Ain’t Got Long
Art of Time Ensemble
Art of Time Recordings ART003 (artoftimeensemble.com) 

Ain’t Got Long features the Toronto-based Art of Time Ensemble led by Andrew Burashko and Jonathan Goldsmith, arranger and producer. Ten numbers by songwriters ranging from Irving Berlin to Radiohead are arranged with distinction by Goldsmith, featuring singers Madeline Peyroux, Gregory Hoskins, Jessica Mitchell and Sarah Slean. Among outstanding instrumentalists, Peter Lutek plays a variety of woodwinds throughout. Goldsmith’s inspired title track uses a solo vocal from one of Alan Lomax’s Prison Songs recordings, successively adding echoing, a beat, increasingly dissonant chords and more. A ripple effect results that expands in time and space and amplifies the prisoner’s cry. 

Especially creative Goldsmith arrangements include Love in Vain (Robert Johnson) where the achingly bluesy vocal by Peyroux is surrounded by Ravelian piano chords, Hendrix-like electric guitar from Rob Piltch, and eventually, dissonant high strings that capture the song’s despair. Another one I like is of Radiohead’s Exit Music (For A Film), sung effectively by Mitchell, who at one point descends unexpectedly into a very low register. The classically based arrangement for piano and strings includes scintillating Chopin-like arpeggios from pianist Burashko, plus familiar high-pitched chords from Der Rosenkavalier at the end. Other songs, with arrangements ranging from traditional to unconventional, include Calling All Angels (Jane Siberry) sung movingly by Hoskins, Sad Song (Lou Reed) with an original vocal interpretation by Slean, and a fine Someone to Watch Over Me (George and Ira Gershwin) by Peyroux.

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On the Other Side of Here
Dan Hill
Sun+Sky Records (danhill.com)

Award-winning Canadian singer/musician/songwriter Dan Hill’s 16-song release, his first in 11 years, is an outstanding addition to his multi-decade catalogue. His first hit, Sometimes When We Touch (1977), is still a favourite of many generations of listeners. Hill does not disappoint here, with more moving songs featuring his trademark lyrics and melodies.

Title track On the Other side of Here is a classic Hill song with chordal piano (John Sheard) and guitar (Anthony Vanderburgh) accompaniments – and multiple harmonic key modulations. What About Black Lives?, released last November as a single/lyric video, is an intense song written in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in the United States. Hill is a child of a mixed-race couple, and expresses his outrage of this horrific event musically with shifting rhythms, dynamics and powerful melodic lyrics in his vocal/piano and Vandenburgh’s guitar performances. Ninety Years Old is heart wrenching, with words like “When you are 90 years old, you are still a little girl” sung above respectful guitar, piano and strings. Pop-flavoured, radio-friendly, faster Sometimes I Feel, composed by Hill and Vanessa Benfield, has Hill singing at the high end of his vocal range and playing rhythmic guitar accompaniment to Vanderburgh’s soundscape on Rhodes. All the other tracks are equally enchanting.

Hill’s songwriting and performance skills are still so very personal yet relatable to us after all these years. Combined with clear production and virtuosic performers, this is another inspiring Hill masterpiece!

This Land
Theo Bleckmann & the Westerlies
Westerlies Records (thewesterliesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/this-land) 

The Westerlies are an inventive brass quartet based in New York (though the members are childhood friends from Seattle) and their music is a mixture of jazz, roots and chamber music (imagine Stephen Foster and Aaron Copland meeting Miles Davis at a church social). This Land is their fourth release and is a collaboration with German singer and composer Theo Bleckmann. The album is a meditation on their shared country of America and includes spirituals, Bertolt Brecht, four Woody Guthrie songs, a stark and arresting version of Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle and the Drum and several originals. Mitchell’s anti-war song is followed by Land, which is trombonist and composer Andy Clausen’s somber setting of Agha Shahid Ali’s poem about immigration, the past and present and America and India. This is followed by a wistful, yet rousing, instrumental version of Guthrie’s Two Good Men (check this performance out on YouTube). Then we have Bleckmann’s Another Holiday which begins with the lyrics “It’s barbecue and pie, the kids will run around, and I’ll sit on the side... .” With its minimalist brass accompaniment and ambiguous lyrics the song manages to be both optimistic and sinister at the same time.  

This Land is a thoughtful and engrossing collection of 15 works which play off one another to create a fascinating concept album about a turbulent America. The heavy dose of Guthrie proves that the past is always with us in the present. The performances are excellent and the combination of voice and brass is highly original. The Westerlies continue to innovate and push far beyond what we might expect from the description “brass quartet.”

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I Pray for My Enemies
Joy Harjo; Various Artists
Sunyata Records JH001 (joyharjo.com)

A curious mixture of spoken word, cutting-edge poetry, funky grooves and a propelling artistic drive, I Pray For My Enemies is one of those albums that cuts straight to the heart and sends a powerful message to the world. There is no hiding from the grittiness of the real world here and no pretense. Joy Harjo, the first Native American U.S. poet laureate and the author of several books of poetry as well as six previous albums, is a force de jour, an artist with strong convictions and a compassionate heart.

Harjo lined up a powerhouse of musicians for this album: Peter Buck (R.E.M) on electric guitar, Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) and Rich Robinson (Black Crowes) pumping out fantastic electric guitar solos, and Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) on acoustic guitar. Barrett Martin is nothing short of amazing in his various roles as a drummer, upright bassist, keyboardist and co-producer. A touch of lyricism and dreaminess provided by Iraqi oud master Rahim Alhaj and trumpeter Dave Carter is cleverly mixed in between and the earthy, rocking solos on sax and flute by Harjo herself add an edge to the rhythmical drive underneath. 

I Pray For My Enemies comprises 16 tracks covering the whole of human existence in today’s world. From empowering Calling the Spirit Back and Running, to the introspective Remember and the clever Rabbit Invents the Saxophone, this album feels borne out of this moment in time, with vulnerability of truth and the stance of a warrior. You will come back to it again and again.

Ontology
Roxana Amed
Sony Music Latin 19439860962 (roxana-amed.com) 

With her seventh release, producer and iconic Argentine folk/rock/jazz vocalist and composer Roxana Amed has manifested a musical project that plumbs the very depths of her identity as a creative artist – as an Argentinian and also as a Floridian, living in the politically bisected United States. The CD title, Ontology, refers to a branch of philosophy that studies deep concepts such as existence, becoming and being, and how entities/energies of different groupings manage to co-exist. Recorded amidst the COVID-19 pandemic at the world-famous Hit Factory in Miami, Amed has conducted her own esoteric exploration, incorporating primarily her own compositions and framing her pieces with an exquisite quintet, variously featuring Martin Bejerano on piano; Mark Small on sax; Tim Jago/Aaron Lebos on guitar; Edward Perez/Lowell Ringel on acoustic bass; Carlo De Rosa on electric and acoustic bass; and Rodolfo Zuniga/Ludwig Alfonso on drums.

First up is Tumbleweed – an inspired piece, conjuring up motifs of the cinematic American ancient West. Amed’s silky, dusky, powerful instrument crawls through the remote desert scenario and creates beauty in the seemingly unending, isolate topography of the Western states, while the ensemble dips, swings and sways with acuity and intention.

A stellar standout is Chacarera para la Mano Izquierda – this sumptuous, sexy, enhanced rural tango features a spine-tingling solo from Bejerano and thoroughly lovely and agile scatting from Amed. Additionally, the title track is so rich and compelling that it’s of little importance what language this gifted communicator is using. Danza de la Moza Donosa is a lightening quick, solid, bebop-ish jazz composition featuring Amed’s supple and potent chops. Without question, this is one of the most original and well performed jazz-related vocal CDs of this year!

Anthony Braxton – composer, theorist, master of reeds, philosopher of play – has been recording for over half a century now and has often done so exhaustively. It began in 1969, when the recorded history of improvised solo wind performances consisted of a few brief pieces by Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Giuffre. The young Braxton declared his arrival with a two-LP solo set called For Alto, outlining a musical language that he’s been exploring and expanding ever since, with larger and larger projects and titles ever more evocative or mysterious, like the Ghost Trance Music and Diamond Curtain Wall. In 2019, in his 75th year, he presented a six-hour performance of Sonic Genome at Berlin’s Gropius Bau, with 60 musicians spread throughout the museum drawing randomly from Braxton’s vast compositional output. Graham Lock suggested his significance in the subtitle of his book Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton. Possible alternatives? You might as readily match Braxton with Olivier Messiaen, Karlheinz Stockhausen or Harry Partch as a composer who has constructed his own universe. 

Braxton’s latest compositional series is called ZIM – Anthony Braxton: 12 COMP (ZIM) 2017 (Firehouse 12 tricentricfoundation.org; firehouse12records.com). He has just released its first substantial documentation on a single audio Blu-ray disc: 12 pieces, ranging from 40 to 73 minutes each, over ten hours altogether, recorded over a 14-month period by groups ranging from sextet to nonet in the U.S., Montreal and London. As usual though, the real wonder of Braxton’s work is in the listening, not the clock-watching, despite the hourglass he will place on a stage at the start of a piece, signal of a time apart: ancient, infinite, even granular. 

Along with Braxton and his reeds, the group constants are Taylor Ho Bynum playing cornets and trombone; tubist Dan Peck and harpist Jacqui Kerrod. Another harpist – there are three others – is always present; accordionist Adam Matlock appears on 11 of the pieces; cellist Tomeka Reid appears on eight; violinist Jean Cook on three; saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and trumpeter Stephanie Richards figure in the nonet’s four performances. The harps, strings and accordion are key to the music’s special qualities: it is often sweeping, fluid and delicate, though those dreamlike and gentle textures mingle and fuse with the diverse sounds supplied by the winds. Braxton’s own alto saxophone can range from silky sweet to abrasive, and he also brings along instruments ranging from sopranino saxophone to contrabass clarinet.  

Braxton provides extensive notes in an accompanying booklet, and they’re as rich and playful as the music, which can sound as natural as a convergence of streams in a pond: “the notated material is positioned on top of an ‘unstable metric gravity’. This is a ‘wobbly music architecture’.” This multiple and unpredictable movement defines the music, a brilliant confluence of composed and improvised elements, a sonic flux of such delicacy that rhythmic, tonal and timbral incongruities combine to suggest an immersion in the spirit of change. 

Braxton has previously remarked that “I want the undefined component of my music to be on an equal par with the defined component,” and it’s a goal that he continues to extend here. If James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is the most musical of books, Braxton’s ZIM is its double, diverging concordances passing over and through one another in a babbling dream discourse, free in some sense that music rarely is, as diverse in its methods as in its favoured sonorities, from those sibilant saxophones to brash brass blasts and hand-swept harp strings.

Whichever iteration of the group appears, the performance suggests it’s the ideal scale. As broad as the invention becomes, there’s always a sense of meaning rather than mere novelty, each event arising with its own certainty, however realized, an inevitability in accord with the logic of a dream, including a strange nonet passage in Composition No.415 in which Peck’s tuba wanders in a field of sudden pointillist punctuations from the other winds.  

By the time the septet reaches the final performances at London’s Café OTO, the pieces have stretched past the 70-minute mark and the strange fusions, mergers and discontinuities are ever more fully realized, the group pressing further and further into new territories, all the way to brief and uncredited vocal outbursts. On Composition No.420, Braxton’s alto initially fuses with the accordion and two harps; later he matches his sopranino’s whistle with Cook’s violin, which can also suggest an erhu; Bynum’s cornet flutters on a carpet of strummed harps, then whispers while the harpists diverge, one maintaining conventions while the other becomes percussionist and guitarist, striking the frame, slapping chords and picking a sparse melody. At times there’s an aviary in Braxton’s horns, from goose squawk to piping sparrow, while Peck’s tuba emits a low frequency hum that seems momentarily electronic. Toward the end, anarchic near-New Orleans jazz explodes and a harp sounds like elastic bands.    

Braxton’s ZIM is music of surprise. These are broad aural canvases in which the participants surprise themselves as well as one another, reaching toward a collective music that breeds in myriad individual encounters and in which close conversationalists will come to finish one another’s sentences – a saxophone’s phrase becoming an accordion’s. It’s the sound of recognition and empathy, one mind, like one sound, becoming another.  

Editor’s Note: Stuart Broomer is the author of Time and Anthony Braxton (Toronto: The Mercury Press, 2009).

Although unusual before that time, by the early 1960s a trio consisting of a double bass and drums, with a saxophone upfront, became increasingly common in jazz and improvised music. Initially influenced by the sound explorations of Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman, the configuration has since become so common that it rivals the traditional piano trio. Stripping interactive textures to their most basic with one woodwind, one percussion instrument and one string instrument challenges trio members to be as creative within these limitations as they would in a larger group. 

French soprano/sopranino saxophonist Michel Doneda, who has been involved in varying improv configurations over the past 40 years, adapts to this format as part of CDWEIN14 weinsistrecords.com). Joined by Italians, veteran percussionist Filippo Monico and much younger bassist Andrea Grossi, the three create a mixture of multiphonics and melody with almost half the CD given over to the seven-part f.t.f suite. Memorable interpretations and intersections emerge on all tracks, with Grossi’s col legno and spiccato thrusts serving as contrapuntal foil to Doneda’s multiphonic explorations. Limiting himself to the occasional shuffle or cymbal accent with an irregular pulse, Monico stays in the background. Meanwhile, from the introductory not impro in roc all the way to the concluding re:call, the saxist and bassist operate like an accomplished comedy team feeding each other unexpected lines and reacting by topping or embellishing the japes. On the first tune this involves matching triple tongued saxophone shrills with elevated string pressure that almost replicates reed properties. A proper finale, re:call climaxes as mellow reed burbles hook up with balanced string strokes, after spiralling sopranino squeaks from inside the horn’s body tube are challenged by swaying string slaps. As for the suite, almost every imaginable timbre is exposed during each brief, connected sequence. Tremolo bagpipe-like drones alternate with compressed air forced out of the horn without key movement; or terse reed peeps share space with inflated aviary-like shrills from Doneda. Meanwhile Grossi’s expositions encompass techniques ranging from fluid spiccato strops to full-toned rhythmic vibrations, to echoing strokes that resemble the mechanics of long-string compositions in notated music.

Arriving from an almost diametrically opposed concept is GLOTZE I (Boomslang Records Boom 0613 boomslangrecords.bandcamp.com), an eponymously named German trio whose briskly kinetic tracks move on from the speed and strength projected by many freeform trios since the heyday of energy music. Adding echoing strokes from Philipp Martin’s electric bass to the power pulse of drummer Philipp Scholz and the strident bites of alto saxophonist Mark Weschenfelder, the band ends up with 11 miniatures as reminiscent of the Ramones as Rollins or Return To Forever. While it’s only the final De Wert that features overwrought buzzing from the bassist and noisy tones launched or unexpectedly cut off by the saxophonist’s overblowing, other tunes have arena rock equivalents. They include Klangschale #1, a cymbal vibrating, bell-tree shaking, water-bottle popping percussion showcase for Scholz. Other tracks are more reminiscent of Ornette Coleman’s electric bands, as harsh saxophone yelps are matched by stentorian thumb pops or sluicing vibrations from the electric bass, all of which evolves over a carpet of buzzing percussion and cymbal crashes. At the same time Weschenfelder’s playing isn’t all frenetic flattement and split tones. For every tongue-slapping variation there are tracks such as Durchführung #1 and Hobel #3 where floating trills and breathy straight-ahead theme elaborations are buoyant enough to bring Paul Desmond to mind and are met by sympathetic guitar-like comping from Martin.

Meanwhile the Lille, France-based More Soma trio on Hondendodendans (Microcidi 019 circum-disc.com) stretches the creation of freeform improvisation into the 21st century, giving it a more luminously layered but no less ecstatic cast. Built around the altissimo smears, basso scoops and split tones of alto and baritone saxophonist JB Rubin, the ruffs and rebounds from drummer Fred L’Homme and the sweeps or dot-dash plucks of bassist Mathieu Millet, the three gallop through four tracks with moderated responsiveness coupled with unpredictable invention. On a tune such as God B, Rubin’s vibrations from the sax’s body tube, coupled with flutter tonguing, projects a secondary, complementary tone alongside the baritone sax’s lowest reaches. Still open-palm drum shuffles and reverberating slaps from the bassist preserve the broken octave narrative. Similar power dynamics are expressed on alto saxophone features like Dog A as Millet’s seemingly unstoppable strumming sets the pace even as L’Homme’s ruffs and paradiddles redefine the time and Rubin’s duck quacking and corkscrew honks repeatedly fragment pitches. Triple cohesive refinement, however, ensures that no matter how many reed multiphonics are snarled upwards, bass strings stropped or drum pressure applied, horizontal expositions are maintained.

This necessary balance is more obvious on Zacharya (Double Moon/Challenge Records OMCHR 71387 uassyn.com), the debut CD of the young Swiss trio Uassyn. Eschewing rock or ecstatic jazz influences, this group’s music is so scrupulously symmetrical that at times it threatens to become bloodless. Luckily the accomplished ingenuity of alto saxophonist Tapiwa Svosve, bassist Silvan Jeger and drummer Vincent Glanzmann means that the six joint instant compositions are enlivened by textural deviations even as triple coordination keep the tunes on level paths. Working up to an unforeseen group definition on the last track, the trio runs through variants in tempos ranging from adagio to allegro and uses breaks and fragmented patterns to pace brief solos. Svosve projects lower-case breaths and gusty smears with the same facility as Jeger’s oscillating strokes, and Glanzmann’s clanks and slaps propel the music without strain. Most notable are Mmoosh and Kheretem, the penultimate and concluding tracks. The former is an original concept where disconnected reed stops, echoing drum vibrations and bass string drones define the piece without much ambulatory motion. Likewise avoiding any faux-exoticism in their use, the three players clap and shake bells to introduce Kheretem, then employ these metallic resonations along with pinpointed ruffs, cymbal clashing and string slaps to confirm the exposition as the saxophonist decorates its evolution with continuously ascending reed arabesques.

Another unique take on this configuration is on Aliseen (577 Records 5846 577records.com) which mixes improvised jazz iterations with currents of traditional Finnish folk sounds. That means multi-reedist Jorma Tapio & his Kaski band of bassist Ville Rauhala and percussionist Janne Tuomi astutely manoeuvre among idioms. While a track like Nukunuku is the most overtly folksy, with low-pitched wooden flute puffs evolving over biting string drones, the preceding Way Off is closest to free jazz, with continuous snarling glossolalia and split-tone screams from Tapio’s tenor saxophone, the performances are separate enough so sonic schizophrenia doesn’t result. In fact the concluding title tune, which makes extensive use of string buzzes from kanteles or Finnish zithers played by the saxist and drummer in tandem with bass strokes, mostly serves as an idiosyncratic confirmation of the trio’s Nordic identity. Besides that though, emphasis is on contemporary improvisation. Rauhala’s subtly expressive plucks are upfront on a couple of tracks and Tuomi’s pinpointed cymbal clatter and hi-hat pulses join him on Siltasalmi. As for Tapio, playing flute on She’s Back, he produces Herbie Mann-like shrills with funky echoes and the same facility that his slashing alto saxophone cries suggest Ornette Coleman on a track with the ethnic title of Lasten Juhlat.   

No matter which woodwind is used alongside the bass and percussion on these discs, invention and originality are projected from each.

Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Columbia Legacy – The Legendary Mono Recordings 1944-1958
Sony Masterworks 194397574821 (120 CDs, 200-page hardcover book)

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s opinion of the Philadelphia Orchestra as “The World’s Greatest Orchestra” was proudly quoted by Columbia Masterworks across the top of the covers of their Philadelphia Orchestra releases on LPs in the 1950s. The actual quote from Rachmaninoff, who made many recordings with the orchestra, was “the finest orchestra the world has ever known” which boils down to the same thing.

The Philadelphia Orchestra was founded in 1900 and in 1910 Leopold Stokowski became their third music director, a post that he kept until 1938 when he was succeeded by Eugene Ormandy. Stokowski’s association with the orchestral continued until 1941 and the luxuriant virtuoso character of the orchestra was established during his tenure. The Academy of Music, the orchestra’s home, had been designed for opera and was less than an ideal venue for symphonic music. Stokowski adjusted the seating to balance the sonorities. He was an organist and he played the orchestra like an organ and together with free bowing in the strings, cultivated the maximum of colour and texture… the evolution of the famous Philadelphia Sound.

Ormandy was born Jenö Blau in Budapest on November 18, 1899. He was a child prodigy and at the age of five became the youngest student at the Budapest Royal Academy of Music and later won the State Diploma for Violin Playing. He was a pupil of Jenö Hubay, who was also the teacher of Joseph Szigeti and Jelly d’Aranyi. He graduated in 1913 and within four years he was appointed a professorship at the Academy. He modestly pointed out that he was only the third-best violinist in the world, after Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz.

Blau came to America in 1920 after being tricked by a dishonest impresario into accepting a specious engagement there. It was around this time that he changed his name. He worked as a backbencher at a silent movie orchestra in New York and rapidly advanced to first violin and then conductor of the orchestra at the Capitol Theater, one of the largest motion-picture theatres of the day. Becoming a U.S. citizen in 1927, Ormandy gained professional experience and received plaudits as conductor of the CBS Radio Orchestra. As pointed out in the accompanying 200-page hardcover book, his career was initially guided by pure chance and his ability to see the opportunities that were offered him. It gained irresistible momentum in 1931 when he took over the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, his first post as the principal conductor of a symphony orchestra. While there he made a number of Victor recordings including the premieres of Kodály’s Háry János Suite, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht and a specially commissioned recording of Roy Harris’ American Overture, as well as renowned versions of Bruckner’s Seventh and Mahler’s Second Symphonies which bolstered his reputation. 

By 1936, Ormandy had been appointed associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, second in command to Stokowski, and in 1938 he became that orchestra’s music director. Ormandy remained at the helm in Philadelphia until his retirement in 1980, upon which he became conductor laureate. He died in 1985. Under his tutelage Stokowski’s practice of free bowing was abandoned and the cohesive, lush and distinctive Philadelphia Sound was further refined and personalized. He believed that the Philadelphia Sound should more properly be called the Ormandy Sound. 

His Philadelphia discography began with Nathan Milstein playing a slightly truncated version of the Lalo Symphonie Espagnole, regrettably without the third movement, recorded in November 1944 and March 1945, issued in June of that year. This is, appropriately, the first performance heard in the 120-CD set of every one of the monaural recordings Ormandy made with his Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philadelphia “Pops” between 1944 and 1958. The sound is flawless and solidly real.

There is of course not enough space to list or comment on each performance of this definitive set, but here are some that stand out: Khachaturian’s Gayne Ballet; Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky; Copland’s Appalachian Spring; and a spectacular 1953 performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Of particular note are recordings from two acoustically superior venues, Glière’s Symphony No.3, “Ilya Muromets” from the Broadwood Hotel in Philadelphia, and Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony No.3 from Symphony Hall in Boston, both dating from 1956.  There’s also lots of Bach (including Ormandy organ transcriptions), Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and lighter fare from Gershwin, Franz Lehár, Victor Herbert and Richard Rodgers. Soloists include such noted instrumentalists as Rudolf Serkin, Robert Casadesus, Oscar Levant, György Sándor, Claudio Arrau, Eugene Istomin, Gregor Piatigorsky, Joseph Szigeti, Isaac Stern and E. Power Biggs. Some of the finest singers of the era are included – Bidu Sayão, Stella Roman, Martha Lipton, Frederick Jagel, Jennie Tourel, Richard Tucker and David Lloyd, to name just a few – plus the Westminster and Temple University Choirs and the Metropolitan Opera Chorus. The list goes on and on (and on). 

 So here we have it: “The world’s greatest orchestra” with their chosen music director playing music from Bach to the modern era, in remastered recordings, many of which are issued here for the first time on CD. Should it be changed to “The Ormandy Sound”? With 152 recordings on CD for the first time ever, 139 recordings for the first time on CD as authorized releases from the original masters and 16 remastered recordings, all featuring their original LP artworks, there’s a good case to be made for that here!

The Music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra
Tafelmusik Media 880513103227  (tafelmusik.org) 

One of Tafelmusik’s most interesting and exciting recordings has recently been re-released, available on all major digital platforms. Originally recorded by CBC Records in 2003, The Music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges features a generous sampling of the music of the one of the most fascinating, influential and multi-talented figures of late-18th-century Paris. In the excellent essay commissioned for the re-release, Bologne expert Marlon Daniel writes: “A remarkable violinist, orchestra leader, and composer, [Bologne] was at the centre of Parisian musical life in the late 1700s. He was a trailblazer who commissioned and led performances of great works, such as the six Paris Symphonies of Haydn.” He was also a celebrated fencer, military leader and, as this recording demonstrates, a first-rate composer. 

The recording features stylishly elegant performances of the Symphony in G Major, Op.11, No.1 and the Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.3, No.1, the latter featuring the sensational playing of Linda Melsted. Also included are charming excerpts from L’amant anonyme, the only surviving opera by Bologne (recently given its Canadian premiere by Opera McGill), and music by Leclair and Gossec. The recorded sound is excellent and the orchestra, under the direction of Jeanne Lamon, digs into the music with passion and grace.

Though Bologne was well-regarded and knew great success in his time, he also encountered racism and was blocked from attaining even more prominent positions – which he deserved – because of the colour of his skin. As wonderful as this recording’s program and performances are, its re-release is important because it puts Bologne’s achievements and remarkable skill as a composer at the centre of the project and celebrates him for the great artist that he was. Daniel’s essay is fascinating, and the accompanying artwork by Gordon Shadrach is beautiful and deeply moving. Let’s hope that Tafelmusik will give us much more of Bologne’s fabulous music in future concerts and recordings. 

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Everybody Still Digs Bill Evans: A Career Retrospective (1956-1980)
Bill Evans Trio
Craft Recordings (craftrecordings.com)  

On a Friday Evening
Bill Evans Trio
Craft Recordings (craftrecordings.com)

Emerging in the mid-1950s in New York, pianist Bill Evans already combined an expanded harmonic vocabulary and subtly nuanced voicings, emphasizing elements of Scriabin and Ravel unusual in jazz. He contributed substantially to Miles Davis’ 1959 landmark Kind of Blue, while his own group redefined the jazz piano trio as a complex, interactive organism. Unlike Davis, who innovated repeatedly and radically, Evans would mine his defined territory for the rest of his career. This handsome, book-like set celebrates Evans’ work with a career-spanning essay by Neil Tesser and five CDs, some 61 tracks, devoted to different aspects of his art. Produced by Nick Phillips and drawn from multiple record labels, the set is both representative and distinguished, spotlighting gems from Evans’ career.           

Ranging from his 1956 debut as a bandleader to a club performance recorded two weeks before his death in 1980, the first two discs are devoted to trios, the focus of Evans’ performing life. While the earliest recordings present him with conventional if masterful accompanists, e.g. bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones, the major shift, for Evans and much of the format’s future, comes with the 1960 debut of his group with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, the former largely abandoning walking-bass lines for virtuosic counter melodies. While La Faro’s death in 1961 momentarily stalled the group’s development, his influence would soon provide successors, particularly Eddie Gomez and Marc Johnson, who inspired Evans for key periods over the next 19 years.   

Disc Three is devoted to Evans’ solo and occasionally multiple piano recordings, some of the most luminously introspective piano music that the 20th century produced, whether in or out of jazz. The shimmering, trance-like beauty of Peace Piece, from 1958, reveals Evans as already a completely formed artist. Three overdubbed tracks from Conversations with Myself and its sequels emphasize the introspection, like the mournful N.Y.C.’s No Lark, the title an anagram for deceased fellow pianist Sonny Clark.   

Disc Four presents Evans’ various collaborations, including duos with singer Tony Bennett, guitarist Jim Hall, and saxophonists Stan Getz and Lee Konitz. The Interplay quintet sessions from 1961 match the diverse talents of Hall, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and saxophonist Zoot Sims, effectively bridging hard bop and cool styles.   

The fifth CD breaks the pattern. It‘s a previously unreleased hour-long trio set from Vancouver’s Oil Can Harry’s. Recorded on June 20, 1975, it highlights the spontaneous interplay with Eddie Gomez and Eliot Zigmund.  The material ranges from Evans’ own The Two Lonely People to the younger pianist Denny Zeitlin’s Quiet Now, Jerome Kern’s Up with the Lark and jazz tunes from Mercer Ellington’s Blue Serge to Miles Davis’ Nardis. For Evans enthusiasts who have the bulk of the material from the four-CD overview, this is also available from Craft Recordings as On a Friday Evening on two-LPs or CD.

Albert Ayler Quintet 1966:
Berlin, Lörrach, Paris & Stockholm Revisited
ezz-thetics 2-1117 (hathut.com) 

A historical keepsake from the first extensive European tour by the quintet of innovative tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler (1936-1970), this two-CD 16-track set features re-mastered radio broadcasts from each of the cities visited. It’s notable, since except for trumpeter Donald Ayler, the band was completely new and included bassist William Folwell, drummer Beaver Harris and violinist Michel Samson. Someone who came from and returned to contemporary notated music, Samson’s emphatic, astringent string slices and staccato glissandi immeasurably change the interpretation of Ayler originals.

Concert considerations mean that Truth is Marching In, Our Prayer, Bells and Ghosts, for instance, are played three times, often as part of a medley, yet each has a unique emphasis. In Berlin, Truth… is treated as a bouncy march with trumpet yodels, string jumps and drum ruffs; in Lörrach, it starts as a refined dirge before guttural saxophone split tones and presto brass sprays jerk the theme to a bouncy climax. In Stockholm, the interpretation judders between a detached harmonized exposition and a climax that kinetically projects altissimo reed screeches and drum pops. Samson’s double and triple stopping frequently contrast with Ayler’s pitch straining, honking scoops and multiple theme interpolation — Paris hears snatches of La Marseillaise, for instance. Yet those triple-tune renditions, versions of other compositions played twice and new versions of some little-recorded Ayler lines, mean the end result is unique. A half century on, Ayler’s mix of spiritual seriousness and carnival-like jollity remains inimitable. Yet this set offers a different and rare take on his creations.

During the pandemic I have been spending some of my enforced stay-at-home time digitizing material from my archives, specifically composer interviews recorded during my tenure as producer and host of Transfigured Night on CKLN-FM (1984-1991). One of the earliest I have unearthed comes from January 1986, on a show previewing an event marking the 15th anniversary of the founding of New Music Concerts (NMC). On that occasion I devoted an hour to young composer and guitarist Tim Brady who discussed, among other things, the Chamber Concerto – commissioned by NMC – which would be premiered during that celebratory concert. That was Brady’s first of many appearances with NMC over the ensuing years, and my first encounter with one of this country’s most prolific and eclectic composers and musical entrepreneurs. His discography includes some 25 compact discs and the pandemic has not succeeded in slowing him down. Most recently he released a virtual edition of Instruments of Happiness 100 Guitars 2021 produced in isolation (youtube.com/watch?v=yODkTMXqFKg) and a three-CD set of mostly new material Tim Brady – Actions Speak Louder (redshiftrecords.org). 

Act 1: Solos and a Quartet, is subtitled “Simple Loops in Complex Times,” which describes not only the process involved but also the temporal context in which the seven works were composed. Brady is a master when it comes to the technology available to extend the potential of the electric guitar. It’s hard to conceive of these works as solos with all the multi-layering and timbral complexity on display, but I realize that Brady can indeed perform these works by himself in real time using a plethora of looping devices and effects pedals. The final piece, Uncertain Impact (Quartet), was recorded one month into the COVID quarantine, with distanced, virtual performances featuring the members of his guitar quartet, Instruments of Happiness. On Act 2: v-Orchestra: Triple Concerto “Because Everything Has Changed”, Brady is joined by Helmut Lipsky on violin and Shawn Mativetsky, tabla and percussion. The three improvising soloists are known collectively as Of Sound, Mind and Body. Brady says the title of the concerto “refers not only to the nature of the social and political landscape of 2020, but also to how our relationship to music is continuing to be transformed by technology.” The virtual orchestra consists of sound files produced by Brady using NotePerformer 3.3.2 (an artificial intelligence instrument) to which the soloists reacted with improvised harmonies, melodies and rhythms recorded in their home studios. The result is a stunning reimagining of the orchestral experience in the context of current lockdown protocols. Act 3: Voices: Revolutionary Songs / As It Happened is comprised of an archival recording from 1995 of Brady’s setting of poems inspired by the Russian, Angolan, French and Nicaraguan revolutions featuring Bradyworks with soprano Nathalie Paulin; and an orchestrated radio documentary using a 2000 CBC interview with Linda MacDonald, who had been the subject of horrific drug and shock therapy experiments funded by the CIA at the Allen Institute in Montreal in the 1960s. The latter, Brady’s most ambitious studio production to date, is a powerful and devastating document that has to be heard to be believed. Actions Speak Louder may well be Brady’s own motto. It’s obvious that it will take more than a global pandemic to stifle his creativity.   

Juilliard String Quartet – Beethoven: Quartet Op.59 No.2 “Razumovsky”, Bartók: Quartet No.3, Dvořák: “American” String Quartet (Sony Classical juilliardstringquartet.org) marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the iconic group. The Juilliard made history in 1949 as the first quartet to publicly perform all six Bartók quartets, committing them to disc the following year. By the time of their second recording of the cycle in 1961, founding second violinist Robert Koff had been replaced by Isadore Cohen and cellist Arthur Winograd by Claus Adam. By the mid-70s, when I had the seminal experience of hearing them perform the cycle at the Guelph Festival, the only remaining original member was Robert Mann who would continue to sit in the first chair until 1997, when he retired after more than half a century at the helm. Over the years there have been nine different violinists, three violists and four cellists, but always with a substantial overlap of personnel whenever changes were made. Now the “old hand” is Ronald Copes who was enlisted as second violin in 1997 when Joel Smirnoff moved from second to first upon the departure of Mann. The other members are Roger Tapping, violist since 2013, Astrid Schween, cellist since 2016 and the new first violinist, Areta Zhulia, who joined in 2018. This is their first recording together, but there is no sense of that in the performances; they sound as if they have always been together, a testament to the group’s ongoing legacy. The introductory notes explain the choice of repertoire. Franz Kneisel, a young German hired as concertmaster of the Boston Symphony in 1885, would later became the first head of the violin department of the Institute of Musical Arts in NYC that would evolve into the Juilliard School. His Kneisel Quartet gave the premiere performance of Dvořák’s “American” string quartet in Boston in 1894. Bartók’s Third was the first of the cycle that the Juilliard learned shortly after their founding in 1946, and Beethoven has always been an integral part of their repertoire, including two complete recordings of his legendary 16 quartets. The performances are fresh and convincing, everything we’ve come to expect over the past three quarters of a century from this masterful ensemble. 

Speaking of Beethoven, last issue I mentioned Heinrich Schiff and his out-of-print recording of the cello sonatas. I’m pleased to note that a very fine new recording arrived on my desk this month, Beethoven Cello Sonatas 3 and 4 performed by Amit Peled accompanied by Noreen Polera (CTM Classics amitpeled.com). The Israeli-born cellist is on the faculty of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and has a dozen previous recordings as soloist and chamber musician to his credit. Peled’s Giovanni Grancino instrument (c.1695, on loan from the Roux Family Foundation) provides the perfect depth and range of sound for the lyrical and dramatic Sonata No.3 in A Major, Op.69, in perfect balance with Polera’s deft touch on a modern grand piano. Together they shine on the Sonata No.4 in C Major, Op.102 No.1, the two movements of which each begin in a contemplative slow tempo, much darker in mood than the sunny key signature might suggest. The clouds roll away, however, during the Allegro vivace finale of the second movement bringing this recital to a playful end. 

Beethoven’s late works form a bridge from the Classical era to the Romantic, and the next disc has some striking works for cello from this latter period. Romantic Cello on KNS Classical features works by Schumann, Brahms and Brahms’ only composition student, Gustav Uwe Jenner, performed by young Toronto-based cellist Thomas Chartré (thomaschartre.com) and Ukrainian-born pianist Serhiy Salov (serhiysalov.com). Among Chartré’s accolades is a first prize in the Canadian Music Competition, the Sylva Gelber Award, and the loan of the “Gand Père” cello from the Canada Council Instrument Bank in 2016. He currently plays a Giovanni Battista Ceruti cello (1815) on loan from Canimex which is perfectly suited to the repertoire on display here. Salov also has many achievements and awards, but surely a highlight of his young career was touring South America with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Kent Nagano, as soloist in Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto. I must confess that Jenner’s name was new to me, but what a wonderful expansion of my knowledge of the period. It was thanks to a recommendation from Brahms that Jenner was appointed music director at the University of Maltburg in 1895, a position he held until his death 25 years later. The Sonata in D Major was first performed by Jenner and cellist Hugo Becker in 1904, and although quite Brahmsian in its sensibility, it is infused, in Chartré’s words, “with Jenner’s distinctive artistic voice.” The three-movement work in the traditional fast-slow-fast form is lyrical and at times dramatic, if a bit anachronistic – nothing forward-looking here. Of particular note is the Andante con variazioni played with tasteful expression and restrained use of vibrato. Jenner’s piece is followed by Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro Op.70 composed in 1849. Although originally for French horn, a relatively new invention at the time, and taking advantage of the chromatic possibilities of that valved instrument, the composer also intended it for performance on violin, viola or cello. It works especially well in the warm, rich range of the cello in the hands of Chartré. Brahms’ Cello Sonata No.1 in E Minor, Op.38, completed in 1865, brings the disc to a suitably Romantic close. This is a promising maiden voyage from a young duo that I hope to hear more of.

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Rossini – 6 Sonate a Quattro (leaf-music.ca) features two musicians who need no introduction, violinist Mark Fewer and bassist Joel Quarrington, and two rising stars, violinist Yolanda Bruno and cellist Julian Schwarz. They were recorded in conjunction with residencies at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in Nova Scotia in 2017. I had the pleasure of working with Bruno in May 2018 when her Iris Ensemble participated in New Music Concerts’ “Zipangu!” as part of the 21C Festival. On that occasion she played both violin and viola. Coincidentally, she was the recipient of the loan of the Stradivari Taft violin (1700) from the Canada Council Instrument Bank the same year that Chartré had the “Gand Père” cello. Schwarz, scion of the famed American musical family, made his US touring debut in 2010 with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra and was the recipient of the first prize at the inaugural Schoenfeld International String Competition three years later. Rossini’s sonate a quattro are youthful works, disavowed by the composer as “dreadful sonatas composed […] at a most infantile age, not even having taken a lesson in accompaniment.” That being said, they are charming works that must be a lot of fun to play – it certainly sounds like these musicians are having a good time at any rate. Written at the estate of Rossini’s friend Agostino Triossi at the age of 12, the unusual instrumentation – two violins, cello and contrabass – reflect the resources available there: Triossi played the bass, his cousins violin and cello, and Rossini took second desk. Rossini’s scorn notwithstanding, these pieces have been in the repertoire ever since he wrote them. They were first published as traditional string quartets and later in an arrangement for wind quartet; it was not until 1954 that the original manuscript came to light. These performances use the 2014 Critical Edition published by the Fondazione Rossini Pesaro and as such I am willing to declare them definitive. Although there are few indications of the operatic writing to come from one of the giants of that form, these are delightful works played with a twinkle in the musicians’ eyes and a sparkle in their step. One more personal note: after reading Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music which mentioned a “lost” string quintet arrangement of one of Beethoven’s piano trios, I had the temerity to ask Fewer whether he would be willing to read through the piece with me and a group of my friends. He agreed and it remains one of the highlights of my amateur music making to have spent an afternoon working on this rarely performed piece with such a consummate musician. As I recall, he did not think very highly of the string writing adapted from the piano part, but was gracious about it all and the afternoon provided me a treasured memory.

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Although I’ve never been to the South Pacific, there is a connection for me with the next disc, Rapa Nui Odyssey (Rubicon RCD 1066 rubiconclassics.com). Last issue I mentioned Liszt’s transcription for piano trio of Vallée d’Obermann from one of his Années de pèlerinage. I was not familiar with the original and wondered how all that was going on between the piano, violin and cello could have been realized in a solo piano performance. My answer came in the form of this double CD featuring Mahani Teave performing that work by Liszt and other staples of the repertoire by Bach, Handel, Scriabin, Chopin and Rachmaninoff. Teave was born on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) to an American mother and a local singer/songwriter. Music was in her blood, so to speak, and when the opportunity came to study piano – there was none on the island until a visiting teacher brought one when Teave was a young girl – she took to it like wildfire. The teacher, a violinist by profession, did not have any simple piano music and Teave’s introduction to the instrument was Mozart’s Sonata in C Major – considered easy, but by no means a beginner’s piece – and Beethoven’s Für Elise. She practised incessantly and advanced to such a degree that just a few months after those lessons Roberto Bravo, a well-known pianist from Chile who visited the island and heard her play, suggested she move to the mainland to study. She spent nine years there, receiving a degree from the Austral University of Chile in Valdivia and eventually won first prize at the Claudio Arrau Piano Competition in 1999. Teave left Valdivia with the intent to study in Europe, but a stop off in the US for a masterclass turned into a six-year stint at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a pupil of Sergei Babayan. From there she was off to Berlin to build her performing career under the wing of Fabio Bidini. This is certainly the stuff on which major careers are built, but after a few years of successful concertizing in Europe Teave decided it was more important to return to her native island to give back to the land that fostered her interest and her talent in the first place. Since then she has established an arts and culture centre to serve all the children of Rapa Nui. Her crusade for musical culture could be favourably compared to Venezuela’s El Sistema in my opinion, but her vision goes beyond culture to encompass ecology and to making the island self-sufficient. There is a wonderful film by John Forsen, Song of Rapa Nui, available (exclusively unfortunately) on Amazon Prime Video that I highly recommend. It documents her life in music, but more importantly her vision for the future of Rapa Nui and its people. Fortunately, her work there has not compromised her own performance abilities and this wonderful 2CD set, recorded in Seattle in November 2018, is a fine testament to her art. 

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

There are two fascinating CDs from Canadian guitarist Emma Rush. On Fandango by the Azuline Duo she is joined by flutist Sara Traficante in a program of mostly contemporary works for flute and guitar (azulineduo.com). The title track is the duo’s own arrangement of a piece for solo Baroque guitar by Santiago de Murcia (1673-1739); the duo also arranged the two works by the Brazilian Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935).

Traficante plays alto flute in Miroslav Tadić’s Macedonian Pieces and wooden flute and tin whistle in Five Celtic Pieces, Gerald Garcia’s striking arrangements of traditional Irish and Scottish melodies. Maximo Diego Pujol’s Nubes de Buenos Aires and Jeffrey McFadden’s Aguardiente complete a refreshingly different and quite beautiful CD.

Rush’s solo CD Wake the Sigh – 19th Century Music for Guitar (emma-rush.com) opens a window on a world we rarely encounter with a collection of works for both accomplished amateur guitarists and professional players, all written by women, five of whom were renowned soloists in their own right.

Featured are: Emilia Giuliani-Guglielmi (1813-1850); Angiolina Panormo Huerta (1811-1900); Catharina Pratten (1824-1895); Susan C. Domett (1826-1911); Julie Fondard (1819-1864?); Julia Piston (c.1800-1842); and Madame Delores de Goñi (1813-1892).

As with the Fandango CD, there’s clean, sensitive playing of an intriguing program. No information on when or where they were recorded, other than “in Hamilton Ontario, produced and engineered by Kirk Starkey,” who clearly did a terrific job.

Napoli 1810: Italian Romantic Music is the first album on the Analekta label for Canadian guitarist Pascal Valois, who performs music from the Romantic era on period instruments (AN 2 9195 analekta.com/en). The guitar here is a Cabasse-Bernard model c.1820 with a soft, warm sound – not big, but with a nice range of colour and tone.

Italian music, with its strong bel canto vocal influence, dominated the early-19th-century virtuoso guitar repertoire, and Valois uses period-appropriate elements of the style to highlight the lyrical nature of the music. Niccolò Paganini’s Grand Sonata, Mauro Giuliani’s Sonata Op.15 and Ferdinando Carulli’s Six Andantes Op.320, his Sonatina Op.59 No.1 and Sonata Op.159 No.1 – the latter two in world-premiere recordings – make an attractive and finely played recital.

Renaud Capuçon is the soloist on Elgar Violin Concerto & Violin Sonata with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, pianist Stephen Hough joining Capuçon in the sonata (Erato 9029511282 warnerclassics.com).

Capuçon admits that the concerto has always moved him deeply, and that recording the work with Rattle and the LSO – the orchestra that played in the 1910 premiere and was also conducted by Elgar in the famous 1932 Menuhin recording – was an inspiring experience, feelings that are clearly evident in a heartfelt performance.

The Violin Sonata in E Minor Op.82 from 1918 is a truly lovely work, with Capuçon and Hough proving to be sensitive partners in an outstanding reading.  

The Trio Arnold is in outstanding form on its debut CD for the Mirare label, Beethoven String Trios Op.9 (MIR550 mirare.fr).

The three works – No.1 in G Major, No.2 in D Major and No.3 in C Minor – were written as Beethoven sought to establish himself as a chamber music composer, the risk of comparison with the string quartets of Haydn and Mozart leading him to choose the safer option of string trios. They clearly act as preparation for the string quartets, and indeed sound like quartets at times.

The release sheet cites “beauty of sound and a high degree of instrumental virtuosity” in the works, and that’s also exactly what the Trio Arnold displays in superb performances.

There’s more Beethoven on another Mirare CD with Liya Petrova playing Beethoven & Mozart Violin Concertos in D with the Sinfonia Varsovia under Jean-Jacques Kantorow (MIR552 mirare.fr).

The Beethoven is a beautiful performance in all respects, but the bigger interest here, perhaps, is the Violin Concerto No.7 K271a/271i attributed to Mozart, the true provenance of which remains unknown and hotly debated. Breitkopf & Härtel published an edition in 1907, and a set of parts was prepared in 1837 in Paris, apparently from the now-lost autograph. It’s a substantial work with passages of pure Mozartean beauty and sections that sound less than convincing, especially the pizzicato cadenza in the slow movement.

Again, simply beautiful playing makes a strong case for a fascinating work.

Beethoven was obsessed with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and used many melodic motifs from it in his late quartets. Prism III is the third volume in the ongoing series by the Danish String Quartet that aims to show how the radiance of Bach’s fugues is refracted through Beethoven’s quartets to illuminate the work of later composers. (ECM New Series ECM2563 ecmrecords.com/catalogue).

There’s a clear line here from Bach’s Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, with its four-note BACH motif, through Beethoven’s String Quartet No.14 in C-Sharp Minor Op.131, which starts with a fugue and a four-note motif, to Bartók’s String Quartet No.1, which also opens with a four-note motif and pays direct homage to the Beethoven.

Outstanding playing and interpretation result in a terrific CD. 

Even if you’re aware of the Lithuanian composer Jurgis Karnavičius (1884-1941) you almost certainly haven’t heard his string quartets; Jurgis Karnavičius String Quartets Nos.1 & 2, the first two of his four quartets, are presented in world-premiere recordings by the Vilnius String Quartet (Ondine ODE1351-2 naxosdirect.com/search/ode+1351-2).

Karnavičius moved to St. Petersburg in 1903, writing his first quartet on graduating from the Conservatory in 1913. Drafted into the Russian army the following year, he wrote his second quartet in 1917 while a prisoner of war. They are works in the Russian classical tradition, tinged with Lithuanian folk elements and a hint of early-20th-century modernism.

The Lithuanian Vilnius Quartet, founded in 1965, gives wonderfully sympathetic performances, beautifully recorded with a full, resonant sound quality on a gorgeous CD.

Peter Sheppard Skærved continues his fascinating exploration of outstanding violins with The Great Violins Vol.4: Girolamo Amati, 1629, performing the Six Partias for solo violin from 1715 by Johann Joseph Vilsmaÿr (1663-1722) (Athene ATH 23210 naxosdirect.com/search/ath23210).

The Partias, all consisting of eight, nine or ten very short movements, are described as “an extraordinary bridge” from the solo compositions of German composers like Biber to the later masterpieces of Bach and Telemann. They receive beautifully nuanced performances in a generous CD of almost 82 minutes.

As always, Sheppard Skærved’s booklet essay is remarkably erudite and informative, examining the use of scordatura and the emotional effects attached to specific key signatures in order to understand the physical and emotional structure of the music.

The 20-year-old Swedish violinist Johan Dalene, winner of the 2019 Carl Nielsen Competition, is joined by Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland on Nordic Rhapsody, his second CD on the BIS label (BIS-2560 naxosdirect.com/search/bis-2560).

A dazzling Presto from Sinding’s Suite im alten Stil Op.10 sets the tone for a recital bursting with strong, brilliant tone and outstanding technique, with Hadland an excellent partner. Stenhammar’s Two Sentimental Romances Op.28, three of the Six Pieces Op.79 by Sibelius, Nielsen’s Romance in D Major, Rautavaara’s Notturno e Danza and Grieg’s Sonata No.1 in F Major Op.8 complete an impressive recital disc from a player from whom we will clearly be hearing a lot more in the future.

On A French Connection violinist Daniel Rowland and pianist Natacha Kudritskaya present what the violinist calls “two wonderful, luscious, gorgeously romantic pieces, one a perennial favourite, the other still all too rarely heard” (Champs Hill Records CHRCD157 champshillrecords.co.uk).

The latter is Chausson’s Concerto for Violin, Piano & String Quartet, the duo being joined by violinists Francesco Sica and Asia Jiménez Antón de Vez, violist Joel Waterman and cellist Maja Bogdanović in a passionate performance to open the disc.

World-premiere recordings of effective arrangements of three Debussy Preludes by Craig White precede the “perennial favourite”: the Franck A Major Sonata. It does indeed turn up regularly on CD, but is nevertheless always welcome, especially in warm, sensitive performances like this.

Cellist Yi-wen Zhang and pianist Nanyi Qiang have been collaborating since 2002 and founded the DUO SHU in 2019. Their self-titled debut CD on the Blue Griffin label features two songs by Fauré, Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style Op.102, Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise Op.34 No.14, Dvořák’s Four Romantic Pieces Op.75 and Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, together with Longing for SHU by Weijie Gao (BGR581 bluegriffin.com).

It’s a very pleasant disc with some passionate playing, particularly in the Dvořák, with a singing cello tone and crystal-clear piano playing, although the double-stopping passages in the cello sound a bit laboured in places.

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Chances are you’ve never heard Boccherini cello concertos sound the way they do on Cadenza, the new CD from cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton that features the concertos No.3 in D Major G476, No.4 in C Major G477 and No.6 in D Major G479 in small combo arrangements by Wieder-Atherton and cimbalom player Françoise Rivalland. The other players are Amaryllis Billet (violin), Rémi Magnan (double bass) and Robin Billet (bassoon) (ALPHA667 naxosdirect.com/search/alpha667).

Wieder-Atherton says that incorporating the cimbalom results in our “hearing the dances, the infinite colours and the bursts of rhythmic music,” but it does seem an odd way to present Boccherini, especially when you add the lengthy cadenzas from various contributors with – at times – cimbalom, drones and finger cymbals, and musical material from Handel and Stravinsky. 

Guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan follows up his 2010 CD New Lullaby – 14 Enchanting Ways to Fall Asleep with Nights Transfigured – Vol.2 of the New Lullaby Project, a second collection of short pieces by 14 different composers written for Larget-Caplan between 2009 and 2020 (Stone Records 5060192781106 stonerecords.co.uk).

Don’t be misled by the title. Although there’s obviously a general sense of calm throughout the CD, this isn’t a disc of music for children but a fascinating collection of exquisite contemporary miniatures for classical guitar that explore a wide range of musical languages and often employ extended guitar technique, all of it beautifully played and recorded.

Greek guitarist Pavlos Kanellakis is the soloist on Kaleidoscope, a recital of world-premiere recordings of works by George Kontogiorgos (Naxos 8.579084 naxosdirect.com/search/8579084). The music is essentially tonal and very accessible.

The five-movement Sea Vespers from 2015 takes melodies from the composer’s songs from the 1960s and 1970s. Kanellakis is joined by cellist Vangjel Nina in the four-movement Cansonata from 2014. Elegy was written in 1980 and revised for Kanellakis in 2006 when Kontogiorgos was writing the commissioned guitar suite that gives the CD its title, the four-movement Kaleidoscope consisting of multi-coloured fragments that shift and dance as if viewed through a kaleidoscope.

The darker Emotions from 2018 completes a recital of performances that can be considered definitive, Kanellakis having worked closely with the composer.

Mirror Images, the latest album from violinist, violist and vocalist Violeta Vicci, features world-premiere recordings of solo works by Ragnar Söderlind, Imogen Holst and Jean-Louis Florentz, plus related works by Bach and Ysaÿe and six interspersed improvisations (two of them vocal) by Vicci (Gramola GRAM98010 naxosdirect.com/search/gram98010).

Bach’s Partita No.3 in E Major (with hardly any repeats, lasting just 14 minutes for all seven movements) and Ysaÿe’s Sonata in A Minor are given competent if somewhat mundane performances; the Söderlind is the brief Elegia II and the Florentz an equally-brief Vocalise. By far the most interesting work, though, is the 1930 Holst Suite for Solo Viola, which also draws the best playing from Vicci.

John Eccles – Semele
Academy of Ancient Music; Cambridge Handel Opera
AAM Records AAM012 (aam.co.uk)

What looks like Handel, sounds like Purcell and is a world premiere recording? If you guessed the answer to be the latest release from the Academy of Ancient Music, you win! Any mention of the words “opera” and “Semele” together immediately turns minds to Handel’s frequently performed 1744 masterwork, but there is another older, lesser-known Semele living in the operatic world, written in 1707 by the English composer John Eccles.

Eccles’ Semele provides fascinating insight into how opera in England might have developed after Henry Purcell’s death had Handel not moved to London in 1712, for this Semele’s musical vocabulary is indeed a slightly more advanced and refined adaptation of Purcell’s own lexicon; if one were to select a pinnacle of the English Baroque, they would be hard-pressed to find a more representative example than this. Despite his indebtedness to Purcell, Eccles achieves even greater depths of expression and extremes of emotion than his predecessor, utilizing similar forms and expanding their structure, so that Semele ends up being more than double the length of Dido and Aeneas, for example, but without once feeling overspun.

What is most remarkable about Semele is the way in which music and text receive equal attention. The delivery of William Congreve’s libretto and forward motion of the drama is never interrupted, suspended or usurped by over-composition. Director Julian Perkins and the Academy of Ancient Music in turn keep the opera moving forward, selecting tempi that lend the necessary affect to these dance-based arias and overtures while keeping the text constantly intelligible.

With world premiere recordings being issued with ever-greater frequency, it can be challenging to find those works that contribute something worthwhile to the canon, much less provide an eye-opening exploration of something revelatory, but Semele does just that. The saying “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” is correct more often than not, but in this case, we are grateful that those behind this recording could, and did.

L’homme armé – La Cour de Bourgogne et la musique
Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal; Andrew McAnerney
ATMA ACD2 2807 (atmaclassique.com/en)

The Court of Burgundy’s powers extended well beyond the borders of the modern French region. Its musical brilliance obviously affected the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal: with eight composers on one CD, it is difficult to think of a major Burgundian composer not included here.

At the heart of the CD is the Missa L’homme armé, itself set 40 times from roughly 1460 to 1560. Track one is the Anonymous/Morton interpretation, featuring not only the original words to L’homme armé but also a contemporary twist willing on a crushing defeat (in three passionate and imploring voices) for those fearsome Ottoman Turks on their way to destroy Christendom.

Not everything, though, is so belligerent. Listen to the ethereal Kyrie Eleison from Antoine Busnois’ own Missa L’homme armé, uplifted by the sackbut playing of the Studio. Then be inspired by the delicate performance of Gilles Binchois’ Motet Asperges me. It may have been Binchois who taught and inspired Johannes Ockeghem, who in turn did teach Josquin des Prés. This comes out in this CD: in addition to the pieces by Binchois, the Studio performs Ockeghem’s Sanctus, a full-blooded performance combining sometimes stark singing with the Studio’s sackbuts.

As for Josquin, he is remembered by two compositions. First, Agnus Dei is performed admirably, notably in its soprano part. Then there are the five parts of Ave verum corpus. Josquin relished the more complex structure: the Studio rises to the challenge with its appropriately celestial singing. 

Josquin was a contemporary of the revolution in music printing. His sheer musical genius and the printing press ensured his influence on composers for at least a century.

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