Hold On, Let Go
Steve Amirault
Independent (steveamirault.com)

Steve Amirault’s solo CD Hold On, Let Go is a wry commentary on life. This mood continues throughout the 11 songs on the disc and is sometimes made intricately droll perhaps, by the fact that he sits in splendid isolation at the piano, interweaving the lyrics with the shimmering sonority and yearning rapture of his accompaniment. Any form of solo performance is a lonely pursuit. The artist and the engineer are inevitably separated by glass which invariably accentuates the experience. It is in this very atmosphere that Amirault’s music rustles like raw silk.

The listener is treated to spiritual flights far above the mundane and journeys through worlds at once zealous, reflective and transcendent. Amirault’s Dindi is a little gem, elementally melancholic yet infinitely hopeful. On Moon River and God Bless the Child, he uses elongated syllables to evoke the crepuscular and the dramatic. In this way, Amirault shapes every phrase with ardent sensitivity, lingering or propelling the narratives as they heighten the music’s ineffable meanings. There is, of course, a lot more.

Steve Amirault is an exceptional artist and he proves time and again on Hold On, Let Go that he has an innate ability to find a keen balance between poetry and intensity. His pianism, albeit featured here in the shadow of his spotlighted voice, provides a superb brand of animation, meeting the needs of the music exquisitely and fittingly, as equal to the loneliness of this music.

Alom Mola
Michel Lambert
Jazz from Rant 1650
(jazzfromrant.com)

Any music that has been inspired by the work of Michelangelo Caravaggio (1571-1610), the Baroque artist who worked in Naples, Sicily and Malta, and flavoured by the rumblings of Steve Lacy’s legendary French bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel as well as Jan Jarcyzk, the pianist and pedagogue from Montreal, has to be symphonically beguiling. Or put another way: why expect anything less from a riveting musician enthralled by three iconic characters from three disparate time-space continuums? Still you would be remiss if you did not admit to many moments of breathlessness not only during Caravaggio, ténèbres et lumières, but all through Alom Mola, as you might expect from the ingenious drummer Michel Lambert, whose inspiration is drawn from Mayan mythology as well as the Baroque and modern art history.

The musicians’ traversal of Lambert’s complex music is remarkable. The music throughout Alom Mola is crafted on an orchestral soundscape that manages – somehow – to be monumentally miniscule, enormously small. Each of the five works presents a sound environment of wisps, susurrations, noises and the odd pitched note. Key to the music’s success, though, is Lambert’s subtle layering of different instrument groups – brass, woodwind, strings, piano and a whole universe of percussion instruments and devices. The resultant music is impossibly brilliant; evoked by different shades and densities of an aural patina passed around various orchestral permutations to produce a veritable ecosystem of music that is at once delicate and powerful.

Freedom Is Space for the Spirit
Francois Carrier; Michel Lambert; Alexey Lapin
FMR Records FMRCD425
(fmr-records.com)

The milieu of spatial freedom can be noisy. If that were not so, nothing would be heard or written in tabula rasa in corde suo, “the blank slate of the heart” so to speak. Fortunately, where there is sound, there is also silence, more so in this music by saxophonist François Carrier, drummer Michel Lambert and pianist Alexey Lapin. Each musician leads this performance, which is surprisingly formed and visceral despite suggestions of the formlessness of “Space” and “Spirit.” Another curiosity in the presentation is that the music has five distinct parts (one would have expected a continuous musical flow); each reaching the gossamer fragility of the best of free-improvised music. The music is imbued with a sense of languor and immediacy and richness in abundance in saxophone and piano parts.

That’s not to say that textures clot: flecks of melody flicker in the ear, enticing and disappearing in a moment; the balancing that makes that possible is admirable and it has much to do with the incessant tattoo of the drummer’s alternately placid and volcanic intercessions. The musicians’ work comes off in rather special ways. In Keep Calm, for instance, the saxophone, caustic and stark, smacks at the winging, indeterminate piano and in Nevsky Prospect, drummer and pianist come up against the saxophonist’s snarling, nasty layering in the climactic, dying sections of the piece. Everywhere in the program, are muscularity and the mystery of Space and Spirit in abundance.

The Rhythm Method
Brian Dickinson Quintet
Addo Records AJR033 (addorecords.com)

The last couple of decades have seen a rise in new rhythmic concepts in jazz, arguably making it the area of greatest creative growth in the music. Brian Dickinson, one of Canada’s top pianists and composers, has delved deeply into this subject matter in The Rhythm Method. Whether it’s a compound time signature or an unusual rhythmic grouping in 4/4 time, Dickinson has explored some challenging new territory in the album’s ten tunes. That he has wedded these concepts with another jazz tradition, the contrafact, a new melody written over the chord changes to a standard tune, is a remarkable achievement.

Open Season starts with an odd time vamp before settling into 4/4. Dickinson, a pianist who has thoroughly digested his influences into a distinctive voice, solos with sophistication, soul and variety, expertly negotiating the composition’s twists and turns. Tenor saxophonist Kelly Jefferson begins patiently, building into angular lines and inspired double time. Luis Deniz displays fluidity and lyricism on alto saxophone over the powerhouse rhythm section of drummer Ted Warren and bassist Neil Swainson.

Lennie’s Loonies, the title a play on Lennie Tristano’s Lennie’s Pennies, uses the chord changes of You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To to support a brilliantly convoluted line, played to perfection by the front line. Swainson opens with an extraordinarily melodic bass solo. Jefferson and Dickinson take a cue from the tune’s melody, breaking up their lines in unusual ways and incorporating its complex rhythms into seamless improvisation.

Frontiers
Azar Lawrence; Al McLean; Adrian Vedady; Paul Shrofel; Greg Ritchie
Cellar Live CL073116 (cellarlive.com)

Frontiers is a dynamic blowing session that feels more like a live set at a club than a studio recording. The spirit of John Coltrane looms large here and the front line of tenor saxophonists Azar Lawrence, a veteran of Elvin Jones’, McCoy Tyner’s, Woodie Shaw’s and Freddie Hubbard’s bands, and Al McLean, a stalwart of Montreal’s jazz scene who is equally steeped in this deep tradition, more than does justice to the seven tunes contained here.

The material is a mix of originals and standards. Lawrence’s Mystic Journey immediately establishes the vibe with an Elvin Jones-inspired Afro-Cuban groove from drummer Greg Ritchie and bassist Adrian Vedady. The harmonic structure of the composition, much like several tunes on the album, has a strong modal feel, leaving the soloists plenty of room to express themselves. Lawrence leads off with lines that move in and out of the harmony effortlessly, displaying a complete command of post-Coltrane language with the virtuosity and musicality to back it up. Pianist Paul Shrofel plays thematic ideas over the rhythm section’s broken feel before breaking into hard swinging improvisation. McLean is equally adept in this demanding language and solos with complete assurance and abandon, going toe to toe with Lawrence.

The 16-minute version of Coltrane’s Lonnie’s Lament is an appropriate tribute to the late genius as is McLean’s Get Up, based loosely on Impressions. This is a feast for the tenor saxophone and Lawrence and McLean are clearly enjoying each other’s company.

Dave Young Quintet featuring Renee Rosnes
Modica Music (modicamusic.com)

Alexandra Park
Brodie West
Pleasence Records PRO12 (pleasencerecords.com)

Alto saxophonist Brodie West is a significant presence in the Toronto free jazz and improvised music communities, whether leading his own groups, like Eucalyptus, or contributing to Drumheller and the Lena Allemano Four. He has also established an international reputation, working with drummer Han Bennink, the band The Ex and the great Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. Alexandra Park, named for the Toronto park where West used to practise, is a solo saxophone LP, a brief but challenging expedition into West’s sonic world.

The LP begins with a brief tape of West literally playing in the park, his quiet tones accompanied by children’s voices and recurring sounds, perhaps someone shooting hoops. This soon gives way to close recording in a studio: brief runs and muffled asides alternate with long tones, some beginning as multiphonic split tones, others gradually developing emphatic overtones. West produces gentle, flute-like timbres, sometimes merging them with suddenly articulated, hard-edged saxophone notes and whistling harmonics.

Some may hear this recording as an exploration in technique, but West’s intent seems to be very different. Though numerous techniques are present, this is absolutely human music, recorded so closely that West’s breath is an integral part of his saxophone sound; at times he’s literally mixing his own simultaneous mouth sounds with the horn. Silence too, is a significant presence, with the tape left running in the pauses between episodes. West reaches his highest level of expression on Side II, pressing from sustained shakuhachi-like cries to higher pitches that first turn to trills, then to multiphonics. It’s as impassioned as music gets.

Sensations of Tone
Ellery Eskelin; Christian Weber; Michael Griener
Intakt Records CD 276/2017 (intaktrec.ch)

2017 marks the centenary of jazz recording, commemorating the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s Dixieland Jass Band One-Step and Livery Stable Blues released on March 7, 1917. Few recordings are likely to bridge that century as imaginatively as Sensations of Tone. New York-based tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin first worked with bassist Christian Weber and drummer Michael Griener playing improvised music on a tour of their native Switzerland. During their time together the three discovered a mutual love of early jazz. Five years later, they’ve amalgamated those interests, creating a CD that alternates free improvisations with contemporary interpretations of classic tunes.

Ellery Eskelin is a brilliant inside-outside player, as adept at negotiating chord changes as he is in a free exchange of musical ideas. He’s the master of a continuously inflected, speech-like line, reminiscent of Sonny Rollins in his prime, and in Weber and Griener he has ideal partners, whether they’re supporting, challenging or peppering each other with new data. Together the three maintain open space and real momentum in a group dialogue. Leads shift comfortably in the free improvisations, whether it’s Eskelin muttering a multiphonic complaint, Weber delineating a spontaneous melody or Griener essaying the sonic recesses of his kit.

That conversational principle is just as alive when they mine the decade between 1922 (China Boy) and 1932 (Moten Swing), with Jelly Roll Morton’s Shreveport Stomp (1924) and Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1929) in between. With a playful sense of period detail, the trio imbues the songs with spontaneous wit and warmth that recall their original spirit.

Not This Time
Dog Leg Dilemma
Independent (doglegdilemma.com)

Like the apocryphal teenager who asked “Paul McCartney was in another group before Wings?” members of Toronto-based Dog Leg Dilemma (DLD) sound as if they figure jazz was invented in the 1970s, with touchstones fusion, John Zorn and Frank Zappa’s instrumentals. Still, DLD’s core of alto saxophonist Anthony Argatoff, guitarist Nick Lavkulik, drummer Noah Sherman and Peter Bull who plays basses, ancillary instruments and composed all tunes, are a change from bands mired in the 1960s. Starting the CD with This Must Be Why I Came Home with an ersatz emcee’s comments leading into a jazz-rock polka also shows a sense of self-deprecating fun.

DLD creates foot-tapping sounds featuring drum smacks and tough guitar chops approaching punk-rock stamina. But an outstanding group must transcend its influences. With no tone flattened or torqued, sentiment is obvious, but passion is missing. On a track like Part One – Are You Sure about This Argatoff squeezes out plumy notes harmonized with Lavkulik’s framing strums, but the effect is like hearing an overwrought crooner. However Equestrian Playtime gallops along with a Latin-tinged guitar solo and violinist Natalie Wong overdubbed into a string section. Although its allegiances are as noticeable as if tattooed on the musicians, the flexibility obvious in Roll with the Hunches makes it more notable. Melding licks from Zappa’s Peaches en Regalia, a Good King Wenceslas quote, a rumbling bass line, violin sweeps and reed honks, it demonstrates how DLD could up its game. DLD has a leg up on creating original statements, but more originality and discipline are needed. Not This Time perhaps, but maybe the next.

Live in Texas
Sandy Ewen; Damon Smith; Weasel Walter
Balance Point Acoustics BPALTD-808 (balancepointacoustics.bandcamp.com)

Set up like a rock power trio, this 73-minute extravaganza features a guitar, bass and drums lineup, but offers more than rhythmic formulae. Not that there isn’t musical strength expressed. Houston-based Sandy Ewen, who plays guitar and objects on the CD, grew up in Oshawa and seems able to transfer some of the noisy industrialization from that city’s auto plants into powerful crackles and flanges. Like an up-to-date assembly line however, despite emphatic knob-twisting and string-snapping each tune moves resolutely forward.

As attuned to the dual demands of rock and jazz as any General Motors technician who moves between the car and truck lines would be up-to-date in his field, Ewen’s associates lock into the groove as handily as a car body is bolted to a chassis. Percussionist Weasel Walter and Damon Smith, who plays double bass and seven-string electric upright, don’t stint when it comes to place-marking, suturing the beat as carefully as if rolling a vehicle off the factory floor. At the same time, tracks like NMASS 3 and Avant Garden 1 find the drummer downplaying rather than pounding the beat so as not to obliterate the others’ solos. As for Smith, his string command is such that during NMASS 1, the buzzy bass line advances with the thrust of a souped-up hot rod to eventually handle as smoothly as a sports car. Smith also bows so delicately that he could be playing in a chamber recital. Just as you can’t tell how a car operates by examining its trim and paint job, Ewen/Smith/Walter take guitar-bass-drum sounds to places you wouldn’t imagine.

Na Eira
Marito Marques
Independent (maritomarques.com)

Natural Conclusion
Rose Cousins
Old Farm Pony Records OFPR021 (rosecousins.com)

I first heard Halifax-based, singer-songwriter Rose Cousins live at a café in Vancouver (my then home), almost nine years ago. I’d discovered her two days earlier, listening to a CBC Radio broadcast of a concert that had been recorded in Halifax a month before. As I tuned in, I caught this soul-searing voice, mid-song. “Who IS that?” I shouted at the radio. When her name was announced, I immediately googled it, and found out that Cousins was scheduled to play at this café two days later. Talk about timing!

Since then, Cousins has garnered international accolades, won several East Coast Music and Canadian Folk Music awards and a JUNO, and released a variety of CDs and singles. Natural Conclusion, her fourth and latest, full-length album, is a real stunner! Each track displays Cousins’ gifts as a storyteller. Achingly beautiful lyrics are perfectly paired with the emotional intensity of her music. And then there’s her striking voice that simply will transport you.

Freedom is an evocative take on letting go, knowing it comes with loss and heartbreak. Cousins calls it a “wreckoning.” White Flag and Lock and Key might make you cry – a common reaction to much of her affecting work. Cousins’ response to the teary-eyed? “You’re welcome.”

Rose Cousins is the real McCoy: a songwriter’s songwriter; an open-hearted troubadour; a gracious collaborator who consistently works with some of the best in the biz. Natural Conclusion is testament to all that. A truly authentic voice, this rose is on the rise!

Slovenia – of All Places – Continues Its Long Jazz Tradition

Perhaps now unfairly best known as the birthplace of Donald Trump’s most recent wife, Slovenia, the northern-most country of the former Yugoslavia, abutting Austria, Italy and Hungary, is a stable member of the European Union. Plus this tiny country, whose population of slightly more than two million is less than that of the city of Toronto, has long had an affiliation with the arts, especially improvised music. In fact, one of Slovenia’s jazz festival’s is 55 years old this year, making Canadian efforts seem like Johnny-come-latelies. Although better known in Europe than North America, several Slovenian players are also making their presence felt internationally.

Veteran percussionist Zlatko Kaučič has, in his 40-year career, worked with everyone from Evan Parker to Paul Bley, playing in aggregations ranging from duos to big bands. He provides the underpinning for a live program on Il Sogno Di Una Cosa (Caligola 2213 caligola.it), in the company of Spanish saxophonist Javier Girotto and two Italians, pianist Bruno Cesselli and flutist Massimo De Mattia. With Italy so close, such cross-border collaborations are the norm rather than unique and, like Italian pasta complemented by Slovenian wine, the drummer’s accents help the others create a palatable repast. With all tunes composed by the quartet members, the horn players’ Mediterranean sensibility gives many melodies a sunny lightness. The dance-like sensibility is especially noticeable on Il sogno di una cosa, where Cesselli’s staccato chording and the drummer’s patterned rolls elasticize the peppy theme at the same time as Girotto’s soprano saxophone’s split tones break it at points. Tremolo piano lines create an extension midway between nursery rhyme and natural swing which De Mattia ornaments with pneumatic peeps. Kaučič enlivens De Mattia’s bass-register flute variations on Truth and Death, with its echoes of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman, by regularizing the beat via mallets and kettle drum suggestions. Meanwhile the concluding Reflettiva, a Kaučič composition, cements and echoes moods expressed throughout the concert, aided by balanced puffs from the flutist and saxophonist. In contrast jagged flute calisthenics and a snorting ostinato from Girotto on Cerca cibo finds each player striving to bond musical atoms into a single tune that miraculously ends up swinging. Julijske barve, the drummer’s other composition, is also the most expansive, mixing hard keyboard stresses from Cesselli, percussion smacks and pops, a parallel flute exposition that coats the theme like a boot spray, and most spectacularly the saxophonist’s solo which moves from disruptive triple tonguing at the top to doubling back onto exposition, expressing reflective harmonies by the end.

A younger percussionist following  Kaučič’s breadth of expression is Marko Lasič. His groove, refined with cymbal slaps, maracas-like shakes and positioned clatters defines the bottom of the eight-part The Labour Suite (giovannimaier.it). Composed by and directed by Italian bassist Giovanni Maier, who often works with Kaučič, he and the other members of the Kača, Sraka in Lev Quintet – cornetist Gabriele Cancelli, bass clarinetist Mimo Cogliandro and flutist Paolo Pascolo – display sophisticated jazz smarts while confirming the advantage of equitable cross-border creation. Built up from the bassist’s droning ostinato and drummer’s pops and smacks, the narrative soon surges into a pumping stop-time theme that allows each of the musician-workers to demonstrate his contribution to the means of production. Transforming assembly-line precision into faultless swing which makes the group sound larger than it is, Cancelli’s clear grace notes and Cogliandro’s elastic triple tonguing create a contrapuntal proletarian challenge to Pascolo’s upper management-like penthouse twitters. With Maier’s walking bass sometimes doubling the horn players’ exposition, the suite reaches its climax on The Labour Suite part #5 and The Labour Suite part #6 as the musicians join for a cohesively layered improvisation, with flute peeps on top, plunger excavations from the cornet in the middle and ratcheting vibrations from the bass clarinet on the bottom. Coupling and splintering into duos and trios with amoeba-like intensity, the matches between various instruments are finally curtailed and the prevailing theme reasserted by Maier’s slurred fingering with Lasič’s rebounding strokes seconding him. Like a play’s cast taking their bows, each soloist then illustrates his sonic talents as a coda, with each speciality backed by drum double thumping.

Dre Hocevar, another Slovenian percussionist, takes group music in another direction. Established in New York, his Transcendental Within the Sphere of Indivisible Remainder (Clean Feed CF 393 CD cleanfeed-records.com), played by a mixed European-North American nonet is a composition that mixes jazz elements via the saxophones of Bryan Qu and Mette Rasmussen and Aaron Larson Tevis’ trumpet, notated music suggestions via pianist Jeremy Corren, cellist Lester St. Louis and bassist Henry Fraser, plus upfront judder and drones sourced from Zack Clarke’s synthesizer and Sam Pluta’s live electronics and signal processing. During its 48 minutes the polyphonic piece could be an offspring of John Coltrane’s Ascension and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Electronic Studies. Although blurry electronic gurgles dominate the initial sequence, the processing gradually makes room for hunt-and-peck pianism and Tevis’ grace notes and reed squeals. From that point, like parallel props needed to shore up a house, the composition shows disparate faces at different times. At one junction the rubbing staccato strings and ghostly vibrations from the horns put the track firmly in free jazz territory; shortly afterwards watery growls and oscillated grumbles celebrate the rise of electronic pulses. Throughout, Hocevar uses his cymbal resonation as a sort of J. Arthur Rank-like place marker, keeping the multiphonic interaction from becoming so opaque that all players can be heard. With each musician given space, the composition is never overloaded enough to slide into any one genre. Eventually the thickened brew reaches its simmering climax and in the final sequence downshifts tacitly so that reed whines, computer gulps and a string ostinato have the same weight and bond. The composer’s single cymbal clap, like a period at the end of a sentence, confirms the conclusion.

Despite appearances, all Slovenian improvisers aren’t drummers. Another player with an international profile is guitarist Samo Salamon, whose most recent CD is a chamber-styled duo with Italian pianist Stefano Battaglia. Although titled windS (Klopotec Records IZK CD 03 samosalamon.com), the effect is distinctively percussive not airy, with Battaglia’s stopped vibraphone-like key strokes creating a juddering continuum on top of which Salamon and Battaglia intersect with variants that range from romantic to rugged. This is especially notable on Hammer where the excitement level rises as the pianist’s pummelling pops, following an emotional single-string solo from the guitarist. This same sort of wispy invention is present on Girl with a Nicotine Kiss as Battaglia’s elaborations are melded with vocalized single notes from Salamon. Moving through echoing chords from both string sets, the CD attains its climax with the concluding Sleepy Burja. Here, wavering whistles from both instruments suggest the sort of wind rustling that the set celebrates.

Of course, Slovenia isn’t the only part of the former Yugoslavia with innovative musicians. For the past several years Serbian violist Szilárd Mezei has had his compositions played by different-sized local ensembles, whose nucleus is the Septet featured on CET (Odradek Records ODR CD 506 odradek-records.com). A member of Serbia’s Hungarian minority, his seven compositions here are infectious, hummable and rhythmically sophisticated, with room for cerebral solos, yet with themes that allow the entire band to function as one. A composition like the diagram-titled second track for instance moves from Magyar intonation to a Middle Eastern melody, working through Máté Pozsár’s piano vibrations to Branislav Aksin’s trombone tones, climaxing in tutti cross-fertilization with echoes of the earlier themes. Modern influences aren’t far from the surface either. For example, the chirpy almost whistleable melody that characterizes the title track encompassing bellicose counterpoint between strings and horns could be a theme from a cop show that becomes a hit song on its own. Mezei’s fiddle taps, contrasting with the trombonist’s pushes and growling bass clarinet from Bogdan Rankovič, bring the same sort of private eye-like toughness to Hep 10. The violist also manages to replicate the equivalent of an elephant fitting into a kids’ wading pool by shrinking symphonic traditions into this unit. Tracks such as None Step and Elm convey clear usage of 19th-century traditions from so-called classical music. But nothing is that simple since Elm adds double bass strokes, tremolo piano fills and swinging percussion rattles that surge beneath a keening altissimo showcase for Rankovič’s alto saxophone. Subtitled Hommage à Mal Waldron, None Step incongruously incorporates obvious romantic-era references with arco echoes from Ervin Malina’s double bass while advancing the tune in tonal variations. Finally a combination of Pozár’s rugged comping and Mezei’s brittle strokes resurrect the initial theme with hints of Waldron’s boppish toughness.

Over the past few decades many parts of the former Yugoslavia have suffered from military incursions and political instability. While the first groups mentioned here substantiate the notion that Slovenia’s stability helps promote stimulating musical sounds, paradoxically Mezei’s work does the same for more rambunctious Serbia.

The International Classical Music Awards (which replaced the Cannes Classical Awards in 2011), a European organization with a jury of 16 professional music critics from 14 countries including Russia, this year gave an award to a set of CDs simply called Maureen Forrester and issued by Audite (audite 21.437 3 CDs). We thought of this Canadian contralto mainly as a Mahler interpreter, as did Bruno Walter, but there was much more to her repertoire. We remember her as the witch in Hansel and Gretel, in Dialogues des Carmelites and others but she also sang lieder as this collections affirms. Her accompanists were Hertha Klust, Felix Schroeder and the legendary Michael Raucheisen who did much more than accompany: he tutored.

There are songs and cycles by Brahms, Britten, Haydn, Carl Loewe, Mahler, Poulenc, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Johann Wolfgang Franck and Barber, among others. The mono recordings were made in Berlin during 1955, 1958, 1960 and 1963. Most gratifying is the opportunity of hearing and appreciating the purity of her younger voice. It really does bring a smile to your face. Clearly, Forrester was the best of the best. These discs document this.

In 1955 the music world was falling all over itself in admiration of the recently emerged Russian pianist Emil Gilels who countered with “Wait till you hear Richter.” We certainly did hear Richter and through the 1950s and the1960s many other musicians, instrumentalists and singers newly arrived from the Soviet Union. Two such masters were violinist David Oistrakh and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

Oistrakh (1908-1974) was one of the many great violinists from Odessa. He was renowned in his own country but only after WWII was he allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union, giving his first concert in Helsinki in 1949. He was permitted to visit the United States in 1955 and was lionized worldwide.

All Oistrakh recordings for DG, Decca and Philips are contained in The David Oistrakh Edition, a collection that also includes the treasured Westminster discs licensed from Melodiya (DG 4796580, 22 CDs, 70-page booklet). Assisting artists include Igor Oistrakh, Frida Bauer, Lev Oborin and Vladimir Yampolsky (pianists), Sviatoslav Knushevitsky (cello) and Hans Pischner (harpsichord). Conductors are Eugene Goossens, Bernard Haitink, Paul Hindemith, Jascha Horenstein, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Kirill Kondrashin, Franz Konwitschny and Gavril Yudin. The works for two violins find the two Oistrakhs, father and son, playing together; works by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Sarasate and Wieniawski, and in Vivaldi’s Concerto Op.3 No.8, which David also conducts. From 1962 there are the complete Violin Sonatas of Beethoven with Lev Oborin recorded in Paris, formerly released by Philips. The Stravinsky Violin Concerto and the Mozart B-flat Major K207 were recorded there the next year with Bernard Haitink conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra. This is not a collection of the usual works by the usual composers to be found endlessly duplicated in omnibus packages. There are some favourites but many pieces may be fresh and in these hands, quite engaging. Many musicians, mainly violinists, still hold Oistrakh, all qualities considered, as the greatest master of his instrument. It is easy to hear and know why. Complete contents at arkivmusic.com.

Rostropovich’s story is somewhat different. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR in1927, at the age of four he began learning piano with his mother and a few years later he began studying cello with his father. In 1943 the family moved to Moscow and he entered the Moscow Conservatory studying cello, conducting and composing. One of his teachers was Dmitri Shostakovich. He graduated in 1948 and became a professor of cello there in 1956. He did rather well and composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich dedicated major works to him. He made recordings for Melodiya and some of those were issued in North America by the new and flourishing label, Westminster. The performances were so strikingly powerful that when he debuted in the West he was eagerly awaited. His first concert was at the Conservatoire in Liège in 1963 in association with conductor Kirill Kondrashin. When the word got out his international career took off. Kondrashin himself had achieved international recognition in the West in 1958, conducting for Van Cliburn’s First Prize in the First International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and later on tour together. Soon audiences around the world were lining up to see and hear that cellist with the big sound, Mstislav Rostropovich.

All the recordings that he made for DG, Decca and Philips are in Mstislav Rostropovich complete recordings on Deutsche Grammophon plus the Russian Melodiya discs that were issued by Westminster (DG 4796789, 37 CDs, 72-page booklet). It is not possible to list all the extraordinary performances gathered here but there are some timeless performances, newly remastered: the Beethoven String Trios with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Bruno Giuranna; Beethoven’s Five Cello Sonatas with Richter; the two Brahms Cello Sonatas with Rudolf Serkin; conducting Schumann and Chopin Second Concertos with Argerich and the National Symphony Orchestra; Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations with Karajan and the BPO; Rachmaninoff, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev songs as pianist with Galina Vishnevskaya. And finally, lest this begins to resemble a laundry list, three different performances of the heavenly Schubert String Quintet in C Major D956: with the Taneyev Quartet, Leningrad, 1963; with the Melos Quartet, Zurich, 1977 and with the Emerson Quartet, Speyer, 1990. Each performance is better than the other two. Again, check arkivmusic.com for complete contents.

For over half a century serious collectors have sought out recordings by the late Yevgeny Mravinsky (1903-1988) conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. It didn’t matter the repertoire, just seeing Mravinsky on the record cover was usually all that mattered. We heard them here In November 1973 when they played Toronto’s Massey Hall to overwhelming success, in spite of an organized protest. Profil has launched a Yevgeny Mravinsky Edition with Volume 1 containing a cross-section of the issued recordings from Haydn to Shostakovich (PH15000, 6 CDs). This is at least the third label to have such a collection. BMG’s collection amounted to only 20 CDs, Erato managed to issue 10 CDs. This new edition contains Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth, Haydn 101, Mozart 39, Shostakovich 12, Debussy’s La Mer and two Nocturnes and Ravel’s Boléro and Pavane pour une infante défunte. In complete editions of any artist or ensemble, correct recording dates are important. Unless my records are in error, there are three entries new to these former collections: the Brahms Second and the Tchaikovsky First Concertos with Richter from May 14, 1951, and July 24, 1959, and a Shostakovich Sixth from 1946.

Patented in 1928 by electrical pioneer Léon Theremin, the theremin is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer, who literally “conducts the air.” The concert included one of the first ensemble pieces to incorporate the theremin, Bohuslav Martinů’s Fantasia (1944) with oboe, string quartet and piano, works by Omar Daniel for theremin, string quartet and electronic organ, D. Andrew Stewart for string quartet and Karlax (a contemporary digital musical instrument), a transcription of Ravel’s Kaddish for theremin and piano and Eyck’s own recent Fantasias, structured movements for string quartet overlaid with theremin improvisations by the composer.

It is a recording of these Fantasias for Theremin and String Quartet featuring Carolina Eyck and members of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (Butterscotch Records BSR015) that has been in constant rotation on my sound system in recent weeks. While the eerie electronic sound of the theremin can be deceptively close to that of the human voice and is often used that way by composers writing for the instrument, the freshness of Eyck’s pieces for me is the breadth of range presented here. Of the six pieces, two use what I would call the traditional sound of the theremin – familiar from horror movie soundtracks and the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations – but the other four exploit other aspects of the instrument, from chirps and swooshes to rumbles and groans, bell sounds to joyous explosions of mirth. Meanwhile the quartet accompaniment varies from minimalist ostinati to Bartók-like night music, drones to rollicking clouds of harmony and in one instance sounds like a Renaissance consort of viols. For anyone unfamiliar with the theremin, or labouring under the misapprehension that it is a “one-trick pony,” these Fantasias will provide an exhilarating introduction to its true versatility.

Founded in the 1980s in Poland as the New Szymanowski Quartet, the Penderecki String Quartet earned its new name when it won a special prize at a 1986 competition in Lodz for its performance of Quartet No.2 by Krzysztof Penderecki and the composer invited the quartet to take his name. They later went to the USA and were affiliated with the University of Wisconsin before establishing a permanent residency at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo in 1991. There have been numerous personnel changes over the years, with violinist Jerzy Kaplanek the only Polish member remaining. Violist Christine Vlajk has been with them for two decades and Jeremy Bell has been sharing first chair duties with Kaplanek since 1999. Only American cellist Katie Schlaikjer, who joined in 2013, is a relative newcomer. In addition to teaching positions at WLU, the PSQ enjoys an active international career and has recorded more the 25 compact discs with repertoire ranging from Beethoven through Bartók – the first Canadian recording of the Bartók cycle – to commissions from many composers of the present day.

Their most recent release – De Profundis (Marquis Classics MAR 81473) – features two works by Polish-born Norbert Palej who now teaches at the University of Toronto, and their namesake Krzysztof Penderecki’s String Quartet No.3 “Leaves of an Unwritten Diary” (2008). The PSQ worked closely with the composer at Symphony Space in New York City on the occasion of Penderecki’s 80th birthday in 2013. In his liner notes Bell says they became aware on this encounter “that Penderecki’s ‘unwritten diary’ is key to understanding this quartet. While there seems to be an outpouring of autobiographical references in this work, it was clear upon meeting the composer that this diary is to remain private. This is a highly evocative and nostalgic quartet that Penderecki wishes to be his gift to music, to listeners, and to performers – a work of abstract art that we can approach with our own humanity and emotion.”

As mentioned, Palej, who is the coordinator of the U of T New Music Festival which runs January 29 through February 5 at the Faculty of Music, is represented by two pieces, both world premiere recordings. String Quartet No.1 “De Profundis” dates from 2011, a time when Palej was reading Oscar Wilde’s book of that name. Two years later he returned to the medium, this time adding soprano vocalise (Leslie Fagan) in the penultimate movement. String Quartet No.2 “Four Quartets” takes its context from T.S. Eliot. Although both these works have literary inspirations, or at least connotations, Palej says “I can’t explain exactly where the influence is revealed. The subtitles of my quartets merely point toward it, hoping this gentle gesture will not in any way delimit the listeners’ flights of imagination. Can the dark desolation of Reading Gaol be heard in the first quartet? Or can you hear the ‘deception of the thrush,’ the ‘association of man and woman in daunsinge,’ the flowing of the ‘brown strong god,’ or ‘the dove descending’ in the four movements of the second? Maybe, but maybe not. It is not important, at least not to me, the composer.” Be that as it may, he also says, “Without the influence of this poetry the music would have turned out completely differently: more than that: I would now be a different person, a poorer one spiritually.” At the risk of sounding bombastic I would dare to add that we would all be poorer without these dark and probing works so majestically performed.

Continuing with the Polish theme, I would note that my introduction to the music of Paweł Szymański (b.1954) was the result of New Music Concerts back in 1988, long before my association with that organization began. On that occasion, one of the works featured was for solo piccolo and an unusually low ensemble of horn, trombone, two percussion, two violas and two cellos. A recent disc by harpsichordist Małgorzata Sarbak – Dissociative Counterpoint Disorder (Bolt Records BR1035) – features another concertante work from that year, Partita III, but in this instance the accompaniment is provided by traditional orchestra (Janáček Philharmonic; Zsolt Nagy). It starts at full speed with continuous harpsichord lines juxtaposed with busy, flamboyant orchestral textures. All this activity stops suddenly after two minutes for an abrupt and disconcerting silence of almost 20 seconds after which the frenetic activity begins again. This happens a number times with increasing frequency during the one-movement work, with subsequent silences of shorter duration giving way to nearly inaudible string chords before the busyness returns. The quiet passages ultimately overcome the frenzied sections and the piece fades into an otherworldly quiet with a single high repeated note on the harpsichord as if a beacon flashing into outer space.

The title work is the most recent and was written in 2014 for Sarbak, unlike Partita III and Through the Looking Glass (1994) which were composed for the iconic Polish harpsichordist Elżbieta Chojnacka who had championed the works of Ligeti, Xenakis and other post-war composers. Dissociative Counterpoint Disorder as its title suggests, is somewhat bipolar, once again alternating between frantic activity and more stately passages, but this time for harpsichord alone. The “Alice”-inspired solo work begins with more frenetic stops and starts with the harpsichord sounding almost like a calliope, and once again fades to black, this time with a series of sustained yet isolated notes in the lowest register.

In music the term “parody” does not imply ridicule, but simply means “in the style of” as with Palestrina’s parody masses and parody madrigals based on works of Cipriano de Rore and others. Szymański is a masterful parodist in this sense, as witnessed by Les poiriers en pologne ou une suite de pièces sentimentales de clavecin faite par Mr. Szymański. Critic Alex Ross wrote of another of Szymański’s pseudo Baroque suites in the New Yorker that it “not only sounds like Bach but could be mistaken for Bach – the latter being rather more difficult than the former.” Sarbak, who is herself a specialist in Baroque performance, says “…Szymański is actually composing in the idiom of the Baroque…using the words – melodical and rhythmical formulas, the expressions, rhetorical figures that were very important then – in the language of the period. […]Szymański wouldn’t put in any score markings, which were also absent at that time…He leaves the freedom to the performer…[which is] what’s great and vivid about playing Baroque music.” One of Szymański’s earliest works from his student days was for violin and harpsichord. It is obviously an interest that has stuck with him throughout his career and the result is really something to behold.

I first heard Leonard Bernstein’s symphonies in my formative years, in his recordings with the New York Philharmonic. They impressed me then and they still do. There are three and none of them follow the traditional symphonic mould. Each has a subtitle and they all employ a soloist: Symphony No.1 “Jeremiah” features a mezzo soprano; Symphony No.2 “The Age of Anxiety” a pianist and Symphony No.3 “Kaddish” a narrator (Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre in the version I grew up with), plus soprano and choir.

Marin Alsop has now completed her recording of the cycle with Bernstein – Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Naxos 8.559790). Jeremiah is a three-movement work: Prophecy, Profanation and Lamentation. Bernstein said “The work I have been writing all my life is the struggle that is born of the crisis of our century, a crisis of faith. Even way back, when I wrote Jeremiah [1939-1942] I was wrestling with that problem.” The first movement is contemplative and the second is dance-like, presaging some of the composer’s later stage music. It is in the third movement that the mezzo – Jennifer Johnson Cano here – enters, singing Hebrew texts selected by Bernstein from the Lamentations of Jeremiah which are expectedly heart-wrenching and dramatic before an extended quiet orchestral coda.

Inspired by W.H. Auden’s The Age of Anxiety which Bernstein discovered in 1947 and called “one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the English language […] almost immediately the music started to sing.” Jean-Yves Thibaudet is the soloist in this extended work in 18 movements divided into two main sections. Part 1 begins with a quiet orchestral Prologue followed by two sets of variations, The Seven Ages and The Seven Stages, where the piano is prominent. Although lasting half of the work’s 35 minutes, Part 2 has only three sections, The Dirge, The Masque and The Epilogue, which continues the flamboyance of the preceding movement in its opening stages but then features an extended introspective piano cadenza and a swelling, triumphant orchestral finale. As Frank K. DeWald’s program notes suggest however, in the Second Symphony the crisis of faith is “discussed, probed [but only] superficially resolved…” Bernstein will take up the theme again in his final symphony.

Somehow I overlooked Alsop’s recording of Symphony No.3 ”Kaddish” with Claire Bloom narrating when it was released last year (Naxos 8.559742). With the powerful performances of the first two symphonies presented here as evidence, I will definitely be rectifying that shortly.

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