Vienna at the Turn of the Century – A Recital with Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming; Maciej Pikulski
ArtHaus Musik 102 196

In an age of instant gratification and overnight (YouTube) success, enduring artists like Renée Fleming are a rare breed. The singer, currently in her mid-50s, epitomizes the slow-burn. At the age when many sopranos are considering retirement, Fleming is in peak form, defying any tarnishing of the upper register as well as the visual impact of middle age. I was not always a fan. In fact, some two decades ago I dismissed her as a lightweight. What I did not recognize then was that this was a singer on her way to greatness. The proof came a few seasons ago, at the Met, where she conquered the role of Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. Immediately inviting (and challenging) comparisons with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, her erstwhile teacher, Fleming has firmly established herself as the pre-eminent soprano of our times.

This glittering concert at the acoustically perfect Golden Hall of the Musikverein hall Vienna is a virtual compendium of lieder over almost 50 years. From Mahler and Zemlinsky to Korngold and Strauss, Fleming’s recital tells in music the story of the Golden Age of the great city on the Danube. Polish pianist Maciej Pikulski offers sensitive, Gerald Moore-like piano support. This beautiful disc may prompt listeners to get dressed in their Sunday best before pressing the start button.

Galicians 1: The Art Songs
Pavlo Hunka et al.
Ukrainian Art Song Project (ukrainianartsong.ca)

For the past decade the British-born bass-baritone Pavlo Hunka has made it his life’s work to share the art songs of his Ukrainian heritage with the entire world. In partnership with Roman Hurko, composer, opera director and producer, he has previously recorded three CDs of this repertoire and has recently unveiled a 6-CD collection of music from the Galician (Western) region of Ukraine with even more yet to come.

The first disc in this set also serves to introduce us to the team of celebrated Canadian vocal artists that has given life to this ambitious project. In addition to Hunka’s own powerful voice, they include sopranos Monica Whicher, Nathalie Paulin and mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó, tenors Benjamin Butterfield and Colin Ainsworth, and baritone Russell Braun, with additional support from pianists Carolyn Maule and Serouj Kradjian. This initial volume is devoted to the art songs of Denys Sichynsky (1865-1909) which date mainly from the twilight of romanticism. They are typically declamatory, earnest minor key laments with often quite elaborate keyboard parts, dispatched with panache by the expert pianist Albert Krywolt, who accompanies the lion’s share of the songs in this anthology.

The long life of Stanyslav Liudkevych (1879-1979) requires two CDs to tell his story. Though the majority of the 28 songs on offer date from the early 20th century, the composer was still active into the mid-1960s. His harmonic language is often daring and freely modulatory and the ingenious textures of his piano accompaniments suggest an orchestral conception. Eclecticism aside, it’s nonetheless clear that a major talent is on display here. The first CD is so totally dominated by male voices that the sole exception sung by Nathalie Paulin comes as quite a relief. Fortunately the second CD is more judiciously shared between the genders.

A tragic figure, Vasyl Barvinsky (1888-1963) was the director of the Lysenko Institute of Music and its successor institution the Lviv Conservatory and maintained a commanding profile both locally and internationally. In 1948 however, political intrigues brought him crashing to earth. He was arrested, his musical scores were publicly burned in the Conservatory courtyard and he was sentenced to spend the next decade toiling at a labour camp in the backwaters of Mordovia. He spent the remainder of his life attempting to reconstruct his musical legacy, which is stylistically indebted to Debussy yet always strikingly lyrical. Fortunately compositions he had considered lost forever are slowly coming to light from Western sources. The majority of the selection of 17 songs are shared between Hunka and the excellent soprano Szabó and include some beautifully rendered violin passages by Annalee Patipatanakoon.

Though described as a “modernist,” there is little to fear from the passionate and often deeply autobiographical music of Stefania Turkewich (1898-1977). Stylistically it does not go far beyond the extended tonality of the earliest works of Alban Berg. A pupil of Barvinsky, she went on to study with Schoenberg and Schreker in Berlin in the 1920s and subsequently worked in Lviv. Acclaimed as the first Ukrainian woman composer, she emigrated to England in 1948, where she sought recognition in vain within the intensely insular post-war British musical establishment. Hunko and company make just emends for her neglect in this extensive selection of 20 songs, including two winning and resolutely tonal English-language nursery rhymes.

A sixth compilation disc completes the set. The recordings are accompanied by a lavish booklet with texts and translations in four languages. Seamless and consistent audio editing throughout is credited to veteran producer Doug Doctor at the helm in Glenn Gould Studio. A most welcome and innovative aspect of the project includes making newly engraved editions of the scores of these neglected gems freely available through ukrainianartsong.ca. The album may also be ordered there as well as through iTunes.

Giovanni Felice Sances – Complete Arias, 1636
Bud Roach
Musica Omnia mo0611

Bud Roach started his professional career as an oboist (he played in several American orchestras) but more recently has concentrated on singing and conducting. He is the director of Capella Intima, which in recent years has given us performances of the anonymous Giuseppe and of Gagliano’s Dafne. Both as a singer and as a director he specializes in Italian work of the early 17th century. His first recording as a tenor was of songs by Alessandro Grandi and he has now followed this up with a CD of arias by Giovanni Felice Sances, music first published in 1636. On both recordings he accompanies himself on the baroque guitar. I heard him perform these works at the Boston Early Music Festival Fringe in July 2013 and it gave me pleasure to renew my acquaintance with them. The final song on the disc (Accenti queruli) is not part of the 1636 edition: it is a chaconne which was such a prominent and influential form in the early baroque.

Roach’s voice is light but clear and distinctive; he has no problem with the high tessitura of many of the songs. Throughout he sings with real expressiveness. These songs can be seen as part of a Petrarchan tradition of erotic poetry but at the same time they show an affinity with popular song. They are now little-known and under-performed. Roach deserves credit for bringing this repertoire back to life.

Couperin – Apothéoses
Gli Incogniti; Amandine Beyer
Harmonia Mundi HMC 902193

It is crystal clear that this recording is a labour of love and full of vibrancy and personality. The six instrumentalists of Gli Incogniti throw themselves into Couperin’s music, infusing it with youthful vigour and airy spontaneity.

The program is bookended by sonatas – La Superbe and La Sultane – both played with exquisite attention to detail and “French” virtuosity, i.e. a wide vocabulary of fresh ornamentation that gives one the idea that everything is being improvised. Violinists Amandine Beyer and Alba Roca are perfectly matched and dance around each other with great subtlety. Equally impressive is the continuo team: solid as a rock and adding heft and/or tenderness where needed.

The major pieces – Couperin’s Apothéoses de Lulli et Corelli – are works of tremendous scope, based on Couperin’s intended philosophical desire to reunite the tastes and styles of Italian and French instrumental music. They are programmatic, multi-movement masterpieces and the performances on this disc are very fine. My only argument is with the tempos of some of the more transparent movements. There is a driving quality to the group’s playing that is immensely attractive most of the time; however, some of the ethereal, transparent movements need more dreamy air and space – and could simply be slower.

Special mention must be made of the gorgeous, sensuous gamba playing of Baldomero Barciela and Filipa Meneses in La Sultane. Their performance of this sonata is worth the price of the CD alone.

Stradella – Duets
Susanne Rydén; Emma Kirkby; Sergio Foresti; Harmonices Mundi; Claudio Astronio
Brilliant Classics 94343

Alessandro Stradella’s private life has created a wave of speculation although it is clear that he was killed in Genoa in 1682. His untimely end deprived Italian music of an exceptional composer. On this CD, however, we enjoy the voice of the singer who is for many both the face and the voice of early music, Dame Emma Kirkby. She appears on eight duets, commencing with the lively Cara labbra che d’amore. More intense is Pazienza, finirá l’influenza with its sombre stringed introduction and continuo. Here Susanne Rydén and bass Sergio Foresti convey a message of hope, even though Foresti’s bass and the continuo still combine to produce a certain overshadowing darkness. Kirkby displays a real intensity with her interpretation of Ahi, che posar non puote, a duet with Foresti, where her skills are at their finest.

 For Rydén, one of the most testing pieces must be Fulmini, quanto sa quel sembiante severo – the musical elements portraying the arrows of emotion are clearly recognizable. For Kirkby the test of how to demonstrate pictorial qualities in music comes in Ardo, sospiro e piango, where dissonance is used to evoke musical sighs. Dietro l’orme del desio is another highly demanding duet. Many of the classic Italian devices are employed to great effect; for example, in one passage, in addition to difficult notes, pauses underline the meaning and rhythm of words.

 There is no doubt that listening to this recording confirms the loss to music when we think what Stradella might have gone on to compose and also Dame Emma Kirkby’s place in early music.

Bach – The Art of the Fugue
Angela Hewitt
Hyperion CDA67980

Four years ago, Hyperion released all of Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt’s recordings of Bach’s solo keyboard works as a 15-disc boxed set. It was a huge project, but it didn’t include Bach’s monumental late work, The Art of the Fugue. Hewitt has now tackled this set of 18 fugues and canons, which she describes in her detailed booklet notes as “completely overwhelming, both intellectually and emotionally.”

Hewitt’s stylistic trademarks are here – dancing rhythms, nuanced touch and sparkling clarity. She colours each voice so distinctively, you can hear right into the complex textures. But her greatest achievement is to reveal the spiritual depth that suffuses this work. It becomes not just an exploration of all the things counterpoint can do, but an exploration of just about everything that music can possibly do – and then some.

Bach never specified the instrumentation for this work. Hewitt makes as convincing a case for performing it on a modern piano as any I have heard, especially with an instrument as responsive as her Fazioli.

Bach’s score ends, enigmatically, part way through the final fugue. Most performances either stop there, or add on a completion in Bach’s style. Following the original edition, Hewitt stops mid-fugue, pauses, then plays Bach’s “deathbed” chorale prelude Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (When in the hour of utmost need), which C.P.E. Bach copied into the score after his father’s death. It makes for an intimate and moving finale.

Mahler – Symphony No.9
Gewandhaus Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly
Accentus Music ACC 20299

This is the sixth of Chailly’s live performances of Mahler symphonies thus far released on Blu-Ray video discs (and DVD). Each release (since the Second and Eighth) contains a discussion of the particular symphony, together with selected rehearsals and concert excerpts to illustrate Chailly’s rethinking of performance practices and where he believes Mahler’s intentions were misunderstood.

We observe Chailly and Mahler scholar and author Henry-Louis de le Grange discussing the work and weighing all the clues that led to their considered opinion that this symphony is not one of resignation and farewell as Leonard Bernstein, for one, would have it. In this performance, Chailly’s first movement reflects the metre of the first movement of the Fourth Symphony; the second movement is faster than usual with a sense of fantasy and the third, Rondo-Burleske, is pleasingly brisk. His last movement is for listeners who are weary of the hand-wringing performances, especially those of Bernstein who helped resurrect Mahler in the 1950s, that treat the symphony as a tragic resignation, another Abschied. Chailly’s is a mighty performance, very positive and life-affirming.

These are Chailly’s own insights and after several listening sessions I am inclined to agree. There is no positive right or wrong, simply different points of view. This is a brilliant performance, exceptional on every level, and deserves to be heard and reheard.

The Transfigured Nightingale – Music for Clarinet and Piano
Jerome Summers; Robert Kortgaard
Blue Griffin Records BGR339
bluegriffin.com

Clarinetist Jerome Summers has completed his “Nightingale” trilogy of recordings, a project he began in 1994. This one, Transfigured Nightingale, comprises mostly works transcribed for clarinet, with the exception of Brahms’ Sonata in E-flat Op.120, No.2. Included on a mere technicality (it was transcribed for viola by the composer), it’s really here because Mr. Summers loves it, and why not? Late Brahms is balm to the soul of those who play the nerdiest of woodwinds, the exploding cigar of the orchestra.

Summers handles the instrument with ease. His tone on most of the material is smooth and velvety. Michael Conway Baker’s Canticle for Ryan (originally for violin) and Marek Norman’s Just Think (originally a setting of a poem by Robert Service) are effective if sugary vehicles for Summers’ fluid cantabile. Two Shostakovich symphonic extracts offer an austere counterpoint to these selections. I particularly like hearing the scherzo from the Ninth presented as a solo piece with piano. Taking it at just under full-on Russian March Hare tempo, Summers sounds like he’d fit in with any orchestra in the country.

Pianist Robert Kortgaard provides agreement, support and bundles of musicality. He and Summers agreed to a stately set of tempi for the Op.120, playing the part of elder gentlemen rather than impersonating the young Richard Mühlfeld, Brahms’ “nightingale.” Also included is Rachmaninov’s cello sonata, in Summers’ own transcription. At a hefty 36-plus minutes, it argues better for the cello than the Brahms does for the viola.

Brian Current – Airline Icarus
Huhtanen; Szabó; Thomson; Dobson; Sirett; Ensemble; Brian Current
Naxos 8.660356

Airline Icarus by composer Brian Current and librettist Anton Piatigorsky was initially commissioned in 2001 and underwent a series of developments in the ensuing decade. This intense, 45-minute chamber opera transports the listener through an emotional journey as it depicts the reactions of passengers and crew on a doomed commercial flight. The work was inspired by the tragic crash of a Korean airliner that was struck by a Soviet missile in 1983 and descended for nearly 15 minutes before impact.

The opera’s award-winning composer, conductor and music director, Brian Current, presents a cohesive vision for this impressive, multi-layered work that incorporates the myth of Icarus, whose wings melted after flying too close to the sun. It serves as a reminder that our technological advances can have devastating results.

Piatigorsky’s insight into human nature exposes a glimpse of humanity at its most vulnerable as the libretto juxtaposes mundane conversations with the characters’ introspective thoughts. This dramatic fluctuation is sustained, quite extraordinarily, by the chamber chorus and soloists Carla Huhtanen (Ad Exec), Krisztina Szabó (Flight Attendant), Graham Thomson (Scholar), Alexander Dobson (Worker/Pilot) and Geoffrey Sirett (Business Man).

Current’s depiction of turbulence is frighteningly realistic until an eerie stillness, beautifully performed by the instrumental ensemble, underscores the Pilot’s aria, providing an impression of suspended time and space. Superbly sung by Dobson, it ironically describes his joy of flying as the plane descends. The disturbing Epilogue closes the opera with a prolonged, final silence.

áltaVoz Composers
JACK Quartet
New Focus Recordings FCR150

In this latest release by the JACK Quartet, four Latin American composers are featured, each of whom are members of the composer consortium known as áltaVoz. Members of áltaVoz see it as their mandate to promote cutting edge contemporary music concerts, workshops, symposia and interdisciplinary projects with the intension of providing a provocative forum for artists, institutions and the community at large.

The four quartets on this recording represent the confluence of its members’ willingness to embrace a wide spectrum of aesthetics and influences. First on the disc, composer Felipe Lara’s Tran(slate) invites us into a world of daring gestures, pops and slides, that charmingly evoke playful otherworldly sonic landscapes. The vast array of extended playing techniques is masterfully orchestrated and elevates the composer’s language. Next, José Luis-Hurtado’s L’ardito e quasi stridente gesto creates an unsettling mood as quiet meandering dissonances explode with jagged interruptions. Throughout Mauricio Pauly’s Every new volition a mercurial swerve, process-driven swells and pulses propel the listener into a swarm of rhythmic activity. An ethereal contrast is created with a luminous harmonic lightness before the blistering climax bombards the ear. In Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann’s String Quartet No. 3 “música fúnebre y nocturna,” the only multi-movement work on the disc, we receive the clearest allusions to the tradition of the string quartet. The influence of Bartók is quite clear and reminiscences of tonal centres are unmistakable. This, matched with lively groove-driven passages, secures this work as the most accessible of the lot.

The JACK Quartet has approached each work with a passionate virtuosity and impressive attention to detail. The punchiness and clarity of gesture throughout is a fine example of the quartet’s expressive capabilities. The JACK Quartet is known for impassioned interpretations of contemporary works, and this recording certainly lives up to that expectation.

Satie Slowly
Philip Corner
Unseen Worlds UW12

I was impressed with the program notes written by Philip Corner in what was really a small book. His writing was extremely entertaining and informative. The written words really gave a sense of the wit and brilliance of Satie. For example: “Satie is not as great as John Cage would have us believe. Who could be? Certainly not Bach or Beethoven.” My favourite quote has to be: “If his piano pieces are so easy why are they so badly played? […They resist all] added expressivity; they make those who indulge sound ridiculous. Yet nothing is lacking in them.” Corner’s written analysis of each piece reflects the personality of Satie’s music. Critics during the time slandered Satie and called him a “petit maître” alongside Debussy and Ravel. He was not revolutionary in a flamboyant way but cloaked his visions in traditional forms reflected in the more obscure repertoire chosen for these CDs.

A medieval theme is reflected in the selections which are the Ogives, The Feast Given By the Norman Knights to Honour a Young Girl, Preludes of the Nazarene, The Gothic Dances, Fanfares of the Rose+Cross, Chorales. These were all played in a very slow tempo but represented the nature of the music. Gnossienne No.1, Gymnopedies (1,2,3) and the Empire’s Diva didn’t fit the rest of the program but were played in the same tempo. I would have liked to hear more swing in the Gnossienne and Gymnopedies and definitely a more up-beat tempo for the Empire’s Diva, who was a stripper in a music hall. However, I could see a Satie wink in this unique double CD.

Reconnect
Diane Roblin
Independent (dianeroblin.com)

Following a more than 20-year intermission, talented keyboardist and composer Diane Roblin has made a strong re-emergence into the jazz world with the release of her new independent recording Reconnect. The well-produced CD is comprised of ten original compositions by Roblin that run the gamut from funk and fusion to soul and jazz. Roblin has also surrounded herself with creative and dynamic musicians (Jeff King on tenor, Howard Spring on guitar, Russ Boswell on bass and Roger Travassos on drums) who easily and intuitively fit into her eclectic and invigorating musical vision.

Reconnect kicks off with In the Beginning – a vigorous funk exploration that calls to mind electric-era Herbie Hancock. There is nothing dainty about Roblin’s attack. She is a facile and deeply emotional keyboardist who establishes her musical territory with a muscular performance on the Fender Rhodes and technical skill on the acoustic piano. Her pianistic virtuosity is clearly evident on Suspend Yourself – a complex piece of work in 7/4, involving a trip to the etheric realms, as well as a brash dose of fusoid and progressive jazz.

Of particular beauty and depth is Ballad in 3/4. The haunting melodic line and King’s sonorous tenor work are an evocative treat. On Reconnect, Roblin also includes Tune for Fraser – a stunning acoustic piano solo piece dedicated to her late musician husband, Fraser Finlayson. This brave composition seems to emotionally expose the artist as she transcends, through her music, all of the stages of grief and finally arrives at ultimate redemption.

Bones Blues
Pete Magadini
Delmark/Sackville CD2-4004
(delmark.com)

Recently reissued with an added track, this 1977 Toronto-recorded gem is nearly timeless since it’s an unpretentious session by a consummate professional that could have been taped any time after 1954 … or tomorrow. Unlike contemporary bop-era emulators however, the participants in Bones Blues were around as mainstream jazz was being forged and played this mixture of blues, standards and rhythm tunes almost daily in nightclubs.

Bones Blues has added value as well because it initially gave Toronto piano legend Wray Downes one of his first chances to stretch out on record. On the intro to What a Time We Had, for instance, his sympathetic elegance is notable; as is his innate command of the blues sensibility in the title tune. In 1977, Massachusetts-born leader, drummer Pete Magadini, had just begun his 28-year Canadian residency as teacher and performer; while on the disc Buffalo-born tenor saxophonist, Don Menza, consistently demonstrates his mastery of both bop and swing that gave him featured status in big bands like Buddy Rich’s. Buoyant even when assaying assertive 1950s classics like Solar and Freddie the Freeloader, the saxophonist’s skillful balance is a highlight. Note how his caressing of Poor Butterfly’s melody parallels Downes’ two-handed, near-boogie-woogie exposition, and how both lines are underscored by Magadini’s subtle brush work. Amplifying the others’ work with powerful strokes and decorative cadenzas is bassist Dave Young, who has in the intervening years become a local legend, habitually busy with club and concert work in a variety of contexts.

Overall, ballads and finger-snappers are treated with the same respect and performed at the same high level on this CD. Listening to how the disc’s eight tracks evolve and gratify, confirms why this session, unlike many pretentious, highly vaulted projects of the same era, has stood the test of time.

Time & Place
Claire Martin; Montpellier Cello Quartet; Joe Stilgoe
Linn Records AKD 423

Delightful British jazz vocalist Claire Martin’s new release, Time and Place is a well-conceived, well-produced and expertly performed recording, featuring Martin at the top of her vocal game in collaboration with the renowned Montpellier Cello Quartet as well as with an ensemble of gifted and cooking jazz musicians, featuring special guest, pianist and vocalist Joe Stilgoe.

Martin is known for her versatility, as well as for her unique, dusky, sensuous, cello-like voice… part Dusty Springfield and part Julie London with a dash of Irene Kral. On Time and Place she also displays her gift for selecting diverse, perhaps unusual material, and making it her own – with compositions included from David Bowie, Joni Mitchell and Thelonious Monk.

The levels of melancholy on this CD (particularly on the cello-infused tracks) are quite profound – which is no surprise – as just previous to the project, Martin’s close friend, mentor, teacher and creative partner Sir Richard Rodney Bennett passed away. Loss is a theme that echoes in several of the exquisite tracks, including the Beatles’ She’s Leaving Home and Gershwin’s timeless anthem of lost love My Man’s Gone Now. The string arrangements and the sonic intermingling of the cellos with Martin’s sonorous vocal instrument are simply breathtaking.

The closing track, Goodbye for Now comes from the aforementioned Bennett – who may have left us in the physical sense, but his impeccable musical standards, influence, taste and brilliant musicianship are all present and accounted for on Time and Place.

New
Alex Pangman
Justin Time JTR 8587-2

There can be no doubt that that Alex Pangman – Canada’s own “Sweetheart of Swing” – is a national treasure and a true original. Feisty, authentic and a fully realized music historian, Pangman has continued to delight with New, her latest recording on Justin Time Records. For this project (and not unlike Aretha heading to Muscle Shoals, Alabama), Pangman has bravely stepped outside of her musical and experiential comfort zone by recording in the historic Algiers section of New Orleans – accompanied by the popular local depression-era swing band, the Cottonmouth Kings. It seems apparent that an important part of this creative process was Pangman’s collaborator, producer/engineer (and Canadian ex-pat) Andrew “Goat” Gilchrist.

New is a mature album, and Pangman’s voice – while still maintaining her clear, luminous sound – now reflects the depth and subtext of her own life experience. She is fearless in her emotional openness – imbuing each of the ten tasty tracks with large dollops of confidence, sensuality, joy, irony and maybe even a certain ennui.

Thoroughly enjoyable tracks include Fit as a Fiddle (and Ready for Love), which features rambunctious, Joe Venuti-esque violin work by Matt Rhody. The popular Tin Pan Alley tune also has special meaning for Pangman, who recorded this track only seven months following her second double-lung transplant, and was finally feeling “Fit as a Fiddle.” Canadian composer Ruth Lowe’s I’ll Never Smile Again is a beauty – performed with a languid, Crescent City feel which suits Pangman’s sultry alto, and she also swings it sweet and low on You Let Me Down.