Modern and Contemporary

Omar Daniel – Game of Couples: Chamber music and songs
Various Artists
Centrediscs CMCCD 34124 (centrediscs.bandcamp.com/album/game-of-couples)

Toronto-born Omar Daniel, currently associate professor of composition at Western University, reliably rewards listeners with his patented formula combining striking melodies with dynamic rhythms, often, as in this latest release, adding ingredients from the music of his parents’ homeland, Estonia.

Violinists Erika Raum (Daniel’s wife) and Emily Kruspe perform Giuoco delle coppie/Game of Couples (2014). This “game” is anything but “fun.” Six movements, all under three minutes, range in expressive content from the abrasive argument of the opening Allegro barbaro (a favourite Daniel designation) through distressed pleading, emphatic assertions, depression, anxiety, finally ending in a lonely, despairing, near-silent Adagio.

Pianist Lydia Wong joins Raum in the five-movement Metsa maasikad/Wild Strawberries (2009). With titles including Horse Game, Spinning Song, Grew into a Herder and The Mouse Goes to the Forest, insistent rhythms and spiky melodies suggest the rustic folkloric music of a lusty peasant community.

More folkish melodies appear in Daniel’s Ühekse eesti regilaulud/Nine Estonian Rugo-Songs (2008, rev.2021), comprising songs of harvest, cooking, games and a lullaby. Soprano Xin Wang’s unrestrained hoarse yelps – over innovative, discordant instrumental sonorities provided by Raum, violist Sharon Wei and cellist Thomas Wiebe – make this a wildly exhilarating work!

Raum and Wiebe return in two Nocturnes (2020-2021), a grim Adagio and an Allegro molto that begins raucously but gradually fades to a funereal hush. When will the Toronto Symphony and/or the Canadian Opera Company commission a major work by this most-deserving composer?

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What I Saw in the Water
ChromaDuo
Naxos 8.574578 (arkivmusic.com/products/assad-bogdanovic-brouwer-iannarelli-kavanagh-what-i-sa)

Five 21st-century works by five guitarist-composers are lovingly performed by Canada’s ChromaDuo, guitarists Tracy Anne Smith and Rob MacDonald.

Simone Iannarelli (b.Rome 1970) says his Siete pinturas de Frida Kahlo “tries to recreate the images, atmosphere, inside feelings or background of these works of Frida,” beginning with the rippling, impressionistic Lo que vi en el agua, the source of the CD’s title. The flamenco-flavoured Unos cuantos piquetitos is followed by five mostly inward-looking pieces which offer pleasant listening but are considerably understated compared to Kahlo’s flamboyantly phantasmagoric paintings.

The remaining works were written expressly for ChromaDuo. The Circle Game by guitar icon Leo Brouwer (b.Havana 1939), inspired by Margaret Atwood’s poetry collection of the same name, enigmatically mixes minimalist pulsations with fragmented phrases, interrupted by sudden silences. The four-movement Sonata No.2 by Dušan Bogdanović (b.Belgrade, 1955) offers brief hints of Indian music, some jazzy riffs and tantalizing snatches of several near-recognizable old pop songs.

In the warm-hearted, ballad-like tone poem, The Ghost of Peggy’s Cove, Op.14, Dale Kavanagh (b.Halifax 1958) depicts the Nova Scotia legend of a woman whose ghost haunts the shore where she drowned herself after seeing her husband die when he fell while dancing on the rocks.

This multifaceted CD ends with the three-movement Dyens en trois temps, a tribute by Sérgio Assad (b.São Paulo 1952) to his friend, Tunisian-French guitarist-composer Roland Dyens (1955-2016), echoing, in turn, Dyens’ treatment of jazz, French songs and the music of Brazil.

Sean Clarke – A Flower for My Daughter
Sean Clarke; Roger Feria Jr.; Talia Fuchs; Nathan Bredeson
Navona Records nv6743 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6743)

Being a published poet and a dyed-in-the wool Imagiste, this disc registers with me in the same way as the poem A Prayer for My Daughter written by the great poet William Butler Yeats. However, the composer of A Flower For My Daughter, Sean Clarke, has more of the impressionist in him, leaning more towards Claude Monet than Yeats. Clarke says “I wrote this piece, slowly and late at night, in the year after my daughter was born. I tried to capture the feeling of holding my tiny sleeping child, into the early hours, letting her rest when she couldn’t sleep by herself, deep in my own thoughts, hopes, and fears.”

But here, Clarke’s love for his wife is gloriously expressed in the pain and joy of the experience. It is both graphically and sonically depicted in the melodic and harmonic conception of the musical tapestry into which it is woven, in textures that take us on a course of music that references sacred flute works:  Mountain Hymnal for solo flute and resonance performed by Clarke, Ballade featuring guitarist Nathan Bredeson, and the Three Nocturnes, after Monet which are imbued with impressionist zeal by pianist by Roger Feria Jr. 

Connecting these, A Flower For My Daughter intertwines a chamber opera sung by Talia Fuchs titled Franey Trail – a silken aria accompanied by Feria, wondrously strung out to adorn the birth of Clarke’s child. The fantastical world of David Lynch is also beautifully referenced.

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Lifeblood
Raphael Weinroth-Browne
Independent (raphaelweinroth-browne.bandcamp.com/album/lifeblood)

Thirty-three year old Ottawa-raised,Toronto-based cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne has already had a long and diverse career, and this latest offering demonstrates his rocket trajectory has no plans to slow down. Weinroth-Browne’s early work in contemporary classical music has grounded his solid technique, and his growth and expertise continue to be explosive. From his early years with Norwegian prog-rock band Leprous in 2016, and studio albums too numerous to mention, his experience and breadth of skill defy description. Continuing from his early days with the duo Kamancello, Muskox, The Visit, and Glass Armour, where Weinroth-Browne plays a multitude of instruments, this artist has refused to be stapled down as a classical player. Often described as a “Black Metal” cellist, his growing stage presence and elevated production quality in sound, film, dance compositions and live performances has given him a cult-like following. 

With Lifeblood, Weinroth-Browne pushes further into his Rock/Metal Opera journey, self-producing some of his best work yet. With a Goth-like presentation, including artwork and photographs of body art both devoted to snakes, this album leaves no room for doubt as to where this artist is going. 

From the pulsating Neanderthal to the transcendent, starry, restful motion of Winterlight and the heavy-metal Possession, the precision of every composition keeps the work taught, each piece expanding to an audio version of wide-screen cinema. The final Glimmering‘s freely phrased opening gives way to layered pizzicato lines overlain with cello upon cello upon cello, painting colours over colours and topped with fervent motion upon motion. Even being familiar with Weinroth-Browne’s style, this track’s mixing, panning and overall production really shines the album to a close.