Glistening Pianos – Music by Alice Ping Yee Ho
Duo Piano 2X10
Centrediscs CMCCD 19714

There is a plethora of exquisite aural delights in this new release featuring the music of Hong Kong-born Canadian composer Alice Ping Yee Ho.

As to be expected from the Canadian Music Centre Centrediscs label, the usual high production qualities, first class performance, musicianship and strong compositions create a great listening experience. The five very distinct and contrasting pieces offer a superb cross section of styles, tonal sensibilities and musical forays, making Glistening Pianos the perfect calling card for the composer. Each work features the core piano duo 2X10 – pianists Midori Koga and Lydia Wong are powerhouse technicians who both easily jump through demanding technical and musical hoops. Their expertise glistens, sparkles and glitters when they sound like one piano in the more tonal opening title track while their keyboard conversations in An Eastern Apparition reveal two distinct yin and yang musical beings. The closing track Heart to Heart features a calmer ethereal mood reminiscent of 19th century romantic piano repertoire. Flutist Susan Hoeppner joins the duo in the emotive Chain of Being. There is just too much fun taking place in War!, a funky LOUD frolic, inspired by Ho’s daughter Bo Wen Chan’s spoken lyrics, featuring percussionist Adam Campbell, electronics.

Only the omission of composition dates beside the titles keeps the listener from fully appreciating the development of Ho’s firm grasp of writing for piano, from florid fast ascending and descending lines to rhythmic marching backdrops and glistening piano timbres.

Kitchen Party
Derek Charke; Mark Adam
Centrediscs CMCCD 19814

The idea behind this CD is simple: give a theme to seven East Coast composers and ask them to write something four to ten minutes long for flute and percussion and premiere the outcomes at a traditional Nova Scotia kitchen party for 70 guests. The flute-percussion duo comprises “extended techniques” specialist flutist Derek Charke and “veteran of virtually every percussion genre,” Mark Adam, now both music professors at Acadia University in Wolfville. The composers may all be from Nova Scotia but their music is from all over the map (in a good way!).

Redundancy is out and originality is in; everyone has something different and interesting to say.

There is, as one would hope, lots of extended flute technique – whistles, harmonics, multiphonics, pops and buzzes, as in some of the variations in Charke’s contribution, ‘Reel’ Variations on a Jig and Jim O’Leary’s Music for Amplified Bass Flute and Drum Set.

There is also lots of very contemporary melodic writing as in John Plant’s Capriccio, in which the forward momentum of the marimba’s arpeggiated ostinato is matched by the flute’s equally dynamic melody line, and even a toe-tapping jig in Charke’s piece. And then there are the fascinating rhythms, as in Anthony Genge’s Third Duo, Jeff Hennessy’s Balor’s Flute and Robert Bauer’s Café Antiqua. Yes, there is even some Japanese-inspired music in Charke’s improvisation, recorded live at the kitchen party.

So you don’t think you like contemporary music? Think again!

The Big Picture
David Krakauer
Table Pounding TDR 002 davidkrakauer.com

Anti-Semitism or approval is behind the oft-repeated canard that “Jews run Hollywood,“ but certainly no one can deny the influence producers, directors, writers and composers of Jewish background have had on the history of cinema. Clarinetist David Krakauer pays tribute to Hollywood’s Semitic tinge on The Big Picture performing a dozen songs from films whose actors, director, composer or themes reflect Jewish topics. Considering that the movies range from Sophie’s Choice to The Producers it’s fortunate that Krakauer’s equally varied musical affiliations have encompassed John Zorn, the Klezmatics, Itzhak Perlman and symphony orchestras.

Krakauer’s usual strategy is to retain the jaunty theme to songs like “Tradition“ from Fiddler on the Roof, as slippery clarinet trills; Jenny Scheinman’s see-sawing violin strings and pedal reverb from Adam Rogers’ guitars contrast a parallel musical identity for the tune. These novel arrangments work whether the psychedelic guitar excess on “Honeycomb“ from Lenny is over-emphasized, or whether on “Si Tu Vois Ma Mére“ used in Midnight in Paris, Krakauer subverts the rote two-beat Dixieland from Jim Black’s drums with roadhouse boogie bumps from bass and rhythm guitar as well as disco-era sound loops. At the same time while skittering fiddle modulations, accordion slurs and strumming guitar lines may give a piece like “Love Theme“ from Sophie’s Choice an interface that sounds more Palm Springs than Poland, Krakauer’s own tone, complete with heartfelt trills and spectro-fluctuation never mocks the music’s underlying melancholy.

More to the point Krakauer’s reed skill is such that he makes you hear some songs in new ways. Playing bass clarinet on Funny Girl’s middle-of-road staple “People“ for instance, his intense vibrato joined with cascading piano chords and violin runs strengthens the melody’s poignancy without letting it fall into sentimentality. Overall The Big Picture is an outstanding salute to movies, music and movie music, whatever their origins.

The Musical Voyages of Marco Polo
Maria Farantouri; En Chordais; Ensemble Constantinople; Kyriakos Kalaitzidis
World Village WVF 479092

Italy to China in Marco Polo’s footsteps, interpreted stage by stage by local music, inspired Kyriakos Kalaitzidis to coordinate and to compose a virtual journey along the Silk Road.

Early music enthusiasts will get their eye (or ear) drawn in with the well-known Lamento di Tristano which weaves its sedate course by bringing together Western European and Middle-Eastern instruments. This same combination forms Kalaitzidis’ choice for one of his own compositions, the equally sedate Marco’s Dream. What a contrast then with his second composition, Gallop, which conjures up Marco Polo confidently and swiftly crossing the Silk Road on his mission.

As Marco Polo moves eastward the music escorts him, as its style changes. In Migrants Circles lyrics by the 14th century Iranian poet Hafez are inspired by a Chinese melody. Kiya Tabassian (sitar and voice) brilliantly conveys the winding and demanding nature of Marco Polo’s journeyings.

 Then the traveller reaches Uzbekistan for perhaps the most impassioned song on the CD: Ey Dilbari Jonomin (Oh, my heart-stealing beauty) where the voices of Kalaitzidis and Nodira Permatova are allowed to express the song’s haunting quality, accompanied only by oud, viola and violin. All too soon we are back on the road east with Five steps, a piece played on Nepalese sarangi to guide us to Mongolia, where Chandmani nutag evokes the latter’s grasslands and streams.

Finally, China. Yi Zu Wu Qu (dance of the Yi nation) is a thoughtful piece for solo pipa, contrasting with the complex seven-part Musical Voyages of Marco Polo. And then a final inspiration. Greek legend Maria Farantouri sings Xenos (the stranger), conveying Marco Polo’s feelings of being a stranger in a new life. Farantouri, long considered one of the foremost interpreters of Greek music, has lost none of her touch. Enjoy this expressive journey.

Mañana
Amanda Martinez
Independent (amandamartinez.ca)

Latina songstress, broadcaster, actor and composer/lyricist, Amanda Martinez’ latest CD, Mañana is a zesty musical “Caldo” – brilliantly and authentically produced by Javier Limon and George Seara. The 12 tracks provide a tasty banquet of original, Mexican and Tejano-inspired compositions, served up with healthy doses of a tropically infused blend of the tart and the sweet. On Mañana, Martinez wears several hats – as artist, composer and lyricist, and the recording itself is a tribute to the musical influences of her beloved Mexico, imbued with contemporary and traditional motifs as well as stylish arrangements and superb musicianship and vocals from her fine ensemble.

Martinez’ co-creators include the talented bassist Drew Birston, singer Fernando Osorio, skilled guitarist Kevin Laliberte, Javier Limón (arranger and co-producer) and writers Elsten Torres, Daniel Martinez Velasco, Claudia Brant and Nana Maluca. All songs on Mañana are sung in Spanish, with the exception of three: “Frozen” – featuring Martinez’ intriguing narrative lyric, “Le Chemin,” rendered in flawless French, and the youthfully romantic and salsa-rific, “Let’s Dance,” sung in English. Martinez’ clairent, musical tone melded with her sibilant, colonial Spanish is a delightful treat for the ear, the heart and the soul. Her pure and supple voice is capable of communicating a range of potent emotions – from the deeply sensual to heartbreaking innocence.

Superb tracks include the optimistic and traditionally arranged “Esperanza Viva” – a fine composition by Brant and Maluca; the lilting Dias Invisibles, which is an inspired collaboration between Martinez and guitarist Laliberte replete with some delightful Burt Bacharach-ish horn lines. Also of particular beauty is Martinez and Limón’s “Ahora si te Canto” – a tender and evocative ballad, laden with lush and almost mystical, Iberian modalities as well as thoroughly stunning violin work by Osvaldo Rodriguez.

Concert note: Amanda Martinez launches Mañana with a concert at the Winter Garden Theatre on April 5. 

Angèle Dubeau and La Pietà are back with another CD of short contemporary works on BLANC (Analekta AN 2 8737), a disc very similar to her Silence, on joue! CD from two years ago. That the approach seems to work so much better this time is almost certainly due to the fact that BLANC celebrates Dubeau’s return after a year spent battling cancer. In the booklet notes, Dubeau says that during her battle, music brought her “comfort, tranquility and sometimes, an essential escape.” The album is the story of her fight against illness, and how she “…serenely, came out of it stronger.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, then, there is much more of a sense of program here, plus a real feeling of emotional involvement – and, indeed, of serenity and strength. There are 14 tracks on the CD, with Osvaldo Golijov’s Close Your Eyes, Adrian Munsey’s The Distance Between and Marjan Mozetich’s “Unfolding Sky,” from his Postcards from the Sky, sounding particularly beautiful. Cat Stevens’ Morning Has Broken and Mark O’Connor’s Appalachian Waltz are presented in lovely arrangements; there are two pieces by Dave Brubeck and one by Ennio Morricone. Also represented are Garry Schyman, Joe Hisaishi, François Dompierre, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shawn Phillips.

Recorded at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music last November, the sound quality is warm and resonant. Part of the proceeds from sales of the CD will go to support the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Jonathan Crow is joined by pianist Paul Stewart on Prokofiev’s Works for Violin and Piano, his latest CD on the ATMA Classique label (ACD2 2535). The recording was made in April 2008, though, when Crow was still concertmaster of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. The three works here – the Sonatas for Violin and Piano No.1 in F Minor and No.2 in D Major and the Five Melodies – were all also featured on the recent 2-CD release of Prokofiev’s complete works for violin by James Ehnes, reviewed in this column just two months ago.

There is a warmth and clarity to Crow’s playing, as well as a nice range of tonal colour. The Sonata No.1 in F Minor, by far the major work on the disc, is given a powerful reading, and the D major sonata, a transcription of Prokofiev’s light-hearted Flute Sonata, showcases the brightness of Crow’s playing. Stewart is an excellent partner, and there is strong but sensitive playing from both performers throughout an excellent disc.

The recording was made in the acoustically superb Salle Françoys-Bernier hall at Domaine Forget in Saint-Irénée, Québec.

Several of the CDs in the outstanding Hyperion series Romantic Violin Concertos – currently at Volume 15 – have been reviewed in previous editions of this column, but Volume 4 in the companion Romantic Cello Concerto series is the first I have received; it features concertos by the German composer Hans Pfitzner, who lived from 1869 to 1949 (CDA67906).

I have long known Pfitzner’s name in connection with his opera Palestrina, the work for which he is still mostly remembered, but it occurred to me that I couldn’t recall ever actually having heard any of his music. And what a loss that turns out to be, if the works on this revelatory CD are anything to go by. Pfitzner wrote three cello concertos: the Concerto in A Minor, Op.posth.,  is a student work from 1888 that was not performed in public until 1977; the Concertos in G major, Op.42 and A minor, Op.52, date from 1935 and 1943 respectively.

Don’t be put off by Pfitzner’s stern, dour face in his photographs: his music is firmly in the German late Romantic tradition of Brahms, Bruch and Humperdinck, and it really is gorgeous stuff – warm, rich, melodic, finely crafted, beautifully orchestrated, giving the soloist ample opportunity to display the instrument’s range and character.

The German cellist Alban Gerhardt is in his element here, and gets wonderful support from the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Sebastien Weigle. Violinist Gergana Gergova joins Gerhardt for the Duo Op.43 for Violin, Cello and Small Orchestra, a delightful work from 1937 that brings a marvellous and beautifully-recorded CD to a close.

You’re always guaranteed a thought-provoking CD whenever cellist Steven Isserlis is the soloist, and his latest offering on Hyperion (CDA67981/2), a 2-CD set of the Beethoven Cello Sonatas (although Complete Works for Cello and Piano would be a more accurate title) is no exception.

There are many performer pairings to choose from in recordings of these works, of course, but what makes this particular set so interesting is Robert Levin’s accompaniment on a copy of an 1805 fortepiano. The works consequently have a quite different sound, with the reduced volume and sustainability giving the keyboard an almost harpsichord-like quality, especially with the left-hand Alberti bass patterns and the heavy, almost percussive, low left-hand octaves. While it might reduce the volume, however, it certainly doesn’t reduce the scale of these works, which span Beethoven’s early, middle and late periods. In fact, the keyboard sound perfectly complements and contrasts the dark, rich sound of Isserlis’ 1726 Stradivarius cello. And what a sound it is: sweet and clear in the higher register, but strong and forceful – almost rough – in the lower register.

CD1 has the two Op.5 sonatas and the A major Op.69; CD2 has the two Op.102 sonatas together with three sets of Variations – on See the conqu’ring hero comes from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus and on Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen and Bei Männern, welche Liebe fülen’ from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte – and Beethoven’s own transcription of his Op.17 Horn Sonata.

The performances are outstanding, bristling with character throughout. Add the usual terrific booklet notes by Isserlis himself, and the almost 80 minutes per disc, and it’s simply impossible to give this set anything but the highest recommendation.

Britain’s Leonore Piano Trio is outstanding in the two Arensky Piano Trios (Hyperion CDA68015). Anton Arensky’s Piano Trio No.1 in D minor Op.32 was written in 1894 and, in keeping with the commemorative nature of the piano trio form established by Tchaikovsky some 12 years earlier, was conceived as a memorial to the cellist Karl Davidoff, the director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory during Arensky’s student days there. The cello consequently has a very prominent part in the Trio.

Pianist Tim Horton sets the stage with a beautiful opening; violinist Benjamin Nabarro adds a warm, sweet tone, especially in the lower register; and cellist Gemma Rosefield’s passionate playing leaves nothing to be desired. The Piano Trio in F Minor Op.73 dates from the early 1900s, not long before Arensky’s death in 1906 and at a time when the composer was in poor health. It’s another terrific work, and one that draws more outstanding playing from the Leonore ensemble.

Among Arensky’s pupils in his harmony class at the Moscow Conservatory was Sergei Rachmaninov, and the latter’s Vocalise is presented here in an arrangement by Rachmaninov’s friend Julius Conus, who was also one of Arensky’s students at the Conservatory. Everything about this outstanding CD is just right: the works themselves; the great ensemble playing; the interpretations; the excellent dynamics and phrasing; and the real passion and sensitivity displayed throughout. Add the excellent balance and sound quality, and it’s a real winner.

Berlin-based Chinese violinist Ning Feng is a new name to me, but it clearly shouldn’t be; he’s been active at a very high level for the best part of 10 years, and his three previous CDs – two of them solo recitals – on the Channel Classics label were issued to great critical acclaim.

His latest offering on the same label pairs Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy with the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with Yang Yang conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (CCS SA 34913).

Ning has a bright, clear tone, and obviously finds no technical challenges in the music. He exhibits somewhat of a laid-back approach in the Bruch, avoiding any tendency to rush, but it does seem to be a bit emotionally detached at times. There’s the same approach in the Tchaikovsky, but with much better results. The sweet, singing tone is always present, but the constant feeling of holding back at the beginning of the faster, busy passages doesn’t halt the flow at all – in fact, it has just the opposite effect, allowing us to hear the details without a sense of rushing, and allowing the momentum to build naturally as the music progresses.

The recorded sound is fine, but the balance seems to be a bit strange at times; there are moments in the Bruch in particular when Ning seems to almost disappear.

I was delighted to see that Volume 2 of the outstanding series of the complete String Quartets by Danish composer Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) has been released (DACAPO 6.220576). Volume 1 was reviewed in depth in this column in July 2012, at which time I noted that Denmark’s Nightingale String Quartet was simply superb in the first volume of a series of all nine quartets by a composer described in the excellent booklet notes as an eccentric outsider who was virtually ignored by the Danish musical establishment in his lifetime.

Most of Langgaard’s string quartets were written in his youth, between 1914 and 1925. This second volume features three works from the Great War years: Rosengaardsspil (Rose Garden Play) from 1918 (in a world premiere recording), String Quartet in A-flat major from 1918, and String Quartet No.4 “Sommerdage” (Summer Days) from 1914-18, revised in 1931. All three quartets use material inspired by Langgaard’s unrequited love for a young girl he met in the summer of 1913 while on holiday with his parents in Sweden; the house they stayed in was called “The Rose Garden.”

Once again, the performances by the prize-winning all-female Nightingale Quartet are outstanding – warm, passionate, expressive, and displaying great ensemble playing. I ended the review of Volume 1 by saying: “Beautifully recorded at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and issued on Denmark’s national record label, these performances are as close to definitive as you can get. Wonderful stuff, and I can’t wait to hear the rest of the series.” Well, two volumes down and one to go, and I’m still just as enthusiastic!

Since jazz’s beginnings, the measure of a musician’s talent has not only been how well the person improvises, but also how he or she interprets standards. In the 21st century a standard song has evolved past its Tin Pan Alley origins, plus distinctive purely jazz compositions have entered the canon. But while more conservative players treat standards as immutable, the CDs here are noteworthy because their creators distinctively re-imagine standards.

In an exercise that’s breathtakingly difficult, drummer Tom Rainey and his quintet take a collection of hyper-familiar tunes and upend them in such a way that it sounds as if they’re being played for the first time. Rainey, plus Canadian pianist Kris Davis, bassist Drew Gress, trumpeter Ralph Alessi and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, turn Obbligato (Intakt Records CD 227 intaktrec.ch) into a showcase for new ideas. Starting with the hoary Just in Time, the five cannily layer dissonant variations onto the basic theme before conjuring up the head. These restructurings take in songs by Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Jerome Kern and Jule Styne among others. Secret Love, for example is given a sharpened, stop-time treatment, with an extended octave-jumping solo from Laubrock, decorated with smeared triplets from Alessi. Meanwhile whinnying brass and cymbal swishes back up steady vamping on You Don’t Know What Love Is until the pressurized torque explodes into the muted melody. With sophisticated timing, Davis shows her skills by plucking the recognizable melody of Reflections, while the saxophonist is constructing a related buoyant theme out of pinpointed smears and rests. Most extraordinarily, before the trumpeter creates a quivering impressionistic variant of Prelude to a Kiss, Rainey validates his percussion refinement, with one of his few solos. Putting in motion many parts of his kit, he moves the narrative forward without turning to bombast.

Another variation on this theme is interpreting another musician’s compositions while seamlessly adding your own themes in a similar style. That’s what American trumpeter Dave Douglas and Montreal reedist Chet Doxas do on Riverside (Greenleaf Music GLM 1036 greenleafmusic.com). A salute to the music of influential clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre, the quartet, filled out by electric bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Jim Doxas, Chet’s brother, performs tracks from this CD at The Rex on April 19. Although New Englander Douglas and Quebecer Doxas come from dissimilar backgrounds than Texas-born Giuffre, their originals reflect the same sort of Southwestern spaciousness in which the clarinetist’s trios specialized. Their sophisticated transformations are substantiated by slotting Douglas and Doxas tunes near Giuffre’s. Maintaining a loping swing throughout, the quartet also redefines a Giuffre standard like The Train and the River by carving out parts for drums and trumpet, unlike the original. Making the melody speedier and hard hitting doesn’t destroy its fragile beauty though. Cantering along via the drummer’s clip-clops and Swallow’s guitar-like plucks, Douglas’ Front Yard attains the same easy swing in which Giuffre specialized, harmonizing his muted trumpet and Doxas’ chalumeau clarinet. Doxas’ extended Sing on the Mountain/Northern Miner reflects his command of the moderato idiom as well, as contrapuntal trumpet tones and leisurely tenor sax slurs intertwine. Nonetheless, the quartet’s originality is confirmed with Douglas’ Backyard, a vamping blues line. While Douglas’ brassy tongue slurps and the drummer’s rapping backbeat create a tune much weightier than anything by Giuffre, its contrapuntal call-and-response organization maintains the mood.

Formulating a variation of this concept is Dutch pianist Michiel Braam, whose arrangements for his Flex Bent Braam septet on Lucebert (BBBCD 16 michielbraam.com) re-energizes jazz and pop standards while linking them with eight originals based on epigrams by an innovative poet whose nom-de-plume was Lucebert. Don’t fear the highbrow trappings however; during the CD`s almost 80 minutes the pianist stitches together a sincerely jaunty program of his own shrewd compositions plus tunes by Thelonious Monk, Cole Porter and Dizzy Gillespie among others. Mocking and celebrating the standards in equal measure, the band finds unexpected echoes in many of the often-played themes. Get out of Town for instance could be the product of a small swing-era combo with slick piano glissandi and Joost Lijbaart’s drums swaying like a metronome. Straight No Chaser is set off with a treatment confirming its dance-like undercurrent via smacked cymbals and snorting work from altoist Bart van der Putten and baritonist Oleg Hollmann. The concept is enhanced when Braam’s compositions are examined alongside the standards. Gentle and ornamental with brassy expressiveness, his Drift-Urge is architecturally organized the same way as I May Be Wrong/So What? which follows it. Trombonist Wolter Wierbos’ slurs plus Angelo Verploegen’s whinnying trumpet create a distinctive overlay as the heaving reeds and pounding piano keys attach Braam’s initial melody to the familiar tune structures, while Tony Overwater’s bass playing confirms the rhythmic suture. Plunger trombone smears, high-pitched trumpet triplets and sharp alto sax bites are exciting in themselves during Zorg-Care; yet they remind the ear of Let’s Cool One which precedes it. All in all, swing plus significance is applied to every number.

Another standards’ challenge crucially met on The Whammies: Play the Music of Steve Lacy Volume 2 (Driff Records CD 1303 driffrecords.com) is remaining individual during a complete program of one composer’s tunes. With soprano saxophonist Lacy, one of jazz’s idiosyncratic stylists whose his compositions are enduringly linked to his performances, The Whammies’ interpretations are simultaneously novel and deferential. It helps that alto saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra studied with Lacy; drummer Han Bennink played with Lacy; and pianist Pandelis Karayorgis has an intuitive command of Monk’s work, which influenced Lacy’s writing. You can measure this by comparing how The Whammies handle Monk’s Shuffle Boil and Lacy’s Monk-dedication, Hanky-Panky. Balancing supple lyricism and whinnying trombone cries plus Karayorgis’ runs on the first, the band expresses source fealty. Whereas by emphasizing violinist Mary Oliver’s arpeggiated sweeps and trombonist Jeb Bishop’s low-pitched smears Hanky-Panky becomes the next step away from Monk’s music. A comparable neat trick turns up on Somebody Special which Lacy composed for Duke Ellington’s vocalist Ivie Anderson. As Bennink’s rolls and rim shots reference swing band rhythms, Oliver’s spiccato suggests both Anderson’s light-paced singing plus Ray Nance’s fiddle tricks with Ellington, while Bishop’s deep-dish slurs relate back to Tricky Sam Nanton. Not that every track is a mirror of a mirror of a mirror however. Feline becomes a near chamber music salute to Marilyn Monroe; while the wide-ranging polyphony and polyrhythms that characterize Threads, dedicated to Albert Einstein, connect some musical threads that include drum whumps, spidery piano licks and a contrapuntal showdown between Bishop’s plunger tone and the calliope-like squirms from Dijkstra’s lyricon. The lyricon’s moog-like tones plus bass string strops from Nate McBride and irregular piano key clips are just some of the contributions to the note pileup that is Lumps. Yet Bennink slaps and clatters his cymbals enough to maintain the tune’s absurdist nursery-rhyme pulse.

Setting out even more difficult sleights of hand is the French-German Die Hochstapler band, whose The Braxtornette Project (Umlaut Records ub004 umlautrecords.com) interprets compositions by Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton. To make this two-CD set more novel different groupings, most with trumpeter Louis Laurain, alto saxophonist Pierre Borel, bassist Antonio Borghini and drummer Hannes Lingens in common, mash up compositions by both men into extended medleys. The players’ skills are such that the commonality between Coleman’s blues-based lines and Braxton’s austere theses becomes obvious. With additional players making up a double quartet Die Hochstapler audaciously recalibrates Coleman’s Free Jazz composition as Part IV by bookending it with two variants on Braxton’s 348. Making the former tune more atonal and minimalist plus soothing what was originally played in a stentorian manner, tremolo jazziness is added to 348. More generic are Part II and Part III played only by the quartet. Stringing together an almost equal number of Braxton and Coleman tunes in each, the first medley emphasizes the music’s historical jazz motifs while the latter’s admixture plays out the compositional resemblances, mulching improvisation and atonality. Although the horns jump and judder throughout the ten tune-fragments that make up Part II, Lingens’ rugged drumming and Borghini’s sweeping thwacks regularize the underlying pulse to such an extent that staccato trumpet peeps and reed squeals indulge in satisfying vamps. Plus the bass and drum team shepherd the medley so that individual compositions’ tensile strength is apparent alongside the more obvious musical japes. Part III not only exposes a hitherto unknown eastern influence in Braxton lines such as 53 and 69D, but also moves the connected narrative through numerous variations. At times a theme is taken apart with horn peeps and bites; elsewhere unrelated shards are harmonized. Considering that Coleman tunes like Joy of a Toy, Deedee and W.R.U. are included, no matter how rapid or agitated the performance sounds, transitions include bonded swinging.

Standards are defined that way because of their universality. Yet these bands demonstrate how familiarity can be excitedly mixed with new interpretations.

Vancouver-based guitarist/composer Bill Coon has spent quite a bit of time working with singers like Denzal Sinclaire and Kate Hammett-Vaughan. They clearly hear Coon’s rare ability to provide optimum framing for a melody. His lyrical gift is much in evidence on Scudder’s Groove (Pagetown 006, billcoon.com), a magically tuneful set in which standards and Coon compositions alike seem to bubble up through the warm, glassy sound of his guitar. His trio rendering of My Funny Valentine is a model of jazz ballad playing. Coon gets solid support from bassist Darren Radtke and drummer Dave Robbins, while the late Ross Taggart on tenor saxophone is a perfect partner. Taggart swings magnificently on the opening version of Lady Be Good and Coon’s Thelonious Monk-inspired But I’m Glad You Did, while his playing on Ballad for Someone and the title track resonates with the same depth of feeling that Coon brings to them.

Coon’s special contribution to Canadian jazz singing is immediately apparent on Laura Crema’s Fotografia (lauracrema.com), as the Vancouver singer opens her fourth CD with just Coon’s guitar momentarily embracing her voice. That initial lack of adornment is emblematic of Crema’s work: she favours substance over decoration, eschewing both affectation and surface perfection in favour of direct, emotional renderings of her disparate and imaginative material, including Ellington’s Azure, a duet with Coon; John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy, a vocal duet with bassist Adam Thomas; a compelling Wild Is the Wind with pianist Sharon Minemoto; three songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim; and two originals by Crema and Minemoto. Somehow Crema ties them together, along with a concluding version of Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s Lost in the Stars that leaves the best possible impression, its dreamlike ambience shot through with emotional grit. 

Composer/trombonist Jeff Presslaff left his native New York City for Manitoba in 1997, but he’s found an intriguing way to merge the two locales in The Complete Rebirth of the Cool (Cellar Live CL071113 cellarlive.com). In 1949 Miles Davis was at the centre of a group developing fresh concepts in jazz orchestration, among them Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis. The result was Davis’ Nonet, a group that included French horn and tuba, as well as likelier jazz instruments. Collected on an LP in 1957, the group’s 78s were dubbed The Birth of the Cool. Presslaff has assembled a group in Manitoba with identical instrumentation and commissioned compositions inspired by the original Nonet’s works. It’s generally true to the subtle textures and harmonies of the originals, though at times it turns ponderous. Trumpeter Dean McNeill provides the livelier What Fourth, while Jon Stevens’ brooding November Night explores more contemporary sonics.

That early Miles Davis project was also a meeting ground for some of the key figures in the third stream movement that would seek to fuse elements of jazz and classical music, including Evans, Lewis and Gunther Schuller, the Nonet’s French horn player. “Third stream” may only be cited as an historical category these days, but it’s a pervasive methodology for many musicians. Greg de Denus is a young Toronto pianist whose background includes studies with such distinguished musicians as Don Thompson, Fred Hersch and Dave Douglas. The quality of the instruction is more apparent than specific influences in Solo Piano, Live at Gallery 345 (Pet Mantis Records PMR009 petmantisrecords.com), which has de Denus working through a program in which composition and improvisation are often indistinguishable. There’s a rhapsodic sweep to much of this music, de Denus’ pyrotechnics often tending toward chromatic fantasia on pieces like Pocket Jacks. It even touches Steve Swallow’s Falling Grace and Thelonious Monk’s In Walked Bud, which has as much Rachmaninov as Bud Powell. De Denus is true to the tradition of French Impressionism in jazz, summoning up the spirit of Duke Ellington in Alter Ego. When de Denus slows down, he produces the elusive Folksing, a study in sonority that’s as beautiful as it is original.

The influence of classical models is also apparent in much of the work of clarinetist/saxophonist Peter Van Huffel, the Kingston, Ontario native whose recent residences include New York and Berlin (Van Huffel also has a duo with Greg de Denus). The group House of Mirrors continues Van Huffel’s partnership with singer Sophie Tassignon, with pianist Julie Sassoon and bassist Miles Perkin (originally from Winnipeg) completing the group on Act One (Wismart W 105 wismart.de). The piece is a long suite with both composed and improvised materials, summoning up everything from medieval song to jazz, School of Vienna abstraction and European free improvisation. It’s held together by sheer virtuosity and the focal point of Tassignon’s mercurial voice.

Saxophonist/clarinetist Anna Webber is another Canadian expatriate with similar musical breadth and co-ordinates: originally from British Columbia, she has resided successively in Berlin and Brooklyn. She has an absolute gem as a memento of her Berlin stay, Percussive Mechanics (Pirouet PIT 3069, pirouet.com). Webber leads aseptet ofmostly German percussionists in a suite of her compositions that seems to simultaneously connect to African music, New York minimalism and the late serialism of Boulez’ Le marteau sans maître. There’s real power here, with a sense of mystery and essential coherence arising from the evolving rhythmic language and its ability to absorb certain kinds of almost-random fractures. Webber the tenor soloist comes to the fore on the title track, rising over the underlying patterns with expansive detailed runs delivered with machine-gun precision. 

In 1991 a new record label came into being when Continuum/Testament issued seven CDs that restored several esteemed recordings from the past of interest to music lovers and collectors alike. Their first disc (SBT1001) featured acclaimed hornist Aubrey Brain, Adolf Busch and Rudolf Serkin playing the Brahms Horn Trio, Op.40 (rec.1933) coupled with Reginald Kell playing the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with the Busch String Quartet (rec.1937). The others for that year were two more Kell programs, discs by Richard Tauber, Yehudi Menuhin and a CD of Ten Top Tenors, a CD that included Caruso, Roswaenge, Thill, Martinelli and others. Quite unexpected was a CD of Alban Berg that included the Violin Concerto played by Louis Krasner, who commissioned the work, with the BBC Symphony conducted by Anton Webern! (SBT1004). The source was Krasner’s own acetates which were far less than pristine, but that was soon overlooked after experiencing this enthralling and unique performance. Today, some 500 releases later, Testament is at the forefront of issuing and reissuing licensed recordings of outstanding performances of every classical genre by artists that are now deservedly legendary, including conductors, instrumentalists, singers, symphony orchestras, chamber groups and two Ring Cycles, Keilberth from Bayreuth (1955) and Kempe from Covent Garden (1957). From the last few months, here are four out-of-the-ordinary releases of special interest:

A 2-CD set from the 1962 Salzburg Festival features an August 19 performance with Karl Böhm and the Berlin Philharmonic (SBT2.1489). The program opens with Mozart’s Symphony No.40 played in tempi that may sound to some ears to be on the slow side. However, that was how Böhm heard it and how he played it over the years in Dresden and everywhere else. As such the elegance is very pleasing. Hearing Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Kindertotenlieder was always a moving experience and with Böhm and the Berliners supporting him, the 37-year-old singer is inspired. The big, after-the-intermission work is Also Sprach Zarathustra. DG had recorded a Böhm version in 1958 but this later performance is far more powerful, probing and intense. Böhm does not stay on the surface of the score to give a brilliant effect but is fully aware of and reveals the brooding energy beneath. A performance of this magnitude most certainly adds new dimensions to this mighty tone poem.

The Verdi Requiem was played by the Berlin Philharmonic ten days earlier at the same 1962 Salzburg Festival, on this occasion conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The soloists were Leontyne Price, Giulietta Simionato, Giuseppe Zampieri and Nicolai Ghiaurov with the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien. Testament’sCD (SBT 1491) of the ORF’s recording was authorized by the Salzburg Festival. Frankly, I wondered why issue yet another Karajan Verdi Requiem. From the ethereally balanced strings and voices of the “Requiem and Kyrie,” the performance unfolded, not as expected but as a haunting and respectful homage to Verdi, empathizing with his emotions and his inspiration to write the work. The soloists and chorus are fully enrolled, all rising to the occasion.

The world premiere performance of Britten’s War Requiem, given in Coventry Cathedral on May 30, 1960 is finally available on CD (SBT 1490). Taking part in this historic event were Peter Pears, Heather Harper, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, The Coventry Festival Choir, Boys of Holy Trinity, Leamington and Holy Trinity, Stratford and John Cooper, organ, all conducted by Meredith Davies and the Melos Ensemble conducted by Benjamin Britten. The genesis of this work, commissioned in remembrance of the bombing of Coventry, is well known, together with the many obstacles to be overcome. This is from the BBC’s original recording digitally remastered in 2013. There have been some picayune criticisms of the occasional untidiness in the playing and some off-the-beat entries or that the recording does not make certain passages as clear as they would be in a modern studio recording. For heaven’s sake! This is not an audition tape! It’s an “historic document”! We can now hear how that notable first performance sounded to the people in attendance 54 years ago. There is a sense of occasion throughout the performance from instrumentalists and singers alike as all three soloists demonstrate their total absorption in their roles. I find this monaural recording to be gripping, convincing and eminently moving.

Noel Mewton-Wood was an Australian pianist, born in Melbourne in 1922. He studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium and was passionate about all forms of music. In the 1930s he studied with Artur Schnabel and later with Frank Bridge. He had an enormous talent and was highly regarded and respected by his peers and many conductors, especially Beecham with whom he performed often. Britten chose Mewton-Wood to premiere the revised version of his piano concerto and later to accompany Pears while he, Britten, was occupied with Gloriana. Pears commissioned pieces to be featured in their upcoming May 1953 concert. Later that year, devastated by the death of his partner, the 31-years young Noel Mewton-Wood knowingly ingested cyanide. The four-movement Britten Piano Concerto mentioned above was recorded in 1946 by Mewton-Wood with the London Symphony conducted by Basil Cameron. This BBC recording, previously un-released together with the songs commissioned by Pears for their recital, is now on Testament (SBT 1493) with comprehensive notes. The vivacious Britten concerto is played with great gusto and the song cycles, To Poetry by Mátyás Seiber and Voices of the Prophets by Alan Bush were recorded at the time for broadcast by the BBC. 

If there’s one thing I like as much as sitting in my easy chair with my feet up listening to music, it’s sitting in that chair reading a great book. There was a time when my very favourite thing was doing both at once but I must confess that as my 60th birthday rapidly approaches it’s getting harder and harder to multi-task in that way. So what is now a special treat is settling into the Lazy Boy and curling up with a book that takes me on a musical adventure.

Books: I first encountered the novels of Richard Powers in 1991 when my successor at CKLN-FM, local choral director and Georgian vocal specialist Alan Gasser, gifted me with The Gold Bug Variations, a spectacular tour-de-force interweaving themes of Bach’s counterpoint and Poe’s fiction with strands of molecular biology. It is a multi-layered masterpiece that juxtaposes two love stories, one set in the present and one in 1950s academe where the search for the DNA genome was in full swing. The eminence grise, always present but never mentioned by name, is a certain Canadian pianist whose youthful 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations stood the music world on its ear. If you haven’t read it I urge you to do yourself a favour and pick up a copy at your earliest convenience.

Since that time I have read and re-read all ten of Powers’ outstanding novels which, beginning in 1985 with Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, have appeared every two or three years to much critical acclaim (and to my delight). Some years ago in this column I raved about Powers’ The Time of Our Singing (2003) in which, among other things, the development of the historically informed performance practices of the period-instrument movement was juxtaposed with just about every significant political happening of the 20th century through the eyes of a very special family whose members always seemed to be present, at least on the periphery, at these events. Again I would urge you to check it out.

Powers’ subject matter is extreme in its diversity, from medical research and psychological disorders, to nuclear physics, environmental concerns, advanced technology, forced confinement and terrorism. Music is present in one way or another in most of his books, but for me it is those in which music is central to the plot that are the most satisfying. It was therefore a real pleasure to find that, after a publishing hiatus of nearly five years, his 11th book – Orfeo (HarperCollins ISBN 978-1-44342-290-1) – returns to the double theme of musical composition and genetic engineering. The main character is a composer, Peter Els, who comes of age in the 1950s and 60s, a tumultuous time when the post-war generation took Western art music to the very brink. I won’t go into much detail of the plot, but will say that we follow Els on a protracted journey from his adolescent vision of composition as divine inspiration, through academic struggles with serial constraints and avant-garde freedoms, to minimalist structures and neo-Romantic regression, with many stops and side trips along the way. Ultimately Els is at a loss as to how to take music itself any further and he eventually returns to the scientific interests of his youth. In the decades that have passed genetic engineering has blossomed and the internet has made it possible for anyone with access to a computer to build a sophisticated home laboratory. In the end the aging composer decides that writing genetic code is the future of composition and sets about writing a work for the ages using DNA itself. Through a comedy of errors this leads to his being taken for a bio-terrorist and the chase (and fun) begins.

Powers is a master at describing and giving context to the examples of great music he chooses to include, and his insights are enlightening. Time and again I found myself rushing to my library to dig out a favourite recording and it was refreshing to re-visit the works in question and to hear them with “new ears” as it were. Els’ own epiphany was a recording of Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony from his father’s collection. I chose to go back to the recording I had grown up with, an LP of Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra (now available on CD from EMI Classics). (Realizing that using full-sized 20th century orchestral forces in 18th-century repertoire is no longer politically correct, I asked Bruce Surtees for a recommendation and he suggested Jos van Immerseel conducting the Anima Eterna Orchestra of Bruges on the Zig-Zag label.) As a burgeoning clarinetist Els is introduced to Zemlinsky’s Trio in D Minor, Op.3 by the young cellist who becomes his first love. I was glad to be reminded that I had Amici’s version of this rarely recorded work in my collection and happy to have an excuse to revisit it (Summit Records). For Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder I found that I was not overly satisfied with the recordings in my collection and once again went to an expert for advice. Daniel Foley says: “Among the women, Janet Baker’s 1967 recording with the Hallé Orchestra under Barbirolli (EMI) is unquestionably the most moving interpretation of the dozens I know... My hero Fischer-Dieskau’s recording with Karl Böhm and the Berlin Philharmonic was recorded in 1963 and remastered in 2011 (Deutsche Grammophon).”

For Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps I have many, more than a dozen, recordings to choose from, but once again I chose our local Amici ensemble. The complication was which of their recordings to select. Ultimately I decided to go with their original 1995 performance with violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi (Summit Records) rather than the 1999 recording with Scott St. John (Naxos). It was a tough choice that did not come down to the violinists, but rather cellist David Hetherington’s performance of the fifth movement, marked infiniment lent, extatique, which is fully 15 percent slower (i.e. more infinitely lent) on the earlier disc. Both his performances however are totally convincing as are those of clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas and pianist Patricia Parr.

For the Shostakovich Symphony No.5 I turned to a reissue of the set of complete symphonies recorded by West German Radio during the 1990s featuring Rudolf Barshai at the helm of the WDR Sinfonieorchester (Brilliant Classics). When it came to the extended descriptions of the John Cage “Happenings” Musicircus and HPSCHD I was left thinking, despite having an old Nonesuch vinyl record of the latter piece, that you probably had to have been there to really get it. I did turn back to my LP collection however for Harry Partch’s classic Barstow (Columbia Music of Our Time). As far as I can tell this is not available on CD, but you should check it out on YouTube.

I have quite an extensive collection of Steve Reich recordings on vinyl and CD, but I missed Proverb – an extended riff on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s sentence “How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life!” for three sopranos, two tenors, two vibraphones and two electric organs – when it came out in 1996. The disc seems to be out of print at the moment but is available as a digital download from Nonesuch, and again, is available for streaming on YouTube (accompanied by the following comment from Roger Brunyate: “Do read (preferably while simultaneously listening) Richard Powers’ sublime description of this piece on pages 245–254 of his new novel Orfeo.”

There are many other pieces mentioned in more or less detail during the book, including Berg’s Violin Concerto, Strauss’ Four Last Songs, Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.3 and, although not by name, Copland’s Appalachian Spring. One of the most moving moments is the description of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, written for his wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and premiered just a few months before her death, making the lyric “My love, if I die and you don’t” even more poignant. I found that track on YouTube, but the whole cycle of five songs is featured on a Nonesuch recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine’s direction. It was the soprano’s final recording.

Perhaps the most intriguing description in Orfeo is of Els’ own opera based on the Anabaptist uprising of 1534 in Münster. We are presented with a very detailed précis of this imaginary opus and its premiere which coincided with the strikingly similar events that took place in Waco, Texas in 1993. As always, Powers’ blending of fact and fiction keeps us on the edge of our seats. Orfeo the novel, and by extension its complex musical worlds – real and imagined – provided one of the most satisfying literary adventures I’ve had in a long time. I highly recommend it.

Another book I enjoyed over the recent holidays also led me to my music library. The Apartment (Twelve ISBN978-1-4555-7478-0) by the American author Greg Baxter who now makes his home in Germany, takes place over the period of one day in an unnamed European city. It is a book in which nothing of note happens except in the form of memories of the time the narrator spent in Iraq and of the life he abandoned in the United States. Nevertheless it is a compelling read. The musical interest here is a recital by Japanese violin students where the featured work is the Ciaccona (Chaconne) from Bach’s Partita for Violin No.2. After the recital the narrator strikes up a conversation with Schmetterling, the German violin teacher, who launches into a lecture about how the Ciaccona encompasses “a profundity and intensity heretofore unknown in music. […and which] resulted in the ascension of the violin as the most venerated of all Western instruments.” There are five or six pages devoted to Schmetterling’s appreciation of the work and his claim that “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings.” However, he goes on to say “a spiritual sympathy with the piece … [is] … virtually non-existent in violinists under the age of thirty… perhaps forty.” As taken as I was by the elegance and emotion of his speech, this last sounded like a challenge and off I headed to my CD shelves. What I came back with was a favourite of mine, a 2CD set of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas which James Ehnes recorded in 1999 at the tender age of 23 (Analekta FL 2 3147-8). I am quite prepared to accept that his understanding and depth of knowledge of the Ciaccona, and the repertoire in general for that matter, will only increase with time, but I must say that if this early testament is any indication, we can all look forward to a truly awe-inspiring interpretation from Ehnes in the years to come.

Music: Books aside, sometimes it’s enough just to focus on the music…

On the eve of Elliott Carter’s 102nd birthday back in December 2010 Toronto’s New Music Concerts presented an evening of his recent works under the banner “Elliott Carter at 102.” Were it not for last minute health and weather complications it would have been Mr. Carter’s seventh visit to Toronto at the invitation of New Music Concerts. As it was, the concert went on as planned – including the world premiere of the Concertino for bass clarinet and chamber orchestra and the Canadian premiere of the Flute Concerto – and the audience was treated to a taped telephone message from the iconic composer expressing his delight. Carter recovered his health and went on to compose most of a dozen more works in the following year and a half before the final illness that led to his death just a month before his 104th birthday. New Music Concerts continued its practice of celebrating the long and creative life of this gentle man with Toronto premieres of Trije glasbeniki in 2011 and the Double Trio in 2012.

The New York premieres of these two works took place at the 92nd Street Y on December 8, 2011 as part of Elliott Carter’s 103rd Birthday Concert. That festive occasion included world premieres of four new works ranging from Mnemosyne for solo violin (Rolf Schulte) to A Sunbeam’s Architecture, a cycle of six songs on texts by E.E. Cummings for tenor (Nicholas Phan) and large chamber ensemble. The concert, organized by and under the artistic direction of cellist and long-time Carter associate Fred Sherry, has now been released on the British NMC label (NMC DVD193). Other than the solo harp piece Bariolage from 1992, the 12 works featured all date from Carter’s 11th decade. What a treat it is to see Carter fêted in such a creative way and to see the composer’s pleasure in the performances. Still uncompromising in its rhythmic and harmonic complexity, the music is perhaps a bit more approachable than earlier works because of its vigour and gestural exuberance – an amazing testament to Carter’s longevity and joie de vivre.

The concert concludes with a seemingly spontaneous performance of Happy Birthday and bows from the beaming centenarian. The film continues with moving tributes from leading British composers George Benjamin, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews. The booklet contains an extensive biography and program notes. This is a wonderful celebration of the artist as an old man for those familiar with the work of Elliott Carter. It would serve as a wonderful point of entry to those who are not.

As someone who has spent much of my adult life (folk) singing and accompanying myself on the guitar it strikes me as a bit strange that such a thing is quite rare in the world of Art Song. Of course not many lieder singers accompany themselves on the piano either and I am willing to accept that in the world of classical music it is a life’s work to master even one medium. So it was with pleasure that I received a new disc from Renaissance man Doug MacNaughton on which he accompanies his own distinctive baritone voice with panache on a beautiful-sounding classical guitar constructed by Edward Klein. Guitarias (DougMacNaughton.com) features original works written for MacNaughton by Canadian composers John Beckwith, Leslie Uyeda and William Beauvais (who it seems has also served as guitar teacher and mentor to the singer).

The most immediately appealing work on the album, Shadows, is a collection of songs by British composer John Rutter, best known for his lush choral settings. The appeal however turns out to be from familiarity; his settings of 16th-century poetry sound charmingly anachronistic in their mimicking of lute songs of that era. That being said they are lovely and provide a contrast to the more contemporary sounds of the preceding tracks. Which is not to imply that the other works are not lyrical. Beckwith’s settings of Samuel Beckett’s poetic texts are surprising to this auditor who is more familiar with the bleak prose writings of the Nobel laureate whose motto might well have been the final sentences from The Unnamable: “I can’t go on. I”ll go on.” Uyeda’s Flower Arranger is a gently angular setting of a poignant poem from Joy Kogawa’s collection A Garden of Anchors. The most idiomatic writing for the guitar, not surprisingly, comes from Beauvais in his cycle of songs on texts by Native American poet Linda Hogan. There are occasional extended techniques involved in the guitar writing which MacNaughton handles with apparent ease and without becoming distracted from his lyrical delivery of the vocal lines. I bet he could even walk and chew gum at the same time! My only quibble is the amount of reverb on the recording which seems a bit excessive. All in all though, an impressive solo release from a multi-talented artist. We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and comments should be sent to: The WholeNote, Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4. A quick update on “my favourite band” Joy Kills Sorrow. This exceptional “new grass” band with its roots in Boston’s Berklee School of Music and its Canadian Folk Music Award-winning singer Emma Beaton, returned to grace the stage of Hugh’s Room last month. I admit to some trepidation because a year or so ago one of the mainstays of the band, bass player and award-winning songwriter Brigitte Kearney, left to pursue other interests and I wondered if I would be disappointed. I’m pleased to report that my fears were unfounded. Replacement bass player, Toronto native Zoe Guigueno, proved herself well up to the task and has melded seamlessly with the other members. And to my relief, it seems that Kearney has continued to write with/for the band. In their hour-long set opening for local headliners New Country Rehab there was only one tune from their first two CDs and the new material was uniformly strong and exhilarating.

A rarity among string bands, Joy Kills Sorrow does not include a fiddle, but the high-octane picking of guitarist Matthew Arcara, banjo player Wes Corbett and, especially, mandolinist Jacob Jolliff hardly give you time to notice. I also noted that the harmony singing by the back benchers has become stronger and more prominent in the past year or two. The new CD Wide Awake (signaturesounds.com) lives up to its name!

Post Script: As we go to print I have just found out that Joy Kills Sorrow’s performance at Hugh’s Room was part of a farewell tour after which the band has decided - amicably it seems - to go their separate ways. I for one will sorely miss them. Who will kill my sorrow now?

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor

discoveries@thewholenote.com.

Schubert – Winterreise
Jan Kobow; Christoph Hammer
ATMA ACD2 2536

The best live performance of Die Winterreise I ever heard took place in Edinburgh many years ago. The singer was a young German tenor, at that time completely unknown to me. His name was Jonas Kaufmann. I understand that Kaufmann’s recording of Winterreise has just been released; I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Winterreise was composed for a high voice. When sung by a lower voice, the songs have to be transposed. There is nothing wrong with that but the character of the songs changes. When performed by a singer with a dark voice like Hans Hotter or Thomas Quasthoff, there is a correspondence between the darkness of the songs and that of the singer’s voice. But when we hear a tenor, the brightness of the voice and the sadness of the songs give us a poignant contrast. This tenor, Jan Kobow, is able to cope with the high tessitura of these songs but he also has a very even low register. The pianist Christoph Hammer is also very good; he plays not a modern grand but a fortepiano of the period (an early 19th century Brodmann).

The accompanying booklet is informative but the English translation is full of mistakes: “re majeur” is D major, not D flat major; C minor, not B minor, is the relative minor of E flat major; and so on. I also regret that the wanderer of the poems is called “a hiker.”

Of the available recordings with a tenor, I think my personal preference is with Christoph Prégardien, but that may change once I hear the new Kaufmann!

Wagner – Tristan und Isolde
Stephen Gould; Nina Stemme; Kwangchul Youn; Michelle Breedt; Johan Reuter; Rundfunk Berlin; Marek Janowski
PentaTone PTC 5186 404

The wonderful score of Tristan und Isolde is what placed Wagner among the gods and to listen to this new PentaTone recording in natural stereo sound sensitive to the slightest dynamic change, with singers perfectly balanced, will give this statement true justification. The 200th birthday of Richard Wagner is celebrated in Germany, not by issuing more DVD’s, but recording his ten masterworks in live concert performances the best way possible, with state-of-the art technology and the best available artists.

An international cast is led by Swedish soprano Nina Stemme who literally inhabits Isolde with tempestuous outbursts, the ecstasy of love and the final transfiguration expressed by her magnificent voice and persona. A worthy partner in suffering, American heldentenor Stephen Gould journeys valiantly through the gruelling role of Tristan. South African mezzo Michelle Breedt is a passionate, deeply sympathetic Brangaene, excelling in her second act soliloquy. Korean basso Kwangchul Youn is a noble, wronged and magnanimous König Marke, while Johan Reuter’s brave and loyal Kurvenal is fine, but unfortunately no match for the Fischer-Dieskau of yore.

Marek Janowski is probably the best kept secret of our times. Now at 75 and still going strong, I always thought of him as a hard -working conductor, travelling all over Europe and bringing many orchestras up to the level of excellence and winning prizes and awards along the way. His orchestra of tenure, the Berlin Radio Symphony produces magical sounds I haven’t heard since Furtwängler, so one literally melts away in ecstasy in the welter of sound. And indeed there is ecstasy of the highest order in this performance of the Liebestod where the enigmatic Tristan chord finally gets resolved into pure harmony.

Schoenberg – Gurrelieder (reduced orchestra by Erwin Stein)
Stig Andersen; Anne Schwanewilms; Lilli Paasikivi; Fernando Latorre; Arnold Bezuyen; Jon Frederic West; Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao; Günter Neuhold
Thorofon CTH2606/2

Schoenberg’s magnum opus of 1911, as written, requires many more musicians on stage that the regular symphony orchestra employs, plus six soloists and an enormous choir. Erwin Stein, a one-time student of the composer, arranged the work for fewer players in order that it would reach a wider audience. He did this in consultation with Schoenberg in 1922/23. In addition to requiring smaller orchestral forces Stein also reduced the choir and did some transposing to make it less demanding. Schoenberg approved Stein’s work, realizing the practicality of making performing Gurrelieder less demanding. In fact, in 1929 Schoenberg conducted Stein’s version of the songs from “Part 1” for broadcast on Berlin radio.

The strings in the original number 84, in Stein’s version 60; flutes 8 vs. 4; oboes 5 vs. 3; clarinets 7 vs. 4; bassoons 5 vs. 3; horns 10 vs. 6; trumpets 7 vs. 4; trombones 7 vs. 4; harp 4 vs. 2. The two timpanists, six percussionists and single celeste remain untouched. However Stein introduces a piano. That is a final total of 156 players versus 102. Still, that is a formidable number to which must be added the six soloists and the choirs.

In this first recording of the reduced forces version conductor Günter Neuhold shows that he understands the work; the orchestra is right there and I hear no reason to be picky with any member of the ensemble. So how does it sound? There is clarification in the crowded passages and the only downside (to my ears) was the absence of the richness and texture of the larger version. But the lines are easier to follow now, although I missed the complex flavours of the original to which I am accustomed. Listeners less saturated with the original will be well pleased. The recorded sound is translucent and very impressive.

Recorded in concert in Bilbao at the Palacio Euskalduna on March 8 and 9, 2012 the enthusiastic applause from the audience after the glorious sunrise scene is well deserved.

Britten – Peter Grimes on Aldeburgh beach
Alan Oke; Giselle Allen; Britten-Pears Orchestra; Steuart Bedford
ArtHaus Musik 102179

The troubled Aldeburgh fisherman Peter Grimes has rowed home at last in a unique production presented on the pebbly shores of the Suffolk village by the festival that Benjamin Britten established there in 1948. Lacking a facility large enough in the town to accommodate the large chorus and sets for the presentation of this most celebrated of Britten’s stage works, Aldeburgh Music boldly proposed to celebrate the centennial of the composer’s birth with ”Grimes on the Beach.” Compromises aside (a pre-taped orchestra and headset microphones to amplify the soloists), the weather co-operated and the risk proved well worth the effort.

The three evening performances of June 2013 have been expertly assembled by Margaret Williams into a cinemascope format film which amplifies the concert experience with close-ups, cutaways and specially commissioned atmospheric videos accompanying the four orchestral interludes. The title role is sung by the redoubtable Alan Oke in his first appearance in this role, ably abetted by Giselle Allen as the ever-sympathetic Ellen Orford. The cast also includes David Kempster as Balstrode, Robert Murray as Bob Boles and Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Mrs. Sedley.

Britten stalwart Steuart Bedford pre-recorded the students of the Britten-Pears Orchestra in a raw yet energetic studio session. The excellent chorus is drawn from members of Opera North and the Guildhall. The static, multi-purpose set consists of a number of oddly angled fishing boats that serve as pub, church and shacks as needed while the costuming is vintage 1945 dowdiness. The overall solidity of the vocal ensemble and the exceptionally clear diction make for a most engaging evening best enjoyed indoors, comfortably far from the crashing waves and pesky seagulls of the rugged North Sea.

George Benjamin – Written on Skin
Christopher Purves, Barbara Hannigan; Bejun Mehta; Victoria Simmonds; Allan Clayton; Royal Opera; George Benjamin
Opus Arte OA 1125 D

Composer George Benjamin and British playwright Martin Crimp’s latest project is the opera Written on Skin, produced to great acclaim in 2012. It recounts the legend of the 12th century Catalan troubadour Guillem de Cabestaing and his fatal ménage à trois, represented here by the principal roles of The Protector (baritone Christopher Purves), his wife Agnès (Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan) and The Boy (countertenor Bejun Mehta). The Protector has hired The Boy (incongruously much balder than his employer in this production) to craft a manuscript about this medieval lord’s mighty realm and deeds (“written on skin” refers to the vellum upon which medieval calligraphers crafted their illuminated manuscripts). Soon enough Agnès and The Boy fall in love and Agnès realizes how cruel her husband really is. The Protector himself also falls under his erotic spell. The affair ends quite messily with the husband killing The Boy and serving up his heart to his wife, who elects to throw herself off a balcony rather than submit to her misogynist husband ever again.

To the left of the stage a group of contemporary scholars in lab coats act as puppet masters, putting these characters from the past through their paces. The narrative of this psychodrama is abstract and freely poetic, with the characters referring to themselves in the third person throughout and the action shifting rapidly between past and present. Benjamin’s chromatic vocal writing is consistently mellifluous and his sensitive and radiant orchestration never fails to impress. Mehta’s eerie male soprano perfectly conveys his otherworldly, angelic character, Purves’ insightful interpretation lends an element of humanity to his nefarious character and Hannigan’s moving portrayal of a woman coming to self-awareness is both vocally gorgeous and dramatically incisive.

In an age when contemporary British operas too often resort to shock-and-schlock tactics it is a pleasure to encounter such a concise and sophisticated jewel of an opera.

Editor’s Note: Composer George Benjamin and soprano Barbara Hannigan will be the featured guests at all three concerts of next year’s Toronto Symphony Orchestra New Creations Festival where an opera-in-concert version of Written On Skin will be performed with surtitles on March 7, 2015.