From the Attic of My Mind
Sam Most
Xanadu Master Edition 906074 (elemental-music.com)

Herbie Mann may have been the most prolific; Pail Horn the most mystical; and Moe Koffman the one who composed the tune most closely identified with the instrument, but the musician who assuredly created a niche for the flute in modern jazz was Sam Most. Most (1930-2013) was an unprepossessing journeyman who spent most of his career in Hollywood studios and Las Vegas show bands. But by the early 1950s, his rhythmic overblowing and expanded colour palette fully confirmed the flute’s improvisationary dexterity. Backed matchlessly by pianist Kenny Barron, bassist George Mraz, drummer Walter Bolden and percussionist Warren Smith, the reissued 1978 session, From the Attic of My Mind, is doubly valuable since it’s the only CD made up completely of Most’s compositions.

With an economy of phrasing and an extravagance of taste, Barron amplifies Most’s tonal strategies, whether it’s moderato low-pitched sonority on the bossa nova-like Breath of Love or the funky boogaloo of Keep Moving. In the latter, the flutist’s Rahsaan Roland Kirk-like note popping coupled with unison throat vocalizing is given extra impetus by Smith’s swiveling pulses and ratcheting pressures. Most also demonstrates his flexibility by transforming a romantic introduction that evolves from Mraz’s bowed bass lines into a jumping romp on Child of the Forest, and performing a similar feat with You Are Always the One that expands from a backwards turning ballad to a finger snapper with a solo that encompasses a quote from Manhattan, ornamental cadenzas and peeping beats. But it’s the simplicity of the blues that best showcase Most’s balance of passion and precision. His low-pitched rhythmic stutters intensify the earthy mood that a groove engendered by locked double bass and piano chording on Blue Hue begins; while Out of Sight in Mind contrasts his muscular flute lines with Barron’s most delicate pianism.

Like an author whose freshness of style grew out of his initial ingenuity, and is recognized only after it has been put in the context of others’ prose that this CD confirms Most’s historical importance as a pioneering flutist while also preserving high-quality sounds.

Blackout
Worst Pop Band Ever
Independent (wpbe.bandcamp.com/album/blackout)

The satirically named Worst Pop Band Ever (WPBE) has been crafting its eclectic blend of jazz, pop, funk, dance, soundtrack music and humour for a decade. Blackout is a fresh and successful take on a genre-hopping approach to music making that has seen a growing number of exponents in recent years. The two-keyboard mix of Dafydd Hughes and Adrean Farrugia combine with DJ LEO37’s turntables to create varied and unique textures over the rhythm section of Tim Shia and Drew Birston on drums and bass. Saxophonist Chris Gale is a powerful voice and the de facto singer in a group that doesn’t have one but certainly could.

The group grafts wide-ranging musical elements onto each other that serve to subtly or not so subtly transform the source materials. Peachy Keen features modern jazz piano comping over a reggae feel that creates a surprisingly ideal setting for Chris Gale’s soulful saxophone solo. The abrupt switch to a full-out rock groove with electronica for the tune’s ending somehow seems completely appropriate.

Satie-like chords float in from the crowd noise of Group Scene. The evocative piano melody gives way to Drew Birston’s melodic bass solo and synth textures heighten the atmosphere. Electric piano and Hammond B3 provide a classic backdrop for Adrean Farrugia’s funky Gospel. Farrugia and Gale solo exuberantly in the spirit of the tune. WPBE veers between being ironic and overt but it always wears its pop influences proudly.

Some Fun Out of Life
Rebecca Binnendyk
Alma Records RBM63052 (almarecords.com)

Rock Bach
Double-Double Duo
Independent (doubledoubleduo.com)

Think and listen before you make any assumptions about the musical combination of accordion and clarinet. Double-Double Duo is more than a sweet sugary sound. The imaginative musical mastery, unorthodox arrangements/transcriptions and tight ensemble playing of accordionist/pianist Michael Bridge and clarinettist/pianist Kornel Wolak stretches boundaries in both the acoustic and electronic realms in this release featuring works from their live concert repertoire.

The Brahms Rondo alla Zingarese is a more traditional transcription and exciting performance. In contrast, the four Scarlatti keyboard sonatas are given an eclectic transcription with the clarinet leading the contrapuntal lines and the free bass accordion offering harmonic and contrapuntal support. The title track Rock Bach is a musical stretch as J.S. Bach’s baroque style is shoved into modern-day sound machinations, complete with drum-kit crashes from the Roland electronic accordion. One may wonder what happened to the accordion in Petit Fleur (Bechet) and Flying Home (Goodman), as a flip of a switch and press of a button have Bridge’s Roland accordion emulate guitars, drums, keyboards etc. while Wolak wails through his clarinet leads. A traditional Bulgarian piece and Vivaldi’s Summer complete the package.

Kudos for taking risks with listener favourites – one may not like the sound but there is so much care, energy, compassion and knowledge of divergent styles that their ideas must be respected. Detailed liner notes and more than the 35 minutes of music included here would be appreciated though. Looking forward to the next “refill” release!

Petal
Avataar
InSound Records IS003 (sundarmusic.com)

Ethno-Charango
Surkalén
Independent (surkalen.ca)

Kalo-Yele
Aly Keïta; Jan Galega Brönnimann; Lucas Niggli
Intakt CD 261 (intaktrec.ch)

This record marks a kind of homecoming for the Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli and reed player Jan Galega Brönnimann. The two became childhood friends in Cameroon and later played together in numerous bands in Switzerland and France during their teenage years. In the 30 years since, Niggli has focused on free jazz and composition while Brönnimann has played electronic jazz and world music. Presented with an opportunity to work with Aly Keïta, Côte d’Ivoire master of the balafon, a marimba-like instrument with calabash resonators, Niggli invited his old friend to make this a trio.

The musical results are consistently remarkable. Niggli is at once one of the world’s most precise percussionists and one of the most creative, exploring a host of sounds from drums, cymbals and gongs while layering complex patterns and interacting with his partners. Aly Keïta has transformed the traditional balafon, crafting a chromatic version of the hyper-resonant instrument. Emphasizing his bass and contrabass clarinets, Brönnimann is as apt to play rhythmic patterns as traditional melodies. The parts all course together into a series of highly distinctive pieces, from the jazz-like beats of Niggli’s Bean Bag, to the piquant sweetness of Brönnimann’s wriggling soprano saxophone on Keïta’s joyously complex Abidjan Serenade, which gains layer upon layer of rhythm. Other fine moments include the sudden contrast of scraped cymbals and gritty contrabass clarinet on Brönnimann’s Bafut and the explosive riffing of Keïta’s Adjamé Street that concludes the CD.

The music resounds with the discovery of a new world, an Africa of the imagination that has coalesced in a Bern recording studio.

Young Blood Still Pumps in Jazz

Child prodigies really don’t exist in improvised music. Occasionally there may be some youngster known for jazz playing. But unlike other musics which depend on a performer having a cute image or being able to copy what’s on the score paper, improvising demands full exposure of an inner self. Lacking maturity, the majority of these tyros soon disappear. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t young improvising musicians. But to create notable works, like the skills of exceptional actors or visual artists, true musical talent is almost always refined during the player’s 20s or 30s.

Take German percussionist Christian Lillinger, 31, for instance. An in-demand sideman and leader of smaller bands for the past few years, the septet he assembles on Grund (Pirouet PIT 3086 pirouet.com) allows him to craft interlocking arrangements for the 11 tunes he composed. Except for his singular incisive drum beats which underline or put into bold face the cumulative sound, Grund is an exercise in parallelism. There are two saxophonists, Pierre Borel and Tobias Delius; two double bassists, Jonas Westergaard and Robert Landfermann; while Christopher Dell’s vibraphone and Achim Kaufmann’s piano are the chordal instruments. Like a well-drilled military unit this is a group effort. Lean and taut, each of the drummer’s tunes is directed from behind via stick-slapping nerve beats, cymbal taps or positioned rolls, allowing Kaufmann’s piano or tongue-slapping reeds to create the declarative theme statement, with Dell’s vibes scattering reflective tone colours like new paint glittering on a surface. Most reflective of the moods the seven engender are the adjoining Blumer and Malm. The latter is pitched so that it sounds like a Jazz Messengers LP played at 45 rpm with Delius’ sharp clarinet tones adding atonality, while the vibes lighten the mood. When barroom piano-styled pumps and dual horn flutter tonguing threaten to derail the narrative, regular drum thwacks push the theme back on track. In contrast Blumer is organized like a gentle chamber piece with first vibes, then piano and finally swaying horns voicing the melody. What could be jejune is transformed as the low-energy narrative is agitated by a clip-clop drum beat. Buzzing dual bass lines, rolling piano chords or atonal sax explorations are prominent elsewhere. But whether the results are balladic or bombastic, the spackle-like fills from Lillinger’s percussion patterns consistently and distinctively glue the parts together.

French alto saxophonist Pierre Borel, 28, is also one of the voices in the Berlin-based quartet Die Hochstapler, along with fellow Gaul, trumpeter Louis Laurain, 31; Italian bassist Antonio Borghini, 38; and German drummer Hannes Lingens 35. Dedicated to aleatoric strategies that mix notation and improvisation, Die Hochstapler’s The Music of Alvin R. Buckley (Umlaut ub007 umlautrecords.com) is inspired by the probability theory of researcher and musician Buckley (1929-1964) who apparently abandoned music after an encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Never particularly jazzy, although the concluding Playing Cards easily fits into that idiom with walking bass and parry-and-thrust movement from the horns as if participants in a speed-chess match, the CD’s five tunes are instead concerned with how many unexpected strategies can be teased out of an initial theme statement. Lingens’ rhythm accents are placed with clocklike regularity or expressed in free metre to intensify the steaming emotionalism from Laurain and Borel. A further trope slyly combines martial-like beats with oblique exaggerations related to modern chamber recitals. Layered horn tones are particularly evident on…ce que le ver est a la pomme as phrasing ranges from those replicating wind-shaking trees to fortissimo porcine snorts. Elaborating the tune as they deconstruct it, the saxophonist’s squeaks, runs and the drummer’s press rolls move in and out of bop emulation before torrid trumpet toots thrust the piece back to swing underpinnings. Other performances include players lobbing divergent sequences until a melody connects as if plopping pieces in winning order in a game of Chinese checkers. Dribbling reed vibrations, smoothly bowed bass strings and focused paradiddles suggest calming cool jazz swing on every bird must be catalogued; or an unexpected foot-tapping melody can arise after bellicose brass plunger tones and body tube sax growls are regularized into an upbeat theme on le musician est au son.

Another musician who has created his own sound is French violinist/violist Théo Ceccaldi, 29, whose quartet on Petit Moutarde (ONJazz JP-001 onj.org), performs music he composed inspired by French director René Clair’s 1924 Dadaist short film Entr’acte. The CD is twice the length of the movie, but its initial tracks are crafted organically enough to accompany the film. (Try it yourself with a muted Internet version of Entr’acte). But Petit Moutarde is much more than that. Balancing his superior training in notated music with the jazz sophistication of Alexandra Grimal, 35, who plays tenor, soprano and sopranino saxophones plus vocalizes wordlessly here, the music isn’t some hybrid jazz/classical soundtrack but a melange that stands on its own. With drummer Florian Satche both time-keeping and layering the tracks with cymbal scratches and other unconventional percussion techniques plus bassist Ivan Gélugne alternating between string slaps and rubbing arco concordance with Ceccaldi or Grimal, visuals aren’t necessary. Although some portions of the tracks are purposefully as herky-jerky as the movements in Clair’s film, overall blistering modernism overcomes bal musette-like nostalgia. Bowed bass strings make a proper backing for the fiddler’s Paganini-like display on Petit Wasabi for instance, as curbed and cantilevered swipes fly with upwards enthusiasm. Double counterpoint from violin and saxophone complement one another like steak and frites on Petit Chipotle, as Grimal’s fragile stutters are reflected by Ceccaldi’s delicate stops. Swing can also be displayed at breakneck speed as on Petit Harissa, when tenor saxophone tonal squirts and fused staccato rubbing from double bass and violin strings join focused press rolls to produce limitless excitement.

More excitement is apparent on Green Light (MultiKulti MPTO 12 multikulti.com), where Poles, clarinetists Wacław Zimpel, 32, and percussionist Hubert Zemler 35, play on equal terms with well-known American new music improvisers, clarinetist Evan Ziporyn and guitarist Gyan Riley. Beginning as if the tracks present a sonic slide show of someone’s recent travels, tambura, frame drum and bell-like echoes intermingle with Western chamber music tropes including delicate guitar plinks and reed tone layering. The CD reaches an early climax with the instant composition Chemical Wood, as Ziporyn pecks out spangled bent notes through the harsh continuum created by Zimpel blowing both melody and drone from an alghoza or Punjabi woodwind. Since the idea of Green Light is cooperative not solipsistic, the American clarinetist joins in congruent improvisation with his Polish counterpart on tunes like Melismantra. Backed by hard strokes from Riley’s guitar, reed tones are tensely intermingled, with Ziporyn’s clear tones puffing out lines in unison with Zimpel’s rugged altissimo gulps. Even more cross-culturally cooperative is Gupta Gamini, the Zimpel-composed final track. Processional, with echoes of Polish as well as subcontinent folk music, the narrative is kept in motion by tremolo layering from the two horns. Using electric guitar, Riley’s corrosive licks reverberate like torn electrical wires adding a barbed interface. After a pause, the theme finally relaxes into a coda that is a dual showpiece for the reeds’ spectacular upward flutter tonguing.

There’s only one reedist, tenor saxophonist John Dikeman, 32, on Live at La Resistenza (El Negocito Records eNR041 elnegocitorecords.com), but the American-in-Amsterdam forces out enough pure energy to keep up with one of American jazz’s most accomplished and longstanding rhythm sections: bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake. Recorded at a Ghent concert, the two long improvisations on Live appear as inevitable as forces of nature. With cyclone-like ferocity Dikeman splays, smears and sputters bent notes and irregular vibrations into the mix, with a see-saw efficacy, reminiscent of mid-1960s Sonny Rollins. Digging taut snorts from the darkest parts of his horn with the same facility as altissimo glissandi are sourced, his solos are as powerful and cerebral as a military tactician. Parker’s pulsating beat is as precise as items placed in both weighing pans of a balanced scale, with a small portion of Invocation given over to his solo showcase. Otherwise Parker’s string stability appropriately moors the saxophonist’s frequent triple tonguing and vibrated shrieks. When WY Funk, the final track, reaches a climax, Drake’s polyrhythmic cymbal explorations are replaced by a steady backbeat which weds timed swing with timbral striving. Intensity and relief arrive in equal measure by the finale. Overall, with younger players like these on the scene, the future of improvised music appears secure.

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The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal was known as the best French orchestra outside France, thanks to their conductor, Charles Dutoit and Decca Records. With the death of Ernest Ansermet in 1969 Decca had lost their man-about-French-repertoire and were very concerned about having no long-term exclusive replacement. Ray Minshull, a producer for Decca was visiting an artist in Montreal in February 1980 and, fortuitously, attended a rehearsal with the Montreal Symphony. “Immediately” he writes, “it was apparent that our search was over and that I had stumbled upon the solution to our problem. Within two days an exclusive contract was agreed and the following July we recorded the OSM in a CD of violin concertos with Kyung-Wha Chung, another of Rodrigo’s guitar concertos and Ravel’s complete Daphnis and Chloe. When the new recordings were launched, the reception from both critics and public was so enthusiastic…especially in France and Great Britain that we knew that, at last, we had found what we had missed for so long.” Decca has issued a boxed set of their recordings, simply titled Dutoit Montreal (4789466) comprised of 35 CDs in replicas of the original cover art, an 83-page booklet with recording details, two essays by Ray Minshull and an appreciation by Andrew Stewart.

Decca proceeded with its original intention, recording the orchestra playing mainly works by French composers while leaving the German repertoire to others in their stable. In this really impressive collection, therefore, there is no Bach, Beethoven or Brahms although there are four Mendelssohn overtures from 1986 and a 1983 reading of Orff’s Carmina Burana.

The discs are arranged by date of recording and here are but some of the highlights. The complete Daphnis et Chloé (1980); Boléro, Rapsodie Espagnole and La Valse (1981); The Three-Cornered Hat and El Amor Brujo (1981); Saint-Saëns Symphony No.3 (1982) and Chausson Symphony in B-Flat Op.20 (1995); the two Ravel Piano Concertos with Pascal Rogé (1982); Respighi Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome and Roman Festivals (1982); Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (1983); Gaîté Parisienne (1983); Le Sacre du Printemps [1921 version], The Firebird, etc. (1984) and Petrouchka (1986); the Fauré Requiem with Kiri Te Kanawa and Sherrill Milnes (1987); The Planets (1986); Bartók Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1987); Debussy Images and Nocturnes (1988); Franck Symphony in D Minor and D’Indy Symphony on a French Mountain Air with Jean-Yves Thibaudet (1989); two Tchaikovsky complete ballets, Swan Lake (1991) and The Nutcracker (1992); Piazzolla Tangazo (2000), etc.

In addition to the above, there are other major works and about 50 other pieces ranging from Hugo Alfrén’s Swedish Rhapsody No.1 to Ambroise Thomas’ once-popular Raymond Overture. A most desirable and attractive collection. Last year Decca signed a five-year contract with Kent Nagano and the OSM.

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Emil Gilels (1916-1985) was one of the very greatest pianists of the 20th century. He was born in Odessa the legendary city that produced so many other extraordinarily gifted musicians. Arthur Rubinstein, after hearing the 16-year-old Gilels play in Odessa, proclaimed that “If that boy ever comes to America I might just as well pack my bags and go.” As the liner notes mention, Gilels did and Rubinstein didn’t. Gilels graduated from the Odessa Conservatory in 1935 and moved to the Moscow Conservatory where he studied with Heinrich Neuhaus and later became a teacher there. He won competitions galore and made his North American debut in 1955 when he played the Tchaikovsky B-Minor Concerto (surprise!) with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His debut in Britain was in 1959.

Acclaimed for his astonishing power and stupendous technique, the depth of his artistry and interpretive insights went unrecognized for a time. He made recordings in Russia and after taking the West by storm in 1955 his name appeared on many labels including EMI, RCA and Westminster (whose issues were of Soviet origin). However, his very best recordings were made with DG who consistently provided the best venues and associates and engineers. They are all in this boxed set, Emil Gilels, The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (4794651) with 24 CDs and a 68 page booklet telling all.

The superiority of these mighty performances and the dynamics of the recordings immediately put these releases in a class by themselves and they happily remain so in these flawlessly engineered reissues. Here are some examples.

All but six of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas. The two Brahms Piano Concertos with Jochum and the BPO; Brahms’ First Piano Quartet with members of the Amadeus Quartet; Chopin, Sonata No.3 and three Polonaises; 20 Grieg Lyric Pieces; Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.27 and Concerto No.10 for two pianos with daughter Elena, both with Karl Böhm and the VPO; Schubert’s Trout Quintet with the Amadeus Quartet.

The last seven discs contain recordings derived from the Westminster copies of the Melodiya originals from which the highlight for me is a sparklingly articulate, Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto with Kondrashin and the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded in March 1955. As an aside, in 1946 the New York Philharmonic Symphony performed the Prokofiev Third under Artur Rodzinski with pianist Nadia Reisenberg who was the only one of the big name pianists prepared to do so. Other disc-mates include an Emperor Concerto with Kurt Sanderling from Leningrad and Kabalevsky’s Piano Concerto No.3 conducted by the composer. Also a wealth of encore-type solos, sonatas and trios with Leonid Kogan, Rostropovich and Rudolf Barshai.

Known for his poetic approach, pianist Dino Ciani remains a cult figure since his untimely death at the age of 32 in a car accident in Rome in 1974. Ciani’s recordings for DGG are available on CD and, as is usual with cult figures, his followers seek out releases of his live performances. Following Doremi’s Volume One which includes live performances of the Beethoven First and Third Piano Concertos, Volume Two features a newly discovered live performance in excellent stereo sound from the French radio archives of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto with Aldo Ceccato conducting the ORTF orchestra in the Salle Pleyel in 1971. The performance is very much his own, sensitive and communicating.

The rest of this edition (DHR-8044-6, 3 CDs) includes works by Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Bartók and Beethoven…all new to CD. His performances of three Beethoven sonatas live from Verona in 1973 reveal Ciani to be an outstanding Beethoven performer.

The column this month has been, even more than usual, a personal journey for me. A week ago when I should have begun, I found myself wondering what there was to write about. I had assigned the discs that were of most interest to me to other writers for a full treatment rather than glossing over them here. Of particular note were the Dutilleux recordings, and I must say that Elliot Wright’s appreciation of them later in these pages confirms that to have been the right decision. But it left me nearly empty-handed and I warned publisher David Perlman at The WholeNote’s early January gathering that there might not be an Editor’s Corner this month. So much has happened since then that it is hard to imagine that just one week has passed.

The first event was a kitchen party at my friends Michael and Mary’s house, an annual affair to welcome in the New Year with a wealth of pickin’ and grinnin’. In addition to the usual plethora of guitars in various tunings, fiddles, mandolins and octave mandolins, there were hand drums, harmonicas, a keyboard, an accordion and more than a dozen voices lifted joyously in song. It was a magical evening, as so often these gatherings can be. I took particular delight in the opportunity to play with the accordionist, who was adding myriad colours and rhythms to the mix. As I was leaving – earlier than was my wont due to the tail end, or so I thought, of a lingering chest cold – I mentioned my pleasure to Mary who told me to hang on and went to grab me a copy of the accordionist’s new CD, “hot off the press.” It seems she was the graphic designer of the package (altdesign.ca) and had a box of discs on hand, and so I left the party knowing my journey had begun.

Leighton Life is a wonderfully eclectic recording that showcases the writing skills and musical dexterity (piano, synths, accordion, organ, jaw harp, whistle, trombone, percussion, bouzouki and bodhrán) of Tom Leighton (tomleighton.ca). Not content to rest on his own laurels (and the mixing skills of producer Paul Mills), Leighton surrounds himself with a marvellous array of musical friends too plentiful to name, to create horn sections, string arrangements, cello solos and string band accompaniments as required. The opening track All Thumbs is a playful Penguin Café Orchestra-style minimalist moto perpetuo with the ostinato provided by the ticking of a mechanical clock and a triangle (at least that’s my guess). A Summer Jig features the accordion in the lead role of a warm, lush instrumentation. A Letter Found is a haunting ballad with violin and cello in unison and harmony on the memorable melody over piano and accordion accompaniment. Hank Dances is a rhythmically propulsive swing tune with horns, extrapolated from music Leighton wrote for a production of Hank Williams, The Show He Never Gave by Maynard Collins. The 12 tracks included here – all instrumental – run the gamut from old timey, to R&B, Scottish traditional to The Hurdy-Gurdy which Leighton says was “written for the hurdy-gurdy … by a non-player. Alas, it doesn’t play well on a hurdy-gurdy but conjures my image of the player.” Quite convincingly I might add. The album comes with a “Warning! Listening to instrumental music activates emotional, motor and creative areas of the brain!” It also includes the notice that all compositions are available as sheet music from the composer, so as spontaneous as much of the music feels, it is obviously conceived in its entirety by this wonderful musician. I look forward to having the opportunity to play with him again.

The next steps on the journey began just a block from Michael and Mary’s house, at the Dufferin bus stop at Davenport. A few minutes after I arrived at the stop another man carrying a guitar case came to wait alongside me. I asked if he was going out to play, or like me, coming home from doing so. He said he was coming from a friend’s house where they had been playing bluegrass music all evening. Long time readers of this column will know that I am enamoured of the “new grass” band Joy Kills Sorrow that was active from 2005 to 2014. I asked this guitarist if he was familiar with the band and he said no, but that he knew “the song.” Not knowing the song myself, I said “Oh?” “Yes,” he said, “it’s a great song by Béla Fleck.” And so my next quest began. It turns out that When Joy Kills Sorrow appeared on the 1999 CD The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales From The Acoustic Planet, Volume 2 (Warner Bros. 9 47332-2), where Fleck’s cronies from the 1987 album Drive reunite and are joined by legends Earl Scruggs, Vassar Clements and John Hartford and contemporary stars Vince Gill, Tim O’Brien and Ricky Skaggs, for a number of Fleck originals and several traditional and classic tunes. Since this CD is old news and only new to me I won’t dwell on it other than to say it’s been in heavy rotation on my player since it arrived last Wednesday from Amazon (HMV couldn’t locate the one copy their superstore’s computer said they had). Highlights of the disc are the above-mentioned Joy Kills Sorrow, an old Flatt & Scruggs tune Polka on the Banjo and a two-banjo arrangement of the Clarinet Polka by Fleck and Hartford. Having grown up with the George Barnes solo guitar take on the latter as the theme to the Max Ferguson Show and now hearing this banjo version, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t ever heard it played on the clarinet. Hats off to YouTube, I didn’t have to look far ….

One disc that crossed my desk this month, an arrangement of Brian Eno’s Discreet Music performed by Toronto’s Contact ensemble, turned out to be a timely release, but not for the reasons one would hope. The news of David Bowie’s death last week brought many memories and realizations. Bowie’s chameleon-like career affected audiences and artists across the spectrum, me among them. I was not much aware of the glam rock era, but became drawn to Bowie at the time he started collaborating with Eno. Already a fan of Eno’s ambient approach to composition and sound, I was curious to see how he would interact with the “space oddity” that was Bowie.

In Francis Whatley’s 2013 film David Bowie: Five Years, Eno says that Bowie was drawn to his “longest, slowest, quietest” work, Discreet Music, and that their projects grew out of this interest. This was at a time when Bowie was tired of the rock-star lifestyle that had brought him perilously close to death by overdose and misadventure in L.A. His subsequent move to Paris and then Berlin, where he undertook a Spartan low-profile existence, ultimately resulted in a trilogy of Bowie-Eno albums beginning with the 1977 Low (RCA LP CPL1-2030). In 1991 Rykodisc would reissue Low on compact disc (RCD 10142) with bonus tracks. Not being in the habit of replacing my vinyl collection with CDs, I was unaware of the extra material until I revisited the Low Symphony by Philip Glass (POINT Music 438 150-2), which was inspired by two tracks by Bowie and Eno and one by Bowie alone. I was confused when I was unable to find Some Are, one of the duo compositions, on my LP and eventually ended up downloading the missing title from iTunes last week …. Three music platforms later I now have the full picture!

But that picture was further enhanced by These Dreams of You (Europa Editions ISBN 978-1-60945-063-2), a 2012 novel by Steve Erickson, which I found myself reading for the third time over the past few days (which may have set a record for frequency of rereading for me). Erickson, whose eight previous novels number among my favourites – a shout out to Jowi Taylor for turning me on to Arc d’X all those years ago! – frequently incorporates pop culture, particularly music and film, into his novels. Although These Dreams of You is nominally speculative and surreal, as are most of his books, the narrative strands are fairly linear, albeit many layered. The protagonists are a family of four in contemporary L.A. in danger of losing their house as a result of the economic crisis and the nefarious machinations of the banks. The father, Zan, has recently been let go from his position as professor of literature at the local university and is the sole DJ on a low-wattage radio station broadcasting without a license from a local Mexican restaurant in the Valley. His wife, Viv, is a freelance photographer whose work is drying up and whose one claim to fame, stained glass butterfly art, has been co-opted by an infamous commercial artist. Their children are Parker, a 12-year-old whose namesake is Charlie Parker but whose musical interests favour gangsta rap, and Sheba, a precocious four-year-old orphan adopted from Ethiopia, who is seeming wired internally to a certain unnamed “red-headed British alien who wears dresses.” The not-so-veiled references to David Bowie continue as he permeates the story, in particular with tales of his time in Berlin with roommates The Professor (Eno?) and Jim (Iggy Pop?), which lead to the album Low. Erickson cleverly weaves his tales – another one including presidential hopeful Bobby Kennedy in the months leading up to his assassination, and a third, an aspiring 1970s author, who after being beaten and left for dead by German skinheads, wakes to find himself in 1919 Berlin with a paperback copy of a novel that will shape the literature of the coming century but won’t be published until 1922 – through three eras and three continents. The convolutions are eventually resolved, and although there are no particularly happy endings, it does make for a very compelling read. Part of the fun is identifying the myriad historical characters that are never actually named. A great read indeed, and a great tribute to David Bowie.

But back to Contact’s rendition of Discreet Music (Cantaloupe Music CA21114 cantaloupemusic.com). Eno’s original LP side was an electronic intertwining of some very simple melodic material according to some basic programming in Eno’s synthesizers. Four decades later Toronto percussionist and founding member of Contact Contemporary Music, Jerry Pergolesi, set out to make a live performance version of the iconic work. In the booklet notes he says: “In keeping with the spirit of the original, my ‘arrangement’ consists of seven mutually compatible melodies (the result of Eno’s original two melodies being occasionally altered) and instructions that render the band itself into the looping apparatus that Eno describes as the ‘score’ for the original. The ‘arrangement’ sets parameters for the musicians to follow, while giving them some leeway to make decisions with regard to what they play and when. Once the performance starts, however, the resulting sound is out of anyone’s hands.” The members of Contact – Mary-Katherine Finch, cello; Sarah Fraser Raff, violin; Wallace Halladay, soprano sax; Rob MacDonald, guitar; Peter Pavlovsky, bass; Jerry Pergolesi, vibraphone; Allison Wiebe Benstead, piano; complemented here by Emma Zoe Elkinson, flute and Dean Kurtis-Pomeroy, gongs – perform with real conviction – tone and intonation are warm and consistent – and they manage to hold our attention throughout the hour-long take in which “nothing happens.” I can’t imagine what it is like to take part in such a static performance, but congratulations are due to all concerned for realizing a viable live presentation of an electronic classic.

It has been a month of losses in the musical arts. Canadian-born jazz icon, Paul Bley, and French father of avant-garde concert music, Pierre Boulez, are honoured elsewhere in these pages, although their passing garnered little attention in Toronto’s mainstream media. In contrast, much has been said about the death of David Bowie across all media and all platforms – including 24 continuous hours of programming on Much Music as I write this column – so I will not say much more here. He was a unique artist who constantly reinvented himself and touched more lives than most. His final offering Blackstar (ISO Records 88875173862) was released on his 69th birthday, two days before his death, and once again we are presented with a new man, seemingly from beyond the grave. Indeed one of the songs and videos is called Lazarus. I was lucky enough to purchase a copy of Blackstar before they all disappeared from the shelves (and online catalogues) but it will take me some time before I’m able to assimilate it. It’s a journey I am convinced is worth undertaking.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

Steven Osborne has no fear of intimacy. In his latest recording, Franz Schubert (Hyperion CDA68107) Osborne plays the Impromptus D935 and Three Piano Pieces D946, as if he were the composer. He adopts a modest posture, lingers in the shadows of the music and emerges only when Schubert coaxes him out. He is never rushed. Assured and playing at a relaxed pace, he maintains a strong sense of forward motion especially in the slower sections. He also has a sense for melodic lines and gives them wonderful clarity over Schubert’s accompanying harmonic pulse. Osborne makes the well-known Impromptus D935 seem new again. He seems to understand their true scale and never overplays them.

He uses the same approach to the Three Piano Pieces D946, where No.2 in E-flat Major is substantially longer than the others and requires more attention to thematic development. He begins it softly and finishes it even more so. Magical. The Hüttenbrenner Variations D576 are playful and entertaining. Built on a short and simple idea, Schubert’s 14 iterations find an affectionate and capable performer in this pianist. The Steinway used in this recording is beautifully voiced and has the perfect colours for this repertoire.

Concert note: Osborne performs the Schubert Impromptus Nos.1 & 4 D935 in Toronto on Tuesday, March 1 as part of Music Toronto’s Piano Series, in the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie are longtime piano partners who’ve played and recorded together since the 1980s. Whether playing four hands or two pianos, they always impress with a profoundly unified approach to the music. One simply can’t imagine a significant difference of interpretive opinion between them. Their newest CD, Rachmaninoff Piano Duets (Chandos CHAN 10882) is another example of this mature musical relationship where one cannot distinguish either of them from the other. Their keyboard techniques are identically matched and their sensibilities deeply shared.

Here the wide sweeps of Rachmaninoff’s musical imagination find their voice on the keyboards of two Fazioli grand pianos. The vocabulary is unmistakable and even surprisingly whole quotes from works like the Piano Concerto No.3 appear in the Suite No.2 Op.17 for Two Pianos. The Fantaisie (Tableaux), Op.5 opens the recording in a very dramatic way with Mercier and Lortie pulling the listener right to the edge of the seat with some very edgy playing.

This music is written to be big. While the first two repertoire items have plenty of familiar orchestral allusions, the real showstopper is Rachmaninoff’s transcription for two pianos of his Symphonic Dances Op.45. The versatility required here is remarkable. The first movement contains a musically threadbare middle section where the pianists obviously enjoy the contrast to the rest of the piece. The third movement is a long slow build to a truly blazing finish. On any decent sound system, this recording makes you tingle with the pianists’ energy. You can only imagine the effect Mercier and Lortie have in live performance.

We are given to appropriate wonder when we encounter child prodigies whose keyboard skills and musical maturity seem demonstrably beyond their years. Rarer still are those musicians who have lived into old age with their gift still largely undiminished by the decades. Their experience and insights give them a freedom not entirely available to the younger. I recall the documentary film of Vladimir Horowitz making his long-awaited return to Moscow to perform at the conservatory, watching him hunched over the piano and gliding through a Chopin valse as if he were only 20.

Another such elder pianist is David Wilde, who at age 80 is still performing, recording and teaching, as he has done all his life. On listening to Wilde plays Chopin Vol. III (Delphian DCD34159) one is immediately struck by the dexterity and power of this pianist. He is definitely in command, not only of the music’s demands but also of its content. It’s as if Chopin has surrendered licence to Wilde to reshape his phrases, alter his tempi and dynamics to reflect who this pianistic sage is.

Wilde’s performance of the Valse in D flat Major, Op.64 No.1 “Minute Waltz” is amazing for its speed. The Scherzo No.2 in B-flat Minor, Op.31 is a monumental and powerful statement as is the “Military” Polonaise. All through this CD one is struck by the enormous expressive freedom that Wilde has at his disposal. It’s an inspiring recording.

Listening to Adolfo Barabino – Chopin Volume 4; London Symphony Orchestra; Lee Reynolds (Claudio CR 6021-2) it’s tempting to believe that this pianist has found that secret, internal place from which only Chopin can come. It’s a place of great fragility. Barabino’s own liner notes speak of delicacy, elegance, nuances and slender sound. His performance of the Berceuse Op.57 gives the impression that some of the notes are actually too shy to be played. The six Mazurkas are far more meditative than they are dancelike. Even with the London Symphony Orchestra his performance of the Piano Concerto No.2 is never very large and always seems ready to become reclusive at the next pianissimo. While the second movement is particularly beautiful for Barabino’s treatment of the main theme, the outer movements sparkle more like an aurora than fireworks. It’s altogether a remarkable interpretation. The Steinway he plays surrenders the loveliest of colours in the many passages of light touch.

This is his fourth volume in what is to be a complete recording of all of Chopin’s piano works. It’s a set worth collecting.

Another Bach Goldberg Variations BWV 988 (TwoPianists Records TP1039244) is competing for attention and its performance by Lori Sims offers good reasons for making this a valued addition to those who collect Goldbergs.

Most importantly, Sims understands the architecture of the work and how Bach proceeds through his canons with ever-widening intervals. She addresses this and other structural complexities in her brief but very well-written liner notes. Also, Sims has committed to observing all the repeats and using the baroque practice of more elaborate ornamentation in them.

Finally, she has made this recording in live performance with an audience that, after a few initial coughs, quickly settles into an astonishingly silent awe at the feat unfolding before them, all 80 minutes of it. This changes the pace of things, because the performer needs to keep the harmonic core of the variations alive in the listener’s ear as the idea evolves through its often challenging forms.

Sims does a terrific job at holding Bach’s many threads together while still applying her own nuances to phrases, individualizing her ornaments, playing with a light clear touch and avoiding the sustain pedal altogether. The better you know the Goldberg Variations, the more you’ll appreciate this live performance. It’s an exciting document.

Another pianist who has recorded the Goldberg Variations live, albeit as a video, is Chinese-born Zhu Xiao Mei. She has also recorded Bach’s The Art of Fugue, but most recently the J. S. Bach Inventions and Sinfonias (Accentus Music ACC30350).

It’s familiar music to most keyboard players. The 15 Inventions and as many Sinfonias have been, as Bach intended, a staple in the keyboard study repertoire for centuries. Zhu is a performer, teacher and frequent jurist at major piano competitions. She offers a passionate argument in her liner notes for the higher regard that these pieces deserve. While dealing mostly with just two and three polyphonic voices, she nevertheless believes they contain an “extraordinary density of music.”

Zhu’s playing is sensitive, articulate and precise. It’s obvious she takes this music very seriously. She argues that Bach wanted players to learn how to play polyphonically and so, be able to highlight the dialogues between voices. She also believes Bach wanted young players to experiment with different approaches by varying tempos and phrasings. Her interpretations reflect this as they move gently and fluidly through what many students deliver as merely dutiful finger exercises. It’s a very satisfying performance and convincingly raises this collection of Bach keyboard works to a significantly higher level.

This recording is a timely reminder about the reverence we need to nurture around the act of making music, even with the simplest of works.

An enlightening quote by the performer opens the notes of Scriabin – Janáček, Sonatas & Poems (Hyperion CDA67895). In it Stephen Hough explains his reason for alternating these two eccentric Slavic composers throughout the program of the CD. Describing Scriabin’s music as horizontal and Janáček’s as vertical, and further explaining how the two are essentially dissimilar, we have the rationale for the contrasting placement of all the music on this recording. Hough’s argument is that too much of either detracts from itself. But he also calls their voices contrasting and compelling, and this view is borne out in his playing.

Scriabin’s two sonatas, Nos.4 and 5, as well as the two Poèmes have that distinctive French impressionistic drift that is as seductive as it is hypnotic. Hough understands this form well and blends his lines with superb fluidness.

His approach to Janáček is, by necessity, very different. While somewhat programmatic the music is a demanding mix of romanticism, occasional moments of minimalism and plenty of modern form. Hough reflects the imagery beautifully in On the overgrown path – Book I. He captures the darkness of the Piano Sonata 1.X.1905, From the street, recalling the grim political events it marked as well as the composer’s deep personal struggles.

This recording is a mature and challenging project and is extraordinarily well done.

A new recording by young Italian pianist Alessio Bax, Scriabin, Mussorgsky (Signum Classics SIGCD426) brings yet another Scriabin piano sonata to the marketplace. The Sonata No.3 Op.23 is a considerably earlier work than its successor, with 16 years between them. The flowing impressionism of the 4th and 5th sonatas is only moderately evident in the slow movement of the 3rd sonata while the rest of the work is fairly classical in structure. Alessio Bax plays this work with a great deal of affection and his opening liner notes explain his fondness for the piece.

Bax is young, powerful and a capable interpreter with a natural instinct for drawing out the beauty of a melodic line. This is obvious in the Etude in C sharp Minor Op.2 No.1. The Prelude for the left hand alone, Op.9 No.1 is as beautiful as it is amazing to contemplate. One should like to see it in performance.

If we needed to be more impressed, we might reserve judgement until hearing Bax’s performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, but the decision would be a foregone conclusion. Each of these little vignettes is superbly played. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks and The Market Place sparkle with energy and the Great Gate of Kiev towers over the Pictures in pianistic grandeur.

Contemporary music has long used unconventional sound sources, among them the “prepared” piano. This usually involves some physical change in the mechanism or tuning of the instrument. Digital technology has, however, opened new opportunities to take this approach much further. The possibilities are limited only by imagination.

OnBeyond 12 – Reinventing the Piano (MicroFest Records MF3) pianist Aron Kallay performs works commissioned from eight American composers. They were given two ground rules to follow in composing their works. First, retune the 88-note keyboard to represent just a single octave. Second, remap the keyboard so that high/low or left/right can be interchangeable and pitches can be in any order.

What has emerged is a body of works playable on a digitally conceived model that uses software to reconfigure a traditional digital keyboard to meet these requirements. The eight composers are mostly professional musicians and academics with a strong inclination for technology in their music writing.

It’s surprising to hear how much of this music has a strong tonal centre and uses familiar rhythmic patterns to drive it forward. Also intriguing is the way the ear quickly adjusts to the very small differences of pitch between adjacent notes. It’s as if the brain resets and quickly begins to make melodic and harmonic sense out of this unconventional music model. This is a truly fascinating disc and worth hearing for both pleasure and debate.

American harpsichordist Elaine Funaro has made a career of championing new music for the harpsichord. In 1996 she recorded Into The Millennium – The Harpsichord in the 20th Century (Gasparo GSCD-331). Twenty years later the recording is as exciting as it was when first committed to DAT in the beautiful and cavernous Duke University Chapel (North Carolina).

Two tracks deserve special mention. The Postlude of Dan Locklair’s dance suite The Breakers Pound will lift you right out of your seat. The raw energy coming from such a traditionally non-dynamic instrument is indescribable. It has the feel of Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance. Also, Tom Harris’ Jubilate Deo is extraordinary for the way it builds tension with increasing stacks of harmonies. It’s wonderful to see this older recording reissued.

Also among Elaine Funaro’s recently reissued recordings is Giovanni Benedetto Platti “il grande” Sonatas for Clavicembalo (Wildboar WLBR 9901). Here, the repertoire is material from the early 18th century. Funaro plays two modern instruments, a harpsichord and a fortepiano, copies of originals from that period. The fortepiano in particular, produces an unusual and pleasant timbre not often heard in recordings.

Funaro has audio and video samples of her work at funaroharpsichord.com.

Goodness only knows how many attempts at string quartets Johannes Brahms destroyed before he finally felt able to present a completed work to the world in 1873 – there may have been as many as 20 – but at least the three quartets we do have are real gems.

The two quartets Op.51, in C Minor and A Minor, were followed by the B-flat Major Op.67 in 1876, but with each of the three works being about 35 minutes in length it’s simply not possible to include more than two on a single CD. Still, as the song says, two out of three ain’t bad, especially when the performances are as beautiful as those on Brahms String Quartets Op.51, Nos.1&2 by the New Orford String Quartet (Bridge 9464).

Just about all of the Brahmsian qualities you would want to hear are present: these are warm, passionate, nuanced, beautifully judged and balanced performances, full of that almost autumnal, nostalgic introspection so typical of the composer and with a lovely dynamic range. Jonathan Crow and Andrew Wan play first and second violin respectively in the Op.51 No.1, changing places for the second quartet.

The warm and resonant recording quality should come as no surprise, given that the location was the Multimedia Room at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in Montreal.

The outstanding Armenian brother and sister duo Sergey and Lusine Khachatryan are back with another superb violin and piano recital on My Armenia (naïve V5414), dedicated to the 100th Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.

The program of works by Komitas Vardapet, Eduard Bagdasaryan, Edvard Mirzoyan, Aram Khachaturian and Arno Babadjanian gives both performers ample opportunity to shine. Lusine Khachatryan is excellent in the piano solos that account for almost half of the very generous running time of the CD – close to 80 minutes – but the disc really takes off in the duos, with Sergey’s impassioned, brilliant playing taking the music to new heights and emotional depths.

There’s a lovely recorded sound and balance right from the opening two short-but-lovely duo pieces by Vardapet before Lusine features in his Seven Folk Dances for Piano Solo. The three duo pieces at the centre of the CD – Bagdasaryan’s Rhapsody and Nocturne and Mirzoyan’s Introduction & Perpetuum mobile – are also the heart of the recital. The Rhapsody is a truly rhapsodic and beautiful piece, and the short Nocturne an absolute gem. The Mirzoyan work is a real showstopper, with a simply dazzling second half.

Khachaturian, probably the best-known of the composers on the disc, is represented by three short pieces, including the familiar Sabre Dance in a typically showy transcription by Jascha Heifetz.

The CD ends with Babadjanian’s Six Pictures for Solo Piano, a challenging work both technically and harmonically, with a brilliant Toccatina movement straight out of the same drawer as Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata. It’s another dazzler.

All in all, it’s wonderful playing and musicianship from a wonderfully gifted duo. This is music that is clearly deeply ingrained in their hearts and souls as well as in their fingers.

Regular readers will know how I feel about reviewing complete sets of the Bach unaccompanied solo works, be it the Sonatas & Partitas for violin or the Cello Suites: the sheer size, scope, depth and complexity of the music, together with the wide range of versions available, makes any in-depth review almost impossible. All you can really do is note the arrival and try to give some idea of the stylistic approach and overall effect.

The latest addition to the already lengthy list of available versions of the Bach Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin is a beautiful 2-CD set by Midori (Onyx 4123). Again, as with the recent Gil Shaham release, there is a clear sense of these wonderful works having been a constant in the performer’s life, together with a reluctance to create a permanent record of what is essentially only one in a continually developing and changing series of interpretations. “After thirty years on stage,” says Midori, “the time felt right for me to fully embrace these most daunting and invaluable compositions.”

The recordings were made in Cologne in August 2013 as a result of Midori’s Bach Project that marked the 30th anniversary of her 1982 debut with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic. Presumably made for broadcast on German radio – the booklet cover has WDR The Cologne Broadcasts as a sub-heading – the recorded sound is clean and clear, with a natural presence.

There is much to comment on here: the compactness of the chords in the G Minor Fugue; the brightness, speed and sense of pulse in the uptempo dance movements in the Partitas; the lightness and ease of the multiple-stopping, without ever obscuring the line; the light and warmth in the tone, combined with a strength and richness.

It’s easy to see why violinists hesitate to commit performances of these works to disc: the more you play them and live with them, the more the challenges and possibilities, both technical and emotional, continue to grow and not diminish.

All we can do is sit back and enjoy the journey, albeit a different one each time, and feel grateful for the privilege.

Many of the same problems for a reviewer are presented by the Mystery Sonatas (also known as the Rosary Sonatas) of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, now available in a beautifully judged 2-CD set by the outstanding period-performance violinist Rachel Podger (Channel Classics CCS SA 37315). David Miller, Marcin Świątkiewicz and Jonathan Manson supply the excellent continuo.

The sonatas depict the mysteries in the life of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Anyone familiar with Biber’s descriptive piece Battalia will know how startlingly inventive he can be, but nothing prepares you for what he does in these 16 sonatas.

Scordatura (from the Italian word that gives us “discordant”) is a technique in which the strings of a string instrument are tuned differently from the usual arrangement. It’s not that uncommon, but in these sonatas Biber takes it to simply astonishing lengths, radically altering the violin’s normal GDAE tuning in all but the outer movements by retuning anything from one to all four of the strings by intervals as large as a fifth. Every tuning is different, and some – GGDD, DFB-flatD and BF-sharpBD, for instance – are simply eye-popping. The result is essentially a different instrument for each movement, with enormous possibilities for radically different chordal work and multiple-stopping.

These astonishing sonatas have long been a favourite with baroque specialists – a quick online search produced almost two dozen CD sets currently available – and while Podger is up against some stiff competition (including an outstanding set by Tafelmusik’s Julia Wedman) these are performances of works that stretch both the violin and the violinist to the limit that will hold their own against any.

When Hyperion released the Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova’s recording of the Bach Sonatas & Partitas in 2009, Gramophone magazine noted that “… her Bach comes as something of a revelation … all her stylishness and technical refinement is at the service of an ingrained understanding of the music.” Add another six years, and it should come as no surprise that in her latest Hyperion release, Bach Violin Concertos with the string ensemble Arcangelo under their founder Jonathan Cohen (CDA 68068), Ibragimova delivers terrific performances of consummate skill and style.

Arcangelo plays with a lute and harpsichord continuo, but it’s the lute that predominates in the balance here, giving the performances a soft, warm background that provides a perfect setting for Ibragimova’s sensitive interpretations. The booklet notes point out that this music comes from an age when the distinction between star soloist and ensemble player was more blurred than it is today, and Ibragimova really seems to have taken that to heart. Her imaginative playing is full of sensitive phrasing and dynamics, but is quite laid back, sounding more like a thread running through a tapestry than an out-front solo performance. Everything is light and spacious, and never heavy or routine.

The two standard solo concertos – in A Minor BWV1041 and E Major BWV1042, both of which were transcribed for keyboard by Bach – are here, but not the D Minor Double Concerto. Instead, we have three solo concertos that are described as “back-transcriptions,” being reconstructed solo versions of keyboard concertos that were themselves transcriptions of solo works. The Concerto in A Major BWV1055 is from Keyboard Concerto No.4; the Concerto in G Minor BWV1056 is from the transposed Keyboard Concerto No.5 in F Minor; and the Concerto in D Minor BWV1052 is from the Keyboard Concerto No.1.

The original A Major concerto may have been for oboe d’amore, and the original G Minor for violin or oboe; the D Minor, however, was described by no less an authority as Donald Tovey as “the greatest and most difficult violin concerto before the time of Beethoven.”

It makes a fine ending to an immensely satisfying CD.

However much you may know about the music of the English composer Cyril Scott, whose Lotus Land was transcribed and recorded several times by Heifetz in the 1920s and 1930s, you’re almost certainly not going to know either of the works on the CD Dawn and Twilight – The First and Last Violin Sonatas of Cyril Scott (Affetto AF1504) unless you’ve already heard the CD: both works are world premiere recordings.

Scott, who died in 1970 at the age of 91, wrote close to 400 works in a wide range of genres but his music was largely neglected at his death, although there has been a resurgence of both interest and recordings since the turn of the century. He wrote four numbered violin sonatas, only the first of which is a youthful work: written in 1908, it was heavily revised and shortened in 1956. The revised version, along with the second and third sonatas from 1950 and 1955 respectively, was featured on a 2010 Naxos release, but Dawn and Twilight pairs the original version with the unpublished Sonata No.4, written in 1956, the same year as the revision of No.1, and provided in a photocopy of the original manuscript by the composer’s son Desmond Scott.

Violinist Andrew Kirkman and pianist Clipper Erickson are the performers here in works that are difficult to compare because, as Desmond Scott notes, there is a world of stylistic and other differences between them. Certainly the 1908 version of the First Sonata, almost a third longer than the revised version, shows a composer already leaving behind the influences of Debussy and Strauss and moving away from tonality and regular rhythm, and not surprisingly attracting a fair amount of uncomprehending attention from contemporary reviewers. To our ears it’s a stylish and finely crafted rhapsodic four-movement work, with a simply beautiful slow movement, and what the booklet notes call “a bravura disregard for the kind of formal control that informed its later revision.”

The Fourth Sonata, the direct contemporary of that revision, is another fine work that also shows the formal control and precise musical thought process of a mature composer then in his late 70s.

Kirkman and Erickson started performing the original No.1 in 2011, and gave a few concert performances of the unpublished No.4 before recording it for this release. There are times when Erickson seems to be playing with more emotional commitment and dynamic range than Kirkman, but overall these are fine performances of two works that fully deserve to be added to the standard repertoire of 20th-century violin sonatas.

There are two outstanding CDs this month featuring the works of American women composers. Patagón (Foghorn Classics CD2015) features the Alexander String Quartet in three works by Cindy Cox, now in her mid-50s and very active as a pianist as well as a composer.

Cox’s music here is quite fascinating, quite varied and not easy to describe.The composer Robert Carl, writing in Fanfare Magazine, said that “Cox writes music that demonstrates an extremely refined and imaginative sense of instrumental colour and texture … this is well wrought, imaginative, and not easily classifiable music.” It’s exactly that.

The Alexander String Quartet was formed in 1981, and performed and recorded Cox’s first string quartet, Columba aspexit, after Hildegard von Bingen, some 20 years ago. It’s performed here along with the title work, Patagón, a five-movement work written in 2011 on commission from the Alexanders to celebrate their 30th anniversary and dedicated to them. Inspired by a trip to the Valdes peninsula nature preserve in southern Argentina, it employs some quite remarkable effects, including sliding harmonics, col legno (playing with the wood of the bow), sul ponticello (playing near the bridge), sul tasto (playing above the fingerboard) and overbowing, where the bow is pressed hard but slowly against the strings. Imagine these sounds and then look at the title of the third movement – Southern right whales and Magellanic penguins – and you will have some idea why these effects seem so perfectly suited to the music.

The quartet’s first violinist Zakarias Grafilo opens the CD with the short but lovely 1990 solo violin work Elegy, dedicated to the memory of Cox’s fellow compositional student Eric Heckard, who died in 1989 at the young age of 26.

The ASQ and Cox have been collaborating ever since that early recording of the Columba quartet, and it’s hard to imagine more satisfying or better-informed performances of these lovely works.

All of the works on Strum: Music for Strings, the first album dedicated solely to the music of the young African-American composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery (Azica ACD-71302) were written in the past three years, and they display a remarkable self-assurance and confidence together with a striking musical inventiveness and imagination.

Starburst is a short work for string orchestra that plays on rapidly changing musical colours. Source Code for string quartet began life as sketched transcriptions of various sources from African American artists prominent during the peak of the Civil Rights era; it’s played here by the Catalyst Quartet. Break Away, a five-movement work for string quartet, was written for the PUBLIQuartet, who perform it here; born out of a series of improvisations the ensemble was working on while in residence at the Banff Centre, it requires the players to literally break away from the score and improvise, especially in the final movement.

The Rhapsody No.1 for solo violin gives Montgomery the chance to display her outstanding violin playing, and Banner for solo string quartet and string orchestra, with the Catalyst Quartet and the String Orchestra conducted by Julian Wachner, is a rhapsodic tribute to the 200th Anniversary of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Strum, the title track of the album, is the final version of a work started in 2006, but revised and partially rewritten in 2012 for the Catalyst Quartet, whose performance rounds out an impressive debut disc of Montgomery’s compositions.

This is clearly a significant talent, and definitely someone to watch. Expect to hear a lot more from this artist.

Baldassarre Galuppi – Il filosofo di campagna
Zanetti; Baldan; Unsal; Cinciripi; Torriani; Antonini; Mezzaro; Boschin; Ensemble Barocco della Filarmonica del Veneto; Fabrizio da Ros
Bongiovanni AB 20030

Opera buffa dates from the beginning of the 18th century. It was essentially a Neapolitan art form; it was farcical and lightweight. By the late 1740s it had metamorphosed into the dramma giocoso which was still comic but had more plausible situations with semi-serious parts and a more realistic psychology. These works were usually Venetian and they included librettos by Carlo Goldoni, set to music by Baldassare Galuppi – as is the case here. In this opera Eugenia wants to marry the young nobleman Rinaldo but her father, Don Tritemio, insists that she marry the wealthy farmer Nardo, the philosopher, instead. Things end happily, of course: Eugenia marries Rinaldo and her maid Lesbina marries Nardo, while Don Tritemio makes do with Nardo’s niece Lena.

The DVD gives us a live performance from the Teatro Comunale in Belluno, which took place in October 2012. The director, Carlo Torriani, makes a clear distinction between the more rounded characters like the young lovers and those who are conceived more farcically: the crusty father and especially the notary, who is affected by interminable bouts of sneezing. I suspect that it is the latter which will prove most difficult to take in subsequent rehearings or reviewings. The conductor, Fabrizio da Ros, presents the music with loving care and the work is well sung. I especially enjoyed the soprano Giorgia Cinciripi, who sings Lesbina.

Vivaldi – Sacred Music 4
Claire de Sévigné; Maria Soulis; Aradia Ensemble; Kevin Mallon
Naxos 8.573324

Puccini – Turandot
Khudoley; Massi; Yu; Ryssov; Wiener Symphoniker; Paolo Carignani
C major 731408

Puccini – Turandot
Dessi; Malagnini; Canzian; Chikviladze; La Guardia; Teatro Carlo Felice; Donato Renzetti
Dynamic 33764

Puccini’s last, unfinished opera is arguably his greatest, certainly the most innovative, harmonically adventurous and a score of genius. It is also a grand opera well suited for lavish, extravagant productions. Fortunately, two marvellous video recordings have just arrived and both fulfill their promise. I state categorically that both are excellent in their own way and I do not prefer one to the other.

The newest is from the Bregenz Festival, July 2015 (bregenzerfestspiele.com). Not many may have heard of Bregenz, a sleepy old town at the Western end of Austria on the shores of Lake Constance (Bodensee), but their festival rivals Salzburg with the highest artistic standards. The giant open-air amphitheatre includes an incredible stage set (designed by M.A. Marelli) right in the lake with something like the Great Wall of China towering 100 feet forming the backdrop to a circular stage, a revolving cylinder accessed by ramps snaking around it like a Chinese dragon. Over this is a huge circular disc equipped with myriad LED crystals forming computer generated multi-coloured images to suit the mood of the moment. It really has to be seen to be believed and I must say it’s a lot more comfortable to see it on DVD in home comfort than being there freezing in the rain. (I’ve been in Vorarlberg and even in summer the weather is unpredictable.) The orchestra cannot be seen and nor can the conductor, the dynamic Paolo Carignani who gave Toronto a thrilling Tosca some time ago. The overall, somewhat modernized show is a sound and light extravaganza with dancers, pantomimes and circus acts to dazzle the eye, but the opera comes through musically superb with spacious acoustics and some top singing artists plus two choruses, not to mention the Wiener Symphoniker giving it orchestral support. Young Italian tenor Riccardo Massi (Prince Kalaf) copes well with the power and the high notes; he is best in show. Young, up-and-coming Chinese soprano Guanqun Yu gives a heartrending performance as Liu, the little servant girl who sacrifices herself for love. For the pinnacle role of the Ice Princess expectations are high and Callas or Sutherland both being gone, Mlada Khudoley, Russian dramatic soprano from the Mariinsky struggles heroically, suitably hateful most of the time, but relaxes beautifully to a glorious finale, an outburst of joy seldom witnessed in opera theatres.