Modern and Contemporary

Stravinsky – Oedipus Rex; Apollon Musagète

Stravinsky – Oedipus Rex; Apollon Musagète
Soloists; Monteverdi Choir; London Symphony Orchestra; John Eliot Gardiner
LSO Live LSO0751

John Eliot Gardiner celebrated his 70th birthday a year ago last month, and over the course of his 50- year career, he has rightfully established himself as an internationally renowned conductor and pedagogue. Although regarded primarily as an interpreter of music from the Baroque and Classical periods, Gardiner’s talents have also extended to include such composers as Beethoven, Berlioz, Mendelssohn and Massenet. Nevertheless, it’s not often he has approached 20th century repertoire, so this new CD featuring Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagète and Oedipus Rex recorded live at his birthday concert in April 2013 with the London Symphony Orchestra is something of a rarity.

The ballet Apollon Musagète for string orchestra was completed in January 1928, the result of a commission from the Library of Congress. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Gardiner would be drawn to music written by the Russian composer during his neo-classical period. So just how does the founder of the Monteverdi Choir deal with Stravinsky? In a word, admirably! Here, the listener immediately senses what great care Gardiner has taken with this performance, with no detail left untouched. The LSO strings are warmly resonant with the ensemble achieving a fine of sense of balance in the ten contrasting movements.

Oedipus Rex, completed a year earlier, is a tougher nut to crack. Part opera, part oratorio, the work was based on Sophocles with a libretto by Jean Cocteau and then translated into Latin. Its mixture of musical styles can make it a challenge to bring off convincingly, but here, Gardiner and the LSO - along with the Monteverdi Choir and soloists that include Jennifer Johnston, Stuart Skelton and Gordon Saks – achieve a wonderful sense of drama at times infused with wry humour.

Refusing to be typecast, Gardiner first gained acclaim through his performances of early music, but now succeeds at the other end of the spectrum, proving to be as adept at Stravinsky as he is with Monteverdi or Mozart.

American Grace – Piano Music from Steven Mackey and John Adams

American Grace – Piano Music from Steven Mackey and John Adams
Orli Shaham; Jon Kimura Parker; Los Angeles Philharmonic; David Robertson
Canary Classics CC11

Orli Shaham and Jon Kimura Parker brilliantly perform Hallelujah Junction, for two pianos, written in1996 by John Adams. The piece derives its title from a truck stop on Highway 49 on the California/Nevada border. It is an extremely complex piece rhythmically and harmonically. The pianists play off of one another in chunky, alternating chords and jazzy syncopations. There is a moment of impressionistic repose until the intense and ferocious boogie–woogie concludes the piece. Steven Mackey’s Stumble to Grace is a piano concerto written for Shaham in 2011 and commissioned by the Los Angeles, St. Louis and New Jersey Orchestras. Although the concerto is in one movement, it is divided into five stages, which are inspired by those that a young child goes through in developing into maturity. Mackey is a guitarist who had been thoroughly immersed in rock music until later in life. He is now a Professor at Princeton University. I was absolutely enthralled with this piece and the imaginative and unique orchestration. The interaction and play with the piano resulted in fascinating tonal colors. Both the orchestra and the pianist were superb in bringing this unusual concerto to life. China Gates by Adams, a mesmerizing and hypnotic minimal piece, was played by Shaham with sensitivity, articulation and crystalline touch.

My only suggestion in regards to this excellent CD would be to change the order of the works. I would leave out the Sneaky March by Mackey, which at a little over one minute seemed superfluous, place China Gates second and end with the remarkable concerto.

Samuel Andreyev

Compositeurs de la CASA DE VELÁZQUEZ: Samuel Andreyev; Kenji Sakaï
Various Artists
Académie de France à Madrid (casadevelazquez.org)

Samuel Andreyev – The Tubular West
Samuel Andreyev
Torpor Vigil Records TVR-CD006 (torporvigil.com)

We rarely hear about Canadian composers living abroad; the young Samuel Andreyev (b.1981) hails from Kincardine, Ontario but has made Paris his home since 2003. Andreyev’s music is complex, meticulously scored, and intriguingly quirky – his ensembles often include musette (a piccolo oboe) or a Casio SK-1 (a now-defunct electronic keyboard).

Andreyev is clever in establishing stasis, then disturbing it constantly: both intermittently and unexpectedly. The colours of his orchestration – imagine an ensemble of piccolo, musette, piccolo clarinet and tin cans together in Vérifications – never offend. The complexity of his textures seems organic, almost improvisatory, yet over multiple listens, I hear the careful planning and evolution of sounds – a chimerism of form.

The concertante work for piano, À propos du concert de la semaine dernière, systematically separates left and right hand, and accompanies each in a hauntingly Schnittke-esque bipolarity.

Andreyev’s music is sometimes raw – even profane – but reveals its intention profoundly. Fortunately, Canadian ensembles are taking more notice of this composer (already published by A. Leduc); the Edmonton New Music Festival featured his music this season, and Esprit Orchestra has commissioned an orchestral work (planned for 2014/15).

I would be remiss not to mention Andreyev’s venture into pop music: the composer has a full-length release on the Torpor Vigil label. Andreyev – on The Tubular West – is “geeky” (in the most positive sense): a kind of early Beck meets Sondre Lerche, but the detail of the arrangements clearly pegs him as a “real composer.” Andreyev is also a published poet.

Chiyoko Szlavnics – Gradients of Detail

Chiyoko Szlavnics – Gradients of Detail
Ensemble musikFabrik; Peter Rundel; Dirk Rothbrust; Asasello Quartett
World Edition CD #0022 (world-edition.com)

Armed with great insight and awareness of 20th century classical music history, in her first CD, Gradients of Detail, Berlin-based Toronto composer Chiyoko Szlavnics explores musical ideas that while leaning toward abstraction possess a finely nuanced sensitivity to the nature and reception of sound.

One of her primary memes is the use of “pure,” senza vibrato, sustained tones, and yet there is plenty of motion in the music too. Some tones rise in pitch while others fall in slow glissandi. At other moments they overlap and interfere, creating sonic moiré patterns, or are occasionally interspersed with a timbrally thick staccato, the sonic equivalent of a fuzzy thick point on paper. Szlavnics assays these common raw materials with the three variably scored works performed on this CD.

The musical result is a constantly shifting, subtly beating soundscape reminding me stylistically of various composers: a less bellicose early Penderecki, Xenakis (another composer inspired by the possibility of dialogue between graphic representation and music) and perhaps certain works by Feldman. In particular the influence of James Tenney, Szlavnics’ Toronto composition teacher, appears to hover in the background. It’s revealed in elements of instrumentation (sine-wave generators), tuning (i.e. just intonation), quirky texture (multiple crossing glissandi) and an extreme sensitivity to instrumental tone colour and its structural and even melodic exploitation.

Black graphic lines and moiré patterns dominate Szlavnics’ graphic art, liberally displayed on the CD cover and in the booklet; the symbiosis between her graphic and musical oeuvre is the primary theme explored in the thought-provoking essay “Drawing Music” by Eugen Blume.

I’ve chosen to sketch in the broad outlines of the music on the CD but I wanted in closing to mention the outstanding Szlavnics ensemble piece (a)long lines: we’ll draw our own lines. The haunting work seamlessly dovetails electronically- and acoustically-produced timbres into a sound world that’s all her own, performed with virtuoso precision and emotional warmth by the Cologne-based Ensemble musikFabrik. Listening to the album several times – please turn the volume up to enjoy the full sonic palette – has been an exciting personal journey. Along the way, a delightful surprise: the thrill of discovering a masterful compositional voice.

Through the Looking Glass - Alpha

Through the Looking Glass
Alpha
Dacapo 8.226579

This sonic offering presents several pieces by four of Denmark’s most celebrated living composers, as re-visioned by Alpha, a trio playing recorders, saxophones and percussion. The CD opens in sparkling fashion with two short pieces by Poul Ruders. Alpha’s version of his rhythmically energetic Star Prelude makes clever use of high recorders and pitched percussion, and the fun continues with the same composer’s Love Fugue in which saxophone plays a more central role. Later on in the program, Bolette Roed gives a great rendition of his funky Carnival, originally scored for alto flute. Hans Abrahamsen’s Flowersongs, originally composed for three flutes, gets a broader stroke of colour from Alpha’s musical paintbrush, and Per Nørgård’s Heydey’s Night is sweet and humorous. Saxophonist Peter Navarro-Alonso’s arrangements of Nørgård’s Isternia and Bent Sørensen’s Looking on Darkness provide some welcome contemplative turns to this generally chipper program.

There is much to admire in Alpha’s elegant playing, both as individuals and as an ensemble. With a fairly minimalist slant this program might not be to everyone’s taste, but it proves that things are vibrantly alive and well in contemporary Danish music. Unfortunately though, while the booklet notes describe Alpha in glowing terms, there’s no information whatsoever about the original composers or the pieces reworked here. I didn’t particularly mind googling them, but considering that these composers not only created the original material but also gave their blessing to this project, this omission seems quite regrettable.

Four Discs from empreintesDIGITALes

It’s been close to 25 years since the founding of the unique Montreal-based label empreintes DIGITALes (empreintesDIGITALes.com) in 1989 by Jean-François Denisand Claude Schryer. Solo-directed since 1991 by Denis, the label has produced 130 discs representing 107 composers and specializes in contemporary electroacoustic music, acousmatic and musique concrète. Although these genres of music are not the common fare for most of the concert events listed by The WholeNote, it is important to realize that the technical innovations and ways of thinking that have been pioneered by the practitioners of this music have had a wide influence on a vast array of musical forms and styles as well as media-based art forms.

One of the most distinguishing features of electroacoustic music in general is that it is composed primarily within a studio environment and is designed to be listened to through loud speakers. And although the ingredients of melody, rhythm and harmony can be an aspect of electroacoustic music, its primary focus is on the sound itself, which can originate from recordings made in a particular acoustic environment, or generated and processed through purely electronic or digital technologies. Sometimes the original sound source is recognizable – such as recordings of ocean waves or the inside of a piano, and in other situations, the sounds have been studio processed beyond recognition of their original context.

Back in 1990, empreintesDIGITALes offered its own vision of the wide array of possibilities within the electroacoustic genre. It published the groundbreaking Électro Clips CD which featured three-minute miniatures by 25 different composers, each one representing a unique approach to working in a studio environment.

More recently, the label has released four new albums by four unique composers: Martin Bédard (Montreal), Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (Montreal/UK), Andrew Lewis (UK) and David Berezan (Calgary/UK). Although the pieces are of longer duration than the three-minute clips, each disc presents four unique approaches and aesthetic visions.

Each of Bédard’s five acousmatic compositions on his Topographies CD (empreintesDIGITALes IMED 13121) creates a sonic picture of specific acoustic environments, ranging from recordings made in restored jail cells to the soundworld of trains. He also weaves in tributes to what he calls “phonoculture” – lyrics from a Rush song or the audio heritage of a specific community. He is captivated by specific behaviours, whether those be of a night watchman or of metal under stress, and his compositions are expressions of his curiosity.

The five compositions on Tremblay’s 2-disc set entitled La Marée (IMED 13123/124) are excellent examples of the interaction between live performers and a form of live processing of the solo instrumentalist. I found his piece La tombeau des fondeurs particularly engaging with its rhythmic and timbral pulsations that create a seductive sonorous quality suggestive of the casting of a metal or bronze bell or gong. All his pieces are meditations on life, a balancing of contradictions.

The music of Lewis on his CD Au-delà (IMED 13125) is a great example of pure acousmatic music in which the original sound sources are heavily processed and the original context is predominantly unrecognizable. However, Lewis’ skill at weaving sounds together creates strong impressionistic and imaginary soundscapes. His track Cân, the Welsh word for song, takes the Welsh musical heritage beyond the traditional sounds of harps and male choirs. Short interjections of these traditional sounds are juxtaposed with more abstract sonic textures.

And finally, the music on Berezan’s Allusions Sonores (IMED 13122) offers the listener a window into the places he has visited. Seeing himself as a composer who collects and “uncovers” sounds as part of his creative process, each of the five pieces reflects places he has personally visited or interacted with. Ranging from the sounds of a Balinese thumb piano to recordings made in Alberta’s badlands to the chirping sounds of temple and palace floors in Japan, listening to Berezan’s music is similar to listening to the ocean. Each piece has a very distinctive wave-like motion with the constant ebb and flow of the sound textures rising up and then falling away.

These four discs are a testament to the ongoing commitment this independent label has for a very unique and distinct genre of music. It is known and respected internationally and considered the go-to place for the keen listener and connoisseur of electroacoustic music in all its varied forms.