As I sit down to write this column in Toronto, there is a gala performance taking place in Montreal celebrating the winners of this year’s Azrieli Foundation music composition prizes. Kelly-Marie Murphy is the winner of the 2018 Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music. This is the second time that the Foundation has awarded the $50,000 prize – the largest of its kind in Canada – which is granted to a Canadian composer based on a proposal for a new work which expresses an aspect of the Jewish experience with “the utmost creativity, artistry and musical excellence.” Established by the Azrieli Foundation in 2015, the biennial Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) also include a $50,000 international prize, granted to the composer of the best new major work of Jewish Music written in the last ten years.

Murphy’s new work, a double concerto for cello and harp, explores Sephardic music and how it impacted other cultures as the diaspora settled in Morocco, Tunisia and parts of Europe. “What fascinates me is how music travels, and how it can subtly influence cultures throughout its journey,” says Murphy, who drew from Sephardic folk and liturgical melodies for the new concerto. Murphy adds: “The Azrieli Foundation has created a wonderful opportunity to encourage Canadian composers to write significant works on a grand scale.” 

This is certainly true for Brian Current, winner of the inaugural AMP in 2016, whose proposal was to write an extended cantata based on the Zohar (Book of Enlightenment), “the most central book of the Kabbalah and the most mysterious of Jewish mystical texts.” I am sure that it is no coincidence that Analekta has just released New Jewish Music Vol.1 (AN 2 9261 analekta.com) featuring that commission, Seven Heavenly Halls, and the Klezmer Clarinet Concerto by young Belarus-born Wlad Marhulets, winner of the international prize that year.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must declare that I know Brian well, and he has served on the board of New Music Concerts, where I have been general manager for many years. He is an integral part of the re-visioning of the organization as it embarks on its second half-century of activity and in the coming years will share artistic direction duties with founder Robert Aitken. Current says that he became interested in the Zohar, particularly its reference to “Seven Heavenly Halls,” while researching texts for The River of Light, a large-scale oratorio in six parts that will explore the subject of transcendence in a variety of religious and cultural traditions. Seven Heavenly Halls is a dramatic work, almost operatic in scope, for solo tenor (Richard Troxell), (unnamed) chorus and orchestra (Czech National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Steven Mercurio). It is an exceptionally well-crafted work, with impeccable balance between soloist – busy throughout – chorus and orchestra, with a wealth of well-chosen colours which support the vocal writing, never masking the texts so carefully prepared by Current’s librettist Anton Piatigorsky from translations by Yehoshua Rosenthal. I find the concept of a prize rewarding an outline rather than a finished work to be intriguing, especially considering this it the largest composition prize in Canada. Congratulations to both Sharon Azrieli of the Azrieli Foundation for conceiving the award, and to Current for bringing the proposed work to such dazzling fruition.

As mentioned, the CD also includes the other 2016 winning work, Marhulets’ Klezmer Clarinet Concerto composed in 2009. The composer says “Klezmer music came crashing into my life when, as a 16-year-old living in Gdansk, my brother Damian brought home a CD by a band called Klezmer Madness, featuring clarinetist David Krakauer [the soloist here]. This was music that was so boldly Jewish, so full of wild energy that a kind of madness enveloped my senses as I listened to it… I decided to become a musician on the spot.” Five years later, having moved to New York, Marhulets met Krakauer and the result was this whirlwind work that draws on not only the Klezmer tradition, but also jazz, funk and hip-hop. This dazzling album is completed with a touch of history, Lukas Foss’ Song of Songs (1947) sung by Sharon Azrieli. All in all, a fine addition to the Analekta catalog.

This just in: At the recent gala it was announced that the Azrieli Foundation will add a third $50,000 prize to its roster for the next round in 2020. The Azrieli Canadian Prize, open to Canadian composers only, will be based on proposals for a new large-scale work exploring specifically Canadian themes. With added performance guarantees, recording and residency benefits, the prize will be worth some $200,000 in all. Applications begin in February 2019.

Another Analekta disc, The Bounds of Our Dreams (AN 2 8874-75) is the latest from Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and director Alexander Shelley. It also includes a significant recent Canadian work, Concerto de l’asile (Asylum Concerto), by Walter Boudreau. Composed at the request of pianist Alain Lefèvre, the work pays homage to Québec poet, playwright and co-signer of the seminal Refus global manifesto that played such a large part in the Quiet Revolution, Claude Gauvreau. Boudreau is best known as the conductor and artistic director of the Société de musique contemporain du Québec (since 1988), but is a significant composer in his own right with more than 60 concert works and 15 film scores to his credit. The award-winning Lefèvre has devoted his energies to promoting the music of child-prodigy André Mathieu (1929-1968), known as Québec’s “Mozart” (although his virtuosic music had more in common with that of Rachmaninoff than with the Classical era). There are touches of this Romantic sensibility in Boudreau’s expansive (45-minute) concerto, perhaps surprising from such a champion of contemporary music, no stranger to the extremes of the avant-garde. The work is in the traditional three-movement form, here referring to different aspects of Gauvreau’s troubled life. The first, Les oranges sont vertes (The Oranges are Green), refers to Gauvreau’s final work, published posthumously in 1972. It starts with a flourish that sets the stage for an extended movement where the soloist and orchestra are seemingly at odds throughout, and ends with a cadenza representing the poet’s descent into madness. The gentle second movement, St-Jean-de-Dieu, depicts a time of heavy sedation (and shock therapy) spent in the asylum of St-Jean. The final movement was inspired by Gauvreau’s chef-d’oeuvre, La charge de l’orignal épormyable (The Charge of the Expormidable Moose) which received its English language premiere by One Little Goat Theatre at Taragon Theatre in May 2013. Like the play, Boudreau’s concerto is formidable, and Lefèvre, clearly in his element, is in perfect form.

The 2-CD set opens in a welcoming fashion with a sparkling performance Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte in which the orchestra shines. The second disc is devoted to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Shéhérazade with impeccable solo work from concertmaster Yosuke Kawasaki. I see that the orchestra has grown over the years from its classical model of 50-some players to a current total of 80, big enough to tackle these large Romantic works, which it does with convincing agility and aplomb under Shelley’s direction. This is their fourth recording for Analekta with Shelley at the helm, each of which has included new significant Canadian repertoire. Finally, or perhaps once again after an extended hiatus, we can celebrate the (C)NACO as a truly national orchestra. Accolades all around!

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Paul Lansky was among the first to experiment with the computer for sound synthesis. Until the mid-1990s, the bulk of Lansky’s work was in computer music, for which he was honoured in 2002 with a lifetime achievement award by SEAMUS (the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States). The first time I heard his music was thanks to my WholeNote colleague and former CBC radio producer David Jaeger, sometime in 1985 on his program Two New Hours. It was a brilliant piece titled Idle Chatter, in which the composer had used computer synthesis to mimic the sound of the human voice, or actually a room full of human voices, and created the babble of a crowd in which you could swear you heard actual words and syntax. It’s available on YouTube and if you’ve not heard it, it’s well worth the search.

Since 2004 Lansky has concentrated on instrumental composition without any electronic involvement, as witnessed by the latest of some two dozen recordings on the Bridge label, The Long and Short of It (BRIDGE 9495 bridgerecords.com). In the notes Lansky states that the music contained here, although recently composed, relates to his earliest musical experiences at the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan, playing folk guitar (with some classical studies) and later the French horn. He achieved quite a high performance level with the latter and for a time was a member of the Dorian Wind Quintet. It is with a wind quintet that this disc begins, the title work performed by Windscape. It is an extended work inspired by the third-movement Adagio of Mozart’s Serenade for Winds K.361, passing through a number of moods and colours, at some moments reminiscent of the busy chatter of the electronic piece I mentioned above. Talking Guitars uses the metaphor of a conversation to characterize a dialogue between the two instrumentalists, although it is much more lyrical than the busy computer chatter I keep mentioning. It is performed by the brilliant young guitarists, Jiyeon Kim and Hao Yang. Pieces of Advice for horn and piano was written for William Purvis and Mihae Lee. The suite consists of “character studies,” with the following performance instructions for the five movements: “Be Mysterious,” “Be Proud,” “Be Patient,” “Be Annoying” and “Be Insistent.” It quite effectively depicts all these moods and is beautifully realized by its dedicatees. It seems whatever the genre, Lansky’s music continues to attract and satisfy.

Listen to 'The Long and Short of It' Now in the Listening Room

I cannot remember when I first heard the music of Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, but I do know that I was thoroughly enthralled by the time I had the great pleasure of meeting him thanks to New Music Concerts back in 1993, before I was directly involved with the organization. On that occasion he was in Toronto to conduct what would turn out to be his last concert – he died just a few months later of cancer. The live CBC recording was released as an independent CD by New Music Concerts and later reissued by Naxos (8.572450). Needless to say I was pleased when I received a new CD by 12 Ensemble, one of the UK’s leading string orchestras, which features Lutosławski’s Musique funèbre. Composed in 1958 and dedicated to the memory of Béla Bartók, it was the last traditional work he composed before incorporating aleatoric principals into his writing, although it does employ 12-tone techniques. It is a moving work, suitably dark, and is here performed with distinction. The group, known for performing without a conductor, has a homogenous sound and an innate sense of ensemble. The Lutosławski is followed by Ulysses Awakes by John Woolrich, which seems to rise from the shadows of the Lutosławski, and perhaps gives rise to the album’s title Resurrection, released on the new Sancho Panza label (SPANCD 001 juno.co.uk/labels/Sancho+Panza). It grows gradually and with an almost medieval, plaintive solo melody fades again. This is followed by Kate Whitley’s Autumn Songs, with whirling glissandi and quiet tremolos in the ensemble once again, and a gentle, soaring melody rising above. The final work, by far the longest, takes us full circle with American rock guitarist Bryce Dressner’s Response Lutosławski, a moving homage commissioned by the National Audiovisual Institute of Poland. The five-movement work explores various thoughtful moods and shows a command of the string orchestra idiom, without a hint of Dressner’s pop-music roots. This perfect bookend completes a stunning debut for both this impeccable ensemble and a new label.

I was skeptical when I first came across the disc The Scene of the Crime featuring Colin Currie and Håkan Hardenberger (Colin Currie Records CCR0002 colincurrie.com). I was not convinced that the combination of percussion and trumpet could sustain interest over the duration of an entire CD. But sustain it does, in many intriguing and satisfying ways. In the words of Currie, “The duo with Håkan Hardenberger is my musical safe space for maximum risk-taking. From my earliest point of connection with this most regal of musicians, what entranced me was the fearless audacity of the endeavour. Envelopes pushed, or simply reinvented, boundaries moved and canvasses recast.” They do this through interpretations of some striking repertoire, from André Jolivet’s 1971 Heptade with its unpitched percussion instruments, through Joe Duddell’s Catch (with Currie on marimba) and Tobias Broström’s use of gongs and vibraphone in Dream Variations, to Daniel Börtz’s mystical Dialogo 4 which begins in near silence, and the title track, Brett Dean’s 2017 composition ... the scene of the crime... written especially for the duo’s “skill and infectious drive, scored for trumpet, flugelhorn and drum kit.” The album never loses its grip on the listener’s attention. A resounding achievement! 

We invite submissions. CDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

Hilary Hahn is one of the truly great violinists on the world stage, so it perhaps comes as something of a surprise to see that she has never issued a complete set of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, despite her reputation for outstanding Bach playing. Her 1997 debut CD on Sony, Hilary Hahn plays Bach (Sonata 3, Partitas 2 & 3) when she was only 17 drew rave reviews.

Now, 21 years later and with her first release on the Decca label, she completes the set with Hilary Hahn plays Bach Sonatas 1 & 2, Partita 1 (Decca Classics 4833954).

What immediately strikes you is the smoothness of line, the warmth (with full vibrato), the full measure given to the inner notes in the multiple stopping and the brilliance of the definition in the numerous presto movements. Complete technical assurance is a given, of course, but the depth of her musical intelligence and insight is always equally evident.

Hahn says that since the initial CD she has continually been asked when she would be recording the remaining works, and that she felt that “now was the moment” to do so. “What you hear in this completion of my solo Bach set,” she says, “is therefore the best recording that I feel I can offer at this point in my life.”

It’s hard to imagine how she could ever improve on it.

The Dreams & Fables I Fashion is the stunning debut recording by the American violinist Elicia Silverstein, considered by many to be a rising star on the European early music scene (Rubicon Classics RCD1031 rubiconclassics.com). Noted for playing music from the 17th to 21st centuries on historical and modern instruments, Silverstein demonstrates that extensive range here with music that spans 300 years.

Two Biber works from around 1676 open the disc: the Crucifixion Sonata X from the Rosary or Mystery Sonatas; and the solo Passacaglia. The contemporary Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino’s Capriccio No.2 from his Sei Capricci dates from 1976, its technical challenges handled here with ease.

Little is known about Giovanni Pandolfi Mealli (1630-c.1669/70), but his Sonata No.2 “La Cesta” from 6 Sonatas for Violin and Continuo Op.3 is really something, with some dazzling playing by Silverstein in the opening section. Another work from 1976, Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VIII provides yet another opportunity for the soloist to demonstrate her complete mastery of contemporary technique.

A dazzling period-influenced performance of the Bach Chaconne from the Partita No.2 in D Minor ends an outstanding debut release that seamlessly combines period and contemporary styles. 

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers is in fine form on Mirror in Mirror, her 37th album (Avie AV 2386 avie-records.com). With the exception of Ravel, Meyers has collaborated with all of the composers or arrangers on the album, several of the works being either written or arranged for her.

An arrangement of the Philip Glass Metamorphosis II by Glass collaborator Michael Riesman opens the disc, followed by two works by Arvo Pärt: Fratres; and the album’s title track Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror).

There’s a quite different sound to the Ravel Tzigane. The original violin and piano version contained instructions for a luthéal, an optional piano attachment which could add a cimbalom-sounding effect to the keyboard. It’s essentially a museum piece now, and for this recording Jakub Ciupiński sampled the original instrument in a Brussels museum and produced a digital recreation of the sound for keyboard player Elizabeth Pridgen. The sound is not as strong as a regular piano, but does add a highly appropriate sound to this gypsy-inspired work. You can watch a video of the recording session on YouTube under Anne Akiko Meyers Records Ravel Tzigane with Luthéal.

John Corigliano’s Lullaby for Natalie was written to mark the birth of Meyers’ first child in 2010. The pianist here and in the Glass and Pärt tracks is Akira Eguchi.

Two works by Ciupiński are both for violin and electronics. Edo Lullaby is based on a Japanese folk song that Meyers’ mother used to sing. Wreck of the Cumbria from 2009 was commissioned by Meyers and was inspired by the composer’s exploration of an underwater wreck in Sudan in 2005.

The final track is Morton Lauridsen’s own arrangement of his a cappella choral work O Magnum Mysterium, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Kristjan Järvi. It brings a thoughtful and thought-provoking CD to a beautiful close.

All but the Ravel and Pärt works are premiere recordings.

The two works by Arvo Pärt – Fratres and Spiegel im Spiegel – are also included on the new Onyx CD from the outstanding violinist Viktoria Mullova, simply titled Arvo Pärt (ONYX4201 onyxclassics.com). Paavo Järvi conducts the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.

Pärt’s tintinnabuli style, developed in the 1970s, produced one of the most distinctive compositional voices of the past 50 years. “I build with primitive materials – with the triad, with one specific tonality,” said the composer. “The three notes of a triad are like bells, and that is why I call it tintinnabulation.”

Nearly all of the works here were first performed by Gidon Kremer. Tabula rasa and Fratres were both written in 1977, the latter heard here in a 1991 arrangement by Pärt for violin, string orchestra and percussion. Passacaglia, written in 2003 for violin and piano was arranged for violin and strings in 2007 in honor of Kremer’s 60th birthday.

Darf ich . . . for violin, bells and strings was originally dedicated to Yehudi Menuhin in 1995 but revised for Kremer in 1999. Spiegel im Spiegel dates from 1978, its slow stepwise melody over gentle piano arpeggios the epitome of Pärt’s style.

The English violinists Jameson Cooper and James Dickenson are the performers on Spohr Violin Duets 1, featuring the Three Duets Op.67 and the Duet in E-flat major WoO 21 No.3 by the 19th-century German violin virtuoso and composer Louis Spohr (Naxos 8.573763 naxos.com).

The Op.67 duos were an attempt by Spohr to produce duets that were less demanding than his previous Op.3, Op.9 and Op.39 duos, which had not sold well due to their difficulty. They are really quite charming – fresh, melodic, inventive, and with a good deal of multiple stopping, which makes them sound more like string trios at times. The Duet No.2 in D Major has long been particularly popular.

The WoO 21 duos are Spohr’s earliest surviving compositions, written when he was about 12 years old. Technical ability and musical sensitivity are already there, albeit in a framework lacking mastery of form and structure. The mature composer noted that they “may be childish and incorrect, but they do nevertheless have a form and a flowing melody line.” Indeed they do.

Cooper and Dickenson provide warm and stylish playing throughout an absolutely delightful CD.

The American String Quartet celebrates its 45th anniversary in 2019. Its latest CD, American Romantics, features works by Antonin Dvořák, Robert Sirota and Samuel Barber (americanstringquartet.com/discography).

Dvořák’s immensely popular String Quartet in F Major Op.96, “American” was written at Spillville, Iowa in 1893 during his first summer in the United States. It’s given a solid performance here.

Sirota’s String Quartet No.2, “American Pilgrimage” was commissioned by the performers and was conceived as a companion piece to Sirota’s first quartet “Triptych,” written in response to the 9/11 tragedy. It celebrates American geography and culture, the source material for the four movements being Protestant hymnody, gospel, Native American song and Jazz.

The Barber is the Adagio for Strings, here in its original form as the slow middle movement from the String Quartet Op.11. Recorded in 2011, six years before the rest of the disc, it’s an intensely lovely performance.

Listen to 'American Romantics' Now in the Listening Room

The first release on the new Bear Machine Records label is Dissonance, a performance of Mozart’s String Quartet in C Major K465 by the Diderot String Quartet (bearmachinerecords.com). The ensemble, which was formed in 2012 and received training in modern and early music, uses period instruments with gut strings.

The remarkable opening Adagio of the quartet consequently sounds quite different from the rich, full approach you frequently hear, with the softer sound and minimal vibrato helping to reveal just how shocking this passage – which gives the work its name – must have sounded to contemporary audiences; you really do hear this astonishing progression with new ears. It pointed the way for the future; as the sparse accompanying notes perceptively point out: “discomfort and pain became new ways to accent the beautiful and transcendent.” This is Mozart with a difference indeed, with excellent dynamic range and flexibility with tempos and phrasing.

The rest of the CD is puzzling. It’s a 14-minute podcast discussion between Ben Cooper, who mixed and mastered the disc, and Josh Lee, who produced it, that can most charitably be described as Mozart for Idiots. It seems to want to be both semi-humorous – Cooper first pretending that he’s never heard of Mozart and then saying that his understanding of him “comes 100 percent from the movie Amadeus” – and semi-serious, but even if it does slowly progress through very basic Mozart biography to minimal discussion of the quartet, it ends up being neither particularly amusing nor particularly informative. 

Quadrants Vol.2 features works for string quartet by six contemporary American composers in excellent performances by the Boston-based Pedroia String Quartet (Navona Records NV6184 navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6184). There is unfortunately zero information on the works or composers included with the cardboard digipak, but additional album content – basically just composer bios – is available on the website. There is also a 12-minute Quadrant Vol.2 trailer on YouTube.

Paul Osterfield’s Khamsin is wider ranging in sound and technique than the other works here, but is still essentially approachable and attractive. David T. Bridges’ This Fragmented Old Man is a brief take on the children’s counting song, with an acknowledged nod to Carter, Bartók and Stravinsky. Ferdinando (Fred) De Sena is represented by his three-movement String Quartet No.1, and L. Peter Deutsch by the really effective Departure, the four movements representing Anticipation (“anxiety”), Preparation (“diligent activity”), Leave-taking (“sadness”) and Setting Sail (“excitement”). The third movement of one of the most enjoyable works on the CD is particularly effective.

Katherine Price is a young composer with strong roots in the choral tradition. Her lovely and meditative Hymnody has shades of Samuel Barber’s Adagio. Another really strong work, Marvin Lamb’s Lamentations, ends an excellent disc.

Visions and Variations is an excellent new CD by the American string ensemble A Far Cry (they are also known as The Criers) on their own label (Crier Records CR1801 afarcry.org).

There’s a fine performance of the early Benjamin Britten work Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge, followed by a newer Theme and 12 Variations work by violinist Ethan Wood called Ah! vous dirais-je, Maman: a folktale for 18 players based on characters created by W. A. Mozart. There’s some lovely string writing here.

The 20 short pieces of Sergei Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives Op.22 were written individually between 1915 and 1917, many for specific friends. The Russian violist and conductor Rudolph Barshai arranged 15 of them for string ensemble, the remaining five having been arranged here by A Far Cry members Alex Fortes, Jesse Irons and Erik Higgins.

Clipper Erikson explores a dual theme in his new CD release Tableau – Tempest & Tango (Navona NV6170 navonarecords.com). Beginning with the dark overtones of Russian history, he explores works by Russian-born composer David Finko. He combines Fantasia on a Medieval Russian Theme with three piano sonatas that cover a 15-year period in the composer’s life. Finko’s music is substantial and occupies the entire first disc. The Russian theme continues on the second CD with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Erikson reads a great deal of personal content into this familiar work and draws philosophical connections from its program to Finko’s compositions.

The tango element appears courtesy of composer Richard Brodhead who wrote both Sonata Notturno and Una Carta de Buenos Aires for Erikson. While the Latin flavouring and dance form are unmistakable, they blend with a contemporary language to form a unique expression that sustains interest throughout the works.

Dana Muller and Gary Steigerwalt have been performing as a piano duo for more than 30 years. Their latest recording In Your Head – New Music for Piano Four Hands (Navona NV6190 navonarecords.com) is a reminder of how much wonderful four-hands repertoire there actually is beyond the familiar material of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The works on this disc are by six American composers and present an astonishingly wide array of compositional styles. The opening tracks are a five-part suite by Donald Wheelock titled Mind Games, to which the CD links its own title. The final movement comes as a complete surprise with an energetic and humorous touch.

The major work is John La Montaine’s Sonata for Piano Four Hands Op. 25. This is a substantial work with a clear intent to exploit everything two players can bring to the keyboard collectively. Density, volume and colour are the effects the composer requires the pianists to create. These are particularly critical in the closing Fugue, where the subject relies heavily on these devices.

While there’s so much in this program that’s commendable, Dreamworlds by Lewis Spratlan deserves special mention for its unique shadings and the distinctive voice of its composer. Its three movements are artfully and entertainingly written character portrayals.

Daniil Trifonov lives in the shadow, cast by mountains of gob-smacked reviews all struggling for fresh superlatives to describe his impact on the world of piano music, of his own success. His newest release Destination Rachmaninov – Departure, Piano Concertos 2 & 4, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Deutsche Grammophon 0289 483 5335 4
deutschegrammophon.com/en/artist/trifonov) demonstrates why he has such an effect. Plenty has been written about his technique and the perfect ease with which he manages the most demanding passages. There is, moreover, a sense of confident repose in his musical presence that creates a sense of originality and newness to everything he plays. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin describes it as seeming to compose the music as he is playing it.
Both concertos on this disc are truly breathtaking. The lesser known No.4 is especially satisfying to hear for its rarity and the occasional flavours of jazz-band harmonies that recall the contemporary sounds of 1926 New York. The most memorable moments are those when Rachmaninov swells the music to a veritable orchestral and pianistic tsunami that wreaks an exhilarating devastation on anyone listening.

Trifonov also includes three sections from Rachmaninov’s solo piano transcription of Bach’s Violin Partita No.3 in E Major, BWV1006. His performance shows how much fun Rachmaninov had stripping away the Baroque strictures in favour of a more playful contemporary iteration.

Hyeyeon Park is an accomplished performer and a respected academic. Her new release Klavier 1853 Liszt, Schumann, Brahms (Blue Griffin records BGR351 bluegriffin.com) uses 1853 as the starting point for a selection of piano works that have their genesis in that year. It seems to have been a time of historical significance on numerous fronts. Both piano manufacturers Steinway and Bechstein founded their respective firms in 1853. More importantly, the paths of several key musical personalities crossed in that year, beginning a series of influential relationships that shaped the evolution of European music.

The young Brahms met Liszt in Weimar in June 1853 shortly after Liszt had completed his Ballade No.2 in B Minor S.171. By September he’d presented himself at the Düsseldorf home of Robert and Clara Schumann. Clara had written her Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann Op.20 in early 1853 as a birthday gift for her husband. After Robert Schumann’s decline in health, Brahms used the same theme in a set of variations he composed as a gift for Clara. Brahms had arrived with some samples of his work including the Piano Sonata No.3 in F Minor Op.5. Robert was so impressed by this young talent that he experienced a resurgence of creative inspiration and composed several pieces, including the Gesänge der Frühe Op.133.

This group of historically-linked pieces forms the intriguing program Park performs on this disc. She is a complete artist who brings everything to this music that it needs. She plays with a Romantic sensitivity to the language of each composer, perfectly capturing the spirit of the age.

Romain Descharmes’ new CD Saint-Saëns Piano Concertos Nos.4 & 5 “Egyptian” (Naxos 8.573478 naxos.com) completes his project begun in 2017 with the release of the first three concertos. Marc Soustrot conducts the Malmö Symphony Orchestra for all the performances in the set.

The two-movement Concerto No.4 is not often heard. The easy flow of the music from both the piano and orchestra comes as a reminder of Saint-Saëns’ remarkable gift for composition. Descharmes’ playing perfectly matches the attractive elegance of the music. While his sensitive playing suggests a vulnerability that suits the composer’s voice exquisitely, power and forceful statement are always available when needed.

The artistic partnership between pianist and orchestra is superb. It makes its greatest impact in the Concerto No.5 “Egyptian” where Saint-Saëns uses exotic orchestrations and musical ideas to create his Egyptian mystique. Descharmes describes the work as the composer’s best – a showpiece designed to impress and dazzle the audience. Everything builds toward the final movement where high energy, brilliant scoring and performance leave an impression as lasting as the pyramids at Giza.

This recording is excellent on all counts. It reflects the highest production values and a shared artistic genius consistently present from start to finish. If you’re going to get this recording, get the earlier two discs as well. It’s a set worth having.

Karsten Scholz is now well into his project to record Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas. His latest release is, like its two predecessors, a two-disc set, Beethoven Klaviersonaten III (Elmstudio 300970-4 karstenscholz.de). Apparently recording them in reverse chronological sequence, this third set presents the early half of the middle sonatas, Nos.12-18. The first two sets cover everything after this period and clearly, the early sonatas are yet to come.

Scholz is in his late 40s and has an impressive bio with a credible collection of awards, postings, performances and other career achievements. In a world filling quickly with self-recorded and self-promoted artists, Scholz stands out as an obvious talent. Scholz is the kind of artist that sets the standard for trusted, intellectually informed performance. Maturity guides his artistic decisions. His expression has a wide dynamic supported by wonderful keyboard technique all of which is spent in aid of the perfect balance.

Sonata No.14 in C-sharp Minor, Op.27 “Moonlight,” is for its wide familiarity and inner variety, a potent litmus test of interpretive skill. Scholz takes the opening movement with an unhurried intention that frequently hesitates at critical phrase endings to heighten the appearance of the next idea. The second movement is slower than often heard but effectively echoes the tenderness and also sets up the high-speed turbulence of the final movement.

All seven sonatas in this set benefit from the same unerring performance quality that Scholz has made his hallmark in this project.

Eliane Rodrigues has recorded nearly 30 CDs and shows no sign of easing up her pace. Her latest recording is Claude Debussy – Reflets (Navona NV6164 navonarecords.com). Rodrigues has chosen a program that supports her view of Debussy as a composer of more than just languid, dreamy, impressionistic music. Indeed, it’s as much her approach as it is the program that clinches her argument. The opening tracks, Suite Bergamasque, contain the famous Claire de lune, which is usually taken as a prime opportunity for creating the impressionistic atmosphere of Debussy’s fluid arpeggios and richly blended harmonies. Rodrigues, however, moves through the piece at a more determined pace, lingering less indulgently on the familiar emotional hotspots. Surprisingly, the work loses nothing in this approach and comes across with a new and rather different meaning – something perhaps more actively philosophical rather than deeply contemplative.

Other tracks like Pour le piano, especially its Toccata movement, are highly energized and percussive, words not often used to describe this repertoire. Intriguingly, this performance does more to connect the composer to some of his contemporaries than a traditional interpretation would do. Ravel and Satie suddenly share a kinship with Debussy that has hitherto seemed more tenuous.
Still, Rodrigues doesn’t entirely reject Debussy as the arch-impressionist of piano composition. Arabesques is as powerfully mystical as you’ll hear it played by anyone. So too are the slower movements of Images Books 1 & 2. Rodrigues knows exactly what she’s doing and her ideas are worth hearing.

Mahan Esfahani has resumed his recording relationship with Hyperion Records with an early November release The Passinge Mesures – Music of the English Virginalists (Hyperion CDA68249 hyperion-records.co.uk). Having recorded a couple of discs in 2014 then moved to DG for a couple more in 2015 and 2016, Esfahani is back at Hyperion with his articulately unapologetic approach to harpsichord performance. Current plans include some pre-Baroque repertoire, plenty of J.S.Bach as well as contemporary works written for Esfahani himself.

The current recording samples music from well-known composers of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods: Byrd, Farnaby, Bull, Gibbons and others. Esfahani’s liner notes offer a passionate argument about the limited usefulness of authentic performance approaches to early forms of music. Freed from the tightest interpretive and stylistic constraints, Esfahani explores emotional expression through tempo changes, rich ornamentation and an intensity of performance whose absence has made the instrument a tough sell to a wider audience. He plays with an enormous amount of energy. And in some inexplicable way, he brings out inner voices and countermelodies on an instrument where this is not supposed to be possible.

Esfahani points to the humanity, beauty and complexity of Shakespeare’s work and asks why music of that period shouldn’t be considered in the same light. He may have single handedly begun the expansion of our thinking on issues of early music performance. He has, at least, shown us a credible alternative to what has been doctrine for several decades. 

Adieu mes tres belles
Poline Renou; Matthieu Donarier; Sylvain Lemêtre
Yolk Records 3 2076 (yolkrecords.com)

The vocalist Poline Renou and clarinetist Matthieu Donarier have been making ethereally beautiful music for more than a decade. Joined on this excursion Adieu Mes Tres Belles by the percussion colourist Sylvain Lemêtre, their music makes a magical rhythmic turn with Renou’s pristine, high-sprung voice being daubed by rhythmic paint, so to speak, while both musicians are embraced by Donarier’s near-mystical harmonics as he breathes into his various clarinets.

This repertoire cuts a majestic swathe from early European monodies through the polyphonic music of the late Renaissance to the edge of the Baroque era. Despite this extraordinary range of music cutting through a myriad of modal frameworks, a magical gossamer-like thread sews it all together. This is largely due to the wraith-like presence of Renou, whose chaste, slender voice creates a sense of rapt spirituality throughout the proceedings. Her vocals are bathed in the voluptuous, round sound of Donarier’s clarinets, aptly suggesting a warm and resonant music from ninth-century anonymous works to those of Gilles Binchois, Michelangelo Rossi and Vicente Lusitano from the 15th to the 17th centuries.

Lemêtre’s drums create contemporary drama around the moments of Renou’s vivid word paintings and Donarier’s expressive chromaticisms and dissonance, of which Heu Me Domine is a splendid example. Overall the disc is a rapturous unveiling of sacred and secular works – a happy marriage of astute scholarship and daringly rigorous, idiomatic performance.

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Mozart: Lucio Silla
Kurt Streit; Patricia Petibon; Teatro Real, Madrid; Ivor Bolton; Claus Guth
BelAir Classiques BAC 150 (belairclassIques.com)

Lucio Silla is Mozart’s fifth opera, written when he was a 16-year-old. Lucio Silla was a Roman dictator and as one might expect, was surrounded by endless found love, lost love, intrigue, threats, dire punishments, etc.

Mozart’s early operas are characterized by concertante arias – that is to say the vocal line is like an instrumental concerto (duet, trio, quartet, etc.). Such vocal writing is extremely demanding of the singers. These early works of Mozart bare no signs of being composed by a teenager. The stories, and Lucia Silla is no exception, have complex plots and lyrical texts that are dealing with human feelings and troubled souls. Another characteristic of these early works was the employment of castrati in the leading roles. In Lucio Silla, as in other works, for the most part Mozart wrote for singers that he knew and the writing was customized to suit their virtuosity.

Whereas today there are no castrati, there are countertenors who specialize in Baroque and early classical composers: Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Handel et al. In all Mozart operas, however, today’s practice is to use female vocalists. The best example is the role of Cherubino, a male character written to be sung by a castrato in Le nozze de Figaro, where today only female vocalists are heard. In Lucio Silla, two of the main male characters are stunningly sung by women, in particular, soprano Silvia Tro Santafé in the role of Cecilio. She is truly outstanding with a magical voice and a true Mozart technique and affinity, in the company of a cast not far behind. This production attempts to recreate the story into a later time. I am not taken by the staging, truly abstract and not of anything to do with the plot. Hence, there is nothing else but the superb singing to occupy our attention. In that way the staging issue is unimportant, thanks to the greatness of Mozart’s incomparable score.

The orchestra and conductor are first-class in every respect. Others in the cast are Kurt Streit (Lucio) Patricia Petibon (Giunia), Inga Kalna (Cinna), Maria José Moreno (Celia) and Kenneth Tarver (Aufidio).

Andrew Staniland – Go By Contraries
Tyler Duncan; Martha Guth; Erika Switzer
Centrediscs CMCCD 25918 (musiccentre.ca)

Three dramatic song cycles by Canadian composer Andrew Staniland comprise this exciting, intense, rewarding release performed with respect, musicality and technical prowess by soprano Martha Guth, baritone Tyler Duncan and pianist Erika Switzer. Each showcases the composer’s innate ability to combine words and sound to create thought-provoking, quasi-programmatic works.

Earthquakes and Islands, a setting of Robin Richardson’s poetry, is a tour de force, an eight-movement work exploring the emotional aftermath of a relationship gone wrong. This is high intensity, contrasting music verging on the disturbing. The first section’s opening dramatic piano trill and soprano held notes, subsequent almost-over-the-top low piano crash and low pitched chords contrasting the soprano line set the stage for the entire work. The almost-spoken baritone part in Future Perfect’s third section has the piano atonal lines double the vocals to the calming ending. In My Voice, In My Mouth, dramatic piano low chords, distressed soprano vocals, huge loud and reflective quieter sections support the cancer patient’s feelings of panic/calm. The closing Go By Contraries is just that, as piano string glissandos set up the vocal duet to the closing ascending buildup and final piano fade.

Peter Quince at the Clavier, using a Wallace Stevens text for baritone, and Execution Songs for soprano, feature more of the same intense soaring vocals, piano textures and wide ranging dynamics.

Maybe a bit too melodramatic, but these great compositions, production and performances must be heard!

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Two Cells in Sevilla: Don Quixote Is Hungry
Sonja Bruzauskas; Todd R Miller; Octavio Moreno; Benjamin Leclair; Greenbriar Consortium; David Kirk
Navona Records NV6174 (navonarecords.com)

Two cells in adjacent buildings overlook a square in 16th-century Seville. Gabriel Téllez (baritone Octavio Moreno), a monk who wrote under the name Tirso de Molina, is in his cloister; Miguel de Cervantes (tenor Todd R. Miller), along with his Servant (bass Benjamin LeClair), is in prison, accused of embezzlement.

Gabriel and Miguel lament over their “watery broth” and plead with the Cook (mezzo Sonja Bruzauskas) for better food, but she rebuffs them, lost in her dreams of romance. Trying to charm her, Gabriel and Miguel begin creating their now-classic tales of Don Juan and Don Quixote, respectively, until they’re interrupted by a letter signed “John Falstaff.”

Marec Béla Steffens’ clever, fanciful libretto is set to music by his father, German composer Walter Steffens (b.1934). The 38-minute opera, scored for oboe/English horn, clarinet, saxophone, cello and piano, in addition to the four singers, was premiered in Houston in 2016. The text is sung in parlando style, the vocal and instrumental lines lively and engaging. Given its economical forces and inherent entertainment value, with many familiar musical and literary references, this comical chamber opera is a natural audience-pleaser for conservatories and small opera companies everywhere.

The CD also includes Walter Steffens’ pensive, 12-minute song cycle, Five Songs on Hölderlin (2008), performed by Bruzauskas and pianist Tali Morgulis. No texts are provided, but the opera libretto and Hölderlin’s German verses, without translation, are downloadable from Navona’s website.

And So It Goes – Song of Folk and Lore
Elora Singers; Noel Edison
Naxos 8.573661 (naxos.com)

This superb recording literally cuts a choral swath through Canada, the United States and the British Isles, by including musical material that literally helped shape the cultural identity of those nations. Britain is represented here by compositions from Ivor Novello, Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Several traditional airs are also present, as is the work of two Canadian composers: Jimmy Rankin’s JUNO-winning Fare Thee Well My Love and Eric Whitacre’s Go, Lovely Rose. From the US comes Billy Joel’s melancholy And So It Goes. With Joel’s poetry reframed in a fresh and almost hymn-like arrangement, the song takes on a whole new emotional life. Recorded by Nobert Kraft at St. John the Redeemer in Elora, this ambitious recording was produced by Kraft and Bonnie Silver; the two gifted pianists featured are Leslie De’Ath and James Bourne.

The award-winning Elora Singers is an all-professional vocal ensemble founded in 1980, that has thrilled the world with many memorable performances, as well as bringing Canadian vocal chamber repertoire to the international stage. The choir is, of course, the linchpin of the noted Elora Festival.

There are 21 pieces on this CD, each one a perfectly cut diamond – all refracting light in their own uniquely beautiful way. Of special note are Vaughan Williams’ Three Shakespeare Songs. The choir, expertly conducted by founding director Noel Edison, uses dynamics, sibilant consonants, control of vibrato and impeccable intonation to wend its way through the complex arrangements; it almost seems as if they can morph into a fantastically intricate one-celled being, displaying precision, inspiration and unfailing musicality in equal parts.

Halibut Cheeks & Other Love Songs
Leslie Fagan; Lorin Shalanko
Independent (canadianartsong.com)

Soprano Leslie Fagan and pianist Lorin Shalanko, both international performers and professors of music at Wilfrid Laurier University, are devoted to showcasing Canadian composers through their Canadian Art Song Series, which premiered with the release of Thread of Winter in 2016. This second recording in the series, which takes on the theme of love and romance, is bursting with heartfelt and melodious pieces performed with great warmth and passion. Since the prelude to romance is often a meal, the recording begins with the witty David L. McIntyre’s Creek Bistro Specials in which a sumptuous (and very Canadian) menu, from appetizers to desserts, is extravagantly presented in song. Nestled within the mains is the title track Halibut Cheeks and one can’t help but note a clever nod to Schubert’s Die Forelle in the piano part at the end of the Grilled Trout course.

In the selections that follow, the performers mine exquisite depths of emotion, first with Lionel Daunais’ Cinq Poèmes d’Éloi de Grandmont, then with Srul Irving Glick’s sensuous Seven Tableaux from the Song of Songs. Gorgeous selections by Matthew Emery and Michael Coghlan by turn frame Gladys Davenport’s Cool and silent is the lake, in which Fagan and Shalanko delicately evoke a sense of wonder at nature’s tranquility.

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Mahler – Symphony No.6
Minnesota Orchestra; Osmo Vänskä
Bis BIS-2266 (bis.se)

The enigmatic Sixth of Mahler is one of the “Wunderhorn Symphonies” (Nos.5-7) because each draws its main inspiration from Das Knaben Wunderhorn, Mahler’s most atmospheric and melodic song cycle. But the Sixth stands out because it ends in a minor key; with no triumphant fortissimo ending, it fades out into nothingness.

Hailed as “exacting and exuberant” (New York Times), Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä at the head of the prestigious Minnesota Orchestra is putting his mark on the US’ and the entire world’s music scene with his highly original and compelling interpretations. He has a visceral sense and immediate grasp of the essence of the music and a near hypnotic grip on the orchestra. His revolutionary Beethoven cycle already caused a world sensation and now he is ready to tackle Mahler.

In this superb, spacious BIS recording Vänskä avoids all overt emotional excesses and concentrates on the musical textures and beauties of the score. In fact, in his hands the symphony is not tragic at all, but a strong affirmation of life. He leads us through a remarkable journey: the relentless, terrifying military march that dominates the first movement is relieved by a magnificent love theme (inspired by Mahler’s beloved wife Alma) into an idyllic realm of an alpine meadow, cows grazing and village church bells ringing in the distance. The Andante is one of Mahler’s heavenly creations, but military madness returns as a demonic 3/4 time Scherzo punctuated with piercing and agonizing shrieks. The 32-minute Finale is an incredible piece of music that culminates in those three giant hammer blows, the power of fate that ultimately destroys man, sure, but after what a journey and what a struggle!

Hanging Gardens – Debussy; Berg; Webern; Schoenberg
Jacob Greenberg; Tony Arnold
New Focus Recordings FCR 192 (newfocusrecordings.com)

If one went by the names on the cover of pianist Jacob Greenberg’s two-disc set Hanging Gardens, one might wonder if Debussy were the odd man out. After all, of the four composers featured Debussy was the impressionist, while Schoenberg, Berg and Webern were pioneers of the Second Viennese School, not only tending towards expressionist painting but also favouring an atonal approach to harmonic conception. However, the connection between the four men is deep and born of the desire to look beyond mainstream Western traditions as a way of expanding the vocabulary of music, the vividness of Symbolist poetry and above all an overwhelming sense of the elemental beauty of indeterminate harmonies.

The centerpiece of this repertoire is Schoenberg’s Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, a song cycle based on the poetry of German Symbolist poet Stefan George. The work is a telling illustration of Schoenberg’s search for new modes of expression, which though unified poetically, tend to complete a musical statement within the frame of a miniature, with miniatures succeeding one another without developing a broad narrative pattern. But Greenberg shapes this work, as Schoenberg himself declared writing it: seeking beauty and sacrificing everything to it with the ripples of atonality and dissonance that come with it. Tony Arnold’s agile, luminous soprano voice is ideal and sings with power and subtlety. The Berg Sonata Opus 1 with traces of Liszt and – unsurprisingly – Schoenberg, manipulates tiny fragments of melody and rhythm into a statement dense with dramatic gesture and emotional power. And Webern’s Variations Op.27 are packed with incident and crafted like an overture, which enhances its dramatic potential.

Greenberg appears to be ever the outstanding interpreter of fin de siècle French piano music and his wonderfully lucid and fluent pianism seems perfectly suited to Debussy’s quicksilver imagination. His accounts of both the Études and Préludes are astonishing. The Préludes indicate an affinity with the allusive world of the composer’s Images from several years earlier. The Études are more technically demanding and Greenberg, with marvellous gradations of dynamics and timbre, seems perfectly suited to this, Debussy’s most macroscopic piano music.

Violoncelle Français
Cheng² Duo
Audite 97.6987

Violonchelo del Fuego
Cheng² Duo
Audite 97.7366
(audite.de/en/ensemble/127-cheng_duo_duo)

Having heard the best of the best during more than 60 years of frequent concertgoing, I’m not easily impressed, but four years ago, when I first heard the Cheng² (Cheng Squared) Duo, I was thrilled by their prodigious virtuosity and impassioned expressivity. Cellist Bryan Cheng was then all of 16, pianist Silvie Cheng in her early 20s. I was thrilled again this past August when the brother-and-sister pair from Ottawa performed at the Toronto Summer Music Festival. Bryan combines a dark, robust tone with jaw-dropping bravura, while Silvie creates an extraordinarily varied palette of keyboard colours that enhance her imaginative, nuanced phrasing. Together, they offer remarkably fresh approaches to familiar music, making their first two CDs so very special.

The major works on Violoncelle Français, the Cello Sonatas of Claude Debussy and César Franck, are performed with unusual extremes of moody introspection and rhapsodic abandon. I’d grown tired of hearing the Franck, whether in the original version for violin or Jules Delsart’s cello transcription, but the Duo’s revelatory re-invention of this much-performed work, with myriad subtleties of tempo, dynamics, phrasing and tonal colour, surprised and delighted me.               

The CD also includes five encore-style selections, Saint-Saëns’s Allegro Appasssionato and The Swan, and three well-loved pieces by Gabriel Fauré that receive especially loving treatments – Pablo Casals’ arrangement of the song Après un Rêve and two works originally for cello and piano, Élégie and Sicilienne, both subsequently orchestrated by Fauré.

More encore pieces, arrangements of familiar music by Spanish composers Granados, Albéniz, Sarasate and de Falla, appear on Violonchelo del Fuego. Bryan says: “Arrangements open up a whole new world of possibilities, and you’ll hear that at times I will strum like a guitar or Silvie’s playing will imitate castanets.” “Playing” is the appropriate word for their playful, exuberant approach to this music.

Brian and Silvie add expressive embellishments to Maurice Gendron’s transcription of de Falla’s Siete canciones populares españolas, reflecting their desire to convey the meanings of the songs’ words. Bryan has also arranged the second song of the cycle, Seguidilla murciana, omitted from most instrumental arrangements, including Gendron’s. He says: “A lot of the idiosyncrasies in articulation, vibrato and colour are based on the vocal originals of these songs. It was my goal to really make the cello sing and speak as a dramatic singer would.” The results are truly exhilarating!

This wonderful CD also affords Bryan and Silvie the chance to shine as individuals, in Gaspar Cassadó’s virtuosic Suite for solo cello and Joaquín Turina’s evocative Exaltación for piano. Though only in their 20s, both Bryan and Silvie are already world-class, performing separately and together at major international venues and festivals. I can’t – and won’t – stop raving about them.

Costas – Works for Guitar and Flute
Duo Beija-Flor
Big Round Records BR8953 (bigroundrecoreds.com)

The days of November are increasingly colder and grayer, so what better way to dispel any pre-winter gloom than a flute and guitar duo performing music with a strong Mediterranean focus. The Montreal-based Duo Beija-Flor – guitarist Charles Hobson and flutist Marie-Noëlle Choquette – began playing together during their student days at Concordia University and officially became a duo in 2010. Since then, they have performed throughout Canada, the United States and Argentina.

This disc, titled Costas – referring to the Latin coastlines of the Atlantic – is a delight, featuring music by such diverse composers as Manuel de Falla, Astor Piazzolla, Celso Machado and Roddy Ellias. What is particularly striking from the very beginning is the wide variety achieved with respect to style, mood and tempo within a thoughtfully chosen program.

De Falla’s set of Seven Spanish Folksongs was originally arranged for soprano and piano in 1914 and this transcription is particularly convincing. Less familiar is Celso Machado’s languorous Quebra Queixo. Machado, a world music guitarist now based in Vancouver, wrote the piece in homage to a popular Brazilian candy!

Not all works on Costas are by Hispanic composers. Roddy Ellias is a Canadian performer and composer whose piece Havana Street Parade was especially commissioned by the duo. Its quirky and syncopated rhythms are an intriguing blend of jazz and Latin elements, performed with much aplomb.

Throughout the disc, the addition of extraneous effects – percussive tapping on the guitar and the sound of wind created by the flute – further heightens the listening experience. Infectious rhythms, a diverse program and superb playing by both performers make this CD ideal not only for a cool gray day but any time of year – highly recommended.

Dreams Laid Down – New Music for Classical Guitar
Alan Rinehart
Ravello Records RR7996 (ravellorecords.com)

“Poetic” is surely the word for British Columbia-based classical guitarist Alan Rinehart’s new solo disc. For example, the six pieces of the title work Dreams Laid Down (2013) by American composer Michael Karmon are each based on a poem from a collection by Rinehart’s wife Janice Notland. And Vancouver composer David Gordon Duke states that his own Soliloquies and Dreams (2003, evocative miniatures written for Rinehart) “alternate between the declamatory and the lyric” while the guitar “speaks as an actor, musing on ideas and thoughts.” In my view, these words also apply to Rinehart’s sensitive expression and tone.

Of the disc’s three other compositions, the Rinehart-commissioned Ancient Heroes Suite by composer and guitarist John Oliver is a major work honouring poetic (e.g. Rumi) and guitar-connected greats. Couperin’s Ghost draws the connection between the French clavicinist and lute music. Especially attractive is Passacaille, which evokes not only the variation form but the dance’s steady tread and patterns. Richard Gibson’s Variaciones sobre una tema de Juan Lennon (2013) effectively brings together John Lennon’s song Julia and the classical guitar’s Spanish tradition. Finally, Canadian guitarist and composer William Beauvais’ Beginning of the Day (2017, dedicated to Rinehart) asserts the improvisational aspect of the instrument, extending it with exciting metrical intricacies. For several decades Rinehart has been a key performer, educator and, as we have seen, supporter of new repertoire; it is now a pleasure to recommend this disc.

Bekah Simms – impurity chains
Various Artists
Centrediscs CMCCD 26118 (musiccentre.ca)

Bekah Simms released impurity chains in early September this year. On it are three tracks between six and seven minutes, three between ten and fifteen. Microlattice is controlled chaos. Like many of these works, it follows an ABA structure. Tonally it neatly divides into three roughly equal lengths. Bells announce new sections. A coda juxtaposes the two tonal areas, the closely layered pitches generating a new colour. Metre is shrouded by the expansive pace.

Next are two quartets, both using material derived from folk songs. Slept Unwell is for SATB vocal quartet featuring gasps, whispers and cries, the voices slightly extended with electronic effects. Newfoundland folksong The Maiden’s Lament is the source code; listen carefully. Swallow/Breathe, for string quartet, is a fresh take on the much-loved She’s Like the Swallow. Her coda quotes the melodic source material exactly, like a serving of dessert.

Granitic is for larger ensemble, but of a shorter length. The piece is an ominous sonic mobile, the ten voices suspended in space slowly rotating about, gradually revealing the discernible pulse and in the electric guitar, rock-like riffs. The title may well be a pun. Is there a Kid A (National Anthem) quote in the closing section? This is my favourite.

Everything Is… Distorted, brings back the slow pace of terror I felt in the opening track, while impurity chains is a 15-minute long solo for electric guitar via vocoder. This is a tough slog, and, to quote the helpful liner notes, marked by “various abstruse texts…embedded into the timbral fabric.”