Modern and Contemporary

Mathieu Lussier - Passages

Pentaedre; Louise Lessard; Claudia Schaetzle; Fraser Jackson

ATMA ACD2 2657

Bassoonist and composer Mathieu Lussier’s compositions here feature wind instruments and piano in various combinations, some conventional and others unusual. Lussier writes fluently and eclectically for winds in solo and chamber music that has won support of major performers. His works align with the French neoclassical woodwind tradition, and add distinctive touches. I particularly like his Sextet for wind quintet and contrabassoon, a concise three-movement work in which the contrabassoon provides both weight and wit!

Lussier plays and conducts early music, and a baroque influence is noticeable. It shows up in harmonic progressions and in the presence of the siciliano and chaconne, for example. Also, there are popular elements along with the baroque; after all, repeated chord progressions in pop songs can be compared to the ground bass which appears in the last movement of the Sextet and in Passages for bassoon and piano. In the White Rock Sonata syncopation provides a rhythmic spark to the earlier style.

The latter two works show Lussier himself to be an expressive and technically facile bassoon soloist. I am also particularly taken with clarinettist Martin Carpentier’s performance of the Introduction and Sicilienne. In fact the wind soloists are all of high calibre, including also flautist Danièle Bourget, oboe d’amore player Normand Forget, alto saxophonist Claudia Schaetzle, French horn player Louis-Philippe Marsolais, and contrabassoonist Fraser Jackson. Finally, Louise Lessard’s exemplary pianism not only accompanies but periodically steers well-paced and convincing interpretations.

PRES Revisited: Józef Patkowski in Memorium

Various Artists

Bolt Records DUX 0812/13 www.boltrecords.pl

Fascinating in its bravado, this set joins one CD of 1960s and 1970s recordings of important musique concrète by five Polish composers with another CD of acoustic improvisations on these themes by three British and two Polish players. The result not only captures cerebral variants of the compositions but also affirms the originality of the sounds created in the days of bulky tape recorders and thick coaxial cables.

Honouring Józef Patkowski (1929-2005), co-founder of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) in 1957 and its director for 28 years, the original recordings revisit the musical freedom offered by PRES during those Cold War years. For instance Krzysztof Penderecki’s Psalmus (1961) uses electronic filtering and flanges to deconstruct vowels and consonants initially created by the bel canto gurgles and quivering yodels of male and female singers. John Tilbury’s contemporary piano version is more chromatic, with vibrating and strumming strings resonating on top of basso keyboard rumbles. After the tune reaches satisfactory linearity, he shatters the mood by shrilling a lifeguard’s whistle.

Or compare Eugeniusz Rudnik’s 1967 recording of his Dixi with cellist Mikolaj Palosz’s reimagining of it four decades later. Originally a tape collage, the performance swells to forte as dissonant, processed delays almost visually pulsate then dissolves in gradually less audible undulations. Taking an opposite approach, Palosz’s variant mixes strident, spiccato string squeaks at different tempos, reaching raucous volume that sound as if the strings are being splintered as he plays and concluding with string popping fading into dissolving shrills.

Appropriately the final track is a Hommage to Bogusław Schaeffer’s Symphony. Here Tilbury, Palosz, violinist Phil Durrant, guitarist Maciej Śledziecki and percussionist Eddie Prévost combine to coalesce stretched string glissandi, snare ratcheting and cymbal clangs plus faux-romantic piano chording into an ever-shifting performance, which like the Polish composer’s work is both aleatory and multiphonic.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Symphony in F Sharp

Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra; John Storgårds

Ondine ODE 1182-2

Here is a fine addition to the significant revivals and original works recorded by John Storgårds with the Helsinki Philharmonic. The precocious Erich Korngold was already writing chamber music, orchestral works, and operas at an age when many composers have barely started. But he was forced to leave Austria during the Nazi scourge and turned to Hollywood, becoming an innovator in the new art of film music. The Symphony in F sharp, completed in 1952 after his return to Vienna, is a wonderful summation of his concert and film music accomplishments.

Korngold was a story-teller when critical opinion prized abstract and esoteric music. Only recently have we appreciated his expressive persona, orchestral mastery, and judicious incorporation of musical modernity. The Symphony’s dramatic opening movement demonstrates all these qualities. Its angular melodies, dissonant harmony and interjections by brass and percussion (particularly the xylophone) show his mastery of newer idioms. Storgårds’ transitions assuredly through the work’s contrasting moods, as in a flute solo over hushed strings or in cinematic flashes featuring the horn section. The orchestration of the Scherzo is especially colourful and the Helsinki Orchestra takes it all in stride with tight ensemble work. I find their performance of the anguished slow movement extraordinarily moving. More cheerful and witty is the finale, whose popular American film idiom is interrupted by intense interludes. Rounding off this valuable disk is Korngold’s youthful Tänzchen, which receives a charmingly Viennese treatment by the Helsinki Orchestra.

Arvo Pärt - Symphony No.4

Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen

ECM New Series ECM 2160

Arvo Pärt's fourth symphony is scored for tympani, concert harp, percussion and string orchestra. Although there is no choral element, one cannot imagine that the origins of this creation are not steeped in chant.

Shortly after I was tragically and very suddenly widowed, I attended the Canadian premier performance of this symphony (long before the ECM release). Supportive family members and friends had been encouraging me that once again I would find beauty in a world that seemed so empty, as it often does during the early stages of grief. I will never forget the profound sense of beauty, tonal balance and celestial bliss that surrounded me for the duration of the symphony. It truly was the first time I had encountered beauty amongst my suffering.

For many years, a quote from the Estonian composer has resounded with me: “I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played.” This line speaks volumes of Pärt's tintinnabuli approach to musical expression.

With the ECM release of this symphony, I was eager to discover whether the same sense of wonder that I experienced live could possibly be documented. Esa-Pekka Salonen intimately and delicately conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in a way that masterfully conveys Pärt’s awe-inspiring composition.

This label has a long history of working with Arvo Pärt. His sparse and minimalist style (which seems to rely on silence as much as sound at times) lends itself perfectly to the label's established approach of audiophile recording techniques. It is a superlative recording that draws the listener right in, or rather, right above the front of the stage; there's a stunning balance of direct and reverberant sound, while still maintaining pinpoint imaging. I was also pleasantly surprised to find similar results with open back headphones.

Upon listening to this disc, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a friend who recently moved to Canada from Brazil to learn English. When the word “awesome” seemed to pop up commonly in conversation, I reminded him that the word is indeed overused as of late. It is in fact an adjective that once seemed to be reserved to describe those rare, most magnificent occurrences. I feel that this word could certainly be used to describe Esa-Pekka Salonen's interpretation of Arvo Pärt's Fourth Symphony.