I’m not always sold on how artists describe the genesis of their CDs – violinist Nancy Zhou, for example, describes her new release STORIES (re)TRACED as a personal response to the question “What does it mean to be human?” – but when it results in a recital as stunning as this, who really cares? (Orchid Classics ORC100379 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100379-stories-retraced).

Zhou has a strong, clear tone and virtuosity to spare, but always with a striking musicality and interpretative power. Works by two composers who were close friends open and close the disc: Ysaÿe’s Sonata No.4 in E Minor, Op.27 No.4, which was dedicated to Fritz Kreisler, and the latter’s Recitativo & Scherzo-Caprice, Op.6, both superbly played. The Bartók Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz.117 and Bach’s Partita No.1 in B Minor, BWV1002 form the middle section, the Bartók in particular a towering and memorable performance.

It’s a really outstanding CD, with the remarkable Zhou at times sounding anything but human. 

On Another Night – A Celebration of Svend Asmussen the Danish violinist Niklas Walentin and the Snorre Kirk Trio of drummer Kirk, pianist Calle Brickman and bassist Anders Fjelsted present “a heartfelt tribute” to Svend Asmussen, one of Denmark’s greatest jazz violinists who died in 2017 aged 100 (Orchid Classics ORC100320 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100320-another-june-night).

There’s a deep personal connection here: the 10-year-old Walentin met the 90-year-old Asmussen back-stage after a concert, with the two violinists later sharing a unique friendship. Asmussen gifted Walentin a collection of 11 of his jazz arrangements, and they are presented here with the violin solos remaining as true to the written form as possible.

And just look at some of the 11 track titles: Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Someone to Watch Over Me, Basin Street Blues, All the Things You Are (a Bach-flavoured violin solo), Embraceable You, Fascinating Rhythm, Sophisticated Lady, The Nearness of You – it’s all absolute magic, with gorgeous arrangements superbly played.

It’s apparently only available as a download or a vinyl LP and not on CD.

The almond tree duos is the world premiere recording of a work from 2019-2021 by violist and composer Melia Watras comprising 18 brief pieces for violin and viola. The violin duties are shared by baroque violinist Tekla Cunningham and violinists Rachel Lee Priday and Michael Jinsoo Lim (Planet M Records PMR-007 planetmrecords.bandcamp.com/album/melia-watras-the-almond-tree-duos).

The work can be performed in several ways, from stand-alone pieces through various combinations to a complete set; if the latter, the order should be as recorded here.

Watras encourages experimenting with combinations of modern violin and viola with baroque violin and viola. The end result here is a fascinating soundscape, the three violinists providing a variety of techniques, tonal colours and nuances to supplement Watras’ playing.

Listen to 'The almond tree duos' Now in the Listening Room

There’s another set of the Ludwig van Beethoven Complete Violin Sonatas, this time a 3CD box with the German duo of violinist Lena Neudauer and pianist Paul Rivinius (cpo 555 550-2 naxosdirect.co.uk/items/ludwig-van-beethoven-complete-violin-sonatas-1281535).

While originally titled Sonatas for Piano and Violin the 10 works, written in Vienna between 1797 and 1812, permanently established an equal and balanced partnership between the two instruments. In that respect Rivinius is every bit Neudauer’s equal in a beautifully-judged progression from the three early Op.12 sonatas through a delightful “Spring” Sonata Op.24 to an imposing and powerful “Kreutzer” Sonata Op.47.

There’s not a false note or moment throughout an outstanding set that will stand comparison with any in the catalogue.

Pianist Paul Rivinius appears again, this time with violist Christian Euler, on Brahms | Schumann Works for Viola and Piano, a CD featuring works from relatively late in each composer’s career (Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm MDG 903 2353-6 euler-viola.com/en/tontraeger/new-release-2025-brahms-schumann).

The central work on the disc is Schumann’s Märchenbilder Op.113 or Fairy Tale Pictures from 1851, a work that has no individual titles that might suggest the content of the four movements.

In 1890 Brahms decided to retire from composing, but the following year he met the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld and was inspired to write four works for him: the Clarinet Trio Op.114, the Clarinet Quintet Op.115 and the two Clarinet Sonatas in F Minor Op.120 No.1 and E-flat Major Op.120 No.2. The latter are here in the composer’s own arrangements, which he apparently felt were “clumsy and unpleasant.” Changes to accommodate the viola were mostly octave transpositions, but here Euler has “decided to play the original clarinet version consistently and to fully exploit its large range.” It’s an interesting choice.

Listen to 'Schumann Works for Viola and Piano' Now in the Listening Room

On Brahms Three Sonatas the Armenian duo of cellist Suren Bagratuni and pianist Hrant Bagrazyan perform the two cello sonatas as well as the composer’s own transcription of his first violin sonata (Blue Griffin records GBR677 bluegriffin.com/cd-catalog/p/brahms-three-sonatas-for-cello-and-piano-suren-bagratuni-and-hrant-bagrazyan?rq=bagratuni).

The Sonatas for Cello and Piano in E Minor, Op.38 and in F Major, Op.99 are given expansive readings, with both players displaying a rich, warm tone. It’s simply lovely Brahms.

The central work on the CD is Brahms’ transcription, transposed from G major to D major, of the Violin Sonata No.1, Op.78. I sometimes have issues with cello transcriptions of violin sonatas, partly because of the alterations to the melodic line – there are several octave drops in the first movement in particular here – but also because they usually bring the instrumental part down into the piano mid-range, altering the nature of the tonal colour. Here, though, that extra warmth is a positive addition, and there’s no denying the sheer beauty of the playing.

French cellist Juliette Herlin and Canadian pianist Kevin Ahfat are the duo on Herlin’s debut CD Dialogue: Debussy & Schumann, a recital of music by two composers whose artistic kinship is often overlooked, and whose music has long been a part of the cellist’s life (Orchid Classics ORC100382 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100382-dialogue).

The more substantial tracks are Schumann’s Fantasiestücke Op.73, Adagio & Allegro in A-flat Major Op.70 and Drei Romanzen Op.94, and Debussy’s 1915 Cello Sonata in D Minor. Herlin arranged the two Schumann Liederkreis and Debussy’s L’âme évaporée and Beau soir, with the latter’s Nuit d’étoiles, Intermezzo and Rêverie completing the disc.

Herlin has a warm, sweet tone well-suited to the music, and is given fine support from Ahfat on a charming CD that rarely really catches fire.

On the 2CD set From Eastern Europe the husband and wife team of cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and pianist Martin Helmchen present six works by 20th-century Russian composers (Alpha Classics ALPHA827 outhere-music.com/en/albums/eastern-europe).

CD1 has the Shostakovich Cello Sonata in D Minor, Op.40, Schnittke’s remarkable Cello Sonata No.1 and Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, K034B, drawn from his neoclassical ballet Pulcinella.

CD2 features Weinberg’s Cello Sonata No.2, Op.63 and Prokofiev’s Cello Sonata in C Major, Op.119, the recital closing with a fine reading of the Rachmaninov Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op.19, surely one of the most glorious works ever written for cello and piano.

Hecker won the First Prize and two Special Prizes at the 2005 Rostropovich Competition and is clearly in her element here, beautifully supported by Helmchen.

The Music of George Frederick McKay sees the Formosa Quartet present the first commercial release of the string quartets of the mid-century American composer George Frederick McKay (1899-1970) (Orchid Classics ORC100381 orchidclassics.com/releases/orc100381-formosa-quartet).

McKay founded the Music Department at the University of Washington, where he was the Professor of Music for 41 years until 1968. The string quartets occupy a prominent place in his large output, and are described here as reflecting his distinctive musical language, shaped by influences ranging from Civil War era folk songs and Native American melodies to avant-garde satire from the West Coast urban scene.

The String Quartets No.1 “American Sketches” and No.2 “appassionato” are from 1935 and 1937 respectively, while the String Quartets No.3 “Poem of Life and Death” and No.4 “Mister Del Balboa” are both from 1950. They’re strongly tonal, immediately accessible and finely crafted works, given strong performances on this welcome release.

Welsh Music for Strings is a CD of world premiere recordings with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Owain Arwel Hughes (Rubicon Classics RCD1198 rubiconclassics.com/release/welsh-music-for-strings).

The simply beautiful Elegy by Grace Williams (1906-77) was written in 1935 for the newly-formed BBC Welsh Orchestra. Described as “a prayer without words” the stunning O Sacred Heart, by leading contemporary composer Paul Mealor (b.1975), was written especially for this album. 

The short but upbeat Romance by Morfydd Owen (1891-1918) is an early work from a woman composer who died tragically young. The heartfelt Aberfan, by Christopher Wood (b.1945) was written for the 50th anniversary of the 1966 Welsh disaster.

There are two works by Arwel Hughes (1909-88), the father of the conductor: Gweddi (A Prayer) for soprano, chorus and strings, featuring Jessica Robinson and the Côr Llundain, and the lush Divertimento, recently discovered by his son.

The three-movement 1961 Music for Strings by William Mathias (1934-92) completes a really lovely disc.

String music by the Czech composer Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006) is presented on the new CD from violinist Gidon Kremer, who is joined by cellist Magdalene Ceple and the Kremerata Baltica under Fuad Ibrahimov in a recital of works by a lesser-known composer whose career was impacted by both the Nazi occupation of his country and the Communist regime that followed it (Hyperion CDA68474 hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68474).

The earliest work here is the three-movement Chamber Music for Strings, Op.21 from 1963. The two-movement Diptych for Strings, Op.66 and the four-movement Duettina for Violin and Cello, Op.67 are both from 1987. Kalabis described the Diptych as “chaste of expression – a study of new sonic possibilities of string ensemble,” but there are some hauntingly beautiful moments here – especially in the Op.21 – in music that seems to reveal more the more you listen to it.

Performances, as you would expect from Kremer and his friends, are exemplary.

Compositions inspired by artworks are featured on Airat Ichmouratov, a CD of music by the Russian-born Canadian composer, with cellist Stéphane Tétreault, violist Elvira Misbakhova and Les Violons du Roy under the direction of the composer (ATMA Classique ACD2 2896 atmaclassique.com/en/product/ichmouratov-the-ninth-wave-viola-concerto-no-2-cello-concerto-no-1).

The 2018 Tone Poem for Strings: The Ninth Wave Op.61 is a response to the painting of that name by the Russian marine artist Ivan Aivazovsky, Ichmouratov saying that he used impressionist techniques to capture the restless spirit of a turbulent ocean.

For his 2015 Concerto for Viola No.2, Op.41 Ichmouratov imagined a scene from the childhood of J. S. Bach, the three movements being written in a neo-Baroque style while also embracing Ichmouratov’s own neo-Romantic voice.

Three paintings – Intrigues, Repentance and Moto perpetuo – by the Montreal-based artist Natasha Turovsky inspired the 2008 Concerto No.1 for Cello and Strings with Percussion, Op.18 and provided the titles for the individual movements. Commissioned and premiered by Les Violons du Roy, it has a striking middle movement mourning the victims of the mid-century Soviet era.

The outstanding Hamilton guitarist Emma Rush is back with the Life & Times of Catharina Pratten, a delightful and fascinating CD featuring the music of the 19th-century guitarist and composer Madame Sidney Pratten and her associates (Independent emma-rush.com/the-life-and-times-of-catharina-pratten).

A child prodigy, Pratten was born in Germany in 1824, her family moving to England in 1829. She performed, composed and taught virtually up to her death in 1895, her three guitar methods and her book Learning the Guitar Simplified offering valuable insight into 19th-century guitar performance. There are seven of her pieces here, along with short works by her father Ferdinand Pelzer, her husband Robert Sidney Pratten, the Swiss child prodigy Giulio Regondi, the German guitarist and composer Leonard Schultz, Francisco Tarregá (who visited Pratten in London), the English virtuoso (and Pratten student) Ernest Shand, and Pratten`s student and biographer Frank Mott Harrison.

Rush plays two guitars from the 1850s, both associated with Pratten, in an immensely satisfying and beautifully played recital.

There`s more outstanding guitar playing on Cançioneta – Works for Guitar, with the English guitarist Frederick Lawton providing a snapshot of lesser-known mid-20th-century Spanish guitar music (Navona NV6723 navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6723). 

The main composer here is the pianist Federico Mompou (1893-1987), who is represented by his six-movement Suite Compostelana, composed for Andrés Segovia in 1962, and two selections – Nos.6 & 10 – from his 15-piece Cançions y Danzas piano series, the former arranged by Paolo Pegoraro and the latter transcribed by the composer.

Manuel de Falla`s Homenaje a Debussy is here, as are the three-movement Suite Valenciana by Vicente Asencio (1908-1979) and the delightful four-movement Sonata by Antonio José (1902-1936).

Lawton`s playing seems effortlessly clean, and his phrasing and musicality are first class. The recording was made using vintage microphones in order to give a warm and saturated tonal colour to the performances, and it certainly produced the desired effect on a terrific CD.

The Canadian Guitar Quartet of Steve Cowan, Jérôme Ducharme, Christ Habib and founding member Louis Trepanier is in superb form on Empty Houses, a fascinating programme of compositions and arrangements (ATMA Classique ACD2 2883 atmaclassique.com/en/product/empty-houses).

The delightful Prologue, fougue et allegro trépidant was written by Habib’s teacher Patrick Roux for the CGQ’s 20th anniversary, the three movements referencing Chopin, Piazzolla and Bach. The other original compositions are Pulsar, by Belorussian-American composer and guitarist Olga Amelkina-Vera – its exciting rhythms gradually slowing to nothingness – and Renaud Côté-Giguère’s four-movement title track, described by the composer as an overview of his musical influences.

The hugely-effective Allegro con spirit from Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos, K488 (one hand=one guitar!) was arranged by Trepanier, who also arranged Areias Brancas, Orfeu Negro, a compilation of musical themes by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa from the 1959 French-Brazilian film Orfeu Negro that introduced the Bossa Nova to the outside world.

The Thunder Bay flamenco guitarist and composer Matt Sellick, now Toronto-based, has spent much of the past decade orchestrating many of his flamenco guitar pieces and performing them with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, conducted here by Evan Mitchell on the resulting album Watching the Sky (Independent mattsellick.com).

Five of these pieces in their original form were included on Sellick’s 2014 CD After Rain, reviewed here in February 2015, and despite this being an intriguing and well-crafted project it’s difficult to feel that the orchestrations have enriched and enhanced the compositions; rather, they seem to detract from the original intimacy and impact and too often reduce the guitar to a rhythm accompaniment role. The guitar’s crispness – and After Rain had real punch – also tends to get softened in the recording balance.

The result is more of a Latin album than a flamenco album revisited, with occasional shades of José Feliciano – not a bad thing by any means. As such it has its attraction and its merits, but if you really want to know just how good a composer and guitarist Matt Sellick is then revisit After Rain.

Listen to 'Watching the Sky' Now in the Listening Room

Jim O’Leary – Echoes of a Vanished People
Helen Pridmore; David Rogosin; Karin Aurell; Eileen Walsh; James Gardiner; Dale Sorensen
Centrediscs CMCCD 34524 (centrediscs.bandcamp.com/album/echoes-of-a-vanished-people)

The Centrediscs label of the Canadian Music Centre seems to exist in the realm of the classical music landscape. That’s where they seem most relevant although they bloom in art and folk song and magically original expressions often merging both disciplines. The extraordinarily flame-haired and brilliant flutist Jaye Marsh sent me a copy of her ethereal work, Flute in the Wild (CMCCD 28921, 2021) and sent me scurrying for more from the intrepid landmark imprint. 

Point in case is Echoes of a Vanished People where we hear the luminous-voiced Helen Pridmore singing of people in the lonely landscapes of our vast exquisite country; six extraordinary works written by the eloquent Jim O’Leary – an expert craftsman specialising in Canadian art song.

O’Leary draws on poems and other lyrical works by the Newfoundland and Labrador author Michael Crummey and songs by Susan Pannefather Gray and others. The music and lyrics take us into the countryside of O’Leary’s childlike imagination where it mixes beauty and a long-ranging sense of love for the grizzled past. The songs are evocative of long rainy days and freezing nights. Each track takes us into a wild place with trusted and inspiring friends. Both O’Leary and Pridmore have their fingers on the pulse of a ruddy sanguinity of old in this auspicious offering.

Daniel Janke – Map of You
Rachel Fenlon
Centrediscs CMCCD 32323 (danieljanke.bandcamp.com/album/map-of-you)

The music recorded on Centrediscs is increasingly wondrous and challenging. This “existential” repertoire by Daniel Janke is a wonderful example of this. Vocalist and pianist Rachel Fenlon interprets Janke’s Map of You, an exquisite song cycle densely packed with ideas, emotions, and depth of thought.

The idea of dealing with “existential material” of this kind is sensational, with its mixture of beautiful arias and recitatives. The theme of Love in all its aspects is challenging. For instance, the songs – The Drunken Lover and Two Oranges in My Pocket – may even change your way of perceiving characteristics of love in opera.

Map of You is a work in progress by Daniel. It is beautifully interiorized by Rachel Fenlon who renders it in a wonderful manner. There may not be a better shaping of an operatic character. I am fairly sure that as the producers dug deepest, they found an exquisite partnership. Brava tutti.

Listen to 'Daniel Janke: Map of You' Now in the Listening Room

Reena Esmail – Exaltations
Cathedral Choral Society; Steven Fox
Acis APL78314 (acisproductions.com/reena-esmail-exaltations-cathedral-choral-society-fox)

Young American composer Reena Esmail presents three rather short numbers that are unconventional in ways that suggest a different, looser approach to writing liturgical pieces for the Christian Church. None of these pieces are underlaid with the usual prayers found in similar church pieces, but these Exaltations have very minimal texts which are only words and short Mass fragments that however serve in repetition and emphasize the basic impetus to be both joyous and contemplative.

The forces employed are a large mixed choir, four soloists who only sing in the second of the three parts, and a brass quintet. The music is in a readily approachable liturgical style universal in Christian religious cultures throughout the latter part of the 20th century, being mostly tonal, though not simply diatonic. There is a similarity to the music of Holst, who was influenced by his studies in East Indian music, in its feel and harmony. Esmail is of East Indian extraction, and she has almost surreptitiously included a technical element of East Indian Classical Music, in that each of these pieces is in a different Raga, or melodic framework, from the Indian tradition. This influences the mainly homophonic tone setting, although very subtly. 

The performance and recording are first class, and I suspect the whole project, recorded live at the National Presbyterian shrine Washington D.C. was conceived by Stephen Fox, director of the Cathedral Concert Society Choir. He has impressed in recent years with his Rachmaninoff Project, and in helping to resuscitate music by Ethel Smythe.

This is a most interesting curio, I just wish there was more of it.

Owen Underhill – Songs and Quartets
Daniel Cabena; Jeremy Berkman; Quatuor Bozzini
Collection Quatuor Bozzini CQB 2536 (collectionqb.bandcamp.com/album/owen-underhill-songs-and-quartets)

Owen Underhill leapt at the idea of having Quatuor Bozzini record his Second String Quartet, written after a chance encounter with John Cage in 1986 and later revised in 2017. The Bozzini had previously recorded his Trombone Quintet with soloist Jeremy Berkman. Embarking on this new project Underhill took the opportunity to compose music for the quartet based on the poetry of Henry Vaughan and Sir Walter Raleigh (The Retreat and What is Our Life respectively), with countertenor Daniel Cabenas and Berkman playing the sackbut (an early trombone dating from the era of the poems). 

Northern Line – Angel Station String Quartet No.2, was penned after witnessing a performance by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company with live music by Cage. Underhill says “The final movement is a quodlibet which includes four quotations from Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts (1949-50), an amazing piece and an important work in Quatuor Bozzini’s repertoire and discography.” String Quartet No.5 – Land and Water from 2017 is also in four movements which “etch out connections to the natural world, specific locations and personal experiences,” according to the composer.

The larger works The Retreat and String Quartet No.2 are outstanding. And What is Our Life and String Quartet No.5 are among Underhill’s most sophisticated. These are stellar works, giant steps by a fine composer who is surely on to even bigger challenges and outcomes in a burgeoning catalogue. Owen Underhill: Songs and Quartets, showcasing a more lyrical side of the Bozzini Quartet, will certainly make Underhill a more sought-after composer and these performers much more in demand.

Listen to 'Owen Underhill: Songs and Quartets' Now in the Listening Room

ORDO VIRTUTUM – Jeff Bird plays Hildegard von Bingen: volume two
Jeff Bird
Independent 2025UTUM (jeffbird.bandcamp.com/album/ordo-virtutum-jeff-bird-plays-hildegard-von-bingen-volume-two)

A few years ago, Guelph area musician Jeff Bird produced a unique recording featuring what he called adaptations of the music of Hildegard of Bingen. He has now followed up with a further collection of pieces inspired by and adapted from this 12th century German abbess, who must stand out as one of the most remarkable individuals of that mediaeval period. Hildegard produced melodies for her nuns to sing communally [as monks did with Gregorian Plainchant], and inscribed these musical lines in illustrated manuscripts, designed with colours and ornaments, which are beautiful in themselves. 

As with Bird’s first collection, the chant has been compressed to produce a faster moving melody line, which follows the intervals of the chant more quickly and renders them instrumentally in arrangements that are based on a main voice usually played on a harmonica. There is no singing.

There are eight separate numbers, and each features a very precise scoring of the solo harmonica line, recorded and performed meticulously with a limited vibrato, plus another instrumental line which varies from number to number, and forms organum and pedal effects and echoes surrounding the main melody, with strings in the first, trumpet in the third, and we hear sections with electric guitar, sruti-box, [tiny] pipe organ and even a harp, but all in contemplative flowing, very simple and clear lines. 

The intense meditational focus eventually creates an obsessive, mesmerizing quality, but each of the numbers ends abruptly, usually fading back before the next piece without any cadential process. This disc could be an effective background of calming music played on repeat. The single sleeved album has a minimum of notes, but is very elaborately decorated, as is the CD itself.

J.S. Bach – The Well “Tampered” Clavier Book One (arranged Sam Post)
Sam Post; Ralitza Patcheva
Acis APL53516 (acisrecordstore.com)

Sam Post, and his piano-playing partner Ralitza Pacheva, play a sensational Book 1 of J.S. Bach’s Well-“Tampered” Clavier here. More about that title later. Both books (24 preludes and fugues) work through the 12 major and 12 minor keys on the instrument as it was constructed at that time. 

Unequalled in the profligacy of their inventiveness, the books were intended partly as a manual of keyboard playing and composition, partly as a systematic exploration of harmony, and partly as a celebration of tuning technique – the “Well-tempering” that enables playing in any key without having to retune the piano. The twist in the title may sound whimsical, but it is not as it restores the Pythagorean (and other mathematical elements) of the composition. As the elements of melodic line, harmonic construction and rhythmic invention are unfurled and unfettered, the “Tampered” vs “Tempered” title makes its charm even clearer.

Post’s and Ralitza’s quirky and clever interpretation joins the annals of great recordings – Glenn Gould’s and Friedrich Gulda’s to cite a couple – of this masterful compositional invention. The fugues, in as many as five voices, are brilliantly constructed and full of dance-like passages and strong, concise melodies, and the preludes can be seen as palimpsests of the poetic distillations of Chopin’s Préludes and Études. Post and Ralitza exploit the full range of the piano’s sonorities; crisp, hard touch is used for the more rhythmically motorised preludes.

Listen to 'J.S. Bach: The Well “Tampered” Clavier Book One' Now in the Listening Room

Ernst Gernot Klussmann – Piano Quintet; String Quartet No.1
Kuss Quartet; Péter Nagy
EDA Records EDA 055 (eda-records.com/177-0-CD-im-Detail.html?cd_id=100)

In the booklet accompanying this first-ever CD devoted to Ernst Gernot Klussmann (1901-1975), Carsten Bock suggests that the neglect of Klussmann’s extensive output in all genres is “due to the stigma attached to artists who worked in Germany during the Nazi era.” Klussmann had joined the Nazi party in 1933 but, insists Bock, he “was anything but a Nazi… a timid person who was careful to observe the rules and laws.”

After listening to these two early works, I submit instead that Klussmann’s “timidity” and “careful observation of the rules” led him to creating music that despite its intrinsic merit is dismissed for too closely imitating the composers he admired – Brahms, Mahler and Schoenberg.

Klaussmann’s Piano Quintet in E Minor, Op.1 (1925) opens with a yearning violin melody that could have been written by Brahms. Brahms reappears in the movement’s tumultuous development and the rhapsodic Adagio molto e cantabile as well as the noble, vigorous anthem and fugal section of the dramatic Finale. This thoroughly enjoyable work might easily have entered the repertoire had it been premiered a generation earlier.

Just a few years later, in his String Quartet No.1, Op.7 (1928-1930), Klussmann abandoned Brahms for the long-lined, chromatic dissonances of Mahler and the Schoenberg of Verklärte Nacht.

Pianist Péter Nagy and the Berlin-based Kuss Quartet make a persuasive case for these substantial works, both over half an hour, both well worth hearing even if you’ve “heard it all before.”

Edge of the Storm
Telegraph Quartet
Azica ACD-71381 (azica.com/albums/edge-of-the-storm)

This CD’s three quartets date from a decade when their composers lived on the “edge of the storm” – World War Two.

Benjamin Britten composed his remarkable String Quartet No.1 in D Major, Op.25 (1941) in California, having chosen, as a pacifist, self-exile from the U.K. Filled with fresh melodies, surprising irregular rhythms and strikingly original sonorities, it features eerie, high-pitched shimmers over cello pizzicati, an energized syncopated dance, a driving scherzo abruptly punctuated by rude outbursts, an extended elegy and a skittish, exuberant and eventually triumphant finale.

In 1939, Mieczysław Weinberg fled from Poland to the U.S.S.R. There, he composed his String Quartet No.6 in E Minor, Op.35 (1946), a memorial to the millions of innocents killed, including his parents and sister who were murdered by the Nazis. Bittersweet folk-like tunes contrast with violent turmoil, a wailing klezmer melody, a grief-stricken prayer for the dead, a ghostly Yiddish dance (played using mutes), ending with a grandiloquent, Shostakovichian proclamation of survival after tragedy. Banned from performance by Soviet authorities, this monumental work wasn’t premiered until 2006!

During the Nazi occupation, Grażyna Bacewicz participated in Poland’s Underground Union of Musicians, which later commissioned her String Quartet No.4 (1951). Wistful melodies and optimistic passion emerge from initial gloom, pulsating shadows drift mysteriously and a spirited rondo based on a Polish oborek dance accelerates to a joyous conclusion.

Thanks to the virtuosic Telegraph Quartet, quartet-in-residence at the University of Michigan, for this superb CD.

Nightfall and Midnight Revels – New Chamber Music from Two Centuries
Paul Cohen; Various artists
Ravello Records rr8117 (ravellorecords.com/catalog/rr8117)

Sadly, in the world of chamber music, the saxophone is usually not in the picture at all; even in 2025 the standard strings and wind instruments usually take precedence. Famous exceptions would be William Walton’s brilliant Façade or various transpositions of Bach, Hindemith and other works. 

Paul Cohen’s Nightfalls and Midnight Revels does an excellent job of rectifying this by highlighting many obscure works and presenting “a distinguished array of music old and new, including chamber works for trio, quartet and quintet.” Cohen plays soprano and alto saxophones in addition to the “conn-o-sax,” a straight design in “F” (saxes are normally tuned in B-flat or E-flat) which was produced for only one year (1928). Other instrumentation includes piano, violin, viola, cello and other saxophones, and includes pieces from 1932 to 2021.

There are several beautiful gems in this collection – for example Wolfgang Jacobi’s recently discovered Kleine Stucke (1932) and John Sichel’s Piano Saxophone Quintet (2021) – and I heartily urge everyone to give it a listen: you will be surprised and intrigued.

Omar Daniel – Game of Couples: Chamber music and songs
Various Artists
Centrediscs CMCCD 34124 (centrediscs.bandcamp.com/album/game-of-couples)

Toronto-born Omar Daniel, currently associate professor of composition at Western University, reliably rewards listeners with his patented formula combining striking melodies with dynamic rhythms, often, as in this latest release, adding ingredients from the music of his parents’ homeland, Estonia.

Violinists Erika Raum (Daniel’s wife) and Emily Kruspe perform Giuoco delle coppie/Game of Couples (2014). This “game” is anything but “fun.” Six movements, all under three minutes, range in expressive content from the abrasive argument of the opening Allegro barbaro (a favourite Daniel designation) through distressed pleading, emphatic assertions, depression, anxiety, finally ending in a lonely, despairing, near-silent Adagio.

Pianist Lydia Wong joins Raum in the five-movement Metsa maasikad/Wild Strawberries (2009). With titles including Horse Game, Spinning Song, Grew into a Herder and The Mouse Goes to the Forest, insistent rhythms and spiky melodies suggest the rustic folkloric music of a lusty peasant community.

More folkish melodies appear in Daniel’s Ühekse eesti regilaulud/Nine Estonian Rugo-Songs (2008, rev.2021), comprising songs of harvest, cooking, games and a lullaby. Soprano Xin Wang’s unrestrained hoarse yelps – over innovative, discordant instrumental sonorities provided by Raum, violist Sharon Wei and cellist Thomas Wiebe – make this a wildly exhilarating work!

Raum and Wiebe return in two Nocturnes (2020-2021), a grim Adagio and an Allegro molto that begins raucously but gradually fades to a funereal hush. When will the Toronto Symphony and/or the Canadian Opera Company commission a major work by this most-deserving composer?

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What I Saw in the Water
ChromaDuo
Naxos 8.574578 (arkivmusic.com/products/assad-bogdanovic-brouwer-iannarelli-kavanagh-what-i-sa)

Five 21st-century works by five guitarist-composers are lovingly performed by Canada’s ChromaDuo, guitarists Tracy Anne Smith and Rob MacDonald.

Simone Iannarelli (b.Rome 1970) says his Siete pinturas de Frida Kahlo “tries to recreate the images, atmosphere, inside feelings or background of these works of Frida,” beginning with the rippling, impressionistic Lo que vi en el agua, the source of the CD’s title. The flamenco-flavoured Unos cuantos piquetitos is followed by five mostly inward-looking pieces which offer pleasant listening but are considerably understated compared to Kahlo’s flamboyantly phantasmagoric paintings.

The remaining works were written expressly for ChromaDuo. The Circle Game by guitar icon Leo Brouwer (b.Havana 1939), inspired by Margaret Atwood’s poetry collection of the same name, enigmatically mixes minimalist pulsations with fragmented phrases, interrupted by sudden silences. The four-movement Sonata No.2 by Dušan Bogdanović (b.Belgrade, 1955) offers brief hints of Indian music, some jazzy riffs and tantalizing snatches of several near-recognizable old pop songs.

In the warm-hearted, ballad-like tone poem, The Ghost of Peggy’s Cove, Op.14, Dale Kavanagh (b.Halifax 1958) depicts the Nova Scotia legend of a woman whose ghost haunts the shore where she drowned herself after seeing her husband die when he fell while dancing on the rocks.

This multifaceted CD ends with the three-movement Dyens en trois temps, a tribute by Sérgio Assad (b.São Paulo 1952) to his friend, Tunisian-French guitarist-composer Roland Dyens (1955-2016), echoing, in turn, Dyens’ treatment of jazz, French songs and the music of Brazil.

Sean Clarke – A Flower for My Daughter
Sean Clarke; Roger Feria Jr.; Talia Fuchs; Nathan Bredeson
Navona Records nv6743 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6743)

Being a published poet and a dyed-in-the wool Imagiste, this disc registers with me in the same way as the poem A Prayer for My Daughter written by the great poet William Butler Yeats. However, the composer of A Flower For My Daughter, Sean Clarke, has more of the impressionist in him, leaning more towards Claude Monet than Yeats. Clarke says “I wrote this piece, slowly and late at night, in the year after my daughter was born. I tried to capture the feeling of holding my tiny sleeping child, into the early hours, letting her rest when she couldn’t sleep by herself, deep in my own thoughts, hopes, and fears.”

But here, Clarke’s love for his wife is gloriously expressed in the pain and joy of the experience. It is both graphically and sonically depicted in the melodic and harmonic conception of the musical tapestry into which it is woven, in textures that take us on a course of music that references sacred flute works:  Mountain Hymnal for solo flute and resonance performed by Clarke, Ballade featuring guitarist Nathan Bredeson, and the Three Nocturnes, after Monet which are imbued with impressionist zeal by pianist by Roger Feria Jr. 

Connecting these, A Flower For My Daughter intertwines a chamber opera sung by Talia Fuchs titled Franey Trail – a silken aria accompanied by Feria, wondrously strung out to adorn the birth of Clarke’s child. The fantastical world of David Lynch is also beautifully referenced.

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Lifeblood
Raphael Weinroth-Browne
Independent (raphaelweinroth-browne.bandcamp.com/album/lifeblood)

Thirty-three year old Ottawa-raised,Toronto-based cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne has already had a long and diverse career, and this latest offering demonstrates his rocket trajectory has no plans to slow down. Weinroth-Browne’s early work in contemporary classical music has grounded his solid technique, and his growth and expertise continue to be explosive. From his early years with Norwegian prog-rock band Leprous in 2016, and studio albums too numerous to mention, his experience and breadth of skill defy description. Continuing from his early days with the duo Kamancello, Muskox, The Visit, and Glass Armour, where Weinroth-Browne plays a multitude of instruments, this artist has refused to be stapled down as a classical player. Often described as a “Black Metal” cellist, his growing stage presence and elevated production quality in sound, film, dance compositions and live performances has given him a cult-like following. 

With Lifeblood, Weinroth-Browne pushes further into his Rock/Metal Opera journey, self-producing some of his best work yet. With a Goth-like presentation, including artwork and photographs of body art both devoted to snakes, this album leaves no room for doubt as to where this artist is going. 

From the pulsating Neanderthal to the transcendent, starry, restful motion of Winterlight and the heavy-metal Possession, the precision of every composition keeps the work taught, each piece expanding to an audio version of wide-screen cinema. The final Glimmering‘s freely phrased opening gives way to layered pizzicato lines overlain with cello upon cello upon cello, painting colours over colours and topped with fervent motion upon motion. Even being familiar with Weinroth-Browne’s style, this track’s mixing, panning and overall production really shines the album to a close.

The Laws of Nature
Andrew Staniland
Leaf Music AS2025 (andrewstaniland.com/thelawsofnature)

A new release on Leaf Records features the latest developments on a new musical instrument, called JADE, developed over the last decade by the multi-faceted composer and musical theorist Andrew Staniland. He has won many awards in Canada throughout this century and was the TSO Affiliate Composer in 2006. A professor at Memorial University St. John’s Newfoundland, he founded their ElectroAcoustic Lab where, with his cross-disciplinary research team, he has been developing the JADE concept. This is a radically new digital music instrument and one of its innovative features is that it will respond to direct brain impulses transmitted through a band worn on the head. 

The sounds of JADE seem to have limitless potential and it contains myriad musical voices, textures and environments that constitute these pieces. There are six compositions that at first can elide into one another, and there is a six-movement piece called The Laws of Nature, which is intended as a single piece although there is still great variety in the different sections that make it up. 

The actual substance of the sounds used still seem to have been collected from reality in an impressive array of sampling techniques. Staniland has created a wide variety of new voices and effects, in a basically tonal setting. The ambient soundstage is an illusion of JADE, which gives the music an atmosphere to resound in. The effect is of being in a complex musical environment, and the listener is mostly unaware that the music is entirely electronic, although some sections are clearly electronically derived. 

Since it is so rich and varied, this CD can be listened to as a stimulating journey through seemingly endless new vistas. Although this music was developed as an accompaniment for the Kittiwake Dance Company, it also stands as a piece in its own right, but you will not necessarily go away humming the tunes.

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