07 Jan Lisiecki Night MusicNight Music
Jan Lisiecki
Deutsche Grammophon (deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/night-music-jan-lisiecki-12595) 

Jan Lisiecki, the Calgary-born, RCM Glenn Gould School graduate and former Gramophone Young Artist of the Year, leans into his impressive touch, interpretative creativity and familiarity with the canon of elegant and imminently listenable piano music on this acoustically beautiful and well-executed capture of Mozart, Ravel, Schumann and Paderewski. Unlike Vladimir Horowitz, who preferred to perform recitals on Sundays at 4:00 in the afternoon, Lisiecki has programmed here a celebration of “night music,” most obviously Mozart’s 12 Variations in C Major on “Ah, vous dirai-je Maman,” but bookending the album with the lesser-known Miscellanea, Op.16: No.4, Nocturne in B-Flat Major by Paderewski for a satisfying and sonically excellent album of an idealized and relaxed twilight listening experience. 

Undoubtedly I am not the first observer to marvel at Lisiecki’s obvious talent, depth of pianistic understanding and musical maturity while pointing to his young age (27!). That said, Night Music, a 2022 release on Deutsche Grammophon, does offer another welcome glimpse into an already exceptionally developed talent on today’s classical concertizing stage who continues to play with the theme of night for ongoing listener delight (this release follows his two-CD set of Chopin’s Complete Nocturnes). While the standout moments on this disc are many, it was Lisiecki’s dynamic touch in the piano’s lower register and fulsome exploration of the entire keyboard on Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit Scarbo – (all within a single nine-minute performance) that, for me, was simultaneously the tenderest, most stentorian and impressive.

09 Sibelius 24Sibelius – Symphonies 2 & 4
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Owain Arwel Hughes
Rubicon Classics RCD1072 (rubiconclassics.com/release)

This new issue features a remarkable conductor most of us probably have never heard of – Owain Arwel Hughes. Coming from Wales, he has conducted many of the finest orchestras of the world and is now principal associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic, accumulating an impressive discography mainly of British, Scandinavian and Russian composers. His current project is to record all seven Sibelius symphonies with the Royal Philharmonic and this is the second issue of that set.

The Second, the most famous of the seven, was an overnight success at its premiere in 1902. It catapulted Sibelius into fame as one of the best composers of the 20th century, a patriot and the pride of his native Finland. It is a glorious work in the sunny key of D major. Although there are dark moments, the finale, with two themes alternating in a long, gradual crescendo in 3/4 time ascending towards a climax when, after a long-held minor motif suddenly turns into major in fortissimo, is absolutely magnificent.

Symphony No.4 in A Minor is completely different. It’s a deeply personal statement and the conductor must feel, indeed inhabit, its emotional climate. In the words of Sibelius, it is completely devoid of the “compositional tricks or circuses” composers use to thrill audiences. Right at the outset a deep, sad cello theme slowly develops until stopped by forceful chords on the brass and then a forlorn, echoed horn call as we are enter a misty, dark, barren, somewhat frightening territory. There is some happiness, like a lovely scherzo second movement, but the sky quickly darkens, diminishing it into oblivion.    

The overall effect is puzzling, but with repeated hearings its many hidden beauties come out and, according to some critics, it is the most beautiful of Sibelius’ symphonies.

10 Bruckner 7Bruckner 7
Gürzenich-Orchester Köln; François-Xavier Roth
Myrios MYR030 (myriosmusic.com) 

There is a cataclysmic moment in the second movement of Bruckner’s Seventh: There are two climaxes following one another, but the second one comes fortissimo with an Earth-shattering cymbal crash, as if the heavens would open up. The whole concert hall was filled with glorious sound. I remember the great Skrowaczewski doing it beautifully many years ago at Massey Hall with its fabulous acoustics. This is how my conversion to Bruckner started.

The Seventh still remains one of my favourite symphonies. This new recording is conducted by a new firebrand, François Xavier Roth who is making big waves in Europe today. He is a scholarly conductor with a no-nonsense, analytical approach, meticulous attention to detail and a natural gift to enter the composer’s mind to follow the compositional process and to choose the right tempo.

Out of a near silent tremolo the symphony begins with a wondrous melody in the strings picked up by the woodwinds, an overarching theme that seems to dominate the first movement. It goes through many variations, but the solo flute crops up often chirping like the little forest bird leading Siegfried to awaken the sleeping Brunnhilde. (Wagner was much admired by Bruckner!)

After a crucial Adagio second movement comes an exciting Scherzo, with a simple theme and an underlying rigorous ostinato having a rhythmic urge that has always reminded me of cavalry galloping through a wide open plain. The Finale sums it all up with a resounding peroration of the majestic brass. This recording has huge dynamic contrasts that will test your stereo equipment.

11 Lola DescoursBassoon Steppes
Lola Descours; Paloma Kouider
Orchid Classics ORC100190 (orchidclassics.com) 

Two questions come up when considering this recording. First: why would I listen to an album of all-Russian chamber music at this time in history and, second, why would I listen to it played on a bassoon? The answer to both is the same: this is a spectacular recording in every way; moving, virtuosic, unpredictable and life-affirming. 

Russian bassoonist Lola Descours and French pianist Paloma Kouider present a gorgeous program ranging from short pieces by Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov to longer works by Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff. All the works on the album are transcriptions or arrangements, some by the performers themselves, with the exception of a new work, AirI Walk Unseen, written for Descours by the Russian-born Lera Auerbach. This work is lovely, tragic and compelling. It has some pitch bending and colour trills, both used extremely effectively. But all the music on this album is so brilliantly played that you won’t believe it wasn’t written for the bassoon. 

This is a testament to Descours’ virtuosity: she’s a product of the best European training available and she’s the first bassoonist ever to win the Tchaikovsky Competition. Her sound is effortlessly fluid and expressive in all registers, her vibrato and phrasing always tasteful and heartfelt. And Kouider’s playing moves from crystalline thrills in the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata to exquisite delicacy in Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov. The world is a troubled place right now; do something nice for yourself and listen to this album. It will make your day.

12 Laporte PierneGabriel Pierné – Feuillet d’album
Antoine Laporte
Independent (antoinelaporte.ca/home-1?lang=en) 

The music of Gabriel Pierné is not all that well known today compared with that of his more famous contemporaries Claude Debussy and Paul Dukas. Born in Metz in 1863, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire, winning the Prix de Rome in 1882 and ultimately enjoying a successful career as a conductor, organist and composer. Included amongst his large output is a significant number of piano compositions presented here on this two-disc recording by Quebec pianist Antoine Laporte, a prize winner at the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition in New York and the Jinji Lake International Piano Competition in Suzhou, China. 

The Quinze pièces pour le piano Op.3 from 1885 is a delightful set of character pieces, each one evoking a particular mood from the light-hearted Coquetterie to the rousing Tarantelle finale. Laporte’s approach is refined and elegant, displaying fine tonal colours while aptly demonstrating Pierné’s eclecticism. The Premier Nocturne Op.31 is a languid and lyrical essay while the Étude Op.13 concluding the first disc is a true tour de force that Laporte handles with great panache.      

Disc two takes the listener into other facets of Pierné’s compositional style – the Trois Pièces Op.40, the Variations Op.42 and the posthumous set of Six Pieces which are tributes to other composers. Most striking is the degree of technical prowess demanded of the performer, found in the virtuosic first and third movements of Op.40 and the finale of the Variations. Throughout, Laporte delivers a brilliant performance of this often daunting repertoire.

French-only and English-only booklets and notes are available. This is a fine recording of music deserving greater recognition.

Listen to 'Gabriel Pierné – Feuillet d’album' Now in the Listening Room

13 Things In PairsThings in Pairs
Audrey Wright; Yundu Wang
Navona Records NV6392 (navonarecords.com) 

Things in Pairs is an album that captures a listener’s heart from the very first note. Not only is it following a clever concept of pairing music from across five centuries in a way that is both exciting and meaningful, but it also features performances by violinist Audrey Wright and pianist Yundy Wang that are beaming with passion and artistry.  

It is easy to hear the musical narrative here and appreciate the connection between the compositions. Coupling Biber’s Passacaglia for Solo Violin with Balancing on the Edge of Shadows by contemporary composer Rain Worthington is simply splendid. Biber and Worthington, separated by centuries of musical legacy, treat the violin as the most precious voice and there is a deep sonority running throughout, a shared melancholy that underlies the subtle tension underneath the beautiful melodies. Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ Sonata for Two Violins in B-flat Major and Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, on the other hand, offer a juxtaposition of lightness and darkness in a way that emphasizes the heart of each composition. Wright, who plays both violin parts in the sonata, is equally good in brilliant passages and lightheartedness of Bologne’s music as she is in conveying the power of Fratres. Capturing the fleeting line between a moment and eternity, and opposing forces within oneself, the violin/piano version of Fratres is further enhanced by the beautiful acoustics on this recording. Beethoven’s Sonata No.10 in G Major ties all the pieces together in an elegant sway of music ideas.

14 Light in a Time of DarknessLight in a Time of Darkness
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta
Beau Fleuve Records 605996-998579 (bpo.org)

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, arts organizations throughout the world demonstrated their extraordinary determination and resilience as they found ways to continue practising their craft and bringing music to their audiences, even if in a different format than before. Light in a Time of Darkness features works recorded live in Buffalo in 2020 and 2021 as part of the BPO OnDemand series, streamed to audiences during the height of the pandemic.

This disc is a journey through countries, eras and styles, as its contents encompass everything from Bach to the premiere of a new work by composer Ulysses Kay. There is a risk, in this time of hyper-specialization, that such a broad approach might result in everything sounding too similar, with not enough period-appropriate precision to pacify everyone. For those who prefer the lean, agile, period-instrument approach, for example, the Bach and Haydn selections will likely come across as rather big and bulky, lacking the finesse afforded by earlier instruments.

Where Light In A Time Of Darkness is most convincing is in the lush, broad textures afforded by Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and the Kay Pietà, a work of richness and depth that features some beautiful moments for the strings and a striking solo for English horn.

A testament to the resiliency and innovativeness found in so many organizations over the past two years, Light in a Time of Darkness is an eclectic and worthwhile release demonstrating the excellence of the Buffalo Philharmonic and conductor JoAnn Falletta.

16 Poulenc Complete Chamber MusicPoulenc – Complete Chamber Music
Various Artists
Naxos 8.505258 (naxosdirect.com/search/8505258)

Having recently received a treasure, in the form of digital sound files, I am compelled to offer the following advice: buy this collection. An epochal recording, The Complete Chamber Works of Francis Poulenc is performed by a cadre of young and insanely able French musicians; nowhere else will you ever need to turn for inspiration or solace, nor for useful historic information about Poulenc, his thoughts and the context of the pieces.  

The performances, grouped onto the discs in no immediately discernible order, remind us of how often Poulenc would reuse similar tropes, thrown into relief against such remarkable harmonic language. The three solo woodwind sonatas sound strangely similar, as sibling pieces perhaps, yet still strike their individual poses and stand distinct. 

Disc one opens with an old friend, the Sextuor for Piano and Woodwind Quintet. Nothing wrong with leading from strength, and this is such a strong performance by all. Absolutely fearless in their tempo choices, as technically clean as French wind players are known to be, these six bring the notes leaping off the page. Poulenc, in his secular heaven, must be pleased to know he still speaks to and through young guns like these. The eloquence of phrasing in this one piece alone is reason enough to acquire the collection. But wait! There’s more.

Of course there’s more! Included are the early works, when Poulenc was 19 or 20 years old, at the end of WWI. Having tried to tackle two of these (Duo for Two Clarinets, and Duo for Clarinet and Bassoon) when I was a similar age, I now forgive the youngster his early austerity. You hear evidence of his admiration for Stravinsky more than his love of the music hall. He seemed to celebrate jagged lines and impossibly long phrases. But at least he published these! He discarded two earlier versions of his violin sonata before allowing the one played here by Graf Mourja.

It’s pointless to select a favourite piece or performer; there is beyond enough to please every ear. The flute playing of Philippe Bernold is bright and crisp, and I forgive his tendency to reach just above the piano pitch. He also performs on recorder in the charming Villanelle. Hervé Joulain makes short work of the devilishly tough French horn writing in the Sextuor. All of the wind playing is exceptionally good. 

The project owes much to consistently excellent piano playing by Alexandre Tharaud, who performs on no fewer than 15 of the selections, if my count is correct. That’s just beyond imagining. In fact there are only six pieces scattered across the five discs that do not feature Tharaud. These are the song cycles and theatre pieces that use voice accompanied by small instrumental ensembles. Among these is the charming Story of Babar, offered in both the original French and the translated English text. Both narrators are children, (12-year-old François Mouzaya, and 13-year-old Natasha Emerson), who seem equally professional.

For choral fans, there is disc four. Poulenc’s poetry settings themselves are every bit as divergent as the switches in mood I find so beguiling. La Balle Masqué, Cantate Profane sur les poèmes de Max Jacob, makes merry Dadaist hay. Baritone Franck Leguérinel clearly propels the absurdist texts with a powerful controlled voice. He shares the disc with tenor Jean Delescluse. 

Oh, one needn’t carp, but the recording values are uneven. One wonders with the size of the project how many different venues were used, and how many different engineers and producers worked on it.

01 Duo ConcertanteEcology of Being
Duo Concertante
Marquis Classics MAR 81625 (duoconcertante.com) 

The fundamental task of finding one’s way in the world and locating true measures of meaning can be elusive as we attempt to understand how purpose relates to quality of existence. To create a successful recording, perhaps one way to begin understanding the immense implications of being is to commission a collection of new works for violin and piano. With six brilliant new works performed with world-class expressiveness and musicality, Newfoundland’s Duo Concertante has released a powerful and deeply moving album. 

The Canadian composers were asked to respond to earth’s climate emergency and to consider our interconnectedness with respect to the rapidly changing environment and the future implications of our current decisions to act or to not act. Ian Cusson delivers an utterly tragic response that is interrupted by a joyous dance, a contrast that is jarring and disturbing, in a work titled The Garden of Earthly Delights. Carmen Braden’s dusty The Seed Knows, is distant ephemera beneath shocking pillars of scratchy sonic behemoths. In Randolph Peters’ Frisson, dramatic gestures struggle toward several climactic regions that are surrounded by tender lyricism. Dawn Avery’s Onekha’shòn:a,Yakón:kwe (The Waters, the Women) is a deeply moving three-movement work that speaks to the Indigenous understanding of the symbiotic and spiritual connections between women and water. Using the ecopoetry of Shannon Webb-Campbell throughout the piece as spoken word, Melissa Hui’s Ecology of Being produces a solitary barren enchantment – carefully designed thin and empty landscapes surround the spoken text like precious gems, creating warmth through scarcity. Lastly, Bekah Simms’ shedding, as if sloughed scatters darkness amid the burning vivid augmentation of sound and noise. This work is deeply expressive, producing rich manifolds of purging smoke and sunken ash. Simms’ innovative sonic images hover like shadowforms as if to suggest that everything comes from fire and returns to it. 

This release is a stunning collection of highly personal works wonderfully performed by the duo.

02 A QuinaryA Quinary – Canadian Concerti
Soloists; Vancouver Island Symphony; Pierre Simard
Redshift Records TK475 (redshiftrecords.org)

This Redshift release of five new concerti represents the culmination of a five-year commissioning project that paired five Canadian composers with principal players of the Vancouver Island Symphony. 

Jocelyn Morlock’s Ornithomancy, written for flute soloist Paolo Bortolussi, opens with sombre and mysterious interwoven sonorities below searching bright gestures in the solo flute part. The piece unfolds organically toward more excited materials where Bortolussi’s virtuosity soars with wonderful clarity of tone. 

The three movements of Dorothy Chang’s Invisible Distance take the listener through moods of lyrical melancholy, excited drama and deep enchantment. Chang’s highly imaginative orchestral scenes provide a brilliant tapestry over which cellist Ariel Barnes dazzles with soloistic fireworks. 

Edward Top’s Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra is a shimmering fantasy embedded with rich bellows and sunken tones masterfully produced by soloist Scott MacInnes. Undulating repetitive spirals, delicate resonances and playful offerings comprise the three movements of Emily Doolittle’s Sapling where violin soloist Calvin Dyck handles the varied material with a welcomed expressiveness. 

Last on the disc is Stephen Chatman’s Concertino for Horn and String Orchestra. This work is joyous and full of life. The dance-like structures, and soloist Andrew Clark’s confident performance, create excitement and ever-forward momentum. With five successful new works and five brilliant soloist performances, this release is invigorating from start to finish. Five stars.

03 Eldritch Priest Omphaloskepsis CoverEldritch Priest – Omphaloskepsis
Eldritch Priest
Halocline Trance (haloclinetrance.bandcamp.com)

If you’re going for your debut release, a small bit of self-contemplation is cool. Although be careful, you might see yourself and like it. These are the sediments my eyes smelled when listening to Omphaloskepsis by Eldritch Priest: Puzzling that an ever-changing guitar melody doesn’t mind existing above happily lumbering distorted harrumphs; Sometimes there aren’t screeches; A double bass, sturdy as an oak, creeps along the ground as though swallowing a whale; The frothy harmonies are so eager!; You could start a band with the amount of effects pedals used; That band name should be Cluster Gardens; I averted my emotions just in time for the fizzy notes that are like eating an orange while making love; Every time there is an interruption in the melodic material, a sonata dies. 

I’m not sure if Priest will perform this music live, but if he does, I do hope the audience is supplied with enough pogo sticks. Bravo For Now.

04 Lumena Topaz DuoLumena
Topaz Duo
Redshift Records (thetopazduo.ca) 

Based in Toronto, in-demand flutist Kaili Maimets and Juno Award-winning harpist Angela Schwarzkopf founded Topaz Duo over a dozen years ago. In addition to playing the classics, they have increasingly been curating repertoire by living composers. Their sparkling, assured new album illustrates their focus on new works for the flute and harp with an emphasis on Canadian content. 

The program begins with prominent younger-generation Estonian Canadian composer Riho Esko Maimets’ five-and-a-half-minute Lumena. Composed in Toronto, the work unusually combines the qualities of yearning (the composer says it’s for the beauty of the peaceful Baltic landscape) and meditative stillness. 

Prominent Canadian composer Kevin Lau’s four-movement Little Feng Huang is the next track, extensively inspired by one of his own works of fiction. Written expressly for the album, the “combination of flute and harp – delicate and wondrous – was an ideal vehicle for this particular story,” writes Lau. 

The virtuosic three-movement Sonata for Harp and Flute by Kingston Ontario composer Marjan Mozetich is my album favourite. Recorded for the BIS label by the eminent earlier Toronto duo, Robert Aitkin, flute and Erica Goodman, harp in 1985, it has since become among the most played Canadian works for these instruments. On full display is Mozetich’s mature post-modern Romantic compositional style blending the traditional, popular and modern, filled with lyricism, Romantic harmonies and spirited moto perpetuo-like rhythms. This tightly structured piece avoids lapsing into banal diatonic clichés: the ideal closer for Topaz Duo’s debut record.

Listen to 'Lumena' Now in the Listening Room

05 SmudgesSong and Call
The Smudges
Crypto Gramophone CG149 (cryptogramophone.com) 

Innovative and insightful, Song and Call is an album that will grow on you each time you hear it. Featuring a chamber ensemble consisting of violin and cello, the sonic landscape on this album is somewhat symphonic and often experimental in nature. Add to that the Smudges creative use of samples and electronics on top of the classical foundation and form, and we get to hear many wonderful, intense and sometimes surprising layers of textures throughout. 

Violinist Jeff Gauthier and cellist Maggie Parkins have such a strong synergy and cohesiveness of sound that it often feels as if we are hearing one instrument. Their background in new music and improvisation is at the forefront of the Smudges’ performance. The album opens with Music of Chants, a melodiously lush composition by Guy Klucevsek and closes with the symphonic Release by Tom Flaherty. In between are pieces by Gauthier and ensemble improvisations, playfully varying in genres, expressions and length, and always maintaining a unique ensemble sound. 

The heart of this album and the title piece, Song and Call, plays like a musical treatise on birds. Four attacca movements, titled after four birds (Gray Fantail, Common Starling, American Robin and Eastern Winter Wren), are a magical kingdom of slowed-down bird song samples, electronics, loops, whistling, chimes and singing bowls, in addition to electric violin and often percussive cello. The result is simply stunning.

06 À ses derniers pasAleks Schürmer – À ses derniers pas, entrant dans la boue
Grégoire Blanc; Aleks Schürmer
Centrediscs CMCCD 29221 (cmccanada.org/shop/cd-cmccd-29221) 

Invented in 1920 by Russian physicist Leon Theremin, the theremin is an early electronic musical instrument that is played without being touched. Bringing a hand near the vertical antenna raises the pitch of the note, while bringing the other hand near the horizontal antenna changes the loudness of the tone. A captivating instrument to observe in performance, the thereminist seems to be pulling sound out of thin air and the ethereal nature of the sound produced makes it a fascinating source of musical expression.

Compared to most musical instruments, the theremin is exceedingly rare, and top-level performers are even harder to come by. Grégoire Blanc is a French solo, chamber and orchestral performer who is one of the world’s few theremin virtuosos, and his work on this disc is nothing short of extraordinary.

All the music on À ses derniers pas is composed by Aleks Schürmer, a Canadian multi-instrumentalist, educator and artist. From the playful Concertino en si bémol majeur to the solemn Four Cowboy Songs and the miniature cycle that comprises the title track, Schürmer’s music combines a wide variety of styles and ideas that, when partnered with the unique timbres of the theremin, create a truly unique auditory experience.

This disc is highly recommended as a premier example of the remarkable, innovative artists in the world today. From new compositions to a rare musical instrument, this disc will feature much that is unfamiliar to many listeners, which is a very good thing. Take this opportunity to broaden your horizons and get out of your comfort zone with À ses derniers pas – you won’t regret it.

07 George PerleGeorge Perle – Solos & Duos
Various Artists
Bridge Records 9546A/B (bridgerecords.com)

George Perle (1915-2009) might be compared to Hindemith as a composer concerned with tonal as well as motivic manipulation, highly developed, recognizable structures and just plain beauty. Where Hindemith stayed with more consonant tonalities and clearly defined melodic structure, in a word, a classicist, Perle follows a more Romantic path, in the sense of his rhythmic and metric freedom, as well as a much more challenging tonal language.

This two-disc collection, Solos & Duos, features works for a range of instruments, another echo of Hindemith. Perle, like Hindemith, produced effective music to exploit the instruments he wrote for. Solo works for piano, bassoon, violin, cello, contrabass and clarinet are interspersed on the discs with several works for piano with cello and one with clarinet and piano. Solo works are perhaps an acquired taste, but I find Perle’s explorations via Monody II (1962), the double bass work played with tremendous verve by Edwin Parker, a complete treat to hear. Ditto Bassoon Music (2004) in an equally compelling presentation by Steven Dibner.  

Every decade from the 1940s until the ‘aughts is represented. Clarinetist Charles Neidich plays the Three Sonatas for Solo Clarinet (1943, the earliest works) as well as Sonata quasi una fantasia (1972), together with Michael Brown on piano. Both are performed with considerable flair. Pianists Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode and Horacio Gutiérrez, perform works written for each. Musical Offerings from 1988, references obliquely Fleisher’s unpleasant departure from his directorship of the Tanglewood Music Festival. Ballade, written for Goode in 1981, allows him to explore Romanticism through a modern lens. Nine Bagatelles (1999) (average length/bagatelle under one minute) are wittily conveyed by Gutiérrez. 

But the star among stars on this twin pack, apart from Perle himself, is cellist Jay Campbell. What a glorious rich cello voice, and what terrific agility from the bass string right up into thumb position! His selections cover the most ground on the recording, in number of works played (four), as well as total length (close to 40 minutes of the two-hour total). Perle clearly loved the instrument and Campbell seems to enjoy playing his work.

08 Alicia Lee ConversationsConversations with Myself
Alicia Lee
New Focus Recordings FCR302 (newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue) 

I’m willing to bet the two years just past have seen a noticeable increase in the number of released CDs of solo instrumental works, prepared in the isolation of one’s practise studio. Conversations With Myself is a selection of solos for clarinet and bass clarinet, some from the years between 1983 and 2007, bookended by works composed in 2020, during the new normal. Alicia Lee writes that the pieces present her “in dialogue with myself… where I was delivering advice to anyone who cared to listen.” 

Dai Fujikura’s Contour for Bass Clarinet opens the disc. Freely melodic and ranging over the low to mid-high range of the instrument, it offers Lee room to show off musicality more than flashy technique. More demanding is Dialogue de l’Ombre Double (the only work for B-flat clarinet) by Pierre Boulez. Two characters emerge from Lee’s confident and affecting performance: the first, in the right channel, is a compulsive repeating motif that then gives way to a mercurial trilling countersubject heard on the left-hand side of the “stage.” At nearly-20-minutes’ length, this is a substantial undertaking, through which Lee’s sound remains clean and assured. In live performance, one of the “shadows” is pre-recorded. Here the effect of “live” versus electronic is overlaid through some highly effective spatial trickery; when in isolation, why not find ways to simulate social engagement? 

If Monolog for Bass Clarinet (1983) by Isang Yun offers advice, I’m not sure what it might be. I love the sounds Lee produces on her grumpy big brother clarinet. Unsuk Chin’s Advice for a Caterpillar (from Alice in Wonderland, 2007) possibly advises poor life choices, in a seductive opium-infused siren song. Hideaki Aomori’s sweetly brief Split, brings the conversations to a close.

Listen to 'Conversations with Myself' Now in the Listening Room

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