Les exquises Allégories
Ai Goldsmith; Miles Graber
Titanic Ti-281 (flutistai.com)

California-based flutist Ai Goldsmith and pianist Miles Graber’s CD, Les exquises Allégories, gives us the opportunity to get to know four major works, each 15 to 20 minutes long, by little-known 20th-century composers, plus a lovely transcription of an early Schubert lied.

First on the program is Carl Frühling’s Fantasie, Op.55, a bravura, late-Romantic one-movement emotional rollercoaster ride. Goldsmith’s direct approach to playing the flute is perfect for the big, expansive opening, reminiscent of the opening moments of Chaminade’s Concertino and Eldin Burton’s Sonatina. This directness, which I might characterize as letting the music speak for itself, also works particularly well in the opening movement of the Sonatine by Walter Gieseking, whose work as a composer is as worthy of recognition as his career as a concert pianist. (He also composed Variations on a Theme by Grieg, also on this CD.)

Where it is perhaps most effective is in Schubert’s Litany for All Souls’ Day, which Goldsmith dedicated to her mother, who died in 2012, and which she plays with respectful simplicity, allowing the beauty and the sadness of the music to resonate and touch us.

There are also many moments of stunning virtuosity, which Goldsmith and Graber play with control and authority. Graber’s reading of the dauntingly difficult piano part in Grigory Smirnov’s Fantasia is quite breathtaking; but he is equally convincing in the tender solo piano interlude toward the end of the same piece.

Mahler – Symphony No.8
Utah Symphony; Mormon Tabernacle Choir; Thierry Fischer
Reference Recordings FR-725 SACD (referencerecordings.com)

In 1963 the Utah Symphony was the first American orchestra to release a pioneering stereo studio recording of Mahler’s monumental Eighth Symphony, followed by performances of all of Mahler’s formerly under-appreciated symphonies. Under the 32-year nurturing leadership of the venerable Maurice Abravanel, the ambitious Utah ensemble rose to national prominence, with over 100 recordings on various labels released during his tenure.

Happily for this orchestra it seems that history is destined to repeat itself. The Swiss conductor Thierry Fischer arrived in Utah in 2009 and holds a contract there until 2022. After a long silence the orchestra is again releasing recordings under Fischer’s direction on the audiophile Reference Recordings label. The present recording of the Eighth was preceded by a well-received disc of Mahler’s First Symphony; both of these constitute the beginnings of this orchestra’s 75th Anniversary Mahler Cycle project. The results are impressive to say the least.

The Eighth Symphony is Mahler’s most gargantuan and atypically affirmative symphony, ofttimes hyped as the “Symphony of a Thousand,” though in the present case the forces involved number closer to 500 performers. The legendary Mormon Tabernacle Choir, along with the Madeleine Choir School Choristers, form the nucleus of the mighty choral forces; both are exceptionally well prepared and project an admirable diction. The cast of eight superbly matched vocal soloists includes sopranos Orla Boylan, Celena Shafer, Amy Owens and Charlotte Helekant, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, tenor Barry Banks, baritone Markus Werba and bass Jordan Bisch. The tenor soloist Banks in particular is outstanding, able to project without straining in the extremely demanding heldentenor part which has proved a stumbling block in many a performance of this work.

The production team from sound/mirror has worked miracles in this live performance from the acoustically quirky Salt Lake Tabernacle, utilizing a minimalist core of five microphones. I can only imagine the impact the SACD layer of this double CD recording might have. Fischer’s interpretation is flexible and affectionate, a winning formula in a work that can easily feel bombastic in the wrong hands. This is an outstanding performance that deserves pride of place in the discography of this work.

Pride of Performance
The Concert Band of Cobourg
Independent (theconcertbandofcobourg.com)

The Concert Band of Cobourg is one of the most prominent community bands in Ontario. As was the case with many bands in the country, the band planned on sesquicentennial-year celebrations. However, the year 2017 was a special year in a very different way for them. It was the 175th year for the band to play for their town. While the town band had been playing continuously over that time period, it had fallen into difficult times by 1970 when Roly White, formerly of the Royal Marines bands, became director of music. Since then, and now under the baton of White’s successor, Paul Storms, the band displays its depth of performing, composing and arranging talent.

This record is unique in that every selection was either composed or arranged by members of the community. Of these, at least six are original compositions. There are very special arrangements by band members of a wide range of genres from Sugar Blues to Stravinsky’s The Firebird. The name David Tanner, in particular, appears regularly with four original compositions, eight arrangements and one solo to his credit. All solos, by Tanner and the seven other soloists, show great sensitivity and musicality.

This CD, Pride of Performance, has a most appropriate title. All members of the band should rightfully be proud of this performance. Throughout, all numbers display a high level of musicianship, and recording quality which matches that standard.

The Sound of Silent Voices – Children’s Poetry from the Holocaust Reflected in Musical Compositions by Young Composers
Ton Beau String Quartet; Gershon Willinger; Zachary Ebin
Independent (silentvoicesproject.zacharyebin.com)

A few years ago, violinist, music educator and founder/artistic director of the Silent Voices Project, Zachary Ebin, was doing some research at York University and happened upon I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a collection of Jewish children’s drawings and poems, created from 1942 to 1944, during their imprisonment in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

With the knowledge that only about 100 of the 15,000 children sent to Theresienstadt survived, combined with being deeply affected by the children’s heart-wrenching poetry, Ebin was inspired to find a way to keep their voices alive. His idea of having contemporary, young composers create musical works based on that poetry was the genesis of the Silent Voices Project and this ensuing CD.

Fourteen composers, from Toronto, Waterloo, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago, aged 10 to 20 (not unlike the young poets in Theresienstadt) participated. With their astonishing and profoundly moving works, each of them has demonstrated remarkable skill, dignity and maturity beyond their years. Performing their stirring trios and quartets on The Sound of Silent Voices is Toronto’s outstanding Ton Beau String Quartet. Gershon Willinger, who at age two was among the youngest children liberated from Theresienstadt, provides another layer of gravitas, reciting each poem prior to its musical reading.

This is an exceptional project, a heartfelt labour of love and respect. These evocative young voices – both the poets and the composers – deserve our attention. Set aside some quiet time to listen to The Sound of Silent Voices.

To Dream of Silence
Jeff Reilly
Sanctuary Concerts SCCD005 (jeffreilly.ca)

To Dream of Silence, featuring Jeff Reilly both as composer and bass clarinetist, and including one new work by Christos Hatzis, defies easy categorization. The music was inspired by a series of dreams, described in brief prose poems that are narrated as part of the tracks. There is no obvious rhythmic/melodic reference between the words and Reilly’s music, which is often gauzy background harmony supporting rhythmic melodic fragments played by Reilly and punctuated by bells and other percussion. The notes mention accompanying “sound sculptures,” the work of blacksmith John Little. It isn’t clear where Reilly’s music leaves off and the sound sculptures pick up, but perhaps it doesn’t matter.

The work on this disc is highly listenable, and the narrative of the dreams is cryptic enough to grab my interest. I’m unsure whether I’d prefer to simply read the narration, though I am sincerely put off by the announcements of the dream titles, which distract from rather than enhance the music. Your Dark Beauty is rife with Freudian overtones. Eighty Steps, Endless Chambers, and Food for a Soul are dreams that seem to conjure a child’s memories of his home, from a variety of perspectives. Taken together, the series verges on nightmare, with a particular fixation with death. That’s not to say there is only terror; there is some serenity, but unease overrides. What does one imagine Fishing to mean, when what one hooks is an angel?

Reilly, as performer of his own works, creates curious and beautiful effects within a mist of studio-produced sounds. In Hatzis’ Extreme Unction the production is cleaner and the narrative element is entirely musical. This remarkably beautiful elegy for the composer Gustav Ciamaga fits in well with the sombre tone of the disc.

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In the Weeds
Ventus Machina
MSR Classics MS 1633 (ventusmachina.com)

New Brunswick-based woodwind quintet Ventus Machina shows off their classical roots mixed with fun and flavour in their first full-length release. They self-describe their performances as themed programs, evident here in the varied music performed by members Karin Aurell (flute, piccolo), Christie Goodwin (oboe, English horn), James Kalyn (clarinet), Ulises Aragon (French horn) and Patrick Bolduc (bassoon).

Two quintet commissions by Canadian composers are featured. Mike Titlebaum’s Short Set is his three-movement take on a jazz band’s closing tunes. The jazz-flavoured Amblin’ has jazz effects juxtaposed with classical touches and counterpoint against an “amblin’ groove.” A-Fashin’ features more traditional lush harmonies and held tunes while the final movement In the Weeds has upbeat swing grooves, with tricky speedy runs, accented group rhythmic notes and melodic conversations. Martin Kutnowski successfully incorporates his Argentinian musical roots in Tonadas Y Mateadas. After a fast jumpy opening, three main sections follow – a slow oboe theme, a horn-led waltz theme and a fast clarinet dance which resurfaces throughout the work.

Paquito D’Rivera’s Aires Tropicales is an enjoyable mood-shifting listen, while Richard Price arranges Leonard Bernstein’s famous sing-along show tunes for wind quintet subtleties in Suite from West Side Story. Ventus Machina adapts William Scribner’s arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s Milonga Sin Palabras for English horn lead, resulting in an amazing group emulation of the bandoneon sound.

A tight ensemble with impeccable tone, pitch and breath, Ventus Machina really can play anything well.

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Modulations
TorQ Percussion Quartet
BeDoINT Records BR004 (torqpercussion.ca)

I first heard TorQ when I took my grandkids to TorQ’s concerts for kids at Toronto’s Harbourfront. Then, in 2015, I sang in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Toronto Choral Society, TorQ providing the percussion. These guys clearly have fun performing, and it’s fun watching and listening to them.

So it is with this CD, starting with Thrown from a Loop by TorQ member Daniel Morphy. It’s just under nine minutes of music for marimbas and vibraphones, with overlapping loops “influenced,” writes Morphy, “by the music of Steve Reich.” The music has an easy swing to it, unhurried but always moving forward.

Christos Hatzis writes that his 19-minute Modulations for two vibraphones and two marimbas combines the seemingly contradictory styles of minimalism and Elliott Carter’s “metric modulation,” because “each exemplifies and needs the other for musical clarity and informational interest to ensue.” Nonetheless, instead of minimalism or Carter, Modulation’s tonal, tuneful and very jazz-inflected music distinctly reminded me of Milt Jackson’s between-the-beats magic as vibraphonist of the Modern Jazz Quartet.

The three movements of Peter Hatch’s 22-minute timespace play with various aspects of musical time and space. Time Zones presents eight different tempi simultaneously, the spatially conceived music of Spooky Action circles the audience in opposite directions, while Gravitas, writes Hatch, “is a light and humorous depiction of musical gravity” that “bends and twists our sensation of time.”

Together, nearly 50 minutes of fun listening from this very fun ensemble.

Illumination
Nancy Ambrose King; Ann Arbor Camerata; Oriol Sans; Victor Minke Huls
Equilibrium Recordings EQ144 (nancyambroseking.com)

Illumination is an intriguing collection of contemporary repertoire for oboe and chamber orchestra. As played by American virtuoso Nancy Ambrose King with the Ann Arbor Camerata, Michael Daugherty’s Firecracker (1991) is brillant in its economy of means, extending semitone “sparks“ into exciting events over its 13 minutes. The title refers to a matchbook popular in 1940s and 1950s Las Vegas, a locale evoked by eerie Spanish-style piano and percussion with wailing oboe glissandi. But there is frenzy in Vegas as well: use of extreme registers, rapid runs and extensive double-tonguing, all handled confidently by King. Following a sensitively-played lyrical section the bass percussion explodes, leading to a dramatic ending.

Alyssa Morris’ Dreamscape (2012) takes the form of a four-movement overnight sequence suggesting childhood drama. King’s tone is evocative in the Falling Asleep and Chase opener; eyes seem to close as a harp enters. But the chase feels underdeveloped musically, as do succeeding movements. The final Nightmare and Awakening is best, building a well-orchestrated sense of menace leading to a brilliant oboe cadenza before emerging into morning.

Both Gone (2016) and Grunge Concerto (2014) were written for Ambrose King by much-commissioned Scott McAllister. The former work is meditative and pastoral, evoking memories of loss. The soloist shows amazing breath control in long tones over a ground bass. The latter work imaginatively recasts a pop genre in three movements ending with Headbanging, a tour-de-force of virtuosity by soloist and orchestra.

Robin de Raaff – Entangled Tales
Various Orchestras
Challenge Records Int. CC72747 (challengerrecords.com)

Robin de Raaff - Stolen back from Time
Various Orchestras and Ensembles
Attacca ATT 2017152 (attaccaproductions.com)

This past December, Dutch composer du jour Robin de Raaff (b.1968) was present for Toronto’s New Music Concerts’ performance of his Percussion Concerto. The following week, the Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble performed his Ennea’s Domein. (I attended both concerts.) Both works are included in the 2CD set Stolen back from Time, along with his Violin Concerto No.1 “Angelic Echoes,” Double Concerto for clarinet, bass clarinet and orchestra, Unisono for large orchestra, Clarinet Concerto and In Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich.

There’s a lot to listen to in de Raaff’s complex music, filled with intense energy, bright and unusual sonorities including lots of percussion, and irregular rhythms derived using mathematical constructivist techniques. But it all sounds rather more expressionistic than mathematical, especially in Unisono, 18 minutes of snarling sonic blasts performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Ed Spanjaard. Think of the battle segment of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben but fought with 21st-century weapons.

For me, the other standouts in this album are the feverish Violin Concerto and the Double Concerto. Violinist Joe Puglia evokes references to Berg’s Violin Concerto amid orchestral hints of Mahler. The Double Concerto, with soloists Harmen de Boer and Harry Sparnaay, offers touches of humour, impressionistic colours and sustained passages of quasi-tonal lyricism.

There’s more to admire on The Entangled Tales CD, containing de Raaff’s Cello Concerto, Entangled Tales and Symphony No.3 “Illumination…Eclipse.” The Cello Concerto reveals a very different side of de Raaff, as brooding, songful emotionality replaces brash busy-ness. Here, the dynamics are subdued, the orchestral textures leaner but darker. In five connected movements lasting half an hour, the inward-looking, penumbral concerto receives a haunting performance by Marien van Stallen, the cellist for whom it was written, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Entangled Tales, an eight-minute synopsis of de Raaff’s penchant for assertive declamations and vivid sonorities (similar to Unisono) was commissioned by the Boston Symphony, premiered at Tanglewood and subsequently incorporated into his Symphony No.1 “Tanglewood Tales.” It’s performed with suitable high energy by Neeme Järvi and The Hague’s Residentie Orkest.

De Raaff’s 30-minute, three-movement Symphony No.3 is performed by Het Gelders Orkest under Antonello Manacorda. As its subtitle suggests, it deals with contrasts of light and dark, beginning with two piccolos and tinkly percussion creating eerie, electronics-like sounds, followed by a sudden descent into the orchestra’s dark timbres of brass and percussion. The struggle continues throughout, with quiet, plaintive solos and duos alternating with powerful tutti outbursts. The symphony ends with gentle chords played in mid-range instrumental registers, suggesting a final resolution of synthesis and reconciliation.

I recommend the Entangled Tales CD for anyone wanting an introduction to this significant 21st -century compositional voice.

Zoltán Jeney – Wohin?
Various Artists
BMC BMC CD 240 (bmcrecords.hu)

Wohin? gives international listeners a valuable insight into the postmodernist Hungarian concert music composer Zoltán Jeney (b.1943), featuring recent works for solo piano, voice, cello and piano, string quartet and orchestra. Jeney has been a major voice in Hungarian concert music circles since the 1960s. In 1970, in collaboration with five other leading Hungarian composers, he cofounded the influential group Budapest New Music Studio, which introduced the aesthetics and music of John Cage and Minimalism at its public concerts.

The most provocative work on this album is the title track, Wohin? (German for “Where?”) A five-minute orchestral score featuring a truncated chorus in its last 30 seconds, it’s his response to the Allied invasion of Iraq. Jeney offers a withering parody in his postmodern mashup of recognizable bits of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. As the anthem of the European Union proclaiming that “All people will be brothers,” Jeney couldn’t have chosen a better subject with which to convey his deeply ironic view of the war.

Pavane (2007) for orchestra, the last and most substantial work here, employs a 128-note melody derived from a fractal series. Its first section recalls Ligeti’s Atmosphères with amorphous, shifting orchestral textures and tight heterophony. The second section, characterized by jagged polyphonic lines is brief, succeeded by a much longer final movement featuring a continuous, harmonized melody. The music builds into a kind of halting secular chorale – punctuated by irregular percussive accents – fading out on a quiet yet ultimately unsettled unison.

Peter Eötvös – String Quartets: The Sirens Cycle; Korrespondenz
Audrey Luna; Calder Quartet
BMC BMC CD 249 (bmcrecords.hu)

Péter Eötvös (b.1944) is a highly respected Hungarian composer of operas and large ensemble works. Musical director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain from 1979 to 1991, he has guest-conducted top European orchestras. The sirens of Homer’s Odyssey have inspired works of writers and composers, including Jörg Widmann, whose excellent Island of the Sirens for solo violin and strings was reviewed here in March 2014. Eötvös joins their company with The Sirens Cycle (2015/16), a complex work operating in a number of dimensions including pre-compositional spectral analysis of the spoken text. Even in this engaged recording by coloratura soprano Audrey Luna and the Calder Quartet, the work is overwhelming and only reveals its secrets gradually! The soprano has an attractive timbre and a three-and-a-half-octave range, here applied, using both conventional and extended vocal techniques, to singing and declaiming texts by Joyce (from Ulysses), Homer and Kafka. By turn they are startling, humorous, erotic and finally dispiriting, as the sirens mysteriously disappear.

In both the above composition and Correspondence: Scenes for String Quartet (1992), the American Calder Quartet displays mastery of extensively used instrumental techniques including harmonics, by-the-bridge (sul ponticello) bowing, and pizzicato; glissandi become almost speech-like at times. The latter bring us to the unspoken text of the work, which is from correspondence between W. A. Mozart and his father Leopold in 1778. Derived in part from a method of assigning vowels to intervals, the uncanny effect is that instruments strive for but don't attain speech.

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For You
Carol Welsman
Welcar Music WMCD369 (carolwelsman.com)

I have long been up for any recording by Canadian jazz singer and pianist Carol Welsman (now Los Angeles-based), and my admiration continues with her most recent CD, For You. It is a solo recording except for three tracks on which expert guitarist Paulinho Garcia plays. The title refers to a social media process: after listening to 30-second soundbytes, around 5,000 voters selected the songs. The result is 16 standards in a wide variety of moods, styles and languages, each song presented with enough musical intimacy to suggest that it is indeed, For You.

On this disc Carol Welsman sings in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian – regardless, her excellent diction and sense of style are convincing as is heard in such titles as Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Legrand) and Corcovado (Jobim). American numbers show the same clarity and sensitivity to lyrics, suggesting many different moods. Her delivery is direct and almost non-vibrato in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, breathy and sensual in My Foolish Heart, and vulnerable, almost down to a whisper in Skylark. Those remembering her exuberant singing and pianism in earlier times may be surprised by the restrained contralto and spare apt accompaniments on this CD. Yet she conveys a feeling of optimism, and a sense of more closeness is now gained, perhaps abetted by producer Takao Ishizuka. The disc has already been a bestseller among jazz listeners in Japan.

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Alex Pangman’s Hot Three
Alex Pangman
Justin Time JTR 8610-2 (alexpangman.com)

In his 2010 book Perfecting Sound Forever, Greg Milner describes how Thomas Edison mounted thousands of “tone tests” across America in the early 20th century to prove how his Diamond Disc record player “perfectly” represented sound. The phonograph would play while a singer would perform intermittently and the audience would be stunned by how closely the recorded and live performances meshed. The “secret” of this demonstration was that the singers emulated the “pinched” quality of the recording which was the baseline against which everything else was measured. “Recorded versus live” has had a fascinating history, with many opinions regarding which sound is the best.

With Alex Pangman’s Hot Three, the Toronto jazz singer has created a bold experiment of her own by travelling to New Orleans and, with local musicians, recording an album of seven standards live to an acetate 78 rpm disc. She wanted to “explore the roots of the recording medium and how and why early recordings have the energy they do.” The results are conveniently available on CD.

This disc literally crackles with excitement; you can hear the sound of the needle cutting through the acetate and there is a low hum throughout. For authenticity only one microphone was used and the sound is high on treble but Tom Saunders’ excellent bass sax playing produces a solidly articulated bottom end. Matt Rhody (violin) and Nahum Zdybel (guitar) are also top-notch and Pangman’s vocals are energetic and manage to be nuanced within the limits of the medium. These tracks do not have the fidelity we are used to hearing and that is part of their appeal.

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Torche!
Xavier Charles, Michel F Côté, Franz Hautzinger, Philippe Lauzier, Éric Normand
Tour de Bras TDB90024cd (tourdebras.com)

Bandleader, electric bassist and organizer Éric Normand has become a central figure in Canadian improvised music, working from his unlikely base in Rimouski, Quebec to develop a large ensemble, a local festival and regular programs of international visitors, activities that have led to international touring for his ensemble GGRIL. Torche! comes from a 2016 quintet tour in which Normand was joined by Montreal-based drummer Michel F Côté and bass clarinetist Philippe Lauzier along with two distinguished European visitors, French clarinetist Xavier Charles and German trumpeter Franz Hautzinger.

On paper that instrumentation might look like a jazz group, even a free jazz group, but the methodology is very different, with close listening the only directive, and the music’s evolution timbral and textural rather than linear. Wind instruments are sometimes played with oscillator-like evenness, even when they’re exploring complex multiphonics; the unfolding layers of sound can suggest an insect-dense forest or the compound sonic ambience of fluorescent lights, varied electronic appliances and of one’s own internal processes.

Individual instrumental voices disappear into the collective whole, so that one is less aware of personalities, more involved in the movement of sound. The music feels orchestral rather than like a collection of individual voices, collective purpose creating work that is as profoundly selfless as it is involving. It’s a highly evolved art, with the five musicians here shaping eight taut improvisations that are remarkably free of meanderings or those empty moments of merely getting acquainted.

Murphy
Carn Davidson 9
Independent CD9-002 (taradavidson.ca; williamcarn.com)

The new recording from multi-reed player Tara Davidson and trombonist William Carn is not only named after their venerable cat, but is also a shining example of what fine jazz composition, arranging and performance should be. Co-produced by Davidson and Carn, the ensemble is loaded with jazz talent, including Davidson on alto and soprano sax, flute and clarinet; Kelly Jefferson on alto and soprano sax and clarinet; Perry White on baritone sax and bass clarinet; Kevin Turcotte and Jason Logue on trumpet and flugelhorn; William Carn on trombone; Alex Duncan on bass trombone; Andrew Downing on bass; Ernesto Cervini on drums and special guest, award-winning and luminous jazz vocalist Emilie-Claire Barlow on Carn’s tune, Glassman (arranged by Geoff Young).

All compositions on this project were written by Carn and Davidson, and they have collaborated on the skilled arrangements with other fine musician/composers (Cervini, Downing, Logue, Andy Ballantyne and Geoff Young). First up is Carn’s composition Try Again (arranged by Cervini). Rife with tricky contrapuntal horn lines and percussive drum work, this track swings with a distinctive quintessential bop viguor. Groovy, extended solos by White on baritone sax and Carn on trombone sail in and around Downing’s powerful and insistent bass lines. One of the most interesting songs on this recording is Downing’s arrangement of Davidson’s composition, Family Portrait. Gorgeous, lyrical and melancholy, Downing makes brilliant use of space and warm chord structures.

Other impressive tracks include Carn’s Glassman – Barlow’s sumptuous voice acts as an instrument here, moving in seamless musical symmetry with the others – and the joyous closer, Murphy! (written by Carn and arranged by Ballantyne), featuring buoyant solos from both Carn and Davidson.