Modern and Contemporary

Two Orchestras, One Symphony: Jacques Hetu – Symphony No.5
National Arts Centre Orchestra Canada; Orchestre Symphonique du Québec; Toronto Mendelssohn Choir; Alexander Shelley
Analekta AN2 8890 (nac-cna.ca/en/orchestra/recordings/hetu-5)

The combined forces of two orchestras and a symphonic choir, all under the superb leadership of conductor Alexander Shelley, came together in March, 2024 for this magnificent recording of Jacques Hétu’s bold work. Indeed, it was a work the composer was never to hear in performance, as he passed away three weeks before its premiere in February, 2010.  

This recording is a reminder of Hétu’s skill and significance as one of Canada’s finest composers. Having studied as a young man with Clermont Pépin and Jean-Papineau Couture in Canada and Lukas Foss at Tanglewood, he went to Paris in 1961, won the Prix D’Europe and furthered his studies with Henri Dutilleux and Olivier Messiaen. 

Paris is the subject of the fifth symphony, with programmatic titles depicting pre-World War II, the Invasion, the Occupation and, finally, a complex and glorious choral finale to the text of Liberté by Paul Elouard (brilliantly set previously by Francis Poulenc in his cantata Figure humaine). Hétu’s setting is defiant and harmonically thrilling. The whole symphony packs an emotional punch and possesses an anti-totalitarian message that’s important to hear at this particular time. 

The performance is sincere and committed, with some fine wind and brass solo work. The choir’s sound is full and strong. The recording was the culmination of a number of live performances during an extensive tour through Ontario and Québec. It is a tribute to the close association that the NACO had with the composer over many years, having premiered his third symphony in 1971 (under Mario Bernardi’s direction) and taken it on a tour of Europe in 1990. Alexander Shelley continues to develop important large-scale projects at the National Arts Centre for which we can be grateful and proud. 

Three of Twelve and Another
Graham Flett
Redshift Records (redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/three-of-twelve-and-another)

Ontario composer Graham Flett’s album of two electric guitar works has an intriguing backstory. The composer writes, “One summer I happened upon an old 12-string guitar that was extremely but very intriguingly out-of-tune. Hearing it made me consider how an ensemble of such out-of-tune guitars might sound.” Inspired by that untuned chance encounter Flett began to explore four separate, yet related guitar tunings of the conventional 6-string electric guitar. In the final score he meticulously stipulates the tuning of each of the 24 strings of the four guitars, their web of interrelationships taking into consideration string harmonics and other acoustic phenomena. 

There’s also poetry. Flett took inspiration from W.H. Auden’s Twelve Songs. Thus, the three movements of his Music for Four Retuned Electric Guitars are tagged with Auden’s poetic phrases characterising each movement: the silent statue; the smokeless hill; the hot sun. Stillness, heat and perhaps negative space are being evoked.

The second work Unadorned, for solo electric guitar, is no less complex sounding. Here Flett explores a continuous series of three-note chords employing many harmonic groupings. The use of messa di voce - a musical swell here applied to a guitar note or chord - removes the initial attack of the plucked guitar strings, leaving puffs of sonic clouds to linger, gently pulse or grate against each other. It’s an album signature. 

Spain-based guitarist Elliot Simpson, who took on the considerable task of retuning and then multi-tracking the guitars, renders these enigmatic, challenging works with commitment, elegant musicianship and attention to detail.

Listen to 'Three of Twelve and Another' Now in the Listening Room

Imagine Many Guitars
Tim Brady; Instruments of Happiness; Bronwyn Thies-Thompson; Janelle Lucyk; Sarah Albu; Marie-Annick Beliveau
Redshift Records TK550 (redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/imagine-many-guitars)

Imagine Many Guitars is real; a well-thought out and brilliantly performed electric guitar recording by Montreal-based Tim Brady, who composed, played and recorded all the guitar lines, which he multi-tracks in the four compositions here.

The opening 25-minuteThis one is broken in pieces: Symphony #11 (2019-2024) is held together by Brady’s eight electric guitars (with effects pedals), and overdubbed sopranos Bronwyn Thies-Thompson, Janelle Lucyk, Sarah Albu and Marie-Annick Béliveau singing texts taken from the late Ian Ferrier’s book Coming & Going (2015). This very symphonic music with classical and contemporary overtones features guitar effect backdrops to guitar grooves alternating with vocals – suspenseful a cappella singing and moving spoken lines. Guitar strums and held notes add an echo effect to high sung notes.

Slow, Simple (2022) for 20 electric guitars is not really simple sonically but is easy-listening! The tempo is slow, with Brady’s low held chords opening and the guitars build as the chords slowing change with simultaneous descending lead lines, held notes, strumming, single note atonal lines and held note effects.  

Five Times: four guitars (2022), a shorter five-movement change of pace, features a more open and playful style and a rocking lead guitar in Everywhere, and more atonal experimental lines resembling playing at home sounds in Alone.  

The earlier four-part work (very) Short Pieces for (jazz) Guitar (1979) shows off a jazzier side of Brady’s playing with clean lines, rhythmic strums and accents.

Brady is amazing and inspirational throughout Imagine Many Guitars.

Listen to 'Imagine Many Guitars' Now in the Listening Room

Rebecca Bruton – a roof or mirror, blossom, madder, cracks; Jason Doell - together
Quatuor Bozzini; junctQin keyboard collective
Collection Quatuor Bozzini CQB 2433-2 (collectionqb.bandcamp.com/album/rebecca-bruton-jason-doell-a-root-or-mirror-blossom-madder-cracks-together)

Montreal’s internationally renowned contemporary string quartet Quatuor Bozzini is known for championing composers. On this album of two new works, they join forces with Toronto’s junctQín keyboard collective, a trio of expert advocates of the rare art of six-hand piano playing. 

Toronto composer Jason Doell in his performance notes reflects on his work together in poetic terms. It’s “a work born of strange conversation caught in webs that cling to beliefs still continuously being spun….” Early in together a mysterious ppp drone appears. Unlike most drones however, it continuously and very slowly, drifts down in pitch by a disciplined half-tone. While the string quartet skilfully tunes to the shifting drone, the piano cannot. For much of the work’s 20 minutes therefore Doell creates the perception of a transient out-of-tune-ness in the slowly flowing texture as the two sonic components drift apart. The consequent tension is finally relieved by a complex tonal quasi-resolution at the work’s close. 

Alberta composer Rebecca Bruton’s eight-part The Faerie Ribbon consists of four initial movements each with its own magical subtitle, each mirrored by its own alter-version. The string quartet textures are punctuated by deep sustained piano chords, contrasted in two sections by voices singing consonant harmonies. What to make of the title? Faeries in folklore are anthropomorphic liminal creatures associated with nature and magic. In some myths they haunt specific locations and dangerously lead travelers astray. Could Bruton - and Doell - be evoking the power of music to catch us unaware, acting as a transformative agent of the musical medium and listeners alike?

Listen to 'Rebecca Bruton: a roof or mirror, blossom, madder, cracks; Jason Doell: together' Now in the Listening Room