Moto Perpetuo

David Childs

Salvationist Publications DOYEN DOY CD262 (www.davidchilds.com)

A few months ago I had the pleasure of attending a concert by the Hannaford Street Silver Band which featured euphonium soloist David Childs. With the memory of that breathtaking performance still fresh in my mind, I then received a CD by this amazing young Welsh virtuoso. From Paganini to Stephen Foster, David Childs shines a bright light on the broad spectrum of musical qualities of his instrument. Performing with the famous Cory Band, under the direction of his father Robert Childs, David explores the qualities of this underrated member of the brass family. The opening, dazzling, title track of the Paganini Moto Perpetuo left my head spinning. I could not operate my brain with such dexterity let alone my fingers. In contrast, the Lament by contemporary Welsh composer Karl Jenkins is one of the most lyrical solos I have ever heard on that instrument. Originally written as soprano solo in Jenkins’ Stabat Mater, this instrumental arrangement is my favourite on the record. Similarly, the Benedictus from Jenkins’ highly acclaimed The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace highlights the soloist’s ability to display the finest lyrical qualities of his instrument. The CD also features a new concerto for euphonium by Jenkins which was commissioned by David Childs.

The Hollywood Flute of Louise DiTullio

Louise DiTullio; Sinfonia Toronto; Ronald Royer

Cambria CD-1194 (www.cambriamus.com)

Louise DiTullio, the flutist of choice of many Hollywood film composers, including John Williams, over the course of a fifty year career, has played over 1,200 film scores. On this CD you can hear why she was in such demand: her sound, enlivened by a very organic vibrato, is pure and full and at the same time simple and unaffected. She plays the haunting themes from John Barry’s Dances with Wolves with enormous dignity, avoiding the temptation to slip into sentimentality. She is also capable of stunning virtuosity, as in The Lost Boys Chase, from John Williams’ score for Hook.

The CD was recorded two years ago with orchestra – Sinfonia Toronto augmented by woodwind and brass players from the TSO – conducted by Toronto conductor and composer, Ron Royer. Royer did all but one of the arrangements and also contributed a four-movement composition, Short Stories, one each for piccolo, concert, alto and bass flutes. In these the orchestration is masterful and the writing for all four solo instruments is fluent and idiomatic.

There is one other piece on the CD that was not composed for film, Laurence Rosenthal’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, for unaccompanied flute. Rosenthal, who is a film composer, gave a copy to Ms. DiTullio after a recording session. She has since performed it many times. This piece definitely deserves to become part of the standard repertoire for solo flute.

Sirocco - A Warm Breeze from Newfoundland
Sylvie Proulx
Centaur Records CRC 3053 (www.centaurrecords.com)

Here is a delightful solo recording by Canadian guitarist Sylvie Proulx featuring accessible yet virtuosic contemporary music for everyone, even those one or two of you who don’t like new music.

Proulx is a technical and stylistic wizard on the guitar. She tackles the non-stop perpetual rapid momentum of the fourth movement Presto in Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba with breathless ease. Her take on the Spanish musical influences of Andrew York's Sirocco are personal yet bang-on accurate. The more Baroque-like qualities of Leo Brouwer’s An Idea showcase her solid foundation in a more classical rooted work, and her ability to conjure a more subtle and soothing atmosphere from her instrument. Soothing elements resurface in the first movement of Roland Dyens’ Triaela while she gets to interpret more jazz and groove based lines in its other two movements.

The Theme and 10 Variations of Clark Ross’ Variations on McGillicuddy’s Rant are as wide ranging in style as Proulx’s talent. From folk dance to jig to chorale to bluegrass, it was written over a 20 year period yet is so cohesive in spirit and ideas that it sounds like it was composed after an afternoon at the pub.

It is really, really difficult to maintain a listener’s interest in a solo recording (or recital for that matter). Proulx’s guitar finesse with her excellent choice of repertoire makes “Sirocco” a recording that will keep one’s interest for a long time to come.

raW - Chamber Music by James Rolfe
Continuum Contemporary Music
Centrediscs CMCCD 16210

The Continuum ensemble, comprised of Toronto’s top contemporary musicians, adds a third CD to its discography. Here effectively conducted by Gregory Oh, the entire album is dedicated to the music of multi award winning Toronto composer James Rolfe (b. 1961).

raW (2003) is a delightful musical romp. Based on Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto, Rolfe notes that the musical elements of raW are filtered through several reggae songs and the John Philip Sousa march Stars and Stripes Forever. The work starts smartly with a series of recognisable motoric sixteenths from the Bach treated to syncopation and silencing. This stream is then subjected to a complex multi-layered compositional process exposing evanescent and barely recognizable echoes of reggae and march. The effectiveness of raW is heightened by its masterful scoring. The first series of chords sound as if a much larger ensemble than Continuum’s six musicians produced it. Graced with deftly constructed light-hearted moments, it’s no wonder this effective work was awarded the 2006 Jules Léger Prize for Chamber Music.

The composer’s brand of cheeky humour re-appears in Devilled Swan (1995). Here the composer takes apart the late 18th-century hymn tune China by Timothy Swan, the American hymnodist. Like James Rolfe’s composition teacher John Beckwith has often done in his own works, Devilled Swan takes an established hymn and re-composes it; except that the student takes compositional messing to new extremes. Rolfe virtually vivisects the hymn, proposing an ode to chromaticism and rhythmic stasis.

The violin sonata Drop (1999) is most memorable where the extended violin melody is doubled on the piano. Squeeze (1997) on the other hand starts off as a jaunty march, flavoured with a “Les Six”-like insouciance. Further on it marches right into the mysterious dreamy realm of a Bach chorale, dissolving into an unresolved tonal, harmonic and textural mistiness.

Composer Rolfe, evidently fond of bass drum thumps of all dynamic gradations, indulges his penchant in Revenge! Revenge!! Revenge!!! (1995) to dramatic effect, adding brake- and other drums for good measure.

This is a distinguished album by one of our most gifted composers of new concert music, definitively played.

Jalsaghar
Vivienne Spiteri
Centrediscs CMCCD 16410

This new offering from the enigmatic Canadian harpsichordist Vivienne Spiteri is brilliantly unique. Although I do not understand Spiteri’s musical approach, I cannot help but respect and applaud her conviction and honesty to her art and her playing. In the five duets and two trios featured, she is able to seamlessly transport her ideas from thoughts to fingers to keyboard, showing a talent so wide ranging that it is mind boggling.

A Who’s Who of Canadian composers and performers join Spiteri on her musical journey. In Hope Lee’s In the Beginning was the End, accordionist Joseph Macerollo’s exquisite long tones juxtaposed against the crisp harpsichord sounds move the composition in an ethereal dimension that only this world-class accordion hero can achieve. The three duo works by John Beckwith are diverse. In both Ringaround with lever harpist Sharlene Wallace, and Lines Overlapping with Kirk Elliott on five-string banjo, a sparse dialogue of overlapping parts creates a tinkling aural world. In contrast, Beckwith’s Blurred Lines has Spiteri and violinist Lawrence Beckwith blast into the sonic future. Percussive or florid harpsichord lines against droning, moaning or plucked violin melodies jubilantly cross styles, moods and centuries in this top track. Works by Bruce Mather, Linda Bouchard and Kirk Elliott complete the disc.

A remarkable depth of performance is key here. Spiteri never overshadows or disappears in her ensemble playing. She knows what she wants yet lets others do what they do best.

Canadian Flute Quartets
Laurier Quartet
CML Productions CD 104

This recording of flute quartets by Canadian composers was funded by Wilfrid Laurier University in celebration of its centennial year. It can also be seen as a celebration of the work of Amy Hamilton, who has been teaching the flute at Laurier since 1987: the four players are she and three of her students, Jennifer Brimson, Heather Snowden, and Dawn Ellis-Mobbs, each of whom has gone on to pursue post graduate studies in flute in Canada, the U.S. and Britain. Their playing is consistently accomplished and assured, excellent intonation, articulation, and tone quality, even on the bass and alto flutes called for in several of the six compositions on the disc.

The repertoire covers a broad spectrum of contemporary genres, from the minimalism of Sally Norris’s Writing the Voice (for piccolo quartet) to the lyricism and piquant and sonorous harmonic vocabulary of Carl Derfler’s Flute Quartet No. 1. Even more interesting and individual are the pieces in between: the spellbinding counterpoint of David McIntyre’s A Gentle Melancholy, the organic musical architecture of Claude Lassonde’s Euphonie Fantasmique, the stunning use of the bass flute as a solo instrument in Euphrosyne Keefer’s The Undertow, and the poetic, almost uncanny way that Roberta Stephens captures the mood and essence of a moment in her three short pieces.

I congratulate Quartet Laurier for revealing these wonderful additions to the flute quartet repertoire - a must-have CD not only for flutists but also for composers and orchestrators, and, of course, anyone who loves the sound of the flute.

Cache 2009
Various Artists
CEC PeP 014 (http://cec.concordia.ca/cd/)

Each year the Canadian Electroacoustic Community/Communauté Electroacoustique Canadienne (CEC) holds a competition for new works merging acoustic and non-acoustic sounds by young and emerging sound artists. For the 2009 edition of winning musical submissions the CEC collaborated with its German counterpart, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Elektroakustische Musik. They co-produced this double CD set, one for each country: “Cache 2009”.

CD I opens auspiciously with the saxophone key flutterings of Syncrétisme (2009) by Québec composer Guillaume Barrette. This work is entirely based on sounds sourced from a multicultural array of instruments including saxophone, violin, piano, gangsa and ugal (the latter two being metallophones of the Balinese gamelan).

In the next track Montrealer Tomas Furey’s Tes Régions (2008) builds its musical case on elusive strummed guitar chords around which various other acoustic bell, string, knocking, rolling, crumpling and electronic sounds accumulate. Furey seems to be reaching here for a dream-like atmosphere tinged with tonality which serves to bolster the emotional quality of the music.

Olivier Girouard’s lengthy and cinematic Suite_04 (2009) shifts back and forth between several sonic tableaux: live recordings of public spaces and soundscapes produced in the studio. A third “text” appears in the form of quiet intimate voices from the soundtracks of a Wim Wenders film and from a Pedro Almodovar film. The title refers to a J.S. Bach dance suite on which this work’s structure is modeled. Girouard’s objective appears to be to access a wide variety of the world’s sounds and transcribe them into his work.

Space allows me to mention only one work from the German CD: the gorgeous Nachtschatten (2008) by composer Alexander Schubert. This dramatic “tape piece” is based on sound material derived equally from both instrumental and electronic sources. In Nachtschatten (Nightshade, a genus in the extensive nightshade plant family) the composer creates a rich chamber ensemble acousmatic texture. Schubert also foils expectation by undercutting the common musical practice of slowly adding sounds in order to build increasing density. Rather he maintains a moderate sound event tempo thus keeping the texture fairly homogenous. The work ends with several rich and crunchy chords I have trouble describing other than with the word “yummy”.

The 13 stimulating and diverse works in this package reminded me of the excitement I felt in the 1970s when I produced such fresh sounds and electroacoustic constructions myself at York University’s Electronic Studios. Nostalgia for les temps électroacoustique perdue, perhaps?

Electrologos

Joseph Petric

ConAccord (www.josephpetric.com)

We've come a long way since Canadian scientist Hugh LeCaine (1914-1976) invented the “Electronic Sackbut”, the world's first voltage controlled synthesizer in 1945. Live electronic art was born, and the three electroacoustic composers featured on accordionist Joseph Petric's new release all play homage to LeCaine in their artistic manipulations.

Take a listen to current mainstream popular music on the radio – all the same tweaks, loopings and sounds can be heard on “Elektrologos” too. Bob Pritchard's Breathe on Me (O Breath of God...) is an ethereal soundscape. Larry Lake's early booming Sticherarion shows the composer experimenting with technology while his later work, Fractals is more of a techno-chamber work. Finally the great Orbiting Garden by Christos Hatzis is a sound explosion – Petric plays nonstop with florid musical rock star lines. This is the powerhouse performance and piece.

Accordionist Joseph Petric is an accomplished, sensitive and intelligent musician who has an international following both for his live performances and his prolific recorded output. He can play any style, but don't get me wrong, he is really in his element in the world of electroacoustic music. He absolutely shines – it is especially his impeccable bellows control that shapes the dynamic interplay between accordion and “sound machines” here.

A thousand raves to Joseph Petric and the composers. This is an accessible and culturally important aural experience to be heard time and time again.

Giacinto Scelsi - Piano Works 4

Stephen Clarke

Mode 227 (www.moderecords.com)

Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) was a remarkable Italian innovator. His music is dissonant, improvisational, and often unorthodox rhythmically. Stephen Clarke’s virtuosity and artistic sensitivity are both evident on this disc of 1930s piano music by Scelsi.

The triptych Hispania (1939) opens by evoking flamenco guitar as it fans out from the pitches E-F. Clarke handles the “thrums,” ornaments, and “damped” tone clusters with panache. The wonderful slow movement starts at a slow tread, like a quest in the dark, and then becomes more agitated. Contrasting white-note modality prevails in the finale where slow chords effect peaceful closure

I particularly enjoyed Suite No. 5, “The Circus” (1935). These miniatures are appropriately gestural, at times dance-like. The 5th piece has a profusion of acrobatic arpeggios, leaping up higher and higher until they cover the instrument’s full range. The 6th is a tarantella like no other that rumbles in the depths! The last piece to me has hints of fascist marches at a time when World War Two approached. Clarke captures well the work’s whimsical and sometimes childlike sensibility.

Suite No. 6 (1939) has intriguing moments, though Scelsi’s trademark fast repeated notes here seem excessive. Yet Clarke has mastered them, as well as fiendish leaps to note clusters that differ slightly each time. Recorded in Berlin and Toronto, the disc is a labour of love whose recording quality equals that of the performances. I look forward to more Scelsi as the Mode Edition unfolds.

Concert Note: Stephen Clarke performs the music of Giacinto Scelsi in a benefit performance for Arraymusic at Gallery 345, 345 Sorauren Ave. on February 12.

Cosmophony

Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa

Redshift Records (www.cosmophony.com)

Canada is blessed with a remarkable roster of talented pianists who are dedicated to championing work by our country’s composers. We can add Vancouver’s Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa to that roster. As her bio says, she has “a shameless passion for contemporary music” and it shows on this solo debut for the Redshift Music Society. “Cosmophony”, as defined in the extensive liner notes, is a noun built on Greek roots and literally means “sound of the cosmos.” It is also the banner under which Iwaasa unites her favourite Canadian composers to create a recital album inspired by the planets. Completed over three years, “Cosmophony” starts with Denis Gougeon’s fiercely virtuosic Piano-Soleil and extends out across the solar system in a series of ten works from West-Coast composers, nine commissioned by Iwaasa expressly for this project. She has selected her contributors well, among them Rodney Sharman, Jeffrey Ryan, Marci Rabe, Jordan Nobles, Jennifer Butler and Emily Doolittle. They all use juxtapositions of science, mythology and astrology to depict their selected planets and amplify their individual voices. From Sharman’s truly mercurial Mercurio dal Ciel In Terra to Rabe’s intimate yet eerie Venus, and from Ryan’s scintillating Saturn: Study in White to Butler’s submerged sonics of Neptune, Iwaasa covers a range of moods and styles with great mastery. Noticeably absent is Pluto, which was delisted as a planet during the project’s development. It’s replaced here with Doolittle’s optimistic but ominous Gliese 581, evoking a distant planet we had hoped inhabitable. Matching “Cosmophony” with George Crumb’s ambitious Makrokosmos Volume II: 12 Fantasy Pieces after the Zodiac is a brilliant touch of programming, not only for its showcasing of Iwaasa’s full virtuosity – calling on a range of extended techniques – but also for its counterpoint to the more traditional technique required by the Canadian collaborators. Excellent recording quality and lovely packaging make this a strong release.

The Minimalism of Erik Satie

Vienna Art Orchestra

hatOLOGY 671 (www.hathut.com)

Re-orchestrating the quirky compositions of Erik Satie (1868-1925) may seem peculiar, but that’s what conductor Mathias Rüegg and the 10-piece Vienna Art Orchestra (VAO) do with élan on this 75-minute CD. Over the past 33 years, the VAO has effected similar transformations on the music of other composers such as Strauss, Brahms and Gershwin, not to mention many of jazz’s greatest themes. Here the procedures emphasize the pared-down and folkloric tendencies found in the music of France’s Satie, a transitional composer, whose eccentric titles and cabaret influences presaged experimental sounds.

Recasting the music of a composer known for his piano works, Rüegg’s arrangements feature no pianist, instead relying on the VAO`s soloists to put a personal stamp on Satie. Reflections on Méditation for instance, revolves around Lauren Newton’s squeaky scatting and Karl Fian’s whinnying and slurry trumpet lines. Reflections on Sévère Réprimande, balances Harry Sokol’s languid soprano saxophone solo on an undertow of mid-range brass and vibraharp textures. More radically, a composition such as Reflections on Gnossienne No. 1 becomes a romping circus-styled exposition with joyful contrapuntal rhythms courtesy of Wolfgang Puschnig’s Arabic-sounding sopranino saxophone and the reverberations from Wolfgang Reisinger’s tarabuka or goblet drum.

Rüegg’s transformation of Satie’s works as pared-to-the-bone minimalism is most apparent on the three variants on Vexations which the composer wanted performed slowly with many repetitions. Since one track lasts more than 23 minutes and the other two either side of nine, the VAO adds needed emotion to these exercises courtesy of, in one instance Newton’s melismatic vocalese, and in another Roman Schwaller’s sensual tenor saxophone lines.

Chinese Recorder Concertos

Michala Petri; Copenhagen Philharmonic; lan Shui

OUR Recordings 6.220603

This remarkable CD presents the premiere recordings of four concertos by living Chinese composers, two of whom currently work in the USA. The disc opens with Tian Jianping’s Fei Ge (Flying Song), originally written in 2002 as a concerto for dizi (Chinese bamboo flute) and pan-Asian instrumental ensemble. This transcription by the composer for western orchestra and recorder, on which Petri eloquently evokes the dizi in tone and effect, works beautifully with playing of the highest order from both orchestra and soloist.

Bright Sheng’s evocative and strikingly beautiful Flute Moon is more a full orchestral work than a concerto, and Petri plays solo parts originally assigned to the flute and piccolo. The piece revels in a rich array of orchestral colours, dazzling musical gestures, and dramatic shifts of mood. The three-movement Bang Di Concerto by Ma Shui-long is the composer’s best known composition, and is an extraordinarily effective fusion between Chinese and western musical languages. It receives an utterly virtuosic performance from all involved. Written for Petri by Chen Yi, The Ancient Chinese Beauty draws inspiration from Chinese figures, script, and flutes. The second movement, particularly in its evocation of the ancient xun or large Chinese ocarina, is particularly impressive.

For several decades now Michala Petri has been one of the busiest and most familiar recorder players to audiences around the globe, and with programs such as this she continues to do great things beyond the recorder’s more typical boundaries. She seems eminently at home here, making her own distinct music in a fascinating project designed “to creatively collaborate in an international musical dialogue.”

Kudos to her, to the wonderful Copenhagen Philharmonic and conductor Lan Shui – and to the composers of these wonderful pieces.

Concert Note: Chen Yi is the featured composer at this year’s New Music Festival at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto with events January 23 through 29. Chen’s Yangko is also included in Soundstreams Canada’s January 25 concert “Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera” at Koerner Hall.

Lou Harrison - Scenes from Cavafy

Gamelan Pacifica; Jarrad Powell

New World Records 80710-2 (www.newworldrecords.org)

The long list of non-Indonesian composers who have been intrigued and inspired by the instruments and music of the gamelan (an indigenous Indonesian orchestra) goes back some 250 years. Starting with Jean-Philippe Rameau in the 18th c., the lineage continues with Debussy and led to compositions by the Canadian Colin McPhee, and to works of Steve Reich and to many more musicians active today.

There was no more eager convert to the gamelan as a Western musical resource however than the American composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003). As well as composing dozens of works for various types of gamelans, Harrison served as a generous mentor to a generation of musicians who have subsequently taken the gamelan music model into their own musical domains. These include Toronto’s Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan and Seattle’s Gamelan Pacifica.

The top-notch musicians of the latter perform definitive versions of the three large-scale Harrison works for Central Javanese style gamelan on this album. The Seattle composer and expert gamelan musician Jarrad Powell convincingly directs the extended ensemble of instrumentalists, choir and vocal soloists in the three works here.

The Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan (1987) is the most substantial of the eight Harrison works combining Western solo instruments and the gamelan. The piano is retuned to match the gamelan instruments. This is an effect which provides bracing listening at first, but to which friendly ears warm by the slow cantabile movement, a Harrison specialty.

A Soedjatmoko Set (1989) illustrating Harrison’s mature gamelan style, features Jessika Kenney, an outstanding American soprano. She manages the most difficult of musical tasks: to convincingly nail a sort of magical amalgam of both Javanese and late 20th c. American vocal style, articulation, timbre, intonation and mood, at the same time. Together with the excellent liner notes, this recording is a fitting tribute to Harrison’s ideal of the peaceful coexistence of world music cultures, demonstrated here at a very high level indeed.

Neue Bilder - Music of James Harley

New Music Concerts; Robert Aitken

Centrediscs CMCCD 16010

One of the benefits of the endangered CD format is illustrated by the release of compilations such as this revealing in-depth look into the oeuvre of Canadian composer James Harley (b.1959).

On one hand we have detailed programme and biographic notes in the booklet allowing one-stop exploration of the creator’s mind and life leading up to compositions spanning 22 years. On the disc, we have the star performances of Toronto’s venerable New Music Concerts (NMC). Celebrating 40 years of dedication to new music this season NMC’s musicians consistently present interpretations of a high level, and these performances – many recorded live – live up to those standards of excellence. As a stellar example, NMC co-founder and internationally renowned flutist Robert Aitken’s brilliant performance of Harley's early solo flute piece Portrait (1984) is a demonstration of virtuosity in the service of the composer’s lyrical musical vision.

While the spirit of the Second Vienna School is alive in the eloquent and elegant music of Harley’s composition Neue Bilder (1991), the notes reveal that the work is actually based on the music of an earlier Austrian composer. “Algorhythmically” transforming abstracted material from an illustrious aria from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, this work is a testament to the magical possibilities inherent in musical metamorphosis in its many forms.

Judging from the five works here Harley, who presently teaches Digital Music at the University of Guelph, has a rare gift for sustained melodic line. The passionate flute and cello solos in Epanoui (1995) and the breathy, delicate bass flute exhalations in Tyee (1995) provide ample evidence of that. It’s a gift I appreciate receiving, repeatedly.

Marc-André Hamelin - Études

Marc-André Hamelin

Hyperion CDA67789

Up to now, the Montreal-born Boston-based pianist Marc-André Hamelin has been rightly regarded as something of a pianistic supernova, a musician whose technical prowess and innate musicality have gone hand in hand with his efforts at promoting piano music by lesser-known composers. But with this new Hyperion recording, titled simply “Études” we see him in a new role, that akin to a 19th-century “pianist-composer.” The CD is comprised of original material written over a 24- year period, featuring 12 Etudes in all the minor keys, Little Nocturne, five movements from a set of pieces titled Con intimissimo sentimento, and finally, a Theme and Variations.

Of the twelve études, eight are based on works by other composers, along the lines of Godowsky’s re-creations of the 24 Études by Chopin. For example, the first in the set, written in 1992, is based on the Chopin Étude Op.10 No.2, while the third is a clear adaptation of the famous Liszt-Paganini étude La Campanella – but very much taken a step further! These pieces are breathtaking in their virtuosity – amateur pianists such as myself can only marvel at the brilliant technique displayed here, which at the same time demonstrates such subtle nuances of tone and colour. The Little Nocturne from 2007 provides a languorous contrast to the pyrotechnics of the études, while the pieces from Con intimissimo sentimento are quietly introspective, showing a wholly different side to Hamelin’s creative style. Over the years, more than a handful of composers have written music expressing their love for a “significant other” and Hamelin is no exception. His Theme and Variations (“Cathy’s Variations”) is a poetic and intimate love-song honouring his fiancée Cathy Fuller.

For anyone who is sceptical about “pianists who compose” this disc is a highly worthy addition to the catalogue. We were always aware of Mr. Hamelin’s supreme gifts at the keyboard, but now he has now shown us another dimension of his talents.