Nielsen – Maskarade
Milling; Reuter; Riis; Beck; Dahl; Andersen; Danish NSO & Choir; Michael Schonwandt
dacapo SACD 6.220641-42

Widor; Vierne – Messes pour choeurs et orgues
Les Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal; Les Chantres Musiciens; Gilbert Patenaude; Vincent Boucher; Jonathan Oldengarm
ATMA ACD2 2718

The Canadian International Organ Competition is a fairly new horse race as these things go. Launched in 2008 it has brought considerable visibility and prestige to the performance discipline. The 2014 Grand Laureate is celebrated on David Baskeyfield – Concours international d’orgue du Canada (ATMA Classique ACD2 2719).

Familiar composers line the program notes: Willan, MacMillan, Howells and Vierne. But organists know that they always share the spotlight with the actual instrument they play as much as the music itself. In this case, it’s one of Canada’s largest organs, the Casavant Opus 550 at St. Paul’s Bloor Street, Toronto. Originally built in 1914 and restored in 1955, it has had many enhancements over the years. It’s a versatile instrument with an enormous orchestral palette.

Baskeyfield is an impressive performer and notable for his skillful registrations. His choice of tonal colours is masterful. He is English-trained and completely at home with Howells, Hollins and Willan. He also does a terrific job with the works of the French school, Vierne’s Naïades, Saint-Saëns’ Prélude et Fugue en si majeur. But the disc’s real gem is the Willan Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue. The disc is a fabulous recording and an important document for this historic instrument now more than a century old.

Another fortepiano recording has recently worked its way to the shelves and will be a treasure to many. Christoph Berner plays an 1847 Streicher on Ludwig van Beethoven Lieder & Bagatellen (harmonia mundi HMC 902217). The instrument is in remarkable condition. It’s clear, wonderfully tuned and voiced. Its tone is consistent throughout and surprisingly resonant in the upper register. Each of the six Bagatelles Op.126 is a joy to hear on this fortepiano. Berner’s playing is clean and lightly pedalled. The best feature of this performance is that he understands what these little pieces are and so, doesn’t fall prey to overthinking them.

As terrific as the Bagatelles are, the other half of the disc is the real surprise. Tenor Werner Güra, whose clear, light voice is well-suited to this repertoire, sings a number of Beethoven songs and one short cycle in a performance that is heart-stopping. He’s a very dramatic singer with great control over straight tone and vibrato. He connects directly to the poets’ emotions and shapes phrasing and dynamics to powerful effect.

Two tracks in particular are profoundly moving: Zärtliche Liebe WoO 123 and the cycle An die ferne Geliebte Op.98. The combination of Güra’s interpretation accompanied by this extraordinary instrument make this disc a valuable find for those who enjoy authentic performance practice.

Pianist Pier Paolo Vincenzi has undertaken an ambitious project with his recording of the Complete variations on a Waltz by Diabelli by 51 composers (Brilliant Classics 2CD 94836) on which he also performs the Beethoven 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli Op.120. The compilation of the works by the 51 composers who responded to Diabelli’s 1819 variation challenge is rich for its variety. Among the contributors are familiar composers like Hummel, Czerny, Liszt and Schubert. The others are of lesser historical standing and include a few dabbling aristocrats. Vincenzi, however, treats each variation as though it were, in fact, a masterpiece.

Whether he’s ripping through Liszt’s arpeggiated hurricane or pecking through Baron von Lannoy’s 45-second effort, Vincenzi creates a fascinating snapshot of 51 early 19th-century psycho-musical profiles. But when he performs the Beethoven variations, he changes his interpretive posture significantly. No longer dealing with 51 different iterations, he now probes the depths of a single creative mind. What Beethoven can say uniquely in 33 differently ways is obvious on the page but only the performer can really convey that. He never loses sight of Diabelli’s thematic kernel. Whether dealing with Beethoven’s fugal architecture or delighting in his Mozart impersonation, he keeps the central idea from being lost in the Byzantine workings of Beethoven’s mind.

The producer of this recording has chosen to record the piano dry with absolutely no acoustic space around the instrument at all. The ear does adjust to this and the Steinway D, despite its size, quickly becomes a very intimate instrument.

It’s unusual to find the complete piano works of Manuel de Falla recorded on a single disc. The feature of this disc is the ability to follow the evolution of the composer’s work chronologically from 1896 to 1935. A few of these works had remained unknown or unpublished until much later in the twentieth century.

Pianist Juan Carlos Rodriguez captures de Falla’s Spanish view of the world around him on Manuel de Falla – Complete Piano Music (Paladino Music pmr 0062). He reveals the strong core of western classical discipline on which uniquely Spanish sensibilities rest. We hear this rhythmically and in small characteristic turns of phrase. Rodriguez also plays de Falla’s homages to Paul Dukas and Claude Debussy with the subtle hint of French impressionism the composer intended.

Rodriguez approaches the Cuatro Piezas Españolas as the most culturally inward looking to reveal what may be the most Spanish of de Falla’s piano works.

Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz has another reincarnation on Waltzing Mephisto...by the Danube (Estonian Record Productions ERP 8115) with pianist Hando Nahkur. The title track is brilliantly played with remarkable clarity through all the maniacal passages. The approach is disciplined and calculated but not lacking in any of the incendiary energy needed for this piece.

The disc also includes Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Op.15 from which the dangerously familiar Träumerei is played with gratifying freshness. Nahkur also manages the same feat with the Schumann/Liszt Widmung S.566 where he keeps the apogees of the main idea suspended with satisfying length before the descent to their phrase endings.

Arabesques on An der schönen blauen Donau is a 1900 paraphrase by Adolf Schulz-Evler of the well-known Strauss waltz. It’s rarely heard and is very Lisztian even to the point of sounding a bit like La Campanella for a few measures. It demands a lot from the pianist but Nahkur plays it with impressive ease.

Occasionally composers will write music so perfectly that all the colour, dynamics and nuances seem to be built in. While this doesn’t make it easier to perform it does create the pitfall of over interpretation. Wise performers recognize this and learn to surf the wave. Carlo Grante does this beautifully in Ravel: Mirroirs; Pavane pour une infante défunte; Gaspard de la nuit (Music & Arts CD-1289).

In the Miroirs set, La vallée des cloches is especially lovely for Grante’s superb touch and tonal manipulation. The Bösendorfer Imperial responds with bell-like sonority.

Curious, however, is Grante’s opening of the Pavane pour une infant défunte. He observes the staccato in the lower treble very sharply as marked in the piano score. This is unusual and quite arresting because some publishers show sustained pedal through these opening bars, to more closely approximate Ravel’s actual orchestration where these short eighths are played pizzicato in the strings while horns and bassoon hold longer supporting phrases. What’s really interesting is that Ravel’s own 1922 piano roll recording of this does neither. Ravel plays it slightly sustained (pedalled) and not nearly as short as Grante. Once past the opening idea, however, Grante moves into the sustained legato that makes this piece flow so beautifully to its ending.

The three piano poems that comprise Gaspard de la nuit are superb. Ondine moves liquidly as it should, Le Gibet rings under the same bell-like touch of the early La vallée des cloches and Scarbo is suitably menacing.

Reconstructions from fragments appeal to our curiosity by suggesting to us what might have been. It’s what drives people like Melani Mestre to record the recent addition to Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series Albéniz; Granados – Piano Concertos (CDA67918). A pianist, composer, conductor and academic, he has constructed a concerto from two fragments of a Piano Concerto in C Minor ‘Patético’ by Granados. Speculatively dated around 1910, there is no evidence to indicate whether this was intended as a single-movement work or something of larger scale but Mestre believes the latter.

For the middle and final movements he has used two other Granados’ solo piano works and adapted them for piano and orchestra. These are much more colourfully orchestrated than the first movement with plenty of percussion effects to highlight their Spanish and dance-like feel. Mestre is a skilled orchestrator and has plenty of fun playing his own adaptations. Some will argue about the validity of such efforts, but those who undertake them skillfully produce intriguing works that fuel many entertaining debates.

The Albeniz Concierto fantástico, Op.78 is a mid-career work and is decidedly un-Spanish in its feel. Still, it’s truly beautiful and not often performed or recorded. Admirers generally cite its middle movement as the gem and rightly so. The Reverie et Scherzo opens with a lovely piano line against a backdrop of broad orchestral harmonies. The final movement’s closing pages have some enchanting waltz-like episodes where Mestre’s hesitations are seductively placed to enhance the dance-like feel.

Pianist Angelina Gadeliya cites a profound spiritual affinity for the music of Alfred Schnittke. Born in Soviet Georgia and trained in Ukraine, she now lives in the U.S. Her enduring commitment to Schnittke’s music was deepened by an encounter with the composer’s wife and biographer a year after his death in 1998. Schnittke and his Ghosts (Labor Records Lab 7093) is an expression of that experience. Gadeliya plays two of his works and adds others to reflect the impact on Schnittke of influences including his time Vienna where he received much of his formative musical education – hence, his “Ghosts.”

She gives a very personal performance of the Sonata No.2, a darker work of Schnittke’s later years. The middle movement is unusually tonal with numerous harmonically rich clusters and the final movement contains an ad libitum that calls for tumultuous improvisation. Variations on a Chord uses contemporary devices for sustained notes, sharp attacks and sympathetically vibrating strings. Gadeliya is perfectly adept at all these techniques and captures the harsh yet playful duality of Schnittke’s six variations.

The Mozart Adagio in B Minor K540 may seem an odd inclusion until one recalls the numerous cadenzas Schnittke wrote for Mozart piano concertos and his orchestral tribute Moz-Art à la Haydn.

The Shostakovich Variations on a theme by Glinka and Scriabin’s Sonata No.4 connect us to Schnittke’s Russian roots. But in an odd way the far earlier work by Scriabin (1903) takes us much closer to the mysticism we experience in Schnittke’s music. Gadeliya has programmed a fascinating, stimulating recording and performed it masterfully.

With 25,000 Syrian refugees coming to Canada, the Middle East is never very far from the daily headlines and our attention. The cultures of that region have, in their encounter with ours, produced many fascinating cross fertilizations of artistic expression. Each offers a portal for better understanding of a region that often seems so distant in many ways.

When you listen to the simply astonishing opening track of Shiksa, the new CD from violinist Lara St. John and pianist/composer Matt Herskowitz on St. John’s own Ancalagon label (ANC 143 larastjohn.com/ancalagon) you could be forgiven for thinking that the rest of the CD couldn’t possibly match up – but you would be wrong!

The Czardashian Rhapsody is Martin Kennedy’s fiendishly difficult take on the traditional Czardas, with hints of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 thrown in for good measure. It’s stunning, but there’s much more to come in this program of predominantly Middle Eastern and Eastern European music. All 14 tracks are based on traditional material, and feature creative arrangements by Milica Paranosic, John Kameel Farah, Yuri Boguinia, Serouj Kradjian, David Ludwig, Gene Pritsker, John Psathas, Michael P. Atkinson and the two performers themselves. Herskowitz’s Nagilara, his own take on Hava Nagila, is another showstopper, as is St. John’s Oltenian Hora, a dazzling display of what she calls “a bunch of improvised Romanian violin tricks, twists and turns.”

These are all much more than just mere showpieces though, and in many instances they clearly have personal resonance for both the composers and performers. What is truly remarkable is the way in which St. John effortlessly and completely captures the sound, style, mood and flavour of these evocative works; Shiksa may be a Yiddish term for a non-Jewish woman, but there’s no hint here of St. John’s being an outsider or anything other than totally and genuinely immersed in this music – you get the feeling that she’s playing these pieces from the inside out. The recorded sound, especially for the piano, is superb – hardly surprising, given that the recording was made in the beautiful acoustics of Le Domaine Forget de Charlevoix in Saint-Irénée, Québec.

I’ve noted before that it’s almost impossible to do comparative reviews of Bach’s unaccompanied violin and cello works; all you can do is look at the performer’s approach and the creative process and report on the result. Luckily, cellist Matt Haimovitz has virtually done this for us in his new 2-CD set of J. S. Bach: The Cello Suites According to Anna Magdalena (PentaTone Oxingale Series PTC 5186 555). In the extensive booklet essay Haimovitz details his journey so far with these wonderful and challenging works, starting with his hearing the legendary 1930s Casals recordings when he was nine, having a teacher at the time who had been a pupil of Casals and who required Haimovitz to play two movements of Bach each day as part of his regular practice routine, and having the privilege in his mid-teens of playing the Goffriller cello used by Casals.

The year 2000 saw Haimovitz perform all six suites in Germany, relying primarily on the Bärenreiter edition and the manuscript copy by Anna Magdalena Bach, the composer’s wife – Bach’s original manuscript has never been found. On his return, he launched the new Oxingale Records label with a 3-CD set of the suites, only to find that within a few years he could no longer agree with his interpretations.

Since then he has turned increasingly to the Anna Magdalena manuscript, which he feels is closest in spirit to the original and provides many keys to the playing style and interpretation. He discusses these in detail in the essay.

The performances here, needless to say, are an absolute delight. The cello used is a Matteo Goffriller made in Venice in 1710, with a cello piccolo by the 18th-century maker Georg Nicol. Köllmer used for the Suite V; the bow is a baroque replica made by David Hawthorne. Tuning is A=415 and not the current A=440, so the suites are all down a semi-tone from present-day pitch.

Haimovitz says that “with humility, and no small dose of courage, I continue on my journey with Bach and The Cello Suites, studying the gospel according to Anna Magdalena.” I just hope he continues to take us along with him.

Following her solo recital disc and CDs of the Dvořák, Elgar and Carter cello concertos the latest CD from American Alisa Weilerstein – Rachmaninov & Chopin: Cello Sonatas (Decca 478 8416) with the New York-based Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan shows just how much she has to offer in the chamber music field. From the opening bars of the Rachmaninov Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op.19 it’s clear that this is going to be gloriously expansive playing from both performers. Barnatan is simply superb at the keyboard, with a beautifully judged use of legato in the long, flowing Rachmaninov phrases, and Weilerstein displays the qualities so often mentioned in reviews of her playing: technique, passion and intensity. It’s a captivating and engrossing performance.

The high standard continues through the Vocalise, Op.34 No.14 to the Chopin Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op.65, written mostly during the composer’s last summer on his lover George Sand’s estate in Nohant. The first movement in particular clearly gave Chopin a great deal of trouble, and was dropped for the premiere performance. It’s a strong, turbulent work very similar in mood to the Rachmaninov, and the two make an ideal pairing here.

The sonata was dedicated to the French cellist Auguste Franchomme, who gave the first (albeit truncated) performance in 1848 in Chopin’s final public concert. It was Franchomme who arranged the Étude in C-Sharp Minor, Op.25 No.7 for cello and piano, one of two shorter Chopin works on the CD. The Introduction & Polonaise Brillante in C Major, Op.3 dates mostly from Chopin’s youth – the Introduction was added later for Franchomme – and provides a lovely end to a truly beautiful CD.

Although leaving the group within eight years of its inception in 1992 the Brentano String Quartet’s founding cellist, Michael Kannen, continued his association with the ensemble, joining them on second cello in numerous performances of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major D956 over the years, always harboring the hope that he would be able to record it with them one day. In September 2014 his wish came true in a quite exquisite way when the Brentano Quartet decided to make a live recording of the work at Amherst College in Massachusetts. An interactive weekend was built around three performances over three days, and the result was the new CD Schubert Quintet Live! (Azica ACD-71304).

The booklet notes include fascinating reflections on the recording challenges by Alan Bise, the producer and mix engineer for the project, as well as reflections on the performances by Kannen and violinist Mark Steinberg. Bise says that any minor blemishes had to be left in where fixing them would spoil the musical feel of a section, but he notes that “the energy and spirit represented here are almost impossible to capture in a closed recording session without an audience.” Other than the applause at the end there is very little to signify the physical presence of an audience, but the energy and spirit that Bise noted, and that they helped to create, clearly make a major contribution to the emotional effect of the music. It is indeed a wonderful performance of one of the greatest works in the chamber music repertoire.

The outstanding Hyperion series The Romantic Cello Concerto reaches Volume 7 with works by the German composer and cellist Wilhelm Fitzhagen (1848-1890), featuring cellist Alban Gerhardt and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Stefan Blunier (CDA68063). Fitzhagen was apparently mostly self-taught as a composer, but his two concertos for his instrument are solid, competent and attractive works very much in the German style of the period. The Concerto No.1 in B Minor, Op.2 and the Concerto No.2 in A Minor, Op.4 “Fantastique” are both early works, from 1870 and 1871 respectively, round about the time that Fitzhagen became professor of cello at the Imperial Conservatoire in Moscow. The First Concerto is a short work in three movements played without a break; a dazzling and challenging cadenza at the end of the first movement leads into a very brief (just over three minutes) but lyrical and simply beautiful Andante. The Second Concerto is also quite short, but again displays Fitzhagen’s fluently melodic style.

The central track on the CD is Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme Op.33 from 1877. On moving to Moscow Fitzhagen had quickly established himself as a cellist, and soon came to know Tchaikovsky, who dedicated the Variations to Fitzhagen and sent him the manuscript for his comments. The cellist went a good deal further, making cuts and tempo changes, adding his own passages and changing the order of three of the variations. Somewhat reluctantly, Tchaikovsky let the radically altered version stand, and it is the work for which Fitzhagen is most remembered.

Fitzhagen’s Ballade – Concertstück Op.10, a single-movement work which is longer than the First Concerto, and Resignation – Ein geistliches Lied ohne Worte Op.8, a very brief but simply lovely piece, round out the CD.

Alban Gerhardt has been the soloist on five of the seven releases in this terrific series that never fails to delight and impress, and he is once again in his element with this music.

Shades & Contrasts is a quite stunning debut CD from the Norwegian guitarist Christina Sandsengen (Odradek ODRCD326 odradek-records.com). Standard works by Albéniz, Tárrega, Aguado and Agustin Barrios Mangoré are mixed with contemporary works by Sven Lundestad, Carlo Domeniconi and Egberto Gismonti in a varied and highly impressive recital. These are outstanding performances, delivered with a flawless technique and sumptuous tone. Expect to hear a lot more of this artist.

The English composer Nigel Clarke (b.1960) is featured on Music for Thirteen Solo Strings, a new CD from Toccata Classics with the 13-member string ensemble Longbow under the direction of violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved (TOCC 0325). Clarke and Skærved have enjoyed a close collaboration for almost 30 years. Their shared interest in music for divided strings (as opposed to string ensembles working in sections) led to Parnassus for Thirteen Solo Strings in 1986. It’s music that sounds a bit chaotic at first, but soon bears out Skærved’s observation that the frictional interchange between adjacent players playing contrary but related material can produce a sort of ensemble “fire-making” that generates a good deal of instrumental energy; there’s energy here in abundance.

The other four works on the CD are all from the past three years, two of them the result of an artistic collaboration with Dover Arts Development in Clarke’s home county of Kent and two of them tributes to Edith Cavell, the English nurse shot by the Germans in the First World War. Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, for Speaker, Thirteen Solo Strings and Sound Design is described as a diptych, Clarke’s music being preceded by a lengthy poem sketching Dover’s history written and delivered by Skærved’s wife, the Danish writer Malene Skærved. The title will have immediate meaning for anyone who has ever listened to the Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio; the seven names are of the sea areas from off the eastern coast of England, around the southeast corner and along the south coast past Dover. The music has clear – and self-confessed – references to sea music, including Britten’s Four Interludes from Peter Grimes and Debussy’s La Mer. The Navy Hymn (Eternal father, strong to save) emerges from the chaos of a storm to guide the piece to a serene and mostly tonal ending. Pulp and Rags, also linked to a Malene Skærved poem (not quoted), was inspired by the machinery in Buckland Paper Mill, an old mill near Dover that closed in 2000 after 230 years.

The Scarlet Flower for Flugel Horn and Thirteen Solo Strings features soloist Sébastien Rousseau in a work written as a memorial to Edith Cavell, the opening horn solo later being reworked for solo muted violin as Epitaph for Edith Cavell, with which Skærved closes an intriguing disc.

The New Goldberg Variations, a CD from the Australian duo of composer/pianist Joe Chindamo and violinist Zoe Black (Alfire Records ALFI15002) is described as “J. S. Bach’s original and complete Goldberg Variations with a newly composed counterpart for violin.” The violin part was written by Chindamo at Black’s request, and Chindamo says that the only self-imposed rule was that he would not alter a single note Bach wrote, and that he would adhere to Bach’s language and aesthetic.

The first Variation offers a continuous violin line as opposed to an occasional commentary, and from then on there’s a tendency for the violin to become the primary listening focus, although it does assume a background role quite often. One thing is clear – any misgivings you may have about the project are certainly not the result of any lack of quality in the writing or playing of the violin part; both are done with consummate skill. It’s all beautifully played, with a clean, bright and warm violin sound, and plenty of thoughtful keyboard work which, ironically, made me want to hear what Chindamo would do with the original Goldberg Variations on his own.

Purists may well object – imagine listening to Glenn Gould’s recordings and then saying “Yeah – I think I’ll write a violin part….” – but it is well-written, sympathetic and imaginative. However – and here’s the rub – it really is a different, collaborative work now, not merely an added commentary on the original; indeed, the CD cover shows Bach – Chindamo as the joint composing credits. It certainly makes for highly enjoyable listening, but whether or not it will ever be accepted as a bona fide concert work is open to question – and an interesting one at that.

Mendelssohn – String Quartets Op.44 Nos.1&2
Cecilia String Quartet
Analekta AN 2 9844

Having played these two quartets many times over the years and listening to them, one way or another, countless more times, I am still amazed at the enchanting influence Mendelssohn’s quartets hold over string players and their audiences. His penchant for combining beautiful melodies with the intricate underlying textures seems especially suited to the Cecilia Quartet, who bring out a weaving of the voices in the most enticing manner. Sonorous, youthfully energetic, refined and exuberant at the same time – all are characteristics of this recording, but what I was most impressed with was the element of subtle understatement that Cecilia Quartet mastered throughout. This ensemble did not put the emphasis on the most obvious elements of Mendelssohn’s music (though they are, of course, undeniable) but, rather integrated it with the delicate texturing of phrasing and enunciation.

The three quartets opus 44 were written within a year (1837-1838), at the most prosperous time of Mendelssohn’s life. The newly married composer began working on them on his honeymoon and the opening of the Quartet in D Major, Op.44 No.1 carries through the buoyancy and generosity of happiness discovered. Two middle movements are more classical in nature, while the finale brings out the spirited dance elements.

Mendelssohn was the master of combining a sense of urgency with melancholy and such is the opening of the Quartet in E Minor, Op.44 No.2 in contrast to the sentimentality of the third movement. Cecilia Quartet is particularly adept at highlighting the nimbleness of the Scherzo with their impressive bow technique but they certainly don’t lack power in the final movement.

Recommended to all the admirers of notes ingenious and pleasing.

Liszt Inspections
Marino Formenti
Kairos 0013292KAI

The magician of the keyboard, Franz Liszt started early and lived a long life playing, composing and experimenting. His son-in-law Wagner already blew apart traditional harmonies with Tristan, but Liszt introduced atonality for the first time (see Faust Symphony, first movement). Atonality of course later became the cornerstone of the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg and also the starting point of Italian pianist and conductor Mario Formenti’s remarkable journey: Liszt Inspections.

Formenti selects over a dozen of Liszt’s less familiar pieces, played so sensitively that those alone would make this an attractive set to have, but that’s not his purpose at all. Instead he looks into various aspects (he calls it Vocabulary) of music common to both Liszt and a number of avant-garde composers and builds a well-argued thesis unearthing and proving these relationships. Each of the Liszt compositions illustrates one point of the Vocabulary (e.g. constructivism, sound, minimalism, death, remembering-forgetting, elimination of the metre, silence and more) and by this process he achieves two things: 1) proving Liszt’s genius and his vision into the future and 2) bringing a number of contemporary pieces into focus highlighting them so the average listener who’d otherwise willfully reject new music, is enticed to listen. I am willing to bet that the next time any of these composers’ music is played he will do so with interest. There are at least a dozen composers, like Adams, Berio, Kurtág, Ligeti, Rihm, Stockhausen etc., each with his own unique style that up to now I had considered so much noise and hogwash. In the shining light of Liszt these begin to shine as well. Nice achievement for Signor Formenti.

Brahms – Violin Sonatas; Schumann – Romances; FAE Sonata
Isabelle Faust; Alexander Melnikov
harmonia mundi HMC902219

Isabelle Faust has become famous for her performances on a gut-strung 1799 Strad that in almost every case have become models of period performance practice successfully extended into works of the mid-19th century. To today’s ears, her return to the more intimate, late romantic values could sound reticent with her unusually delicate, lean tone, very simple and deeply penetrating. Her recent Schumann piano trio recordings are shining examples of her persuasive approach, with its chaste, almost textured tone. She had already recorded Brahms First Violin Sonata (HMC901981) and this new disc once again features the like-minded approach of Alexander Melnikov playing his own 1875 Bösendorfer which can hardly be mistaken for the more recent instrument to which we have become attuned. The employment of this earlier practice versus the more viscerally robust esthetic of today’s Brahms is illuminating. Here Brahms is speaking rather than being spoken about. Melnikov has a rare affinity to perform Brahms and he and Faust are of one mind. The Schumann pieces are wonderfully poetic, leaving no doubt that they have the exact measure of this gentle, tragic composer.

The unusual F.A.E. Sonata is a four-movement work written in 1853 by Albert Dietrich, Schumann and Brahms for violinist Joseph Joachim to identify the composer of each movement. He had no trouble doing so.

The flawless sound places the listener about five rows back, at which point the two instruments are correctly balanced. This very successful album is most enthusiastically recommended.

Saint-Saëns – Complete Violin Concertos
Andrew Wan; Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal; Kent Nagano
Analekta AN 2 8770

Rachmaninov Variations
Daniil Trifonov; Philadelphia Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Deutsche Grammophon 4794970

Satie; Poulenc – Le comble de la distinction
David Jalbert
ATMA ACD2 2683

Massenet's Elegy
William Aide
Oberon Press 978 0 7780 1429 4 (oberonpress.ca)

Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation (music by Christos Hatzis)
Tanya Tagaq; Steve Wood and The Northern Cree Singers; Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra; Tadeusz Biernacki
Centrediscs CMCCD 22015

The richly textured, eclectic cinematic score by veteran Toronto composer Christos Hatzis furnished for the ballet Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet was premiered in October 2014 to considerable audience and critical acclaim. This impressive work is a superimposition of at least three culturally defined layers.

Hatzis directly quotes and echoes sections of iconic 20th-century European ballets Rite of Spring, Swan Lake and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. In addition Christian liturgical chorales, medieval chant and dance music by Jean-Baptiste Lully are all skillfully reworked in Hatzis’ characteristic tonal-centric style. To this he adds elements in multiple vernacular music genres, as well as acoustic and electronic soundscapes, diffused from the studio-produced digital audio track.

Another significant layer of this 2-CD musical journey is the contribution of North American indigenous voices. They are essential texts in this narrative centred on the suffering imposed on children in Canada’s infamous Indian residential schools – with musical detours into the early contact between Europeans and First Nation peoples – ending with the possibility of personal and intercultural redemption and reconciliation.

Based on a story by Joseph Boyden, the ballet score is given a human voice by the extraordinary Polaris Prize-winning Inuk singer Tanya Tagaq, in the last scene’s Morning Song eloquently performed by the Cree singer Steve Wood and through the pow-wow energy of the Northern Cree Singers infusing a visceral power into several scenes.

Is Going Home Star “the most important dance mounted by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in its illustrious 75 year history,” as described by one CBC TV commentator? Hatzis’ cumulatively moving, highly eclectic score compels me to see Mark Godden’s choreography and to find out how this important national story plays out on stage. I invite my fellow Canadians to join me on this journey during the RWB’s upcoming 2016 national tour.

Allison Cameron – A Gossamer Bit
Contact Contemporary Music
Redshift Records TK445 (redshiftmusic.org)

This distinctive 2015 CD with four new pieces by the ever-wonderful contemporary composer Allison Cameron is sure to garner her much positive attention among the cognoscenti. A Gossamer Bit, produced as what is rightfully described as a palimpsest, is a stimulating though very different programme. Here Cameron presents pieces that represent myriad aspects not only of music – as in 3rds, 4ths & 5ths – but also great flights of the imagination – as in the song, Gossamer Bit, which is a dazzling overlay on Charles Ives and which, in turn is an eloquent sojourn across manipulated pitches and dramatic quarter-tones. In Memoriam Robert Ashley shapes the relentless octaves of Ashley’s music (overlapping the directions to that composer’s In Memoriam Esteban Gomez with great melodic cogency. D.I.Y. Fly combines written and improvised sections and finds a wider dynamic and colouristic scope using just this composerly device.

Allison Cameron is, of course, the Alberta-born, Toronto-based musician and composer who has built a sizeable reputation in contemporary composition but remains relatively little-known even in her native Canada. It is hoped that this attractive and well-recorded program, which hints at impressionistic antecedents, will greatly enhance her reputation. Look out, of course for the balletic leaps across her work especially in this repertoire. Cameron also has an acute sense of humour and this is delightfully hinted at in this music which is also rendered with a telling sensuous reserve.

SOUNDSNATURE – Works for Cello and Electronics
Madeleine Shapiro
Albany Records TROY 1577 (albanyrecords.com)

Diálogos
Dúo Lisus (Lidia Muñoz; Jesús Núñez)
FonoSax FONOSAX001 (duolisus.wix.com/duolisus)

Though France is still the European Mecca of the classical saxophone, a contender for Medina might be Spain; the country has recently seen hothouse growth in its classical saxophone community. The result has been a lot of excellent saxophone recordings from south of the Pyrenees. One such disc is Dúo Lisus' Diálogos, released this year on the FonoSax label.

Five of the seven pieces on the disc are by Spanish composers and every single composition is recorded here for the first time. With music, the duo and even the record label making their debuts on this disc, the unified impression, especially combined with composer José de Valle's opening maelstrom, is a kind of ex nihilo new music big bang. The momentum of this first burst carries through to American Eliza Brown's Apart Together, an entropic canon which seems to disintegrate under the energy received from the previous piece – a narrative arc which accurately describes the entirety of the disc as the saxophones are subsumed by electronics.

The other inclusion to break from the all-Spanish theme is Canadian composer Robert Lemay's Deuce. These heterogenizing selections were carefully chosen, and it's clear why Lemay made the cut: his extended techniques here always complement and never overshadow his finely wrought spectral and contrapuntal textures.

Leonard Feather may have called Spain a “jazz desert,” but the saxophone, a hardy plant, still finds a home there in spite of it; both Dúo Lisus and FonoSax are worth watching.