Editor's Corner

Editor's Corner - December 2024

I recently received Louise Bessette’s latest, Port of Call: New England with music by Charles Ives and Edward MacDowell (ATMA ACD2 2902 atmaclassique.com/en/product/port-of-call-new-england). The Ives is the extraordinary Piano Sonata No.2 “Concord, Mass 1840-1860” which he worked on for most of the first half of the 20th century, and the MacDowell is New England Idyls Op.62, a set of ten vignettes composed in 1902. I first heard the celebrated Montreal pianist in the early 1990s at George Weston Recital Hall at what is now the Meridian Centre for the Arts where she performed Olivier Messiaen’s stunning Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus from memory. I was enthralled. At the concert, I picked up her CBC Musica Viva recording of selections from the Vingt Regards and to my delight it also included Ives’ Concord Sonata. That was recorded live in concert back in 1987 and now, some 37 years later she has produced a studio recording of the Ives, “one of her all-time favourite works.” It’s one of mine too.

The Concord Sonata is a work that was very special to me in my formative years. I have spoken before in these pages about how my discovery of the Bartók string quartet cycle provided one of my earliest entries into the world of “contemporary” music, a kind of epiphany for me. Another revelatory experience was a lecture/demonstration at the U of T Faculty of Music in November 1974 by German pianist Peter Roggenkamp, whose examination and elucidation of the complex and freewheeling score of the Concord Sonata was another ear-opener. I was already enamoured of John Kirkpatrick’s 1968 Columbia recording of the work, but having it dissected under Roggenkamp’s microscope really brought home the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Ives’ writing and left a lasting impression.

In the first 20 seconds of the sonata, we hear Beethoven’s “fate” theme, the first four notes of the Fifth Symphony, which will reappear in myriad forms and guises throughout the four movements. As was his wont, Ives also incorporates/interpolates dozens of hymn tunes, marches, popular songs, fiddle tunes and his own brand of ragtime melodies into the classical piano sonata form. It is at times an extremely wild ride, but this is juxtaposed with gentle, almost transcendental sections. And transcendental is a key word here because Ives conceived the sonata as a depiction of figures of 19th-century American Transcendentalism, designating the movements Emerson, Hawthorne, The Alcotts and Thoreau.

To paraphrase the late Robert Fulford, publishing is a “necessary evil” that sadly stops the editing process. This was not the case for Ives, who worked on this sonata for 45 years beginning around the time of the First World War. After a decade of tinkering, he self-published a first edition in 1920 and sent out several hundred copies to performers, libraries, critics and anyone he could think of who might be interested. Few were, and he continued to revise Concord until 1947 when he published a supposedly definitive second edition after a decade of collaboration with Kirkpatrick who had given the first public performance of the complete sonata in 1937 and would go on to record it in 1948.

But the evolution of the sonata did not stop there, with scholars like Kirkpatrick and later Jay Gottlieb, with whom Bessette worked, continuing to make “improvements” based on Ives’ innumerable sketches and notebooks. Most contemporary performances use the 1947 edition, but Kirkpatrick’s own second recording (1968) has craggier moments including, notably, Ives’ dissonant treatment of Hail Columbia, Gem of the Ocean in the latter portion of the piece. We can assume that through Gottlieb, Bessette also had access to Ives’ unpublished manuscripts. It’s a very special performance, muscular when Ives demands it – and demand it he does! – and calm, in fact tender as a breeze over Walden Pond, in the final moments. In that last movement we briefly hear the return of what Ives referred to as the “human-faith-melody” motif, this time played on the flute (Jeffrey Stonehouse). The brief addition of the flute is marked optional in the score, as is a quiet passage on the viola (Isaac Chalk) in the opening movement. Of the ten or so recordings I have in my collection, this is just the second to include these instruments, adding another element to the pleasure I found here.

After the raucous boisterousness of much of the Ives, it’s as if MacDowell’s New England is on another astral plane, although the quietude of Thoreau does lead nicely into the Idyls. With titles such as An Old Garden, In Deep Woods, Indian Idyl and From a Log Cabin, the brief pastoral portraits harken back to a gentler time, in contrast to Ives’ forward-looking approach. It is a bit funny though to hear a quiet echo of the Beethoven “fate” theme appear in the movement called Mid-winter, and the set ends on a lively note with The Joy of Autumn. Bessette is captivating throughout.

I have also had several epiphanies when it comes to choral music, the first being an Angel LP recording of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos when I was still in high school. Some years later, as an amateur cellist on my first trip to CAMMAC’s Lake MacDonald summer program, I was sitting in the orchestra playing the pedal note and facing the conductor, when suddenly the choir at the back of the room burst into the glorious “Herr, unser Herrscher” opening phrase of Bach’s St. John Passion. I was gobsmacked! Several years later at the Elora Festival presentation of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc accompanied by a live performance of Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, again my soul soared at the beauty of a choral creation.

There are moments in François Dompierre’s Requiem that take me back to the feeling of elation and exhilaration I experienced during those formative years. The performance features Montreal’s Orchestre FILMhamonique, Ensemble ArtChoral, soloists Myriam Leblanc, Andrew Haji and Geoffroy Salvas under the direction of Francis Choinière (LABE Records LABECD-24007 francoisdompierre.com/discographie). Dedicated to the memory of Dompierre’s mother Yolande and father Frédéric, the Latin texts of the gorgeous near hour-long work are taken from traditional liturgical verses: Introit-Kyrie; Dies Irae; Tuba Mirum; Lacrimosa; Hostias; Recordare; Sanctus; Benedictus; Agnus Dei; Lux Aeterna; Libera; In Paradisum. The varied movements range from dramatic and dynamic with full chorus and orchestra, to contemplative, even haunting, moments where the soloists are featured with sparse accompaniment. The musical language is mostly tonal and accessible, but there is enough range and contrast to satisfy even my somewhat jaded palette. The performance is nuanced and well balanced from the quietest moments to the occasional bombastic outbursts. The recording, made at la Maison symphonique de Montréal in January 2024, is outstanding. My one quibble is that the booklet, including Dompierre’s introduction and the translations of the Latin texts, is entirely in French. Fortunately, you can hear the composer talking about his Requiem with English subtitles here: youtube.com/watch?v=gFLPvPLux3E.

I like it when my reading and my music making overlap. While working at CJRT-FM I read Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music and was intrigued by the narrator’s quest to find Beethoven’s String Quintet in C Minor Op.104, the composer’s rearrangement of an early piano trio. I set out on my own search for the music, fortunately not as onerous as the one described in the novel, and one of the highlights of my “career” as an amateur cellist was spending an afternoon with a quartet of friends under the tutelage of violinist extraordinaire Mark Fewer reading through the fabled work. That was a thrill only exceeded by the time I got to play Mozart flute quartets with Robert Aitken! (But enough about me, for now…).

Speaking of Mark Fewer, Alikeness features the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Sinfonia under Fewer’s direction (Leaf Music LM 296 leaf-music.ca/music/lm296). Soprano Deantha Edmunds, a singer-songwriter who has the distinction of being the first Inuk professional classical singer, is active in the fields of opera, throat singing and drum dancing. The CD opens with Edmunds’ performance of her Angmalukisaa (“round” in Inuktut), four songs about personal connections arranged for the orchestra by Bill Brennan, Andrew Downing, Jeff Johnston and Robert Carli. This is followed by a “concerto grosso” with Fewer as violin soloist, Episodes by Serge Arcuri, written in 1998 for the Montreal Baroque Orchestra. While referencing the baroque origins of the form, Arcuri’s three movement work incorporates a romantic sensibility and some modern turns of phrase. Matt Brubeck’s solo work The Simple Life appears next in a lush arrangement by Downing for violin and strings, followed by the third movement of Carli’s “C” from his suite B-A-C-H, another contemplative work featuring Fewer’s violin. The title work, composed in 2015 by Jarosław Kapuściński, associate professor of composition at Stanford University, for the St. Lawrence String Quartet (ensemble in residence at Stanford) and percussionist Aiyun Huang. The mostly quiet work, a bit surprising for a percussion “concerto,” is heard here in an arrangement for Huang and string orchestra by Yoshiaki Onishi. The various percussive instruments are effectively juxtaposed with pizzicato accompaniment at times, and at others with lyrical lines or catch-me-if-you-can chase scenes with the strings. This very effective piece, lasting almost 25 minutes, completes a satisfying disc of unusual repertoire for chamber orchestra.

Listen to 'Alikeness' Now in the Listening Room

(And here I am again…) Back in my days as a music programmer at CJRT, a favourite selection was Claude Bolling’s wonderful “chamber jazz” creation Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio as recorded by Bolling with Jean-Pierre Rampal. Somehow it escaped my notice that he had also written a Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio composed and recorded in 1984, with Yo-Yo Ma as soloist. The Suite recently came to my attention on 1Q84, a new recording by Montreal cellist Sahara von Hattenberger (Odd Sound ODS-36 saharathecellist.com) who performs with pianist Joanne Kang, bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas. Whereas in the original recording the rhythm section was confined to pretty much just that, in this new rendition the piano, bass and drums are given improvisatory sections in each of the six movements. While we expect it from jazz journeymen Vedady and Doxas, classical pianist Kang also shows herself right at home in “uncharted” waters and the end result is exhilarating.

Regarding the unusual name of the album, although the booklet notes don’t go into it, the press release explains the significance of the title, borrowed from the well-known fantasy novel by Haruki Murakami set in 1984. The protagonist in the novel refers to the parallel universe in which she finds herself as 1Q84 (Q is pronounced the same as the number nine in Japanese). Van Hattenberger notes that 1984 was also the year Bolling completed his cello suite.

The “parallel universe” in this case is the second CD of the set, where van Hattenberger performs new works for the same ensemble from composers Remy Le Boeuf, Malcolm Sailor and Jeffrey Fong. Le Boeuf has also contributed a quartet arrangement of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (a particularly fond earworm for me). The press release also states that Bolling’s famous crossover suite “acted as an antidote to the angst of the era. Massive inflation, the AIDS epidemic, financial unrest and overwhelming fear of and obsession with technology…” and goes on to suggest that “Van Hattenberger’s re-imagining […] maintains the same sense of joy and wit as the original […] This album is a welcome respite from the pressing darkness we often find ourselves in today.” I must say I have to agree as I write this in the days following the U.S. election.

One caution: It seems there was a mix-up in the pressing of the second CD. It was intended to be heard in the order printed on the packaging (Sailor, Le Boeuf, Bush, Fong), but the actual order on the physical disc is Le Boeuf, Bush, Sailor, Fong, easy enough to re-program on a CD player. For digital purchase, the order of the tracks is correct.

I don’t know where to start with this next one. Brandon Seabrook’s Object of Unknown Function (Pyroclastic Records PR 37 brandonseabrook.bandcamp.com/album/object-of-unknown-function) is unlike anything I’ve heard before (a few familiar sound fragments notwithstanding). The album is meant to convey the extreme physicality of Seabrook’s solo performances. It is a mixture of single instrumental lines supplemented by layers of similar or disparate instruments, juxtaposed with four-track cassette recordings from a variety of sources. The mix of instruments is somewhat unusual: an early 20th century six-string banjo, a tenor banjo played with a bow, an electric 12-string guitar and a classic Fender Telecaster. Six-string banjos are variously known as banjitars, guitjos and ganjos, Seabrook simply refers to his 1920 William O. Schmick instrument as a guitar banjo and it is tuned like a guitar.

Tenor banjos, popular in the early 20th century in traditional jazz ensembles such as Dixieland bands, have four strings tuned in fifths like the viola and cello, or alternately in Chicago tuning, pitched like the four higher strings of a guitar. They are most often strummed rhythmically rather than plucked like their five-string counterparts, but Seabrook treats his differently, playing with a bow resulting in a sound similar to a Chinese erhu, or picking individual notes to create complex melodies. His Neptune 12-string electric guitar, built by Nashville luthier Jerry Jones in 1998, is naturally lush but Seabrook takes this to the nth degree when he layers four tracks of it along with seven bowed and two pluck tenor banjos in Melodic Incidents for an Irrational World producing a virtual wall of sound.

Although there are moments of respite, such as the track Some Recanted Evening (one 12-string electric guitar) or the closer The Snow Falling, Falling (four bowed and one plucked tenor banjo), I must emphasize that this is not easy listening and at times borders on painful with its abrasive, ruthless energy and dissonant textures. That being said, I find myself drawn to it repeatedly, especially the above mentioned Irrational World (which puts me in mind of the complex layers of acoustic instruments in the music of Paul Dolden), and in Unbalanced Love Portfolio, a contemplative solo for one guitar banjo. Not for the faint of heart, but a rousing ride for the more adventurous listener.

I will close with a shout-out to an old friend, Sandy Bell, who was my counterpart as manager of Arraymusic for most of the 20 years I spent in the same capacity at New Music Concerts. Sandy has now retired from the heady world of arts administration to live the good life in rural Nova Scotia and concentrate on the things that matter. She has always been a singer, trained in choirs in her youth, but found her personal voice in the world of country music. While in Toronto she co-founded a band called The Wanted which played in such hallowed halls as the Gladstone Hotel and Cameron House. It seems her life’s dream was to produce a solo album and now she has done it. Break of Day – Songs for Colin (sandybellcreative.com/music) is a beautiful collection of original songs commemorating the life of her son who died tragically at the age of 20. There are some laments, including a chilling rendition of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, the only cover version on the album, but the overall feeling is of hope and celebration. Sandy’s soprano voice with its country twang is complemented by a backing band of traditional fiddle, pedal and lap steel, acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, bass and drums, with harmony vocals by Kristin Cavoukian, Max Heineman and Sofia Harwell, all produced by Andrew Collins who also contributes mandocello lines. Although this may not be the album Bell began dreaming of before the death of Colin, it’s nevertheless a lovely fulfillment of that dream.

Listen to 'Break of Day – Songs for Colin' Now in the Listening Room

We invite submissions. CDs and DVDs should be sent to: DISCoveries, The WholeNote c/o Music Alive, The Centre for Social Innovation, 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4. Comments and digital releases are welcome at discoveries@thewholenote.com.

Editor's Corner - October 2024

Homage to Janos – When respected Toronto architect Janos Gardonyi retired from his professional activities he began a new creative life delving deeply into digital photography, expanding and exploring a life-long love of classical music and sharing his thoughts and personal reminiscences with the WholeNote community. In October 2004 we published his first review, a CD of piano works by Leoš Janáček performed by Hakon Austbo. Two decades and 285 reviews later, we published his final words last month, an encomium to the late Lars Vogt and his recording of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos.9 & 24 with L’Orchestre de chambre de Paris. Janos died peacefully on September 8 at the age of 87. I will miss his memories and anecdotes, but I have a wealth of written words, and a remarkable surrealistically coloured arboreal photograph on my kitchen wall, to remember him by. Janos, you will be missed.

In February of this year I wrote briefly about an ATMA digital-only release of Symphonie Gaspésienne by Claude Champagne (1891-1965) featuring L’Orchestre symphonique de Laval under Alain Trudel. At that time I said “Although not much attention was given to him in English Canada, where his contemporaries included Healy Willan and Sir Ernest MacMillan, Champagne was an important figure in the annals of classical music in Quebec, where his students included Violet Archer, Roger Matton, Pierre Mercure, Serge Garant and Gilles Tremblay among other notables. I was very pleased to see a new recording of Champagne’s brilliant tone poem, composed in 1944. Starting eerily in near silence, Trudel leads his orchestra through the gradually building portrait of the fabled Gaspé peninsula with dramatic turns and climaxes along the 20-minute journey.” This recording has now been supplemented with works by Hungarians born a decade before Champagne, Béla Bartók’s Dance Suite Sz.77 (1923) and Zoltan Kodály’s Dances of Galánta (1933). The Bartók is not a suite of dances as we have come to expect from the baroque model; it draws on Hungarian, Romanian and Arabic rhythms and modes to create an “imagined folklore,” often dark and dramatic. In some ways it foreshadows his late works Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and the Concerto for Orchestra. In contrast, Kodály’s one-movement work is much more tonal and based on actual tunes he heard performed by Roma bands while growing up in Galánta. The disc (ATMA ACD2 2867 atmaclassique.com/en/product/symphonie-gaspesienne-champagne-bartok-kodaly-prevost) concludes with Célébration (1966), a rousing and somewhat more abrasive work by modernist Quebec composer André Prevost (1934-2001), whose teachers included Jean Papineau-Couture, Clermont Pépin and Olivier Messiaen. As in the Champagne recording, the Laval orchestra rises to all the various challenges of these varied works and Trudel draws out resplendent performances from this fine 53-piece ensemble.

Listen to 'Symphonie Gaspésienne' Now in the Listening Room

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was one of the most influential composers of the first half of the 20th century, and this year we celebrate the sesquicentennial of his birth. Juilliard String Quartet Plays Arnold Schoenberg (SONY Classical 19658827202) spans fifty years of his chamber output from the early String Quartet in D Major of 1897, thought lost until after his death, and the string sextet Verklärte Nacht (1899), through the four numbered string quartets (1904-05; 1907-08; 1927; 1936), to the Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte on a text by Lord Byron (1942) and the Trio Op.45 for violin, viola and cello (1945). The recordings themselves span four decades, from the Juilliard’s first cycle issued in 1953 to the 1993 release of Verklärte Nacht and the String Trio. During these 40 years the quartet went through a number of personnel changes, the one constant being founding first violinist Robert Mann who remained at the helm for nearly half a century from the quartet’s inception in 1949 until 1997. (The quartet remains active today, with the current “old hand” being Ronald Copes who was enlisted as second violin in 1997 when Joel Smirnoff moved from second to first chair upon the departure of Mann.) The seven-CD box set includes two recordings of the string quartets, the first as mentioned from 1953 and the second from 1977. This latter also includes the D major quartet which remained unpublished until 1966 and was unavailable at the time of the first recording. I appreciate its inclusion here as Schoenberg’s first major work (25 minutes in this performance). Although one can hear hints of things to come in it, each time I hear the final movement I do a double take thinking that some mistake has been made and a bagatelle of Dvořák has been erroneously inserted.

In between these two quartet cycles is a 1967 album that was issued as the seventh volume of The Music of Arnold Schoenberg series which includes the Ode to Napoleon, for which the quartet is joined by pianist Glenn Gould and narrator John Horton, and the Trio Op.45 performed by Mann, violist Raphael Hillyer and cellist Claus Adam. The final disc includes Verklärte Nacht in which the quartet is joined by violist Walter Trampler and cellist Yo-Yo Ma and another performance of the trio, this time with Mann, Samuel Rhodes and Joel Krosnick.

This important collection gives us a wealth of understanding about how Schoenberg’s writing developed from his earliest output to one of his last compositions, about how the Juilliard’s approach to his music changed over the decades and about how recording technology advanced over the same period. The booklet, which contains full recording and release information, includes a very personal essay by Schoenberg, How One Becomes Lonely, in which he discusses how he felt about the often tempestuous and derisory reactions to his music among critics and the public. It also includes an interview with the 1977 members of the Juilliard, Mann, second violinist Earl Carlyss, Rhodes and Krosnick in which they point out that although the membership had almost completely changed in the 24 years since the first recording the group had continued to perform the quartets throughout that time so there was an organic development over the years. It’s interesting to be able to compare the “youthful” and somewhat aggressive approach in the early recordings to the more mature, but still energetic performances later.

Notwithstanding my appreciation of the booklet itself, I have a few complaints about the packaging. Within the box, each of the CDs is encased in a miniature cardboard replica of the original LP release. This is fine for the front cover art, but unfortunately the reduction results in the original program notes on the back covers being too small to read comfortably, even with a magnifying glass. It is also unfortunate that these are the only program notes provided for the individual pieces and that the Verklärte Nacht/Trio and Ode to Napoleon/Trio covers have no liner notes whatsoever, presumably because the original releases had substantial booklets not included here. Although declaimed articulately by Horton, inclusion of Byron’s text for Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte would have been an important addition, as would some discussion of the trio to give it context, especially since two different performances are presented. That being said, this is a marvelous set and I’m glad to have it.

Last month I opined “it’s not possible to have too many recordings of Ravel’s string quartet…” and I would say the same is true for that other stand-alone French classic, Claude Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op.10. The two are most often paired together on recordings and last month’s release of the Ravel by Toronto’s Venuti Quartet was a rare exception to the rule. I recently found another when the Euclid Quartet, faculty quartet-in-residence at Indiana University South Bend, released Grieg | Debussy (Afinat Records AR2402 afinat.com). The excellent program notes acknowledge the unusual inclusion of Grieg’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op.27, completed in 1878 at the age of 35, but make a strong case for doing so. Debussy wrote his G minor work in 1893 at the age of 31 and was evidently influenced by Grieg’s quartet. They share a number of characteristics, including a motif that falls from the octave to the seventh and then the fifth, a favourite of Grieg’s, and particularly the eventual triumphant transition from G minor to G major at the conclusion of both works. I am less familiar with the Grieg, as I daresay most audiences are, although the Euclid claim it as one of their “greatest hits.” I was reminded of the incidental music to Ibsen’s Peer Gynt which Grieg composed two years earlier, and was struck by the fact that the final cadence of each movement seemed so final, as if the work were over, that I was almost surprised at the onset of each subsequent movement. Influences aside, the Debussy of only 15 years later appears to be from a different world. Grieg’s Norwegian nationalism and romantic gestures are replaced by the soft, vibrant pastels of French impressionism. The Euclid Quartet seems comfortably at home in the bombast of the former and delicacy of the latter. Another welcome addition to my collection.

Quite a different kind of string quartet came to my attention this month, in the form of a set of collective improvisations by Richard Carr, Caleb Burhans, Clarice Jensen and Carr’s son Ben a.k.a. Carrtoons. August Light (neuma records 208 richardcarrviolinist.bandcamp.com/album/august-light) features a dozen tracks that range in style from ambient to abrasive. Carr is primarily a violinist, but is also heard on piano and, in one instance, electric guitar. Burhans is a violist and Jensen a cellist with Carrtoons adding electric bass on some of the material. The overall mood is contemplative, but as mentioned there are occasional moments of aggression. Play with Fire, with its choppy cello line and raspy upper strings seemed familiar to me, but not in a derivative way. Eventually I figured out that it was reminiscent of the Kronos Quartet version of Purple Haze or perhaps Matt Haimovitz’s cello ensemble playing Kashmir. But as I say, most of the disc is a lot more mellow than that. A favourite is the haunting Vik, bringing to mind the quiet majesty of the black volcanic sand beaches near the fishing village of that name on the south shore of Iceland that I had the pleasure of visiting with my wife a dozen years ago. This is followed by At the Crossroads, another ethereal piece with Carr on piano and the strings gently enhanced with electronics. The disc opens with Standing Stone, featuring plucked strings and overlaid long notes, and seemingly ends in a similar fashion with Standing Stone Reprise almost an hour later. After more than a minute of silence however the actual final track, Desolation is a Railway Station, begins with Carrtoons’ quiet walking bass line, the “heartbeat in this nocturnal jazz noir journey.” Very effective.

Listen to 'August Light' Now in the Listening Room

Update: In June I wrote about Russell Truesdell Presents SYNTHESIS – The String Quartet Sessions (SynthesisSQS.com), a mammoth project for which Truesdell invited 15 large ensemble jazz composers to write for the iconic classical string formation. At the time, as is often the case, I was working from digital audio files in advance of the official release. Since then I have received the full-release LP-size package containing three CDs and an old-school, full size program booklet. My initial reaction before opening the package was “how annoying, this won’t fit on my CD shelf” but, especially considering my concerns about the Juilliard Schoenberg set as noted above, I quickly realized that this was something special. What a joy to hold the booklet and be able to read the print without eye strain. Although I still get annoyed at odd-sized releases, this one has the standard dimensions of a vinyl record and will be easy to store with the LPs which still have a prominent place in my collection. So, thank you to publicist Ann Braithwaite for sending this along!

Listen to 'SYNTHESIS' Now in the Listening Room

And this just in: Just as I thought I was finished for this edition I received Glasswing, the latest from Canadian string band The Fretless (thefretless.com). Like their previous four albums, Glasswing features original compositions by the members of the band, both individually and collectively, which explore their own unique take on the traditional folk string ensemble. Added to the mix are the warm vocals of Madeleine Roger on three tracks which she co-wrote with the band. The Fretless comprise the traditional formation of a string quartet, two fiddles, viola and cello, but one thing that makes them unique is that all three fiddlers – Karrnnel Sawitsky, Trent Freeman and Ben Plotnick – each take turns in the viola chair. Eric Wright is the cellist, providing a solid bass backing to the lilting higher strings. Highlights for me include the opening quasi molto perpetuo Lost Lake by Freeman, the gentle On the Hook by Plotnick and Sawitsky, Wright’s Tree Finder with its doppler-like opening and the closer, Icarus, with Roger’s poignant vocals re-telling the story of the boy who flew too close to the sun.

Concert note: The Fretless launch Glasswing in a cross-country tour this month. In collaboration with set designer Gillian Gallow, lighting designer Emerson Kafarowski and sound technician Karen Gwillim, the tour promises to be an immersive, multi-sensory concert experience. It kicks off in B.C. on October 3 and culminates at Toronto’s Great Hall on October 20

We invite submissions. CDs, DVDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, The WholeNote c/o Music Alive, The Centre for Social Innovation, 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4 or to discoveries@thewholenote.com.

Editor's Corner - September 2024

Spending time at the family cottage in the Haliburton Highlands this summer with my mother I was reminded of her favourite adage “You can’t have too many mushrooms.” This came to mind as I was listening to the CD Ravel | Jurecka by the Venuti String Quartet (venutistringquartet.com) when I realized you also “can’t have too many recordings of the Ravel String Quartet,” especially when it’s played with such joie de vivre as it is by this Toronto-based ensemble. Dating from 1903, the quartet is a relatively early work written when the composer was 28 years old. A forward-looking piece, especially in the assez vif – très rhythmé second movement with its extensive use of pizzicato, Ravel’s quartet is rooted in turn of the century late romantic sensibilities. Two decades later, Ravel was exposed to the St. Louis style of blues and jazz music as performed by W.C. Handy, who was based in Paris at the time, and incorporated this influence into the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1923-1927). In a similar way, Toronto multi-instrumentalist, poly-stylist, composer and arranger Drew Jurecka, founding member of the Venuti String Quartet, draws upon jazz in his String Quartet in D that opens the disc. The initial Allegro moderato begins with pizzicato in the lower strings, perhaps in homage to Ravel, with a lovely lilting unison melody in the violins, followed by a rollicking Scherzo that features some string-scraping percussion effects. The third movement, Indigo, brings to mind Porgy and Bess, and the Fast Swing finale is reminiscent of the quartet’s namesake, iconic jazz violinist Joe Venuti. Jurecka is joined by Rebekah Wolkstein (who takes first desk in the Ravel), violist Shannon Knights and cellist Lydia Munchinsky in a captivating performance of a welcome addition to the quartet repertoire. The disc ends with a breath-taking tour de force called The Spider, a tribute to Carl Stalling of Looney Toons and Merry Melodies fame, co-written by Jurecka and long-time associate, guitarist Jay Danley. Hold on to your hat!

The latest release by the Miró Quartet, aptly titled Home (pentatonemusic.com/product/home) explores various aspects of feelings associated with their (our) sense of belonging and place. It represents the group’s artistic home, firmly rooted in the American soundscape and musical tradition, and the commissioned works also investigate the composers’ understanding of the word. Kevin Puts’ 2017 three movement work that gives the CD its title, is a response to the civil war which displaced more than 13 million Syrian Nationals and sparked the European Migrant Crisis, and to subsequent events including the US border crisis and Russia’s war on Ukraine. It’s an expressive three movement work that “confronts the idea of what being forcibly driven from your home by violence might mean and feel like.” Caroline Shaw wrote Microfictions [Volume 1] during COVID restrictions while confined to her apartment in NYC. Inspired by science fiction writer T.R. Darling’s Twitter-based short stories, Shaw took those same character limit restrictions and created her own brief vignettes as introductions to six movements for string quartet. We hear her reciting these to accompany the Miró performance. The longest work on the programme is Samuel Barber’s gorgeous String Quartet in B Minor (1936, rev.1943). Violist John Largess’ program note tells us this work is “a dramatic, powerful and intense piece, uniquely American, but also universal in its message” and the Miró’s performance reinforces his perspective. Of course, it is the third movement of Barber’s string quartet that is most familiar as the standalone Adagio for Strings. In a review some years ago I chastised a young Canadian string quartet for only including this excerpt on a disc that had room for the whole quartet, so I’m pleased that the Miró have presented the complete work here. However, Home also includes a similarly iconic excerpt known as “Lyric for Strings,” the Molto adagio movement from George Walker’s 1946 String Quartet No.1. Fortunately a recent recording by the Catalyst Quartet – Uncovered Vol.3 – includes the quartet in its entirety and I was happy to seek it out. Home ends gently with William Ryden’s arrangement of Harold Arlen’s Over the Rainbow. You can find a wonderful video performance on YouTube entitled Miro Quartet’s “Over the Rainbow” Celebrates Hometown of Austin, TX. There’s no place like home!

Since its founding in 2006, Quatuor Béla have been touted as the enfants terrible of French string quartets. In addition to a commitment to traditional quartet repertoire they specialize in the most significant quartets of the 20th century and have been instrumental in the continuing development of the genre commissioning and performing works by Saariaho, Drouet, Stroppa, Mochizuki, Leroux and Platz to name just a few. Benjamin Britten (lepalaisdesdegustateurs.com) is their latest release, two CDs including Britten’s three numbered string quartets and a strikingly effective bare bones transcription by first violinist Frédéric Aurier of Les Illuminations with soprano Julia Wischniewski. Aurier also wrote the detailed and insightful liner notes which provide context and analysis of the works presented. I particularly like the way he relates the string quartets to Britten’s operas. The first two were written while the world was in the throes of the Second World War; String Quartet No.1 in 1941 while Britten and his partner Peter Pears were sheltering in the USA (they returned to Britain in 1942) and String Quartet No.2 in 1945. Although ostensibly written to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Henry Purcell’s death, the second quartet also incorporates the feelings of devastation Britten experienced while visiting Germany with Yehudi Menuhin after the armistice to perform for liberated prisoners and emaciated survivors from German camps, including the notorious Bergen-Belsen. The three-movement work concludes with what Aurier calls a “bewildering” Chaconne with its theme and variations, a theme “which has its operatic twin in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.” Aurier goes on to say that “Though the tribute to Purcell is real, it is a Beethovenian force that drives the piece” and the repeated final chords are indeed reminiscent of that master. Three decades would elapse before Britten returned to the form, and the String Quartet No.3 (1975) was his final completed instrumental work. It is closely linked to the opera Death in Venice written shortly beforehand and it ends peacefully, the work of a composer facing his own imminent death. Here, as elsewhere in these impeccable performances, Quatuor Béla captures every subtle nuance and dramatic cadence with aplomb.

Les Illuminations was begun in England in March 1939 and completed a few months later in the United States. It was originally scored for soprano and string orchestra, but within two years of its premiere Britten conducted Pears in the tenor version which has become more often performed. But as Britten’s biographer David Matthews wrote, the work is “so much more sensuous when sung by the soprano voice for which the songs were conceived.” Wischniewski certainly brings sensuousness and passion to fore here in a spectacular performance. The texts are selected passages from poems abandoned by Arthur Rimbaud at the age of 20, later published under the same name as the song cycle. Although the poems are not included in the booklet, the notes give a synopsis of each of the nine movements. As for the “de-orchestration,” Aurier tells us that “as in any reduction, something is lost… a smoothness, a density, a quiet force. And something is gained… a sharpness, details, the quintessence of the speech, the articulation and the urgency of the music perhaps. We wanted this version to be faithful, dynamic and expressive, more raw perhaps, but connected with the Rimbaldian delirium.” Mission accomplished.

Listen to 'Benjamin Britten: Quatuor Béla' Now in the Listening Room

I find myself wondering if recordings of Bach’s cello suites are like mushrooms, because they seem to keep popping up, and also because it seems that I “can’t have too many” of them. The suites are so ubiquitous that virtually every cellist plays them, throughout their life, and most professionals record them at least once. Two new recordings came my way recently.

Henrik Dam Thomsen, principal cellist of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra since 2000, has just released his well considered version of J. S. Bach – Six Suites for Cello Solo (ourrecordings.com) with an excellent introductory essay by Jens Cornelius which incorporates historical information about Bach and the suites and includes extensive quotes from the performer and a description of the recording venue (Garnisons Kirke, Copenhagen). Thomsen says of his own personal journey to this point, “I have just turned 50, and for 40 of those years I have studied the suites. So a long musical journey underlies the way in which I play them today. As a cellist one goes through various phases with regard to the suites. When young, one is strongly influenced by one’s teachers. This is followed by a phase where one makes the music one’s own and attempts to discover what means something special for oneself. And in my case this has already been a very long period. I have played Bach at numerous concerts over the years, and at the same time the suites have been my daily practising therapy.” He goes on to talk about the choices one has to make today in considering historical instruments and performance practices and how this has influenced him. His ultimate decision was to use his usual instrument – a 1680 Francesco Ruggieri built five years before Bach was born – while eschewing gut strings for modern ones and using a conventional bow. He also chooses to play the final suite on this instrument, despite it having been conceived for a five-string cello. The result is a warm, confident, at times exuberant and a very welcome addition to the discography. I’ll leave the last words to Thomsen: “Today, Bach is like some huge tree, and the interpretations of his music are like a million leaves on that tree. To record Bach’s music is a profoundly personal thing, but when I come with an attempt at an interpretation, all I do is add just one more leaf to that huge tree which is Bach.”

In 2002 Montreal-born French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras (jeanguihenqueyras.com) was awarded the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protégé Prize as selected by that year’s laureate Pierre Boulez. In 2007 Harmonia Mundi released Queyras’ first recording of Bach’s cello suites. Later this month HM will release JS Bach – Complete Cello Suites (The 2023 Sessions), Queyras’ 36th recording for the prestigious label. This latest version follows a dance collaboration with Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Mitten wir im Leben sind / Bach6Cellosuiten (2017). After nearly a hundred performances of the dance work, Queyras returned to the studio to record his current interpretation of these masterworks. Obviously influenced by his experiences with the dancers – each of the suites is comprised of a prelude and five dance movements after all – these performances are flowing and fluid. In the booklet Queyras discusses his approach and influences. Like Thomsen, Queyras speaks about how the suites are a lifelong project: “Bach’s Cello Suites do indeed accompany us, cellists, throughout our lives. We encounter them while still very young, by tackling the less technically challenging movements. For me, it started with the Bourree from the third suite. I was 10 years old. My connection to the Bach Suites began there, and this music has never left me since. When you are quite young, you play it spontaneously, you celebrate life. Then in adolescence, you start to question yourself, to go through moments of genuine doubt. At the age of 17 or 18, you turn to the great masters of the past, to their countless recordings that have set the standard, and you ask yourself: How should I do it? What could I add to all this? When I was in my twenties, I had a tendency to sink into deep thought and serious questioning... And in Bach, I found a source of support. [...] When I went into the studio to make this second recording, my idea was to say, I am letting the passage of time do its work. The recording I am making today will be what it is because it is nourished by everything I have experienced during the 17 years that separate the two sessions, especially by the experience of Mitten. […] I wanted to open up new avenues and to focus even more on the harmonic movement. Harmony is the framework that allows the melody to soar. That is also how jazz musicians approach their charts. In this new recording, I tried to go further in these flights of imagination…” Queyras goes on to say that he was also influenced by a viola da gamba recording by Paolo Pandolfo and wanted to incorporate some of the gestures specific to the gamba. I find that particularly noticeable in the haunting melancholy of the fifth suite and in the sixth with his use of ornamentation and the way he manages to create the impression of a hurdy-gurdy. Like Thomsen he chooses to use his “usual” four-string instrument for this suite, a Gioffredo Cappa cello dating from 1696.