Vocal and Choral

Immensity Of
Departure Duo
New Focus Recordings FCR329 (newfocusrecordings.com)

Cheekily tagging itself “a high-low duo” the virtuoso Departure Duo is an unlikely combo. Boston-based soprano Nina Guo and double bassist Edward Kass are committed to commissioning, performing and touring repertoire composed for their unusual combination, music that explores the full range of styles and sounds they can produce. They frequently collaborate with sonic artists to create new music, including three of the works on Immensity Of by younger generation American composers Katherine Balch, John Aylward and Emily Praetorius. 

Balch’s Phrases dramatically grapples with meaning, gesture and sound, while Aylward mines the poetry of Rilke for inspiration in Tiergarten (Zoo). The time-stretching Immensity Of by Praetorius is quite different from anything else here, featuring delicate, long glissandi for both voice and bass. Its beautiful lonely spaciousness is relieved only by soft whistling, birdsong, mouth clucks and knocking bass pizzicati.

Kurtág’s Einige Sätze aus den Sudelbüchern Georg Christoph Lichtenbergs forms the album’s centerpiece. Drawing from 18th-century German polymath Lichtenberg’s collection of often humorous aphorisms, the composer selected texts to form the lyrical and aesthetic backbone of his collection of 18 succinct individual sections, a veritable song cycle.

Kurtág’s pleasure in the texts’ wry humour is evident in Die Kuh (The Cow) and in several other places. In Die Kartoffeln (The Potatoes) for example, he appears to depict root vegetables in storage in atonal first-species counterpoint. Surely that’s a first! Departure Duo’s masterful performance makes a strong case for this 21-minute work, as well as for their high-low partnership.

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Lionel Daunais – Melodies/Songs
Jacqueline Woodley; Annina Haug; Pierre Rancourt; Marc Bourdeau; Michel Bellavance
Centrediscs CMCCD 30122 (cmccanada.org/shop/cd-cmccd-30122)

Lionel Daunais (1901-1982) was a French-Canadian baritone and a prolific composer. As a founding member of notable ensembles such as the Trio lyrique and the Variétés lyriques, and via his other numerous musical activities and roles such as artistic and stage director, Daunais had a lengthy career and a meaningful influence on Quebec’s musical scene of the mid-20th century.

With Mélodies, pianist Marc Bourdeau pays homage to Daunais’ legacy with a carefully considered curation of a large repertoire (over 250 songs). The final selection includes 27 songs that mix the diverse writing styles of art songs and popular songs with more traditional Quebec folklore songs. Bourdeau’s impeccable research and care of Daunais’ musical intentions, guided both by his appreciation for Daunais and the time he spent in the archives of the Lionel Daunais Fonds, allow for an authentic (re)discovery of this formidable artist. The detailed CD booklet is augmented by a website (LionelDaunais.com) with considerable documentation, useful material on Daunais’ career for possible further research, behind-the-scenes details, as well as videos of recordings and rehearsals. 

Bourdeau’s collaborators are soprano Jacqueline Woodley, mezzo-soprano Annina Haug, baritone Pierre Rancourt and flutist Michel Bellavance. In a variety of ensembles, duets and trios, they excel at recreating the gentle humour, and sometimes sarcasm, the depth and subtle meanings of texts, as well as the appropriate tones for themes of earlier times. Mélodies is not only a significant addition to the life, times and music of Lionel Daunais, it is also an important contribution to Quebec’s musical heritage.

Ottorino Respighi – Crepuscolo
Timothy Fallon; Ammiel Bushakevitz
BIS BIS-2632 SACD (bis.se)

Respighi’s remarkably wide-ranging stylistic eclecticism in these 26 songs turns this CD into a bountiful sonic buffet offering a delectable array of variegated flavourful delicacies.

The neo-Renaissance Cinque canti all’antiqua (Five Songs in Ancient Style) includes an aria from his opera Re Enzo and four plaintive love songs, three with texts by Boccaccio. The five extravagantly expressive songs of Deità Silvane (Woodland Deities) recall music by Debussy and Ravel, who also evoked sylvan myths, here replete with fauns and nymphs, cymbals and pipes, and mysterious dances. In the fifth song, Crepuscolo (Twilight), “Pan falls asleep… a joyful song quivers.” Inspired by a visit to Scotland, Respighi arranged his beguiling Quattro arie scozzeti (Four Scottish Songs) – the nostalgic When the Kye Come Home, Within a Mile of Edinburgh and My Heart’s in the Highlands, ending with the jaunty The Piper of Dundee, all sung in Scottish English.

There are many beauties to be found within the other 12 songs, each steeped in the hyper emotionality of Late Romanticism, whether expressing sweet tenderness, passionate yearning or agonized desperation. American tenor Timothy Fallon invigorates these unfairly neglected, fervent songs with operatic ardour and a firm, shining tone, while Ammiel Bushakevitz sparkles and surges at the piano. One caveat – due to the very over-reverberant acoustic, the bass response must be minimized in order to maximize the enjoyment of this most enjoyable CD. Texts and translations are included.

Silvestrov – Requiem für Larissa
Solists; Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks; Münchner Rundfunkorcheste; Andres Mustonen
BR Klassik BRK900344 (naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=900344)

Valentin Silvestrov, Ukraine’s best-known living composer, wrote Requiem for Larissa in 1999 in response to the sudden death of his wife, Larissa Bondarenko. It’s a work of devastating beauty. 

Musical references to Silvestrov’s life with Bondarenko, a musicologist, reveal how deeply personal this work is. Yet it pulls us into the sweep of historical events. This new release, still just its second recording, was made in 2011. Today, with the attacks on the 85-year-old composer’s beloved homeland by Russia, Silvestrov’s Requiem resonates even more deeply. And the significance of this recording grows.

The searing fourth movement, Goodbye, O World, O Earth, Farewell directly recalls the fifth song from Silvestrov’s mesmerizing cycle for baritone and piano, Silent Songs. Here it’s a tenor who sings the poignant lament, set to an excerpt from The Dream by Ukraine’s national bard, 19th-century poet Taras Shevchenko. Andreas Hirtreiter communicates the composer’s pain and longing while heeding his constraints on interpretive flourishes.

The remaining six movements are set to sacred texts from the Latin Mass for the Dead. But Silvestrov has extracted fragments and jumbled them up. In the Agnus Dei, he revisits one of his strangest and most wonderful piano pieces, The Messenger. Invoking Mozart in style and spirit, it arrives mysteriously, an enigmatic dispatch bringing consolations from another world.  

A stirring performance by the Bavarian Radio Choir and the Munich Radio Orchestra under the adventurous Estonian conductor Andres Mustonen puts Silvestrov’s evocative harmonic shifts and uncanny colours into urgent focus.

Edie Hill; Michael Gilbertson – Born
The Crossing; Donald Nally
Navona Records nv6449 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6449)

When classical radio stations seem agog with a cappella choral music who can fault them? After all, listening to human voices singing in multi-layered harmony sans instrūmentum is, indeed, irresistible. But when you are led to believe that the world of a cappella music is Voces 8 and, seemingly, no one else, surely something is amiss? I mean what about The Crossing directed by the masterful Donald Nally? What indeed…! 

Consider the album titled Born featuring the work of the same name bookended by Returning – both by Michael Gilbertson – with a revenant interpretation of Edie Hill’s Spectral Spirits nestling in between. The two latter works have been commissioned specially for The Crossing, who return the favour with a magical performance from start to finish.

Gilbertson’s work is a mystical and transcendent fit for this mighty vocal ensemble. Nally and the singers navigate both works with absolute mastery. Born is an appropriately meditative unravelling of the evanescence of life. The gossamer-like Returning weaves epic narratives inspired by David and Jonathan. Hill’s Spectral Spirits dwell in light and dark. Perhaps they even summon the spectral shadow of Gérard Grisey.

Nally lets this music unfold with sumptuous expansiveness throughout. The polyphonic lines gracefully reveal themselves in this opulent recording. The singers of The Crossing produce a rich and wonderfully balanced sound, marvellous depth in the basses and a delectable fluidity in the sopranos. Truly this is a choir of great distinction.

Between Worlds
Donna Brown; Margaret Maria
Centrediscs CMCCD 30522 (cmccanada.org/shop/cd-cmccd-30522)

Between Worlds is a collaboration between composer-cellist Margaret Maria and soprano-poet Donna Brown. With poems set specifically to music and others adapted into music to fit a theme, the creators tell us that this project “uses words and music to explore the tension between Thanatos and Eros via a symbolic journey from Sunset to Sunrise.” 

In a series of eight movements set for soprano and cello orchestra, Sunrise, Fall, Lady Moon, Snakes and Demons, Caught Between Worlds, To Grasp Time, Sunset and One, aim to awaken listeners to their inner and higher states of consciousness, make sense of the world, and, ultimately, search for light and peace with an open heart. 

The movements each display styles and techniques that vary greatly, the voice moves from spoken (Sunset) and declamatory to complex extended vocals, while the cello(s) are at times thin, scattered and sparse (Sunrise, Sunset) or veer into more complex extended instrumental techniques (Snakes and Demons) and playing ponticello (Fall). The cello orchestra is created by Maria who overdubs the different cello parts.

Donna Brown teaches voice at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and her recordings have won several awards. Margaret Maria is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and has played on numerous Canadian and international stages. Between Worlds received its world premiere in 2019 by the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra with a full complement of strings.

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Romances Inciertos – Un autre Orlando
Nino Laisné; François Chaignaud
Alborada editions ALB002 (alborada-editions.com)

In 2020, choreographer/dancer/singer François Chaignaud and stage/musical director/arranger Nino Laisné, along with their four virtuoso instrumentalists, recorded this high-quality in-studio release based on their show Romances inciertos, which they have toured internationally since 2017. The three-act dance stage show has Chaignaud and instrumentalists perform on stage together. Un autre Orlando is in three Acts, each featuring a popular traditional Spanish figure respectively – warrior maiden, archangel, and gypsy – set to centuries spanning Spanish musical traditions.  

The band is a tight musical unit. Opening Act I is Laisné’s arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s tango/pasacalle Tristeza de un doble A (1973) featuring bandoneonist Jean-Baptiste Henry’s calm rendition leading to intensity building of fast virtuosic lyrical lines above the other instruments. Act II’s Nana de Sevilla is a popular cradle song, with Romantic-flavoured instrumental improvisations using rubatos, held strings and fast lines, followed by the popular Baroque Folias, an improvisation driven by Pere Olivé’s percussion beats. Chaignaud also sings falsetto, and normal voice, in select songs like his well-placed lower-pitched vocals-to-strings backdrop by Daniel Zapico (guitar and theorbo) and François Joubert-Caillet (viola da gamba) in the Act III opening 1936 zambra, La farsa monea. Laisné’s arrangement of the popular coplas, La Tarara, closes the show featuring Chaignaud’s emotional higher-pitched vocals.

Other Spanish musical styles on display include processional marches to Sephardic laments, folk music to zarzuela, all arranged and performed to perfection. This is a successful, timeless leap from theatre stage to a 16-track audio recording!