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Volume 26 Issue 5 - February 2021

  • Text
  • Toronto
  • Recordings
  • Musicians
  • Pianist
  • Composer
  • Quartet
  • Musical
  • Jazz
  • Recording
  • February
So, How Much Ground WOULD a ground hog hog? community arts and the Dominion Foundries end run; the vagaries of the concert hall livestreaming ban; hymns to freedom; postsecondary auditions do the COVID shuffle; and reflections on some of the ways the music somehow keeps on being made - PLUS 81 (count them!) recordings we've been listening to. Also a page 2 ask of you. Available in flipthrough format here and in print February 10.

kind. This whirlwind of

kind. This whirlwind of activity is everpresent throughout the composer’s latest release titled An Atlas of Time – a disc with recent orchestral and chamber compositions. The title track, performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, is modernist excitement at its finest. Set in five character pieces, this is the gem of the disc and provides compelling landscapes and novel environments for the ear. Another exemplary selection of the release is the solo violin work Unbreathable Colours, performed by Miranda Cuckson. This piece is Wang’s artistic response to the unrelenting smog encountered on a recent visit to China – her native land. The hesitant, yet sharp, plucks and swells in this work truly provoke a suffocating listening experience – one that brilliantly paints a simultaneously eerie and beautiful musical haze. Each piece on this release is an example of why Wang is one of the most original voices in contemporary classical composition, and each track unfolds with some of the most organic and strikingly enjoyable pacing in recent memory – I’ll be listening many more times! Adam Scime Scott Lee – Through the Mangrove Tunnels JACK Quartet; Steven Beck; Russell Lacy Panoramic Recordings PAN20 (newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue) ! I was lucky to receive this album during the latest COVID-19 lockdown, as it provided a welcome escape from my own four walls. This album is great storytelling, an audio film of tales of imaginative discoveries by the composer growing up wandering the swamps and bayous of Florida. Drawn from Lee’s memories of exploring the Weedon Island nature preserve as a youth, from one movement to the next I was captivated. From the opening track, Through the Mangrove Tunnels, we are transported to a small craft, peeking around corners through overgrown channels, encountering the unexpected. This album is an expertly played audio escapade featuring pianist Steven Beck, drummer Russell Lacy and the JACK Quartet. Part historical narrative, and part personal reflection, Lee manages to engage the listener with his blend of contemporary classical and extended jazz techniques, travelling seamlessly between tonalities and polyrhythmic styles without a single extraneous or gratuitous beat. Each track is expertly crafted to tell a tale of mystery: from shootouts, strange figures, ceremonial Native American gatherings, bootlegging, plane crashes and marvellous natural phenomena, the accompanying stories are fantasmic sketches perfectly enhancing each gorgeous composition almost to the scale of Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals. The tracks Playthings of Desire and The Ballad of Willie Cole are both full compositions almost on their own, but presented here they remind us that although the album provides some entertaining and humorous listening, these are compositions of great depth. The final track, Floating Away, takes us home in a way that evokes the end of a long and mysterious voyage. Be sure to get a hard copy or a download of the booklet if possible, and follow along with the stories, as this is an album that deserves to be experienced as we used to, when a composer shared a journey with us, and we stayed in one place to listen and receive it in full. Perfect lockdown listening. Cheryl Ockrant lanterne Richard Carrick New Focus Recordings FCR273 (newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue) ! American Richard Carrick’s phenomenal artistic abilities, including composer, pianist, artistic director and educator, are showcased in his sparsely orchestrated compositions. Title track laterne, for solo bass flute, performed by Margaret Lancaster, is an exciting listen, with breath and voice vocalizations, booming sounds, repeated rhythms and held notes driving the intense climax and the final faster fade with closing yelp. Carrick joins her on piano in une, a short and sweet roughly one-minute musical delight! Carrick performs with bass clarinettist Vasko Dukovski in the Korean vocal-music-influenced Sarang Ga. A quiet start leads to abrupt low piano chords and wide-ranging bass clarinet accents, melodies with dramatic squeaks, and a very modern tonality “echo” ending. Three works draw on the traditional Korean Gugak music. Highlight is the unique ensemble colours that surface in sandstone(s), as Western (New York New Music Ensemble) and Korean traditional instruments (Musicians of the Gugak Contemporary Orchestra) perform together. The four-movement Space:Time – String Quartet # 2, performed by the Mivos Quartet, is musical space travel. Movement I, Claustrophobia, recreates spaceship solitude, with high-pitched, almost painful tight dissonances, accents at the end of ascending lines and tension-breaking brief use of lower lines. Low pulling down grounding tones and floating high counterpoint drive the storytelling in movement II, Gravity. Four additional works and other great performers complete this Carrick collection of beautiful intimate sounds to appreciate even in pandemic isolation! Tiina Kiik The Bells Bow Down – Chamber Music of Ilari Kaila Adrienne Kim; Isabel Gleicher; Aizuri Quartet Innova Recordings innova 036 (innova.mu) ! This wellconceived and wellcrafted recording is a magnificent presentation of works by Finnish- American contemporary classical and theatrical composer, Ilari Kaila. Produced by Kaila and Silas Brown, the album features his noted single-movement piano quartet, The Bells Bow Down (Kellojen kumarrus) In Memorium Hanna Sarvala, the five-movement Taonta and four other works. The interpreters of this challenging music are the internationally regarded, multiple awardwinning Aizuri Quartet, which includes Ariana Kim and Miho Saegusa, violins; Ayane Kozasa, viola; and Karen Ouzounian, cello. Also joining the stellar cast are the luminous pianist, Adrienne Kim; and flutist, Isabel Gleicher. The title track is constructed out of noncorporeal gossamer light and sonorous strings, which wrap themselves lovingly around the heart of the listener. The grief, pain and loss contained in this work are palpable. Pianist Kim enters with elemental, percussive chords, bringing to mind tolling church bells, as she wends her way through the turgid waters of raw emotion. The majesty of this composition demands complete commitment, bravery and technical skill from all of the artists involved, which it receives in spades. The nearly unbearable beauty of Hum and Drum’s Philip Glass-like repetitive themes easily floats the listener into a trance-like state and Wisteria seems to speak to loneliness and isolation, and perhaps the long winter of the Norse soul. Kaila’s Taonta is also a triumph for the pianist, and one cannot imagine a truer manifestation of the composer’s intent. A modern masterpiece. Lesley Mitchell-Clarke Tavener – No Longer Mourn for Me Steven Isserlis; Philharmonia Orchestra; Omer Meir Wellber Hyperion CDA68246 (hyperion-records. co.uk/find.asp?f=CDA68246) ! Some albums follow a linear and straightforward path through their conception, recording and release, while others take many years of behindthe-scenes planning and work before finally reaching a listening audience. Tavener: No 44 | February 2021 thewholenote.com

longer mourn for me falls into this latter category, starting its gestation as cellist Steven Isserlis’ own passion project in 2013, thrown into disarray by Tavener’s death later that year and, after a long and labyrinthine journey, eventually unveiled seven years later, in October 2020. As is the case with much of Tavener’s output, many of the works on this disc defy strict categorization, a reflection of the composer’s numerous and eclectic influences including the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Cathedral tradition, Catholicism, Islam, Tolstoy and Shakespeare. The two principal tracks, The death of Ivan Ilyich and Mahámátar, are fascinating and stunningly beautiful cross-cultural experiences: in Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy’s text (sung in English by bass Matthew Rose) draws on Tavener’s influences to form a uniquely dramatic work resembling a one-act opera; Mahámátar features Sufi singer Abi Sampa, along with Isserlis and the Trinity Boys Choir, in a magnificent exploration of East-meets-West through Tavener’s eyes and ears. The remaining works on No longer mourn for me are, although smaller in scale and performing forces, no less impressive, either from a compositional or interpretive perspective. Of particular interest are the two arrangements for eight-cello ensemble: Shakespeare’s Sonnet LXXI, No longer mourn for me; and the Preces and Responses, a sublime setting of the prayers traditionally sung at the Anglican service of Evensong, originally composed for choir. John Tavener’s lengthy and highly regarded career resulted in an extraordinary range of material, as varied as the composer’s influences and inspirations. Although only a portion of his late works is represented on No longer mourn for me, their depth and breadth serve both as an introduction for those previously unfamiliar with Tavener, as well as a point of exploration and discovery for those seeking to delve deeper into this great composer’s eclectic and evocative style. Matthew Whitfield Nature Fie Schouten SOL Classics SOL010 (fieschouten.nl/en/discografie/) ! Fie Schouten makes the bass clarinet ring with a gorgeous sound. Nature is a collection of contemporary pieces that refer to our environment. They’re cleverly ordered, drawing attention first to the earth and sea, to the sky, and finally to the moon and stars. Jonathan Harvey’s Cirrus Light is juxtaposed with Abîme des oiseaux, from Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Harvey’s piece, which is played on soprano clarinet, was written in the final year of the composer’s life, and sounds almost like an homage to the Messiaen. Schouten elects to present the Messiaen on basset horn, bringing more Abyss and less Bird to the performance. This is not all a bad thing: at a perfect fourth below the original pitch, desolation is powerfully rendered by the lower voice. Some of the sustained crescendi are marred by unintended timbre alterations, and I think the bird calls are more brilliant on the soprano instrument. Although it’s a fine rendering, on balance, I prefer the original. Oi Kuu, by Kaija Saariaho, is a duo for bass clarinet and cello that references the moon. It’s beautiful. George Aperghis’ Façade-Trio is also stunning. Written for two bass clarinets and percussion, it sounds like a dialogue of mad twins: two enraged geese, perhaps, arguing by the abyss. The extremely recent (August 2020) Mankind ReMix by Michael Finnissy is another solo bass clarinet piece, right in Schouten’s wheelhouse: singing tone and powerful expression. Max Christie Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan Ensemble for These Times E4TT (e4tt.org/discography.html) ! Paul Celan was one of the 20th century’s most profound poets. To listen to this breathtaking recording of his poetry is to be drawn to its haunting beauty as if by gossamer strings. Elliptical, rhythmically spellbinding, each word obdurate and as inward as a geode, Celan’s poems embody a conviction that the truth of what has been broken and torn must be told with a jagged grace. And few – if any – recordings of his work tell their truth better than Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan by Ensemble for These Times. This recording features almost an hour of poetry echoing with heart-aching emotion delivered in a kind of near-spiritual quietude. A unique atmosphere is created by the disc’s opening track: Libby Larsen’s 4½: A Piano Suite brought to eloquent life by pianist Xin Zhao. Then follows Die eichne Tür, the cycle of Celan poems set to music by David Garner. The Ensemble’s performance is both poised and haunting, and is raised to a rarefied realm by lustrous and soaring, songful recitatives executed by the inimitable Nanette McGuinness, More of the transcendent beauty of Celan’s work unfolds in Jared Redmond’s Nachtlang before we are treated to the extraordinary recitation of another celebrated poet, Czeslaw Milosz’s A Song on the End of the World by Milosz’s son Anthony, followed by the disc’s dénouement: a rapturous performance of Milosz’s poem which unfolds with poise and sensual fluidity from the lips of the magnificent McGuinness. Raul da Gama Albores Dino Saluzzi ECM New Series ECM 2638 (ecmrecords.com/shop) ! Albores – meaning “daybreak” – is Argentinian bandoneonist/ composer Dino Saluzzi’s first solo album in decades. Born in 1935, Saluzzi is renowned for his performances with his family band and orchestra, other ensembles and orchestras, and work with many jazz musicians such as Charlie Haden and Gato Barbieri. Here Saluzzi plays nine of his compositions on solo bandoneon, an accordion-like instrument popular in Argentinian folk music and tangos. Even though Saluzzi uses tango references, he also develops other styles in this emotional, storytelling music chronicling his life and musical adventures. The opening track, Adiós Maestro Kancheli, is a reflective, mournful musical tribute to his late friend Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, highlighted by a high-pitched melody against a lower chordal accompaniment, reminiscent of a two-person conversation. Superb controlled bellows during held notes and volume changes makes the slow sparse Ausencias equally moving. Don Caye – Variaciones sobre obra de Cayetano Saluzzi pays homage to Saluzzi’s bandoneonist father, who taught him about music from a young age, in a more traditional joyous tango with steady rhythms, arpeggiated melodies and a short, slightly dissonate slower section. Según me cuenta la vida – Milonga briefly alludes to Piazzolla-flavoured tango nuevo yet Saluzzi’s shorter contrasting melodies, dissonances and repeated notes make this contemporary milonga more his own. Throughout, Saluzzi performs on bandoneon with detailed personal musicality, conviction, dedication and thorough technical understanding. His compositional reflections awaken a lifetime of countless feelings from happiness to grief in his own personal sound. Tiina Kiik thewholenote.com February 2021 | 45

Volumes 26-29 (2020- )

Volumes 21-25 (2015-2020)

Volumes 16-20 (2010-2015)

Volumes 11-15 (2004-2010)

Volumes 6 - 10 (2000 - 2006)

Volumes 1-5 (1994-2000)