The Canadian premiere of Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino's (b. 1947) opera The Killing Flower (Luci mie traditrici) was presented on February 1, at Walter Hall in the Edward Johnson Building of the University of Toronto. Sciarrino has been the Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitor in Composition at the U of T Faculty of Music during the 2017 edition of the U of T New Music Festival. It had been originally billed as an “on book” (not acted, with the singers reading their parts) performance, by producer Wallace Halladay. But in fact, even with minimally added elements of stagecraft devised by stage director/designer Amanda Smith, such as discrete projections, simple props and appropriate stage direction, the performance had the feeling of a production, rather than a reading.

The story of the opera, as told by Sciarrino (who wrote both libretto and score), is based on the life of the unusual Renaissance composer, Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1619) – a composer Sciarrino has admired since youth, who was also Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza in southern Italy. The tragic story of the opera focuses not on the Prince's creative genius, but rather on his role in the murders of his wife and her lover. It's told in two acts, divided into a prologue, eight scenes, three instrumental intermezzi and two brief movements titled Darkness I and Darkness II. The two main characters are the Duke and the Duchess, initially an apparently happy couple. They are joined by the Guest, who precipitates an affair with the Duchess, and the Duke's servant, whose report of the affair leads to the murders.

In his artistic statement, Sciarrino stated that this opera “was meant to be a statement on the reform of theatre.” He said, “The use of voices, the invention and maturation of the vocal style, allow us to delve into the realm of theatre, rather than simply putting vocalists on stage and having them sing. Its strength lies in the expression of song, in the creation of a vocal style – a newly invented style.”

True to this philosophy, the entire drama appeared to be contained in and conveyed through the vocal lines. For example, the Duke is given a stiff, commanding vocal style, while the Duchess's style is pliable, sensitive and fluid. The Guest sings in a languid, probing and seductive style, while the servant has a jerky, abrupt style, making him seem nervous and insecure. The cast was superb in conveying this “drama of styles.” Baritone Geoffrey Sirett was commanding as the Duke; soprano Shannon Mercer was a sweet and sensitive Duchess, vulnerable and ready to please; countertenor Scott Belluz (the guest) was seductive and not to be resisted; and tenor Keith Klassen played a supremely neurotic servant. A recording of soprano Nathalie Paulin conveyed the prologue, sung in an elegant, fluid yet slightly mournful style that floated over the beginning of the piece.

It was easy to track the course of the drama, thanks to the composer's carefully crafted melodic characterizations. The commanding Duke, the compliant Duchess and obedient servant were all crystal clear in their roles. In the erotic scene with the Guest and the Duchess, the intertwining melodies wrapped themselves up in all manner of contortions, just as bodies might have. Sciarrino's orchestration was just as notable, supporting the action with the most remarkably vivid noises to come from a chamber orchestra. For example, brass instruments provided plenty of wind sounds when needed, the thunder sheets were wonderfully ominous, played softly, but with sufficient gravitas, and the flutes followed the singers with ample amplifications of their heightened emotional states as the drama unfolded. Conductor Chad Heltzel, a DMA candidate at U of T with Uri Mayer, balanced the ensemble nicely and sustained the many moods of the piece. At several times, the effect of high, chirping violins combined with deep, grunting trombones was positively creepy!

An added feature of the evening was a pre-performance discussion with the composer, Salvatore Sciarrino, the producer, Wallace Halladay, and U of T New Music Festival coordinator, Norbert Palej, coordinated by musicologist Catherine Moore. Among various revelations, we heard of Sciarrino's fascination with the music of Gesualdo, and also of Halladay's determination to produce The Killing Flower. Five U of T Theatre for Early Music madrigalists, sopranos Julia Morson and Maeve Palmer, countertenor Ryan McDonald, tenor Cory Knight and bass Andrew Adridge sang two Gesualdo madrigals, Mercè, grido piangendo and Asciugate I begli occhi, and established the flavour of music in Venosa during the Renaissance. It was a memorable evening!

The University of Toronto New Music Festival runs from January 29-February 5. For details, visit https://music.utoronto.ca/concerts-events.php.

David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster based in Toronto.

Leave it to Tafelmusik to make a phrase like ‘futuristic baroque’ actually make sense.

On Thursday, February 2 at Longboat Hall (in the Great Hall), Tafelmusik presented the latest instalment of Haus Musik, its series dedicated to combining electronic and baroque music in alternate venues around the city. The premise is to turn the early music that Tafelmusik plays into the type of party it always was in its time: these shows are standing-room only, dispensing with the traditional ‘stage-and-seats’ configuration in favour of having the musicians (for the most part) on the ground with the audience; there are always opening or closing sets from a local electronic artist; and there’s always a bar.

Thursday was my second time at Haus Musik; it was the series’ third show overall. This concert featured four members of Tafelmusik (Julia Wedman and Cristina Zacharias, violins; Christina Mahler, violoncello; Charlotte Nediger, harpsichord) playing French and English music from before 1750, alongside modular electronic musician ACOTE and dancer/choreographer Mary-Dora Bloch-Hansen, who played the part of an alien girl named Leeka with an affinity, strangely, for spoons. The visioning and staging for the show came as always from Amanda Smith, of FAWN Chamber Creative.

After an hour-long opening set by ACOTE, violinist Julia Wedman made the official introduction. Notably – and thankfully – absent were the typically-classical instructions to turn off cell phones and applaud during the proper times (“no flash photography please: it blinds us and then we play wrong notes” was all she said, understandably, on that front). After that, the music was more-or-less continuous, with a set list cleverly placed at the bar for those early music fans who wanted to know the titles and specifics of the works.

It was unapologetically a meeting of worlds. Tafelmusik’s baroque set, along with occasional electronic interludes by ACOTE, was performed in dialogue with Leeka’s dancing, which had a theatricality and musicality of its own. Both Leeka’s choreography and ACOTE’s music seemed baroque-inspired, but only in the loosest of ways – with Leeka incorporating motions into her contemporary choreography that felt somehow related to baroque dance, and ACOTE (according to Wedman) using samples from recordings of early music in his work. The drama of Leeka’s own story, who apart from occasional body percussion was silent throughout, was particularly striking; at times she included (tentative) audience participation, and at one point poured salt on the ground to draw a giant spoon (a move that, at least for those of the generation that grew up watching Neil Buchanan’s Art Attack, felt strangely nostalgic). It was all vague enough to not reduce the music to a mere accompanimental role, but clear enough for the audience to follow along.

With an economy of means, the Haus Musik team managed to put on a show that felt well-considered, cool, and distinctly classical, without any of the clichés that normally go along with classical concerts. I didn’t feel stressed about getting there on time; I didn’t feel weird standing at the bar, talking with friends, or pulling out my phone. Above all, it felt like a good party, something it can be easy to forget that classical music can be.

Between the late-night feel of Longboat Hall, the staging of the show, and the music performed, baroque music felt shiny and new last night, reflected in a fresh and fearless light.

Haus Musik will continue intermittently this year alongside Tafelmusik’s mainstage series at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre. The next Haus Musik show is scheduled for April; for details and updates, stay posted on their website (www.tafelmusik.org) and here at www.thewholenote.com.

Sara Constant is a Toronto-based flutist and musicologist, and is digital media editor at The WholeNote. She can be contacted at editorial@thewholenote.com.

The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir displayed the most unusual strength and control, in a commanding performance February 2 at St. Paul’s Basilica under conductor Kaspars Putniņš. As part of the Soundstreams mainstage series, this marks the fifth time the choir has made an appearance in Toronto. Soundstreams continues to provide top-tier musical experiences and a grand stage for new Canadian works.

The choice of St. Paul’s Basilica was a clever one. For churches in the city, it is one of the most beautiful. In the Roman Catholic canon, only the Pope may bestow the name of ‘basilica’ upon a church. This is done in recognition of an exceptional diocese, beautiful aesthetics, and historical significance. St. Paul’s is resonant and its ceiling cradles sound effortlessly. The choir was magnificent in this queen of Toronto churches.

The choir provided an interesting mix of works by 20th-century Russian Romantics, with Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (from 1915) and Schnittke’s Three Sacred Hymns (written in 1984 but very much in the same style). Naturally, the last chunk of the concert was devoted to the esteemed Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

The other two key performances at the concert were both world premieres of commissioned works. The first was Three Prayers from the Holy Rosary, written by Riho Esko Maimets, a young Canadian-Estonian composer. Prior to the performance, Maimets explained that he did much searching for the text he wanted to use for this piece. “I spent a lot of time going through classical Estonian poetry...Lawrence [Cherney, Soundstreams artistic director] took me to his synagogue…[and] I spoke with priests from the Russian Orthodox Cathedral,” he said. He eventually settled on the prayers associated with the Holy Rosary of the Roman Catholic tradition.

Maimets’ piece begins so incredibly slow. Only an extremely high calibre choir can deliver an opening with long crescendos and decrescendos set over very few words. The swells demanded over such extended periods of time require a strong, controlled command of one’s voice, and an even more masterful ability to do so with and within an ensemble. The choir proved itself incredibly capable with this feat of endurance.

The second premiere was only a snippet, the last movement of Omar Daniel’s Sõduri Ema. Daniel was certain he wanted to write the piece in Estonian. “[It is] a rare and beautiful language,” he said, continuing that he knew that this concert “had a theme of faith.” To this theme, he added the discovery of Marie Under, “a very famous poet” in Estonia. He chose this particular poem because it speaks of “faith and sacrifice, of something greater than oneself” in the story of a mother seeing her son off to war. The work includes a solo bass and soprano, and is quite bare, stripped and exposed. The piece ultimately leaves me feeling unsettled and gently disturbed. We will have to wait to see a performance of it in full.  

There are many things that this choir does exceptionally well, even beyond their strong execution of compositions. It is truly their dynamic control – an even, measured, manually driven, muscle-infused control of the sound – that stands out the most. At their quietest, their loudest and everything in between, the balance and blend is exceptional. Moreover, their voices match vibrato and overtones in an enviable way. And the added treat is the dark vowels of their vocal production. Locally trained musicians do not have that natural darkness and shape to their sound. The brassy shortness of the Toronto accent is literally 6600km away from the warm darkness of the Estonians. This comes through especially warmly with Arvo Pärt’s Dopo La Vittoria, written in Italian.

This year marks a rather special occasion for both Canada and Estonia. Canadians are celebrating 150 years since Confederation in 1867, while Estonians are beginning the first of three years of celebration for the 100th year since they declared independence. The occasion was met at Thursday’s concert with the anthems of both countries, a church-filled Happy Birthday, and two cakes, one for each country.

Soundstreams presented the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir at 8pm on Thursday, February 2, 2017, at St. Paul’s Basilica in Toronto.

Follow Brian on Twitter @bfchang. Send info/media/tips to choralscene@thewholenote.com.

Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947), the world-famous Italian composer, was welcomed to Toronto in a concert at a well-filled Walter Hall on the evening of Sunday, January 29. Sciarrino is the Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitor in Composition at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, during this year's U of T New Music Festival.

At this, the opening concert of the festival, two of Sciarrino's works were performed: his 1981 Canto degli specchi for soprano and piano and his String Quartet No. 7 from 1999. I asked Sciarrino about the text in Canto degli specchi ("Song of the Mirrors"), by French surrealist Louis Aragon. His reply was brief. “It's just a dream,” he said. And in fact the performance by soprano Stacie Dunlop and pianist Cecilia Lee was entirely dreamlike, the slow, soft, sinewy melody weaving in and out of the stream of frenetic notes from the piano. It was spellbinding.

His String Quartet No. 7 was written as the test piece for the 2000 Borciani International String Quartet competition in Italy. Sciarrino wrote that his intention was “to avoid all appearance of virtuosity” with this work and “for each performer to achieve something unique.”  The single-movement work was performed by the Cecilia String Quartet, and in fact, each of the four players were given moments to shape the music as individual musicians. These moments revealed very sensitive and expressive playing by each of the quartet members. As is true to the Cecilia's established aesthetic, unity of sound was perhaps the higher goal of the performance. The quartet was beautifully played, with violinist Catherine Cosbey filling in for new mother Min-Jeong Koh. Sciarrino seemed very pleased with the result!

The overarching focus of the concert was on the Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music, awarded this year to composer Sophie Dupuis. Dupuis was present to accept the 15th annual Karen Kieser Prize – which is awarded to a U of T Faculty of Music graduate student in composition whose work is judged by a jury as especially promising – and to hear the work performed.

Dupuis introduced her winning work, Perceptions de La Fontaine, based on three texts from Les Fables de La Fontaine, a collection of short tales written from 1668 to 1694 by French author Jean de La Fontaine. “These tales were meant to teach good moral values to children,” she said. “They feature whimsical characters, often animals or gods from Greek mythology. The three tales selected for this piece have to do with perception, more specifically, how one’s own perception of events, things or people might not reflect the truth.” The performance of Les Fables de La Fontaine featured soprano Stacie Dunlop, for whom the piece was written, together with flutist Kaili Maimets, oboist Chieh-Ying Lu, clarinetist Cecilia Tang, and percussionist Carol Wang, all conducted by Gary Kulesha. Dupuis' work is full of vivid personality in the vocal part, as the soloist portrays the many fanciful characters described in La Fontaine's texts. And the instrumental scoring complements the voice with many delightful touches of musical commentary, especially from the flute and percussion.

Former Kieser Prize laureate Kevin Lau also made a brief presentation, screening highlights of his recent collaboration with National Ballet of Canada Choreographic Associate Guillaume Côté in their full-length ballet, Le Petit Prince. Lau spoke candidly, and revealed many details of the creative process in the course of the collaboration. It demonstrated that Kieser Prize winners can, and do, progress to major artistic achievements.

The concert also featured the world premiere of Chasing Beauty, a string quartet by U of T Faculty of Music graduate student Rebekah Cummings. Her work won the University of Toronto 2016/17 String Quartet Competition and was performed by the Cecilia String Quartet. Cummings' Chasing Beauty is a brilliant first string quartet, beautifully fashioned to exploit the medium's potential to both blend and contrast. In her program note, Cummings described “harmonic and rhythmic fragmentation [as] the predominant feature of the piece.” In the work's progression from a playful Bulgarian dance to a lovely lyrical conclusion, the throughline of the work seemed assured and confident. The Cecilia launched this new Canadian string quartet with a polished and enthusiastic performance.

This year's U of T New Music Festival opened with a strong, enthusiastically received program. For information about the concerts to come, see https://music.utoronto.ca/concerts-events.php.

David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster based in Toronto.