Since coming across bass-baritone José Van Dam’s recording of Les nuits d’été by Hector Berlioz while working at CJRT-FM some years ago, this has been one of my favourite song cycles. The setting of six songs on texts of Théophile Gautier, originally written for tenor or mezzo-soprano with piano accompaniment, was one that Berlioz returned to time and again over more than a dozen years, eventually providing versions for baritone, contralto and soprano and in 1856 completing an orchestral accompaniment. It is in this arrangement that we most often hear it and that is the case with a recent Centaur recording (CRC 3239) featuring soprano Shannon Mercer and Toronto’s group of twenty-seven (groupof27.com) led by Eric Paetkau. Gautier’s poems are selected from La Comédie de la mort and deal with death, love and longing. The well-crafted songs work wonderfully in every vocal range and Mercer is in superb voice, catching every nuance in this live recording from Grace Church on-the-Hill from April 1, 2011. Berlioz’ cycle is complemented by a set of five songs by Polish composer Norbert Palej who has been assistant professor of composition at the University of Toronto since completing his doctorate at Cornell in 2008. He is the director of the University’s gamUT contemporary music ensemble and of the annual New Music Festival that takes place at the Faculty of Music January 25 through February 2 this year. Palej uses his own English translations of poems by Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, a leading member of Poland’s so-called Generation of Columbuses who was shot and killed at the age of 23 while fighting the Nazis in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The poetic fragments – From here…, Sparrows, Dark Lullaby, Hangmen’s Ballad and White Magic – are powerfully moving and effectively set, perhaps most so the final lyric which portrays the poet’s wife (who, pregnant with his child, was killed in an explosion a few days after Baczyński’s death). Once again, Mercer is in fine form. The disc concludes with Palej’s work for string orchestra, Rorate Coeli, inspired by a poem of the same name by Baczyński. After a tempestuous opening the tension relaxes into luscious and haunting melodic textures that eventually die away, reflecting the poem’s final lines “At night – may it grow like a column of grass, At night – let it be night eternal.”

The group of twenty-seven, founded several years ago by Eric Paetkau who previously served as resident conductor with Les Violons du Roy in Québec, is a Toronto-based chamber ensemble which draws on some of this city’s finest musicians, including members of the Toronto Symphony and Canadian Opera Company orchestras, and soloists from across the country. g27’s latest release – Canadian Concerto Project Volume One (MSR Classics MS 1480 msrcd.com) – features bassoonist Nadina Mackie Jackson and trumpeter Guy Few in solo roles performing new works by Mathieu Lussier, Michael Occhipinti and Glenn Buhr. Lussier, himself an accomplished bassoonist, contributes two concertante works for that instrument which Mackie Jackson performs with flare and grace, as well as Impressions de l’Alameda for trumpet and strings. It is this three-movement Spanish-flavoured work which opens the disc, setting the stage for the lush and lyrical music which pervades the CD. Guy Few is impeccable here and in Occhipinti’s two contributions and Buhr’s and man will only grieve if he believes the sun stands still for corno, bassoon and strings. Buhr’s piece has enjoyed a number of settings, originally written as an aria for the opera Anna’s Dream Play and now existing in a variety of vocal and instrumental settings. The current version comprises the second movement of a concerto written at Mackie Jackson’s request and I only wonder why we are not treated to the other movements on this disc. Although Occhipinti’s Thirteen Seconds is billed as being for trumpet, bassoon, guitar and string orchestra it is the wind instruments which dominate while the guitar simply adds texture to the strings. Like most of the works on this disc the music is flowing and melodic and the same is true of his Sicilian Proverbs, which with its lilting geographically inspired rhythms brings the disc full circle. I look forward to Volume Two.

Concert notes: On February 7, group of twenty-seven presents “I’m Austrian-Canadian” with works by Aaron Gervais, Maya Badian, Jocelyn Morlock, Haydn and Mozart featuring soloists Gregory Oh, piano, Ed Reifel, timpani and Mike Fedyshyn, trumpet at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre. On February 16 Nadina Mackie Jackson and Guy Few will premiere Fort Coligny-L’épopé de la France Antartique, Mathieu Lussier’s double concerto for bassoon, trumpet and orchestra with Orchestra Toronto in a matinée performance at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. On February 17 another side of group of twenty-seven is revealed when the g2-7 recital series presents Bethany Bergman, violin, Amy Laing, cello, and Monique de Margerie, piano, in music by Ravel and Beethoven at Heliconian Hall.

Speaking of lush recordings, there is a new disc from Newfoundland that I am quite enjoying. Rob Power’s Touch: Music for Percussion (robpower.ca) includes seven tracks of mostly warm and resonant music featuring mallet instruments. Power is joined by a number of accomplished musicians, several of whom have been active on the Toronto scene including John D.S. Adams (who contributes electronic treatments and co-produced the disc with Power) and Bill Brennan (who returned to his native Newfoundland a few years ago after being a member of the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan for nearly 20 years). All of the tracks were composed by Power since 2000 with the exception of Shards which is a collaborative composition with Adams, Brennan, Kevin Coady and Erin Donovan featuring glass triangles, shakers, a djembe and electronic pitch modulation. This pointillistic piece is an exception to the overall lushness of the disc, although there are percussive bursts and moments of stillness interspersed throughout, especially in the final solo track which features Power on congas, bongos, gongs, temple bowls, triangles and the like in a piece written for New Brunswick percussionist D’Arcy Gray (who was recently in Toronto performing with Motion Ensemble at the Music Gallery). While the overall sensibility of the music presented here might be classified Minimalist with its use of ostinato and “friendly” harmonic writing, there is actually a wide spectrum of musical thought on offer, including extensive exploration of unpitched sounds as well. A number of the works received their premiere performances at the biennial Sound Symposium in St. John’s and two are dedicated to the memory of iconic figures associated with that festival, John Wyre and Don Wherry. The disc was recorded at the Memorial University School of Music, where Power is associate professor of percussion and directs the Scruncheons Percussion Ensemble.

I was pleased and intrigued to receive The Edge of Light (harmonia mundi HMU 907578) featuring pianist Gloria Cheng and the Calder Quartet. The disc juxtaposes the early piano Préludes of Olivier Messiaen (1929) and his final work, Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes (1991) with two works for solo piano, Prélude (2006) and Ballade (2005), and the piano trio Je sens un deuxième coeur (2003) by Kaija Saariaho.

Messiaen wrote a wealth of solo piano music, much of it based on his extensive and exacting transcriptions of bird songs, most notably the seven-volume Catalogue d’Oiseaux (1956-58) – indeed Wikipedia identifies him as a French composer, organist and ornithologist – so it is of interest that the first of the preludes, his first acknowledged works, is entitled Le Colombe (The Dove). The set is more reminiscent of the placid and exotic world of Debussy than of the exuberant ecstasy of the Messiaen we would come to know in later years but there are certainly moments that foreshadow things to come. Of greater interest to me however is the piano quintet movement written for the 90th birthday of his publisher Alfred Schlee at Universal Edition. Although only three and half minutes in length, this quintet is particularly significant not only as Messiaen’s last work, but as his only work for a chamber ensemble written after the iconic Quatuor pour la fin du temps, which he wrote for the resources available to him (violin, clarinet, piano and a cello with only three strings) while interned at a German prisoner-of-war camp in Silesia (1940-41). Pièce is divided into 14 very brief contrasting sections mostly alternating between angular un peu vif unisons in the strings with bien modéré piano phrases. The exception is a longish passage in the middle where strings and piano join forces in a chattery depiction of a fauvette des jardins (Garden Warbler), thus confirming that Messiaen maintained his passion for birds right up to the very end.

Saariaho’s solo piano pieces are darker and more sombre than Messiaen’s but, to my way of thinking, do fall into the French tradition, at least if we consider Chopin and his influence to be an integral part of that history. Cheng gives us the first recordings of these two works. On the other hand, the trio for viola, cello and piano – a darker variant of the traditional piano trio – has appeared on at least two previous recordings, including one featuring Toronto violist Steven Dann, cellist Annsi Karttunen and pianist Tuija Hakkila reviewed in this column in November 2012. At that time I mentioned that Je sens un deuxième coeur was based on themes from Saariaho’s second opera Adriana Mater but noted that it is “an effective chamber work not dependent on the programmatic inspiration for appreciation.” In the notes to the current recording famed opera director Peter Sellars paints a different picture: “We are in a country that is on the verge of war. […] a young woman dares to step out onto her small balcony dreaming of freedom, of liberation, and of pleasure, to sing “I unveil my skin.” The gesture of unveiling is provocative but innocent […] This intensely personal song is the opening of the opera, and forms the content of the first movement.” He goes on to describe the “impetuous music of rising danger” depicting an abusive boyfriend at the door in the second movement. In the third her sister dreams that war breaks out and “imagines the surreal atrocity that transforms a city at war.” In the anguished fourth movement war actually does break out and the drunken boyfriend batters down the door and rapes her. The final movement, “I feel a second heart beating next to mine,” provides the musical image of the double heartbeat of a woman carrying a child which Sellars calls “one of the most poignant and satisfying moments in the history of music.” Perhaps the programmatic nature of the work does benefit from the telling… All in all this is an important release on a number of counts, not the least of which is its excellent sound quality and high performance standards.

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Salieri – Falstaff
John Del Carlo; Teresa Ringholz; Richard Croft; Stuttgart RSO; Arnold Östman
ArtHaus Musik 102306

This recording is not exactly new. It gives us a live performance from the Schwetzingen Festival, which dates from 1995. The DVD was first released in 2000 (it is still available in that format). So we are dealing with what is essentially a repackaging.

Although in the early 17th century Monteverdi’s opera had both serious and comic elements, in the 18th century these tended to be divided between opera seria and opera buffa. That division was not absolute and several of Handel’s operas (most notably Partenope and Serse) were in part comic. It was not until Mozart, however, that the serious potential of comic opera was brought out. Antonio Salieri’s Falstaff was first performed in January 1799, a little more than seven years after Mozart’s death. Yet it is a comic opera that shows little of the complexities which we find in Don Giovanni or Così fan tutte. Nor is Falstaff’s story as interestingly treated as it is by Verdi, Nicolai or Vaughan Williams.

I found much of Salieri’s opera decidedly unfunny and much of the music rather routine. There are a few exceptions such as Mr. Ford’s jealousy arias (beautifully sung by the tenor Richard Croft) and the final scene in which Falstaff is confronted with a ritual scene of torment (with the soprano Teresa Ringholz very fine as the Queen of the Fairies). It is not a coincidence that it is exactly those scenes which carry a threat which move beyond what is merely comic. 

Haydn – Lord Nelson Mass
Mary Wilson; Abigail Fischer; Keith Jameson; Kevin Deas; Boston Baroque; Martin Pearlman
Linn CKD 426

Written when Haydn was in his mid-60s and at a time of great uncertainty for Europe, the premiere of this mass must have been an emotionally charged one for the citizens of Vienna – the threatened invasion by Napoleon’s army having been recently thwarted by British Admiral Horatio Nelson. With the start of the Kyrie featuring a terrifying military outburst of trumpets and timpani followed by a jubilant rejoicing choir, the audience must have been deeply moved by the dramatic effect. Two years later, Haydn presented this work to the conquering hero when he visited the Esterhazy palace.

Boston Baroque certainly captures the character of those times, deftly alternating huge dynamic ranges that switch from jubilant and boisterous celebration to reflective and prayerful gratitude. And the current day performers were affected by equally upsetting events. Rehearsals for the recording took place at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, giving a much too realistic experience of the original title of the work (Mass in difficult, uncertain or anxious times). Particularly poignant is the soloist’s quartet for the Agnus Dei. Following the Mass on this recording, Martin Pearlman leads the orchestra in a lively, fast-paced and vigorous rendition of Haydn’s Symphony No.102, another exuberant offering most welcome and uplifting to the spirit.

Verdi – Messa da Requiem, Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Di Giacomo; DeYoung; Griglo; D’Arcangelo; Los Angeles Philharmonic and Master Chorale; Gustavo Dudamel
Cmajor 714708

Young Dudamel’s idea of bringing Verdi’s Requiem into the open air, to an unlikely venue with questionable acoustics was a risky undertaking. It was riddled with technical problems from the very beginning, but somehow it came off surprisingly well and turned out to be a huge success. And with good reason too.

Young he may be yet he is not a showman, but a very serious, dedicated and astute musician. He conducts the entire mass without a score and without a baton, using his hand gestures (like Karajan did), not at all easy when controlling the vast forces at his disposal. He says he wants to have the piece in his hands, close to his heart. Using carefully maintained slow tempi ensures every detail is moulded to perfection, but he never lets the tension sag – Verdi would have hated that! He is also fully aware of the tremendous dramatic aspects of the work: witness the sudden deep silence after the gigantic outburst of “Dies Irae” when the clouds disperse to open up to clear blue sky, with trumpets sounding from high above and one really feels God is coming to pass final judgment.

There is a fine quartet of soloists, each having their memorable moment: Juliana Di Giacomo is heartbreaking in “Libera me,” the part actually written first where the soprano reigns supreme; Michelle DeYoung shines eternal light in “Lux Aeterna.” Vittorio Grigolo is certainly no easy-going Duke of Mantua (where I saw him last) but deeply moving in his tenor solo at “Ingemisco” and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, with his very suitable name, is a seasoned veteran in the basso role who provides a solid foundation to the numerous solo assemblies Verdi had always excelled in writing.

Busoni – Doktor Faust
Henschel; Begley; Hollop; Jenis; Kerl; Fischer-Dieskau; l’Opéra National de Lyon; Kent Nagano
Erato 2564 64682-4

Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) was celebrated by his contemporaries as an astounding pianist and valued teacher but considered himself above all a composer. It was not until the 1980s however that his compositions began to attract the international attention they deserve. Busoni rightly considered his opera Doktor Faust as the summation of his life’s work. His interpretation of the Faust legend takes its inspiration not from Goethe but from the origins of this mythical figure in Medieval puppet plays. He wrote and published his own libretto in 1916 and devoted the remainder of his life to its composition. Sadly, he died just short of the completion of his masterpiece, which he entrusted to his student Philipp Jarnach to fulfill for the 1925 premiere.

In 1982 the musicologist Anthony Beaumont reconstructed two more scenes intended for the ending of the opera from previously unavailable sketches and this “complete” version was issued on the Erato label in 1988. The Erato firm was absorbed by Warner Music in 1992 and this important recording became unavailable. Happily, further corporate restructuring has brought it back to life in Warner’s new “Erato Opera Collection” launched in 2013. This reissue features the Opéra de Lyon production under the direction of Kent Nagano with Dietrich Henschel in the lead role, Kim Begley as Mephistopheles and Eva Jenis as the Duchess of Parma among others. Though the interpretations are immaculate and the sound is very fine the repackaging offers only a brief synopsis and no libretto is provided, though with some sleuthing an English translation of the Jarnach version can be located on the internet.

The incomparable Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau first made this work famous in a compelling 1970 recording conducted by Ferdinand Leitner with the Bavarian RSO on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Fischer-Dieskau (Henschel’s teacher from long ago) also appears in the cast of the Erato production, though his is merely a speaking role at this late point in his career. The landmark DG recording has also long been in limbo though I am happy to report it too has resurfaced in digital form on iTunes. Were it not for some major cuts to the score (not necessarily a bad thing) and the damage done by the woefully wobbly Hildegard Hillebrecht as the Duchess it would still stand as my preferred interpretation of this strangely beautiful drama.

The Beaumont additions are provided as fillers at the end of the third disc of the Erato set, with suggestions of programming the tracks to either avoid or include them clumsily sketched out, though there is no discussion of the history of the reconstruction in the documentation. Rather than ending with the melodramatic death of Faust in dismal E-flat minor the Beaumont version ends with his mystical redemption through reincarnation in a luminous C major. Take your pick then, though it seems to me that on the opera stage death wins every time. The Beaumont edition has evidently failed to catch on; the recent 2001 Metropolitan Opera and 2006 Zurich Opera productions revert to the 1925 Jarnach version. Both featured baritone Thomas Hampson in a temperamental interpretation of the title role, with the latter performance available as an ArtHaus DVD previously reviewed here by yours truly (March 2008).

Honegger – Jeanne d’Arc au bucher
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR; Helmuth Rilling
Hänssler Classic CD 098.636

German conductor Helmuth Rilling is known here mainly for his authoritative performances of Bach. But his repertoire is, in fact, remarkably broad and adventurous, and his recorded output is prodigious. In this live recording he undertakes a magnificent work whose rarity in our concert halls is baffling.

The two leading parts, Joan and Brother Dominic, are spoken rather than sung. But for the rest, French composer Arthur Honegger drew on a mixture of musical styles, from jazz and folk song to Gregorian chant and Bach chorales. These make for many wonderful moments, but the most moving is near the end, when the Virgin, sung by Canadian soprano Karen Wierzba, soars radiantly over the huge choir and orchestra as Joan is burned at the stake and ascends to heaven.

Rilling brings out the disparate moods of the work – the irony, absurdity, humour, mystery and profound spirituality. But these disjointed elements don’t always come together in the unified vision that Honegger and his librettist Paul Claudel sought.

Sylvie Rohrer as Joan and Eörs Kisfaludy as Dominic are affecting but unidiomatic, and momentum is sapped by the slow pace of their extended dialogues. It’s the Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart, founded by Rilling in 1954, that steals the show, especially with the soloists frequently overpowered by the massive forces behind them.

The booklet essay and soloist biographies are in French and English, but the libretto is given only in French, without even a synopsis in English.

Méfano – Micromégas
Isshiki; Dupuis; Isherwood; Trémolières; Ensemble 2e2m; Pierre Roullier
Maguelone MAG 111.170

Philosophical treatise from the 18th century as a libretto for a quasi-operatic work? A preposterous idea, right? Not if the librettist is Voltaire himself and the music is supplied by French composer Paul Méfano (b.1937). After all, Candide proved to be one of the best sources for the musical theatre of the 20th century. Alas, Micromégas – action lyrique en 7 tableaux – is not a straightforward story, but rather a series of musings on loosely-related topics of existence, colour, microscopic universe and human destiny. The cast of characters is more of a group of ideas, expressed through abstract, yet frequently amusing observations from the world of philosophy and, ever-important in the 18th century, science. In typically Voltairean fashion, the last line of the work, delivered by Saturnien, is “I was right to doubt it!”

This is the milieu in which Méfano develops his complex landscape of musical themes, assigning motifs to ideas and quasi-characters, endowing them with particular, easily identifiable harmonies and distinct “voices.” All of this is put in the context of a “tone poem” and “sound images,” overlapping and leading the narrative from a light, comedic touch to a much deeper, contemplative conclusion.

Méfano studied with Darius Milhaud, as well as Boulez, Stockhausen and Olivier Messiaen. All of these influences are clearly present in his music, making for a fascinating, meandering journey through the music of the 20th century and beyond.

Heggie – Hear/After – Songs of Lost Voices
Stephen Costello; Joyce DiDonato; Nathan Gunn; Talise Trevigne; Carol Wincenc; Alexander String Quartet
PentaTone PTC 5186 515

Art song is alive and well in North America as evidenced by this rich two disc collection of collaborations by Jake Heggie (music) and Gene Scheer (texts). The lost voices represented are “silenced individuals whose stories deserve to be heard,” including victims and survivors of 9/11 (Pieces of 9/11: Memories from Houston). In 9/11, the duo is successful in their intention to bring forward “the hope and newness that can come from grief” through excerpts obtained through 30 hours of interviews from first responders, families and community members. Woven throughout are echoes of the “Prelude” from Bach’s Cello Suite in G Major, providing a poignant and moving undercurrent to the memories.

Another of the “lost voices” is French sculptor Camille Claudel (Camille Claudel: Into the Fire) whose tumultuous relationship with Rodin and frustrated ambitions resulted in commitment to an asylum. The duo take as their inspiration six of her sculptures with each movement evoking the story that each represents. Performances by mezzo Joyce DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet are absolutely stunning in their tender, exquisite phrasing.

Art as inspiration is a prominent theme throughout this recording with two more song cycles: Rise and Fall, which gives voice to famous sculptures, and A Question of Light, inspired by six major artworks in the Dallas Museum of Art.

Guardian Angel – Works by Biber, Bach, Tartini, Pisendel
Rachel Podger
Channel Classics CCA SA 35513

Lest you think this is a lightweight, “new-age” recording, the title of this brilliant new CD is shared with Biber’s Passacaglia for solo violin, the last of his Mystery Sonatas. Rachel Podger is well-known as a first-rate baroque violin soloist, teacher and leader of many of England’s top period instrument orchestras. On this recording from May, 2013 she appears alone, leading us on a tour of music from the Baroque era written or transcribed for unaccompanied violin. The program includes interesting music by the London virtuoso Nicola Matteis, the long-lived Italian violinist Giuseppe Tartini (two of his rather obscure solo sonatas) and the little-known Dresden composer Johann Georg Pisendel. The absolute highlights, though, are a suave performance of the title work by Biber and a transcription of J.S. Bach’s superb A Minor Flute Partita.

Podger’s playing is full of clarity, technical assuredness and power. What is most impressive and moving, though, is her attention to detail and understanding of the rhetoric of these pieces. To quibble, it might have been nice to hear a broader range of dynamics and colours, but her sound is so mesmerizingly beautiful and her musical ideas so clear and convincing that our interest is keenly held throughout.

I especially appreciated the recording quality. Solo violin can be tricky to record well. This recording places us in the hall with enough distance for good perspective, though we’re close enough to pick up every detail.

Royal Recorder Concertos – Music from the Court of King Frederik IV
Bolette Roed; Arte dei Suonatori
Dacapo 6.220630

With its focus on 18th-century Danish musical life during the reigns of Frederik IV and V and Christian VI, this disc shines a provocative light on uncommon repertoire and makes a refreshing addition to recorder music available on CD. On a more personal note, this delightful collaboration between the excellent Danish recorder player Bolette Roed and Polish ensemble Arte dei Suonatori had me smiling and humming along from its first note to its last.

The CD opens with Graupner’s Overture in F Major, reminiscent of Telemann’s Suite in A Minor for its similar instrumentation, style and length. Though less virtuosic than the Telemann, it presents interpretative challenges which these players meet with aplomb, finding for example a perfect, improvisatory tempo giusto for the movement “La Speranza.” Roed provides a lovely cadenza in the first movement of Scheibe’s Concerto a quattro, and a serene, easygoing yet beautifully expressive adagio. In vivid contrast, Graun’s Double Concerto in C bursts out of the gate with its virtuosic passagework and decidedly “yang” character. Graupner’s F Major Concerto and the suite from the music collection of Princess Charlotte Amalie, arranged by Maciej Prochaska, are two little gems.

The performances offer much variety of mood and colour, and thoughtful attention to details in the original scores provides a springboard to refined and imaginative interpretation. The instrumental balance is good, the booklet notes are excellent and the packaging is quite beautiful. Way to go, Denmark!

Handel – Serse
Stéphany; Joshua; Daniels; Summers; Harvey; Sherratt; Wolf; Early Opera Company; Christian Curnyn
Chaconne CHAN 0797(3)

Serse (aka Xerxes Great King of Persia) was first performed in 1738, at a time when Handel still believed he could win London audiences over to the Italian dramma per musica. For this he drew on Venetian poet Nicolò Minato’s libretto and Pier Francesco Cavalli’s music, originally performed back in 1655.

Xerxes attempted to invade Greece, but was defeated, not least when attempting to cross the Hellespont. After his first bridge was washed away, he beheaded the engineers and gave the Hellespont waters 300 lashes for good measure. Little wonder Minato and Handel were so focused on the volatility of Xerxes.

From the start one notices the carefree nature of this new performance; during Handel’s lifetime Serse was only performed five times and contemporaries commented on the lacklustre quality of the original singers.

This time, however, the interpretations are outstanding. Anna Stéphany, in the title role, is enchanting as a ruler subject to all manner of events, notably the unexpected over which he has no control, and the almost whimsical, which reflect his own character. This is not, on the face of it, a king setting out to conquer the known world.

Throughout Serse all the performers maintain this lighthearted quality. For example, Elviro, a servant of Xerxes’ brother Arsamene, is depicted as a panicky and nervous individual. Bass-baritone Andreas Wolf takes full advantage of this in his singing. There is definitely a liveliness to this version of Serse – over all 94 (!) of its tracks.

Handel – Belshazzar
Clayton; Joshua; Hulcup; Davies; Lemalu; Les Arts Florissants; William Christie
Les Arts Florissants Editions 001

When Handel came to London in 1710, he was primarily a composer of Italian operas. His first oratorio, Esther, dates from 1732 but it was from the late 1730s on, when Italian opera was losing its popularity in London, that English oratorio became central to his work. Belshazzar was composed in 1744. The libretto is largely based on the Book of Daniel and its central event is the writing on the wall which Belshazzar, the Babylonian King, does not understand and which only Daniel, the Jewish captive, can interpret.

In 1745 major changes had to be made because the contralto, Susannah Cibber, who was to sing Daniel, was not available. On these CDs William Christie gives us essentially the work as it stood before that emergency surgery, but he also includes some material that was cut before the first performance (cut no doubt because Handel was worried about the work’s length) as well as some numbers that Handel added or changed for the 1751 revival. The performance is magnificent: it is superbly paced and the soloists, the orchestra and the chorus are all very fine. I was especially taken with the soprano Rosemary Joshua as Nitocris, Belshazzar’s mother, and the countertenor Iestyn Davies as Daniel.

Over the years Christie and Les Arts Florissants have given us many fine recordings, but this is the first set of CDs issued by the orchestra itself. A great beginning!

Concert notes: While there are dozens of performances of Messiah in Toronto each year, chances to hear Handel’s other oratorios are infrequent. But we are in luck this year: Tafelmusik is presenting Saul (February 21 to 23) and the Canadian Opera Company is giving us a staged version of Hercules, directed by Peter Sellars (from March 5).

Mozart – Clarinet Quintet; String Quartet K421
Jörg Widmann; Arcanto Quartet
Harmonia Mundi HMC 902168

Ever since the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983, I’ve realized that Mozart’s Quintet in A Major for clarinet and string quartet is more than a wonderful part of the repertoire for my instrument: it is a gift left for humanity. A luminous nearly perfect piece, K581 seems intended to assuage grief, to remind us that mortality is not so bad after all. Every new recording of it, indeed every performance, is a way of sharing the divine. In a recent release, Jörg Widmann and the Arcanto Quartet do justice to the music in a way that refreshes the ear with a bracing clarity in the strings and absolutely stunning playing in the clarinet. Widmann chooses to perform on the altered basset clarinet, allowing for some extra-low notes in some passages, but it makes little impact on the overall effect. More telling is the blistering tempo of the 16th-note variation in the fourth movement. Has this man no limits?

The strings adhere to a classical style: the near-absence of vibrato, the almost nasal colour of gut strings. Arcanto is a wonderful ensemble, playing as one, snapping back and forth between lead and accompaniment (the first trio in the third movement is Mozart’s little thank-you gift to the string players, a micro quartet while the tacet clarinettist swabs his horn). Do the five get carried away in the variations? Is the expression perhaps more coarse than necessary at times? Perhaps. But the violist, thank goodness, is not given to self-indulgence, and the piece ends in a flashy coda that few could manage with such a combination of wicked speed and beautiful style.

Arcanto performs K421 on their own in the companion piece. Worth hearing as well, and a welcome deviation from the usual inclusion of a lesser work for the same combination.

Concert note: Jörg Widmann is featured as both clarinetist and composer in New Music Concerts’ “A Portrait of Jörg Widmann” on April 18 at Betty Oliphant Theatre. 

Gold Medalist
Vadym Kholodenko
Harmonia Mundi HMU 907605

Silver Medalist
Beatrice Rana
Harmonia Mundi HMU 907606

Crystal Award
Sean Chen
Harmonia Mundi HMU 907607

Three winners emerged from the 14th Van Cliburn Competition in May/June 2013 to prove once again how unique and individuated such pianistic brilliance can be. A Ukrainian, Vadym Kholodenko, age 26, won the gold. Silver went to 20-year-old Italian Beatrice Rana and an American of 24, Sean Chen, received the crystal award. In addition, the winners also received three years of commission-free career management. These performances were recorded live in Fort Worth with audiences barely able to withhold their applause until the final chords faded completely. Considered together, these three young artists offer intriguingly different approaches to their music and its instrument.

Gold medalist Kholodenko chose an endurance program of Stravinsky (Petrouchka) and Liszt. The Transcendental Etudes, best known for the broad range of their technical demands, never seem to tax Kholodenko. He rises easily above them to allow himself generous interpretive ground. Here he plays wistfully with the melodies of Feux Follets and Harmonies du Soir, drawing out Liszt’s inner themes woven across left and right hand parts. His muscular approach to Mazeppa and Wilde Jagd leave no doubt about his power over the instrument as he makes it roar louder than either of his winning competitors. Similarly, his approach to Petrouchka demonstrates a remarkable clipped staccato in the very opening phrases that adds razor sharpness to the phrasing unlike what most other pianists are able to achieve. This power is beautifully contrasted with his playing of the second movement where a gentle legato and light touch confirm exactly why his medal was the gold.

Rana, the silver medalist, brings an elegant, dance-like style to her Schumann, Ravel and Bartók. Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes are very dense at times requiring the utmost in accuracy and articulation. Rana is wonderfully adept at drawing out melodies from within this quasi-orchestral score. The ninth etude, although only a few seconds in duration, is an excellent example of how she does this while sustaining a relentless driving pulse around the theme. Her performance of Ravel’s Gaspard meets every expectation for superbly fluid playing in the opening “Ondine.” “Le Gibet” and “Scarbo” each show us how well Rana can shift to a portrayal of darkness and mystery.

Perhaps most convincing is her primal and somewhat savage approach to Bartók’s Out of Doors. Despite the gentler requirements of the second and fourth movements, the opening almost puts the piano at risk as she astonishes the audience with her raw power. A performer with a demonstrably impressive interpretive ability, one understands why she also won the Audience Award.

Finally, Chen, winner of the crystal award performs a program of Brahms, Beethoven and Bartók. This young American pianist takes his Bartók just as seriously as his formidable Italian competitor but regards the composer’s rhythmic and harmonic angularity with more romance and less anger. A very different but very creditable approach. Chen is a thinker, a pianist who clearly appreciates clean structure. This is what informs all his playing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the closing epic fugal movement of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier. Adjectives simply fail to describe Chen’s grasp of how Beethoven built this complex edifice. He plays it brilliantly. The cheering audience reaction says it all.

Busoni – Late Piano Music
Marc-André Hamelin
Hyperion CDA67951/3

Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin has recorded some 50 albums on the Hyperion label of generally unfamiliar and often extremely virtuosic repertoire to great critical acclaim. His recent release of three CDs devoted to the late piano music of Ferruccio Busoni represents another milestone in an outstanding career.

The repertoire covers the last 15 years of Busoni’s life and includes a number of pieces which self-reference his lesser-known orchestral works. CD 1 opens with the pivotal collection of seven Elegies composed in 1907. According to the composer, “My entire personal vision I put down at last and for the first time in the Elegies.” These works reveal a tonal expansion of his earlier, more facile and traditional approach. The title is misleading, as these works are far from funereal. As might be expected from the only child of an Italian father and German mother, both of them professional musicians, Busoni’s style is cosmopolitan in the extreme, freely mixing influences ranging from an exuberant Italianate Tarantella (later incorporated into his massive Piano Concerto, recorded by Hamelin in 1999 in a staggering performance) to variations on the well-known English folk song Greensleeves (strangely, Busoni had been led to believe this melody was of Chinese origin and had used it as such in his opera based on Gozzi’s play Turandot).

CD 2 is largely devoted to Busoni’s six Sonatinas, again of exceptional emotional range, from the inward-looking Sonatina seconda (containing thematic references to his opera Doktor Faust) to the sixth, overtly Lisztian, Kammer-Fantasie über Carmen that concludes the cycle. One even finds an intriguing example of “World Music.” Busoni had toured the United States repeatedly in the early 20th century and while resident there took a keen interest in the Native American music which had been brought to his attention by Natalie Curtis, a former piano student of his who gifted him a copy of her massive 1907 volume of pioneering ethnomusicological transcriptions, The Indians’ Book. Busoni responded with a handful of Indian-inspired works including his Indian Diary in which short motifs from her collection appear as thematic springboards for his kaleidoscopic inventions.

Many of the pieces included on CD 3 have a pedagogical purpose. Opening with a fabulously fleeting performance of the demanding Toccata of 1920, the bulk of the disc is devoted to a generous sampling from his late Klavierübung volumes which explore technical issues involving trills, staccato passages and polyphony as well as an intriguing set of variations on Chopin’s familiar Prelude in C Minor. These three discs contain a number of pieces not previously recorded and also include a sampling of the numerous Bach arrangements Busoni is best known for. The programming is exemplary, the sound is alluring (from a Steinway piano recorded in London’s Henry Wood Hall) and the program notes are excellent. Bravo Hamelin!