Live in Willisau
James Brandon Lewis; Chad Taylor
Intakt CD 342 (intaktrec.ch) 

Heir to unabashed reed/drums experimentation, Americans James Brandon Lewis (tenor saxophone) and Chad Taylor (percussion) equally emphasize links to the jazz tradition on this exemplary Swiss festival set. Lewis, whose gripping ability to invest animated improvisations with multiple variations on extended reed techniques from call-and-response vamps to inflating glossolalia, is substantially encouraged by Taylor’s coordinated strategies. The drummer’s substantial rhythmic sophistication is further extended with jolts of mbira (thumb piano) plinks when the program warrants it.

In essence that means that the nine-track set gets more gripping as it evolves. Alongside socking drum beats, the saxophonist ratchets through every manner of altissimo cries and subterranean honks, melismatic slurs and mocking phrases as the two redefine a Coltrane line and their own originals. Later Mal Waldon’s obscure Watakushi No Sekai, positioned with cymbal crackles and reed-shattering sparkles is interpreted as movingly as is a quietly genial version of Duke Ellington’s famous Come Sunday. Finally the two respond to vociferous audience acclaim with an encore of a reconstituted Over the Rainbow, featuring hide-and-seek divulging of the melody among stuttering reed split tones and percussion clip-clops. But the concert’s most telling track and an acknowledgment of departed improvisational masters, is a screaming near-R&B version of Willisee featuring drum shuffles and yakkity-sax variations. This same tune was performed on the same stage in 1980 with equal energy and skill by its composer, tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman, in a duo with drummer Ed Blackwell. 

A uiš
Jubileum Quartet
NotTwo MW 1005-2 (nottwo.com)

Four adept improvisation arbiters from four countries assembled for a program of unadulterated improvisation at the Jazz Cerkno festival recently and A uiš is the enraptured result. The title means “and you go” in Slovenian, which sums up the mutual respect and lack of arrogance each displays towards the others’ talents.

Tenor saxophonist Evan Parker was present at the birth of the genre more than 50 years ago; French bassist Léandre and Catalan pianist Agustí Fernández arrived a little later. All have been in fruitful partnerships with one another as has Slovenian percussionist Zlatko Kaučič, whose 40th anniversary as a musician was being celebrated. Throughout this single 45-minute improvisation the four are always in sync, yet constantly projecting individual tropes: Parker’s circular breathing expressions; Léandre’s dramatic command of pressurized twang and arco sweeps; Fernández’s judicious key positioning that encompasses internal string plucks and kinetic keyboard agitation; and Kaučič’s prudent theme patterning that bolsters without bombast.

The piece’s texture unfolds with collective logic at the same time as acerbic peeps and sympathetic echoes evolve from single sound strands to multiphonic emphasis. Yet the transitions, as well as focused solos and duos, arrive and depart with such subtle competence that narrative flow is never disrupted. Rapturous applause at the finale demonstrates not only why the performance is another exemplar of free music but also confirms each quartet member’s immense and ingenious talents.

Delicacies in the Garden of Plenty
Sarah Peebles; Kyle Brenders; Nilan Perera
Independent (secondharvestca.bandcamp.com)

Concerned about Canadians impacted by COVID-19, Toronto-based experimental musicians and composers Sarah Peebles (shō, electroacoustics), Kyle Brenders (saxophones), Nilan Perera (altered electric guitar) joined forces to help. Earlier this year they released their album Delicacies in the Garden of Plenty, proceeds from which benefit Second Harvest, Canada’s largest food rescue charity. 

The eponymous tracks one and four are free improvisations by the trio performed at Ratio, the intimate former downtown Toronto performance space. They feature Perera’s delicate experimental electric guitarism, Brenders’ saxophonic exploration of “the interaction of intentionality and surprise,” and Peebles’ chordal performances on shō, the Japanese mouth organ. The slowly evolving music of Delicacies... is a testament to the trio’s improvisational skill, deep listening and generosity of shared spirit.

The inner two tracks are hybrid soundscape-electroacoustic works by Peebles, featuring the sound of birds, amphibians, insects and water from Aotearoa/New Zealand, masterfully mixed with occasional shō and electroacoustic interpolations. The nearly 20-minute In the Canopy – Meditations from Paparoa and Kāpiti Island (2005/2020) is the album’s standout work. Deeply informed by Peebles’ long involvement with sound ecology and biodiversity, she uses her beautiful field recordings of nature sounds and studio-made electroacoustics, layering and extending them into a compelling musical statement. 

In addition to learning from the voices of the land, Peebles points out that her approach in the work was informed by indigenous Māori concepts reflecting spiritual dimensions. In this music we get a rare glimpse of the sort of eloquent, non-hegemonic sonic dialogue possible between nature and humans. It’s an impressive feat even when constructed in the recording studio for our listening pleasure.

Of Shadows
Kamancello
Independent (kamancello.com)

Last year I reviewed Kamancello II: Voyage. I noted that the portmanteau word Kamancello was invented to serve as the name of the Toronto-based bowed-string instrument duo of Kurdish-Iranian kamanche player and composer Shahriyar Jamshidi, and classically trained Canadian cellist and composer Raphael Weinroth-Browne. Weinroth-Browne is also a member of the progressive metal band Leprous. And his motoric metal cello chops occasionally emerge in his Kamancello contributions.

Describing their music as “East-meets-West,” rendering “improvised performances [that] transcend genres and cultural boundaries,” they take us on another epic musical journey on their new six-track album Of Shadows. As on the previous outing, improvisation is front and centre. The duo proudly states as much on its Bandcamp page – “recorded live at Union Sound Company in Toronto … all of the music on this album is fully improvised and unedited” – lending the musical dialogue an organic quality. Yet there are also well-developed modal-melodic frameworks and formal structures shaping the improvs into a coherent musical narrative.

Individual tracks in Of Shadows often commence quietly without pulse, then slowly develop a polyphonic texture through a fluent dialogue between these two sensitive musicians building themes and dramatic tension. Listening to this new album reinforced an appreciation of the timbral differences between the mellow deep cello sound and that of the thinner, higher tessitura kamanche, distinctions effectively exploited by the duo. Yet again, it was the perfect music to accompany my inner journey this evening.

Sounds of Brazil
Angela Turone; Chris Platt
Independent (chrisplattmusic.ca; angelaturone.com)

Angela Turone and Chris Platt, like so many of us around the globe, have become smitten with Brazilian music. Although there is a deep, rich musical culture in that country that goes beyond bossa nova, that well-known style is the focus of the Toronto-based duo’s debut album, Sounds of Brazil. Bossa nova has a light, breezy air to it which belies the complexity of the music and the skill required to master it, which Turone and Platt do, with a little help from some friends. 

Turone beautifully handles all the piano playing and singing – much of the latter in Portuguese – and her warm, pure vocals really suit the style. Platt does all the deft guitar work, most prominently on nylon string. The duo covers standards by Jobim, de Moraes and others – several from the classic Getz/Gilberto album, which essentially introduced bossa nova to North America – with a few jazz standards and lesser-known gems too. There’s plenty of collaboration with local talent, including ethnomusicologist and keyboardist, Gordon Sheard, who produced the album. Andrew Downing’s cello work shines on many tracks, in particular on the haunting Chega de Saudade. On the sprightly Doralice, everyone’s agility is on display, in particular Chase Sanborn on trumpet and John Nicholson on flute doubling Turone’s vocal gymnastics. The standout, for me, is Lendas Brasileiras by Guinga. Gorgeous. The final tune – featuring percussionist Helio Cunha – ventures into samba territory and since that style epitomizes the renowned pre-Lent celebrations in Rio, A Festa Do Divino, is a fitting closer to this fine album. 

Listen to 'Sounds of Brazil' Now in the Listening Room

Soul Singer
John Finley
Vesuvius Music (johnfinleymusic.com)

Vocalist and composer John Finley’s impressive career includes more than 50 years of navigating the heady waters of blues, popular music, gospel and soul. During that time, not only has Finley established himself as a compelling and vibrant performer, but also as a fine composer and noted crafter of hit tunes. He has shared the stage with an array of top-flight artists, including the Rolling Stones and The Temptations. After an extended stay in LA, Finley returned to his native Toronto in 2018 and subsequently released perhaps the finest recording of his soulful career.

Brilliant producer/arranger Lou Pomanti is a driving force behind this project, having co-written two tunes and performed on piano, organ and keyboards. The fine cast of musicians also includes Marc Rogers on bass, Larnell Lewis and Davide Direnzo on drums, John Findlay and Sam Pomanti on guitar, William Carn on trombone, William Sperandei and Tony Carlucci on trumpet and Alison Young on Saxophone.

Nearly all 11 compositions on this album were penned or co-penned by Finley, and first at bat is Let Me Serenade You. Gospel motifs saturate this soulful, B3-driven tune and Finley’s well-lived-in, elastic tenor swoops and dips through this joyful track, replete with exquisitely placed horn lines and swinging, rhythmic, background vocals. Other highlights include GO, an uber-cool journey into a deep cave of funk and also the enervating closer, Who Will the Next Fool Be – a languid, down-home blues tinged with just the right amount of ennui, vigour and regret by Finley. This exceptionally conceived, produced, written, arranged and performed album is one of the most musically and emotionally satisfying recordings that I have had the chance to experience this year.

Breath & Hammer
David Krakauer; Kathleen Tagg
Table Pounding Records (tablepoundingmusic.com)

Alchemy is an attempt to turn base metal into gold. That’s a bit like what clarinetist David Krakauer and pianist Kathleen Tagg have done with this release. Issuing a call for raw material, in the form of song ideas, from their various musical friends, they then gave each a treatment blending electronic with acoustic effects. You wouldn’t know it from listening, but each track is a mosaic of multiple electronic bits.

The Hammer is Tagg, an adept performer/engineer of the prepared piano who uses her experience in contemporary extended techniques to expand the instrument, unlocking its potential for sounds well beyond convention. Breath is supplied by Krakauer, who is possibly best known for his mastery of the klezmer style, although that is just one of the several musical hats he wears. Per The Wall Street Journal: “Krakauer… moves so seamlessly between different genres… you’d almost think there’s no appreciable difference between jazz, klezmer and formal classical music.”

You might categorize this as a jazz-coloured klezmer album, the experience elevated or transformed by virtue of the novel sounds produced by the two musicians. Both engage in beat-boxing, bouncing bops of sound out of the bodies of their instruments. Tagg gets inside the lid and draws a plectrum across the strings beyond the bridge, sending shivers up the spine. Soft-shoe breath effects alternate with pop bottle hoots in the intro of Rattlin’ Down the Road. Demon Chopper is great rapid-fire fun. Listen and wonder: “How’d they do that?”

Just as innovation in jazz, notated and popular music rewrote precepts about harmony, melody, pitch and rhythm during the 20th century, so were the s about instruments’ interconnections remade. With even newer attitudes in the 21st century, pairing two instruments’ supposedly dissimilar timbres is no longer outrageous, but can lead to appealing sounds. 

Consider for example, Invisible Ritual (Tundra Records TUN 014 newfocusrecordings.com) that joins Americans Jennifer Curtis (violin) and Tyshawn Sorey, who plays percussion and piano. Curtis’ background includes playing old-timey music and membership in the contemporary chamber group ICE. Sorey composes for ensembles such as ICE as well as gigging as a jazz drummer with the likes of Myra Melford. The pair stretch boundaries only slightly during expected chamber music violin-piano configurations here. But while there’s a near rococo feel when the pianist sticks to prudent and deliberate patterning and the fiddler sweetens textures to the quasi-baroque, other sequences such as Invisible Ritual III and Invisible Ritual V are invested with dynamic animation. A heavier touch encompassing key clip and clinks from the piano adds swing intimations further propelled by impetuous violin glissandi and, especially on the second tune, triple-stopping variations and col legno taps. Contrast is more markedly defined when percussion is involved. Starting with a folksy exposition, gong-like reverberations and arco string strokes add to the reflective mood. The same sort of savvy is brought to faster numbers. Kinetic steeplechases are propelled by chunky drum rumbles and cymbal echoes from Sorey as Curtis, jumping from strained squeaks to pizzicato plucks on the fiddle, references the heads as they create new distinctive melodies. There’s even a point on Invisible Ritual VIII where the blend threatens to create a Balkan-style dance rhythm. Versatility and cooperation is most obvious on Invisible Ritual IV, where Sorey’s beat stretching and ruffs complement Curtis’ dynamic moves back and forth from spiccato to arco, often during the same line. As he slaps cymbal and snares, she heads into hoedown territory and then turns to tough tremolo sweeps to face down the ferocious clip-chop percussion challenge.

Listen to 'Invisible Ritual' Now in the Listening Room

The challenge on Andersabo (Johs & John 1 johnchantler.bandcamp.com/album/andersabo) on the other hand, would appear to be how to prevent timbres from the synthesizer and pump organ played by Australian John Chantler from overpowering Dane Johannes Lund’s bass saxophone tones. Shrewdly, it isn’t an issue. For no matter how inflated the keyboard textures become to attain a near hypnotic continuum, Lund’s almost continuous reed glissandi judder at the same speed and with the same intensity. Even on the extended Back of the House which moves the program to prestissimo, the two stay perfectly in sync. The subsequent brief Open Field and Forest climbs from barely audible buzzes to climax with scratchy and shrill surges. However the concluding Under Barn Floor manages to display both hushed and bold textures without breaking the chromatic line. As the pressure from tremolo pump organ runs and currents blown from the saxophone without key motion augment, textures bleed together into a solid mass. Eventually though, programmed samples of what could be the sound of waves hitting the shore plus mechanized clanks, whistles and whooshes from the synthesizer penetrate the solid sound block, while preserving calming drones. Although recorded in a residence in rural Sweden which gives the disc its title, the profound control exhibited here doesn’t reflect the rustic location, but contemporary minimalism.

Another variant of unusual keyboard-woodwind pairing occurs on Cell Walk (Songlines Records SGL 1631-2 songlines.com) between Wayne Horvitz’s piano and electronics and Sara Schoenbeck’s bassoon. Both are American and have worked in the circles around John Zorn and Anthony Braxton. Trying to avoid the expectations raised by these formal chamber music instruments though, the tracks, recorded in Vancouver and Brooklyn, include both compositions and improvisations. Not that the separation is obvious. Most tunes, no matter the tempo, depend on Schoenbeck’s flexible expansion of the low-pitched double reed’s characteristics and their symmetry with Horvitz’s fluid, but sometimes standard keyboard contours. Mostly the briefest tracks are gentler, vivace and buoyant, intermission riffs for the darker compositions. Some, like the title track, an almost church-like dirge, are legitimately gloomy, since the mournful melody was composed by Horvitz to honour the recently deceased Cecil Taylor. Others, such as No Blood Relation, are more calculating, as piano patterns vibrate alongside the bassoon’s heavy tones. After the turnaround, she supplely recaps the theme. Well reasoned, Ironbound gets its pressurized motion from the bassoonist’s dissonant colouring that increases tension at the same time as the pianist ranges over the keyboard to maintain horizontal pacing while creating multiple theme variations. Tougher and more notable are The Fifth Day and especially We Will Be Silk. Longest of the set, the first tune is mid-range and concentrated, with reed snarls and piano clinks harmonized as they repeat the melody that climaxes during a section where Schoenbeck’s slurs and Horvitz’s elevated key tinkles move the interpretation along unexpected avenues without losing the theme. A flat-out improvisation, We Will Be Silk is built on contrasts between the bassoonist’s hard nasal strains and the pianist’s internal string and soundboard plucks and clicks. Since this improvisation’s finale is as clear and solid as any other track, it would have made the session more imposing if the program had been looser to produce more tracks like it. 

Although they’re from the same instrumental family almost no one has previously created a duo matching the tiny piccoletto violin and the giant octobass until The Touchables came along. On The Noise is Rest (Conradsound CNRD 328 conradsound.com) Norwegians, fiddler Ole-Henrik Moe and bassist Guro Skumsnes Moe range through eight improvisations that not only reach the far boundaries of treble and bass tones, but also easily create textures that squeeze past what’s expected from string sets. Mixing wood-rending pulls, taut string pressure and spiccato drones, the two also maintain a discordant continuum throughout. Often the piccoletto shrills reach such elevated pitches that it could be electronic voltage being pushed into the improvisations. Ocean-liner-whistle vibrations from the octobass regularly descend to such a sunken state that passing tones bond into multiphonics, filling every crevice of the audio space. A track such as Peace Ghost, which in itself is wilder and louder than those that precede it, includes such sharp, shimmering violin timbres that the resulting echoes are almost brass-like, whereas Byalullalandbird’s slick mid-range bass glissandi sound with such fluidity that the closest resemblance would be to low-pitched reed split tones. By the final Deserted Desert, wide-ranging col legno strokes and pointillist screeches from both instruments combine with triple-stopping piccoletto shrills and moderated arco string buffing from the octobass. Eventually a calming climax is attained as tension-diffusing air currents complete the arrangement.

If the other CDs highlight unexpected and unprecedented extended acoustic techniques, the Viennese duo on Jardin des Bruits (Mikroton CD 91 mikroton.net) extend the intonation still further. That’s because the electric guitar interludes of Burkhard Stangl are mated with the sounds of Paris streets and subways that were recorded, collated and modified by turntablist dieb 13. Over the course of 20 (!) tracks that range from a few seconds to nine minutes dieb uses found sounds such as human voices, footfalls, car horn blasts and the regularized thump of road traffic as leitmotifs. Alternately he weaves the textures into an outpouring of crackles, static and voltage tremors to aurally reflect certain areas around the French capital. Simultaneously he alters their sonic properties by replaying the sounds at various speeds as well as adding vinyl-sourced noises. Meanwhile Stangl’s warm finger-style plucks add the human element. Not that the guitar approach is Arcadian though, except on tracks like Jardin des Plantes where soothing strings intersect with the noises of children. The truthfully titled Noisy Track on the other hand is almost eight minutes of Stangl mobilizing his most distorted Hendrix-styled fuzz tones that catapult timbres within the accelerating stylus-on-turntable crackles and buzzes created by dieb. Reaching a crescendo of onomatopoetic suggestions. Plus the disc provides one more instance of unforeseen duos creating exceptional programs. 

The late Isaac Stern exhibited the highest level of musical taste and a charisma on stage, qualities that uniquely come through in his recordings, particularly those from his early years. The young Stern was a highly first-class violinist and virtually one of the best in history. He had a lush, beautiful incandescent sound, perfect intensity and power. He concentrated on music for its own sake and generally did not present fireworks displays although he was perfectly capable of doing so. On Isaac Stern – The Complete Columbia Analogue Recordings we find him featured more in the repertoire of the likes of Mozart, Schubert and Brahms. He was also deeply involved in chamber music which was a big part of his activities. As a young man he was one of the busiest musicians anywhere and was in high demand as a guest artist by the likes of the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony, and distinguished conductors such as Bruno Walter. He was also to be heard in chamber music festivals including the now legendary Casals Festival in Prades. Stern regularly appeared with the most respected musicians such as Dame Myra Hess, William Primrose and David Oistrakh. His early (November 1951) recordings with Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic playing the Brahms and Sibelius Violin Concertos remain the most impressive performances compared with anyone else, even his own later recordings of these works. His programs were the epitome of serious musical thinking and were influential on violinists who followed. As an example, programs by such artists such as Kreisler, Elman and even Heifetz could include concertos in which the orchestral part was played by the accompanying piano. This convention was eliminated in Stern’s recitals, setting an example, and today it is gone.

Stern was born in Kremenets, Ukraine in 1920 and was brought to San Francisco as an infant. His mother was a singer and he began musical studies at home. He studied violin with Naoum Binder and Louis Persinger, making his debut at the age of 11 with the San Francisco Symphony. His New York debut was on October 11, 1937. His tour of Russia in 1956 was a triumph. There was a story going around many decades ago that I first heard in Australia. It concerns a group of young string players in San Francisco playing for pleasure in their home. A passerby who turned out to be Isaac Stern, heard them and asked if he might join them. He did. True or apocryphal, it is a nice story. 

As a centenary tribute, Sony has issued Stern’s analogue recordings in a 75-CD set containing all those wonderful Columbia mono and stereo riches, carefully and knowingly prepared from the original sessions. Checking the dates on the genesis of each disc, Stern’s first recording was on April 26/30, 1945 in Columbia’s New York studios playing Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.7 in C Minor, Op. 30 No.2. The pianist was Alexander Zakin, Stern’s accompanist from 1940 to 1977. On the same disc is Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G Major, K216 recorded with Stern also conducting a chamber orchestra on March 28, 1950. This is the most musically exquisite performance one could ever hope to hear. 

These are all irreplaceable performances from his vast recorded repertoire of the most beloved concertos, sonatas, melodies et al., and here are just a few reminders: five CDs from the Casals Festival at Prades featuring, in various combinations, Dame Myra Hess, Alexander Schneider, Paul Tortelier, Milton Thomas, John Wummer, Eugene Istomin, Milton Katims and Madeline Foley. Lalo’s five-movement Symphonie Espagnole in D Minor is conducted by Eugene Ormandy coupled with the Max Bruch Concerto No.1. There are Prokofiev’s First and Second Violin Concertos conducted by Leonard Bernstein, and the Brahms Double Concerto with Leonard Rose, Bruno Walter conducting the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York before they became the New York Philharmonic. 

So well-remembered is the trio of Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose and Eugene Istomin who recorded the complete Beethoven trios between 1965 and 1970 and the complete Brahms trios in 1964-70. Here they all are in pristine sound. Also the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the composer conducting, from 1961. Even in this syncopated, jaunty piece the signature Stern sound beams. Add the ”Concert of the Century” in Carnegie Hall on May 18, 1976 featuring Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic, Rostropovich, Horowitz, Fischer-Dieskau and the Oratorio Society of New York. 

Many music lovers of a certain age may not remember the first time they heard Stern. Perhaps it was in a movie theatre in 1946 watching Humoresque as the driven violinist John Garfield and Joan Crawford play out their tragic love story. Audiences were treated to several repertory pieces woven into the plot. Stern recorded all the performances in addition to filming close-ups of the fingering and bowing from all angles which were edited into the film. Moving on… In 1960 Stern was a leader in the successful drive to save Carnegie Hall when the famous NYC institution was threatened by demolition. He then served as president of the hall’s new governing body at that time.

Isaac Stern: The Complete Columbia Analogue Recordings (Sony Classical 972425 isaacsternlegacy.org), comprise 75 CDs with each recording in a replica of its original jacket, in a sturdy box with a 214-page hardcover book that includes a biography and details of each recording and an index by composer. A set to be treasured!

Profil has issued a ten-CD set of notable performances conducted by Jascha Horenstein, Jascha Horenstein Reference Recordings (Profil Edition Hänssler PH19014 naxosdirect.com). Horenstein was born in Kiev in 1898 and died in London in 1973. His family moved to Vienna in 1911 and in 1916 he was studying at the Vienna Academy of Music, including composition with Franz Schreker. In 1920 he went to Berlin and became an assistant to Wilhelm Furtwängler. In the 1920s he conducted the Vienna Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic. He became music director of the Düsseldorf Opera in 1929, getting out in 1933 ahead of the Nazis. He moved around, travelling as far as Australia before settling in New York in 1939. In 1947, he returned to Europe and conducted in Paris, Vienna, Bamberg and also Baden-Baden, the home of the Sudwestfunk Broadcasting Company whose SWF Symphony Orchestra was second to none. In his last years he was conductor of the LSO.

Perhaps because he was not connected to any one orchestra, the major record companies effectively had no interest in preserving his performances or they would have done so. In the 1960s and 1970s many avid in-the-know music lovers and collectors relied upon smaller independent companies to deliver Horenstein recordings. Vox issued a few, as did Unicorn, Music and Arts, and Koch, and the BBC issued some of their own. For this edition, Profil has selected 22 first-class Horenstein recordings. 

Outstanding performances include Liszt’s A Faust Symphony with the choral ending; also Wagner’s A Faust Overture both from the SWF orchestra and chorus. Other highlights include the Eroica with the Vienna Pro Musica and an extraordinarily powerful Death and Transfiguration with the Bamberg SO. No less impressive are the Mahler First and Third Symphonies and Kindertotenlieder (Heinrich Rehkemper) and the Bruckner Eighth. A list of the works would be too long but here are the composers: Bruckner, Mahler, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartók, Janáček, Wagner, Brahms, Liszt, Beethoven and Richard Strauss. Orchestras are the LSO; Pro Musica, Wein; SWR Symphony, Baden-Baden; Colonne Concerts Orchestra, Paris; Orchestre Radio Symphonique, Paris; the Berlin State Opera Orchestra; the ORTF and the Bamberg Symphony. Soloists are Claudio Arrau, David Oistrakh, Vlado Perlmutter and Ivry Gitlis.

Horenstein conducted every work as if it were the most interesting and important composition ever before him. He demonstrated a concentration and focus that breathed new life and dimension into the most familiar works. The tuttis are organic. His commanding performances are persuasive and consistently engaging.

It’s just about a year since I retired from New Music Concerts after two decades as general manager, but I can’t seem to get away from the (great) memories. At the invitation of artistic director Robert Aitken, the 2000/2001 season began with the Caput Ensemble of Iceland, a country that had previously captured my imagination and sparked dreams of travel. Although it would be more than a decade before I would experience the magic isle in person, this was my first exposure to the wonderful people and culture of the fabled land. It created an impression that stuck with me and was confirmed in 2012 during a two-week visit to Iceland with Bob Aitken, his wife Marion and my wife Sharon. As a result of his career as a flute soloist and chamber musician it was Bob’s 16th trip there. He seemed to know everyone in the country and we were made to feel almost like family. 

It was truly a trip of a lifetime for me, and one I realize I have mentioned again and again in this column. My excuse this time is a new Caput recording, Atonement, featuring music by Pàll Ragnar Pàlsson (Sono Luminus DSL-92241 sonoluminus.com/store/atonement). Pàlsson, who began as a rock musician, changed his focus in his late 20s. After undergraduate work at the Iceland Academy of Arts he went on to a master’s degree at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre where he studied with Helena Tulve (one of many international composers I had the pleasure of meeting during my tenure at NMC). It was there that Pàlsson met his future wife, soprano Tui Hirv, whose voice is featured extensively on this disc. 

The title track is a setting of a poem by fellow Icelander Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir for soprano, flute, piano, violin, viola and cello. The quiet, eerie instrumentation and the poem’s final stanza – “Coming to terms with a new world, finally the moment you were waiting for” – aptly sets the stage for what is to come. The second piece Lucidity is an abstract work that adds clarinet and percussion to the mix (without soprano or viola). Hirv returns for Stalker’s Monologue, from Andrei Tarkovsky’s classic film Stalker, set for the whole ensemble (all of the above plus harp). A multilinguist and musicologist in addition to her exquisite vocal skills, Hirv provided the English translation of Tarkovsky’s Russian text that appears in the booklet. Midsummer’s Night, another poem by Gunnarsdóttir, is set for just flute, clarinet, harp and percussion with recitation by the author. Incidentally, I find myself writing this column on Midsummer’s Eve, June 23. Both of Gunnarsdóttir’s poems are in English. The disc culminates in Wheel Crosses Under Moss with a text assembled from various Swedish hymns from Vormsi Island in West Estonia. Featuring the “Pierrot” core of the ensemble in support of the guest soprano, it draws this striking portrait of the first Icelander to win the International Rostrum of Composers to a quietly dramatic close. 

It has been 20 years since I first heard, and met, the members of Caput. There has been a complete change in personnel during that time with the exception of founding clarinetist Guðni Franzson who now serves as the group’s conductor. Two things that haven’t changed are Caput’s commitment to contemporary Icelandic composers and its skill in bringing their music to life. 

It seems that I’m not the only one. Sono Luminus CEO Collin J. Rae is also enamoured of Iceland’s music and that small Virginia-based label has become a major promoter of Nordic culture under his stewardship. Hot on the heels of Atonement comes STARA, a portrait of another, younger Icelandic composer Halldór Smárason (DSL-92242 sonoluminus.com/store/stara) featuring the Siggi String Quartet and Friends. Smárason, was born in Ísafjörður, Westfjords in the northwestern part of Iceland in 1989. He completed an Advanced Level Piano Examination in 2009, a B.A. degree in composition from the Iceland University of the Arts in 2012 and an M.M. degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 2014. Smárason has received the Artists’ Salaries four times, a state-funded support for selected Icelandic artists. 

Founded in 2012, the members of Siggi String Quartet have worked with Björk, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Ensemble Modern, Atli Heimir Sveinsson, Caput, Slátur, Bedroom Community and Errata Collective as well as being key players of the Reykjavík Chamber and Iceland Symphony Orchestras.

The disc includes three string quartets, two mixed chamber works and Skúlptúr 1 for solo guitar and electronics performed by Gulli Björnsson. The quartet Stara, the earliest work on the disc, dates from 2012 during Smárason’s American studies, where it won the Manhattan Prize. draw + play, the second quartet, heard first on the disc, was commissioned by the Siggi quartet. It is inspired by the accordion and the title is extracted from an old Icelandic word for the instrument. I find it intriguing how the composer uses the string instruments to replicate the sounds of distinctive extended contemporary accordion techniques. BLAKTA, the third quartet, is the most recent piece on the album. It was commissioned to celebrate Iceland’s 100 years as a sovereign state and depicts a flag fluttering in various weather conditions, characterized by distinctive vibratos of different speed and density. Very atmospheric. 

For the mixed ensemble works stop breathing and the intriguingly titled _a_at_na the quartet enlists the help of “Friends” Emilía Rós Sigfúsdóttir (bass flute), Geirþrúður Ása Guðjónsdóttir (violin), Helga Björg Arnardóttir (clarinet) and Tinna Thorsteinsdóttir (piano), as required. The latter piece is based on the composer’s personal struggle with anxiety, and the title is a puzzle requiring the Icelandic word for anxiety to solve. Even the stage setup is affected by this very personal subject, with the piano isolated in the middle of the audience and the rest of the performers spread around the periphery. Evidently this can be heard in the fully immersive audio version of the album on the Pure Audio Blu-ray™ disc that accompanies the standard CD, although it is not available on the digital files from which I am working. Regardless of that, the angst certainly comes through convincingly, completing a very personal portrait of an important new voice. 

It was in April 2003 that I had another “brush with greatness” thanks to New Music Concerts when George Crumb and his family came to Toronto to work with our musicians. Crumb had been an important part of the NMC family from the very early days to the extent that four of his pieces were included on an extended European tour in 1976. The first Crumb portrait concert had taken place at Walter Hall in 1974, with another at Premiere Dance Theatre in 1986 that included the premiere of An Idyll for the Misbegotten, dedicated to Robert Aitken, and then another at Glenn Gould Studio in 2003 as mentioned above. On that occasion Teri Dunn was featured in Federico’s Little Songs for Children and daughter Ann Crumb sang the recently completed cycle Unto the Hills. Crumb was 74 at the time and he showed no signs of slowing down creatively. 

It seems that is still true and the latest Bridge Records release George Crumb Vol.19 is testament to this (bridgerecords.com/products/9535). On it Marcantonio Barone performs Metamorphoses (Book I) (2015-2017) subtitled “Ten Fantasy-Pieces (after celebrated paintings)” for amplified piano. Amplification has often been an important aspect to Crumb’s instrumentation – the flute in An Idyll for the Misbegotten, the string quartet in Black Angels, and in almost his entire extensive piano repertoire. In most cases this is not to make the music loud, but rather to make the quietest subtleties of harmonics and extended techniques audible. The pianist is required not only to play upon the keyboard, but to venture inside the piano to pluck and strum and dampen strings, use fists, brushes, yarn sticks and other materials to caress and strike various wire, wood and metal surfaces, vocalize and employ a variety of small, mostly percussion, instruments to expand the solo piano into a real orchestra of timbre. 

Highlights of the set for me include Goldfish (Paul Klee, 1925) with its echoes of Debussy’s Poissons d’or and sustain-pedal, open-string resonance, Crows over the Wheatfield (Vincent van Gogh, 1890) with eerie cawing from the pianist, The Fiddler (Marc Chagall, 1912/13) with zither-like string strumming and dancing melodies, Contes barbares (Paul Gauguin, 1902) featuring Tahitian incantations and percussive outbursts, and The Persistence of Memory (Salvador Dalí, 1931) with nods to some of Crumb’s favourite pieces, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Beethoven’s Op.110 and the iconic hymn Amazing Grace. There are many references to Crumb’s earlier compositions and in many ways these new works sound familiar. One sometimes wonders “Why does Grandpa keep telling the same stories?” but listen carefully; you’ll find vast new worlds buried within them.

Although Book I is dedicated to Margaret Leng Tan, Crumb was evidently so taken with Barone’s performance that he is the dedicatee of Book II, completed earlier this year, the composer’s 91st. So, still not slowing down! I look forward to hearing the sequel and to future Bridge releases documenting the ongoing legacy of this great American composer.

Listen to 'George Crumb Vol.19: Metamorphoses (Book I)' Now in the Listening Room

IN BRIEF

Another Metamorphosis crossed my desk this month featuring 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition laureates the Jupiter Quartet (Marquis Classics MAR499 marquisclassics.com/499_met.aspx). The disc, which will be released on August 7, honours the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with his String Quartet Op.131 in C-sharp Minor, a work that violist Liz Freivogel describes as one that “quartet musicians picture [as] their ideal chamber music experience […] There are few other works that require such a prolonged and intense communion with one another.” She goes on to say that Jupiter “naïvely” tried to learn the work in their first year together with limited success, but now, almost two decades later, feel they understand “a few more of the elements that make it so powerful.” This performance is a fully mature one that convincingly captures the depth and breadth of Beethoven’s masterpiece. Jupiter has paired it with one of the seminal quartets of the second half of the 20th century, Ligeti’s Quartet No.1 “Métamorphoses nocturnes.” Completed in 1954, the work is reminiscent of the quartets of Bartók and looks backward as much as forward while remaining rooted in the abrasive textures of the recent avant-garde, before metamorphosing to a “melancholy and lonely close.” Once again the quartet excels, confirming not only its command of the literature in all its intricacies, but also its creativity when it comes to programming. 

What to say about yet another recording of the Bach Cello Suites? Literally, my shelf runneth over, so it is actually a blessing to be working from digital files during the COVID crisis. But I do welcome this latest addition to the PentaTone catalogue, Bach Weilerstein (pentatonemusic.com/bach-cello-suites-alisa-weilerstein) featuring 2011 MacArthur Fellow Alisa Weilerstein. 

As Jason Stell declares in the program notes, “The Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by J. S. Bach loom larger than any other works in the genre. They are the veritable Alpha and Omega of a cellist’s art.” It is no wonder then that every cellist aspires to “conquer” this summit, but it must also be daunting to try to find a new path where so many have gone before. I’ll let Weilerstein explain her decision to undertake this journey:

“With their delicacy and nakedness, their strength and restraint, the cello suites present a unique and humbling challenge. After many years telling family, friends, and myself that I would attempt a recording only when I was much older, I decided that what had seemed like prudence was, in fact, a misunderstanding of the suites’ nature. The intrinsic impossibility of this music is the very source of its freedom.

“I have been living with these suites since further back than memory can reach, and I have grown with them throughout my life with the cello. Great music is a reflection of life as it is lived, and this recording is a reflection of myself, in 2019, at 37 years old, steeped in and still discovering Bach’s unparalleled accomplishment.”

I’m very happy to have been invited to share this monumental undertaking with one of the finest artists of her generation. You should too!

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

The only problem with my reviewing CDs by guitarist Michael Kolk is that I keep running out of superlatives, and his latest disc – 20th Century Guitar Sonatas – presents the same welcome problem (michaelkolkguitar.com).

There are several connecting themes with the works here. Both the Sonata para guitarra from 1933 by the Spanish composer Antonio José (born in 1902 and a victim of the fascist regime in 1936) and the 1927 Sonatina by Cyril Scott (1879-1970) were the only works those composers wrote for guitar. In addition, both works were unknown or lost until their relatively recent publications, the José in 1990 and the Scott in 2002.

This also applies to the 1994 Sonate in A Minor by the Austrian composer Ferdinand Rebay (1880-1953), most of whose solo and chamber guitar music has only recently been discovered. The 1967 Sonata No.1, the first of three by the Argentinian composer Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) completes an outstanding recital.

Technically Kolk – as always – seems faultless, but it’s the range of tone, colour and dynamics as well as the constant sense of a highly developed musical intelligence and an innate understanding of and feel for form, line and phrase that continually impresses. Beautifully recorded in the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto and engineered by Kolk’s duo partner Drew Henderson, it’s another masterclass in guitar performance.

Violinist Lara St. John has always been a bit of a free spirit and not afraid to take risks, so you would be safe in assuming that her latest CD, Key of A, featuring Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.9 in A Major, “Kreutzer” and the Franck Violin Sonata in A Major with pianist Matt Herskowitz (Ancalagon ANC144 larastjohn.com), would be anything but routine playing. 

St. John says she wanted a pianist “free of traditional ideas” for the Franck, and one who would “be able to keep up with the extremes” she envisioned for the Beethoven, tempo and volume-wise. Well, she certainly got her wish with the brilliant Herskowitz. The Beethoven features breathtaking tempos for the two outer movements with a wide dynamic range, St. John using portamento and an almost violent attack at times, with Herskowitz matching her step for step. It’s hair-raising stuff.

The Franck features almost decadently Romantic playing, with St. John never afraid to pull things around in the tempestuous second movement, sounding almost improvisatory in the third and never resorting to the usual merely smooth and flowing melodic line in the canonic finale. It’s not often that this piece sounds different, but this is risk-taking at its best and most exciting, with tremendous piano work from Herskowitz.

Fritz Kreisler’s Schön Rosmarin completes a quite startling CD.

The Eybler Quartet is back with another superb 2CD set of works by a neglected 18th-century composer, this time Franz Asplmayr Six Quartets, Op.2, early works by the Austrian composer who lived from 1728 to 1786 (Gallery Players of Niagara GPN20001 galleryplayers.ca/shop/music).

Although best known for his theatre works, Asplmayr produced 41 symphonies, 70 trios and 43 string quartets, the six four-movement works here – in G, D, F, E, C and E-flat majors – described in Patrick Jordan’s erudite and insightful notes as being “wonderfully unique and highly underappreciated.” They were published by Huberty in Paris in 1769, although probably written much earlier.

The Eybler players are in top form again, displaying their customary perfect ensemble, faultless intonation and vitality and warmth, with technique to burn. Recorded at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, sound and balance are both ideal in simply delightful performances.

Listen to 'Franz Asplmayr Six Quartets, Op.2' Now in the Listening Room

The superb Duo Concertante husband-and-wife team of pianist Timothy Steeves and violinist Nancy Dahn add another stellar CD to their discography with Franz Schubert Music for Violin and Piano (Marquis Classics MAR611 marquisclassics.com).

The duo’s trademark musical qualities – perfect ensemble, clarity, tone, a fine grasp of phrase and form, and an exquisite sensitivity – are all fully evident in a recital consisting of the Fantasy in C Major Op.159 D934, the Sonata in A Major Op.162 D574 and the Rondo in B Minor Op.70 D895. These works are available digitally as well as on CD, while the three Sonatinas Op.137: No.1 in D Major D384; No.2 in A Minor D385; and No.3 in G Minor D408 are available only from streaming and download services. 

In another Glenn Gould Studio recording the sound and balance are ideal, capturing every nuance of Steeves’ rich piano and Dahn’s expressive and distinctive violin. In the booklet notes the players comment on the vocal quality of Schubert’s melodic writing. It’s a clear insight into their approach to this recording project, for it’s a CD that sings from beginning to end.

The three Schubert Sonatinas are also featured on Boundless – Schubert Sonatinas Performed on historical instruments, a new Sono Luminus CD with another husband and wife team, violinist Zachary Carrettín and pianist Mina Gajić (DSL-92240 sonoluminus.com/store/boundless). Carrettín plays a rare Franz Kinberg violin with gut strings, set up for late classical and early-Romantic performance, and uses a late classical John Dodd pre-Tourte bow c.1800. Gajić’s piano is an Érard concert grand from 1835. 

We’re obviously in another sound world here, with less power and different sonority in the piano and less vibrato from the violin, which sounds a bit drier but not necessarily softer. The playing is top-notch technically, with accuracy and agility, but despite the different tonal colours it tends to lack the warmth of the Duo Concertante sound.

It’s clearly closer to what Schubert would have heard in his lifetime, though, the performers describing the choices regarding pedalling, chord voicing, balance, articulation and score indications as a fascinating exploration as they sought – successfully, clearly – to pay homage to the original intent as well as to the authentic sounds.

Impressions – The Rediscovery of Henriëtte Bosmans (leahplave.com/media) is the debut album from McGill graduate cellist Leah Plave, accompanied by pianist Dan Sato.

Bosmans (1895-1952) was a distinguished Dutch pianist and composer who was much admired in her time. As a bisexual Jewish woman her music was banned by the Nazis, but she kept performing and composing in secret. For many years following her death her music remained virtually unknown, even in the Netherlands.

Plave’s CD contains Bosmans’ complete works for cello and piano, music that reflects a personal style that mixed German Romanticism with French Impressionism. The 1919 Cello Sonata is a four-movement work with a strong, brooding opening movement. The Trois Impressions from around 1926 – I. Cortège; II. Nuit Calme; and III. En Espagne – feature a quite lovely middle movement and some dazzling piano writing in En Espagne that not only reflects Bosmans’ abilities as a pianist but also draws terrific playing from Sato.

Two short pieces – Chanson and the lovely Arietta – complete the CD. Plave gives effective and committed performances, strongly supported by Sato’s fine accompaniment.

Interestingly, all nine tracks appear to be available on YouTube under Top Tracks – Leah Plave.

There’s another terrific CD of the two Shostakovich Violin Concertos, this time with the brilliant and always exciting Alina Ibragimova with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ under Vladimir Jurowski (Hyperion CDA68313 hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68313).

The Concerto No.1 in A Minor Op.77 was written for David Oistrakh in 1947/48, but withheld due to the infamous Zhdanov decree and not premiered until October 1955. It’s a four-movement work, with an ethereal, uneasy opening Nocturne, a demonic Scherzo and a massive central Passacaglia leading to the famous, towering solo cadenza.  Ibragimova is superb throughout, opting to play the opening theme of the following grim-humoured Burlesque on the violin, as originally scored by Shostakovich before he re-scored it for orchestra alone at Oistrakh’s request to enable the soloist to at least wipe his brow. It’s the first commercial recording thus.

The Concerto No.2 in C-sharp Minor Op.129 was written in 1967 for Oistrakh’s 60th birthday, albeit a year early. There’s simply beautiful playing from Ibragimova in the middle movement, and another tough cadenza handled superbly.

Great sound, great balance, dazzling playing and interpretation all add up to an outstanding disc.

Violinist Katherine Hunka is the soloist as well as the director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra on a new CD of music for strings by Piazzolla, Schubert and Schnittke (Orchid Classics ORC100130 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100130-irish-chamber-orchestra-katherine-hunka).

Leonard Desyatnikov’s arrangement of Piazzolla’s hauntingly beautiful The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires adds direct quotes from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in what is almost a recomposition. The resulting work is extremely effective, drawing sumptuous playing from Hunka that is stylistic, warm and impassioned. The ensemble matches her in a vividly successful re-imagining of Piazzolla’s highly personal sound.

Schubert’s lovely Rondo in A Major for Violin and String Orchestra D438 shows clear influence of Mozart’s violin concertos. The Schnittke work is Moz-Art à la Haydn from 1977, described in the notes as combining “an unfinished fragment by Mozart – his Pantomime Music K446 – with the theatricality of Haydn’s Farewell Symphony.” The noise of the players changing positions is deliberately audible, complete with heavy footsteps, wailing and crying!

A beautifully idiomatic performance of Oblivion, one of Piazolla’s most celebrated and traditional tangos, provides a lovely close to an excellent CD.

The London-based Russian violist Yuri Zhislin is the conductor and arranger as well as the soloist on Russian Colours, a CD of music from the Russian Romantic era arranged for string orchestra and featuring his own ensemble, the Camerata Tchaikovsky (Orchid Classics ORC100136 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100136-camerata-tchaikovsky-2).

Zhislin is the fine soloist in his own transcription of Alexander Glazunov’s Concerto in E-flat Major for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra Op.104 from 1934, a fairly brief four-movement work that doesn’t appear to lose anything in the transcription, the warmth of the viola – especially in the middle register – being very close to the saxophone timbre.

Anton Arensky’s three-movement String Quartet No.2 in A Minor Op.35 from 1894 is the other major work, its second movement Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky proving so popular that Arensky himself arranged it for string orchestra as Op.35a. It’s the only track on the CD not arranged by Zhislin.

Three perennial favourites complete a beautifully played and highly enjoyable CD: the Andante from Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No.1 from 1871; Borodin’s Nocturne from his 1881 String Quartet No.2; and Rachmaninoff’s 1912 Vocalise Op.34.

Maxim Rysanov is the viola soloist and also conductor of the Sinfonietta Riga on Viola Concerto/String Symphony ‘Voices’ featuring music by the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (BIS 2443-SACD naxosdirect.com/items/peteris-vasks-viola-concerto-symphony-no.-1-voices-533230). 

The Concerto for Viola and String Orchestra from 2014/15 was dedicated to Rysanov and premiered by him in 2016; the performance here is a world premiere recording. It’s a quite beautiful, highly tonal and deeply emotional work, in which Vasks “returns to two essential concepts: chant and monologue.” The opening movement rises to the heights of serenity and despair, with the second movement a joyful – but still minor-key – contrast. Despair seems to be the dominant factor in the final two movements.

The Symphony for Strings was written in 1991 as Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were breaking free from the crumbling Soviet Union. “The new beginning was difficult,” says Vasks. Certainly the work reflects that feeling, with tenuous openings to both the first and the fairly hostile middle movement, followed by a quite brutal third movement which eventually dies away to nothing.

Le Rappel des Oiseaux
Luc Beauséjour
Analekta AN 2 8797 (analekta.com/en/albums/le-rappel-des-oiseaux-luc-beausejour)

Now here’s a real treat: a full course of tastefully chosen Baroque miniatures of the aviary art from a rich trove of 18th-century French harpsichord works by Rameau, Couperin, D’Agincour, Daquin, Dornel, Duphly, Dandrieu and Février. The love of birds would seem to be a Gallic specialty, whether it be imitative (Messiaen reigns supreme in the 20th century) or allegorical; all are amply stuffed with scrumptious ornaments for your delectation. Hens, cuckoos, nightingales and swallows abound, along with the amorous adventures of the turtle doves. 

Luc Beauséjour is well known for his mastery of the Baroque keyboard repertoire and has released over 35 recordings throughout his career. He performs here on a harpsichord from the Montreal atelier of Yves Beaupré, a sweet two-manual instrument modelled after a 1681 design by Vaudry, expertly recorded by Carl Talbot. 

Speaking of birds, the quills of this harpsichord are fashioned from the feathers of indigenous Canada geese, which Beauséjour carves himself. It’s finger-lickin’ good.

Daniel Foley

Debussy; Rameau
Víkingur Ólafsson
Deutsche Grammophon 4837701 (deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/vikingur-olafsson)

Fresh on the heels of last year’s array of accolades and honours, the young Icelandic pianist, Víkingur Ólafsson, has just released his third record on the Deutsche Grammophon label. He is known for communicative and colouristic prowess, winning the hearts and ears of many listeners with uncommon interpretations of keyboard music by J.S. Bach and Philip Glass.

For this new album, Ólafsson interweaves short pieces by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Claude Debussy – repertoire written nearly 200 years apart – in a winsome, 28-track presentation that reveals intriguing textural kinships. (Ólafsson considers the two composers “soulmates.”)

This insightful pianist perceives relationships amongst the repertoire on various levels from which components of sonority, texture and polyphony are admirably distilled with interpretive command. The resulting (and likely intended) effect is of partial fusion and mutual application: the impressionist, painterly sonic canvases of Debussy begin to sound like Rameau’s elegant, clean-lined character pieces of the High Baroque, and vice versa. 

While this curatorial vision is appealing, the disc tends to resemble a recital program rather than a long-playing album. The live concert experience of such repertoire might be more compelling, even revelatory. At the recording’s midpoint, the multidimensionality that Ólafsson seeks to convey devolves into two-dimensional space, bereft of varied access points. As we journey from Rameau to Debussy and back again, the programmatic permutations lose their lustre, a case in point for urging the differentiation of genre, i.e. The LP Album ≠ The Recital Program.

Adam Sherkin

Schumann – Waldszenen; Nachtstücke; Humoreske
Zoltán Fejérvári
ATMA ACD2 2816 (atmaclassique.com/En/Albums/AlbumInfo.aspx?AlbumID=1648) 

A perfectly considered new album from Hungarian pianist, Zoltán Fejérvári, presents three works by Robert Schumann in reverse chronological order: the Humoreske, Op.20, the Nachtstücke Op.23 (both written in 1839) and the later Waldszenen, Op.82 of 1849. 

Recorded at Domain Forget’s Salle de concert, this all-Schumann record features slightly offbeat choices from the composer’s catalogue. But taking the road less travelled has paid off for Fejérvári, as he brings a unique sensibility to Schumann’s music and dwells happily in the curious – at times unnerving(!) – realms of these three cycles.

One can, rather fancifully, divide the nine pieces of the Waldszenen into two groups: those that depict the natural world (i.e. the life of the forest and its nonhuman inhabitants) and those that do not (i.e. a hunter, an inn and a farewell). Fejérvári delivers a slight heft-of-hand in this playing, rather effective for those human narratives that require warmth and tonal weight; the more ephemeral music, (inspired by the woodland itself), urges a defter touch. 

The latter two-thirds of the record are filled, quite simply, with beautiful music making. Fejérvári embraces Opp.23 and 20 with spirited imagination and stylistic aplomb. A personalized probing of material is balanced with refinement of sonic design and the mercurial nature of Schumann’s art is coalesced for the listener with a favourably fresh approach that connects hallmark performance practice from the early Romantic piano with that of our present day.

Adam Sherkin

Listen to 'Schumann – Waldszenen; Nachtstücke; Humoreske' Now in the Listening Room

Janáček – Solo Piano Works
Thomas Adès
Signum Classics SIGCD600 (naxosdirect.com/items/janácek-solo-piano-works-531008)

The mighty Thomas Adès has long commanded almost any stage he graces with tireless innovation and a lion’s share of good musical sense. Audiences have marvelled at his performative abilities (alongside his compositional skill) since the brink of his career and a recent disc from Signum Classics, featuring Adès in readings of piano music by Leoš Janáček, is no exception. 

Janáček is, arguably, the archetypal composer’s composer, celebrated for his singular musical voice as both a Slav and cosmopolitan craftsman of the 20th century. The strides made by this innovative Czech composer are inevitably admired today by those musicians and audiences in the know.

How fitting, then, for Adès to investigate the cornerstones of such a composer’s piano repertoire and present his findings. In many respects, the two men have much in common: they have both sought out an individuality of expression through the musical tools of their own time. As such, their art greets the contemporary listener with an immediacy – recognizable in a way – but with a unique perspective possessing blindingly ingenious modes of construction.

From the first note of this record, comprising the 14 parts of On an Overgrown Path, the two-movement sonata From the Street and the four-part In the Mists, Adès lays bare his discoveries and convictions regarding Janáček’s art. Despite the lone harsh-sounding fortissimo chord or the odd fuzzy trill, this is recommended listening for any music lover worth their salt. (The cover art too should be noted, certainly inspired by “The Barn Owl Has Not Flown Away!” from Series I of On an Overgrown Path.)

Adam Sherkin

French Piano Rarities
Ralph van Raat
Naxos 8.573894 (naxosdirect.com/items/rare-french-piano-music-535795)

This fascinating disc opens with Debussy’s shimmering first version (1915) of his Étude, Pour les arpèges composés, discovered in 1977 and published as Étude retrouvée. His last-known piano piece, Les Soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon (1917, discovered in 2001), was an appreciative gift to his dependable wartime coal-supplier. In both substance and mood, it closely resembles his crepuscular Prélude No.4.

In 1944, the 19-year-old Pierre Boulez began studies with Olivier Messiaen. His 27-minute Prélude, Toccata et Scherzo from that year, here receiving its first recording, reflects Messiaen’s influence with its gamelan-like percussiveness. The following year, his 12 Notations, most lasting under a minute, reveal Boulez newly embracing Webern’s succinct serialism, introduced to him by another mentor, René Leibowitz. Boulez’s last completed piano work, the four-minute Une Page d’éphéméride (2005), filled with abrupt outbursts, was composed as a piece for piano students.

Messiaen himself is represented by four selections. Morceau de lecture à vue (1934), written as a sight-reading exercise for his students, would later provide the Thème d’amour for his piano-masterpiece, Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus. Birdsongs of several different species saturate La fauvette passerinette (1961, discovered in 2012) and two movements for solo piano from Messiaen’s monumental orchestral work Des canyons aux étoiles… (1974).

The CD ends with Ravel’s exquisite, antique-sounding, one-minute-long Menuet in C-sharp Minor (1904). Each of these “rarities” merits greater exposure; Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat’s richly-coloured performances enhance this disc’s eminent recommendabilty. 

Michael Schulman

Alessandro Scarlatti – Gli equivoci nel sembiante
Capella Intima; Gallery Players of Niagara; Nota Bene Baroque Players; Bud Roach
Musica Omnia mo0803 (galleryplayers.ca/shop/music) 

Alessandro Scarlatti’s first opera, Gil equivoci nel sembiante, was conceived and performed in the dark days of the papacy of Innocent XI. The virtual ban on secular art meant that the defiance of its composition and its performance, albeit privately, in 1679 must rate as one of the most glorious conceits of the religious censorship of the Baroque era. This extraordinary recording captures the dizzying episodes of mistaken identity with delightfully translucent obfuscation and appropriate comedy. 

The shepherd Eurillo and Clori, a nymph and object of his affection, are engaged in a hilarious, dizzy mix-up with a Eurillo look-alike, Armindo, and Clori’s envious younger sister Lisetta. Each is swept up in an interlinked romantic affair that becomes so awkward that it takes a near-miraculous appearance of all four characters together at once to unknot the whole affair.

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), the most celebrated name in Baroque opera, composed more than 60 operas during his life, changing with the times and influencing the genre through significant artistic reform. His brilliant work is brought to life with uncommon vividness by these performers. The vocalists of the Capella Intima embrace the radiance and foibles contained in Domenico Filippo Contini’s libretto. The Gallery Players of Niagara and the Nota Bene Baroque Players – playing period and contemporary instruments beautifully – add colourful realism to Scarlatti’s exquisite music. Bud Roach adds his masterful direction to bring it all to life.

Listen to 'Alessandro Scarlatti – Gli equivoci nel sembiante' Now in the Listening Room

Mozartissimo
Rolando Villazón
Deutsche Grammophon 4837917 (rolandovillazon.com/now-available-mozartissimo-from-deutsche-grammophon)

Mexican lyric tenor Rolando Villazón has justly become world famous while conquering most of the bel canto and even the heavier roles (e.g. Don Carlo, Werther etc.) and has become the darling of the opera-loving public by teaming up with Anna Netrebko creating a “dream couple” with their youthful and attractive looks, natural compatibility and lovely stage presence. His youthful exuberance, intensity and taking of chances unfortunately led him into trouble and surgery, but he successfully recovered. Now he has turned to Mozart whom he reveres and calls his “most beloved composer and dearest friend.”

 My first encounter with him in Mozart was a recent recording by DG of Don Giovanni, which I reviewed in these pages (April 2016), singing Don Ottavio and bringing an erotic Latin sensuality to the part. Since then DG has recorded all seven Mozart operas with him taking the tenor role in most. This new issue contains almost all of Mozart’s work for the tenor. A tremendous undertaking.

Villazón begins with the two famous arias from Don Giovanni including my favourite Il mio tesoro intanto, immediately showing his virtuosity with a voice that triggers varied emotions often within the same aria. What follows are excerpts from Cosi fan tutte, Abduction from the seraglio, Le nozze di Figaro, La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte where he takes the role of Papageno, again showing his versatility with this buffo role. All the foregoing are accompanied by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted with exquisite Mozartian style by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

A most rewarding disc that should be enjoyed piecemeal, one or two items at a time, to come to you fresh with each listening.

Sturm und Drang Volume 1
Chiara Skerath; The Mozartists; Ian Page
Signum Classics SIGCD619 (signumrecords.com/product/sturm-und-drang-volume-1/SIGCD619)

The Sturm und Drang movement (often translated as “Storm and Stress”) was a brief moment in post-Baroque art, lasting from the 1760s to the 1780s, characterized by extremes of subjectivity, passion and sentimentality. In some ways this movement anticipated the ideals of Romanticism, using dramatic and turbulent musical ideas to express intensely moody atmospheres, but it was also reactionary and revolutionary against the rococo backdrop of the late Baroque era.

This disc, the first in a seven-volume series exploring the Sturm und Drang movement incorporates iconic compositions from the 1760s by Gluck and Haydn, as well as largely forgotten or neglected works by less familiar names such as Niccolò Jommelli and Franz Ignaz Beck. 

Whether the composer and the repertoire are firmly in the contemporary canon or not, these works are clearly connected in style and substance. Beck’s Symphony in G Minor, for example, has all the characteristic features of an early symphony by Mozart or Haydn, including formal structures, modulatory formulae and thematic development, while Jommelli’s opera Fetonte is, in retrospect, a decidedly Mozartean effort. It is essential to note, however, that Jommelli was born in 1714, 42 years before Mozart, and it is Jommelli who is credited for advancing opera seria to a level of freedom and complexity that paved the way for Mozart and his contemporaries. 

A universal feature of the Sturm und Drang composers is a juxtaposition of relatively simple melodic and harmonic material with vibrant, aggressive and engaging rhythms. It is paramount that a performer conveys the vitality of these rhythms while still reflecting the chiaroscuro subtleties of the overall work. Fortunately, conductor Ian Page and the Mozartists are enormously capable interpreters and breathe life into these works in a way that sounds both effortless and tremendously satisfying.