Editor's Corner

It was with shock and sorrow that I received the news of the death of my friend and colleague of the past 20-some years, Robert Tomas, who drowned in the Turks and Caicos on April 1. I met Robert during the five years I spent at CJRT-FM as a classical music programmer in the 1990s, where he was one of the on-air technicians, juggling turntables, CD players, reel-to-reel pre-recorded voice tracks, PSA cartridges and engineering live-to-air programs with aplomb. A Polish émigré who had worked extensively in the world of opera production in his homeland, Robert was a man of many skills with a breadth of understanding, including an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music, but also extending to reading about astrophysics and mathematics “for fun” and writing a novel retelling The Tempest in the context of the Bosnian War. In recent years he worked in philanthropy and was a highly respected fundraiser for social justice initiatives. He championed LGBT causes, was a proud Leatherman who promoted safe, healthy sexuality and advocated for those living with HIV/AIDS from the start of the epidemic.

In 2004 I asked Robert to write for The WholeNote and since his first thoughtful assessment of soprano Leslie Fagan’s Le Miroir de Mon Amour in February of that year, we published some 175 of his CD and DVD reviews. Several of his early musings have stuck with me over the years: His insightful comments on John Adams’ tribute to the victims of 9/11 On the Transmigration of Souls (“The chronicler of our times… gives us the tools to make sense of our frequently irrational world”); His case for Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron (“…eschews the dramatic potential of the Exodus from Egypt and instead concentrates on the philosophical clash between the two interpretations of religion – the representative, tangible idolatry of Aron and the mystical, incomprehensible monotheism of Moses”); and his championing of the (then) little known Thomas Quasthoff singing Mahler lieder (“…Quasthoff deserves to be celebrated as the Mahler artist of the century”). Although his specialty was art song and opera, Robert was well-versed in all aspects of classical music, to which his wealth of writing attests. You can find more than 100 of his perceptive, and sometimes controversial, reviews using the search function on our website thewholenote.com. He will be sadly missed. 

One of my regrets is that I will never know what Robert would have thought about Ah Young Hong. Around the time he left for his final adventure I emailed Robert about two discs that I thought would pique his interest. I cautioned that they were quite abrasive but that the rising vocal star was being highly touted and if she was indeed some sort of new Cathy Berberian in the contemporary firmament, it would behoove us to pay attention. I never heard back from him and now I know why. And so the assessment falls to me and once again I feared I would be venturing out of my comfort zone (see my Juliet Palmer review in last month’s column). I started with a breath upwards – Ah Young Hong sings works by Milton Babbitt and Michael Hersch (innova 986 innova.mu) and immediately was struck by a sense of déja vu. The opening sounds of Babbitt’s Philomel brought with them a sense of familiarity. Created in 1964 at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio where Babbitt (1916-2011) had been working with the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer for a number of years, the purely electronic sounds have all the hallmarks of the pioneering work that went on in that facility, the results of which I immersed myself in in my formative years. Commissioned by Bethany Beardslee with the support of the Ford Foundation, Philomel is for live soprano and a soundtrack of computer-generated sounds and manipulated samples of the soprano’s voice. As far as I can tell from the notes, this version sung by Hong uses the original sound files with Beardslee’s voice samples. The primitive synthesis technology, now a half century old, is quaintly outdated on the one hand, but on the other there seems to have been no deterioration of sound quality. The work itself, with a text by John Holland on a morbid tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is stark and dramatic; its realization is compelling.

Although there are only three instrumentalists – Miranda Cuckson, viola; Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet; Jamie Hersch, horn – a breath upwards (2014) by Michael Hersch (USA b.1971), sparse and angular as it is, is positively lush by comparison. It was specifically crafted for the voice of Hong, who was featured in Hersch’s monodrama On the Threshold of Winter and, in one critic’s words, was “the opera’s blazing, lone star.” In 12 movements based on Dante’s Purgatorio juxtaposed with texts from Pound’s Cantos it draws on the full range of Hong’s incredible voice, from its growly bottom end to pure high notes that are shrill yet warm, and never grating. Hersch says “As the experience over the years working with [my brother] Jamie had deeply impacted my writing for the horn, Ah Young’s remarkable vocal abilities made me rethink much of how I approach writing for the voice.” The result is a 32-minute tour de force. 

Hersch continues to take inspiration from Ah Young Hong’s voice and in 2016 created cortex and angle for the Dutch Ensemble Klang with her as soloist. The 27-minute cycle of ten movements (plus a brief prelude) on the poetry of Christopher Middleton comprises the first half of the CD Black Untitled (EKR09 ensembleklang.com). The sextet was founded in 2003 and is known internationally as a champion of 21st century chamber music. The somewhat unusual instrumentation includes two reed players (playing saxophones on this recording), trombone, percussion, electric guitar/electronics and piano/keyboards. I find the way Hong’s voice blends with, and is extended by, the saxophones to be very effective.

The title piece takes its name and inspiration from Dutch/American painter Willem de Kooning. In his extensive notes, Aaron Grad says, in part: “The noble, unshakable music assigned to the trombone in Black Untitled resembles the role occupied by the horn in Hersch’s epic [two hour] duo Last Autumn [reviewed in these pages in September 2015], its brassy heft stretched from the lowest rumble to the highest blast. […] Black Untitled maintains a slow, deliberate pulse that fluctuates within a narrow range […] This is exceedingly patient music that uses the necessary notes and no more.” I would add that Hersch’s music is also very brave, not only in the “epic” scope of the time frames involved in some of his recent compositions, but in his steadfast refusal to give in to the current tendency to write “friendly” music.

These two discs provide an effective double portrait – of an important new soprano who is undaunted by difficult contemporary challenges, and of a mid-career composer who has established himself as a confident and uncompromising voice in the wilderness. I think Robert Tomas would have approved of both.

My initial impression of Diana Braithwaite & Chris Whitely’s new album I Was Telling Him About You (g-threejazz.com) was surprisingly like Aaron Grad’s description of Black Untitled – a slow, deliberate pulse that fluctuates within a narrow range – but like Grad, I mean that in the best possible way. Each of the eight tracks on this lush – I’m almost surprised that Lush Life is not included – recording of vocal jazz standards is andante, a leisurely stroll through some of the best of the genre. What can be said of Braithwaite, other than that her voice is exquisite, and exquisitely suited to this smoky repertoire. The recipient of the 2018 Toronto Blues Society Blues With A Feeling Award (Lifetime Achievement Award), she is equally at home in the worlds of hot blues and cool jazz. Her partner in crime, or at least criminally gorgeous music-making, Whitely is himself an eight-time winner of the Maple Blues Horn Player of the Year – who knew there was such a thing?

My admiration for multi-instrumentalist Whitely – here only trumpet, cornet and vocals, but elsewhere adding harmonica, bass harmonica, guitars and more – again goes back to my formative years when I first encountered the Original Sloth Band in the early 1970s. This trio – comprised of Chris Whitely, his brother Ken and Tom Evans – played more than a dozen instruments, from mandolin to clarinet to accordion and any number of harmonicas, jugs and miscellany between them, and were my introduction to such 20s and 30s classics as Cheek to Cheek, (I Just Want to be) Horizontal, The Sheik of Araby, Gimme A Pigfoot (And A Bottle of Beer) and Heaven to name just a few. The most incredible thing was they would play these many-layered arrangements with six or eight (or more) instruments without overdubbing. Whitely seems to have mellowed some with age, but like a good scotch, that’s the point, isn’t it?

Highlights for me on this latest disc – he’s been a sideman on hundreds of albums over the years, and it’s great to see him sharing the spotlight again – include… no wait, they are all highlights actually, but to give you an idea of what to expect I’ll mention Skylark, The Nearness of You, I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face and ’Round Midnight. The one thing you may not expect is the sumptuous version of What A Difference A Day Makes. I grew up with Esther Phillips’ upbeat version, and although I realize now (courtesy of YouTube) that was not always the way it was performed, this very effective laid back version was a revelation to me.

The way that Braithwaite captures the essence of these ballads is enchanting, and the way Whitely’s horn extends her lines is breathtaking.

Listen to 'I Was Telling Him About You' Now in the Listening Room

Just a few words in closing about something I hadn’t even imaged existed – ukulele blues. The one-sheet that arrived with Manitoba Hal’s blues is in the water (manitobahal.com) included a press quote from Australia: “Many musicians play the blues… Many musicians play the ukulele… Nobody does both the way that Manitoba Hal Brolund does…” I would hazard a guess that this is indeed true. It wasn’t until I read the fine print that I realized that much of what I was hearing was being played on a variety of ukuleles, including a bizarre-looking, two-necked model pictured front and centre on the CD cover. Oh, his band is more like what you’d expect for a blues band – guitar, bass and drums, but even so the guitarist also plays mandolins, 12-string and slide – giving full driving support to Hal’s convincingly bluesy vocals, accompanying himself on ukulele, banjo-ukulele, resonator and cigar box guitars. Hailing from the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers in Winnipeg, Hal found his calling in the music of that other delta, the Mississippi, where Robert Johnson “invented” the blues more than a century ago. He has certainly made it his own and this surprising album contains original songs in a variety of southern styles, including Cajun, Zydeco and gospel. The disc opens with Alligator, a moving tribute to Johnson who became a “walking musician” after his first wife died in Alligator, Mississippi. There are a couple of tracks in which the ukulele, along with background vocals, provides the only accompaniment, both with a religious bent, and here I find Hal’s picking reminiscent of Taj Mahal’s distinctive guitar style. And speaking of Mahal, his Fishin’ Blues has always been close to my heart. Well, Manitoba Hal has a fishing song too, in which we find this clever turn on an old adage: “You’ve heard it said give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day; teach that same man to fish – and he’ll sit in a boat all day.”

I wish the disc had arrived in time to let you know about the extensive Ontario leg of his CD release tour in March, with more than a dozen stops across the province. Having missed that, I’m going to content myself with Manitoba Hal’s wonderful CD.

We welcome your feedback and 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. We also encourage you to visit our website thewholenote.com, where you can find enhanced reviews in the Listening Room with audio samples, upcoming performance details and direct links to performers, composers and record labels.

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

New Worlds/Nouveaux Mondes; Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra; Alexander Shelley (Analekta AN 2 8873 analekta.com). It took a while to identify what sounded familiar in Ana Sokolović’s Golden slumbers kiss your eyes…, but eventually I realized it reminded me of that mid-20th century pillar of choral/orchestral repertoire, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Reading the program notes revealed another parallel to that great work – this too is based on secular, vernacular texts, in this case primarily folk songs in French, English, Italian, German, Ladino and the composer’s native Serbian. The likeness to Carmina Burana is mostly one of scale – vocal soloist, multiple choirs, orchestral forces with prominent percussion – but there are a couple of movements that are particularly Orffian, including Mie mama mata mata with its alternating lines between the choirs, and later an anguished countertenor solo reminiscent of the dying swan of Orff’s masterpiece.

Conceived as a tribute to NACO (now CNACO)’s founding conductor and later, music director Mario Bernardi, it is a celebration of Canada’s multiculturalism and pays tribute to Bernardi’s Italian heritage in two of the seven movements. Although the texts are from folk songs they are surprisingly transformed in this presentation, sometimes to the point of non-recognition. À la claire fontaine begins with a haunting solo by countertenor David DQ Lee, eventually joined by dark chanting from the chorus more reminiscent of a satanic ritual than the coureur de bois chanson learned at French immersion camp. I was also reminded of some of the more dramatic scenes from Harry Somers’ Louis Riel and the movement Durme, durme, a Serbian lullaby, reminded me of that opera’s Kuyas. I don’t mean to say that this is in any way a derivative work. Sokolović has a unique voice and it is more a reflection of my own way of relating to new things, always happy to find touchstones.

Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, better known for “viewing the past through rose coloured glasses” in recent decades, is marching bravely into the 21st century under Alexander Shelley, who succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as music director in 2015. I’m pleased to note that their last three CDs have all featured new Canadian compositions commissioned by the orchestra. In this most recent addition, Sokolović’s stunning work is paired with Dvořák’s New World Symphony. I think it is very effective programming, and any questions I had about whether this classical-size orchestra numbering 60-some players would be sufficient to do justice to this staple of the Romantic repertoire were allayed by listening to the performance on this beautifully recorded disc.

I believe several disclaimers are in order here for the sake of full disclosure. New Zealand-born Canadian composer Juliet Palmer’s music has been presented on several occasions by New Music Concerts (my “day” job), most recently last month on our program “The Lioness of Iran,” featuring settings of the poetry of Simin Behbahani. In addition, Palmer and her husband James Rolfe (another composer whose work we have presented), are frequent attendees at parties at my musical neighbour Gail’s house, where I’m often heard jamming with guitars and, on the best nights, mandolins and fiddles. But if I recused myself from writing about all the composers I have had the pleasure to meet over the past several decades, there wouldn’t be many left to mention. A further disclosure is that for the most part I don’t enjoy contemporary vocal music. So when Palmer’s new mostly a cappella disc Rivers (BR0343 barnyardrecords.com) arrived, I fully expected to be assigning the review to someone more at arm’s length and more appreciative of the genre. My curiousity got the best of me however and I decided to give it a listen. I must say I was smitten! The six tracks span a decade, with Simple Death from 2006 (from SLIP, a site-specific multimedia collaboration with lyricist Anna Chatterton which took place in Harrison Baths as part of that year’s X Avant Festival), to two selections first performed as part of another site-specific project, Singing River, on the Pan Am Path, Lower Don Trail in 2015.

The disc opens with the sounds of a babbling brook, or so it seems. It turns out to be blood flow, ultrasound recordings from the Sunnybrook Research Institute which, complemented by quiet chattering and disturbing interpolations from a chorus, provide a kind of ostinato under the anguished solo vocal by Laura Swankey on a text from Emily Dickinson’s The Heart has narrow Banks. Dreaming of Trees is a slow lyrical piece that begins with a very simple pattern on a metallophone which continues throughout under the solo voice of Alex Samaras and gentle, flowing tonal harmonies from a small mixed chorus. The text is by Nicholas Power. Dusk of Tears from Palmer’s opera Shelter is an unaccompanied duet – Felicity Williams and Samaras – with lyrics by Julie Salverson, which employs some close harmonies and clever counterpoint. This leads to the onomatopoeic and at times abrasive Burble, a lament for the Don River featuring Swankey with chorus. Litany (After the End) features post-apocalyptic lyrics of Christine Duncan recited in sprechstimme by the author with electronic treatments by Palmer. The closing track, Simple Death, uses a traditional Japanese folksong as its point of departure, with Aki Takahashi sounding hauntingly muezzin-like, juxtaposing an English lyric interwoven by Duncan over droning vocalise. It is an effective conclusion to a very satisfying recording.

Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Violin Sonata, Op.134 in 1968 and it was premiered by its dedicatee David Oistrakh with Sviatoslav Richter in the spring of the following year. In 1975, the year of the composer’s death, a Melodiya/Angel LP recording of that performance and the premiere of the String Quartet No.13, Op.138 was released in North America, and for some months held pride of place in this avid young collector’s library. So it was with great interest that I received a new recording of the sonata featuring two young Russians, Sergei Dogadin and Nikolai Tokarev (Naxos 8.573753 naxos.com). Dogadin has won ten international violin competitions including the Tchaikovsky (2011) and the Joseph Joachim International (2015), so his credentials are impeccable. While his colleague’s accolades are perhaps not quite so prestigious, Tokarev nevertheless has been recognized with awards in Switzerland and Germany since completing his piano studies in 2007. Together they capture the essence of Shostakovich’s late sonata in a riveting performance. The disc also features the first complete recording of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes, Op.34 in transcription for violin and piano: 19 by Dmitry Tsyganov (some from 1937 and some from 1963) praised by Shostakovich as sounding more idiomatic in this guise than even the piano originals; and five by composer/pianist Lera Auerbach to complete the set in 2000. These youthful and sometimes exuberant short pieces – 35 minutes in all – provide a welcome contrast to the darkness of the sonata, which is not to say that they are all bright and sunny. The preludes, which date from 1932-33, run the gamut of emotion and at times hint at the hard times to come in the composer’s troubled life. While not supplanting the Oistrakh/Richter, this new recording will also occupy a treasured spot in my library.

Having taken the plunge into art song above, I will say that one of my favourite vocal cycles is Winterreise, that classic of the genre by Franz Schubert. One of the discs to cross my desk recently is a new version with the piano part transcribed for string quartet by cellist Richard Krug of the Copenhagen Quartet which is featured with bass-baritone Johan Reuter (Danacord DACOCD 759 danacord.dk). Reuter, who has been a soloist with the Royal Danish Opera for the past two decades, is touted as “one of the most in-demand classical singers of his generation” in the booklet notes, and with this recording as evidence I can see why. His rendering is powerfully dramatic and tenderly sensitive as required, and his tone is superb. I find the transcription to be quite convincing, although definitely a different sensibility from the piano original. Krug captures the different moods of the piece, and the playing is nuanced and well balanced. While this will not supplant my other recordings of the cycle – if you are interested in different transcriptions I encourage you to seek out Hans Zender’s rendering for a 30-piece contemporary chamber orchestra – it is a welcome addition to my collection. One reason for not suggesting this be your only recording of Winterreise is the booklet. This Danish production features English-only liner notes, but the texts are only given in German. I had to pull out my Fischer-Dieskau/Brendel performance (Philips 464 739-2), which has English and French translations of Wilhelm Müller’s poems, to be able to follow along.

By all rights I should have sent the next disc (along with the Shostakovich) to Terry Robbins for his Strings Attached column, but once again I could not resist it. As a cellist I have played Schumann’s Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet, as well as works for piano trio and cello and piano, but have never had the opportunity to explore his string quartets in depth. So when Schumann Quartets Nos. 2 & 3 featuring the Elias Quartet (ALPHA 280 alpha-classics.com) arrived I decided to hold on tight. Written in 1842 when the composer was 32, his three quartets of Op.41 were presented to his wife Clara in celebration of her 23rd birthday and their second wedding anniversary. I particularly like the personal style of the introductory program note in this tri-lingual booklet by violinist Sara Bitlloch. In it she describes how the Elias approached the charming Quartet No.3 in A Major, one of the first works they played together, and how different it was to encounter the Quartet No.2 in F Major sometime later. “The enthusiasm of the first movement can easily turn into anxiety if you push it a bit too far. In the slow movement the texture is sometimes so bare that to convey its tenderness you have to sustain it with great fervour. The capacious Scherzo is bristling with rhythmic pitfalls […] while the Finale is an endless explosion of joy!” Hard to resist such a description and even harder to ignore the music it describes. The performance was recorded live at Potton Hall, UK in May 2016 and the excitement is palpable.

Further on in these pages you will read reviews of new discs from David Buchbinder’s OdessaHavana and KUNÉ, Canada’s Global Orchestra, noting that both groups are featured in performance at Koerner Hall on April 7. I have also received – from restaurateur Oğuz Koloğlu, proprietor of Café 808 – a CD by Toronto-based Turkish clarinetist and saxophonist Selcuk Suna (selcuksuna.com), who will be performing with KUNÉ. The disc, Turkish Standards//Non Standard, is quite eclectic. From the lush but breakneck moto perpetuo opening track Hicaz Mandira it progresses through some smooth jazz (but still with busy, virtuosic melody lines), touches of funk and evocations of Turkish clubs replete with belly dance rhythms. The core band consists of familiars Eric St. Laurent, Tyler Emond, Todd Pentney and Max Senitt and is complemented by a number of guest artists from the Turkish community. I’m a bit frustrated by the lack of detailed information on the disc or on Suna’s website – for instance I tried to find out about the vocalist Dia, but the only hits I got online were for a South Korean Kpop girl group whom I’m pretty sure this is not. Nevertheless the disc kept me grooving in my chair.

Listen to 'Turkish Standards//Non Standard' Now in the Listening Room

The last disc I will mention takes me even further afield and I don’t even know what section I would have put it in – Contemporary? Improvised? Pot Pourri? – if I wasn’t covering it here. Food Foragers came to us from Unit Records in Switzerland (unitrecords.com). The press release says this is the first Duo release of Mark Lotz (flutes and effects) and squeakologist Alan Purves. “Music that sparkles with imagination and is free from conventions.” It certainly is that. One might ask what exactly a squeakologist is. A partial answer is in the list of the instruments Purves employs: toy accordion; DADA bells; balaphon, sruti boxes; toy horns; klaxon; tin whistle; brim bram; and one of my favourites, toy pigs. Although Lotz’s arsenal is more traditional, he also pushes the envelope, focusing on the extreme end of the flute family: bass flute headjoint; bass flute tongue slaps; concert flute body; prepared flute; bamboo flute; piccolo and even PVC contrabass flute. As for the music, I simply don’t know how to describe it. From melodic flute lines floating over kalimba-like ostinati in Abu in the Sky, to rhythminc grunting in Hog Time, deep heartbeat-like pulsations in the meditative Echoes Of A Life Hereafter and the playful piccolo/toy accordion duet Piepkuiken, to mention just the first four tracks, there’s never a dull moment. Some of the influences listed include traditional songs from Mali, Chick Corea’s Children’s Songs and Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition (1914-17). After a truly wondrous journey a final highlight is the concluding I’m So Sorry Blues, a standard 12-bar riff pairing the contrabass with tin whistles. Intriguing!