In Memoriam Richard Truhlar
(February 14, 1950 – September 17, 2013)

editors cornerRichard Truhlar was a man of broad horizons. When I first met him I was still in high school and he, four years my senior, quickly became my mentor in both literature and music. It was through him that I discovered the vast riches of contemporary fiction; my first exposure to the labyrinthine works of Thomas Pynchon, Kobo Abe, Julio Cortázar and Alain Robbe-Grillet. In music Richard had very catholic tastes and a vast knowledge of the classical repertoire. But more important to me was his interest in the work of 20th century composers. It was through him that I first encountered the music of Takemitsu, Penderecki, Messiaen and the world(s) of electronic music. But Richard’s world extended to earlier times as well and I remember his fascination with Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius and his affection for the music of Delius. His interests also reached well beyond the classical realm, with a wealth of knowledge of the alternative rock scene. I remember when I was house-bound with a broken leg in 1985 Richard made me a wonderful compilation tape of music by Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, David Sylvian and others which kept me in good company in those claustrophobic days of confinement and opened my ears to new worlds. Our relationship spanned a number of technologies, from the LPs we spent late nights listening to, through the cassette age of self-produced recordings and compilations, into the digital age. It was Richard who gave me my first compact disc — a recording of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht performed by the Ensemble InterContemporain under Pierre Boulez.

Richard Truhlar was a poet, writer of fictions, visual artist, text/sound/musical composer and performer, editor and publisher; a true renaissance man. His main contribution to the artistic community, beyond his own writings and compositions, was as a publisher. This is true in both the literary and musical worlds. In the early years he published chapbooks under his own imprints of Teksteditions and Underwhich Editions. This latter also had an audio arm producing cassette tapes of electronic and text-based music and sound poetry in the Audiographics series. While admittedly featuring much of his own creative output, I would emphasize that this was not vanity publishing but rather a fully professional enterprise featuring the work of a variety of artists from around the country and even across the world. It was Richard’s experience in producing and successfully distributing this esoteric music that led me to recommend him for a position at the Canadian Music Centre when I learned that the coordinator of the Centrediscs label was leaving. Richard had previously told me that he never stayed at a job for more than seven years so neither of us suspected that this would turn out to be such a good fit that he would stay at the CMC for two and a half decades.

During that time he oversaw the production of more than 120 compact discs running the gamut of art music in this country. Some of the highlights were the then Complete String Quartets (i.e. the first five) of R. Murray Schafer with the Orford Quartet in its final recording; the Canadian Composer Portraits series, surely one of the most important documents of Canadian musical history; A Window on Somers celebrating the life and music of Harry Somers, and a number of discs devoted to the work of Ann Southam. Talivaldis Kenins and Gilles Tremblay were also particular favourites, but Richard’s efforts were not restricted to the senior generation of composers. Among the many projects realized under his direction were discs devoted to mid-career composers Alice Ho, Christos Hatzis, Alexina Louie and James Rolfe to name just a few, and younger composers such as Chris Paul Harman, Melissa Hui, Jeffrey Ryan and Nicole Lizée had their first commercial releases on Centrediscs. There were also discs too many to innumerate of choral, chamber, orchestral, instrumental and electronic music by Canada’s most creative artists.

While the mandate of the Centrediscs label is restricted to promoting the work of the Canadian Music Centre’s associate composers, Richard’s vision was again much broader. Concurrent with his activities as the Centrediscs coordinator, he expanded the Canadian Music Centre Distribution Service, providing global access to an extended catalogue of Canadian alternative and art music encompassing many genres not otherwise represented by the CMC.

Although very private and somewhat reclusive in his personal life, Richard was a man of vision and creative energy who touched the lives of many. As testified by a host of friends and colleagues from across the arts community at his memorial service, Richard Truhlar was highly respected, greatly loved and will be sorely missed.

You can read more about Richard’s life and work at richardtruhlar.com and his most recent publishing activities at teksteditions.com. 

—David Olds, DISCoveries Editor

discoveries@thewholenote.com

01 Stravinsky by CraftThe extra month off since the publication of our extended summer issue has made it even harder than usual to return to the task at hand. Where to begin after three months of eclectic listening? One ongoing project over the summer involved more reading than listening, although it certainly sent me back to my collection to revisit some of the great works of the 20th century. Stravinsky – Discoveries and Memories is kind of a tell-all book by Stravinsky’s amanuensis Robert Craft (Naxos Books ISBN 978-1-84379-753-1). Craft worked intimately with Stravinsky over most of the last 25 years of the composer’s life and we are treated to a “fly on the wall” view not only of his creative but also his social activities. The book is divided into three sections: The Music; The Man; Friends and Acquaintances. It is the first of these that I found most interesting, primarily the debunking of the myth of animosity between the “rivals” Stravinsky and Schoenberg. The second and third sections with their focus on more prurient themes was less satisfying although there are fascinating moments involving Stravinsky and some of the notable giants of the past century. This includes not just the usual suspects — musicians and artists Prokofiev, Diaghilev, Picasso, Dali, Gershwin, Copland, Carter, Sessions and Berio — but also literary and scientific figures like T.S. Eliot, Thomas Mann, Aldous Huxley, Kenneth Clark and Edwin Hubble, plus a few seemingly unlikely figures such as Mussolini and Warren Zevon. It’s like a Who’s Who of the 20th century, but of course Stravinsky himself would be at the top of that list. The book includes a CD with an outstanding performance of The Rite of Spring with Craft conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in 2007 using the composer’s corrected 1967 edition based on the 1913 original.

02 CouleursOne of the most recent discs to cross my desk came from a local cellist I have long admired, Coenraad Bloemendal, who produced it. Couleurs (Erdeco recordings triodesiree.ca) is a collection of French art songs by Duparc, Fauré, Debussy and Damase featuring Swiss-born Dutch soprano Désirée Till and one of Canada’s national treasures, harpist Erica Goodman. The Fauré and Debussy transcriptions are by Goodman with Charles Heller handling the Duparc. Till’s credits stem mostly from the world of operetta on the European stage but she achieved her masters in Music Interpretation at the Université de Montréal in 2009 and the following year founded Trio Désirée with Goodman and Bloemendal. Although at times I find her voice a bit too “big” for the intimacy of this repertoire, she works well with Goodman in the bulk of the selections, consisting of harp transcriptions of piano accompaniments. Most effective for me are the tracks that include Bloemendal’s expressive cello lines which greatly add to the contrast on a disc which at other times suffers from a certain sameness of texture.

03 Standiing WaveAlthough one might think that any disc entirely devoted to one combination of instruments (or voices) might be susceptible to the same criticism, certainly this is not the case in Liquid States recently released by the Vancouver ensemble Standing Wave (Redshift Music TK427 redshiftmusic.org). The group’s instrumentation is fairly unusual — clarinet(s), violin, cello, piano and percussion — but even this somewhat limited palette is used with great diversity by the four composers represented here. Jeffrey Ryan’s Burn is perhaps the most traditional with its lyrical melodic lines and moods that shift between sombre stasis and whirling rising motifs. Jocelyn Morlock’s Theft I: Water Clocks and Theft II: Insomnia opens extremely quietly with soft arpeggiated piano, droning clarinet and a very high violin melody. The textures thicken as the movement develops and cello and vibraphone are added to the mix before returning to near inaudibility. The second movement is a stark contrast beginning with an abrupt drum roll and a busy piano line over which violin and clarinet interpolate bird-like calls and twitters. It’s no wonder there’s no sleep here. Rodney Sharman’s Pavane, Galliard, Variations is another soundworld altogether with its reinvention of keyboard works by English renaissance composer William Byrd. The strings and clarinet are played in a manner suggestive of a consort of viols, with the piano notes damped and the percussion utilizing eerily pitched gongs. These very effective pieces transport us back to an imagined time half a millennium ago. In stark contrast Linda Bouchard’s Liquid States with its strummed violin chords and plucked cello notes combining with low piano ostinatos, high-hat paradiddles and whining clarinet lines carries relentlessly forward on a 15- minute voyage that culminates in metallophone cacophony before gradually subsiding. An exciting journey indeed.

The final two CDs have a number of things in common: local composer-performers creating unique hybrids of classical and jazz, with some pop and world music influences, fine musicianship and excellent production values. It does not come as a surprise that with regard to this latter aspect the bulk of the recording was done at Toronto’s Canterbury Music facility, known for a long history of attention to detail and use of the most appropriate technologies (vintage analog to contemporary digital) to achieve its signature warm, clean sound. This has attracted innumerable artists from across the spectrum including Barenaked Ladies, Molly Johnson, Moe Kauffman, Auto Rickshaw, Colm Wilkinson, Kiran Ahluwalia and the Gryphon Trio to name but a few.

04 Shannon GrahamThe eponymous Shannon Graham and the Storytellers (shannongraham.ca) (which also features some tracks recorded at the equally renowned Farm Studio)features a local band that often sounds bigger than its parts. Graham, on tenor sax, viola and occasional vocals, is joined by a host of friends on violins, (another) viola, trumpet, trombone, electric guitar, keyboard, bass and drums. I listened to this eclectic disc a number of times before consulting the booklet and was a bit surprised to read about the influences which range from Buddhism, Kurt Vonnegut and Benjamin Britten to everyday occurrences like chasing a runaway dog and taking an overnight bus trip from NYC to Toronto. I’m not sure what I would have expected such a mixed bag to sound like but this self-described classical-jazz-pop band is full of surprises. The stories are mostly told in an instrumental fashion, with occasional vocalise, and only rarely include narrative. The textures range from lush and luscious to sparse and spiky. There are dissonant sections but overall the mood is playful and the sounds a blend of modern jazz and chamber music, occasionally reminiscent of themes from You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

05 Jayme StoneThe Other Side of the Air by Canadian banjo player and composer Jayme Stone (jaymestone.com) is, if possible, even more eclectic that Shannon Graham’s disc. The core ensemble backing Stone on seven original compositions consists of familiar names from the local jazz scene: Joe Phillips (bass), Kevin Turcotte (trumpet), Rob Mosher (woodwinds), Andrew Downing (cello and bass) and Nick Fraser (percussion). Stone’s influences range from African tribal sounds to music of Persia and the Far East to mainstream jazz. The most extended work on the disc, lasting roughly half an hour, is This County is My Home, a concerto for banjo and chamber orchestra written for Stone by Andrew Downing, who conducted the premiere in July 2012 at the Home County Music and Arts Festival in London (ON). On the current recording the core ensemble is expanded to include string quartet, more woodwinds and brass played by some of Toronto’s finest classical musicians. The work is in three movements with a brief interlude between the second and third. If anyone doubted the suitability of the banjo for the classical concert stage, Downing’s concerto and Stone’s playing make a convincing case for its inclusion. Stylistically the work is hard to define, but its sensibility is perhaps akin to some of the playful works of Darius Milhaud and others of Les Six without sounding at all anachronistic. (And once again I was reminded at times of Clark Gesner’s score for Charles M. Schultz’ classic!) The final track on the disc, Tennessee Waltz, takes us back to a more traditional context for the banjo although the solos taken by Mosher and Turcotte cast a brand new light on an old chestnut. (And if you don’t think that traditional American country music has had a world wide penetration, I had the wonderful experience of singing and playing my guitar at a reception for the renowned shô player Mayumi Miyata and Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa several years ago and was amazed and delighted when they both joined in singing Tennessee Waltz!)

We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and comments should be sent to: The WholeNote, 503–720 Bathurst St., Toronto ON, M5S 2R4. We also encourage you to visit our website thewholenote.com where you can find added features including direct links to performers, composers, record labels and additional, expanded and archival reviews. 

—David Olds, DISCoveries Editor

discoveries@thewholenote.com

01 ehnes britten shostakovichI will begin with apologies to Terry Robbins. Due to his personal itinerary this month several discs arrived too late to be included in his Strings Attached column which, I must admit, I am happy to be able to add to my own collection. First is the latest release from Canadian superstar James Ehnes – Britten & Shostakovich Violin Concertos (Onyx 4113) performed with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kirill Karabits. Following on his 2013 Juno Award-winning Tchaikovsky recording with the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy (Onyx 4076), Ehnes’ performances are everything that we’ve come to expect. But what really caught me about this recording is the pairing of the Britten with Shostakovich’s First. These two works, written ten years apart, bear remarkable similarities and as presented here the opening Nocturne of the Shostakovich seems to grow inherently out of the slow Passacaglia finale of the Britten. I’m surprised that these works are not more often presented together. As a matter of fact this seems to be the only recording currently available which includes them both. Malcolm MacDonald’s booklet notes are thorough and enlightening. The orchestral sound is irreproachable and as mentioned above, Ehnes is in top form.

02 schafer quartetsQuatuor Molinari’s latest ATMA release (ACD2 2672) completes their cycle of the 12 (currently existing) String Quartets of R. Murray Schafer. Following their 2000 release of the first seven quartets and in 2003 the eighth quartet paired with Theseus and Beauty and the Beast, the current double CD includes new recordings of Quartets 9 to 12 and a re-issue of No.8. Since the recording of the first set the personnel of the quartet has changed substantially, with only founding first violinist Olga Ranzenhofer remaining. The current line-up includes Frédéric Bednorz, Frédéric Lambert and Pierre-Alain Bouvrette. They seem as comfortable and confident in this sometimes challenging, and oft’ times playful, repertoire as their forerunners. I would be curious though to know whether Bouvrette will prove as adept at playing the cello while marching as his predecessor Julie Trudeau was in the Seventh Quartet when the Molinari performed a Schafer marathon at Glenn Gould Studio back in 2003.

When the Orford Quartet recorded the first cycle of Schafer string quartets, then numbering five, for the Centrediscs label in 1990, producer David Jaeger suggested that the individual works could be considered movements of one large piece, much the same way that Schafer’s Patria series of music theatre works constitute a whole. There are many internal references from one quartet to the next and this has continued throughout the extended cycle.

Due in part to timing considerations within the medium of the compact disc I expect, the current set begins with the Ninth Quartet and continues chronologically through the Twelfth with the 2003 recording of the Eighth added as an appendix at the end of the second disc. This serves the double purpose of isolating the previously released material but also, since the Ninth begins by quoting a theme from the Eighth, of bringing the mini-cycle full circle to where the first disc began. Including the re-issue in this new set also facilitates listening for those who want to experience all 12 quartets by including the first seven on one set (ACD2 2188/89) and the remaining five on this new collection. Kudos to the Molinari, past and present, for their documentation of and dedication to this outstanding and unique cycle from one of Canada’s foremost composers. One of my summer projects will be to take up the challenge and listen to all 12 as one über quartet.

03 xenakis jackOur WholeNote reviews tend to focus on the best of the plethora of new releases we receive each month, but there are sometimes reasons for visiting or re-visiting older discs. One example of this is Jack MacQuarrie’s review of a 2005 CD by flutist Christopher Lee later in these pages. It is a disc we missed when it was released and which came to MacQuarrie’s attention at a recent live performance. Since Lee is a very active part of the Canadian Flute Convention in Oakville at the end of June it was decided to include a review in the current issue. Similarly, I had the exceptional experience of hearing the Complete String Quartets of Iannis Xenakis performed by the JACK Quartet during the recent Random Walks – Music of Xenakis and Beyond festival/symposium presented by the Fields Institute at the University of Toronto and the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo. This music is definitely not for the faint of heart, with its density and abrasiveness, but when heard in the context of explanatory papers at the symposium and so stunningly performed by a group that has truly made these works their own, it was exhilarating. The program notes by James Harley were reprinted from the 2009 Xenakis Edition Volume 10 (Mode 209) compact disc and during a break I went in search of it. After checking Grigorian (they had several volumes of the series, but not the quartets) and HMV with no luck, I remembered that someone had mentioned an independent shop with quite an eclectic collection. I’d like to thank whoever that was, and Soundscapes (572 College St.) where the disc was indeed in stock. This was JACK’s first appearance in Toronto (although it turns out that three of the members, all but the current violist, did come here for a masterclass with Helmut Lachenmann presented by New Music Concerts back in 2003) and they certainly lived up to their reputation as one of the foremost contemporary ensembles in the world. I await their return with bated breath and in the interim will revisit their recording time and time again.

04 schoenberg trioI will thank Bruce Surtees for my next foray into the archives. In his review of a new recording of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht by the Emerson String Quartet and friends, Bruce mentioned that Eduard Steuermann, a student of Schoenberg, had made a transcription of the fabled work for piano trio. This whetted my appetite as an amateur cellist who loves to play trios, quartets and quintets with friends, and I was very pleased to find several choices of recording available at Atelier Grigorian (70 Yorkville Ave.). I chose the 2005 Vienna Piano Trio version (Dabringhaus und Grimm MDG 342 1354-2) because I found the inclusion of Zemlinsky’s Piano Trio and Mahler’s piano quartet movement to be most appropriate. I am happy to say that I found Steuermann’s adaptation for violin, cello and piano of Schoenberg’s string sextet very satisfying, in fact more so than I might have expected. Steuermann was a renowned pianist and his arrangement captures the density of the score without sacrificing any of the subtlety. The performance is convincing and the sound quality on the mdg “gold” disc is clear and robust. I’ve added having a hands-on go at this arrangement as another one of my summer aspirations. 

05 bach art of fugueIn brief, a few more summer projects: Another lovely new disc that arrived too late for full review treatment is a breathtaking performance of Bach’s The Art of the Fugue by Les Voix humaines Consort of Viols (ATMA ACD2 2645). Core members of Les Voix humaines Margaret Little, pardessus or high voiced viol, and Susie Napper, bass viol, are joined by Melisande Corriveau, treble and alto viols, and Felix Deak, tenor viol, in this period performance. I look forward to revisiting other realizations of this incredible unfinished work by the master of counterpoint in the coming months. My collection includes a modern instrument treatment by the Juilliard String Quartet, a mixed strings and winds version featuring the Fine Arts Quartet and the New York Woodwind Quintet which was my first exposure to this masterpiece some four decades ago, Glenn Gould’s (incomplete and only) organ recording and a version by the Alexander and Daykin Piano Duo. Let me say for now that I think Les Voix humaines will prove to be a tough act to follow.

06a lutoslawskiI have mentioned New Music Concerts in the preceding paragraphs and in the spirit of full disclosure I feel I must remind you that my “day job” is general manager of that illustrious institution, English Canada’s oldest new music society (is that an oxymoron?). That task has brought with it not only the privilege of working with Robert Aitken, one of the world’s finest musicians, but also the opportunity to meet some of the most renowned composers from around the globe, including Helmut Lachenmann mentioned above, and the late, great Witold Lutosławski. In April NMC celebrated the centenaries of six influential composers including Lutosławski. On that occasion we welcomed the collaboration of the Consulate of the Republic of Poland, which has declared 2013 the Year of Lutosławski. We were presented with the Witold Lutosławski Centenary Edition (Polskie Nagrania PNCD BOX 0009 A/H), an eight-CD set of historic recordings by Polish Radio, including a number of first performances, many with the conductor at the podium. Although not complete – some notable omissions are the Symphonic Variations, Les espaces du sommeil and the Sacher Variations for solo cello, one of very few chamber works by this master – the set includes almost ten hours of music and some gems like the first Polish performance of the seminal String Quartet featuring the LaSalle Quartet. It will take me most of the summer to work through this wealth of material, which may be complicated by the fact that Naxos is on the verge of releasing its own centenary set of collected Lutosławski recordings. This latter will include the last concert he ever conducted, featuring violinist Fujiko Imajishi and the New Music Concerts Ensemble at the Premiere Dance Theatre in Toronto on October 24, 1993. A summer’s worth of listening indeed!

We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and comments should be sent to: The WholeNote, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4. We also encourage you to visit our website thewholenote.com where you can find added features including direct links to performers, composers and record labels, “buy buttons” for on-line shopping and additional, expanded and archival reviews.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor

discoveries@thewholenote.com

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