Electric Fields
Barbara Hannigan; Kati and Marielle Labeque; David Chalmin
Alpha Classics ALPHA 980 (outhere-music.com/en/albums/electric-fields)

By now my editor knows full well just how mesmerised I am by Barbara Hannigan. How – in my eyes – she can do no wrong. He also knows that if there is a new Hannigan recording – as sure as day follows night – I will make a beeline for it and likely find no fault in it whatsoever. The reason? There will be no fault with a Hannigan recording. That’s just the way it is. 

Let’s put aside Hannigan’s prowess as an actor and conductor for now. As an operatic star she is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of artist who does everything right, by any composer, in any repertoire from any era. This is how things go on Electric Fields (or might I say, “eclectic fields”?).

Her soprano instrument is lustrous throughout, whether she is interpreting Hildegard von Bingen (c.1098-1179) – O virga mediatrix and O vis aetrnitatis – or Barbara Strozzi (1619-1977) – Che si può fare – or two works by Bryce Dessner (b.1976). Hannigan also contributes one composition – Che t’ho fatt’io based on a fragment of Latin texts by Francesca Caccini (1587-c.1640).

Admittedly Hannigan shines alongside such star power as the piano-playing heavyweights, Katia and Marielle Labèque, and the wizardry of composer/performer David Chalmin’s ambient atmospheric contributions. But Hannigan’s performance is flawless – again. Each work is a priceless sound-painting. Each phrase has its own tinta; each vocal section a distinctive character. It’s exciting to wonder what comes next. One can only dream.

Christopher Tyler Nickel - Mass; Te Deum
Catherine Redding; Vancouver Chamber Choir; Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra; Clyde Mitchell
Avie Records AV2748 (avie-records.com/releases/christopher-tyler-nickel-mass-•-te-deum)

“Beauty-filled music” – that’s what I called Christopher Tyler Nickel’s Requiem (The WholeNote, Summer 2024), praising Nickel’s “distinctive melodic gift” that consolidated influences from Gregorian Chant to Bruckner, Fauré and Carl Orff. Along with his many scores for film, theatre and TV, the B.C.-based Nickel continues his commitment to sacred texts with Mass and Te Deum, composed concurrently between 2019 and 2024. Around 26 minutes each, they’re modest in scale compared to the 70-minute Requiem and minuscule measured against his seven-hour setting of The Gospel According to Mark.

“I’m always finding the melancholy in things,” writes Nickel. Here, his unusual scoring combines, in addition to strings, the plaintiveness of oboe, English horn, oboe d’amore and bass oboe with the sepulchral sonorities of four horns and tuba in Te Deum, two Wagner tubas replacing two of the horns in Mass. The pervading disquiet is heightened by continually shifting, irregular meters, including measures of five, seven and ten beats.

Nickel supplants Requiem’s stylistic eclecticism with a hyper-emotional, near-cinematic spin on Renaissance modes and harmonies. Mass begins with a plea of desperation in Kyrie, followed by a joyous Gloria, but solemnity reigns throughout the remaining sections. Te Deum is even darker. Canadian soprano, Catherine Redding, soloist in the Requiem recording, adds fervent entreaties to Te Deum’s intense anguish. Clyde Mitchell, conductor of the Requiem CD, draws urgent drama from Vancouver’s Chamber Choir and Contemporary Orchestra in these latest examples of Nickel’s truly “beauty-filled music.” 

Benedict Sheehan - Ukrainian War Requiem
Axios Men's Ensemble; Pro Coro Canada; Michael Zaugg
Cappella Records CR432 SACD (axioschoir.com)

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022 American Benedict Sheehan received a commission from Edmonton’s Axios Men’s Ensemble, performers of Eastern European sacred music, many of its singers sharing Ukrainian roots. Sheehan was asked, he writes, for “a new composition in honor of those fallen in Ukraine’s struggle for freedom.”

Sheehan’s Ukrainian War Requiem was premiered in Edmonton on April 14, 2024 with the Axios Men’s Ensemble and the tenors and basses of Edmonton’s Pro Coro Canada conducted by Pro Coro’s artistic director, Swiss-born Michael Zaugg.

In keeping with Ukraine’s mixed religious heritage – Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish – Sheehan drew texts from the Ukrainian Memorial Service, hymns of St. John of Damascus, Psalms 50 and 90, the New Testament Gospels and the Latin Requiem Mass. He combined, he says, “a variety of musical influences, including Ukrainian and Galician plainchant (somoilka), Gregorian chant, a Ukrainian Jewish psalm tone (nusach) and an array of original melodies,” as well as Shche Ne Vmerla Ukraïna (Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished), Ukraine’s national anthem.

Throughout the work’s 67 minutes, the richly sonorous men’s chorus sings with fervent urgency in Ukrainian, Latin and English, several choristers contributing solos; the major solos are sung by Ukrainian soprano Yuliia Kasimova and Canadian tenor John Tessier. Based on traditional church modes, Sheehan’s powerful, often heart-rendingly beautiful score is a loving tribute to the Ukrainian dead that deserves to be heard everywhere in remembrance of all victims of all wars.

O Listen to the music of Uros Krek & Else Marie Pade
Danish National Vocal Ensemble; Marina Batic
Our Recordings 8.226924 (ourrecordings.com/albums/o-listen)

This is the ninth release in a series of challenging projects from the Danish National Vocal Ensemble on Our Records. The professional chamber choir scene, especially amongst the Nordic countries, including Canada, is one of the most musically fecund departments in contemporary music. Choirs just seem to be getting better and more capable of negotiating ever newer compositional demands.

The retro graphic on the cover, a clunky ear, suggests that this release is odd. The disc opts to investigate some out-of-the-way developments around the middle of the 20th century. The Slovenian conductor of this ensemble, Martina Batič, has chosen two rarely exposed composers, one a fellow Slovenian, Uroš Krek, and Danish music concrète practitioner Else Maria Pade. 

Krek has a mid-century choral style that is closest to Gerald Finzi in the three English language pieces included, but the subsequent pieces in Slovenian and Latin show several attractive elements of his very solid style.

Pade’s mellifluous style fits well with standard mid-century practices, although she never sounds English. The real curate’s egg on this disc is one of Pade's electronic projects, an immersive environment meant to go around a challenging stratospheric coloratura soprano, baritone, speaking (like zombies) chorus and seven trombones. The electronic background includes assembled sounds. The very brief trombone chords and notes really make this piece. 

Performances throughout the recording are all supremely beautiful.

Shawn E Okpedholo - Songs in Flight
Rhiannon Giddens; Karen Slack; Paul Sanchez; Will Liverman; Reginald Mobley; Julian Velasco
Cedille Records CDR 90000 234 (cedillerecords.org/albums/songs-in-flight)

Shawn E. Okpebholo’s exquisite disc Songs in Flight, strikes me as being an incredibly beautiful – and disturbing – new palimpsest of the American Spiritual. The uncomfortable truth of each song cuts to the quick, deep within the heart. 

Okpebholo's songs repurpose news stories of young boys and girls escaping slavery during the 18th and 19th centuries using the language of poetry. His music turns the narratives into arias sung by lyric soprano Rhiannon Giddens, mezzo Karen Slack, baritone Will Liverman and renowned countertenor Reginald Mobley. Paul Sánchez’s pianism and a forlorn saxophone accentuate the dark atmosphere.

Missing may be the story of Emmett Till, but spirituals about Ahmaud Arbery and Trayvon Martin tell their tragic stories with fervour and operatic flair. In particular the lynching of Arbery is a painful gut-punch and even complements Sing, O Black Mother by Langston Hughes. 

Slavery has deep roots, its history spanning diverse cultures and geographical regions. But the transatlantic slave trade and its institutionalization on plantations has had a profound and enduring impact on the history of the US, leaving an indelible legacy of racial injustice and inequality that continues to resonate today. 

“I said your name / first, choked in wondrous / love. Nothing more holy / than the first farewell. My womb, no longer / habitable. My song / was your first and only home.” – words by Wanda-Cooper Jones, Arbery’s mother on Ahmaud sung by Giddens, send a chill through the spine.

Bach - Un itinéraire
Luc Beauséjour
ATMA ACD2 2912 (atmaclassique.com/produit/bach-un-itineraire/?srsltid=AfmBOoqm5eVKGAQYb1maa7jvfUTKn3Njiks61jsMscFEYtUk2DVg_m3B)

Luc Beauséjour continues to be one of the most internationally respected harpsichord virtuosos and this meticulously assembled Bach programme shows that his playing remains superb. He plays on a sizable Yves Beaupré instrument of 2012 [after Dulcken] using a colourful Kirnberger temperament at the low pitch, A = 415Hz. This gives a somehow relaxed sound, and the tempos are all broad, but there is above all a sense of terrifically wide flow. For once there are not too many actual fugues, but the contrapuntal flow of the pieces is felt broadly with constant subtle expressive eddies and surges in the stream of very connected notes. This is unique playing and the lines are always clearly differentiated. Remarkable how Beauséjour frequently achieves stresses and marcato chords and phrases, on an instrument that is not supposed to be able to produce them, with registration and agogics.

The recording, his first with ATMA after many years with the Analekta label, starts with the Third French Suite, slower than we hear it on the pianoforte lately. The bonus of the disc comes from the early Capriccio on the Departure of his Beloved Brother, one of Bach’s rare affective pieces, showing expressive but subtle grief. The final section picks up with the coachman’s tuneful horn calls. This piece is beautifully felt and notes by Beauséjour make it all the more personal. 

The big Bach redoubt, the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, provides the climax of the programme and Beauséjour’s control and clarity really bring it off supremely.

Arc III - Brahms | Schubert
Orion Weiss
First Hand Records FHR129 (firsthandrecords.com/products-page/album/arc-iii-brahms-debussy-schubert)

Joyful music for these troubled times: this release completes a three-album series that traces a journey from the disaster and despair depicted in Arc I and Arc II, moving in Arc III to what American pianist Orion Weiss calls music of “peace, hope, love, ambition, optimism and the divine.” The result is a highly enjoyable recital featuring an attractive mix of rarities alongside established masterpieces for solo piano as Weiss displays his comfort in music written over a span of 160 years. 

The album opens with Louise Talma’s Alleluia in Form of Toccata (1945), sparkling with repeated notes, jagged leaps and offbeat accents. Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy is given a muscular yet poised reading, never rushed or pushed to extremes. The slow movement’s theme, quoting Schubert’s famous song, is a sombre contrast to the extroversion of the surrounding movements, and in Weiss’ hands the fugal finale is exhilarating in its clarity and rhythmic energy. 

Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse contrasts sultry mystery (listen to the central section at 2:45) with blazing virtuosity, a performance that lives up to Weiss’ description of it as “one of the most evocative and thrilling of Debussy’s piano works.” Dohnányi’s Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song (1920) is another valuable re-discovery, and while Brahms’ darkly dramatic early third sonata may not immediately seem to fit the album’s theme, the ecstasy of the second movement love scene and the F major exuberance with which the finale concludes gain resonance from the music that has come before. 

Ligeti’s etude Arc-en-ciel provides an unexpectedly suitable coda, its interweaving lines beautifully shaped. Weiss’ Yamaha CFX is warmly recorded, and this intelligently programmed album is warmly recommended.

Prokofiev - Sonates pour flute et piano
Ariane Brisson; Philip Chiu
ATMA ACD2 2884 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/prokofiev-sonatas-for-flute-and-piano)

Prokofiev may have once defined a modern classical composer as “a madman making works that his generation won’t understand” but he himself achieved significant recognition during his lifetime, and today, remains one of the most renowned composers of the 20th century.

Among his extensive output are a number of chamber works, including two violin sonatas and one for flute, all of them composed during the Second World War. The first Violin Sonata Op.80 in F Minor was actually the second to be written for that instrument, and is presented here in an arrangement for flute by Ariane Brisson. Brisson performs it with pianist Philip Chiu along with the Flute Sonata Op.94 on this ATMA Classique recording. Brisson was first prize-winner in the Prix d’ Europe in 2014 and Chiu is a JUNO award winner and recipient of the Order of Ontario.  

The Sonata Op.80 was completed in 1946 and was awarded the Stalin Prize the following year. This a dark and intense four-movement work opening with a mysterious Andante Assai which the composer likened to “wind passing through a graveyard.” Together, the two artists comprise a formidable pairing with Brisson’s warm tone aptly conveying the dramatic mood with Chiu providing a sensitive partnership. The strident second movement is followed by a lyrical Andante and a finale with an unexpectedly calm conclusion. 

In comparison, the Flute Sonata Op.94 is decidedly more optimistic in spirit. Completed in 1943, the work is a demanding one, but the two performers easily meet the innumerable challenges with respect to technique and nuance. The score is affable and pleasant from the languorous opening to the sprightly finale demonstrating formidable interaction between the performers, as is the case throughout this exemplary disc.

Échos
Charles Richard-Hamelin
Analekta AN 2 9149 (charlesrichardhamelin.com/en/discography)

Charles Richard-Hamelin has accomplished much during the past decade or so. Not only did the Quebec-born pianist win third prize at the Seoul International Music Competition in South Korea in 2014, but was also silver medallist at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw the following year. Since then, he has appeared in concert with such orchestras as the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and was described by a Montreal critic as “a national treasure.”

Richard-Hamelin’s newest recording, Échos, is the 11th on the Analekta label and features an appealing programme of music by Granados, Chopin, and Albéniz. The set of eight Valses Poéticos Op.43 by Enrique Granados is aptly named – the music is indeed poetic and evocative, and Richard-Hamelin does it full justice. The playing is elegantly conceived, at all times displaying a keen sense of phrasing.

Chopin’s Allegro de Concert in A Major Op.46 is a bit of a curiosity. Originally intended as a piano concerto, the orchestral part was never written and despite some brilliant pianistic writing and numerous revisions, the work has languished in relative obscurity

Albéniz’ La Vega from 1897 and the Allegro de concierto in C-sharp Major Op.46 by Granados are further proof of Richard-Hamelin’s affinity for Spanish repertoire. He deftly captures the highly impressionist mood of La Vega, while the Concierto radiates freshness and vitality. Rounding out the programme is a selection of eight waltzes by Chopin, a fitting conclusion to a most satisfying recording.

Rainbow
LMNL
People Places Records PPR | 062 (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com/album/rainbow)

Rainbow is the debut release by LMNL, a new experimental collective project led by Canadian multi-instrumentalist performer/composer Jerry Pergolesi. Here Pergolesi plays percussion, trumpet and electronics with Louise Campbell on clarinet and electronics. They both created and facilitated Rainbow,

a 60-minute post-modern ambient treatment of Judy Garland’s Wizard of Oz classic performance of Over the Rainbow, a song whose symbolism deeply resonates within the queer community and beyond. 

Garland’s deconstructed fragments were used to create a notated, text-based score and fixed audio track written for any instrumentation and any number of performers, regardless of their musical style, literacy, and/or performance and improvisational experience. 

From calm to tense, this is music for everyone. Opening and closing held single notes envelope the meditative soundscape. Garland’s vocals resound throughout in short sung repeated “minimalist flavoured” takeout phrases, accompanied at times by instrumental and electronic held notes and lines at different pitches and volumes. The full electronic washes mixed with the clarinet are colourful. Ringing percussion and low held clarinet add intrigue to the vocals. Nice contrasts between tonal and more atonal sections from classical, contemporary, experimental, rock, pop and improvised styles add to the diversity. The vibrating electronics keep the intriguing vocals and music grounded.

Pergolesi’s innovative musicianship creates spectacular electroacoustic tracks. His instrumental playing is supported by Campbell’s lush clarinet sounds. Repeated listening and/or playing along with Rainbow is a memorable experience.

Berio - Complete String Quartets
Quatour Molinari
ATMA ACD2 2848 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/berio-complete-string-quartets)

Serial winners of awards often tend to give something back. Quite often that means donating money to a deserving cause and – to all intents and purposes – being done with it, and that’s not nothing. 

In the case of the much-celebrated Quatuor Molinari, giving something back is a continuation of their collective lives, of the philosophy that has governed every day since 1997 when they first dedicated those very lives to breaking musical ground in “devoting themselves to string quartets of the 20th and 21st centuries.” This endeavour continues with Intégrale des quatuors à cordes, (The Complete String Quartets) of Luciano Berio (1925-2003). 

From the (complete quartets) of R. Murray Schafer, the repertory work of Bartók, Berg and Britten, Gubaidulina and Ligeti, Penderecki, Schoenberg and Webern this quartet – so named after the legendary Canadian painter Guido Molinari – has lit a crackling flame for the avant-garde. Their Kurtág cycle which won them the Ecko Klassik Award (now Opus Klassik) in 2017 is one of many prestigious international awards to adorn their proverbial mantlepiece,

Sparks fly when Quatuor Molinari – Olga Ranzenhofer (first violin and artistic director), Antoine Bareil (violin), Frédéric Lambert (viola) and Pierre-Alain Bouvrette (cello) – take to the stage, challenged by Berio. His work would push musicians with even the most sublime technical skill to the limits, with his love of the theatrical, fascination with the voice, and his constant willingness to engage with art of the past –Monteverdi and Dante – and the present – jazz and electronic music. His unique “future-past” musical sojourns certainly define these seemingly omnivorous works. 

The expressive breadth of Berio’s music is beautifully captured in these sumptuous performances. The dazzling semantic and musical labyrinths concocted by each work demand pyrotechnical skill from the Molinari. The miraculously lucid performance of Notturno is the highlight of this fascinating disc.

Walter Boudreau - Chaleurs
Quasar
Independent (quasar4sax.bandcamp.com/album/chaleurs)

Rupture
Quatuor Nelligan
Centrediscs CMCCD 32823 (cmccanada.org/shop/cmccd-32823)

The Quebec hills are alive with the sounds of saxophone quartets: Quasar and Nelligan are both based in that province and both have new and exciting releases. 

Quasar was founded in 1994 and has performed instrumental music, employed improvisation and used electronics. They perform as an acoustic quartet, but have also “plugged-in,” have been accompanied by an orchestra and have commissioned many pieces while continuously working for new music experimentation. Walter Boudreau’s Chaleurs was originally written in 1985 (predating the formation of Quasar by nine years) and was somehow forgotten until rediscovered in the Concordia University archives in 2019! This piece was originally “inspired by Paul-André Fortier’s choreography and his dancers’ work.” Boudreau revised Chaleurs for the tenth edition of Festival MNM in 2021 and Quasar premiered this new version at Salle Pierre-Mercure. It is a long, meditative piece of 50 minutes, and travels though many moods from quiet, sinuous and overlapping lines, to sections with playful interactions and onto more tentative and exploratory nuances. 

Listen to 'Chaleurs' Now in the Listening Room

Quatuor Nelligan was also founded in 1994 (apparently a banner year for sax quartets) and has been committed to championing both classical and contemporary repertoire. Rupture showcases the work of four Quebec composers and their different takes on quartet repertoire. Yoel Diaz Avila’s Concerto en 6 préludes contains several exciting sections which showcase lively ensemble playing. This piece is reminiscent of much standard saxophone quartet repertoire but with modern tonalities and sharp rhythmic departures. Alexandre David’s Essences begins with a quiet blending of the instruments and then opens up with individual flourishes and edgy statements before working back to a softer and thoughtful ending. Victor Herbiet’s Danse des Dragons begins slowly with intertwining melodies and then adds a percussive section with much pad clicking which appears to wake up the dragons as a vibrant dance section emerges containing Celtic influences. Rupture ends with Robert Lemay’s Verticales, the longest and most experimental piece which includes abrupt rhythms, subtle multiphonics, squeaks and quick dynamic shifts. This is my favourite piece on the album because it contains so many changes and surprises.

Nick Storring - Mirante
Nick Storring
We Are Busy Bodies (nickstorring.bandcamp.com/album/mirante)

Composer and cellist/multi-instrumentalist Nick Storring has numerous recordings to his credit, but his latest solo album Mirante (Lookout in Portuguese) has a beauty and complexity that is transfixing. Storring’s compositional skills are matched only by his imagination; the fine balance of nature, acoustic instruments and multi-tracking is a specialty of Storring’s, but this luscious, pulsing album brings in a more personal tone with field recordings from his second home of Brazil.  

Track one, Roxa, is dreamy and enticing; you are being hypnotized to follow the sweet ocarina calls, the percussion, the handclaps… (are they handclaps?). Just give in, and you’ll be smoothly led to track two, Roxa ll. The xylophone, drums, flute, chimes…. There is no fighting the call. 

Track three Mirante’s gentle swaying of the breeze, the birds and kites over the water… unknowingly you will be transformed, brought gently into town with vocals, drum beats, cowbells. You’ll find yourself dancing through narrow stone passageways, and along the beach and back. Children play, water washes over you… will you swim, sleep, or take a walk? Here, the ocarina will sing to you, the flute, the drum, the whistle will call. Roxa lll is the most melancholy of the tracks; rich, textured, filled with heavens and skies, teaching you to be patient. It will be worth it. 

The whole album organically draws you in further and further until you find yourself surrounded by people… walking, pausing, walking, swimming, dancing, Storring gently takes you by the hand into a world of music and wonder that is almost indescribable, and before you know it, you’ve passed through the whole travelogue and are pressing repeat. This album is even better savoured with headphones to appreciate the expert mastering and Storring’s delicate layering. 

I had to look up a few of the nearly 50 instruments in use on the album. The amount of listening and editing involved in such a solo project would be overwhelming for most, but Storring is right at home.

(At one point I was searching the list of instruments for the perfectly timed kettle whistle I was hearing, until I realized it was my own.)

Réflexions
Francis Choinière
GFN Classics (forteartmusic.com/product/reflexions-francis-choiniere)

Multi-talented Quebec-based Francis Choinière is an awe-inspiring musician, renowned as the conductor of Quebec orchestras Orchestre FILMharmonique and the Orchestre Philharmonique et Chœur des Mélomanes, and as a concert producer, composer and pianist. Here, in his solo debut Réflexions, he performs five of his beautiful solo piano compositions with exquisite musicality and technical expertise. As he explains, the pieces paint a soundscape of memories, a timeline of his past and present, as he draws on and/or arranges melodies composed from his childhood to present.

Each composition is perfect, memorable and calming. Coup de foudre starts with a lyrical melody accompanied by rippling single notes with slight rubato. High note flourishes add a change in colour. Similar lower pitched sections add drama with alternating slower and faster sections leading to closing high pitched soft notes. There’s a change in mood in the following track Unveiled as the single line lower pitched melody and slight accents create a more dramatic touch. Dancelike storytelling Renaissance features a happy harmonized melody that builds to a louder midsection and then a faster section leads to a slow emotional high note ending. Rêverie is a contemporary music flavoured melody with numerous lines leading to a sudden abrupt ending. The tonal I’ll be Here is romantic, softer gentle music. A very orchestral sounding work with different musical ideas that Choinière performs clearly with compassion and sensitivity.

Choinière’s breathtaking piano playing results in beautiful, reflective performances which deserve repeated listenings.

Phoenix Rising
Angel Wang; Phoenix Orchestra
Leaf Music LM299 (leaf-music.ca/music/lm299)

The talented violinist Angel Wang has assembled a chamber ensemble, Phoenix Orchestra, in a debut project that includes the notorious Butterfly Lover’s Concerto (written by committee) that marked the beginning (in the ‘50’s) of the Chinese détente, embracing collaboration with Western Art Music, which has since transformed and stimulated world musical culture. Wang includes a few other Chinese ethnic folk tunes, and these pieces are all arranged for her tidy little group by conductor Claudio Vena.

The Butterfly Lover’s Concerto has become famous and we can find several performances on YouTube, usually using orchestras augmented with Chinese folk instruments where the solo part can get lost amongst all the sonorities. I have never really been able to follow this piece through all its dense tangle of sweet sounding lines, but Wang plays with such purpose and concentration that she negotiates all the potentially cloying and swooning portamenti with cool accuracy and taste. The folk tunes are similarly handled with simple orchestration and no gimmicks. The pentatonic sound of all these provides a recognizable Chinese identity.

To complement this repertoire Wang commissioned Chinese Canadian veteran composer Alice Ping Yee Ho to provide a contemporary balance. The result is the lyrical, lightly orchestrated Phoenix Rising, conceived to fit in with some of the sonorities of the other works, except that the violin part is more fragmented and allusive. The piece is gentle overall, and it is a welcome addition to Ho’s output. Sound and production are almost slick. This really grows on you.

Listen to 'Phoenix Rising' Now in the Listening Room