Shostakovich – Suite on Poems by Michelangelo; Liszt – Petrarch Sonnets
Dmitri Hvorostovsky; Ivari Ilja
Ondine ODE 1277-2

Dmitri Hvorostovsky is a pure artist and a natural-born talent. Born and educated in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, a place not renowned for being a fertile cultural ground (despite having also been the birthplace of the French novelist Andreï Makine), Hvorostovsky shot to international stardom after defeating Bryn Terfel in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1989. This success came on the heels of triumphs at the Toulouse Singing Competition in 1988 and the Glinka Competition in 1987. Since then, he has been present on all major opera and concert stages in the world – predominately in Verdi roles. He created an unforgettable portrayal of the Marquis de Posa in Don Carlo, but was equally acclaimed for Simon Boccanegra, Rigoletto, Un ballo in maschera and La Traviata. When he appeared for the first time in Tchaikovsky operas – The Queen of Spades, and especially, Eugene Onegin – critics proclaimed that he was born to sing those roles.

This album shows a different side to Hvorostovsky – that of a lieder singer. When Shostakovich set the poems of Michelangelo (in translation by Abram Efros) to music in 1974, he knew he was a dying man. A year earlier, in addition to a serious heart condition that he had lived with for most of his life, he was also diagnosed with terminal cancer. The music he composed is full of anger and resentment, expressing a battle he ultimately lost a year later. Chillingly, Hvorostovsky had himself been diagnosed with a brain tumour early in 2015, but has since returned to the stage. As you listen to the stark, ominous music on this disc, spare a kind thought for this great Russian baritone, whose struggle may be ongoing.

Weinberg – The Passenger
Breedt; Saccà; Kelessidi; Rucinski; Doneva; Wiener Symphoniker; Teodor Currentzis
ArtHaus Musik 109179

This DVD’s booklet contains a lengthy encomium by Weinberg’s friend and muse, Shostakovich, calling The Passenger “a masterpiece, both in shape and style.” Unsurprising, as Shostakovich’s own “shape and style” pervade Weinberg’s compositions, including this one.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996), a Polish Jew who fled to the USSR in 1939, completed The Passenger in 1968. His memorial to Holocaust victims, among them his parents and sister, was never staged until 2010 at Austria’s Bregenz Festival, the production preserved here. It has since been performed many times in other countries.

The set is on two levels: above, a ship deck in 1960, where Lisa and her husband Walter are bound for Brazil; below, wartime Auschwitz, where Lisa had been an SS guard. On board, Lisa thinks she recognizes Martha, supposedly killed in Auschwitz. Shaken, she reveals her Nazi past to Walter – and to us, the audience, in the Auschwitz scenes where most of the opera unfolds. Here, extended passages of poignant lyricism are punctuated by brutal orchestral outbursts and the onstage brutality of the guards.

Did Martha really survive, or is the veiled, silent passenger an apparition of Lisa’s haunted conscience? In the opera’s epilogue, alone on stage, an unveiled Martha sings
“… never forgive … never forget …”

If not quite “a masterpiece,” with its well-sung, effective music and potent drama, The Passenger will surely wrench guts and jerk tears. A bonus documentary provides details about Weinberg and this unforgettable production.

Alice Ping Yee Ho – The Lesson of Da Ji
Toronto Masque Theatre; Larry Beckwith
Centrediscs CMCCD 22115

In her music theatre work The Lesson of Da Ji, Hong Kong-born Toronto composer Alice Ping Yee Ho has struck a fine, if not always easy, cultural balance between features of classical Beijing (Peking) opera and the European masque tradition, as interpreted in 21st-century Canada.

It is no mean feat to present eight Canadian voices supported by the string tonalities of the Chinese zhongruan, erhu, pipa and zheng. It is even more complex when all that is seamlessly meshed with the sonority of the European baroque lute, harpsichord, viola da gamba, violin and recorders, plus a percussion battery. Ho does just that admirably, presenting along the way a bracing new hybrid soundscape to enjoy.

Her skillfully orchestrated score hangs directly on Canadian playwright Marjorie Chan’s libretto. It tells the chilling tale of the famous concubine Da Ji of the Shang Dynasty (c.1600 to 1046 BCE), honing in on her illicit love affair with a musician and the bloody revenge enacted by the jealous King Zhou. It’s the sort of court drama common to both Chinese and Eurocentric opera traditions.

The composer once noted that “colours and tonality are two attractive resources to me: they form certain mental images that connect to audiences in a very basic way.” The Lesson of Da Ji follows that dictum, and her approach works to convey character, place, mood and imagery, even via the audio CD medium. My guess is that a video presentation – or better yet, a live production where the multiple visual and choreographic elements are at work – would make for an even more involving evening of theatre.

Commissioned by the Toronto Masque Theatre in 2012 The Lesson of Da Ji immediately won critical acclaim as well as the 2013 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Original Opera. The release of the recording of this hour-long opera in two acts within just a couple of years of its premiere reflects the work’s enthusiastic initial reception. It may well also mark the beginning of its acceptance by a wider public in Canada, as well as in the composer’s country of birth.

Chaconne – Voices of Eternity
Ensemble Caprice; Matthias Maute
Analekta AN 2 9132

There is a difference between the chaconne and the passacaglia – or so textbooks tell us. In the chaconne a theme is repeated over and over again in the bass, while in the passacaglia the repeated theme does not need to be in the bass. Matthias Maute, in the booklet that comes with his recording, is inclined to play down the distinction, saying that the repetition of a harmonic motif is essential to both forms. One of the most famous of all chaconnes is that written by J. S. Bach for solo violin. Here it constitutes the final item on the recording, arranged (not altogether convincingly) for two recorders and cello. Many of the other items are earlier and they include works by Monteverdi, Landi and Falconieri. Among the most famous of chaconnes are the variations on the popular tune, La Follia, and this recording gives us two examples of such variations: by Falconieri (again) and by Vivaldi. There are two other kinds of music here: instrumental versions of seven 16th-century Czech folksongs (arranged by Maute) and seven very short, unaccompanied vocal chaconnes by Maute. The latter are expressive and haunting. They are beautifully sung by the sopranos Dawn Bailey and Jana Miller and alto Maude Brunet. Elsewhere there are eight instrumentalists and the playing is of a high order. Warmly recommended.

Las Cuidades de Oro – Baroque Music from the Spanish New World
L’Harmonie des Saisons; Eric Milnes
ATMA ACD2 2702 

Brahms – Double Concerto; Symphony No.4
Pinchas Zukerman; Amanda Forsyth; National Arts Centre Orchestra
Analekta AN 2 8782

Pinchas Zuckerman, who retired after 16 years at the helm of the NACO, has certainly left his mark on the Canadian musical scene. His promotion of musical training for young musicians surely will be his most lasting legacy, alongside the hundreds of concerts and live recordings he generated. A case in point is a new Analekta disc recorded live. The Double Concerto by Brahms is like one of those amazing perfect recipes from The Joy of Cooking: get the right ingredients, follow the recipe exactly and presto: it always works. You need one virtuosic violinist (Zuckerman fits the bill perfectly), one cellist, who can keep up (Forsyth more than keeps up here!) and an orchestra that knows not to overstep. It helps that Zuckerman and Forsyth pair up frequently for this piece and have a definite rapport, developed over their years of playing together. So this Double Concerto hits all the right buttons – it is unrestrained, powerful, and tsunami-like in delivery, while shimmering with sans pareil melodic lines. There are virtuosic passages the likes of which Heifetz and Rostropovich made us expect from soloists. Real aural pleasure, if not breaking any new ground.

Alas, it is in the Symphony No.4 that we understand why Zuckerman will be remembered as a solo virtuoso, rather than a team player. His reading of the score seems muted and slowed down, as if he expects the orchestra will not to be able to keep up. The result is still Brahms, majestic, but somewhat leaden and heavy-footed, as if the will to live were slowly trickling out of the music. After 40 years of virtuosity, it may be the most honest pronouncement from Zuckerman – he is a solo act.

My Cup Runneth Over – Complete Piano Works of R. Nathaniel Dett
Clipper Erickson
Navona Records NV6013 (navonarecords.com)

Dutilleux – Symphony No.1; Deux Sonnets de Jean Cassou; Métaboles
Paul Armin Edelmann; Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz; Karl-Heinz Steffens
Capriccio C5242

Dutilleux – Métaboles; L’arbre des songes; Symphony No.2 «Le double»
Augustin Hadelich; Seattle Symphony; Ludovic Morlot
Seattle Symphony SSM1007

Dutilleux – Tout un monde lointain
Emmanuelle Bertrand; Pascal Amoyel; Luzerner Sinfonieorchester; James Gaffigan
harmonia mundi HMC 902209

Last month was French composer Henri Dutilleux’s centennial, and commemorative recordings of his meticulously crafted works began appearing in the middle of last year. Despite the premature arrival of these particular discs, however, a reappraisal of his music has long been overdue. A relatively small oeuvre, combined with a high-placed enemy in the form of a young Pierre Boulez, worked to consign Dutilleux to relative obscurity for nearly all but the last two decades of his 97-year life.

What’s more, the music which he did permit, after years of revision, to pass through the pinpoint mesh of his self-criticism never had pretensions of epoch-making in the first place. There is no avant-garde formalistic demagoguery, no school of thought behind his work (though the long shadows of Ravel and Berg loom). Instead, Dutilleux commandeers entire orchestras, as Proust commandeered thousands and thousands of pages, to convey nothing more than a deeply personal – though phantasmagorical – inner world.

Comparisons to artists in other mediums always abound when one speaks of Dutilleux, likely because he makes no secret of his debts to the Belle Époque; he has also cited Baudelaire and Van Gogh as inspirations. And yet his music is rarely programmatic, or even narrativistic. If anything, it is architectural; his pieces often feel like they occupy considerable space, like musical edifices composed of forces held in perfect equilibrium.

Two fine recordings of this piece appeared last year. The first, recorded by Karl-Heinz Steffens and the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, is expansive, smoothing the kaleidoscope turn of Métaboles’ transformations. The next, recorded by Ludovic Morlot with the Seattle Symphony, is notable for its excellent mastering, which enhances the work’s already galactic compass. Taken together, these CDs present a kind of “métaboles” of Dutilleux’ entire career: the Rheinland-Pfalz disc contains his early works, including a rare vocal setting, while the Seattle recording features a brilliant performance of Dutilleux’s late violin concerto by Augustin Hadelich (entitled L’arbre des songes, it too draws inspiration from nature and has structural similarities with Métaboles).

Filling in the gaps is Emmanuelle Bertrand’s performance of the Baudelaire-inspired cello concerto, “Tout un monde lointain…” with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester. The concerto is worth the price of admission alone – it is perhaps his greatest work, ably performed here – but the CD also includes some historical context with a recording of Debussy’s cello sonata. Sensibly enough, for though Dutilleux was scorned by the Paris establishment, he was one of its rightful heirs. The recordings appearing now on this important anniversary are the definitive proof.

Poulenc – Piano Concertos; Aubade
Louis Lortie; Hélène Mercier; BBC Philharmonic; Edward Gardner
Chandos CHAN 10875

This sparkling CD includes Francis Poulenc’s works for piano and orchestra plus music for two pianists. I’ve loved Poulenc’s cheeky brews of popular and classical elements since a lighthearted teenage attempt at his Sextet for Piano and Winds, when we had a mock waiter serve drinks during my first piano solo! Compositionally, Poulenc invites us to loosen up and accept new things, but performance is not easy. In the Concerto (1949) Lortie’s ensemble with orchestra is precise without compromising rhythmic life, and he dashes off the first movement’s lounge-piano flourishes without belabouring them. Originally written for a ballet, Aubade (1929) is quintessential Poulenc. It is evocative of 1920s Paris, for piano with an orchestra stripped down to 18 instruments emphasizing winds and brass. Lortie plays the opening toccata with its challenging repeated chords immaculately, and manages the juxtaposed contrasting phrases well. The BBC Philharmonic’s winds shine in wonderfully bittersweet double-reed instrument passages and in several fine clarinet solos.

Lortie’s long-time duo-piano partner Hélène Mercier joins him in the two-piano Concerto in D Minor. They play the opening movement’s quasi-Balinese passages seamlessly. The Larghetto’s classical nostalgia and more modern sentiments come through effectively. In the dissonant final movement, double notes are crisp and chords balanced. Works for two pianists alone close the disc; in Poulenc’s four-hand Sonata and two short duo-piano pieces, Mercier and Lortie find opportunities for free dialogue and joyous music-making.

Leo Brouwer – Music for Bandurria and Guitar
Pedro Chamorro; Pedro Mateo González
Naxos 8.573363

all spring – Chamber Music of Emily Doolittle
Seattle Chamber Players and friends
Composers Concordance Records comcon0025 (emilydoolittle.com)

Behind Canadian composer Emily Doolittle’s music lies a passion for the relationship between music and nature, and specifically, bird and animal songs. Her recent album of chamber music, all spring, is a superb example of how she navigates this fundamental connection that has inspired generations of composers. This interest has led her to conduct research into birdsong and explore the aesthetics of whether animal songs can be considered music. As our world faces critical environmental choices, the question of how we relate to the forces of nature and all beings who live here is increasingly becoming a focus for many composers. How these concerns translate into music for acoustic instruments was uppermost in my awareness as I listened to Doolittle’s CD.

Her approach is to offer a distillation of the qualities of natural phenomena or personal experiences. In four pieces about water essential qualities of water are revealed, whereas in all spring the focus is on the characteristics of specific birds. Some of the ways Doolittle herself engages with nature – listening and hiking – are highlighted in her pieces falling still and col. The choices Doolittle makes to bring the listener into closer connection with nature works at subtle levels. It is less about recreating a sense of place or imitation of the soundscape, but rather creating a sonic experience to guide the listener into connection with the deeper layers of natural phenomena, an entry into the heart of nature.

Sally Beamish – The Singing
James Crabb; Håkan Hardenberger; Branford Marsalis; Royal Scottish Orchestra; National Youth Orchestra of Scotland; Martyn Brabbins
BIS 2156

British composer Sally Beamish has called Scotland home since 1990, and describes her love of Scottish traditional music, landscape and history along with an interest in jazz as her inspirations. There are many, many styles and traditions that Beamish draws upon in her compositions, making this release of her works written between 2003 and 2012 intriguing, accessible and exciting listening.

Accordionist James Crabb is spectacular in the concerto The Singing. From long mournful singing lines, bagpipe imitations and breathing bellows and winds, the accordion and orchestra create lush soundscapes. Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is equally lyrical and moving in Under the Wing of the Rock, a piece originally scored for solo viola and strings and inspired by Celtic song and psalms. It’s back to downtown city living in the exciting Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra featuring soloist Håkan Hardenberger. The use of parts of scrapped cars and scaffolding pipes in the percussion section against the wailing trumpet in the third movement creates a dramatic edgy, hard sound. Reckless for chamber orchestra is witty and light while the orchestra emulates atmospheric washes of land and sea in A Cage of Doves. Conducted by Martyn Brabbins, both the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, on the trumpet concerto, play with energetic precision and flair.

Beamish’s love and respect for her inspirations resonate throughout these intelligent works. Perfect music to warm up a cold winter’s day!

Bill Alves – Mystic Canyon; Music for Violin and Gamelan
Susan Jensen; HMC American Gamelan
MicroFest Records MF4
(microfestrecords.com)

East-West crossover combining gamelan and Western orchestral instruments is, of course, nothing new, and composer Bill Alves continues in the tradition established by the late American composer, Lou Harrison, who wrote more than 50 compositions in this genre. Like Harrison, Alves has composed many musical works for gamelan – specifically his “American gamelan,” the Harvey Mudd College American Gamelan (HMC), an ensemble of Javanese instruments whose tunings have been modified according to just intonation, and which is dedicated to performing new music rather than traditional gamelan repertoire. This CD showcases two such compositions for violin and gamelan: Mystic Canyon and Concerto for Violin and Gamelan.

This music is mesmerizing and quite beautiful. Susan Jensen’s superb violin playing, with its rich and languorous musical lines, overlays the soft, delicate and glimmering sounds of the bronze gamelan instruments. They provide a range of mellifluous musical patterns with their polyrhythms, sometimes static, and at other times gently shifting. The ambience of Mystic Canyon is ethereal and diaphanous, with contrasting sections where the violin is prominent, followed by occasional breaks with just gamelan, all fading away gently at the end of the piece. The six movements of the concerto display a variety of moods and techniques ranging from energetic and percussive, to changing textures and gentle interlocking rhythms, to more inert ostinati backing the violin’s soaring melodies. This is music that will appeal to gamelan and non-gamelan specialists alike.

Just Strings – Compositions of Lou Harrison and John Luther Adams
Just Strings; Alison Bjorkedal; John Schneider; T.J. Troy; HMC American Gamelan
MicroFest Records MF7
(microfestrecords.com)

This sparkling album weaves together six works variously scored for harp, guitar and percussion by Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning American composer John Luther Adams (b.1953), and his mentor Lou Harrison (1917-2003).

The liner notes call Harrison “the Godfather of World Music,” and not without justification. His compositions from mid-career on are marked by the incorporation of elements of the musics of non-Western cultures, particularly those of South, Southeast and East Asia. For example, from the 1970s to the end of his life Harrison composed dozens of works for Sundanese, North and Southcentral Javanese types of gamelan (orchestra). Along the way he influenced several generations of musicians including Toronto’s Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan.

Calling it “American gamelan” Harrison also constructed several of his own DIY versions of gamelan prototypes with his partner William Colvig. They chose to tune each gamelan set in just intonation, eschewing both mainstream equal temperament and the Javanese/Sundanese indigenous theoretical tuning systems (of which he was also well aware). We hear a work Harrison wrote for one of his American gamelans in the finale of this album. In Honor of the Divine Mr. Handel (1991), for concert harp and small Javanese gamelan in just intonation, is stylishly directed by composer and Harrison scholar Bill Alves. It manages a difficult and deft dual musical trick: it is not only a delightfully tuneful tribute to the baroque composer but also to the music of the Javanese gamelan.

Among today’s leading composers in the Western classical lineage, John Luther Adams is represented here by two suites, Five Athabascan Dances and Five Yup’ik Dances, both from 1995. Like Harrison before him, Adams, in these works, pays respect to indigenous music-making. Commissioned for the Just Strings trio, the works drew on traditional songs of the Athabascan people for the first set and on the songs of the Yup’ik of the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta for the second. Those songs were extensively reworked and rendered in the Pythagorean tuning by the composer, who remarked that he had “extended and transformed these … melodies in many ways. In the process, they have become something else, somewhat far removed from Alaska Native music in sound and in context.”

In the skillful musical hands of the three Grammy Award-winning musicians of Just Strings, this melody-forward music of Adams and Harrison rings true clear across boundaries marked by culture, musical performance practice and genre.

Elliott Sharp – The Boreal
Various Artists
Starkland ST-222 (starkland.com)

There is a sense of beautiful, orderly turmoil on Elliott Sharp’s The Boreal. Speaking first of the piece and then the whole album, the fullest appreciation of the music is, of course, to be had by following its schematics from Sharp’s score, which is exquisite in all its minimalistic glory. This, as the composer points out, includes “hocketed grooves, difference tones and non-pitched materials generated by the use of alternate bows made from ballchain and metal springs.” The effect is quite masterful, pleasing to the ear, mostly due to the clarity of the gestures, and of course, the JACK Quartet’s brilliant interpretation of this written/improvised score. You learn immediately to appreciate, the combustible spontaneity, the treasurable fire, communicative flair and consummate craft of Sharp’s indelible inspiration.

Headlined by The Boreal, the recording also features some of Elliott Sharp’s other remarkable pieces – Oligosono from 2004, Proof Of Erdős from 2006, performed by Orchestra Carbon, with David Bloom as conductor, and On Corlear’s Hook from 2007 performed by the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra with Peter Rundel conducting. The selection provides a peep into Sharp’s polymath-like artistry. The noteworthy Oligosono is a reference to the world of “little sounds” and what is even more remarkable is its transposition from the stringed instrument for which it was written, to the piano, and performed with wit and intuition by pianist Jenny Lin. Two hands here and a new generation of rhythm and harmonic overtones make this piece quite memorable. Proof Of Erdős is an erudite homage to the mathematician Pál Erdős. The tonal colours of On Corlear’s Hook are culled from Sharp’s ethereal palette and flawless artistry.