Marģeris Zariņš – Orchestral Works
Ieva Parsă; Aigars Reinis; Kremerata Baltica; Andris Veismanis
LMIC SKANI 128 (skani.lv)

While comprising only a small portion of the European geographical landscape, the Baltic countries have contributed a disproportionately significant number of composers whose works are truly remarkable and impactful. Such is the case with Marģeris Zariņš, the 20th-century Latvian composer and author who wrote a wide range of musical material for an equally diverse range of instruments and ensembles. 

The two largest-scale works on this disc are both organ concertos, composed for organ and chamber orchestra and augmented with two electric guitars, a jazz percussion set and harpsichord. While the use of such instruments might sound eccentric, the results are undeniably spectacular, successfully blending genres and producing an utterly unique sonic effect. 

Both concertos, Concerto Innocente and Concerto Triptichon, cross numerous stylistic boundaries: Innocente begins with a forceful and driving first movement and ends with a playful, carnival-esque finale; Triptichon, although less childlike, is no less energetic, and the first movement’s classical/jazz hybridization is inexplicable through prose – it must be heard to be believed!

While these two concertos form the bulk of this disc’s material, Zariņš’ compositional virtuosity is displayed and reinforced through three additional works: Four Japanese Miniatures, which combine 20th-century Orientalism with atonality to great effect; the Partita in Baroque Style, which is amusingly “Baroque” the same way that Prokofiev’s First Symphony is “Classical”; and Carmina Antica, which takes ancient themes, both musical and topical, and reveals them in a modernized vernacular.

From electric guitars and jazz to atonality, Zariņš wrote it all, and there really is something here for everyone. But even the most ingenious music cannot exist without interpreters, and Zariņš’ works receive expert treatment from the renowned international orchestra Kremerata Baltica, their conductor Andris Veismanis and soloists Ieva Parša and Aigars Reinis.

Descended
Maria Finkelmeier; Jean Laurenz; Greg Jukes; Buzz Kemper
Bright Shiny Things BSTD-0157 (brightshiny.ninja)

A suite of pieces that features blended electronics, vocals, acoustic percussion and trumpet, Descended is a project that warrants close listening. It’s not an easy collection to categorize. 

Jean Laurenz covers trumpet, vocals and percussion; Maria Finkelmeier, the composer, performs percussion and vocals as well. Laurenz is the great niece of Lafcadio Hearn, a 19th-century writer whose work explored Japanese culture, particularly ghost stories and mystical terror. The music is upbeat, yet distinctly scary. There’s a pop aesthetic to the beat-y sections, and the folk idiom I associate with Onibaba, a Japanese horror film. Sometimes cool and occasionally extremely hot, the collection shows a broad swath of influences. 

Much of the disc features percussion, alongside spoken, wailing, or sung vocals (Yoko Ono in the recent Beatles documentary comes to mind more than once). Laurenz’s trumpet playing is melodic and assured, as heard on several tracks: Orbs of Ghostliness (muted, in a beautiful duet with Greg Jukes on accordion), and Mirror in Matsuyama, another duet with Finkelmeier on marimba. Mujina’s Arrival bops along on a drum kit, marimba and various electronic synthesized beats. A female voice (sorceress, hag?) croons and croaks. Deep basso readings by Buzz Kemper on tracks three and six deepify the creepifying.

The title might refer to Laurenz’ relationship (grandniece) to Hearn whose texts show up on three of the tracks. Her own texts are featured in two other tracks, Mujina’s Arrival and the Caribbean-infused Moon Song, whose childlike character (simple strophic sing-song with toy piano) slowly gives way to horror-movie sound effects; macabre, hair-raising stuff.

Sean Friar – Before and After
NOW Ensemble
New Amsterdam (newamrecords.com)

Maybe all art has ever been able to offer is solace. NOW Ensemble’s newest release, Before and After, is the compositional work of Sean Friar. His big ideas concern the rise and fall of human civilization, the tininess of our individual lives, perhaps the meaninglessness of it all? And yet, here are these beautifully crafted pieces that we can immerse our ears into and forget – or release – our grief.

Tracks one and two run together: Chant establishing a kind of jangling consonance, and Frontier fracturing it before subsiding into unison resignation. Spread repeats a manic cadential figure plucked on electric guitar? or inside the piano?: an ostinato that underlies the spread of melodic efforts to find a home. 

This extemporal description is in keeping with the creative impetus of the work. Developed from improvised fragments, Friar sent his ideas as sketches to the performers in 2017; they each fleshed them out and over the intervening period performed various versions. The process culminated in this recording, made pre-pandemic (lest anyone think Spread is a reference to COVID). 

These first three tracks are followed by five more. Sweetly keening, Cradle links with Artifact in a way reminiscent of the first two tracks, although Artifact is much shorter; in turn it segues directly into the pop-happy Rally. Solo is, oddly a work for several voices, but perhaps it’s about the loneliness of facing certain existential truths. Not to be a downer, but the final haunting track is called Done Deal.

Ourself Behind Ourself, Concealed
Tasha Warren; Dave Eggar
Bright Shiny Things (brightshiny.ninja)

A line from the ever-elliptic Emily Dickinson’s poetry provides the title for this new release of various works commissioned by clarinetist Tasha Warren and composer/cellist Dave Eggar.

It’s hard to give this disc its due, on account of the similarly dark and perhaps overlong nature of the opening selections. 

The producers might’ve done better to reorder the tracks. The latter three are the strongest: not so deadly in earnest, more concise and jaunty. Maybe I’m worn out by the entire “responses to the pandemic” genre I’ve been touting lately, or by moroseness in general. Lalin (Haitian Creole for La Lune) by Nathalie Joachim, opens with a nocturne, then continues into a pointillist dancing depiction of the composer’s Haitian home. Phantasmagoria by Meg Okura (who joins the ensemble on violin) and Snapshots by Pascal Le Boeuf (joining on piano) also get the blood moving through the veins, with some decidedly upbeat character; I detect some Joni Mitchell in Snapshots. The duo benefits greatly by both composers’ energetic performances. 

Paquito D’Rivera’s African Tales opens proceedings. Purporting to move through musical landscapes of that vast continent, Rivera avoids overt references and recognizable styles. A soliloquy for bass clarinet leads to Eggar’s first entry; the two travel in tandem before dividing tasks. I hear influences of Donatoni and Messiaen.

Cornelius Boots’ Crow Cavern, and Black Mountain Calling by Martha Redbone, come next. By turns angry and sombre, and at nine minutes each (similar in length to African Tales), they stretch one’s patience. Interesting pieces, but the D’Rivera is a tough act to follow. 

Close miking provides lots of key noise, reed hiss, bow hair, finger pluck. The two principals seem to focus on extremes of expression, not on getting everything pristine, which is refreshing.

Jānis Ivanovs – Symphonies 15 & 16
Latvian National Symphony Orchestra; Guntis Kuzma
LMIC SKANI 126 (skani.lv)

I’d never heard any of the 21 symphonies by Latvian composer Jānis Ivanovs (1906-1983) before listening to the two on this CD, each lasting about half an hour, both filled with dark sonorities, propulsive energy and clamorous dissonances.

 Violence and disaster dominate Ivanovs’ Symphony No.15 in B-flat Minor (1972), subtitled “Symphonia Ipsa.” In the opening Moderato, quiet, tentative apprehension is suddenly shattered by brutal explosions. Heated struggle ensues in the Molto allegro’s agitated, snarling rhythms and desperate pleading. The grim, mournful Molto andante (Adagio) conjures, for me, a desolate battlefield strewn with bodies; brief, snide, sardonic phrases seemingly comment on the absurd futility of the preceding bloodshed. Nevertheless, martial mayhem returns in the Moderato. Allegro with cacophonous fanfares and pounding percussion before the symphony ends in a slow, ghostly procession.

Restless, fluctuating moods pervade Ivanovs’ Symphony No.16 in E-flat Major (1974), perhaps memorializing the victims of No.15. In the Moderato. Allegro moderato, gloomy, throbbing despair, sinister foreboding and dissonant shrieks are intermittently relieved by unexpected, hymn-like concordances and even touches of Sibelius. The Allegro busily churns with mechanized rhythms leading to the distressed Andante. Pesante. Here, dispirited resignation turns into anger and determined resistance until a gentle bassoon solo intones consolation. The Allegro moderato drives relentlessly to a strident triumphal chorale, ending in a simple major chord, the first happy moment on this CD.

Powerful music powerfully performed by conductor Guntis Kuzma and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra.

Gail Kubik – Symphony Concertante
Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose
BMOP Sound 1085 (bmop.org)

Three members of the Little Orchestra Society of New York were pestering conductor Thomas Scherman for solo opportunities, so Scherman commissioned Oklahoma-born Gail Kubik (1914-1984) for a work that would “kill three birds with one stone.” Using his trademark mix of Stravinskian neo-classicism, Coplandesque Americana, Hollywood and jazz, Kubik drew from his 1949 score for C-Man, a crime-caper B-movie, for the 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning Symphony Concertante for Trumpet, Viola, Piano and Orchestra. The brightly orchestrated first movement is filled with fragmented melodies and snappy syncopations. In the middle movement, uncomfortably shifting tonal centres reinforce the viola and muted trumpet’s long-lined desperation over thumping piano chords. A jazzy rondo features the solo instruments taking turns in the spotlight before the work ends with a raucous orchestral blast.

Gerald McBoing Boing (1950), based on Dr. Seuss’ story about a boy who “couldn’t speak but made noises instead,” won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. Unusually, Kubik composed his 13-minute, percussion-heavy score before the visuals were created to fit the music and narration, here provided by Frank Kelley.

Both Kubik’s five-movement, 15-minute Divertimento No.1 (1959), scored for 13 players, and his six-movement, ten-minute Divertimento No.2 (1958), requiring only eight players, are predominantly perky, with movements including Humoresque, Burlesque, Dance Toccata and Scherzino (Puppet Show). Seascape (in No.1) and Dialogue (in No.2) offer some pleasing breathing space. It’s all persuasively performed by conductor Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Entertaining throughout!

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Slatkin conducts Slatkin
Various Artists and Orchestras; Leonard Slatkin
Naxos 8574352 (naxosdirect.com/search/8574352)

“Not many know that I have been active as a composer,” writes Leonard Slatkin, who here conducts three of his orchestral works.

Slatkin’s 13-minute Kinah (2015) pays tribute to his distinguished parents, violinist Felix Slatkin and cellist Eleanor Aller. In 1963, two days after they had rehearsed Brahms’ Double Concerto, Felix suddenly died. Kinah (Hebrew for elegy) features metallic chiming and a noble, long-lined string melody, ending with hushed, haunting, incomplete phrases from Brahms’ concerto. In this recording of its world premiere, Leonard’s brother Fred plays the solo part on their mother’s cello. 

Slatkin says that his 12-minute Endgames (2014) “celebrates the unsung instruments of the orchestra whose players sit at the far ends of the woodwind section.” Scored for piccolo, alto flute, English horn, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabassoon and strings, it includes a cheerful, vigorous dance and a sweetly serene middle section, finishing with familiar quotations for each solo instrument, guaranteeing smiles of recognition from the audience. In the 26-minute The Raven (1971), atmospheric, cinematic background music accompanies Alec Baldwin’s recitation of five poems by Edgar Allan Poe.

This CD includes In Fields (2018), a nostalgic four-minute piece by Leonard’s son Daniel (b.1994), archival recordings of Felix playing arrangements of Brahms, Dvořák and Bizet, and a soundtrack excerpt from the 1946 film Deception, in which Aller, who premiered Korngold’s Cello Concerto, plays a bit of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D Major, with Korngold conducting his newly composed cadenza for it!

Matthew Schreibeis – Sandburg Songs
Tony Arnold; Various Artists
Albany Records TROY1856 (albanyrecords.com)

Hong Kong-based American composer Matthew Schreibeis’ elegantly urbane music seems eminently suited to capturing the pastoral imagery of Carl Sandburg’s poetry, which forms the second half (or so) of the repertoire of this album, Sandburg Songs. 

Schreibeis’ voice is unique. His songs appear to come from a pen dipped in the ink of Erik Satie and Alfred Schnittke. However, being his authentic self in all of this music, Schreibeis’ notes leap in divergent directions into a mysteriously poignant realm completely of his own creation. He is also stoically authentic to melodic and harmonic flights made in a spectral dimension not unlike Gérard Grisey.

The composer’s sound world seems to unfold in a series of moist landscapes that dissolve one into the other. His conceptions are extraordinarily vivid though, and he can conjure the reality of an extremely complex landscape with relatively spare noted phrases written for the piano or guitar as he does on the piece, Inner Truth and the cycle, They Say. 

The considerable range of his compositional palette is revealed twice on this recording. The curtain rises on the clarinet-violin duet Noticing and on In Search of Planet X, where a piano makes it a trio. Schreibeis’ power is unveiled on the fully orchestrated Sandburg Songs cycle, replete with piano, strings, reeds, woodwinds and percussion from the Zohn Collective conducted by Timothy Weiss. Carl Sandburg’s breathtaking verse soars in the keening soprano of Tony Arnold.

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Editor’s note: Matthew Schreibeis was originally scheduled for a composer residency at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto in this month but that has been postponed due to the Omicron variant. A new work for violin and vibraphone written for faculty members Mark Fewer and Aiyun Huang is now scheduled to have its premiere at the soundSCAPE Festival in Italy this July (soundscapefestival.org) where Fewer, Huang and Tony Arnold will be among the featured musicians. Schreibeis’ Toronto residency is tentatively planned to take place this fall.

Krists Auznieks – Coiled Horizon
Auziņš, Čudars, Arutyunyan Trio; JIJI Guitar; Sinfonietta Riga; Normunds Šnē
LMIC SKANI 091 (skani.lv)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unrest worldwide, with no country handling it the same. Canada has tended to err on the safer side, while the United States has largely thrown caution to the wind. Right in between these approaches, Europe has found a fascinating middle ground when it comes to maintaining arts and culture during turbulent times. 

The Sinfonietta Riga Chamber Orchestra of Latvia found themselves amidst this turmoil when attempting several times since 2020 to record exciting new guitar music by Krists Auznieks. Once the music was finally able to be performed live in 2021, the results became the album Coiled Horizons. It features two different approaches to the guitar: music for trio, performed by saxophonist Kārlis Auziņš, guitarist Matīss Čudars and the drumming/percussion of Ivars Arutyunyan, followed by an orchestral work that features the aforementioned Sinfonietta Riga Chamber Orchestra and classical virtuoso JIJI playing electric guitar. 

The album begins slow and ambient but draws the listener in immediately with a generous soundscape. Despite sounding like an adventurous jazz trio at first, Auziņš, Čudars and Arutyunyan wait until close to 20 minutes into the disc before providing something close to a “groove.” This makes for a beautiful transition into the album’s more classical sounding second half. 

The orchestral finale to this recording is a specimen to behold, fusing dense 20th-century composition with virtuosic guitar playing. No matter how ambient the first half gets, and however dense the second, this is a treat to listen to as foreground or background music.

Kranenburg Tree
Florian Wittenburg
Edition Wandelweiser Records EWR2104 (florianwittenburg.com)

German composer/musician Florian Wittenburg was musically inspired by a small tree at the former Kranenburg train station. He took a photograph of it and then used it as a template for sketches in the Metasynth software program, with which one can draw/paint music. The four resulting tree/branch drawings are the basis for this four-part ambient electronic music composition. 

Each kranenburg tree part is just over six minutes in length, and includes a calming connective drone sound Wittenburg describes as a “branch.” Part 1 opens with a long held colourful note that resonates throughout the part. A subsequent pulse, build in volume, additional notes and higher pitch is very engaging. More intense drone with pulse in Part 2, which builds with many held notes, until a totally unexpected sudden slide downwards to a single pulsing tone fade. Part 3 is dramatic as higher and lower drone pitches, washes and “crashing” drone cymbal-like sounds add texture until the closing sweeter drone fade. Part 4 opens with another held note from nowhere. Love the very high pitch drone above it and spacious sound effects, which disperse to a single note fade. Each part is separated by a one-minute track of reflective spacious silence. 

I understand Wittenburg’s musical inspiration here – since childhood I have loved sitting under trees and listening to them grow. This release is a great tree-listening addition. At under 30 minutes, it is short in length but multiple listenings will illuminate countless sweet electronic music moments.

O Mistress Moon – Canadian Edition
Jennifer King
Leaf Music LM245 (leaf-music.ca)

The moon is an ever-popular musical inspiration. Canadian pianist Jennifer King chose 12 solo piano works by six Canadian composers for their environmental relationship to the moon, night and outer space in this “Canadian version” sequel to her earlier recording. Each was released as a single to a monthly full-moon cycle related to folk and Mi’kmaq symbolism. Together, King’s self-described “musical meditative journey” takes off! 

Opening track, In the Falling Dark 1 by Derek Charke, sets the musical twilight moon stage with chorale opening, repeated notes, calming sparse parts and improvisations. Kevin Lau’s The Dreamer is an accessible mystical dreamworld soundscape held together by repeated E flat “heartbeat” notes. Sophie Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté’s Nocturne shows off King’s expertise in playing an expressive Chopin/Schumann influenced work. Sandy Moore’s three Nocturnes combine classical and modern music. Nocturne 3’s lyrical opening makes for relaxing moon watching until lower pitches and fast lines build dramatic tension before returning to a hopeful reflective closing. 

Three Richard Gibson works include Espaces in which I love the outer space tranquility created silences interspersed by few notes, ringing strings and atonal moments. Emily Doolittle’s Gliese 581c looks at a planet from outer space with faster high and contrasting dark sounds. Short, crisp, sudden flash-freeze chords and slower frost forming overlapping patterns in Amy Brandon’s brilliant Frost Moon. Jean Coulthard’s Image Astrale is dramatic out of this world sonic listening featuring contrasting harmonic textures.

King’s sensitive performances make for moving moonlight listening.

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Bones
Millerd Meyers
Dream Tower Records (andymeyers.bandcamp.com/album/bones)

Piano and trumpet player Simon Millerd (of Nomad fame) and guitar player Andy Meyers were ships in passing for many years. Though Millerd had done time with drummer Buff Allen and guitar legend Derek Bailey, the two had never managed to work together until finally having a chance to hang out and do some improv in 2019. What was captured is nothing short of beautifully quirky “art punk Euro jazz” (Meyers). Delightful improvisations (reminiscent of many lost nights at The Tranzac) unfold, and we are treated to rich and responsive listening. Spontaneous compositions are both tight and loose, organically stretching out over time and space in a free but equally orderly capsule. Tuneful but unrestrained, textured but melodic, the music holds shape and never loses interest. 

The four collage art cards included with the CD, created by Meyers and Susheela Dawne, are representative of the delightfully retro, fun miniature films included in the Bandcamp release which lent a vintage feel to the whole experience. The cards make a lovely souvenir of my journey. With only three compositions on the menu, coming in under 55 minutes the album is over too fast. Hopefully it is an appetizer for more releases in the future.

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Bell Tolls Variations; Fleur Revisited
Philippe Côté; Marc Copland; Quatuor Saguenay
Odd Sound ODS-21 (oddsoundmusique.com)

In this release we have two different albums packaged together with the players themselves as the common theme; Philipe Côté, on soprano saxophone and bass clarinet, Marc Copland, piano, and the Quatuor Saguenay. The string quartet is the central anchor throughout both albums, with several tracks written for only the quartet, adding an interesting element to the material and keeping it fresh and varied. The double release is written as two suites. 

With an opening sounding very much like a certain Arvo Pärt piece, we are gently led through the first album. Reed player Côté infuses his warm and melodic soprano sax sonorities throughout the album, keeping it just shy of contemporary classical with Copland’s deeply harmonic piano adding a jazz sensibility to the project. This is an album that is already so varied, it could be experienced either start to finish or popping up as surprises; most of the tracks are quite short and would be enjoyable sorbets in any playlist.

The second suite, Fleur Revisited (“revisited” as this is the second incarnation of this piece), follows a slightly darker, more adventurous path, with sonorities leading us through images of “a flower, growing on a rock in a very harsh environment” (Côté) and is an apt image for the times. Still edging between contemporary classical and jazz, this suite is more thematic and flows as one. A booklet of poetry by Lee Tsang is included with the CD, and the timing to take a moment to read poetry written to infuse the music could not have been better, giving me the opportunity to sink in and take a break from the isolation and too much news.

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Moments
Alyssa Giammaria w/Evan Dalling; Christian Antonacci; Nick Adema; Jen Lo; Leighton McKinley Harrell; Jacob Slous
Independent (alyssagiammaria.com)

Alyssa Giammaria’s debut album Moments is a perfect sonic getaway from the restless pace and the noise of our daily lives. This concept album tells a story of an inner journey, at a peaceful pace and with an array of subtle emotions. 

Vocalist Giammaria is the full author of this 28-minute EP – in addition to composing, she also wrote the lyrics and arrangements for all the songs. Giammaria is currently enrolled in the master’s program at the University of Toronto for jazz voice performance and the accompanying band features a talented crew made up of fellow students from the same university. The album certainly has a youthful energy, driven by engaging rhythms, but there is also a thoughtful depth to both music and lyrics. Giammaria’s voice is airy and bright, effortlessly soaring and illuminating the space just outside the meaning of the words. She combines jazz with musical theatre and classical music elements which, coupled with classy arrangements, produces a recognizably unique overall sound. Nothing seems rushed, and everything is expressed in elegant and slightly understated ways.

The accompanying band, consisting of three horns, piano, bass and drums, has a nice synergy and supports the vocal lines wonderfully. All are also engaging soloists in their own right. Watch for bassist Leighton McKinley Harrell’s mesmerizing opening solo in For Myself and Jen Lo’s sophisticated piano playing in Understand. Excellent debut album, highly recommended.  

Boomslang
Rich Halley; Dan Clucas; Clyde Reed; Carson Halley
Pine Eagle Records 014 (richhalley.com)

Oregon-based tenor saxophonist Rich Halley is known as a great bandleader who has been churning out records for the past couple of decades. This latest release features a collaboration with acclaimed musicians Dan Clucas on cornet, Clyde Reed on bass and Carson Halley on drums; making for an engaging and energetic set of tunes. The album is all originals, penned by Halley himself and along with his band members. Bold and intriguing, this musical journey is sure to catch the attention of any jazz fan, new or old. 

Corroboration opens the record with a unique saxophone and cornet interplay, something that isn’t heard too often and thus instantly reels in the listener. A lively bass line underpinned with a tight rhythmic groove sneaks in and the result is a tune you just can’t resist moving along with. Northern Plains is noteworthy as well for its tribute to First Nations music, the melody  reminiscent of their chants and singing style and with the distinctive drum sound a constant in the background. Situational leads us into a more interpretive side of the record, where Halley showcases his talent of being able to mix a free-form style with what could be called a classic jazz sound. It’s an interesting balance and mix of sub-genres that captivates the listener and leaves them wanting more. For the connoisseur of jazz looking for something to freshen up their collection, this album is definitely it.