Vocal and Choral

Songspin

Juice vocal ensemble

Nonclassical Recordings (www.nonclassical.co.uk)

Traditional, classical and new music meet head on in the debut album by a cappella vocal trio Juice. Bringing art music forward to a hip, modern sensibility, their performances are enjoyed from Wigmore Hall to Austin's SXSW festival. Despite arrangements that are incredibly complex and vocally demanding, their delivery is crystal clear, clean and precise whether mimicking the babbling brook in Paul Robinson's Triadic Riddles of Water or a pointillistic, northern lights-like brilliance in Elisabeth Luyten's Of the Snow. With the use of breath, sighs, sonorous and dissonant harmonies, these women demonstrate how the primal resonance of the human voice has the ability to shape (or even bend) our psyches. Downright eerie are arrangements of the traditional English folksong Cruel Mother as well as group member Kerry Andrew's compositions Lullaby for the Witching Hour and luna-cy. Both a sense of wonder, and fear of the tenuous relationship between mother and child is evoked through the use of punctuated breath and long, languorous sighs in an arrangement of Gillian Welch & T-Bone Walker's Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby. Extremes in rhythmic complexities are perfectly executed in James Lindsay’s Sanbiki No Kasikoi Saru sounding almost like a game of skill in which none of the three voices trip or falter. They end off the recording with seven playful, quirky remixes; having already taken the listener to the edge, they then extend far beyond.

Mozart - Don Giovanni

Gerald Finley; Glyndebourne; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Vladimir Jurowski

EMI 0 72017 9

It seems that in every baritone’s career, a Don Giovanni will happen. Given that there are some tremendous baritones out there, it would mean many a splendid production. Not necessarily so, unfortunately – just ask poor Brett Polegato, trapped in the COC’s tepid and messy effort. Surrounded by sub-par voices and dressed as a low-rent gigolo, even Polegato’s beautiful interpretation of the role could not save the production. Gerald Finley fares much better at Glyndebourne – the Kent production works for the most part and the principals are uniformly splendid, even though the OAE playing is uncharacteristically low energy. Nobody needs convincing that Finley is one of the best Giovanni’s on record – here less gigolo and more Berlusconi’s “Bunga Bunga” in the contemporized production. He is not tragic, but simply oblivious to the havoc he wreaks – a narcissistic psychopath if there ever was one. But it is Kate Royal, as confused and heartbroken Donna Elvira who steals the show. Luca Pisaroni, in a fine voice, is not cynical enough as Leporello, even in the Catalogue Aria, but sounds beautifully throughout. Isabel Leonard, beautiful to listen and look at, seems a tad too sophisticated as the naïve country bumpkin. The occasionally revolving set works well, except for the chase scenes and the finale. The most grievous harm of this production is done to the Commendatore. Traditionally, the statue and its subsequent re-animation are a source of a chill down the spine. Here, the freshly dug-out zombie evokes unwanted comedy, not horror. Ah, if only opera directors knew when to leave well enough alone…

The Ballad Singer

Gerald Finley; Julius Drake

Hyperion CDA67830

Singers crave novel material for their recordings: obscure works, cherished favourites… whatever it takes to create tempting new song packages. Baritone Gerald Finley’s recent release samples the Ballad repertoire and offers a wonderfully chosen program ranging from dark gothic musings of 19th century German and English composers to the devilishly clever writing of Cole Porter.

Finley lives up to his reputation for consistent and solid performance meeting the need of each ballad’s text with an impressive dramatic acuity that elevates the finest singers above the rest of their colleagues. Most notable is his amazing portrayal of the demon in Schubert’s Erlkönig where he assumes a strangely nasal vocal character and deliberately sings the Erlkönig’s extended passages just slightly flat to drive home the evil in the text. I’ve never heard this done before and it’s stunningly effective.

Similarly, Hugo Wolf’s Der Feuerreiter also offers some character vocal moments that most singers simply never attempt. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Finley’s multiple impersonations of narrator, mollusc and socialite in Cole Porter’s The Tale of The Oyster. Eating at a seafood restaurant will never be the same.

Long-time accompanist and artistic partner Julius Drake does so much more than just play the notes to back-up the voice. In Mahler’s Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen he crafts a remarkable orchestral colour palette from the keyboard. Drake knows how to be pianistically comedic as well as dramatic, romantic as well as impish. His artistic contribution is a significant reason for this disc’s success.

Caldara - La Conversione di Clodoveo, Re di Francia

Allyson McHardy; Nathalie Paulin; Suzie LeBlanc; Matthew White; Le Nouvel Opera; Alexander Weimann

ATMA ACD2 2505

Le Nouvel Opéra, a company directed by Suzie LeBlanc and Alexander Weimann, has contributed a stellar performance of a gem seldom heard. This oratorio by Antonio Caldara relates the story of the first Frankish king to convert to Christianity. It is characteristic of Caldara’s later Roman oratorios, set in the galant style for a small instrumental ensemble with singers chosen from the higher vocal ranges. Thus we have a cast of four: the pagan King Clovis sung by mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy; his devoutly Christian wife Clotilde sung by soprano Nathalie Paulin; his captain Uberto sung by countertenor Matthew White and the bishop Remigus sung by soprano Suzie LeBlanc.

The artistry of the ensemble and the vocal beauty of these four voices and their marvellous interpretive skills in conveying dramatic changes (whilst somewhat confined to the da capo form) are remarkable. McHardy is a superb foil as the forceful warrior to Paulin’s tender charms as wife, LeBlanc’s patient and saintly monk and White’s steadfast captain. The small size of the ensemble and Weimann’s direction from the harpsichord and organ provides a masterful but sensitive accompaniment, allowing these superb voices to shine through brilliantly. Nowhere is this more evident than in the king and queen’s duet which takes place after the baptismal ritual, the two voices intertwining and signifying a true union of spirit.

Hommage - Joseph Rouleau

Joseph Rouleau

Analekta AN 2 9874-6

This collection of songs and arias provides a splendid tribute to the Canadian bass Joseph Rouleau. It also serves as an introduction to a great singer whose voice is less familiar than it ought to be. Rouleau spent most of his career performing at Covent Garden or touring around the world, though he did return frequently to Canada. In Toronto he remains best-known for his role as Bishop Taché in the landmark 1967 Canadian Opera Company premiere of Harry Somers’ Louis Riel.

The sheer beauty of Rouleau’s voice on these three discs is enthralling. But what’s most striking in the excerpts from operas, like Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor with Joan Sutherland, and Boito’s Mefistofele, is how he dramatically shapes and colours his voice to create believable characters. In the songs, especially the complete cycles like Brahms Four Serious Songs, Mussorgsky’s Chants et danses de la morts, and Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, he achieves an exciting sense of emotional urgency, even in the most lyrical moments.

Two songs by Rodolphe Mathieu, the sultry L’automne and the adventurous L’hiver, are the only Canadian works here. But unfortunately, the booklet provides no information on them, or on any of the selections, all of which were chosen by Rouleau. Nor are the texts supplied. But there are archival photos, a short biography of Rouleau, and comments from the singer himself who, at eighty-two, remains active today as national president of Jeunesses Musicales.

Great Canadian Hymns

Pax Christi Chorale

Independent (www.paxchristichorale.org)

In August 2009, Pax Christi Chorale invited both professional and amateur Canadian composers to enter their inaugural Great Canadian Hymn Competition. Chosen from sixty-eight entries, this recording, lovingly performed by the choir, features eleven hymns composed by the winners and finalists from all across Canada. Included is a nod to tradition with Healey Willan’s Eternal, Unchanging, We Sing to Your Praise thrown in for good measure. Most provinces are represented and there is a good mix of new settings of traditional texts and texts written for these new pieces. The First Prize winner, Henry Boon of Windsor, Ontario composed I Heard that God Was Power, the text for which was written by his wife Susan Boon. Second Prize was awarded to Judith Snowdon of Saint Joseph de Kent, New Brunswick for Do You Not Know, Have You Not Heard? Third Prize was awarded to Scott Bastien, also of Windsor, for his composition God of All Nations.

Thoughtfully included in this package is an easy-to-read book of scores; an excellent resource for organists and choirs who wish to introduce more contemporary Canadian compositions to their services. Although a few of the works might pose quite a challenge for congregational singing, they would, nonetheless, make fine choral anthems.

Swell, Burst and Dye

Gabrielle McLaughlin; Lucas Harris

Independent (www.cdbaby.com/cd/gabriellemclaughlin)

The celebration of melancholy is as prevalent in music for singer and lute in the early 17th Century as the double-entendre. And the well-chosen title of this recording makes ample use of both. This phrase, “Swell, burst and dye” ends each of the three parts of Griefe keep within, composed by John Danyel for a funeral in which he advises the grieving wife “Mrs. M.E.” to shun excessive displays of sorrow. He then presents music as both the vicarious expression and the cure. This central piece is a wonderful find along with many others chosen by soprano Gabrielle McLaughlin and lutenist Lucas Harris to take the listener on a life journey through “pubescent drama toward the resignation of adulthood and the sometime despondency of middle age.” Selections by Danyel and John Dowland start sweetly and progressively lean toward a darker side, turning first to Dowland’s characteristic melancholy in I saw my Ladye Weepe, Semper Dowland Semper Dolens, pavan for lute and culminating in Thomas Campion’s spooky When thou must home to Shades of Underground and The Sypres Curtaine of the Night.

Gabrielle McLaughlin has a wonderful pure, even, declamatory style equally perfect for portraying smitten youth, heartbroken lover or gamine sprite. Her emotive qualities shine forth particularly well in her excellent phrasing. And the interplay between the singer and lutenist meet in perfect synchronicity. Cover design by Martin Chochinov is suitably disturbing and worth mentioning also are the playfully authentic spellings in the liner notes.