Tu Me Voyais
Christina Raphaëlle Haldane; Carl Philippe Gionet
Leaf Music LM257 (leaf-music.ca)

Christina Raphaëlle Haldane and Carl Philippe Gionet come together on Tu me Voyais to take us on a fascinating journey with lieder richly evocative of Acadian culture. Haldane is an agile soprano with a whisper-soft, tremulous vibrato. Always plangent and eloquent, she often inhabits a range that is dramatically lower than her soprano and darker in tone texture. Gionet is an equal partner in this exquisite recital and Haldane’s renditions of these songs is borne aloft throughout on Gionet’s delicate, shimmering – often spellbinding – pianism. 

The song poetry does much to elevate the music on this album. With repertoire that ranges from (the fin-de-siècle) Douze chansons folkloriques acadiennes, exquisitely arranged by Gionet, the dramatic Icare: premier fragment by Adam Sherkin, and pour une Amérique engloutie (IV) and Il va sans dire by Jérôme Blais, vocalist and pianist create a canvas that is by turns sensuous, ruminative, teasing and dramatic. 

Both artists weave mighty artistic spells throughout – Haldane with her impassioned and often amorous vocals that are melismatic and hauntingly beautiful, and Gionet with unmatched pianism that is marked with subtle lyricism. Listening to them is like experiencing an exquisitely choreographed pas de deux – one moment graceful and balletic, the next robust and athletic. Their supple ornamentation, informed by evidence of theatricality in the traditional Acadian sources, is also most effective. The open sound of this finely balanced recording enhances the ethereal quality of these delicate songs.

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Wagner – Der Ring des Nibelungen
Stemme; Hilley; Paterson; Jovanovich; Teige; Pesendorfer; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Donald Runnicles
Naxos DVD 2107001 (naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=2.107001)

Deutsche Oper in Berlin has always been famous for avant-garde, innovative, even iconoclastic versions of operas, so this brave new production was eagerly awaited. Filmed by Naxos on seven DVDs, all in HD full stereo sound in a deluxe edition, Der Ring des Nibelungen is a tetralogy that took Wagner 25 years to compose while in exile in Switzerland. It is directed by Stefan Hernheim, a multiple award-winning Norwegian-German director. It is a visionary Ring for the 21st century with today’s complex issues like the refugee crisis, inclusiveness and gender equality worked in, but fully respecting Wagner’s drama and music. It’s a stunning production, a visual knockout with an international cast of the best singers available today, masterfully conducted by Donald Runnicles.

Das Rheingold begins with an empty stage. A group of refugees with worn out suitcases walk across it stopped by a grand piano. The leader of the group strikes an E-flat note and the music begins. The E-flat triad is the basis of the Prelude and represents pure unspoiled Nature, the depth of the river Rhine; from here onwards things start to go awry (like the Expulsion from Paradise, the Original Sin). The group then breaks up, some become the singers, like the Rhine maidens, plus many extras. The backdrop is a white silk handkerchief that has a life of its own and expands into a giant screen. It undulates like the waves of the Rhine but later, with clever videography and projections, becomes a forest, mountains, fire or the majestic hall in Asgard. At the Finale the sheet is spectacular with all the colours of the rainbow as a backdrop to the Gods entering Valhalla. Outstanding singers are the young Wotan (Derek Welton), Alberich (Markus Brück) and Fricka (Annika Schlicht). Thomas Blondelle’s performance of the clever demi-god Loge is exceptional.  

The grand piano is omnipresent at centre stage. Interestingly it stands for musical inspiration and is said to represent the famous Érard on which Wagner composed the entire Ring cycle. At emotionally charged moments a singer sits down and pretends to play with enthusiasm. Another important feature is the extras who do many different things, but mainly form a group like a Greek Chorus and at key points watch and silently comment on the action. Also, the director constantly reminds us of the plight of refugees with worn black suitcases piled up and forming a rocky terrain in the outdoor scenes. 

In Die Walküre there are magnificent scenes. In the first act when the weaponless Siegmund desperately cries Wälse, Wälse! wo ist dein Schwert!? he is elevated on a platform some 20 feet above the stage which suddenly turns pitch black with only Siegmund illuminated. Spring bursts in as a giant translucent ball lit up inside in springtime colours – just gorgeous. The passionate love duet is beautifully sung by Brandon Jovanovich and Elizabeth Teige. In the Third Act the Ride of the Valkyries becomes pandemonium. The score is seing thrown around and the singers occasionally check it as if not sure of what they are doing. The corpses they carry come alive, crowd the stage and try to rape the warrior maidens(!). Finally they are all hustled off the stage by the angry Wotan. Wotan’s Farewell to Brünnhilde is affectionately sung by Iain Paterson as the stage becomes enveloped in fire (which is spectacular).

Some say that in Wagner one must sit through long boring bits to reach the gorgeous climaxes. Not so here, as the director, by closely working with the actors, ensures that every detail in the music is correlated to the stage action. This way there are no boring bits. The Second Act’s very long, angry monologue by Wotan venting his anger to Brünnhilde (the wonderful Nina Stemme) becomes interesting, even exciting.

In Siegfried, the title character (American heldentenor sensation Clay Hilley “who brought vocal heft and clarion sound to the role” – The New York Times) is raised in the forest by the evil dwarf Mime (the terrific Ya-Chung Huang). The Forging Scene is spectacular with vocal fireworks; the slaying of the dragon is fearsome and there is a lovely, tender scene of Siegfried’s dialogue with a forest bird, sung by a little boy soprano. In the final love scene the group of extras who surround the rock are interracial, sometimes even same sex young men and women eager to make love and urge Siegfried and Brünnhilde to do the same. They applaud and rejoice when it finally happens.

In Götterdämmerung we leave the fairy tale and enter reality, the world of men who are cunning and greedy. Hagen, Alberich’s evil son (Albert Pesendorfer) is a tremendous basso and there are great musical highlights like Siegried’s Rhine Journey and his gradual awakening from the magic spell (just before being murdered by Hagen) and the magisterially conducted Funeral Music.

In a cataclysmic ending – Brünnhilde’s self-sacrifice throwing herself into a giant funeral pyre – the Ring returns to the Rhine and in the conflagration Valhalla collapses and the age of the Gods is over. The stage is now empty in a silvery light and there is hope for a new era.

Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde
Claudia Huckle; Nicky Spence; Justin Brown
Champs Hill Records digital (claudiahuckle.com)

This recent disc is a self-described “lockdown project” from the accomplished Anglo-German contralto Claudia Huckle, released with the support of the British Gustav Mahler Society. Recorded in 2021, it utilizes Mahler’s own rediscovered piano version published in 1989. Prepared in conjunction with the final orchestral version, this piano reduction offers the option of a more intimate interpretation of the work, notably so concerning the bellicose tenor part which must normally blast its way through perilous orchestral onslaughts; this possibility has been demonstrated in several recordings of the 1920 chamber version prepared for Arnold Schoenberg’s short-lived “Society for Private Musical Performances,” notably by the Smithsonian Chamber Players with a plangent John Elwes in 2007 and Reinbert de Leeuw’s 2020 release with the supple Yves Saelens. Nicky Spence however sings in full heldentenor voice throughout. Be that as it may, he’s quite excellent despite his stentorian, operatic approach, which might not seem so inappropriate in an orchestral setting. 

Huckle’s intense and moving performance brings us far deeper into the emotional world of these songs, however. As she writes in her liner notes, “One thing I realized during that beautiful spring of 2020 was that if I never performed again, my greatest regret would be never having sung Das Lied von der Erde.” Her deep commitment shines through in every bar. 

Equally splendid is the masterful pianism of the American conductor Justin Brown, who contributes an impressive tonal palette and sensitive dynamic shadings to the complex keyboard part.

Jules Massenet – Intégrale des mélodies pour voix et piano
Various Artists
ATMA ACD2 2411 (atmaclassique.com/en)

The prospect of even approaching a presentation as epic in scope as this 13CD box set, Intégrale des mélodies pour voix et piano from the pen of Jules Massenet, is utterly daunting. The reason is that the reviewer is, to paraphrase the words of Pliny, “being choked with gold.” This is not such a hyperbolic metaphor once you traverse this repertoire. The majestic sweep of these songs is the more significant when you consider that Massenet was once pilloried as “Mademoiselle Wagner” with a style of light, lyrical “saccharine” music. Green-eyed comments such as those are only some of the epithets that were directed at one of 19th century France’s finest and most prolific composers of oratorios and opera, examples of which include Manon, Werther and the now-celebrated Thaïs. 

With the soaring arias in those operas, Massenet redefined the lyrical French tradition – the tradition of Gounod – in the light of Wagner’s advances in dramatic structure. This “lyric French” tradition clearly also found its way into Massenet’s shorter works – the songs that have been collected and presented in this mammoth set. 

It has often also been said of Massenet that he was uninterested in profundity of any sort, but on evidence contained in these songs it is also clear that few composers have ever created such attractive, lyrical works. The composer Vincent d’Indy also suggested that Massenet’s work had a “discreet and pseudo-religious eroticism” (borne out by his 1872 opera Marie-Magdeleine). This eroticism, together with an affection for orientalism, coloured most of Massenet’s subsequent work – including some of these songs. Massenet never denied or admitted to those characteristics. However, he was openly cynical about pandering to the French taste for religiose themes, even declaring: “I don’t believe in all that creeping Jesus stuff, but the public likes it and we must always agree with the public.”  

Massenet gained a firm handle on operatic scoring and with the inherent melodiousness of the aria form it was only natural that the composer fused his prodigious gift for the lyric and the dramatic into a shorter art song form. He put all of this brilliantly to work in the airborne poetry of the songs that make up the breathtaking repertory of the Intégrale des mélodies. 

There are 333 songs in these 13 CDs. The selection constitutes an almost complete edition of Massenet’s shorter work. The box also includes 13 unpublished and 31 never-before recorded songs. In short the box has epic proportions by any standard applied to any one musical genre – in this case, the song form. Each of the CDs features marquee-worthy stars including the great Canadian coloratura Karina Gauvin (cue L’Inquiétude and Le soir from CD 2). Of course Gauvin is not the only celebrity soprano featured here. Others include the quite brilliant Magali Simard-Galdès (Voix de femmes, CD 9). Still others include: mezzo Julie Boulianne (Avant la bataille, CD 10), contralto Florence Bourget (Le Noël des humbles, CD 5). Tenors include Eric Laporte (Napolitana, CD 2), while baritones feature Jean-François Lapointe (Amoureaux d’une étoile, CD 12), and among the narrators is Jean Marchand (Le vision de Loti, CD 12). 

While the vocalists are indubitably the stars on these discs the accompanists also deserve special mention. The cast of musicians includes violinist Antoine Bareil, cellist Stéphane Tétreault, guitarist David Jacques, harpist Valérie Milot and Olivier Godin who plays a radiant 1854 Sébastien Érard piano, harmonium and harpsichord. All the accompanists play with sublime idiomatic grace and must be recognised for their restrained artistry, which allows the vocalists to shine through the poesy of these works. Rarely has any box of CDs offered the kind of thrill-a-minute listening as this one.

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Artur Schnabel – Complete Vocal Works
Sara Couden; Jenny Lin
Steinway & Sons 30208 (steinway.com/music-and-artists/label)

In his book The Great Pianists, music critic Harold Schonberg devoted an entire chapter to Austrian Artur Schnabel (1882-1951), the first to record all 32 Beethoven sonatas. (I especially cherish his soul-searching Schubert recordings.) Yet now almost forgotten is that Schnabel also composed – a lot! – including three symphonies and five string quartets. 

This first complete collection of his vocal music memorializes Schnabel’s relationship with contralto Therese Behr, who brought her young accompanist (she was six years older) to public attention. The visually odd couple – Behr six feet tall, Schnabel five-four – married in 1905.

Schnabel composed 22 songs for Behr between 1899 and 1906, influenced by Brahms’ warm lyricism, rather than the febrile emotionalism of Mahler or Richard Strauss. Making her CD debut, American contralto Sara Couden, with her dark sepia timbre, perfectly suits the songs’ restrained, autumnal moods, prevalent even when the texts rhapsodize about the beauties of nature or love’s joys and sorrows. Pianist Jenny Lin admirably provides pianist-composer Schnabel’s often elaborate accompaniments.

Schnabel wasn’t immune, however, to the stylistic revolutions of Schoenberg and Stravinsky preceding World War I. His 22-minute Notturno, Op.16 (1914), written for Behr, marked a significant departure from his previous compositions. In Richard Dehmel’s lengthy poem, the narrator recounts an agonized dream about a dead friend. Dispensing with bar-lines, Schnabel’s music creates metric ambiguity along with discordant touches of the atonality he later firmly embraced. It’s a compelling musical psychodrama.

Milton Babbit – Works for Treble Voice and Piano
Nina Berman; Steve Beck; Eric Huebner
New Focus Recordings FCR349 (newfocusrecordings.com)

Milton Babbitt (1916-2011) was one of the 20th century’s most significant composers and music theorists, whose analytical work on the music of the Second Viennese School continues to influence theory seminars throughout the world. Babbitt gained notoriety from his 1958 article Who cares if you listen? in which a strong case for the avant-garde composer is made, whether conventional audiences appreciate their efforts or not.

As a composer, Babbitt wrote both electronic and serial works, including the songs contained on this album which span throughout his career. Performed by soprano Nina Berman and pianists Steve Beck and Eric Huebner, this recording provides a window into Babbitt’s inherently complex, yet surprisingly tuneful style of composition. 

Unlike Schoenberg and other proponents of the Second Viennese School, whose 12-tone methods permit some semblance of almost-tonality, the serialist approach employed by Babbitt strips away any reference to earlier systems of melody and harmony. Although the scores themselves are incredibly dense and challenging to execute and the music is undoubtedly atonal, there is much for listeners to focus on, for even the most random and aleatoric method of composition still results in some semblance of both melody and harmony, albeit far removed from the music of earlier times.

Performing and recording music of this complexity is no small feat and Berman, Beck and Huebner deserve double praise: first, for masterfully presenting this collection of 20th-century art song; secondly, for bringing greater awareness to one of the greatest “musician’s musicians” to ever live. While Babbitt publicly eschewed easy accessibility and immediate audience gratification, his music continues to stimulate, challenge and reward musicians brave enough to engage with his masterful body of work.

Pachelbel – Magnificat Fugues
Space Time Continuo
Analekta AN 2 8911 (analekta.com/en)

This recording is fascinating, both in conception and execution. Comprised entirely of Baroque continuo instruments (i.e. cello, lute and organ), typically heard as the bass-line foundation of early music ensembles, Montreal-based Space Time Continuo presents a variety of Johann Pachelbel’s pipe organ works arranged and performed for their unique makeup.

As indicated by the album title, this recording features a number of Pachelbel’s fugues based on the Magnificat, a canticle often known as the Song of Mary. Perhaps best known for its multi-movement setting by J.S. Bach and the many smaller-scale versions written by English Cathedral tradition- composers for use in the Evensong liturgy, Pachelbel’s Magnificat arrangements are purely instrumental, with no expression of the text itself. 

Pachelbel wrote a great number of these little fugues: 95 in all and, while there is some debate on whether these organ works were composed for intonation or alternation, there is no doubt that they were used in the context of the sung text, either before, during or after. For this performance, director and cellist Amanda Keesmaat arranged 13 of these fugues, along with the well-known Chaconne in F Minor – one of Pachelbel’s largest-scale organ works – resulting in music that, although contrapuntally identical to its original, is strikingly different both in timbre and texture.

Known largely for his Canon in D and little else, this recording demonstrates that there is much music by Pachelbel that deserves to be rediscovered. From the serious and solemn to buoyant and joyful, there is much here for everyone to enjoy and the uniqueness of having this terrific music performed by an equally magnificent bass-instrument ensemble makes this sophomore release from Space Time Continuo worthwhile listening for all.

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Lost in Venice
Infirmi d’Amore; Vadym Makarenko
Eudora Records EUD SACD-2206 (eudorarecords.com)

No less a figure than Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote “When I seek another word for ‘music,’ I never find any other word than ‘Venice’.” Over the years, many have written glowingly about this magical city and this Eudora recording is a fitting musical homage, featuring works by Vivaldi, Marcello and Veracini performed by the Baroque ensemble Infermi d’Amore led by Vadym Makarenko. The six-member group draws musicians from the entire world, all of whom studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. 

Of the six pieces by Vivaldi – four concertos, a single movement and a sinfonia – three are the result of reconstructions by musicologist Olivier Fourés, and four of them are world-premiere recordings. Similarly, the scores by Veracini and Marcello were unearthed in Venetian libraries, thus making the disc very much one of “undiscovered treasures.” 

Clearly this small ensemble derives great enjoyment from playing together – what a fresh and robust sound they produce! And this vibrancy is further enhanced by a technical excellence evident throughout. As an example, the final movement from the Vivaldi Concerto in E Major RV263 presented here on its own was the original finale for another concerto, RV263a from the collection La Cetra. Nevertheless, Fourés points out that it was originally deemed “unplayable” for the average violinist of the time and was substituted at the request of the publisher. Here, soloist Makarenko easily meets the technical challenges, delivering a virtuosic performance.

The Overture No.6 by Veracini and the Violin Concerto Op.1 No.9 by Marcello are both worthy inclusions and their respective discoveries were truly fortuitous.

A fine recording of some unfamiliar repertoire from the Baroque period – we should all be so fortunate to be lost in Venice with such wonderful music accompanying our meanderings!

Bach – The Art of Life
Daniil Trifonov
Deutsche Grammophon 073 6270 (deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/daniil-trifonov/daniil-trifonov-bach-the-art-of-life-2062)

While the term ambitious is perhaps an overused descriptor for musical recordings (or anything else artistic for that matter), the adjective most certainly rings true for Daniil Trifonov’s 2022 Deutsche Grammophon release: Bach: The Art of Life. Spanning two CDS with liner notes by Oscar Alan, plus an extensive live concert Blu-ray disc, the recording provides a welcome window into comprehensive, sublime and historically accurate Baroque solo piano playing (in as much as anything originally written for the harpsichord or organ but played on the piano could be historically accurate)! That aside, this recording beautifully mines the music of the family Bach (J.S., of course, but also W.F., C.P.E. and J.C.) proving, at least musically, E.O. Wilson’s famous aphorism: “genes hold culture on a leash.”

If, as the German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus pronounced, the 19th century belonged to Beethoven and Rossini (so much so that Johannes Brahms equated composing post-Beethoven to hearing “the tread of a giant behind him”), how then must it have felt to be a composer (not to mention, “son of”) following the supreme legacy left by patriarch Bach? And although this recording is centred around the elder’s Art of the Fugue, all the pieces featured here, father or sons notwithstanding, are given equal heft and import, and are dealt with rigorously by Trifonov (who up to this point has not necessarily been known for his Bach playing) in a manner that is egalitarian, rather than lesser than, and with a keyboard touch that one hopes will bring these deserving works more in line with the ever-expanding canon of Western art music. 

Mozart – The Piano Sonatas
Robert Levin
ECM New Series 2710-16 (ecmrecords.com)

Although it is not uncommon to find one or two of Mozart’s piano sonatas on recital programs, it is much less common – and much more Herculean a task – to present all 18 of his sonatas in one marathon session. Fortepianist Robert Levin embraces this challenge wholeheartedly with this remarkable six-and-a-half-hour release, featuring not only all of Mozart’s fully finished piano sonatas, but also a number of miscellaneous sonata-form movements, all performed on Mozart’s fortepiano.

This reference to “Mozart’s fortepiano” requires some clarification, as his first six sonatas were most likely written not for the fortepiano, but rather the harpsichord or clavichord. Invented in 1698 by the Italian instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori, Mozart first encountered the fortepiano as developed by Johann Andreas Stein in 1777 and, after giving this instrument a rave review, obtained his own from the manufacturer Anton Gabriel Walter. Haydn also owned a Walter fortepiano, Beethoven expressed a desire to own one, and it is on this instrument that Levin performs this Mozartian marathon.

The main difference between the historical fortepiano and the modern grand piano is that the hammers are much smaller, lighter and thinly covered with leather, rather than felt. The lighter strings and gentler hammer action produce a sound that is considerably different than modern pianos, with more overtones and a more rapid decay. Where modern pianos can be murky and weighty – particularly in the lower register, fortepianos are lighter and more agile, with great clarity across the keyboard’s entire compass.

The fortepiano continued to develop after Mozart’s death, growing larger and more robust, and eventually evolving into the modern piano as we now know it. While we often think of the Romantic composers performing on Bösendorfers and Steinways, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Liszt all performed on fortepianos that, although considerably different from the instrument of a century earlier, were nonetheless still quite closely related to their classical-era ancestors.

For those accustomed to hearing Mozart’s piano sonatas performed on a modern piano, this recording will serve as a revelation. The idiomatic nature of Mozart’s writing is immediately apparent as the clarity, subtle dynamic range (as compared to modern pianos), and unique lyricism of the fortepiano result in a profound paradigm shift in the listener. Passages that once seemed unclear or required slower-than-expected tempi to avoid muddying the acoustic waters are here presented with utmost transparency, as the instrument and written score combine with great effect.

Consider, for example, the ubiquitous Sonata facile (No.16, K545), one of the most frequently performed and frequently heard of all Mozart’s piano sonatas. Here one can clearly discern that the rapid decay of the fortepiano determines a great deal of Levin’s interpretive decisions, for each note of this well-known melody now has a definite period of sustain and, to maintain the lyrical line, a “minimum velocity” is required by the instrument itself.

This recording is highly recommended to all who enjoy playing and listening to Mozart’s music, for not only does it present an ingenious composer’s works performed by an expert interpreter, it also provides a window into what Mozart himself might have heard as he was crafting these pieces at his fortepiano almost three centuries ago.

Time
Klaudia Kudelko
C2 Management (klaudia-kudelko.com)

Klaudia Kudelko is an extraordinarily talented young pianist from Poland, highly accomplished in Europe and the USA, winning competitions, gathering prizes and enchanting audiences. She even played at Carnegie Hall. Her impressive website features her at a Bechstein grand performing Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude. It is an immensely difficult piece written during bombardment by Russian guns, very fast, her powerful left hand cascading non-stop fortissimo creating a constant turbulence while a defiant, heroic theme emerges in the right hand. Wow!  

Time is her debut CD, the title referring to three time periods: early Romanticism of Schubert, high Romanticism of Chopin and the present represented by Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. Time, she says, always changes, but what never changes is relevance.

The centre of attention is naturally Chopin with two Etudes: the fast and turbulent Op.10 No.12 in C Minor, the Revolutionary as mentioned above, and the slow, introspective Op.25 No.7in C-sharp Minor, very complex and full of feeling, beautifully performed. I was most impressed by the Polonaise-Fantasie, a free-wheeling rhapsodic piece, notoriously difficult to interpret. Kudelko superbly controls the ebb and flow of emotion while maintaining the strict 3/4 polonaise rhythm and there is a magnificent ending.

The program begins with Schubert, six short pieces from Moments Musicaux Op.94, each with simple themes but all different and highly inventive. The popular No.3 is played with infinite charm, utmost delicacy and playfulness while No.5 is stormy with a syncopated (somewhat equestrian) rhythm that attests to Kudelko’s superb technique.

The concluding work is a beautifully crafted Sonata No.2 by Bacewicz that harkens back to the Second World War and here again is Time and Relevance. A memorable debut disc.

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From Afar
Vikingar Ólafsson
Deutsche Grammophon 00289 481 1681 (vikingurolafsson.com)

Award-winning Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson (b.1984), dubbed “Iceland’s Glenn Gould” by The New York Times, is well known for his challenging programming. His 22-track (times two) double album From Afar is no exception, revealing his eclecticism in surprising and satisfying ways.

As he recounts in the booklet, Ólafsson’s album project was the result of a chance encounter with nonagenarian Hungarian composer György Kurtág. It turned out to be an impromptu, life-changing, private recital for Ólafsson. The wide-ranging program on this album is his thank-you note, pivoting on several Kurtág piano works, both original compositions and arrangements of Bach keyboard opuses. Another novel aspect of the record is that the entire recital is played twice. CD 1 features a Steinway grand, while on CD 2 Ólafsson plays an upright piano with felt covering the strings, rendering a permanent soft pedal effect. Thus, two contrasting sound worlds are evoked from the same repertoire: the public concert hall, and the intimate living room. Interestingly, I often preferred the upright performances.

In addition to Kurtág, Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Bartók and others, Ólafsson gives the world premiere of British composer Thomas Adès’ aphoristic, impressionistic The Branch, dedicated to Kurtág. Ólafsson’s sensitive touch and pellucid, singing tone – often with slower than usual tempi – explores the mellow end of the piano’s dynamic and expressive range. Might one expect more variety in such a high-concept re-examination of three centuries of European piano music? Well, I found this brilliantly curated and played recital set just the right mood this snowy winter night.

Destination Riverdale – Brahms; Verhey
Robert Dilutis; Mellifera Quartet
Tonsehen (tonsehen.com)

Pessimism never sounded as sweet as in the last great chamber work of the 19th century, Brahms’ Quintet for Clarinet and Strings Op.115. If music is meant to console, this work will assure you that your grief is entirely justified. Weep freely. The very capable Mellifera Quartet and clarinetist Robert Dilutis join forces for this, and to present an arrangement of the Concerto for Clarinet and Strings by Theodorus Verhey. An effective arrangement by Ray Fields notwithstanding, the piece doesn’t hold a candle to Brahms. Its inclusion reflects Dilutis’ enthusiasm for discovering repertoire, coupled with the odd fact that clarinetist Richard Muhlfeld served as muse for both composers. Only one of the two managed something truly worth keeping.

There’s a great deal to like about this version of Opus 115. The tempi keep the piece buoyant, when too easily it can become lumberish. Cellist Benjamin Wensel’s sound is just so deep, as God and Brahms intended. Sometimes I find the balances odd and I suspect a heavy hand at the mixing board.  Dilutis plays a keen and expressive clarinet, usually in tune with the strings, if tending sharp at times. 

The group make interesting pacing decisions in the rhapsodic section of the Adagio, not all of which I agree with, but respect nevertheless. The third movement reminds one that joy is still accessible to the aged (he was only 60-ish for heaven’s sake). Its two opposing characters are played (correctly) in a uniform pulse; smaller beat subdivisions rather than a change in tempo bring forth the contrast. In general, the group avoids any self-indulgent tempo variation, which feels somewhat austere: they might have allowed more flexibility in pulse, especially in the development section of the first movement. Well-resined horsehair renders the heartbeat motif accompanying the sad duet between the clarinet and first violin. They remind one that the heart is, after all, a muscle. The devastating return of the opening thematic material that arrives at the very close of the Con Moto finale plays at the same pulse as the opening, undermining the tragedy. Call me sentimental, but I think the sorrow-filled final utterances should linger just a bit more.

Coleridge-Taylor
Chineke! Orchestra
Decca 485 3322 (chineke.org/news/new-album-release-coleridge-taylor)

New Yorkers called him the “Black Mahler,” probably because he and then-New York-based Mahler were both composers and conductors. Now, his very un-Mahlerish, Weltschmerz-free compositions are increasingly performed and recorded, paralleling America’s belated recognition of Black composers. 

London-born Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was the son of Englishwoman Alice Martin and physician Daniel Taylor from Sierra Leone, who returned to Africa before Samuel’s birth. His mother named him after the famous poet; Samuel added the hyphen. Successful in England, he made three U.S. tours and was welcomed at the White House by Theodore Roosevelt. Coleridge-Taylor’s early death was from pneumonia.

This two-CD set presents seven of his compositions and one by his daughter performed by London’s Chineke! Orchestra, founded in 2015 as Europe’s first predominantly Black and ethnic-minority orchestra. (Chineke means “God” in Nigeria’s Igbo language.)

American violinist Elena Urioste’s warm, velvety tone caresses Coleridge-Taylor’s lyrical melodies in two works conducted by Kevin John Edusei. The songful, openhearted, 31-minute Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op.80 features imposing fanfares and a sweet, wistful violin melody (Allegro maestoso), a serenely reverent nocturne (Andante semplice) and a cheerful, Scottish-tinged marching tune (Allegro molto) –themes from the previous movements joining in at the concerto’s celebratory conclusion. The nine-minute Romance in G, Op.39, is a dreamy pastorale with a brief, dramatic central section, Urioste’s violin singing throughout.

Two works purportedly influenced by Coleridge-Taylor’s African heritage instead conjured for me fin-de-siècle Vienna or Paris. Edusei conducts the genial, light-textured, African Suite, Op.35; Kalena Bovell leads the more dramatic, colourful, Ballade in A Minor, Op.33. 

The theatrical Othello Suite, Op.79, conducted by Fawzi Haimor, begins with Dance – urgent fanfares and a headlong march – followed by the smiling Children’s Intermezzo, stately Funeral March and The Willow Song, poignantly “sung” by a trumpet over hushed winds, strings and percussion. The grandiose Military March ends the suite. Anthony Parnther conducts Coleridge-Taylor’s Petite Suite de Concert, Op.77, its frothy, sentimental, balletic tunes once frequently heard at band and salon concerts, on piano rolls and recordings. The Chineke! Chamber Ensemble performs the Brahmsian, four-movement Nonet, Op.2, for winds, strings and piano. Composed by the 19-year-old Coleridge-Taylor while studying at London’s Royal College of Music, it displays his already considerable melodic gift.

Roderick Cox conducts the 13-minute Sussex Landscape, Op.27 (1936) by Avril Coleridge-Taylor (1903-1998). Her rhapsodic, powerful evocation of a storm-swept, grey-shrouded English seacoast receives its overdue, much-deserved first recording.

Children’s Corner – Music for Solo Piano
Melody Chan
Independent (melodyyvonnechan-li.com)

FACTOR – The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings was set up in 1982 “to provide assistance toward the growth and development of the Canadian Music industry.” Among its primary mandates is to support the production of sound recordings by Canadian musicians and Children’s Corner is among the recent CDs resulting from this worthy endeavour. 

It features American-Canadian pianist Melody Chan presenting a thoughtfully chosen program of music spanning a 250-year period, including works by Mozart, Brahms and Debussy. Born in Los Angeles, Chan was raised in Vancouver and studied at the University of British Columbia, later receiving her doctorate in performance from the University of Toronto. She has appeared with Orchestra Toronto and has taken part in the International Music Festival at Casalmaggiore, Italy.  

The disc opens with Mozart’s well-know variations on Ah vous dirai-je Maman! K265, completed around 1782. Chan’s approach is poised and elegant, and she easily handles the technical requirements of this deceptively challenging work.  

Four selections from Brahms’ Sixteen Waltzes Op.39 from 1865 – originally for piano four hands – are wonderfully spirited, while Debussy’s familiar Children’s Corner Suite from 1908, is an endearing depiction of childhood from a simpler time. Beginning with Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum, Chan’s playing is sensitively articulated, with just the right amount of tempo rubato.

In Summer by Canadian composer Christine Donkin is less familiar, but this languorous essay artfully depicts a summer’s day in northern Alberta, while the four-movement suite Music for Piano by Alexina Louie is an attractive study in contrasts, providing a fitting conclusion to a satisfying program.

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