Thread of Winter
Leslie Fagan; Lorin Shalanko
Canadian Art Song Series (canadianartsong.ca)

Winter
Voces8
Decca 483 0968

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg – Beyond the Variations
Rebel; Jörg-Michael Schwartz
Bridge Records 9478 (bridgerecords.com)

Mi PalPita il Cor: Baroque Passions
Dominique Labelle; Musica Pacifica
Navona Records NV6056
(navonarecords.com)

This is a CD devoted to love – and not necessarily happy love. The sleeve notes list the manifestation of love to be discovered on this recording as “sighs, laughter, angry outbursts and lassitude.”

Venetian-born Agostino Steffani’s Guardati o core opens the CD – a frolicking aria with words warning not to be won over by Cupid because you end up with trouble, sorrow and difficulty. Oh, and continue with the recitativo (you’ll get immeasurable bitter pain) and the aria (“flee, then, the realm of the archer-boy”) and not even Dominique Labelle’s rendition can help you.

Giuseppe Sammartini was well respected for his woodwind expertise, well apparent from the dignified flourishes of his opening and more than confirmed by the first Allegro. Sammartini composed with vigour and panache. The slightly strangely specified Andante e staccato reflects a depressed lover, depressed until he or she is revived by the second Allegro.

In Handel’s Arioso e recitativo, Labelle is made to sing that she “feels her heart beating for reasons she does not know.” Worse, she sings in a slightly hushed, conspiratorial tone that although her heart has been pierced by one of Cupid’s arrows, if Cupid could possibly do the same (fatally) to one of her competitors in love then she will complain no more. Again, very depressing, but how lucky that Labelle can fill the whole range of demanding emotions.

Georg Philipp Telemann’s Quatuor No.3 (G Major, 1738) restores our spirits. Judith Linsenberg’s recorder-playing contributes greatly to the rather dreamy quality of the Légèrement second movement, the Gracieusement of the third merely adding to it. For those who love rural tableaux, there is the Vite with the spirited violin playing of Elizabeth Blumenstock, and the following Gai. Finally, there is another unusually specified movement – Lentement-Vite-Lentement-Vite. Once again, violin and recorder are allowed to entertain us.

Dominique Labelle returns for a final flourish with the cantata from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Orphée. Enjoy the complex voice and violin combination in Que du bruit and several very short but poignant pieces. The last movement, En amour il est un moment, is a worthy representative of Baroque romance from instruments to lyrics to Labelle’s interpretation.

Schumann – Symphonies 1-4
Berliner Philharmoniker; Sir Simon Rattle
Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings 140011 (2 CDs + Blu-ray)

Schumann was the consummate Romantic composer, whose compositions from consequential piano works, chamber music, song cycles, concertos, staged works and symphonies, etc. remain in the active repertoire. Except for the staged works that enjoy rare outings. Schumann was also a busy author, publisher and critic.

I have attended many performances of one or another of the four Schumann symphonies and acquired or listened to recordings by the great and not so great conductors and orchestras. Many have been mighty achievements but very few found the composer behind the printed notes. The most popular misreadings are those that emulate Brahms.

Over the years conductors had almost universally decided that Schumann lacked the skills to orchestrate and so many dutiful performances perpetuated just this. Mahler re-orchestrated all four symphonies which were recorded by Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra for Decca. In the early 1990s, conductor Florian Merz and the Klassische Philharmonie Düsseldorf recorded the four symphonies and other orchestral works for ebs. Employed were the critical editions of the scores commissioned by the Robert Schumann-Gesellschaft in Düsseldorf, which chose Schumann’s own 1851 re-orchestration of the 1841 Fourth (ebs 6088, 3CDs).The visceral Düsseldorf performances, while enthusiastic, are entirely objective. However, a genuine curiosity on a separate disc (ebs 6091) is a bold re-orchestration of the Fourth Symphony based on the original version of 1841 revised in 1891, 35 years after Schumann’s death, by Brahms and Franz Wullner.

Just as orchestras and other ensembles have learned to play Mozart with reduced forces and appropriate instruments, in order to produce the overall soundscape that Schumann envisioned it is essential to know and understand what the composer had in mind. Schumann should not be performed with the entire body of the modern symphony orchestra. Mendelssohn was Schumann’s teacher and both scored their works for the classical-size orchestra of, say, 50 players tops, to achieve the transparency and voicing intended. Rattle explains so much on this subject, making the enclosed Blu-ray disc so valuable in the understanding and background of so many facets of these works. Also by believing Schumann’s marked tempos and natural orchestral balances, the music can be incredibly profound without being heavy or slow. A fascinating and most informative part of Rattle talking about Schumann is the story of the Fourth Symphony and the reason for his decision to use Schumann’s original 1841 version…the one considered unplayable by many orchestras.

No doubt about it, this is an absolutely essential package for all Schumann appreciators and others. The set contains CDs but the exemplary sight and sound of the live performances on the Blu-ray disc moves the viewer right into the Philharmonie.

Tchaikovsky – The Nutcracker; Symphony No.4
Mariinsky Orchestra; Valery Gergiev
Mariinsky MAR0593

There are those who think The Nutcracker is a children’s ballet. There are others whose only experience of the ballet is the constant and dreadful repetition of its greatest hits in shopping malls at this dark time of year. To both groups: listen to the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev perform the entire score, paying particular attention to the Waltz of the Flowers and the Intrada to the Pas de Deux immediately following. The rating “adult entertainment” could well be applied to these passionate expressions.

Gergiev is known for eccentric technique but also for wringing amazing performances from the players he leads. Mariinsky is his house band, so they have lots of practice following his tiny obscure gestures. They can turn on a dime out of an outrageous Presto, they phrase as a choral unit, the strings are encouraged to emote, and on this recording at least one hears observance of the composer’s more subtle dynamic indications. Although arguably chestnuts, they’re delicious, and so much fresher than the overcooked versions we are often fed while choosing gifts.

The remainder of disc two is Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. The symphony predates the ballet by a good 14 years, from the period before and immediately following his failed marriage. Pit bands love to perform concert music, an assertion audibly demonstrated here. Delicacy and ferocity alternate, melancholy gives way to joy and returns. The relationship between conductor and players is so solid, lending brilliant assurance to the performance that wildly (romantically) swings through the gamut of expression and tempi. They perform, understandably, as artists who love and treasure their heritage. The Canzonetta is breathtaking in its lyricism, and then one can almost imagine a choreography for the Scherzo movement involving two opposing teams of folk dancers, the strings versus the winds.

Strauss – Elektra; Der Rosenkavalier (Suites)
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; Manfred Honeck
Reference Recordings FR 722 SACD (referencerecordings.com)

Some of us may remember back in the 50s something called “Opera without Words” (Stokowski was good at these) specially created for folks who couldn’t stomach all the singing but were more comfortable with the orchestra. Until now Elektra had escaped such treatment even though Strauss is one of the most symphonic of all opera composers and well suited for orchestral excerpts and suites (e.g. Dance of the Seven Veils etc.). But in Elektra the voices and the action are so closely intermeshed that the total devastating impact has to come from seeing or at least listening to the complete score.

Nevertheless Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck, newly appointed music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony, did decide to extract most of the orchestral score into a 35-minute suite. Certainly done with love and expertise and a thorough empathy with the opera, the particularly gruesome story with its moments of dark forebodings, evil lurking in the shadows, bloody murders, piercing shrieks and animals tortured is well brought out, as well as moments of filial and brotherly love, ecstasy and exuberance. Unfortunately, to fully appreciate program music like this, an audience not familiar with the opera will have to read the printed notes and that can be pretty annoying at a concert.

Der Rosenkavalier however is an entirely different story and the Suite created by Arthur Rodzinski is a wonderfully enjoyable concert piece. We are still blessed with the memory of Karajan and even more Carlos Kleiber’s sublime performances, a hard act to follow, but Honeck’s main strength is the beautiful, spacious orchestral sound and sumptuous hidden details he brings out with somewhat slower tempi.

Rachmaninov – Symphony No.1; Balakirev – Tamara
London Symphony Orchestra; Valery Gergiev
LSO Live LSO0784

Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.1 certainly didn’t have the smoothest entry into the world. At its premiere in March of 1897, the (possibly) inebriated conductor, Alexander Glazunov, had already expressed his doubts about it and gave a less-than-stellar performance. As a result, the scathing reviews were enough to shatter Rachmaninov’s confidence as a composer for four years. Since that time, the piece has come to be better regarded and is presented here as the last in a cycle of the complete symphonies featuring the London Symphony and Valery Gergiev.

From the menacing chords that open the first movement, it’s clear that Gergiev and the LSO have full command of this challenging score – and challenging it is. Rachmaninov rarely ever again demonstrated such raw emotion in his orchestral writing and the sometimes strident tone can be a bit of a challenge. Nevertheless, the LSO delivers a suave and polished performance despite brisker tempos than we might be accustomed to. The warmly romantic strings meld perfectly with the stirring brass, particularly in the second and fourth movements and the bombastic finale is approached with much panache without ever resorting to empty virtuosity.

An added bonus is Balakirev’s Tamara, a work the composer considered his finest. Based on a sultry love-poem by Mikhail Lermontov, the score is an exercise in oriental exoticism so favoured by Russian composers of the period. Gergiev and the LSO offer up a convincing performance of this sensuous music, from the mysterious beginning to the tumultuous finale before quietly fading away. Are there shades of Scheherazade here? Quite possibly. Under Gergiev’s skilful baton, the result is a wonderful blending of cultures, rounding out this outstanding three-disc cycle. Highly recommended.

Stravinsky – The Firebird; Nikolaev – The Sinewaveland
Seattle Symphony; Ludovic Morlot
Seattle Symphony SSM1014

The Firebird brought the world’s attention to Igor Stravinsky, who at the time of the premiere of the ballet was an unknown composer not yet 30 years old. His first collaboration with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the score is broadly romantic, full of tricks practised by Ravel and Debussy. The ballet itself is rarely performed, perhaps owing too much to novelty and exoticism (pre-war Paris was all agog over things Russian), but the score remains an orchestral staple. Musically less challenging to audiences than its next of kin The Rite of Spring, the score is full of delicious moments for the ear and no more dissonant that Rachmaninoff.

This new release from the Seattle Symphony under music director Ludovic Morlot is delightful, if conservative. Moment follows descriptive moment of a fine rendering. The musicians exhibit polish in portraying the supernatural tale, but there may be a flaw inherent in the product itself: Stravinsky bridled at the job of creating too literal a musical narrative for the folk-inspired story. Perhaps his lack of investment cursed the music. Although perhaps perfect, this performance isn’t thrilling. I still believe there are possible interpretations where the terrors of Kastchei’s infernal garden are made relevant: not just polished but gripping.

Rounding out the disc is an homage to Seattle’s own Jimi Hendrix from Vladimir Nikolaev, another young composer a century later reworking the folk music of his own ethos into music that may well have staying power. Sinewaveland is the more powerful and effective performance.

In Search of Great Composers
Four films by Phil Grabsky
Seventh Art Productions SEV194

There is so much brilliant music brilliantly performed, historical and musical commentary, excitement and beautiful visuals in this documentary collection of five DVDs about Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and Chopin that even the most bored individual with a disdain for music history will find something worth the view!

Each composer receives a respected, informative and surprisingly original recollection of their personal and professional lives. In Search of Mozart (2006) chronologically follows every road the composer travelled throughout his life with his music being centre stage. This 25,000 mile journey (that’s over 40,000 km for us Canadians) is followed by foot – such as in the modern day Salzburg sidewalks packed with cell phone-toting pedestrians – and behind the wipers of a rainy-day windshield. These visuals almost become travelogues were it not for the intersecting clips of commentary. Of course the music performed by soloists, singers and orchestras is world class with the noteworthy clip of trumpet soloist Falk Zimmermann performing from Leopold Mozart’sTrumpet Concerto in D setting the stage for more great music. Initially the jump cuts between landscape, commentary and performances created some confusion, but over the course of the film this technique increased viewing interest.
Next in the series is the two-DVD set In Search of Beethoven (2009). Beethoven aficionados may not learn anything new, but Grabsky’s approach through letters, historical facts, personal Beethoven issues, star-performer commentaries and especially the footage of their performances is superb. A highlight here is Emanuel Ax performing in clips from the Waldstein and Appassionata piano sonatas. The second Beethoven DVD features complete performances, scenes and an interview with the director.
In Search of Haydn (2012) is especially fulfilling, as the composer may not be as famous as Mozart and Beethoven, though respected by both. Grabsky’s film shows us a composer who also wrote substantial, worthy music. In this chronological documentary the focus is on the music with the great illuminating performances that should tweak one’s interest to explore more of Haydn’s output. Of note are Ronald Brautigam’s takes on Keyboard Sonata No.1 and Keyboard Sonata No.9, and Marc-André Hamelin’s performance clip from the Keyboard Sonata No.34.

Finally, In Search of Chopin (2014) takes the same approach. The documentary formula is used, but the presentation of personal facts seems pressed for time; for example, the passing mention of Chopin’s soap opera-like relationship with George Sand. But the piano performances and commentaries by the pianists should be on every piano student’s must-see-and-apply list. Of special note are performances by Daniel Barenboim and Brautigam again.

Filmmaker Phil Grabsky needs to be greatly congratulated for all the time, research, dedication, detail and reaching out to historians, musicians, performers and orchestras to create these four In Search Of documentaries. His love, respect and curiosity of everyone portrayed – composer, historian and performer – is reflected in each film. This is more than music history – these are visual and aural musical stories. All the camera close-ups, from musicians’ hands working their beloved instruments, to tree twigs and rain in scenery, are thought-provoking, especially against the clear audio of the music. Grabsky’s excitement for his material resonates throughout, subsequently broadening the excitement of the viewer. Watch, learn, enjoy, listen and be inspired!

Canadian Panorama
Winds of the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra; Ronald Royer
Cambria CD-1227 (spo.ca)

Under the inspired leadership of music director Ron Royer, the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra not only presents an annual concert series but has also created an identity for its woodwind, brass and percussion sections as a professional level wind ensemble in its own right, performing demanding music for wind ensemble and now recording a complete CD of music commissioned for it as part of the orchestra’s dynamic composer-in-residence program.

Seven of the eight Canadian composers on the CD (the eighth was the late Howard Cable, a longtime associate of the SPO) were commissioned in 2013 to compose “music that would celebrate Canada’s cultural heritage and expand the repertoire for our talented wind players.” They have done their job brilliantly: while all eight are very capable orchestrators, three in particular stand out: Chris Meyer’s control of tone colour in Fundy is striking, as is Alexander Rapoport’s in his spiralling virtuosic writing in Whirligig, flawlessly played by this ensemble of virtuosi. Howard Cable’s mastery, more traditional perhaps and understated, in McIntyre Ranch Country was, nevertheless, a very welcome addition to the mix.

In Royer’s Rhapsody for Oboe, Horn and Wind Ensemble the confidently virile solo horn of guest soloist Gabriel Radford and guest oboist Sarah Jeffrey’s poignant lyricism were highlights. There was also some very fine solo work by regular members of the ensemble: Scott Harrison on trumpet in Alex Eddington’s Saturday Night at Fort Chambly, Kaye Royer on the clarinet in Jim McGrath’s Serenade and Iris Krizmanic on horn in McIntyre Ranch.

In short, this recording and the music so beautifully performed on it are, and will continue to be for many years, a precious gift to us all in the year of our nation’s 150th birthday.

R. Murray Schafer – Ariadne’s Legacy
Judy Loman and Various Artists
Centrediscs CMCCD 23316
(musiccentre.ca)

Judy Loman, principal harpist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 1960 to 2002, is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with the innovative harpist Carlos Salzedo. In her many years here and abroad she has championed numerous new works for her instrument. Many of these compositions involved Canada’s internationally renowned polymath R. Murray Schafer and in celebration of Loman’s 80th birthday Centrediscs has re-issued from various sources Schafer’s works for the harp in their entirety. Their first collaboration, The Crown of Ariadne (1979), is a technically demanding six-movement suite in which Loman must also play a number of small percussion instruments. It is derived from Schafer’s vast environmental music drama, Patria 5. A companion work, Theseus (1986), was also drawn from this segment of the 12-part Patria series and features Ms. Loman with the Orford String Quartet. Both works involve the extended harp techniques pioneered by Salzedo with delicate, echoing microtonal inflections pitted against incisive percussive effects. Schafer’s subsequent Harp Concerto (1987) is drawn upon a much larger canvas. Its conventional three movements achieve an almost cinematically epic character in this rousing performance by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra led by Andrew Davis.

A second CD devoted to Schafer’s later chamber music features the intimate duet Wild Bird (1997) with violinist Jacques Israelievitch, commissioned by the late TSO concertmaster’s wife and performed with Loman on the occasion of his 50th birthday. Trio (2011) commissioned by the BC-based Trio Verlaine (Lorna McGhee, flute, David Harding, viola, and Heidi Krutzen, harp) was designed as a companion piece to Debussy’s work for the same forces. Here Schafer strikingly abandons the evocative sound events of his earlier works in favour of a persistently linear melodic profile. Among these late works are two vocal settings: Tanzlied (2004) and Four Songs for Mezzo-Soprano and Harp (2011), both sung by Schafer’s life partner and muse, Eleanor James, the former with Loman and the latter with her former student Lori Gemmell. Tanzlied is a setting of verses by Friedrich Nietzsche and includes quotations from that philosopher’s own little-known Lieder. The surprisingly well-mannered Four Songs was initially composed as a wedding present for Schafer’s niece.

It is doubtful that any further harp works will be forthcoming, as Schafer’s program note for these late songs reveals his recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. All the more reason then to celebrate these definitive and expertly recorded performances from a golden age.

Grand Tour
John Tilbury; Zygmunt Krauze
Dux DUX 1288 (dux.pl)

Maybe it’s just me, but I find this album of 60s and 70s post-classical piano-centric music a supremely relaxing listening experience. Then again as a high school senior I used to do homework with John Cage records playing on the stereo. I wanted to get my modernist/postmodernist cred clearly on the table before digging into details of this Grand Tour. It documents the onstage reunion of two old colleagues, the British pianist John Tilbury and Polish composer, educator and pianist Zygmunt Krauze in the studio of the Polish Radio, performing repertoire from the era when they first met.

The liner notes narrate the backstory. Krauze co-founded the avant-garde-leaning Warsaw Music Workshop in 1967 along with other musicians. Tilbury. who was in Warsaw on scholarship at the time. is credited with introducing his Music Workshop colleagues to the latest classical music trends via scores – a scarce commodity behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960s – “including many minimalist compositions.” These represented an exciting though quite unknown language there at the time.

All the works here bear repeated pleasurable listening, but my favourite track on the album is Terry Riley’s Keyboard Studies No.2 (1965), in which the two pianists play through a series of notated modal cells of different lengths at their leisure. It’s a repetitive developmental strategy Riley also employed in his better-known In C (1964). It may well have been among the pieces introduced by Tilbury to his Warsaw friends back in the day. Keyboard Studies No.2 receives a lovely, nuanced performance by Tilbury and Krauze. Perhaps it’s a fanciful notion, but I imagine its sonic patina, coloured by the canny application of the pianos’ sustain pedal, is more deeply the result of half a century of living with and performing this charming music. For me 60s-era Riley will never get old.

Music for Clarinet by 20th Century Polish Composers
Mariusz Barszcz; Piotr Saciuk; Jacek Michalak
Dux DUX 1258 dux.pl

This collection could be renamed music by Mid-20th-Century Polish Composers, roughly following as it does a chronology of three decades beginning in the early 1950s. One finds in many of the selections a homogenous tonal and stylistic range, possibly reflecting the somewhat insular world of Polish composition during the Communist era. Happily, one also hears committed and honest performances by clarinetist Mariusz Barszcz and pianist Piotr Saciuk. While tending sharp in some of the slower and quieter selections, Barszcz has a peckish and puckish articulation, and the rhythmic agreement in the very challenging Dance Preludes by Witold Lutosławski is admirable.

This work, along with Krzysztof Penderecki’s Three Miniatures, are the only ones likely to be performed with any frequency in North America, so it is welcome to hear some of the more avant garde selections toward the end of the disc. Music for magnetic tape and solo bass clarinet by Andrzej Dobrowolski (1980) comes out of the dark corners of one’s psyche and invites itself in for a terrifying and confusing visit. Barszcz can manage the bass clarinet’s registers well and gives a fine accounting of the extended techniques required by the composer. Not Sunday afternoon listening by any stretch, but excellent rainy Monday fare. Krzysztof Knittel’s Points/Lines (for clarinet, tapes and slides, 1973) steps back into the laboratory, a controlled and tidy experiment carried out by a harried researcher.

Wedged between these two works is a Trifle (in two parts), for accordion and bass clarinet by Andrzej Krzanowski (1983).

American Moments
Neave Trio
Chandos CHAN 10924

“American” moments? Twelve-year-old wunderkind Erich Korngold was living in Vienna when he composed his Trio, Op.1 (1910), a well-constructed, exuberantly expressive piece already evincing some distinctive melodic turns that would reappear throughout his mature music. The Neave Trio seems to approach it from the perspective of those later works, with a sense of nostalgia rather than youthful ardour. (Korngold emigrated to the US in 1938.)

Leonard Bernstein’s Trio dates from 1937, when he was 19, studying at Harvard. Unpublished until after his death, it opens meditatively, leading to an extended Fugato and an exultant climax. The second movement anticipates the jazzy Bernstein, with pizzicato, blue notes and dancing syncopations. The finale begins with a questioning melody, answered by a rousing Jewish-klezmer romp. New to me, I quite enjoyed it.

Arthur Foote, in contrast, was 55 and well-established when he wrote his Piano Trio No.2 (1908). Considered the first significant composer trained entirely in the US, he, like most of his American contemporaries, still drew inspiration from European models. The first two movements, lilting, sweet and sentimental, are perfumes from a Viennese salon; the weightier finale evokes Foote’s much-beloved Brahms.

America, like Canada, is a nation of immigrants, making the Neave Trio, currently visiting artists at Brown University, truly American, with its violinist from the US, cellist from Russia and pianist from Japan. Their performances of these stylistically varied works amount to a concert program for home listening that’s highly entertaining.