Modern and Contemporary

Alive - John Pulchiele Ensemble

Alive
John Pulchiele Ensemble
Independent (johnpuchieleensemble.bandcamp.com/album/alive)

Alive is the seventh recording by John Puchiele Ensemble. Created by the eponymous Toronto composer/performer, it was made during the past year when he was ill with cancer and during his subsequent treatment. His personal music here is not overly dramatic or intense but instead is very ambient, minimalist, reflective and at times powerful. His orchestral, electronic, contemporary classical, new age soundscape is composed, performed and mixed to perfection, all by him.

Opening track, I’m Alive is a superb introduction to the unique storytelling orchestral music here. It starts with a quiet, “distant,” haunting held note drone. Then fast repeated flutelike warbling detached lines set a contemplative yet powerful sound. Other contrapuntal lines join in with louder, slightly accented and lower in pitch music. The tempo is fast, yet the hypnotic repeated note lines are calming until they gradually disappear to a decrescendo fast ending, like it’s time to rest …

Still begins quietly as slow held harmonic notes slightly move in a comforting, and not boring, manner. An arpeggiated and slightly louder and higher pitched middle section leads to crescendo to end. In is an under two-minute track with the same held note, calming orchestral drone idea. Slightly moving higher pitches add a positive emotional tint to the listening colour.

Puchiele has done phenomenal work here. His knowledge of synthesizers has made his music gorgeous. Each note has been performed with his in-depth ability to layer sounds that are clear and resonating after mixing. This is memorable ambient “orchestral” music.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Ubique - Claire Chase; Cory Smythe; Katinka Kleijn; Seth Parker Woods

Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Ubique
Claire Chase; Cory Smythe; Katinka Kleijn; Seth Parker Woods
Sono Luminus SL | Editions DSL-92280 (sonoluminus.com/sonoluminus/ubique)

“Ubique" is a Latin word meaning "everywhere" (and even at every time too). But Ubique is also recording of works by the brilliant Icelandic composer Anna S. Þorvaldsdóttir (or Anna Thorvaldsdottir to the English-speaking world), which has added layers of meaning because of its all-star cast: a stellar quartet led by the generational wundkerkind and Princess Royal of the flute family: Claire Chase.

Chase has done, for the flutes, what Steve Lacy did for Sidney Bechet’s beloved soprano saxophone; what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar and Dame Evelyn Glennie has done for orchestral percussion. Like them Chase has revolutionised the flute family, changing the range and scope of each variant, vocalising the instrument by projecting throat and chest voices through the flute, employing pizzicato and percussive multiphonics. In short Chase can sound like a whole wind section.

The 45-minute Ubique was commissioned for the tenth cycle of Chase’s Density 2036 project, a 24-year initiative to create new repertory for the flute, to commemorate the centennial of Edgard Varèse’s seminal 1936 flute solo Density 21.5. On this iteration Chase is in vaunted company with the extraordinary pianist Cory Smythe, and prodigious cellists Katinka Kleijn and Seth Parker Woods.

Added to that is the expressive lyricism, spectral mystique, and richly refined humanity of Thorvaldsdottir’s ingenious work, and here’s an album that’s nothing short of miraculous.

Pas de Trois - Venticordi (oboe, violin, piano, viola)

Pas de Trois
Venticordi (oboe, violin, piano, viola)
Navona Records nv6680 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6680)

Since 2009, oboist Kathleen McNerney and violinist Dean Stein, artistic directors of Portland, Maine-based VentiCordi Chamber Music, have discovered and performed neglected works involving their instruments. Joining them on this, VentiCordi’s debut CD, are pianist Pamela Mia Paul and violist Susan Dubois.

Pas de Trois for oboe, violin and piano by Pulitzer Prize-winning American Ned Rorem (1923-2022) is a kaleidoscope of changing moods and vividly contrasted instrumental colours. Its six movements encompass a melancholy serenade; an aggressive, syncopated dance; a fanciful ambulation; a sentimental waltz; a wild scramble; echoes of Satie’s Gymnopedies and a bubbling finale, mildly spiced with piquant discords. It’s all very entertaining.

In 1938, the Jewish Hans Gál (1890-1987) left his now Nazi-occupied native Austria, settling in Edinburgh. There, in 1941, he composed his Trio for Oboe, Violin and Viola, Op.94, nostalgic music recalling happier times. The gentle, folk-flavoured Pastorale is followed by Intermezzo grazioso, a light-hearted, occasionally wrong-footed folk dance. Intermezzo agitato is hardly “agitated,” merely suggesting clouds gathering amid the sunshine. Introduzione. Meditation on a Scottish Tune begins pensively before a set of variations on a traditional melody ends Gál’s grateful tribute to his newly-adopted land.

Air, Variations & Finale for oboe, violin and piano by Birmingham-born Dorothy Howell (1898-1982) is very much in the British folk-inspired idiom. With the oboe in the forefront, the music is successively reflective, cheerful, sprightly, plaintive, rollicking, languid, ponderous, disquieted, jaunty, rhapsodic and triumphant. It’s really quite a trip!

Mary Kouyoumdjian: Witness - Kronos Quartet

Mary Kouyoumdjian - Witness
Kronos Quartet
Phenotypic Recordings PR-2501-CD (marykouyoumdjian.com/discography.html)

Is the proverbial darkness and despair of Armenian history so all-pervasive that it is impossible for anyone to escape it? Listening to this music by the Armenian American Mary Kouyoumdjian entitled Witness, performed by the legendary Kronos Quartet, you have not lived if you have not lived through the wailing – and the silence – of the Armenian Genocide during the early 20th century. Nor will you ever be the same if you live through what Kouyoumdjian and Kronos have recreated (lyrically and musically) to memorialise it.

This is music that is brilliantly – and disturbingly – paced. It has all the constituent parts of a Homeric epic beginning with the feathered oracle – the Gourng (an Armenian crane) – a feathered messenger in the tradition of the antediluvian birds once believed to have been released by the proto-historic Noah to bring the good news after the great flood.

The second piece – Bombs of Beirut – puts to wildly agitating music the first near-annihilation of Beirut. This thundering three-part suite builds up to the monumental architecture of Silent Cranes, a return to the featured Armenian messenger (the Gourng). Only this time, in a stunning, relentless crescendo the Kronos pit their agitated strings against the voices of old women and men who have survived that massacre only to tell of its devastation in painful detail. Celebrated Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s superb booklet notes and Osheen Harruthoonyan’s foreboding cover photograph are masterful contributions.

Scott Brickman: Baltic Sketches (collected symphonies 2006-2020) - Various Orchestras

Scott Brickman - Baltic Sketches (collected symphonies 2006-2020)
Various Orchestras
Navona Records nv6698 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6698)

American composer/music and education professor Scott Brickman is inspired by his Baltic and Slavic ethnic background in Baltic Sketches, his five symphonies composed between 2006 and 2020.

The three movement Symphony No.5 (2019) is influenced by his experiences with Latvian culture and history. Latvian folk songs, dances and Lutheran music inspire first movement Allegro con Spirito, with its loud, fast and dramatic sections employing the full orchestra. The attention grabbing rhythmic percussion parts and dance-along feel contribute to its accessibility. There is gentle, slower tonal melody and accompaniment in Cantabile (Valse Melancholique). Energetic loud effects in Energico with shifting meters, textures and a crashing percussive full orchestral ending.

The four movement Symphony No.1 (2006) is based on neoclassical 12-tone rows. Brickman writes that it “tells a story of a struggle,” scored with aggressive strings and horns in the final movement.

The single movement Symphony No.4 “Restoration” (2018) is inspired by folksongs from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine who celebrated the 100th anniversary of independence of the Baltic states in 2018. Although there are no direct musical quotations, the dramatic marching music, modern orchestration, alternating dynamics and closing high pitched held note makes for memorable listening.

Symphony No.6 Sinfonia for Wind Ensemble (2020) was composed after Brickman finished chemotherapy treatments. Diverse instrumental textures, colours, and quieter held notes add to the solemnity of the second movement Cantabile: Risoluto.

Each symphony is performed perfectly by a different world-class orchestra. Brickman’s talented composing encompasses diverse forms and stylistic influences, which include loud, percussive sections and quieter relaxing, tonal and atonal listening.

Lei Liang: Dui - Wu Man; Steven Schick; Maya Beiser; Cho-Liang Lin; Zhe Lin; Mark Dresser; loadbang;

Lei Liang - Dui
Wu Man; Steven Schick; Maya Beiser; Cho-Liang Lin; Zhe Lin; Mark Dresser; loadbang;
Islandia Music Records IMR015 (islandiamusic.com/lei-liang-dui)

The expert in the qin (seven-string zither) Dr. Liang Mingyue tell us that the Chinese word for music is yue. In its inclusive meaning, yue refers to the “arts” and to “music,” and, together with morals, law, and politics, was considered to be one of the four fundamental societal functions. The repertoire of Dui (meaning “to face”) composed by Lei Liang most certainly has a connotation so all-encompassing that this music must be listened to and understood with “big” ears.

Such a characteristic is not necessarily the exclusive domain of only the most discerning of aficionados. However, it begs employing the heart and mind and requiring the inner ear to open, a tall ask of cultures not as ancient and erudite as that of Central/East Asia. This would explain why (for instance) the celebrated Japanese performance artist Yoko Ono is so misunderstood. Her incorporation of Noh and (aragoto or “rough style”) Kabuki into her music mean nothing to the uninitiated.

This may not be true of Lei Liang’s music – albeit the fact that some may be more difficult even for sophisticated, academically-qualified listeners. However, other works here may be more accessible. I want to go on record and say that I am besotted by the charms of this composer – not simply with word paintings such as Luminosity and Landscape V but especially the album’s apogee, Mongolian Suite which demands intensely deep listening.