The Long Walk Home
Nathan Keoughan; Peter Tiefenbach
Independent (canadianartsongproject.bandcamp.com/album/the-long-walk-home)

The Long Walk Home is Canadian Art Song Project’s (CASP) first independent release. Commissioned by CASP in 2015, this contemporary song cycle for baritone and piano is composed by Peter Tiefenbach with text by James Ostime. It premiered in March 2015 at U of T’s Walter Hall with baritone Geoffrey Sirett and pianist Tiefenbach. This recording features baritone Nathan Keoughan with Tiefenbach again at the piano.

This eight-movement song cycle has many musical styles like cabaret, musical theatre, Handel style operatic recitative, and art song. It tells the modern story of one man’s one-night experiences and emotional feelings. Opening Prologue starts with baritone “song” with wide ranging singing and chordal accompaniment until he meets a woman in a bar who invites him to her house. In Too Good …  (To Be True…) happy singing comes to a sudden silent stop when he sees another man in her house. An abrupt musical change of pace with grief stricken operatic singing and piano support. He runs away in Outta There to theatrical running music, then quiet singing above piano chords alternating with faster more atonal music. Message Received has operatic high pitch vocals and detached piano chords as he waits for his friend’s text answer. The other movements are equally mesmerizing.

Tiefenbach’s intelligent stylistic composing and piano performances are perfect. Keoughan’s vocal career in opera, music theatre and symphonic repertoire makes for great singing here. Ostime’s well written text runs the gamut from hilarious to emotionally sad. This is unforgettable, entertaining music!!

Paul Frehner – Horizon: Madog
Jeremy Huw Williams; Ensemble Paramirabo; Angela J. Murphy
Navona Records NV6819 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6819)

In the realm of rock music, the question “what was the first ‘concept’ album” is a good conversation starter for audiophiles and amateur music historians alike. While the debate often ends in a tie (between Frank Zappa’s Freak Out and The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), a better question might be: “what constitutes a so-called concept record in the first place?” And while that question will not be solved within this column, I am confident that a tri-language opera (French, English, and Welsh) that explores the theme of post-apocalyptic environmental renewal through the life of a “back-to-the-lander” named Madog who looks for non-technologically mediated means of connecting communication practices across diverse communities, would certainly count as “conceptual.”

Released on Navona Records earlier this year and composed by Western University professor Paul Frehner, with what I can only imagine was an extraordinarily challenging to write libretto by Angela J. Murphy, Horizon: Madog creatively takes fans of contemporary classical music and opera on exactly such a conceptual and exploratory journey. Calling upon his background as rock guitarist, Frehner takes inspiration from progressive rock and avant-garde jazz, blending diverse musical styles on this interesting and exciting project. Also featuring a new composition for analog synthesiser, the entire recording is a welcome addition to the canon of Canadian operatic composition and electroacoustic music, as well as offering a testimony to the creativity that can result when collaborations across composers, soloists, and ensembles work effectively and musically together to good end.

ArtChoral Volume 9 : Canada
ArtChoral
ATMA ACD 2428 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/art-choral-vol-9-canada-13-works-by-canadian-women-composers/?srsltid=AfmBOopAONdJfzD6t3YmW7bD2DEbyjH-sqpwqZxPkm1UC1VJ_Qq5Pzkv)

Volume 9 in the series of CDs by Montreal’s Ensemble ArtChoral presents 13 brief works by Canadian women, commissioned by ArtChoral with “complete freedom to choose their texts, themes and musical styles.”

Of those setting their own words, I particularly enjoyed Sandy Scofield’s The Sacred One, a strophic chant celebrating Indigenous women’s spiritual wisdom; Carmen Braden’s Now, at the First Fire of the Fall, a rhapsodic evocation of nature; and Sophie Dupuis’ Souv’nirs, sung in New Brunswick’s Brayon French dialect, confronting painful childhood memories with folk music-like simplicity.

Two spirited pieces employ Latin texts. In Marie Alice Conrad’s merry, foot-stomping Dum felis dormit, the chorus repeatedly sings the words of an ancient proverb – “While the cat sleeps, the mouse celebrates.” Kati Agócs’ propulsive Arise, Be Enlightened!, adapted from the Book of Isaiah, steadily gathers momentum until its final ecstatic climax.

I found two works especially moving. The emotionally stirring Dreamer’s Rock by Beverley McKiver, a Sixties Sweep survivor, is set to an inspirational, aspirational poem by Lisa Shawongonabe Abel, addressed to an Indigenous child. The haunting You’re Free to Love by Afarin Mansouri, herself a refugee from Iran, is adapted from her opera The Refugees, with text by Jennifer Wise. 

Pieces by Amy Brandon, Alice Ping Yee Ho, Katya Pine, Fiona Ryan, Karen Sunabacka and Leslie Uyeda complete this CD. Many thanks to Ensemble ArtChoral and its artistic director Matthias Maute for this remarkable compendium of Canadian (female) creativity.

Jim O’Leary – Echoes of a Vanished People
Helen Pridmore; David Rogosin; Karin Aurell; Eileen Walsh; James Gardiner; Dale Sorensen
Centrediscs CMCCD 34524 (centrediscs.bandcamp.com/album/echoes-of-a-vanished-people)

The Centrediscs label of the Canadian Music Centre seems to exist in the realm of the classical music landscape. That’s where they seem most relevant although they bloom in art and folk song and magically original expressions often merging both disciplines. The extraordinarily flame-haired and brilliant flutist Jaye Marsh sent me a copy of her ethereal work, Flute in the Wild (CMCCD 28921, 2021) and sent me scurrying for more from the intrepid landmark imprint. 

Point in case is Echoes of a Vanished People where we hear the luminous-voiced Helen Pridmore singing of people in the lonely landscapes of our vast exquisite country; six extraordinary works written by the eloquent Jim O’Leary – an expert craftsman specialising in Canadian art song.

O’Leary draws on poems and other lyrical works by the Newfoundland and Labrador author Michael Crummey and songs by Susan Pannefather Gray and others. The music and lyrics take us into the countryside of O’Leary’s childlike imagination where it mixes beauty and a long-ranging sense of love for the grizzled past. The songs are evocative of long rainy days and freezing nights. Each track takes us into a wild place with trusted and inspiring friends. Both O’Leary and Pridmore have their fingers on the pulse of a ruddy sanguinity of old in this auspicious offering.

Daniel Janke – Map of You
Rachel Fenlon
Centrediscs CMCCD 32323 (danieljanke.bandcamp.com/album/map-of-you)

The music recorded on Centrediscs is increasingly wondrous and challenging. This “existential” repertoire by Daniel Janke is a wonderful example of this. Vocalist and pianist Rachel Fenlon interprets Janke’s Map of You, an exquisite song cycle densely packed with ideas, emotions, and depth of thought.

The idea of dealing with “existential material” of this kind is sensational, with its mixture of beautiful arias and recitatives. The theme of Love in all its aspects is challenging. For instance, the songs – The Drunken Lover and Two Oranges in My Pocket – may even change your way of perceiving characteristics of love in opera.

Map of You is a work in progress by Daniel. It is beautifully interiorized by Rachel Fenlon who renders it in a wonderful manner. There may not be a better shaping of an operatic character. I am fairly sure that as the producers dug deepest, they found an exquisite partnership. Brava tutti.

Listen to 'Daniel Janke: Map of You' Now in the Listening Room

Reena Esmail – Exaltations
Cathedral Choral Society; Steven Fox
Acis APL78314 (acisproductions.com/reena-esmail-exaltations-cathedral-choral-society-fox)

Young American composer Reena Esmail presents three rather short numbers that are unconventional in ways that suggest a different, looser approach to writing liturgical pieces for the Christian Church. None of these pieces are underlaid with the usual prayers found in similar church pieces, but these Exaltations have very minimal texts which are only words and short Mass fragments that however serve in repetition and emphasize the basic impetus to be both joyous and contemplative.

The forces employed are a large mixed choir, four soloists who only sing in the second of the three parts, and a brass quintet. The music is in a readily approachable liturgical style universal in Christian religious cultures throughout the latter part of the 20th century, being mostly tonal, though not simply diatonic. There is a similarity to the music of Holst, who was influenced by his studies in East Indian music, in its feel and harmony. Esmail is of East Indian extraction, and she has almost surreptitiously included a technical element of East Indian Classical Music, in that each of these pieces is in a different Raga, or melodic framework, from the Indian tradition. This influences the mainly homophonic tone setting, although very subtly. 

The performance and recording are first class, and I suspect the whole project, recorded live at the National Presbyterian shrine Washington D.C. was conceived by Stephen Fox, director of the Cathedral Concert Society Choir. He has impressed in recent years with his Rachmaninoff Project, and in helping to resuscitate music by Ethel Smythe.

This is a most interesting curio, I just wish there was more of it.

Owen Underhill – Songs and Quartets
Daniel Cabena; Jeremy Berkman; Quatuor Bozzini
Collection Quatuor Bozzini CQB 2536 (collectionqb.bandcamp.com/album/owen-underhill-songs-and-quartets)

Owen Underhill leapt at the idea of having Quatuor Bozzini record his Second String Quartet, written after a chance encounter with John Cage in 1986 and later revised in 2017. The Bozzini had previously recorded his Trombone Quintet with soloist Jeremy Berkman. Embarking on this new project Underhill took the opportunity to compose music for the quartet based on the poetry of Henry Vaughan and Sir Walter Raleigh (The Retreat and What is Our Life respectively), with countertenor Daniel Cabenas and Berkman playing the sackbut (an early trombone dating from the era of the poems). 

Northern Line – Angel Station String Quartet No.2, was penned after witnessing a performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company with live music by Cage. Underhill says “The final movement is a quodlibet which includes four quotations from Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts (1949-50), an amazing piece and an important work in Quatuor Bozzini’s repertoire and discography.” String Quartet No.5 – Land and Water from 2017 is also in four movements which “etch out connections to the natural world, specific locations and personal experiences,” according to the composer.

The larger works The Retreat and String Quartet No.2 are outstanding. And What is Our Life and String Quartet No.5 are among Underhill’s most sophisticated. These are stellar works, giant steps by a fine composer who is surely on to even bigger challenges and outcomes in a burgeoning catalogue. Owen Underhill: Songs and Quartets, showcasing a more lyrical side of the Bozzini Quartet, will certainly make Underhill a more sought-after composer and these performers much more in demand.

Listen to 'Owen Underhill: Songs and Quartets' Now in the Listening Room

Allan Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd 
Makaris
Olde Focus Recordings FCR924 (newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue/makaris-allan-ramsays-the-gentle-shepherd)

Throughout the 18th century, Allan Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd (1729) was a smash hit on Edinburgh and London stages, and continued to be performed by amateur companies until late in the 19th. Robert Burns himself praised the poetry, and the story inspired over 40 paintings. Now, 300 years after the libretto’s publication, Scottish Baroque ensemble Makaris has given us the opera’s very first recording, and it is a delight— brimming with humour, verve, and accomplished musicianship.

This was not only the first Scottish opera but also the first ballad opera, an original libretto set to popular airs and songs of the day. These have no composer in the usual sense; the poet would simply indicate the name of the air to which his words should be sung. For this reason, much of the compositional responsibility fell on the musicians, who operated in a liminal space between oral and written traditions. For this recording Makaris had to create their own arrangements, drawing from a bare-bones score made after Ramsay’s death and digging into archives. They admit to taking some liberties for the sake of bringing the songs alive by choosing unexpected or atypical harmonies. This is all for the better; it springs off the recording so vividly that one longs for a live production.

This recording will appeal to those who enjoy theatre music by Boyce or Arne and works such as the Beggar’s Opera. It might also intrigue those who are familiar with some of the traditional tunes that show up here, in sparkling arrangements and with words added. The Waulking of the Fould is played much the same as it is now in Cape Breton or Scotland, and the O’Carolan’s beloved Sí Beag, Sí Mór is very recognizable, too. 

Ramsay’s work has one more relevant element for Canadian listeners in 2025: one of his motivations in writing and publishing was to champion Scotland’s culture and identity, and he was a vocal opponent of the Union of 1707 (which incorporated Scotland into Great Britain). Now, where is OUR Gentle Shepherd?

John Weldon - The Judgement of Paris
Academy of Ancient Music; Cambridge Handel Opera; Julian Perkins
AAM AAM046 (aam.co.uk/product/john-weldon-the-judgment-of-paris)

This lesser-known masque is a rarity. In an era of prequels The Judgement of Paris is certainly not performed frequently, and never before recorded. It would do well to remember that the story this masque tells is a prequel to Homer’s epic of the Trojan war, the Iliad. 

The Judgement of Paris, an important augury of the Trojan war, appears in Book 24, Verse 22 (ff) of the Iliad. In that event Eris, the goddess of discord, not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, extracts revenge by tossing a golden Apple of Discord, inscribed, "To the fairest one," amid the wedding guests. This results in a dispute between demigoddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite as to who the “fairest” is. Aphrodite bemuses Paris into kidnapping Helen of Sparta as the most beautiful mortal woman in the world, carrying her off to Troy. Thus, Eris' casus belli precipitates the Trojan War.

John Weldon (1670-1729) “won” a contest to compose music to William Congreve’s libretto. His succession of short arias are executed masterfully. These all feature eloquently crafted ritornellos and an attractive variety of instrumental writing. Each of the performances by the seven principal characters, chorus and instrumentalists is stellar. The Academy of Ancient Music and Cambridge Handel Opera Company’s period piece helmed by Julian Perkins runs at white heat when Jonathan Brown’s Paris takes the stage. Meanwhile Anna Dennis’ masterful Venus sparkles in every phrase.

Art Choral Vol.6 - Moderne 
Ensemble Artchoral; Matthias Maute
ATMA ACD2 2425 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/art-choral-vol-6-moderne)

Five previous “Volumes” by Montreal’s Ensemble ArtChoral traversed the Renaissance-to-Romantic musical eras. Vol.6, Moderne, offers 11 pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries, their impact enhanced by the CD’s reverberant acoustic, making the 12-member ensemble sound much bigger. 

Two movements from Quatuor Antiphonae Marianae Selectae by Slovenian Ambrož Čopi (b.1973) are engagingly cheerful and rhythmically playful. Unicornis Captivatur by Norwegian Ola Gjeilo (b.1978) alternates reverential solemnity with joyful celebration in a tale of animal death and rebirth.

Three stirring works evoke medieval chant – Præter rerum seriem by Canada’s Andrew Balfour (b.1967), the somber Kyrie eleison from Missa Regensis by Latvian Ugis Prauliņš (b.1957) and, most movingly, the haunting, lyrical O magnum mysterium by American Morten Lauridsen (b.1943). These soul-searching pieces receive appropriately slow, reflective treatment from conductor Matthias Maute. This contrasts with Maute’s very rapid tempi that compromise the noble gravitas of two beloved favourites, heard here in alternative settings – Agnus Dei, Samuel Barber’s own arrangement of his Adagio for Strings and Lux Æterna, a transcription by John Cameron of Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

The CD closes with two austere motets – Pablo Casals’ O vos omnes and Aaron Copland’s Help Us, O Lord (composed as an assignment while studying with Nadia Boulanger). A more fitting ending, I think, would have been the disc’s seventh track – Nyon Nyon by American Jake Runestad (b.1986), the singers propulsively mimicking electric guitars, synthesizers and drums. It’s a perfect encore piece!

Rufus Wainwright - Dream Requiem
Meryl Streep; Anna Prohaska; Maitrise, Choeur and Orchestre Philharmonique di Radio France; Mikko Franck
Warner Classics 5021732500601 (warnerclassics.com/release/dream-requiem-rufus-wainwright)

Rufus Wainwright’s Dream Requiem was surely made for this moment – even though the Canadian composer, pop songwriter and singer wrote it during the throes of COVID. We feel a sense of foreboding right from the beginning, when the narrator tells us, "I had a dream, which was not all a dream.” With that, we are plunged into the nightmare of Lord Byron’s aptly named poem, Darkness. 

A Requiem deals with loss. Yet what’s described is total annihilation. Wainwright artfully transcends the utter devastation by layering sections of the Latin Mass for the Dead into Byron’s apocalyptic poem. Hope comes in the final section, the In Paradisum, when the sublime children’s choir offers the consolations of eternal rest.  

Wainwright’s musical language here is not the most daring. But it is imaginative, personal, and highly expressive. Sumptuous melodies, catchy rhythms, rich harmonies – all inescapably Wainwright’s.

Conductor Mikko Franck calibrates the huge forces for both expressiveness and clarity. Soprano Anna Prohaska soars with the exquisite presence of a divine spirit, while the dramatically charged choir honours Wainwright’s deep connection to the words. 

Actor Meryl Streep catches every nuance in Byron’s text. Her sober narration reins in Wainwright’s heart-on-sleeve romanticism – that is, until the Dies Irae. Streep, as the voice of retribution, tears through it in a frenetic, virtuosic tour de force.  

Wainwright is undoubtedly better known for his singing and songwriting than his classical compositions. But Dream Requiem should be heard.

Electric Fields
Barbara Hannigan; Kati and Marielle Labeque; David Chalmin
Alpha Classics ALPHA 980 (outhere-music.com/en/albums/electric-fields)

By now my editor knows full well just how mesmerised I am by Barbara Hannigan. How – in my eyes – she can do no wrong. He also knows that if there is a new Hannigan recording – as sure as day follows night – I will make a beeline for it and likely find no fault in it whatsoever. The reason? There will be no fault with a Hannigan recording. That’s just the way it is. 

Let’s put aside Hannigan’s prowess as an actor and conductor for now. As an operatic star she is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of artist who does everything right, by any composer, in any repertoire from any era. This is how things go on Electric Fields (or might I say, “eclectic fields”?).

Her soprano instrument is lustrous throughout, whether she is interpreting Hildegard von Bingen (c.1098-1179) – O virga mediatrix and O vis aetrnitatis – or Barbara Strozzi (1619-1977) – Che si può fare – or two works by Bryce Dessner (b.1976). Hannigan also contributes one composition – Che t’ho fatt’io based on a fragment of Latin texts by Francesca Caccini (1587-c.1640).

Admittedly Hannigan shines alongside such star power as the piano-playing heavyweights, Katia and Marielle Labèque, and the wizardry of composer/performer David Chalmin’s ambient atmospheric contributions. But Hannigan’s performance is flawless – again. Each work is a priceless sound-painting. Each phrase has its own tinta; each vocal section a distinctive character. It’s exciting to wonder what comes next. One can only dream.

Christopher Tyler Nickel - Mass; Te Deum
Catherine Redding; Vancouver Chamber Choir; Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra; Clyde Mitchell
Avie Records AV2748 (avie-records.com/releases/christopher-tyler-nickel-mass-•-te-deum)

“Beauty-filled music” – that’s what I called Christopher Tyler Nickel’s Requiem (The WholeNote, Summer 2024), praising Nickel’s “distinctive melodic gift” that consolidated influences from Gregorian Chant to Bruckner, Fauré and Carl Orff. Along with his many scores for film, theatre and TV, the B.C.-based Nickel continues his commitment to sacred texts with Mass and Te Deum, composed concurrently between 2019 and 2024. Around 26 minutes each, they’re modest in scale compared to the 70-minute Requiem and minuscule measured against his seven-hour setting of The Gospel According to Mark.

“I’m always finding the melancholy in things,” writes Nickel. Here, his unusual scoring combines, in addition to strings, the plaintiveness of oboe, English horn, oboe d’amore and bass oboe with the sepulchral sonorities of four horns and tuba in Te Deum, two Wagner tubas replacing two of the horns in Mass. The pervading disquiet is heightened by continually shifting, irregular meters, including measures of five, seven and ten beats.

Nickel supplants Requiem’s stylistic eclecticism with a hyper-emotional, near-cinematic spin on Renaissance modes and harmonies. Mass begins with a plea of desperation in Kyrie, followed by a joyous Gloria, but solemnity reigns throughout the remaining sections. Te Deum is even darker. Canadian soprano, Catherine Redding, soloist in the Requiem recording, adds fervent entreaties to Te Deum’s intense anguish. Clyde Mitchell, conductor of the Requiem CD, draws urgent drama from Vancouver’s Chamber Choir and Contemporary Orchestra in these latest examples of Nickel’s truly “beauty-filled music.” 

Benedict Sheehan - Ukrainian War Requiem
Axios Men's Ensemble; Pro Coro Canada; Michael Zaugg
Cappella Records CR432 SACD (axioschoir.com)

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022 American Benedict Sheehan received a commission from Edmonton’s Axios Men’s Ensemble, performers of Eastern European sacred music, many of its singers sharing Ukrainian roots. Sheehan was asked, he writes, for “a new composition in honor of those fallen in Ukraine’s struggle for freedom.”

Sheehan’s Ukrainian War Requiem was premiered in Edmonton on April 14, 2024 with the Axios Men’s Ensemble and the tenors and basses of Edmonton’s Pro Coro Canada conducted by Pro Coro’s artistic director, Swiss-born Michael Zaugg.

In keeping with Ukraine’s mixed religious heritage – Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish – Sheehan drew texts from the Ukrainian Memorial Service, hymns of St. John of Damascus, Psalms 50 and 90, the New Testament Gospels and the Latin Requiem Mass. He combined, he says, “a variety of musical influences, including Ukrainian and Galician plainchant (somoilka), Gregorian chant, a Ukrainian Jewish psalm tone (nusach) and an array of original melodies,” as well as Shche Ne Vmerla Ukraïna (Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished), Ukraine’s national anthem.

Throughout the work’s 67 minutes, the richly sonorous men’s chorus sings with fervent urgency in Ukrainian, Latin and English, several choristers contributing solos; the major solos are sung by Ukrainian soprano Yuliia Kasimova and Canadian tenor John Tessier. Based on traditional church modes, Sheehan’s powerful, often heart-rendingly beautiful score is a loving tribute to the Ukrainian dead that deserves to be heard everywhere in remembrance of all victims of all wars.

O Listen to the music of Uros Krek & Else Marie Pade
Danish National Vocal Ensemble; Marina Batic
Our Recordings 8.226924 (ourrecordings.com/albums/o-listen)

This is the ninth release in a series of challenging projects from the Danish National Vocal Ensemble on Our Records. The professional chamber choir scene, especially amongst the Nordic countries, including Canada, is one of the most musically fecund departments in contemporary music. Choirs just seem to be getting better and more capable of negotiating ever newer compositional demands.

The retro graphic on the cover, a clunky ear, suggests that this release is odd. The disc opts to investigate some out-of-the-way developments around the middle of the 20th century. The Slovenian conductor of this ensemble, Martina Batič, has chosen two rarely exposed composers, one a fellow Slovenian, Uroš Krek, and Danish music concrète practitioner Else Maria Pade. 

Krek has a mid-century choral style that is closest to Gerald Finzi in the three English language pieces included, but the subsequent pieces in Slovenian and Latin show several attractive elements of his very solid style.

Pade’s mellifluous style fits well with standard mid-century practices, although she never sounds English. The real curate’s egg on this disc is one of Pade's electronic projects, an immersive environment meant to go around a challenging stratospheric coloratura soprano, baritone, speaking (like zombies) chorus and seven trombones. The electronic background includes assembled sounds. The very brief trombone chords and notes really make this piece. 

Performances throughout the recording are all supremely beautiful.

Listen to 'O Listen' Now in the Listening Room