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Review – Franz Schubert: String Quintet – Lieder (Erato)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 September 2016 Art Song, CD and Book Reviews, Chamber Music, Romantic

His final work for strings, Schubert’s Quintet in C Major (1828) is unusual for its doubling of the cello voice rather than the viola, Mozart’s quintet model. With unmatched lyricism and finesse, Quatuor Ebène tackles this behemoth of Romantic chamber repertoire, which was only completed two months before the composer’s untimely death. Gautier Capuçon makes a fine fifth wheel, adding a dark intensity without disrupting the balance of the upper strings. This is perhaps the most evident in the exquisite second movement, Adagio, a nocturne that is so unusually slow for Schubert, and given a keenly sensitive treatment by Quatuor…

Review – Amazing Water: An Introduction to Classical Music (The Secret Mountain)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 September 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Education, Literature, Visual Arts

An ode to water, the source of all life, Amazing Water: An Introduction to Classical Music is an excellent educational tool for ages 8 to 88. As author Ana Gerhard aptly states in the introduction, “Music – the art of sound changing through time – seems to have special water-like qualities.” Beginning with the opening theme of Smetana’s “The Moldau” from Má vlast, the book courses through music history, featuring beloved cultural touchstones like Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet and Handel’s “Alla Hornpipe” from Water Music, lesser-known works such as Britten’s “On Sunday Morning” from Four Sea Interludes, and even more esoteric…

CD Review – Michael Finnissy: Gershwin arrangements for piano (White)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 11 July 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Mainstream Jazz, Piano, Popular Music, Scena Jazz

George Gershwin’s songs are so ubiquitous that it is hard to imagine an experience of his work untouched by adaptations, whether in film or in the concert hall. This set of 13 tunes was transcribed by English composer Michael Finnissy over the same number of years, between 1975 and 1988. Finnissy is perhaps best known for his transcriptions, from his English Country Tunes (1982–85) to his completion of Mozart’s Requiem (2013). Finnissy, who celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year, hailed Dirk Herten’s performance as “thoughtful, sensitive, [and] delicately-shaded,” while praising his refined touch. He continued, “I feel like a…

CD Review – The Claudia Quintet: Super Petite (Cuneiform Records)

By Weiyu Dang on 7 July 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Experimental Jazz, Scena Jazz

Named after a term used to describe a friend of the band, Super Petite from Cuneiform Records’ Claudia Quintet fuses dense, eclectic, and complex ideas into a ten-track CD with the length of a built-for-radio pop album. With compact organization, drummer-composer John Hollenbeck undertakes the challenge of building a worthy offering that can simultaneously attract shorter millennial attention spans and present a work of grand scale. Competing ideas of clutter and cohesion come to the fore with the opener “Nightbreak,” the title itself a portmanteau of the seminal Charlie Parker break on “A Night in Tunisia.” Immediately, the listener comes…

CD Review – Ives: Sonatas for Violin and Piano Nos. 1–4 (White)

By Kiersten van Vliet on 4 July 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary, Violin

Interest in American modernist Charles Ives, as these things often happen, spiked after his death. Even as the post factum father of American modernism for his use of experimental techniques as well as his quotation of American melodies from Protestant hymns to Stephen Foster, it is still difficult to find Ives on disc and in the concert halls. In fact, the only other full recording of his four violin sonatas (1906–1913) that springs to mind is Hilary Hahn’s 2012 release. The first sonata is easily the least accessible of the bunch, beginning with a cyclical creeping melody that refuses to…

CD Review: Stokowski Transcriptions

By Jeanne Hourez on 1 June 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Orchestral

Stokowski Transcriptions Bach, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Mussorgsky, Stokowski, Purcell, Boccherini Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, José Serebrier Naxos 2016. 8.578305. 1 hr 1 min 28 s. Stokowski’s arrangements need no introduction, such is their fame in the musical world. This renowned conductor orchestrated a number of canonical works, the most notable being the Toccata and Fugue in G minor by J.S. Bach, familiar to many of us from Disney’s Fantasia. Someone close to Stokowski was required to match the high calibre of his work. Not only is José Serebrier one of the most recorded conductors in the world, but he was an associate of…

CD Review: Scriabin Piano Music, Soyeon Kate Lee

By Jeanne Hourez on 1 June 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Piano

Scriabin: Piano Music Sonata Fantaisie, Impromptus, Nocturnes Soyeon Kate Lee Naxos 2016. 8.573527. 51 min 27 s. Soyeon Kate Lee returns with an atypical choice in her new CD. They are pieces by the young Alexander Scriabin, all equally varied and lovely. Scriabin left an impressive and eclectic body of piano works, some of which are baffling in their classicism. Take for example the Sonata-Fantasy in G-sharp minor, whose exotic chords announce the grand sonorousness which he loved, but which is still written in classical form. And how can one compare the Mazurka no. 2 op. 3 with the Sonata…

CD Review: James Ehnes & Andrew Armstrong

By Jeanne Hourez on 1 June 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Romantic, Violin

James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong Violin Sonatas: Debussy, Elgar, Respighi, Sibelius Onyx 2016. ONYX4159. 68 min 56 s. James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong deliver a rich, luminous CD with an original choice of works. In symbiosis from start to finish, they transport us to the different atmospheres of the pieces with refinement and poise. It was a judicious choice to combine these four composers and in particular these three sonatas, which are relatively unknown but no less interesting for that. The sonata by Debussy, one of his last works, displays his multiple colours and shadings as well as his delicate sensibility.…

Michael Formanek Kolossus Ensemble

Orchestras of our time: three views

By Marc Chénard on 1 April 2016 CD and Book Reviews, Mainstream Jazz, Scena Jazz

In the Swing Era, big bands reigned supreme, but in the post-World War II years, many would disband, succumbing to changing popular tastes. Some lamented their disappearance, equating their fate to that of dinosaurs, but in fact, they never completely vanished. Forced out of dance halls, jazz orchestras would find new homes in music schools introducing jazz study programs into their curricula. Nowadays a resurgence of interest in them can be seen by the increasing number of live performances and new recordings of big bands: here are three discs issued since the New Year. Michael Formanek Kolossus Ensemble Distance ECM…

Review: R Murray Schafer’s Apocalypsis

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 April 2016 Canadian Music, CD and Book Reviews, Contemporary

David Fallis, conductor; A Luminato Festival Production Analekta AN 2 8784-5. 1 hr 53 min 24 s. For its 10th Anniversary last June, Toronto’s Luminato Festival staged its most ambitious work to date, R. Murray Schafer’s Apocalypsis. Over 1000 performers from across Canada, both professional and amateur, united to realize this historic music-theatre work, which was performed and recorded in the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts. Due to the massive scale of the work, this is only the second time it was performed (the first was in London, Ontario in 1980), and the first time it had been recorded…

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