements is Largo – a sorrowful ode, a yearning lament in the face of inevitability.

The Viola Sonata was written in the last few weeks of Shostakovich’s life. It is quite different from his previous works – sparse, with subdued yet powerful colours, 12-tone scales and musical quotations, most notably from Beethoven and Shostakovich himself, sombre throughout.

The intensity of Shostakovich’s music is matched by the captivatingly intense performances of these extraordinary musicians – Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano), Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay (violin), Mats Lidström (cello) and Ada Meinich (viola). Here we hear it all – the pain, turmoil, despondency, soaring, playfulness, raggedness, tenderness and radiance. These musicians bring out every colour, every nuance, every motif with astounding conviction and utmost respect for the great composer.

The Galilean Moons
Robert Dick; Ursel Schlicht
Nemu Records NEMU 017 (robertdick.net)

American extended flute master Robert Dick is renowned among contemporary flutists for his five-decade-long contribution to radically expanding the concert flute’s sounds, performance practice and repertoire. His work serves as a cornerstone of the flute avant-garde.

First published in 1975, his definitive reference work for flutists and composers The Other Flute: A Performance Manual of Contemporary Techniques remains in print and in demand. His contribution to flute hardware, the Glissando Headjoint®, was inspired by the electric guitar whammy bar. This telescopic flute mouthpiece designed by Dick allows downward glissandi from every note enabling the production of voice-like phrases and otherworldly sounds not heard before emanating from the flute.

Dick makes use of many of the extended flute techniques he’s catalogued, as well as his pitchbending headjoint, to evoke four contrasting extraterrestrial soundscapes in the album’s centrepiece The Galilean Moons. The four-movement suite co-composed by Dick and pianist Ursel Schlicht evokes, at times viscerally, the distinct physical environments found on each of Jupiter’s four moons.

The five other works on this album assay a tremendously wide sonic and emotional vocabulary ranging from Dark Matter, in which Dick recites texts used by Internet spammers through the unusual contrabass flute, to Dick’s multi-movement work Life Concert. The latter explores European atonalism, in places haunted by the ghost of the blues, but also enriched by explicit references to African and Indian music. The piano’s strings emulate the sound of the kalimba at one point, while the primary theme of the final movement echoes aspects of the Hindustani raga Multani.

Expect a surprising and ear-opening journey from this veteran intergalactic flute traveler.

De souffles et de machines
Quasar quatuor de saxophones
Quatuor Bozzini CQB 1618 (actuellecd.com)

The first striking thing about this new record from Quasar, Canada’s premier saxophone quartet, is its minimalist packaging. The sleeve and booklet are black and white. The notes probably fill one letter-size page all-told, and they read like a pastiche of found text. Montreal-born composer Pierre Alexandre Tremblay presents an Aloysius Bertrand-inspired poem in lieu of notes; Wolf Edwards offers a wikipedia-esque blurb about predator drones. But for music that means to speak beyond the bounds of words, there can be no better introduction. Like a rare, hand-painted cassette hiding at the bottom of a bin otherwise filled with greatest-hits compilations and obsolete business audio books, these electroacoustic soundscapes wait patiently to be heard.

That spirit pervades every work on this disc, but none more so than Tremblay’s Les pâleurs de la lune. Here, electronic clicks flitter against a nocturnal saxophone backdrop. This electronic scaffolding, which also takes the form of saxophone long tones distilled into pulsewaves, is omnipresent but unobtrusive. Like circuit traces on a motherboard, these elements lay flush against Les pâleurs, where they serve a mysterious yet important function.

Listening to De souffles et de machines feels like being the only person awake on an overnight bus winding its way through a dark forest: it’s as though the night, unaware of your presence, has let its hair down. Only here, as the saxophone squalls mount, the night seems perilously close, at times, to rearing its head.