A Tribute
Band of the Welsh Guards
British Military Music Archive BMMAWG1502 (bmma.org.uk) 

This two-disc set commemorates the 100th anniversary of the establishment of The Band of the Welsh Guards. In 1915, as the British army expanded during the First World War, it was felt that Wales should be represented in the Brigade of Guards. The regiment was formed in February of that year. Soon after, when the establishment of a band was approved, the city of Cardiff helped to purchase a set of instruments, and the band began rehearsals in October. By the time of their first concert in the London Opera House on March 1, 1916, the band had already been in a studio and recorded the first six numbers of CD1. By the end of the year 1916, founding members of that band had recorded all 12 numbers on the first CD. While recording techniques have improved significantly, the audio quality is quite amazing.

While CD1 contains mostly patriotic music, CD2, recorded between 1921 and 1940, contains a variety of musical styles including several novelty numbers of the type performed by bands in the years between the wars. Such numbers as Gaiety Echoes and Wedded Whimsies certainly aren’t likely to be found in the repertoire of concert bands of 2016. One particular novelty number that used to be very popular is The Whistler and His Dog. Written by Arthur Pryor, famed trombone virtuoso of the Sousa band, it has many of the band members whistling the melody and then ends with loud barking. This CD even contains a couple of numbers by the Dance Orchestra. All in all, an excellent preservation of the musical history of the Welsh Guards.

Orono Cornet Band
Orono Cornet Band
Great Canadian Town Band Festival (oronocornetband.com)

Some years ago, trombone player and old town band music fan, David Climenhage established the Great Canadian Town Band Festival in the small town of Orono, east of Toronto. While the festival no longer operates, Climenhage has now focused on another aspect of his interest in the music of the early town bands in Canada. When he got together with Toronto musician Herbert Poole they discovered that they had a common interest in the collection and restoration of old brass musical instruments. They soon decided that, since their instruments were made to produce music, not just to be admired, they should form a band.

The result is Orono Cornet Band which performs the music of the period when the instruments were built. The result is this recording with music composed between 1855 and 1890. Top flight musicians performing on period instruments, ranging from cornets to such lesser-known oddities as the ophicleide and helicon, provide a rare insight into the musical life of small town Canada before motion pictures, radio or television. Where else could you hear such works for a town dance as the Take Me Home Quickstep or the Blue Dahlia Polka Mazurka. Unfortunately, there are no program notes, and while I had never heard of any of the composers, a little research provided much information on one of them. F. H. Torrington founded the Toronto College of Music which became the first music affiliate of the University of Toronto. In 1894 he conducted the very first concert in Massey Hall. For devotees of early brass band music this recording is a must.

Preserving Rediscovered Free Music Classics

Fully grasping the intricacies of musical history often depends on the availability of recorded documents. That’s why many musical histories are re-evaluated once hitherto little known performances become accessible. This is especially crucial when it comes to completely or mostly improvised sounds. Reissued and/or rediscovered sessions, which preserve ephemeral moments, confirm the music’s wide dissemination. More importantly they add the equivalent of additional sentences that provide a fuller understanding of the free music story.

Consisting of almost 78 minutes of music, First Duo Concert (Emanem 5038 emanemdisc.com) is particularly relevant because it captures one dozen interactions between American multi-reedist Anthony Braxton and British guitarist Derek Bailey. Recorded in 1974, it displays the similarities, and as significantly, the differences between free music concepts. Even at this early date Bailey and many of his London-based colleagues rejected the idea of playing anything but in-the-moment music. But as true to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) ethos as Knights Templar would be to their creed during the Crusades, the saxophonist/clarinetist brought not only familiarity with the blues form, but also an interest in semi-composed material and extended explorations in certain techniques to the date – concerns that remain with him more than 40 years later. When the completely improvised Area 3 (open) is reached, congruence turns to cooperation. What originally could have been the jolts produced when two blindfolded players collided with one another turns into a motley garment whose patchwork can envelop grinding string buzzes and harsh clangs as well as resonating timber wolf-like saxophone snarls and moderated bass clarinet ostinato. If gating banjo-like reverb plus internal body tube puffs and renal-like vibrations from his reed collection on Braxton’s part still disturb the evolving continuum like pointed flecks in rough wood grain, then his unexpected peeps and pops lessen as both aim towards measured expression. Allowing each partner’s full expression during single unaccompanied tracks, the duo reaches the zenith of mutual understanding on the extended Area 11 (open). While each still tests the limits of the other’s convictions with the zeal of a small child taunting the family pet, harsh, oblique strums and quivering, aviary-styled peeps from the clarinet finally dovetail enough so that aggressive string thumb taps fit into an accompanying groove, as later circular tweets from sopranino saxophone, clarinet and flute settle uneasily next to guitar strokes. The concluding Area 12 with its corkscrew reed squeaks and rugged string quivers gives notice that neither improvisational philosophy has bested the other. But the framework for future reciprocal idea exchanges has been set.

Three years earlier the protean trio of German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove and Dutch percussionist Han Bennink was constantly touring the continent confirming that a bellicose interpretation of free jazz wasn’t confined to Americans. The CD 1971 (Corbett vs Dempsey CD 020 corbettvsdempsey.com) reissues the band’s justly famous, furiously unyielding set at that year’s New Jazz Meeting, but adds an additional almost 16 minutes of sound recorded four months earlier that demonstrate the hair-trigger-like technical skill that goes into what initially seems like relentless bombast. Like the proverbial tough guy with the gentle interior, Van Hove for one uncovers elegant near-romantic phrasing on Filet Americain, which he expands with harsh clanging, sounding as if he prepared the piano with thumbtacks. Bennink confines himself to clattering reverberations and Brötzmann blows with a burr-like tone. I.C.P. No.17 is more aggressive, with the saxophonist’s subterrestrial exposition echoed by Bennink probably honking through a Tibetan radung or long metal bass horn. Just For Altena the 26-minute final showcase then shows how a palpitating rhythm can be maintained even as the players push techniques past expected instrumental limits. Spelled by the percussionist’s smashing cracks, horn blowing and yells, Brötzmann’s virtually endless honks and glottal punctuation sound as if he’s soon going to be pushing blood out of his horn as well as air. Still he manages to work in quotes from Bavarian marches, polkas, Mexican hat dances and limitless free-jazz glossolalia as he plays, often unaccompanied, reaching beyond the highest imaginable altissimo slur. Like a hyperactive canine, Bennink is also in motion, shoving everything from a conga-drum interlude to bass drum resonation to gong and cymbal clashes into his accompaniment as if boiling a potluck stew. Van Hove marathon-runner-like glissandi share space with crackling kinetic expositions that whack the keys and strings as frequently as they play them. Is it any wonder that at this time this trio could challenge any electrified rock band for pure excitement?

Another band that could do the same was the Willem Breuker Kollektief (WBK), like Bennink, part of Amsterdam’s fertile improv scene. Mixing anarchistic stunts, parody, constant motion, classic tune recreations plus free-form playing with top-line musicianship, the nine-piece group led by saxophonist/clarinetist Breucker (1944-2010) was the epitome of post-modernism. Yet unlike more academically oriented Fluxus or Dada experimentalists, the WBK was so entertaining that this two-CD set recorded live in France, Angoulême 18 mai 1980 (Fou Records FR-CD 9&10 fou.records.free.fr), ends with the raucous audience demanding three successive encores. A European equivalent of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, but infinitely less serious-minded, here the group mixes the precision of Glenn Miller’s band, the romping swing of Count Basie’s and the humour of Laurel and Hardy. During the concert modern jazz originals, a tango, Kurt Weil’s Song of Mandalay, Les Brown and his band of Renown’s theme song Sentimental Journey and finally the hokey I Believe – to disperse the crowd – race by at record pace. Additionally, following Big Busy Band where the group’s solid brassy power is broken up by Rob Verdurmen’s flashy drumming à la Gene Krupa, plus bassist Arjen Gorter playing Blues in the Closet, Breucker exposes his inner Benny Goodman and tenor saxophonist Maaren van Norden outscreams Big Jay McNeeley. Eventually an episode of pseudo-show-biz banter introduces March & Sax Solo with Vacuum Cleaner where Breucker does just that, improvising in tandem and in opposition to the whining household appliance. Like a squad of quick change artists the WBK is capable of taking on any persona, with pianist Henk de Jonge for instance, comping like a bopper, knocking out stride piano asides, beginning and ending Flat Jungle with romantic flourishes and extravagant glissandi that could be Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin, channels Cecil Taylor’s contrasting dynamics in the song’s centre and mocks the saxophonist’s appropriation of the highest altissimo notes in existence with studied, flamboyant quotes from Rhapsody in Blue. Gorter’s bass line and Verdurmen’s back beat ensure that foot-stomping elation is always present, even if the rhythm team may sometimes feel like extras in a Marx Brothers movie with all the musical mayhem going on around them. Still any band that on Potsdamer Stomp mocks rock music’s overwrought yakety saxes via dueling solos from Breuker and baritone Bob Drissen, at the same time as playing Name That Tune, as fragments of everything from Chick Corea’s Spain to the Marine Hymn to circus music loom into earshot, confirms that these discs do a lot more than fill in a three-year gap in the WBK discography. They’re a jubilant listening experience on their own.

If music’s value is judged by its pervasive acceptance, then the tracks on Frictions/Frictions Now (NoBusiness Records NBCD 79 nobusinessrecords.com) are as notable as the better-known efforts by Breuker, Braxton-Bailey and Brötzmann. Independent of other connections, members of the Free Jazz Group Wiesbaden (FJGW) developed a caustic and punchy free music variant, which mixed musique concrète and chance notions from notated music, folkloric instruments and tropes plus improvisation that went beyond freebop into sonic intoxication. Recorded in 1969 and 1971 and released in limited edition, the German band members eventually pursued other paths. Like Quebec’s Walter Boudreau, who went from leading the Zappa-esque ensemble l’Infonie to become a composer and artistic director of Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, trumpeter Michael Sell abandoned improvisation for fully notated work in the 1980s; saxophonist/pianist/flutist Dieter Scherf played with major German free jazzers later in the decade before abandoning music because of dental problems; drummer Wolfgang Schlick and guitarist Gerhard König’s histories are even more obscure. However the three tracks here demonstrate the band’s originality. Coming across like a spiky combination of Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Sharrock and Earl Scruggs, König’s chord-shredding flanges insinuate into whatever spaces the horns leave open with a style that includes surf music intonation, single-string finesse and preparations that could come from double bass. Schlick’s coiled rumbles and consistent thumps range from martial to miasmatic; he doesn’t swing but keeps the pieces moving notwithstanding, even when slamming his metal bracket for unusual rhythms. Squeezing death rattles and hunting-horn-like blares from his trumpet, Sell’s tone resembles those of ur-New Thing players like Earl Cross and Don Ayler. Yet when he unites with Schlick they harmonize enough to approach contemporary jazz, and even flutter out rounded grace notes on the final Frictions Now Part II, to reach a meandering, delicate tempo. Leaping among his instruments like an unsupervised child in a music store, Scherf brings something different to each one. On alto saxophone, obviously influenced by the atonal techniques of American free jazzers, his honks, snorts and blats include crying vibrations that add an unconventional Teutonic melancholy. Brief shenai and oboe interludes introduce World Music allusions to the middle of the extended Frictions, while his inner-piano strums join with König’s finger-style ornamentation on the same piece for stark tonal outlines, finally climaxing with a moving motif that appears to judder from cadence to cacophony and back again.

Like crate digging in a second-hand vinyl store, reissues like these can reveal unexpected values. They confirm the talents of the known or introduce unfamiliar stylists who should have been better known first time out.

A new box of Philips Classics restores to the catalog a wealth of analogue recordings that were, not so long ago, in wide demand by music lovers around the world: Philips Classics The Stereo Years – 50 Analogue Albums in Original Jackets (Decca 4788977, 50 CDs). After WWII Philips entered the blossoming long-playing record business by issuing American Columbia recordings in Europe under their own Philips mini-groove imprint. Columbia, inventors of the long-playing record, owned the LP logo and for many years no other manufacturer could call their product an LP. Very soon LP became generic however and that was that.

Philips productions were of the highest quality, both sonically and in their immaculate pressings. In fact, when their discs were eventually pressed in North America, knowledgeable music lovers sought out the better sounding Dutch pressings in their gatefold covers even though they were marginally more expensive. It may be of some interest to audiophiles that after Ray Dolby developed his noise reduction system that enabled producers and engineers to make more accurate and wider range recordings, Dolby became the universal noise reduction system (and still is). Philips, though, preferred to tilt the high frequencies up in the recording and reverse the process for playback. Simple…tape hiss gone. There’s more to it than that, but that’s how Philips touted it at the time. In 1979 when Polygram bought Decca they owned DG, Philips and Decca, and although each company shared their technologies with the others, each retained its own recognizable sound due to the preferred choice of microphones, set-up and certainly recognizable artistic preferences. Philips, in close cooperation with Sony, devised and perfected digital encoding and in 1979 began recording digitally. The recorded performances in this box are from the analogue era, 50 recordings in replicas of their LP original jackets, often with bonus tracks.

Most music lovers of a certain age – make that of any age – will be thrilled to the teeth to hear the musicians whose artistry lives on in these recordings. Dutch soprano Elly Ameling sings Schumann, Frauenliebe und -leben and Liederkreis, and ten Schubert lieder with Dalton Baldwin and Jörg Demus (1973, 1979). Mezzo Janet Baker sings Handel and Gluck with Raymond Leppard (1972, 1975). Cristina Deutekom, the Dutch coloratura, sings Verdi, Bellini, J. Strauss, etc. (1969, 1971). Dramatic soprano, Jessye Norman sings Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été (1979). Gérard Souzay, the French baritone, sings Handel, Rameau, Lully and Ravel (1963, 1968). José Carreras sings 16 arias from Verdi to Rossini (1976, 1980); and there are others.

Pianist Claudio Arrau, once a towering figure, plays Liszt’s Twelve Transcendental Etudes (1976) and the Concert Paraphrase on Aida (1971), also Beethoven’s Third and Fourth Piano Concertos with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Bernard Haitink (1964). Alfred Brendel plays Schubert’s Sonata D960, The Wanderer Fantasy and Three Klavierstücke D946 (1971, 1974), Liszt’s two concertos and Totentanz (LPO Haitink, 1972), three Mozart concertos, K450, K467 and K488 (1971, 1981) and of course, the Sviatoslav Richter Sofia recital of February 1958. And lots more.

How about symphonies? Brahms’ First and Fourth (van Beinum), Saint-Saëns’ Third (Daniel Chorzempa organ, Edo de Waart). I must mention that this recording was made with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in the organ’s home, De Doelen, Rotterdam. Overwhelming sound. Simply fabulous! Well deserving of mention are the Concertgebouw Orchestra recordings: The Sibelius Second conducted by George Szell, the Dvorak Seventh under Colin Davis, Heldenleben (Haitink), Bruckner Ninth (Haitink), Bruckner Fifth (Eugene Jochum), Schubert Ninth (Haitink) and many other so well-remembered classic recordings.

In this collection there is not a single recording or performance of less than exemplary quality but check them all out for yourself at deccaclassics.com/us/cat/4788977.

Arthaus Musik has issued a Blu-Ray video of a really great live performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Sir Colin Davis, the Bavarian Radio Symphony and soloists Doris Soffel and Kenneth Riegel (ArtHaus Musik 109113). It is fortunate for us that this 1988 event from Munich was flawlessly documented in both audio and video. Davis is not usually remembered for his Mahler, although he has directed impressive productions throughout his career.

Davis was such a natural, intuitive Mahlerian in this performance that it’s a pity that he did not set down a complete cycle of this calibre. Of course he has the redoubtable Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom he recorded the First, Fourth and Eighth, who are surely at home in this work. The best news is the choice of soloists because both Riegel and Soffel have not been able to elsewhere demonstrate their mastery of this demanding work. From the first song, Riegel creates a bright, constantly dramatic tone, cutting through the orchestral welter. Here we can see just how fluently he projects every meaning of the text with intense, vehement authority.

Soffel is captured in a role for which she was clearly born. In this production her alto voice is perfect for the role. She comes into her own after the orchestral interlude in Der Abschied where she projects a sense of loneliness and emptiness with the tone of her voice wherein she keeps any warmth under strict control, to crushing effect.

Mahler, deeply superstitious, salted away the finished score and never heard it performed.

Leonid Kogan (1924-1982) was born in Kiev and came to be one of the foremost violinists of the 20th century. From about 1955 on, he was considered to be among the supreme artists of his era. One only needs to hear any of his recordings to agree. Archipel has returned to the catalog the three Brahms Violin Sonatas with his accompanist Andrei Mytnik (ARPCD 03550). The first two are studio recordings and the third live from Moscow in 1956. As a bonus there are the Brahms Hungarian Dances 1, 2, 4 and 17. From the first few bars of the First Sonata, through to an inspired finale we hear totally natural Brahms played with commanding mastery.

The late Leonard Rose was an American cellist who was best known during the 1950s and the 1960s through his Columbia recordings of concertos with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra and later as a member of the very special Istomin-Stern-Rose Trio. Well-respected are his early 1950s recordings with the New York Philharmonic, of which he was principal cellist, of Bloch’s Schelomo with Dimitri Mitropoulos and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations under George Szell. Although many or most of his Columbia recordings remain in print as reissues, collectors are always on the lookout for live performances from around the world residing in radio archives. There are three cello concertos: Dvořák with Charles Dutoit and the ORTF Orchestra (1967); Saint-Saëns No.1 and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with Louis de Froment from Radio Luxembourg (1961); and Beethoven’s Fifth Cello Sonata with Eugene Istomin (Stratford, 1969). From WQXR in NYC, playing with pianist Nadia Reisenberg, Rose plays Beethoven’s Third Cello Sonata and Brahms First Cello Sonata (1973). These performances issued by Doremi (DHR-8038/9, 2CDs) are not intended to replace his commercial recordings but to confirm and enjoy his unmistakable, now legendary powerful sonorities and musicianship.

It was this latter that provided her introduction to the late Leon Bibb and his son Eric some years ago. She spoke so enthusiastically of this blues duo that when I realized Eric Bibb was coming to Hugh’s Room in January, accompanied by Michael Jerome Browne (whose CD Sliding Delta I discussed in this column last March), I knew it was time for a family outing. Now as I mentioned, mother is getting on in years and mostly prefers matinee performances, but that evening she happily stayed for both sets. Bibb is a storyteller-singer-songwriter who picks a mean guitar – fingerstyle, no actual picks – and has a powerful and gruff, yet melodic voice. His own compositions span a variety of styles but his repertoire also encompasses acoustic blues and roots standards of the last century from field calls to gospel (and he does a mean James Brown).

Bibb’s most recent project focuses on the seminal work of Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly. On Lead Belly’s Gold (Stony Plain Records SPCD 1387 stonyplainrecords.com) Bibb is joined by French harmonica wizard JJ Milteau whose credits include work with Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour but whose main focus is the Blues, an idiom in which he is very well versed. What strikes me most about his playing is the way he incorporates a world of styles into these classic tunes, from the blue note-bending that we’ve come to expect in the genre to sounds that mimic Zydeco accordion produced on his tremolo harmonica.

There are a few Bibb original tunes dedicated to Lead Belly in the mix, but mostly we are presented with songs written by or associated with Lead Belly, including Grey Goose, Midnight Special, Pick a Bale of Cotton, Rock Island Line, Goodnight Irene and House of the Rising Sun. The CD features both live (at the Sunset) and studio recordings, with Bibb and Milteau joined on some tracks by drummer Larry Crockett and bassist Gilles Michel with backing vocals by Big Daddy Wilson and Michael Robinson. If you didn’t have the opportunity to hear these songs thanks to your mother in your formative years – thanks, Mom! – or even if you did, this tribute to one of the true originals of roots music is a great introduction/reminder of where it all began.

One of the discs to cross my desk over the holiday season was the latest from Newfoundland jazz and swing guitarist Duane Andrews entitled Conception Bay (duaneandrews.ca). The shadow of Django Reinhardt looms large, as it always does in Andrews’ repertoire, both in the form of Reinhardt covers and original compositions in the Hot Club style. I was delighted to find Reinhardt’s Swing 39, which I first heard on a Quintet of the Hot Club of France LP some 40 years ago, in a lively and convincing rendition which sees Andrews in duet with fellow Newfoundlander, violinist Mark Fewer. As a matter of fact all four members of the string quartet who make up the band here are originally from Newfoundland: Lynn Kuo, violin; Angela Pickett, viola and Amahl Arulanamdam, cello.

Not all of the music is in the swing style and fittingly there are some Newfoundland-inspired tunes including Andrews’ Gigues plus traditional Reels and Otto Kelland’s Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s. The quartet members all have strong careers in classical music (although not to the exclusion of other musical forms – they are remarkably eclectic) and we find nods to the world of composed music in the form of the Lullaby from Stravinsky’s Firebird and a suite of Improvisations on Chopin’s Op.64, No.2. The darkly impressionistic title track, another Andrews original, is a stark portrayal of the landform, presumably in the dead of winter. But we are not left out in the cold – the disc ends with a sunny, breakneck version of Sweet Georgia Brown. Highly recommended!

Glass Houses Volumes 1 & 2 (Centrediscs CMCCD 22215) is a simple repackaging of two previous releases featuring Christina Petrowska Quilico. As I said in my original review in 2011, “Glass Houses Revisited is a reworking of Ann Southam’s ‘fiendishly difficult etudes’ the pianist was working on with the composer at the time of her death in November 2010. Originally composed in 1981, the title Glass Houses refers to minimalist composer Philip Glass, the best-known proponent of this style at the time of writing, and to choreographer Christopher House with whom Southam worked extensively. The mostly ebullient, busily joyful pieces were revised in 2009 for Petrowska Quilico and further edited by her with the composer’s permission for this recording in 2010. The disc features nine ‘favourite’ selections from the set, arranged with four lively pieces on either side of the solitary ‘broody and moody’ track, Glass House No.13. Overall they are a weaving and embroidering of various melodic motifs that, in Ann Southam’s words ‘reflect the nature of traditional women’s work – repetitive, life-sustaining, requiring time and patience.’ One can only imagine the patience and diligence required of Petrowska Quilico to master these complex and exhilarating gems, and master them she has.”

While the first disc purports to comprise Petrowska Quilico’s “favourite” selections, no less care or enthusiasm is given to the remaining six etudes on Glass Houses Volume 2. Here’s what Dr. Réa Beaumont had to say in her review in June 2014: “The pianist and production team have given careful thought to the order that the pieces appear on the album. From a shimmering opening to intense, driving movements, there are also playful moments with unexpected jazz riffs. Petrowska Quilico’s recording exemplifies the artistry and physical endurance that are required to create this seamless musical vision for one of Ann Southam’s masterpieces.”

If you didn’t take our word for it first time round, this new edition is a cost effective ($20 at musiccentre.ca) way to rectify that and to get the whole collection.

We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4. We also encourage you to visit our website thewholenote.com where you can find added features including direct links to performers, composers and record labels, “buy buttons” for online shopping and additional, expanded and archival reviews.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

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Review

Volksmobiles is the quite fascinating first CD from collectif9 (collectif9.ca), the Montreal string ensemble that made its debut in 2011 and is composed of four violins, two violas, two cellos and a bass. The players met through their studies at McGill University and the Université de Montréal, and their assertion that the ensemble size enables them to combine the power of an orchestra with the crispness of a chamber ensemble is more than justified by the results here.

Two arrangements by the group’s bass player Thibault Bertin-Maghit open the program: a simply dazzling version of Brahms’ Rondo alla zingarese (check out the video on their website!) and a short but effective transcription of the Allegretto from Alfred Schnittke’s Violin Sonata No.1.

The central work on the disc is the title track, a short three-part piece commissioned by the group from the Guelph composer Geof Holbrook. Its opening movement has more than a hint of Marjan Mozetich about it (no bad thing!) and the third movement is a clever mixture of percussive effects and pizzicato.

A condensed Allegro assai from Bartok’s Divertimento is a more substantial piece played with a great sense of style, and André Gagnon’s really short but exuberant Petit concerto pour Carignan, an homage to the legendary Quebecois fiddler Jean Carignan, rounds out the disc with a wicked cross-mixture of Bach and fiddle music.

I have only one complaint, and although it’s a big one it’s also a positive one: clocking in at just over 29 minutes for the seven tracks, the disc feels more like a sampler CD than a debut disc, and it certainly leaves you really wanting to see what the group does with a more substantial program. Hopefully we will be hearing a great deal more – in both quantity and length – from this dynamic ensemble in the not-too-distant future.

Concert Note: You can hear collectif9 live courtesy of Music Toronto at Jane Mallett Theatre on March 10. The program will include the Holbrook mentioned above and works by Brahms, Shostakovich, Bartók, Schnittke, Hindemith and Prokofiev.

Listen

1. Brahms – Ronda alla zingarese

2. Alfred Schnittke - Sonata, Alegretto (arranged by Thibault Bertin-Maghit)

3. Geof Holbrook – Volksmobiles, Part 1

Video

The Swiss-based Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta is simply stunning in Vasks Presence, the world premiere recording of the Concerto No.2 for Cello and String Orchestra, “Klātbūtne – Presence,” which was written for her by the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (Sony 88725423122). The work, premiered in October 2012, was commissioned by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, which is conducted here by Candida Thompson.

The concerto is described as portraying the hope that the individual may find peace and purification in a conflict-ridden here and now, and consequently has passages of both great beauty and dissonant struggle. There’s a glorious build-up throughout the opening Cadenza – Andante cantabile, a tough and choppy Allegro moderato with distinct shades of Shostakovich, and another lovely build through the Adagio final movement, Gabetta adding a really lovely and almost Bachian vocalise at the end, as the cello soars to the highest and quietest of endings.

Grāmata čellam – The Book is a two-movement work for solo cello, with a strong, percussive and impassioned Fortissimo followed by a Pianissimo that again requires Gabetta to add a vocalise. Written in 1978, it was the first work of Vasks that Gabetta heard and led directly to their ongoing friendship.

For Musique du soir for Cello and Organ, Gabetta is joined by her mother, the organist Irène Timacheff-Gabetta. Vasks has said that the evening of the title refers to the evening both of the day and of life; it’s a strongly tonal and very effective work.

The standard of Gabetta’s playing and interpretation throughout a challenging program is quite astonishing, especially in view of the amount of solo writing and the remarkably high and demanding technical level of the music. It is the Cello Concerto that really stands out here though, and as Vasks assisted with the recording this is clearly a definitive performance of what is a significant addition to the contemporary cello concerto repertoire. It’s a simply indispensable CD for anyone interested in the genre.

There’s another excellent cello CD this month, this time with cellist Truls Mørk as soloist in the Cello Concertos Nos.1 and 2 of Saint-Saëns on a Chandos Super Audio CD (CHSA 5162). Neeme Järvi conducts the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

Saint-Saëns was an astonishingly gifted musician whose life spanned a period of enormous musical change – he was born eight years after Beethoven’s death and was still alive three years after the end of the First World War – but his music was often regarded as out-of-date almost as soon as it was written. Still, what music it is at times!

The two concertos, written in 1872 and 1902, must have been welcome additions to the solo cello orchestral repertoire, which was still quite thin on the ground by the late 1800s. Concerto No.1 in A Minor Op.33 is a three-movement work with a lovely Allegretto as the middle movement, while the Concerto No.2 in D Minor Op.119 is a shorter two-movement work with equally beautiful lyricism in the slower passages. Mørk plays with a warm tone and fine sense of style throughout both concertos.

The additional works on the CD offer ample proof of the composer’s all-round ability. Pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier join Alasdair Malloy on glass harmonica and members of the orchestra for a joyous performance of Le Carnaval des animaux, Grande Fantaisie zoologique for Two Pianos, Flute, Clarinet, Glass Harmonica, Xylophone and Strings. The work grew out of a cello solo – Le Cygne – which the composer wrote for a cellist friend in 1886, but while the famous Swan was soon published Saint-Saëns never allowed the entire work to be performed outside of a small circle of his friends; it remained unpublished until 1922, after the composer’s death. Not surprisingly, Mørk shines in his famous solo turn.

Two concert pieces for piano and orchestra complete a diverse and highly entertaining CD: the well-known Caprice-Valse Op.76 “Wedding Cake,” and the fantasia Africa Op.89, both of them showcasing the terrific talents of Louis Lortie.

The outstanding Hyperion series The Romantic Violin Concerto reaches Volume 19 with three works by Max Bruch – the Violin Concerto No.1 in G Minor Op.26, the Romance in A Minor Op.42 and the Serenade in A Minor Op.75 – in performances by the English violinist Jack Liebeck and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins (CDA68060).

Bruch wrote three works officially designated as violin concertos, but that wasn’t the full extent of his compositions in that form; both the Scottish Fantasy and the Serenade included here are four-movement works that are concertos in all but name. The former was coupled with the Violin Concerto No.3 on Volume 17 of this series in performances by the same personnel.

Bruch was constantly exasperated by the popularity of the G minor concerto at the expense of his other – and in his opinion, better – violin concertos, but it remains probably the most popular of all the Romantic violin concertos. It’s given a lovely performance here.

Bruch’s other violin concertos are much better served by recordings now than they used to be, but even if you do know the other two concertos and the Scottish Fantasy the chances are that the Serenade will be new to you; if so, you’re in for a real treat. It’s a lengthy work from 1899, when the composer was 61 but still had more than 20 years left in his life. Written for and at the prompting of the Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, it’s a simply beautiful work by a mature composer in complete control of his craft; the third movement Notturno in particular is absolutely gorgeous.

The single-movement Romance dates from 1874, some six years after the first concerto, and was intended as the opening movement of what Bruch thought would be a second concerto. The booklet notes describe it as “rather uneventful, although very beautiful,” the latter a word that regularly seems to crop up in discussions of Bruch’s music.

The noted English musicologist Sir Donald Tovey once said that “it is not easy to write as beautifully as Max Bruch.” That’s quite true – and it’s not easy to play as beautifully as Jack Liebeck, either. Add the outstanding orchestral support and the lovely recorded sound and you have a supremely satisfying CD.

Johannes Brahms was notoriously self-critical, often ruthlessly destroying early compositions as well as his ongoing revisions of existing works. As a result, musicologists rarely have the opportunity to observe the compositional process and to make comparisons between initial and final versions of Brahms’ works.

One welcome exception to this is the Piano Trio No.1 in B Major Op.8, presented in its original 1854 version along with the Piano Quartet No.3 in C Minor Op.60 on a new harmonia mundi CD by the Trio Wanderer (HMC 902222).

The trio was completed in early 1854, when Brahms was still only 20. By the time it was accepted by the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf and Härtel, Brahms was already having serious doubts about the work and considered withdrawing it, as he “would certainly have made changes in it later.” Although he did not prevent its publication he had nothing to do with the work’s premiere. When he did finally revisit the work 35 years later his revisions were so all-encompassing that they amounted to a virtual recomposition of the piece, and the admittedly more focused and structured result is the version usually performed today. The original version, though, is a delightful and by no means lightweight snapshot of the young Brahms, and makes us wonder again what we may have lost in the large number of destroyed early string quartets.

Trio Wanderer is joined by Christophe Gaugué on viola for the piano quartet, a work whose seeds were sown in 1855 in an unfinished quartet in C-sharp minor, two of the three movements being extensively reworked for the completed Op.60 in 1875.

The period of the work’s gestation, covering his relationship with Clara Schumann, together with Brahms’ comments to the publisher Simrock in which he likened himself to Goethe’s Romantic poet Werther (who committed suicide over an unrequited love) have led to suggestions that the quartet embodies Brahms’ unfulfilled love for Clara; certainly the passion and yearning – not exactly uncommon traits in Brahms’ music, it must be said – would seem to make it much more than a mere possibility.

Trio Wanderer performers – violinist Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, cellist Raphaël Pidoux and pianist Vincent Coq – all graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris in the 1980s and went on to study at the Juilliard School in New York. The trio was formed in 1987, and the lineup has been unchanged since Phillips-Varjabédian replaced the initial violinist in 1996. Their sensitive and beautifully recorded performances here make this new release a welcome addition to their impressive discography of some two dozen discs.

The ambitious Hinrich Alpers Complete Piano Works of Ravel (Honens 201502CD) will have been several years in preparation before its extensive recording sessions at The Banff Centre in 2015. There’s so much that’s superb about this recording and virtually no space in this column to say even a fraction of it. We’ll settle then, for some praise lavished on a few of the many exceptional tracks.

Pavane pour une infant défunte has never been more lovingly played, perched just on the threshold of deep melancholy. Alpers’ touch and tone are impeccable. Oiseaux tristes from Miroirs also benefits from Alpers’ tactile genius at the keyboard where the gentlest of hammer strokes evoke unimaginable bird calls. His Gaspard de la nuit is entirely brilliant but its Ondine is especially fluid and sparkling. In the closing track, Alpers holds nothing back in La Valse and its devastation of the old order.

Six bonus tracks add homages to Ravel by composers like Honegger and Casella. This 2-CD set is a wonderful and complete document for all enthusiastic Ravellians.

The 2009 laureate takes a very different direction in Gilles Vonsattel, Shadowlines (Honens 201501CD). The central and title work of the recording is George Benjamin’s Shadowlines, around which Vonsattel programs related material. Three Scarlatti sonatas open the CD. They’re crisp, emphatically punctuated and use every performance advantage the modern piano offers. With tonality and rhythm established, the Messiaen Quatre etudes de rythme: No.4 moves sharply toward a new form that along with the Webern Variations Op.27 influenced George Benjamin’s work. Vonsattel thus far proves himself capable of both incisive playing and introspective repose.

In Shadowlines, Vonsattel opens beautifully to freer form before returning to Messiaen whose Préludes are a perfect bridge to the closing tracks by Debussy. It’s a very satisfying and well-constructed program that Vonsattel holds together both intellectually and artistically. His particular gift seems to be understanding how best to highlight the stylistic differences of each composer.

He’s an adventurous and intelligent musician who brings obvious rationale to a convincingly expressive keyboard style.

Eric Huebner is a versatile musician with eight recordings to his credit. Many of them are ensemble performances of contemporary music, so it’s a thrill to hear what he does on this new solo CD Eric Huebner Plays Schumann, Carter and Stravinsky (New Focus Recordings FCR159). Huebner’s performance of the Schumann Kreisleriana Op.16 is competent and direct with memorable tenderness flowing through the Sehr langsam movement. It is, however, his playing of three movements from Stravinsky’s Petrouchka that really tempts one to reach for superlatives.

While many pianists begin the Danse Russe at full throttle, Huebner holds back throughout this section and saves his energy for the maniacal marathon of playing required for La semaine grasse. His clarity and endurance are truly impressive. Better still is the intervening movement, Chez Petrouchka, which I have never heard played with such impish energy and mysticism. He uses the silence between notes to powerful effect and adds unexpected hesitations to rests. It’s a brilliant performance.

The recording also includes the rather dense Night Fantasies by Elliott Carter. Huebner is very much at home with this material. It’s unstructured and leaves the performer to create an episodic map that makes interpretive sense for the listener. Its length requires intellectual discipline to sustain interest and Huebner has no difficulty doing this, effectively conveying Carter’s world of half wakefulness in the middle of the night.

The dynamism of dual piano performance asserts itself powerfully in American Intersections (Two Pianists Records TP1039220). Nina Schumann and Luis Magalhäes have performed together since 1999. Their latest recording seeks to reflect the melting pot of influences that defines American music, Blues, Latin, Ragtime, etc.

 Souvenirs Op.28 is Samuel Barber’s collection of dances for piano four hands. Schumann and Magalhäes, however, play an arrangement for two pianos and take advantage of the opportunity for the richer performance that this offers. They adhere faithfully to Barber’s strong romantic leaning without neglecting his frequent modernist flirtations.

William Bolcom’s Recuerdos is a three-part set of homages to composers like Nazareth and Gottschalk. The Paseo opens and closes with a sublime Latin-influenced rag that is utterly captivating. But the show-stealer is the final homage to Delgado Palacios, in which the duo brings explosive energy to Bolcom’s Valse Venezolano.

When Leonard Bernstein arranged Copland’s El Salón México for two pianos in 1941, it soon eclipsed the version for single keyboard. This recording of the piece captures every orchestral nuance and turn of phrase. It’s a terrific performance.

Frederic Rzewski echoes the powerful pulse of American industry in Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. The pounding episode that opens the piece surrenders to a mildly dissonant blues segment beautifully played, which then blends back into a combined machine-pulsed blues to close the piece.

Hallelujah Junction by John Adams is a complex and difficult piece. Schumann and Magalhäes perform this superbly. There’s a devilishly complex rhythm just before the slower middle section which they handle flawlessly. The work’s relentless drive to its finish seems no challenge at all to this very gifted pair.

Peter Hill’s latest recording project is JS Bach – The French Suites (Delphian DCD34166). Hill is perhaps best known for his recordings of contemporary repertoire, his books on Stravinsky and Messiaen, and his master classes at major music schools around the world. His recording of the Bach French Suites is, therefore, especially interesting.

Hill plays this music with a great deal of affection. While Bach’s pedagogical intent is always clear in the two- and three-voice counterpoint, Hill reaches further to find the beauty in every melodic fragment. He’s not the least shy about using the piano’s expressive potential to colour the main ideas. He’s quite disciplined about the regulated speed at which this baroque repertoire needs to proceed and reserves his subtle ritardandos exclusively for phrase endings. He also makes a practice of lightening up on the touch at the same time. The combined effect of these creates a reverent and respectful closing punctuation. Hill’s ornamental technique is tasteful and well considered. It’s always clean and of just the right length.

His playing overall is somewhat understated and he makes the Steinway concert grand sound both delicate and fragile. He rarely rises beyond mezzo forte, even in the Gigue of Suite No.5 in G Major where it could credibly happen. This is also true of the Mozart Suite in C K399 which many have played much more aggressively. Hill’s performance is beautifully articulate, completely unpedalled and has a meditative quality about it.

Handel – Acis and Galatea
Boston Early Music Festival; Paul O’Dette; Stephen Stubbs
CPO 777 877-2

There have been several fine recordings of Acis and Galatea in the recent past. I myself am especially fond of the recording conducted by John Eliot Gardiner with Norma Burrowes and the late Anthony Rolfe Johnson in the main parts (on Archiv). Still, this new recording is something else. It is fast-paced and light on its feet. The singing and the playing are exceptional. I especially enjoyed the tenor Jason McStoots, who sings Damon, the lovely oboe playing by Gonzalo X. Ruiz and the virtuoso sopranino recorder obbligato by Kathryn Montoya in Hush, ye pretty warbling quire! It was also a pleasure to hear our own Dominic Teresi, the principal bassoon of Tafelmusik.

The recording seeks to reconstruct the first performance of 1718 and uses not a choir in the modern sense of the word but a group of six singers, five of whom are also soloists. The minimum number of orchestral players needed is seven; this recording uses ten, presumably because an archlute, a theorbo and a double bass have been added. The recording includes the chorus Wretched lovers, which signals the arrival of the Cyclops Polyphemus and marks the shift from rural innocence to impending violence. Here the directors have not been altogether consistent as that chorus is a later addition and is generally thought to have been added in 1739.

The record also includes a substantial bonus in the cantata Sarei troppo felice (1707), beautifully sung by soprano Amanda Forsythe.

Johann Simon Mayr – Saffo
Brown; Schafer; Yun; Papenmeyer; Ruckgaber; Preis; Bavarian State Opera; Franz Hauk
Naxos 8.660367-68

Rossini – Il Signor Bruschino
de Candia; Lepore; Aleida; Alegret; Orchestra Sinfonica G Rossini; Daniele Rustioni
Opus Arte OA 1109 D

For your next vacation, why not go to Pesaro on the sunny beaches of the Adriatic and if you are an opera lover, to the Rossini festival, a really fun destination judging by this video. Venice is not too far away either where the 20-year-old Rossini spent his first creative period writing operas for a near bankrupt theatre company that took a chance on the young fellow with no previous experience in writing anything, let alone opera. Amusingly, the elders of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro did much the same thing in trusting this revival of Il Signor Bruschino to a young theatre group, Teatro Sotteraneo, with no previous experience in opera. The directors of the group are all in their 20s and full of ideas, energy and fun.

The scene for this one-act farsa giocosa is a modern-day theme park complete with Coke machines, popcorn, balloons and silly hats. Tourists of all ages wander in and out snapping photos and are invited to join in the even sillier plot where everyone lies except the poor put-upon protagonist, Bruschino. In fact they confuse him so much that he ends up wondering who he is and there is typical Rossinian mayhem, except for the wonderful music and the singing. The polished cast are mainly young people such as the soprano, Maria Aleida, spectacular in her high register, and her suitor, David Algret, a fine tenor. The principal baritones: Roberto de Candia (Signor Bruschino) and Carlo Lepore, the guardian of the bride, who arrives on a Segway, singing his cavatina riding on it up and down the stage, are a bit older and undoubtedly best in show. In charge of it all is the conductor Daniele Rustioni who is barely out of his teens, just like the composer.

Verdi – Macbeth
Zeljko Lucic; Anna Netrebko; René Pape; Joseph Calleja; Metropolitan Opera; Fabio Luisi
Deutsche Grammophon 073 5222

For me the most sublime moment in Macbeth is the Gran concertato just after the murder of King Duncan when out of the anguished a cappella chorus the orchestra finally joins in with a melody direct from heaven (and how beautifully did Sinopoli do it!), but that was nothing compared to the intense joy and outburst of the Met audience following Vieni! T’affretta, Anna Netrebko’s first salvo as Lady Macbeth. And that Sleepwalking Scene! Oh my! It was an inspired decision to revive Macbeth for the 2014 season with Netrebko as the lead soprano. The woman had never sung the role before, her voice more suited to the lyrical and coloratura repertory or so people thought. But they didn’t know Netrebko! After 2007, when she sang a few bel canto roles at the Met, she went back to Europe scoring triumph upon triumph in the most challenging prima donna roles: Manon in Berlin, Anna Bolena in Vienna, Donna Anna at La Scala. Nevertheless, here she is, Lady Macbeth in New York, seductive in her silk chiffon dress, packing the house again to capacity, her voice extending to a high D flat and also extending the Met’s sagging profits.

Fortunately, the rest of the cast is not outclassed by Netrebko’s radiance. The great basso René Pape (Banquo) is a distinguished credit to a rather short role (as he gets killed quickly) and so is the tenor, Joseph Calleja (Macduff), but at least he survives. Serbian baritone Zeljko Lucic (Macbeth) is a fine character actor with a strong voice, but no match for the great Italian baritones (e.g. Leo Nucci or Renato Bruson) of yesteryear. Exciting yet sensitively refined conducting by new Met principal conductor Fabio Luisi amply compensates for the still unsurpassed legendary Sinopoli reading.

Szymanowski – Król Roger
Kwiecień; Jarman; Pirgu; Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Antonio Pappano
Opus Arte OA 1151 D

It took almost a century from its premiere in Warsaw in 1926 for Król Roger (King Roger) to reach the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London. Belated though it is, this debut is nothing short of a triumph. It is by far the finest production of this modernist opera that I have seen. The great strength of Szymanowski’s music is its exuberant, ecstatic orchestral colour, making it more neo-romantic than modernist. Mariusz Kwiecień, whose portrayal of King Roger may be a career-defining moment, put it like this: “To compose this music, you must be either on drugs or mad.” Think Ravel, Scriabin, Bartók, but also Górecki. In the past, infrequent as they were, many productions of the opera faltered on stage because of its halting rhythms. The work jumps from bacchanal celebration to a standstill oratorio within its slim, 90-minute timeframe. Director Kasper Holten brilliantly unites the two polar opposites, with some help from the gorgeous set designed by Steffen Aarfing. Among the many charms of this work are wonderful choral passages and showcase arias for the female protagonist, Queen Roxana, masterfully delivered by Georgia Jarman. Saimir Pirgu as the Shepherd is beguiling and free. All the cast benefit from having a native Polish speaker (Kwiecień) on hand – the language coaching is well beyond the typical, cringe-inducing sound imitation that plagues the productions of many Czech, Polish and Russian operas in the West. Antonio Pappano not only conducts the work, he breathes Szymanowski’s music. This production will likely propel King Roger into the sphere of interest of the major opera houses in the world. Bravi!

Cloud Light – Songs of Norbert Palej
Bogdanowicz; McGillivray; Wiliford; Woodley; Philcox
Centrediscs CMCCD 22315

The song or chanson or lied died with Benjamin Britten – or that is the impression you might have gotten by visiting your neighbourhood record store or any concert hall. While Brahms, Strauss, Schubert and Mahler song cycles are everywhere, very little in that genre seems to have originated since the middle of the 20th century. It is more that the song itself has changed, rather than disappeared. Pianist Steven Philcox and tenor Lawrence Wiliford, directors of the Canadian Art Song Project, summed it up succinctly in the liner notes to this recording: “…the experimentation of the 20th century avant-garde rejected the intimacy that is inherent to the genre…”

Enter Norbert Palej (Pah-Lay), a Polish-born composer, still in his 30s, currently teaching at the University of Toronto. He restores to the song what for centuries was its golden measure: the intricate relationship between poetry and music, the latter being an emotional outgrowth of the former. All cycles included on this disc evoke an earlier era, with respect for the text and an intimacy of interpretation. Cloud Light, not written for any specific voice, invites comparisons with les nuits d’été by Berlioz. Most surprisingly, despite being an homage to the 19th- and early 20th-century tradition of song, the work sounds utterly contemporary and modern. It is as if after 50 years in the wilderness, the genre is coming back into its own. A welcome return!

Sacred Reflections of Canada – A Canadian Mass
Canadian Chamber Choir; Julia Davids
Independent (canadianchamberchoir.ca)

The working style of the Canadian Chamber Choir is unique; with members spread across the country, they convene at least twice a year for short projects after learning their parts at home. A rehearsal period of a few days is hosted by a school, choir or community and the choir then returns the favour by providing workshops before they embark on tour. Their mandate, therefore, is not just to perform, but to build community by educating and engaging as many singers as possible on each tour while introducing the works of established as well as emerging Canadian composers.

This recording, nominated for the 2016 JUNO Awards Classical Album of the Year, is organized into the format of a mass, incorporating 19 works by 17 Canadian composers. Amongst the five movements of the Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei) are interspersed a number of other reflective sacred pieces in exquisite a cappella renderings. For example, composer-in-residence Jeff Enns’ O magnum mysterium begins with the purist soprano solo by Megan Chartrand; Robert Ingari’s beautiful and rich setting of Ave Maria is contrasted by another, mysterious and dissonant, by James Fogarty. Director Julia Davids has chosen the pieces well, and woven the parts into a flowing and cohesive whole, whilst directing the itinerant choir in a stunning performance.

Voices of Earth
Amadeus Choir; Lydia Adams; Bach Children’s Chorus; Linda Beaupré
Centrediscs CMCCD 21915

Lydia Adams’ Amadeus Choir has produced its eighth CD, featuring the music of four Canadian composers, two of whom perform on the recording. The title piece is composed and played by pianist Ruth Watson Henderson, joined by a percussion ensemble along with another featured composer, Eleanor Daley, playing the celeste. This, and others on the recording, afford another opportunity for the choir to partner with the Bach Children’s Chorus, celebrating 28 years of collaboration. Voices of Earth is a multi-movement work with a great variety of harmonic colour and ever-changing rhythms which mirror the dynamic character of nature and creation. Similarly, the next piece, Of Heart and Tide by Sid Robinovitch, portrays another force of nature, the sea, with musical undercurrents evoking the awesome power therein. Eleanor Daley’s pieces are of a different character altogether and contrast nicely; her Salutation of the Dawn and Prayer for Peace are essentially quiet, heartfelt devotionals. I Will Sing Unto the Lord by Imant Raminsh is joyful and jubilant, rounding out the program nicely. It is, as always, truly wonderful to experience the convergence of excellent singers, instrumentalists, conductor and composers who are unequivocally passionate about choral music.