Modern and Contemporary

Trees.Listen
Sharlene Wallace; Frank Horvat
I Am Who I Am Records (frankhorvat.com)

Canadian musicians/composers/educators Frank Horvat (fixed electronics) and Sharlene Wallace (Celtic lever harps) collaborated on this nine-movement exploration of the wonder of trees. It is inspired by medical biochemist/botanist Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s book To Speak for the Trees.

Each “tree track” is based on a letter from the ancient Celtic Ogham script, a medieval alphabet that named each letter for a type of tree. One musical note from A B C D E F G and H (B-flat) was chosen to be predominant in each movement. A five-phase process was then used to create the music – phase one harp improvised samples, phase two creation of electronic bed tracks, phase three live harp parts over electronics tracks, phase four finetuning and phase five making final album with producer Jean Martin. 

Opening Ailm – Pine features the note A throughout the harp strums, single plucked notes and softer repeated electronic grooves. Repeated lower harp and electronics add unexpected depth to this walk through a pine forest! Eabha – Aspen opens with electronic held sounds which then alternate with ascending harp strums and lines. Vibrating low held electronic notes under the more tonal harp parts make for an orchestral E sounding work exploring the wonder of trees! Fearn – Alder, with a F note focus, is very easy to listen to, tonal music with a happy colourful harp solo and electronic drumkit hits with detached harp notes for tree dancing!

Horvat and Wallace perform their storytelling tree music with spontaneity and virtuosity.

Jeremy Gignoux – Odd Stillness
Jeremy Gignoux; Various Artists
Independent n/a (jeremygignoux.bandcamp.com)

When listening to such bebop progenitors as Bud Powell and, most of all, Charlie Parker, an identifiable sense of forward motion is conveyed musically. The French musicologist and critic André Hodeir, commenting on this propulsive quality and how the music from this era seemed to push listeners towards frequent moments of climatic resolution, described it as jazz’s “vital drive.” This virtuosic sound, often characterized as teleological (goal directed) and synchronous with the ideas of American Modernism, set a high-water mark for excellence in music (regardless of genre) influencing much that came after it.

As the Calgary-based violinist Jeremy Gignoux explores on his fine 2024 recording Odd Stillness, there are other equally important modalities in music that include tranquility, harmonic stillness and an auditory acceptance of dissonance without resolution that can be equally engaging, musically compelling and ultimately satisfying for listeners. As the French-born bandleader and musical creative writes in the album’s liner notes, “Looking away from harmonic progression and instrumental virtuosity, this recording embraces stagnation, inviting the listener to contemplate the serenity or tension within the moment.”

It is, I suppose, an experiment of sorts to release a recording designed around the aesthetic of musical lethargy and inactivity, but in the capable hands of Gignoux and a terrific ensemble that includes the unorthodox instrumentation of bass flute, contrabass, trombone, trumpet, drums, voice and bass clarinet, this hauntingly beautiful music nudges listeners towards a highly personal relationship with a sound canvas that eschews as many genre labels as it does descriptive adjectives.

Mark Haney – Placentia Bay: Summer of 1941
Meaghan Williams; Various Artists (plus string quartet, string orchestra and vocal ensemble)
Independent (markhaney.bandcamp.com)

Concept albums, historically more the domain of rock and pop than terrifically performed and recorded symphonic music with a storytelling narrative, and a Canadian historical focus, can be somewhat polarizing creations. Not only does one have to like the music, but there is also the issue of the narrative that needs to be compelling enough to thread throughout an entire recording, hueing thematic coherence to all the sounds contained within. Add to the mix the fact that, as it was in my case, you are jumping in at the final installment of a storytelling trilogy that began with 2010’s Aim for The Roses and is ending here with Placentia Bay: Summer of 1941, exploring the secret meeting between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt off the coast of Newfoundland that resulted in the “Atlantic Charter,” one might be forgiven for thinking this to be a difficult entry point.

But not so when you are in the skilled musical hands of composer, creative community builder, and interdisciplinary artist Mark Haney, with excellent contributions by the Vancouver double bassist Meagan Williams, a small orchestra of first-rate west coast musicians and the vocal ensemble musica intima. The recording stands on its own as a satisfying musical achievement and fine symphonic musical artefact.Should you be inspired (as I was) to go back to the beginning of the trilogy, a musical coherence emerges, despite the differences of theme and subject matter, that only adds luster to this recording and its creative brain trust. 

Magnus Lindberg – Viola Concerto, Absence, Serenades
Lawrence Power; Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Nicholas Collon;
Ondine ODE 1436-2 (ondine.net/index.php?lid=en&cid=2.2&oid=7270)

If “tradition” was ever a prison for Magnus Lindberg, then he has broken free by scaling its inner dynamic with this remarkable Viola Concerto. He has cast the instrument, often presumed to be in “no-man’s land… between the dazzle of the violin and the warm sonority of the cello” (from the booklet notes) to become an almost new instrument, increasing the scope of its authentic sonority with new malleability in tone textures. 

Just as Lindberg’s Viola Concerto delights in testing the soloist’s virtuosity to the limit – a challenge that Lawrence Power successfully negotiates with aplomb, the two other works on this disc – Absence and Serenades – test the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra by manipulating rhythmic intricacies and dense harmonies, also mining a vein of lyricism that opens up unexpected possibilities for something akin to melody. 

Absence characterizes the orchestra as one massive voice with myriad individual protagonists each with its own particular character. This generates the work’s momentum. 

Serenades puts the ensemble at the centre of gravity of Lindberg’s sense of light, shade, energy and lyricism. With Nicholas Collon at the helm the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra appears to have lived this – and the rest of this music – for decades.