Freeplay
Charlie Ringas
Supermono Records XOR0003 (charlieringas.com)

Charlie Ringas is an inventive musician/composer in the Toronto creative music community. Freeplay is a ten-track disc which combines the feel of free improvisation with a solid compositional sense. How so? As the liner notes explain, Ringas was working on a text when he rediscovered two past live concert improvisations and decided to add new improvisations to them. After dividing these into ten pieces, he brought in violinist Ivana Popovic and double bassist Bret Higgins to improvise over this past material. Only these string parts were then extensively and successfully edited to create bed tracks to which Mike Skinner (saxophones, flutes), Garnet Willis (terpstra keyboard and producer) and Ringas (percussion) improvised. Trombonist Eugene Watts’ improvisation from an earlier unrelated session was then edited into these pieces. Finally vocalist Peggy Jane Hope added the text both improvised in spoken and sung forms.

Sounds like too much work but the effect is best described in the final line of text in the last track: “Liberation from holding forms.” All the improvisers are highly skilled musicians obviously chosen for their inventiveness and superb listening skills and their artistic openness to trust Ringas to rework their material. Their performances are brilliant and their musical personalities continue to shine even after Ringas has respectfully edited each part to meet his personal compositional sense.

Freeplay is tough music to grasp in its free tonalities and at times jagged sections but worth the effort in its memorable walk through the musical mind of Charlie Ringas.

Beverly Taft meets the Nathan Hiltz Orchestra
Beverly Taft; Nathan Hiltz Orchestra
Independent BT-002 (beverlytaft.com)

With the release of this ebullient parfait of a vocal jazz/big band CD, some much-needed joie de vivre has been transfused back into the current jazz scene. The well-produced project conjures up images and sounds of the classic supper clubs of the 1950s and features ten original compositions, co-authored by engaging vocalist/lyricist Beverly Taft and JUNO award-winning guitarist and arranger, Nathan Hiltz. The recording has a refreshing “live,” organic quality – and no auto-tune or obsessive over-dubbing will be found here... in fact, just as a great actress eschews cosmetic surgery, every nuance and imperfection of Taft’s vocal interpretations is full of life experience, truth and beauty. Additionally, the CD is set against the musical canvas of a swinging and skilled nonet, including William Carn on trombone, Shawn Nykwist on tenor, Richard Underhill on alto, Jake Wilkinson on trumpet, Artie Roth on bass, Sly Juhas on drums and special guest Adrean Farrugia on piano.

Notable tracks include the lilting and sensual Clock Tickin’ Blues (enhanced by Underhill’s funky alto solo) and Gay Repartee at The Ski Chalet, the true love story of Taft’s own parents (with particularly groovy solos by Hiltz and Underhill). Of special mention is the bebop-ish Bouncin’ Round My Brain – a superb band feature and a clear tip of the hat to the great Lambert, Hendricks and Ross’ hit Twisted, as well as the cool, trombone and guitar-driven cooker Travellin’ Along and the closing tune, Izzie and Birdie (about two little girls at play) which showcases Taft’s enchanting lyrics and the inspired piano work of Adrean Farrugia.

Feldspar
Matana Roberts; Sam Shalabi; Nicolas Caloia
Tour de Bras TDB9008cd (tourdebras.com)

Titled after the rock formations found in the earth’s crust, Feldspar is as rugged as it is remarkable. Naming each of the seven tracks for terrestrial minerals, the tunes confirm not only the attractive results but also the hard work that goes into their production.

Not that there is anything laboured about the program. On it American alto saxophonist Matana Roberts, who recently won a Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for risk-taking, mid-career artists, turns away from her long-term Coin Coin project to interact with two Montrealers: guitarist Sam Shalabi and bassist Nicolas Caloia. Playing together as if they have done so for years, the three evolve a strategy that could almost be a fanciful vaudeville routine between an exuberant and an unruffled comedy team. With Caloia fancifully standing near the wings, only adding tensile thumps when needed for further direction, the saxophonist spins out lightly accented, straight-ahead timbres, while the guitarist uses every manner of string, amp and knob distortion to vary the interface.

At points Roberts responds to his sonic goading with double-tongued or slap-tongued interjections which challenge then blend impressively with Shalabi’s crunches, buzzes and distended flanges. And with the reedist in perfect control at all times, the program works its way to unearth different sparkling imaginary mineral formations to reach a climax with the final title track. As bass string stopping becomes more prominent, Roberts’ previously long-lined flatness turns to emotional altissimo at the same time as Shalabi’s meandering timbres stabilize into rhythmic string clipping and a conclusive banjo-like clang.

A utilitarian rather than a trifling listen, concentrating on the sound production here will yield the same multi-faceted rewards that concentrated hard-rock mining does in other situations.

Since relocating from Toronto to San Francisco to study composition at Mills College, Darren Johnston has emerged as a trumpeter of depth and vision, qualities evident in return visits playing with pianist David Braid at various local venues. Named by DownBeat as one of “25 Trumpeters for the Future” (along with Toronto’s Lina Allemano and Vancouver’s Brad Turner), Johnston has recently focused on large-scale composition: his choral work Letters to Home, its libretto written using phrases from letters by Bay-area immigrants, was recently debuted by the Trans-Global People’s Chorus. The activity may have kept Johnston from recording his own small groups lately, but he’s a distinguished presence on numerous recordings, ranging from largely composed to entirely improvised music.

Multi-reed player/composer Steven Lugerner has created something very unusual in For We Have Heard (Primary Records PR013 primaryrecords.org), a series of works largely based on the text of the Book of Joshua from the Torah in which Lugerner uses gematria, a system to convert words into numbers which in turn are re-encoded into musical notation. Lugerner employs Johnston, pianist Myra Melford and drummer Matt Wilson to create work that is beyond genre. Lyrical, determined, profound, often sombre, its themes are expanded, prodded and even undermined by the spontaneous wit of improvisation. Witness Johnston’s solo on Us and Our Fathers, its sound mutating from clarion declaration to puckish aside.

Vijay Anderson leads the Touch and Go Sextet on Live at the Novara Jazz Festival (Nine Winds NWCD0314 ninewinds.com). As a composer, Anderson sometimes creates densely contrapuntal rhythmic and melodic figures that as a drummer he drives forward with bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, often fomenting fast and furious collective improvisations from the four winds, Johnston and three reed players. There’s often a raw, Mingus-like energy here, but there are also moments of limpid beauty, like the delicate trumpet and woody clarinet textures developed by Johnston and Ben Goldberg on Delusions. Johnston’s splintering lines and shifting timbres contribute much to the moody Swift Horse.

If these CDs emphasize Johnston’s interpretive skills, Spectral (Aerophonic AR 006 aerophonicrecords.com) reveals his talent for wholly spontaneous, interactive music in a co-operative trio with two veteran improvisers: Chicago alto saxophonist Dave Rempis and Bay-area tenor saxophonist Larry Ochs. Free improvisation is always a challenging art, whether it’s combative, contrarian or empathetic. This trio emphasizes the latter, using the meeting for spontaneous composition, creating collective counterpoint, exchanging cries, mirroring one another’s lines and pairing up to create patterned accompaniment to a solo voice, suggesting that the riffing horns of the 1930s Basie band might be distant ancestors. Wrinkle Wrankle covers a host of musical languages, incorporating touches of blues, chaos and perhaps even vaudeville, and Johnston brings a plaintive, quavering, village brass band quality to Cheek and Bones.

Bassist Artie Roth is a fixture of Toronto jazz, whether providing a springy beat that keeps a band moving or soloing with the confidence and fluency of a horn. His abilities as composer and bandleader are also strongly apparent on Currently Experiencing (artieroth.com) by his current quartet. The group speaks a distinctly contemporary idiom with a texture of its own. Rhythms can be driving or floating and sometimes even both, as in the opening Blues for All That Is Left Unspoken. It’s a special quality that arises from Roth’s writing and the band’s makeup: Geoff Young’s guitar tones may hang in space while saxophonist Mike Filice (an emerging talent to listen for) and drummer Anthony Michelli churn it up and Roth creates lines that strategically mediate the contrast.

The Toronto quartet One Big Song (EP 108.01 onebigsong.com) has been together since 2009 and builds on a longer collaboration between reed player Ernie Tollar and percussionist Paul Fitterer. Along with guitarist Mario Potestio and bassist Wes Neal, they create a musical web that extends out into world music, with the myriad instruments of Tollar and Fitterer picking up hues of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Brief collective improvisations mingle with longer forays, like Tollar’s raga-suffused Dream Alap or his witty Polka-Reggae.

The trio of piano, string bass and drums is one of the classic formats of jazz, a mini-orchestra that can create dense rhythms and harmonies with great range and timbral variety. These recent CDs demonstrate some of the range achieved by the form. Tom Van Seters developed in the Montreal milieu, spent several years in Toronto and is currently residing in Edmonton. On Variables (VSM003, tomvanseters.ca), his third CD as a leader, Van Seters stresses controlled complexity, his compositions assembled out of detailed interlocking parts that provide effective inspiration to creative dialogues with his partners, bassist Jim Vivian and drummer Anthony Michelli. Van Seters’ finest moment, though, may come on an unaccompanied elegy, The Creeping Crab.
Matt Newton’s Within Reach (FTM906 mattnewton.ca) practices a cool minimalism with roots that reach back through the resonant Nordic school of ECM to the understatement and evasive harmonies of Bill Evans. Less is more, and ideas and moods flower through inference and implication. Often there’s a dream-like ambience here, with Newton floating over the turbulence of Dan Fortin’s bass lines and Ethan Ardelli’s drums on Stepping into the Light and Fortin’s Ends.

The Mike Janzen Trio is at its best on Metronome (MJ005 mikejanzentrio.com) when the emphasis is on rhythm and interplay, taking its cues from African High Life and Township patterns, funk or Caribbean inspirations, with splashes of keyboard colour from the leader and plenty of idiomatic input from bassist George Koller and, especially, drummer Larnell Lewis. At times, though, when a string quartet appears or Janzen overdubs other keyboards, it veers toward the mechanical cheerfulness of rush-hour radio programming.

Concert note:The Mike Janzen Trio performs at the Paintbox Bistro in Toronto on June 6 and the New Life Reformed Church in Guelph on June 7, with appearances later this summer at the TD Toronto Jazz Festival, the Wreckhouse International Jazz Festival and the Port Hope All-Canadian Jazz Festival.

Reflecting one person’s imagination, musical composition is an intimate art. But, especially if the creation is wide-ranging and sonically multihued, sympathetic interpreters are needed to express the composer’s vision. As this group of CDs demonstrates, notable interpretations of a composer’s singular vision can illuminate the creators’ concepts.

Of particular importance is the double disc set Luminosity – The Last Suites (Jazzcontinuum GCM 2014 jazzcontinuum.com). Double bassist, bandleader, author and educator, Graham Collier (1937-2011) was one of the United Kingdom’s most accomplished jazz composers starting in the late 1960s. Serendipitously both of his final suites were initially composed for and premiered by Canadian orchestras: The Blue Suite for a University of Victoria big band directed by Hugh Fraser and Luminosity for Paul Cram’s Upstream Orchestra in Halifax. However, one indication of Collier’s musical stature is that since he didn’t record these pieces, 15 of the UK’s top jazzers who had played with him over years convened to create this posthumous tribute. Each suite had a different conception. Luminosity is Collier’s translation into related sound pictures of some of Hans Hofmann’s abstract paintings. In contrast The Blue Suite uses motifs expressed on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue LP without ever quoting those familiar themes. Making full use of Andy Panayi’s ethereal flute tone with the often romantic interplay of pianist Roger Dean, The Blue’s tunes are orchestrated with an exposition, narrative and summation. But preciousness is avoided. Swing strength is especially apparent on All Kinds, as John Marshall lets loose with a showy drum solo. Despite being mated with cascading trumpet triplets the effect doesn’t disrupt the suite’s flow. Still, the individuality of Collier’s skills is pinpointed with Kind Of Freddie. A feature for guitarist Ed Speight’s chordal style, moderato tutti passages pierced by string strums and brass yelps expose another sequence that is subtly revealed to be the suite’s recurring, connective motif. Building excitement via brass shouts and plunger work plus intense sax solos permeate tracks like Kind of So What as the blended undercurrent remains. On the other hand, Luminosity reflects the tension implicit in Hofmann’s influential colour relationships by shading the tunes with various musical inferences. Marshall’s jazz-rock styled drumming appears in one instance, as does a baroque-like pairing of flute and guitar. Above Deep Water for instance showcases a duel between a Harlem Nocturne-like line from Panayi’s alto sax and the restrained gravitas of James Allsopp’s bass clarinet. Finally, before the descriptive finale, a series of polyphonic smears are displayed on Blue Monolith named for a late Hofmann abstraction. Pumping horn vamps, snapping percussion and descending trumpet lines from Martin Shaw and Steve Waterman create an opaque, accelerating theme that reflects the orchestrator’s talents as well as the painter’s.

Another musician whose compositions are influenced by visual art as well as architecture and other sounds is British bassist Barry Guy. Amphi + Radio Rondo (Intakt CD 235 intaktrec.ch), demonstrates how he uses his 12-piece New Orchestra (BGNO) to frame solo concertos. Suggested by Elana Gutmann paintings, Amphi places Maya Homburger’s structured soloing on baroque violin within the context of polyphonic eruptions from the BGNO. While the initial sequences suggest that violin interludes are trading off with band parts, by the final movements the string part is firmly embedded. Even before that, Homburger’s expressive spiccato sweeps and staccato scratches are prominent enough that clusters of reed buzzing, brass lowing or clumping percussion appropriately comment on her solos. Helped by a pulsed continuum from pianist Agustí Fernández, tubaist Per Åke Holmlander and Guy’s double bass, her tremolo string vibrations harmonize alongside the horn and reed section before the climax, where every instrument’s timbres deconstruct into multiphonic shards. Moving upwards from near silence to a crescendo of yelps, cries and trills, the fiddler’s centrality is re-established with a coda of strident scrubs. Fernández is the soloist on the slightly lengthier Radio Rondo. Here though his passing chords and cascading runs face head-on challenges from others’ extended technique, including Evan Parker’s circular breathed soprano saxophone smears and speedy slurs from trombonist Johannes Bauer. The keyboardist’s high-energy key fanning and kinetic cascades inject more energy into the proceedings plus emotional dynamics. Confident, Fernández mixes the physicality of a concert pianist with the close listening of a big band soloist like Earl Hines, as a series of ever-more dramatic crescendos solidify the ensemble into as much pure swing as an experimental ensemble can muster, complete with blasting high notes from trumpeter Herb Robertson. With the structure of the piece finally apparent, the final rondo could be the soundtrack for an experimental war film, with agitated piano comping, plunger slurps from the brass and reed multiphonics as well as pounding percussion. Just when it seems the peak can’t be heightened, the piece abruptly ends as if a radio has been switched off. It`s an exhausting yet exhilarating triumph.

For her part, Montreal percussionist Danielle Palardy Roger has such a consistent sonic concept that she can release a disc such as Le Caillou (Ambiances Magnetiques AM 215 CD actuellecd.com) with seven performances from 1998 to 2013 and have the disc sound as if came from one session. Featuring a shifting cast of 23 musicians called Ensemble SuperMusique, most tracks are variations on her original composition Le Caillou (the pebble), a multi-faceted game piece which allows improvisers to collaborate on its musical development. Over the CD’s course everything from bel canto-like whoops to Sun Ra-like interplanetary percussion rumbles to top-of-range clarinet shrills and turntable scratching takes centre stage. With sequences that shift from rustic fiddle and guitar interludes to rock-styled drumming and intense jazz-like sax and trombone lick trading, part of the fun for the listener is being kept off balance. But this flexibility includes consistency. Even contributions from ebullient French bassist Joëlle Léandre, featured on one track, are no more prominent than others. Although The Stone, the one Manhattan-recorded tune, is the most challenging in its strident stropped string and slapped percussion outlay, the defining track is Le Cristal. Seemingly encompassing something for everyone from straight-ahead swing and martial rhythms, to splayed rock-guitar chords, dog-whistle altissimo to closely harmonized woodwinds, the track encompasses bedlam, baroque and bop. Highlighted by a well-paced duet between Jean-Denis Levasseur’s clarinet and Jean Derome’s alto sax, the climax preserves the beat and theme with jumping strings and to-the-point percussion.

Jazz education, of which the abovementioned Graham Collier was a pioneer and later a critic, can produce technically proficient composers. But no matter how sincere their work may be, it may lack sharp edges. Reedman Kristóf Bascó, an exceptional product of advanced schooling in Hungary, France and the U.S., proves this point. On Circular (BMC CD 204 bmcrecords.hu), his seven compositions played by the 19-piece Budapest-based Modern Art Orchestra (MAO), deal with such important themes as fatherhood and death, and are performed faultlessly, but until the end lack a certain humanity. Voicings are impressive; the section blending is high quality; and the solos whether from Bascó’s limpid soprano or the muted trumpet of MAO conductor Kornél Fekete-Kovács are properly framed, yet hair-raising excitement is at a premium. To its credit the ensemble works towards that. Tenor saxophonist Jànos Ávéd honks ruggedly as the band riffs sympathetically behind him on Lunar Dance, while guitarist Màrton Fenyvesi cuts through the horns with unexpected rasps on Child’s Space. Only on the final – and most recent – cut does the narrative suggest why the MAO considered an all-Bascó program. Variations on a Folksong sways with a lively, likely folkloric beat and offers some meaty, stratospheric upturns from the ten-piece brass section.

In sharp contrast Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, whose musical education has been supplemented by playing experience with some of jazz’s most idiosyncratic soloists and bands, isn’t afraid of grittiness and slip-ups as his 11-piece Large Unit roars through First Blow (PNL Records PNL 021 paalnilssen-love.com), a CD-EP which preserves its initial live concert. Driven by the near Second Line-rhythm of twin drummers Andreas Wildhagen and Nilssen-Love, Culius opens up into polyphonic abandon reflected in flutter-tongued brass burp, atonal cries from the reeds and crackling burbles from Lasse Marhaug’s electronics. With the tune unfolding at tempos that range from horse-racing swiftness to country-road cantering and effortlessly switching from crescendos and decrescendos, the tune impresses with sheer force. The subsequent Motfølge proves that suggestion is as legitimate as shouting. Centred around Marhaug’s wispy processing and mechanized crunches, offside interjections and challenges from the other instruments appear and vanish. The asides range from gong-like clatter from the drummers to old-timey tailgate slurs from trombonist Mats Äleklint. Overall the program is the logical extension of Barry Guy’s BGNO concept.

When Carlo Maria Giulini died in 2005 the music world lost one of the last supreme conductors of the second half of the 20th century. Giulini was born in Barletta, Italy in 1914 and began violin lessons at the age of five, later switching to viola. In 1932 he auditioned and was accepted as a member of the viola section of Italy’s foremost orchestra at the time, the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. There he played under Fritz Reiner, Victor de Sabata, Pierre Monteux, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Richard Strauss and others including Bruno Walter. In 1944 he was appointed conductor of the Italian Radio (RAI) Orchestra. A performance of La Mer impressed Arturo Toscanini who had heard the broadcast. The two met and formed a firm, lasting friendship and Toscanini recommended Giulini to La Scala where he became assistant to the great Victor de Sabata, whom he succeeded as musical director in 1953.

It is axiomatic that the first items in any program should not be showstoppers but DG does that in this set (Giulini in Vienna 479 2688, 15 CDs) with unmatched performances of three Beethoven piano concertos, the First, Third and Fifth, played by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Recorded live in 1979 in the Musikverein, Michelangeli is in winning form, magisterial, dynamic, probing and articulate, as is the orchestra.

The next five discs are devoted to the four Brahms symphonies, the Tragic Overture, the Haydn Variations and the German Requiem, all recorded in the Musikverein with the Vienna Philharmonic. I was not looking forward to the symphonies for, as some readers may have intuited, I am weary of hearing them. Listening to the First renewed my enthusiasm for the work however. This is played not as a “Beethoven Tenth” but a Brahms First. It is quite formal and beautifully laid out, with no deliberate emphasis on this phrase or that or by retarding or accelerating to make a point. This performance vividly recalled my unexpected euphoria at first hearing the work so many years ago. His performance of the Requiem is right on the money, with a strong pulse drawing together the seven sections featuring soprano Barbara Bonney, baritone Andreas Schmidt, and the choir of Vienna State Opera. His balancing of choir, soloists and orchestra is exemplary, although one must acknowledge the art of the engineers at getting just so on this very impressive recording of 1987. Three Giulini Bruckner symphonies, Seven, Eight and Nine, have had a devoted following since their initial release and the sound on these reissues is of demonstration quality. The two Liszt Piano Concertos with Lazar Berman and the Vienna Symphony deserve their inclusion as does the 1979 complete Rigoletto with Domingo, Cotrubas, Ghiaurov, Obraztsova, et al. and the Vienna Philharmonic. The final work in this set is the 1973 cantata An die Nachgeborenen (To Posterity) by Gottfried von Einem, his most important work. There are nine sections in this unusual and moving piece with texts from Bertholt Brecht, the Psalms, Hölderlin and Sophocles. Featured are mezzo Julia Hamari, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the Vienna Singverein and the Vienna Symphony, recorded in 1975. Without exception, all the interpretations and performances in this collection are of enduring stature, offered in the finest sound that makes the repertoire doubly satisfying.

I have enjoyed the following fine old wines in new bottles over the last little while and pass them along for your summer listening:

Among the many collections issued to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss is the DG compilation of their recordings of the composer conducting his own works and others (Strauss conducts Strauss, 479 2703, 7 CDs). Included are all the Strauss tone poems including two Don Quixotes and waltz sequences from Acts II and III of Der Rosenkavalier. He seems to ignore his quoted advice to conductors, “Play everything twice as fast” and “Don’t look at the brass, it only encourages them.” Included are Mozart’s last three symphonies and Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh; also overtures by Gluck, Weber, Wagner and Cornelius. From way back in 1921 Strauss plays piano for fabled baritone Heinrich Schlusnus in four lieder. The sound is bright and dynamic throughout featuring the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Bayerisches Staatskapelle. Low price, high recommendation.

I was first aware of the Russian mezzo, Irina Arkhipova from the 1963 recording of the Bolshoi’s Boris Godunov which I bought for George London’s Boris. She sings Marina and the Act III duet with Dimitri, building to her adoring and close-to-sublime No, no Tsarevich, I beg you, which is unequaled. Melodyia has issued The Art of Irina Arkhipova (MEL CD 10 2123) in which she sings songs by Tchaikovsky, Six French Songs, Op.65 and Six Romances, Op.73; seven songs by Rachmaninoff and Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death. I do not understand Russian but I find sung Russian very pleasing and satisfying, hence I have no idea of the English translations but, regardless, I continue to listen to these songs for the pleasure of hearing her voice. But, as they say in the ads, your mileage may vary.

From the very first bars of the overture, you know that the live 1962 Don Giovanni from Munich conducted by Joseph Keilberth with the Bayerisches Staatskapelle will be spectacular! Here is the cast: George London (Giovanni), Gottlob Frick (Commendatore), Hildegard Hillebrecht (Donna Anna), Nicolai Gedda (Don Ottavio), Sena Jurinac (Donn’Elvira), Benno Kusche (Leporello), Albrecht Peter (Masetto) and Anneliese Rothenberger (Zerlina). A dream cast if there ever was one and it is a truly sparkling performance. It’s on Andromeda (ANDRCD 918, 3 CDs) and very inexpensive. Dynamic live sound…not a note is wasted or unheard. A must-have.

Schumann – Waldszenen,  Kinderszenen; Janáček – On an Overgrown Path
Marc-André Hamelin, piano
Hyperion CDA68030

The term “pianistic supernova” is not one that music reviewers should ever use lightly, but it can surely be applied to Marc-André Hamelin. Since making his debut in 1985, this Montreal-born pianist now based in Boston continues to prove that his musical talents really are extra-ordinary, earning well-deserved accolades from critics and audiences alike. Although Hamelin has long championed composers slightly left of the mainstream, his newest recording features two that are decidedly more familiar – Janáček and Schumann – in an engaging program of music from the early and late Romantic periods.

Two months ago while writing about Richard Powers’ Orfeo I mentioned that I had neglected to add Steve Reich’s Proverb to my record collection when it came out on Nonesuch in 1996 featuring Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices with Steve Reich and Musicians. Although that recording is now a collector’s item (but still available for download), I am pleased to note that there is a new recording which features this lush work for three soprano and two tenor voices, two vibraphones and two synthesizers (sounding vaguely like small baroque organs,) performed by the SWR Vokalensemble, Stuttgart under the direction of Marcus Creed. America (Hänssler Classic CD 93.306) also includes choral works by Aaron Copland (Four Motets), John Cage (Five), Morton Feldman (Rothko Chapel), Leonard Bernstein (Missa Brevis) and Samuel Barber (A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map). It is an eclectic mix of mostly religious works spanning much of the 20th century. Copland’s motets date from his student days in Paris and they evidently so impressed his teacher, Nadia Boulanger, that she used them as examples for several decades. Copland himself we are told in the liner notes was less fond, declaring them “schoolboy works exhibiting some influence of Mussorgsky, whom I greatly admired back then. They may in a certain sense satisfy curiosity – people may perhaps like to know what I did as a student – but it is not really my style.” That being said, they do provide a warm and welcoming opening to the disc, albeit with occasional moments of close harmonies and dissonance, in the alternating movements of entreaty to and praise of God.

Rather than a biblical text, Reich’s Proverb draws on a sentence from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein – “How small a thought it takes, to fill a whole life” – and treats it in a number of ways over the course of 14 minutes. At times reminiscent of Reich’s 1981 Tehillim, although much more subdued, it is also evocative of the organa which Perotin introduced c.1200. This is followed by a fairly late work by John Cage, Five, composed in 1988 as one of the 52 Number Pieces which occupied much of the last six years of his life. As with many of Cage’s “compositions” there is a set of instructions rather than a score per se, with many of the creative decisions left to the performers. In this case each of five actors is simply given five pitches to sing within prescribed “time brackets” and left to decide when to actually begin and end. As such the result will be different in each performance. I found this rendition mildly akin to a streamlined version of Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna made so familiar in the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Morton Feldman’s piece was composed in 1971 for performance in the non-denominational of the same name in Houston, Texas designed as a place of quiet meditation, which houses 14 site-specific paintings by Mark Rothko. The music, nearly half an hour in length, scored for soprano, alto and mixed choir with one percussion (timpani, vibraphone), celesta and viola, is indeed very meditative. The singers’ ethereal vocalise can at times be mistaken for electronic textures and the instruments, especially the viola, enjoy long solo passages that are at least as important as the voices in this quiet masterpiece.

Like Cage’s Five, Bernstein’s Missa Brevis dates from 1988 and is a late work in the composer’s oeuvre. This mostly a cappella setting of the Catholic mass was written for an adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s play The Lark. Once again the voices are accompanied (intermittently) by percussion (timpani, tambourine and bells). Samuel Barber is represented by a relatively early work (1940) which is quite modern, at least in the context of this relatively conservative composer. Once again the choir is complemented by timpani – I found the preponderance of kettle drums on this choral disc to be quite striking (if you’ll excuse the pun) – and is otherwise unaccompanied. The text, lamenting the death of a soldier of the Spanish Civil War (and by extension war itself) is by Stephen Spender. I was unfamiliar with this setting and find it unlike those wonderful lyrical works by Barber with which we are normally presented. One might have expected to hear yet another rendition of Barber’s Agnus Dei (a vocal setting based on his famous Adagio) in this context, so I am particularly pleased to be presented with an atypical work rather than the expected.

For that, and a number of other reasons, this is a very strong disc, with committed performances of some rarely heard repertoire. It is interesting that it is a German choir presenting it. But that brings me to my one reservation about this release. I mentioned that this is a disc of mostly religious works, but I found the emphasis on four of the composers’ Jewish heritage in the liner notes a bit strange. Even creepy, considering that of the four, only Copland’s texts from the Old Testament can be considered Jewish. As mentioned, Reich’s is a secular philosophical quotation, Feldman’s wordless setting is meant for a non-denominational chapel and Bernstein’s is from the Catholic Church. So of what relevance is it that Copland was born “the son of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn,” Reich “born to German-Jewish parents in New York City,” Feldman “the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn” or that Bernstein was “the son of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants in Massachusetts” – especially when all we are told of Cage is that his father was an inventor and that Barber was born in Pennsylvania? At first I imagined a possible anti-(or pro)-Semitic agenda, but after discussions with a number of colleagues I have decided that it is actually just a case of lazy scholarship. I have found that if you check the Wikipedia entries for all six composers, the biographical section commences with exactly the information offered here. So unless Wikipedia is part of a larger conspiracy, I think we can accept the seeming emphasis on Jewish heritage which marred my enjoyment of this otherwise excellent disc, to be inadvertent and an editorial misjudgment.

Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003) is probably best known for his Sinfonia for orchestral forces and vocal octet with its texts by Samuel Beckett and Claude Lévi-Strauss and musical quotations from Mahler, Ravel, Stravinsky, Ives and others, and for his series of 14 Sequenzas for solo instruments. Toronto audiences had the rare opportunity to hear all 14 of these (and one of the six alternate versions as well) in January 2013 at the University of Toronto in a marathon performance organized by Joseph Petric and David Hetherington featuring some of this city’s finest musicians. The series spans Berio’s creative output from Sequenza I for flute composed in 1958 to Sequenza XIV for cello written a year before his death. About midway through, in 1976, Berio wrote his homage to the violin, an instrument of which he had “tortuous” memories as a result of his own studies as a teenager. This Sequenza VIII is based around the dissonance of the major second interval between the notes A and B and culminates in an extended ten-second long double-stopped A-B which in the words of violinist Carolin Widmann who wrote the program note for Universal Edition, which is quoted in the CD booklet, are “ten seconds of A-B which are an eternity.” Five years later Berio returned to the material of Sequenza VIII and expanded it into Corale for solo violin, two horns and strings. For this performance on the Oberlin Music label (Luciano Berio – Huang Ruo OC 14-01) violinist David Bowlin is joined by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Timothy Weiss in a rare opportunity to hear the two versions back to back. It is quite an exhilarating experience.

American-based Huang Ruo, whose website defines him as composer, conductor, pianist and folk singer, was born in China in 1976, the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution ended and, incidentally, the year Berio composed his violin Sequenza. After winning the Henry Mancini Award at the International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland in 1995, Huang moved to the USA where he did his undergraduate studies at Oberlin Conservatory and then completed masters and doctoral degrees in composition at Juilliard. We are presented with two works here, again one for violin alone and one for solo violin and large ensemble, but in this instance the composition process was reverse to that of Berio in that the Four Fragments for solo violin were extrapolated from the existing Violin Concerto No.1 “Omnipresence.” Although we are told that Huang’s music takes equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, as well as Western avant-garde, rock and jazz, I find these particular pieces to be firmly grounded in the modernist Western Art Music tradition with only occasional melodic suggestions of his homeland in the solo lines. The result is extremely effective, with none of the downfalls often associated with “hybrid” art. Soloist David Bowlin is in fine form in all of the offerings and has obviously made this repertoire his own. My only qualm about this release is the three-paneled cardboard packaging, which is simply too tight to be able to remove the disc without gripping it with fingers on the playing surface of the CD.

I would have thought with the 40th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death just over the horizon (2015) that there would be no unearthed treasures left in his catalogue. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to receive Shostakovich – Six Romances; Scottish Ballad; Michelangelo Suite in what purported to be world premiere recordings featuring Canadian baritone Gerald Finley and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra under Thomas Sanderling’s direction (Ondine ODE 1235-2). It turns out that in the case of the Six Romances on Verses by English Poets it is the version for large orchestra which had disappeared after the premiere in the 1940s that has not been recorded before. It also uses the original English texts for which Shostakovich had used Russian translations, so this is new on two counts (although conductor Sanderling had recorded the English version before using Shostakovich’s chamber orchestration). The composition dates from the same period as the Eighth Symphony and bears some resemblance to that mammoth work. To my ear it is also reminiscent of the oratorio The Song of the Forests which Shostakovich wrote in 1949. Annie Laurie, A Scottish Ballad is Shostakovich’s 1944 orchestration of an 1835 setting by Lady John Scott (Alicia Ann Spottiswoode) of William Douglas’ lament on unrequited love.

Shostakovich wrote the Suite on Poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti for bass and piano using Russian translations in 1974, the 500th anniversary of the birth of the great Renaissance artist. Orchestrating it the following year was one of his very last projects. The orchestral version was premiered several months after his death conducted by his son Maxim. This recording uses Michelangelo’s original Italian texts and there is an extended essay by Finley in the booklet which discusses the intricate process of Setting Michelangelo to Shostakovich. Finley was obviously very involved and dedicated to this project and his fine bass-baritone voice makes the music shine. All in all, these are welcome additions to the canon.

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Mozart – Opera & Concert Arias
Karina Gauvin; Les Violons du Roy; Bernard Labadie
ATMA ACD2 2636

While Mozart’s concert arias were normally composed as additions to an opera score or as substitutions for other arias, the two represented on this recording were composed specifically for concert performance: Misera, dove son, composed for Countess Baumgarten and Ch’io mi scordi di te?…Non temere, amato bene which was originally intended for insertion for performance in Idomineo. However, the version Gauvin performs was adapted for the farewell concert of Nancy Storace, a singer much adored by Mozart. Gauvin’s superb purity of tone and dramatic interpretation shine in this aria. The orchestration calls for piano obbligato, deftly handled by Benedetto Lupo. One can imagine Storace and Mozart thoroughly enjoying the breakaway passage where the orchestra withdraws to feature the two.

Another wonderful exchange between instrumentalist and singer occurs in Non più di fiori from the opera La Clemenza di Tito with André Moisan’s gorgeously expressive basset horn obbligato. The opera arias featured are also marked by a superb sensitivity to the deeply emotive undertones in Mozart, especially Susanna’s deeply moving Act IV aria Deh vieni non tardar from The Marriage of Figaro. This recording demonstrates that Karina Gauvin shares a trait with Mozart: the ease and grace with which it falls on the ear of the listener belies the true complexity and supreme artistry inherent in the crafting of a truly exquisite performance.

Schubert – Wanderers Nachtlied
Matthias Goerne; Helmut Deutsch; Eric Schneider
Harmonia Mundi HMC902109.10

This is the eighth volume in Matthias Goerne’s epic project to record Schubert’s songs and cycles. Goerne meets every expectation of delivering the drama and emotion of the texts by Rückert, Goethe and other poets, especially as he masters so well the musical vehicle in which Schubert has set them.

But these performances transcend preoccupation with technical and stylistic correctness. At this stage in the singer’s relationship with his composer one begins to ask just how deeply one artist has ventured into the soul of the other? There is, in Goerne’s singing, a sense of ownership of Schubert’s ideas, and with that, an exercise of interpretive license quite unlike anything other Schubert singers have ever done.

The single item that will stop listeners in their tracks is the title lied, Wanderers Nachtlied, oddly buried partway through the second disc. The speed and dynamics of this interpretation are not just unconventional, they are wildly unorthodox. First impressions are shock and incredulity. How Goerne sustains the pianissimo and daringly slow tempo is technically stunning. Even more so is the realization that this is not a self-indulgence but a bold re-invention of Schubert’s original impulse. It’s unlikely that the composer ever intended this lied to be sung this way, but Goerne does it and makes it work, credibly and movingly. Simply masterful. Goerne has a unique artistic conviction that informs all his singing. It’s what will make his Schubert recordings an interpretive benchmark.

Verdi – Arias
Krassimira Stoyanova; Munchner Rundfunkorchester; Pavel Baleff
Orfeo C 885 141 A

In my journey last year through all of Verdi’s 26 operas I found one thing in common. The most interesting character, in conflict between her love and other, higher moral issues is nearly always the woman: Traviata, Aida, Luisa Miller, Amelia, Elisabetta…, the list is endless. Verdi was very partial to the lead sopranos, even his wife was one. It was true “he murdered sopranos,” he was so demanding and non-compromising: ”Pay attention to the quality of the voice” he so ordered Boito while selecting the right soprano … “to the intonation and above all to the intelligence and feeling.”

Intelligence and feeling could be the trademark of Krassimira Stoyanova, Bulgarian-born, who quickly rose to fame as leading soprano of the Vienna State Opera and is nowadays one of the most sought-after soloists worldwide. This new album is her third solo release, the previous two having won some prestigious awards.

The ambitious program takes us to the very core, the heart of Verdi, to roles of high vocal demands and intense emotional complexity. All of them are a rare treat for a Verdi-phile such as me. Stoyanova’s range is amazing: from the young and innocent Giovanna d’Arco through the tortured and victimized heroine Luisa Miller to the pinnacle of vocal grandeur of Don Carlo, in the supremely difficult and challenging aria Tu che le vanità. Certainly no stranger to these pages, I reviewed her Desdemona back in April 2007, in a DVD of Verdi’s Otello.

Gershwin – Porgy and Bess
Eric Owens; Laquita Mitchell; San Francisco Opera; John de Main
EuroArts Blu-ray 2059634 (also on DVD)

Porgy and Bess was conceived by Gershwin to be an American folk opera. After a preliminary run in Boston, Porgy and Bess premiered in New York City on October 10, 1935 at the Guild Theater, playing only 124 performances. Productions of varying versions were mounted over the years but it was not until 1976 when the acclaimed Houston Grand Opera production, featuring the complete score with an all- black cast, that Porgy and Bess was widely recognized as an opera. That production came to Toronto in 1976 and those of us who attended it well remember that special and unique evening. A driving force behind that Houston production, David Gockley is the executive producer of the very impressive 2009 live production from San Francisco seen here.

The two leads are sung by bass-baritone Eric Owens and soprano Laquita Mitchell. Owens appears at the Met and was seen and heard around the world as Alberich in the Met’s 2010-11 Ring cycle transmissions. Locally, he’s in the current COC production of Handel’s Hercules. Mitchell, whose repertoire also includes Verdi, Puccini and Mozart, is sought after by important opera houses including Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Washington and the Opéra Comique in Paris. Included in a perfectly cast production are Karen Slack as Serena, Chauncey Packer as Sportin’ Life and Lester Lynch as Crown.

I was initially concerned about the operatically trained voices enunciating the patois of the text while singing at a speaking tempo. Either they got better at it or I became accustomed to it. The many well-known songs (hard to think of them as arias) are framed by the action and sound spontaneous. The set, choreography and stage direction create a mise-en-scène that immediately draws us into Catfish Row.

All in all, this is a performance of genuine stature and an important release.

Greatest Hits, Vol.1
Elmer Iseler Singers; Lydia Adams
Independent EIS 2013-01 (elmeriselersingers.com)

Recorded and released to mark the 35th Anniversary season of the Elmer Iseler Singers, this disc features some of the choir’s most requested performance pieces. This may be, after all, a choir with one of the longest histories in Canadian choral music. In a previous life as the Festival Singers (founded long before in 1954) the 20-voice professional chamber choir took on the name of its founder in 1979. Directed by Lydia Adams since 1998, the choir has continued to perform and record a variety of works whilst serving as a champion of Canadian choral composers.

This latest offering was expertly recorded by Keith Horner and Robert DiVito in what Horner describes as the “spacious acoustics” of Toronto’s Grace Church on-the-Hill. Peppered amongst favourites by Eleanor Daley, Healey Willan, Allister MacGillivray, Paul Halley, Leon Dubinsky and Rita MacNeil are traditional Mi’kmaq and Inuit chants arranged by the conductor, traditional American songs and spirituals, with a little Schubert and Mendelssohn added for good measure. As always, the choir is impeccable and soloists Anne Bornath, Gisele Kulak, Andrea Ludwig, Alison Roy and Nelson Lohnes shine forth with gorgeous clarity, as do guest artists Shawn Grenke, piano and Clare Scholtz, oboe.

Derek Holman – Ash Roses
Mireille Asselin; Lawrence Wiliford; Liz Upchurch; Sanya Eng
Centrediscs CMCCD 19914

The Canadian Art Song Project was founded in 2011 by tenor Lawrence Wiliford and pianist Stephen Philcox with a mission to build on the rich legacy of Canadian song, especially art song, through performance, recording, commissions and editing. There is no finer example of Canadian art song composers to feature than the English-born and longtime Canadian resident Derek Holman. Holman has written a prolific number of choral works in addition to his opera, oratorio, keyboard, chamber and orchestral compositions. In Ash Roses, two song cycles and two collections are featured in this first all-Holman recording.

Wiliford sings with passion, power, and clear articulation in The Four Seasons, an eight-song cycle commissioned by the COC in memory of Richard Bradshaw. Set to a number of British poems, it is a moving collection rich in lyrical tonality, word painting, contrasting moods and subtle harmonic shifts. In Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal, Wiliford is joined by soprano Mireille Asselin in a virtuosic duet. Asselin shines in the song cycle title track Ash Roses. The at times witty text of Canadian poet Tricia Postle is given a more atonal setting with vocal interval leaps and shifting rhythmic piano accompaniment. Pianist Liz Upchurch is unbelievable in her accompaniments – these difficult piano parts sound effortless thanks to her awesome musicality and technique. Harpist Sanya Eng accompanies Wiliford admirably in the intricate Three Songs for High Voice and Harp.

Holman ends these compositions with simple luscious resonating cadences leaving the listener begging for more Canadian art songs.

The Art of Melancholy –  Songs by John Dowland
Iestyn Davies; Thomas Dunford
Hyperion CDA68007

Half a century ago a countertenor was still seen as unusual, some would say unnatural. There are now a substantial number of countertenors and I would rate Iestyn Davies as one of the very best, judging from the record under review and also from the recent recording of Handel’s Belshazzar, in which he sings the role of Daniel. He has a strong and very even voice with an excellent sense of pitch. He has himself said that for him the finest countertenor is Andreas Scholl and he has commented on Scholl’s ability to create “a column of sound which doesn’t weaken and stays absolutely even.” The comment fits Davies’ own singing.

Melancholy was a common malady in early 17th-century England. Think of Hamlet or of Jaques in As You Like It. It could become an affectation and it was delightfully parodied in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour, in which a character calls for a stool to be melancholy upon. Davies, however, believes strongly that, for Dowland, melancholy is more than just a pose. That conviction accounts for the passion which Davies brings to the songs on this disc.

Davies is ably accompanied by lutenist Thomas Dunford, who also has five solos. They include The Frog Galliard, a performance which, for good measure, throws in Greensleeves as an excursion. Davies sang in Vancouver, Banff and Calgary a couple of months ago. I hope we shall hear him in Toronto soon.