Volume 27 Issue 4 - February 2022

Flute in the Wild
Jaye Marsh; Darren Hicks; Heidi Elise
Bearcroft; Andrew Morris; John Rice;
Christina Marie Faye; Richard Herriott
Centrediscs CMCCD 28921
(cmccanada.org/product-category/
recordings/centrediscs)
! A solo flute in
lofty, avian dialogue
with recorded
loon calls: this
CD’s opener, Diane
Berry’s five-minute
Calling (2013),
inspired Ontariobased
flutist
Jaye Marsh to ask three friends “to express
their experience of our shared landscapes”
for her debut disc, producing four works
completed in 2021.
Two are by the well-established Elizabeth
Raum. In her 16-minute Northern Lights,
flute, harp (Heidi Elise Bearcroft) and percussion
(Andrew Morris) generate phosphorescent
sonorities mirroring the aurora’s
ephemeral, glittering pulsations before fading
into afterimages. Bassoonist Darren Hicks
joins Marsh and Bearcroft in the sweetly
nostalgic, 17-minute Bridal Veil Falls, five
movements illuminating sonic snapshots
from Raum’s childhood visit to Manitoulin
Island: A Walk along the Path, Morning Rain,
Mist over the Falls, Porcupines (delightfully
gawky music!) and Kagawong River.
Narrator John Rice, a Wasauksing First
Nation elder, tells of traditional harvests,
songs and dances in Richard Mascall’s fivemovement,
23-minute Niibin (Summer) but
the music, for flute and piano (Christina
Marie Faye) seems bland and understated;
I miss the character and energy which, by
contrast, make Mascall's orchestral Manitoulin
so powerfully stirring.
Virtuoso pianist Richard Herriott accompanies
Marsh’s alto flute in his fiveminute
Twilight Song of Trinity Bay that
“reveals,” writes Herriott, “a lonely church…
at fog-ridden twilight.” The flute’s drifting,
searching melodies, underlined by the
piano’s bell-like tolling and rippling arpeggios,
immediately transported me to a
Newfoundland coastline, remote and
shrouded.
Kudos to fine flutist Jaye Marsh for this
(mostly) enchanting CD!
Michael Schulman
Lost and Found
Blackwood
Leaf Music SCCD n006 (leaf-music.ca)
! The last piece
on Lost and Found
is titled Welcome,
Peter-Anthony
Togni’s attractive
slow jazz number.
But here, I’ll use
that title to segue
into comments: this
disc of compositions by Togni and Jeff Reilly
is indeed welcome; and as the debut release
of the Blackwood Duo –Reilly, bass clarinet
and Togni, piano – it is most welcome, one
of the best things I heard in 2021. Ave Verum
by Togni and Reilly is remarkable for the bass
clarinetist’s rich sound in the low register,
followed by wide registral leaps and dives,
and soft non-vibrato tones fading into overt
key clicks. Togni’s evocative piano joins the
lower instrument with a chant passage in
the male voice register. Recorded effectively
at the reverberant Trinity St.-Stephen’s
church in Amherst, Nova Scotia by engineer
Rod Sneddon, it gives me an impression of
unmeasured vastness.
In Reilly’s much different title track, Lost
and Found, his clarinet opens expressively,
taking off with virtuosic runs, trills, sharp
attacks and crescendos or diminuendos while
the piano repeats chords suggestive of jazz.
His humorous self-describing Suddenly,
Snow begins with both instruments in a wild
staccato passage, after which the piano’s
running bass and comping coincide with
an extremely agile bass clarinet; this piece
reminds me that brevity is a feature in the
pacing and texturing of this disc’s eight
works. In contrast, Reilly’s To Dream of
Silence opens with long tones in both instruments,
including exquisitely controlled pianissimos.
Bravo!
Roger Knox
Port of Call: Curaçao
Louise Bessette
Analekta AN 2 9845 (analekta.com/en)
! Acclaimed
Canadian pianist
Louise Bessette
launches her admirable
new recording
series of solo piano
works, A Piano
Around the World.
Here, in Port of
Call: Curaçao, she is the first to record these
22 pieces from Antillean Dances composed
by Curaçao composer/pianist Wim Statius
Muller (1930-2019), nicknamed the Chopin
of Curaçao. After studies at Juilliard and
teaching at Ohio State University, Muller
worked over 30 years at security and counterespionage,
returning to Curaçao and music
after his retirement!
Muller’s music resonates and combines
influences of Caribbean folk music and
Chopin, whose music was introduced to
Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles in the
19th century. Opening track Tumba di Johan
Op.2 No.1 is a mix of classical and popular as
Bessette’s controlled playing with rubato, lefthand
rhythms and right-hand melodies create
a dance feeling. Piet Maal –Valse Op.2 No.13
is a more Chopin-like waltz performed with
melodic subtle colour shifts, clear phrasing
and balance between the hands, as is Muller’s
renowned romantic Nostalgia – Valse Op.2
No.22. Bessette plays the more dance-along
South American sounds with perfection, like
in Kalin-Tumba Op.2 No.19, reminiscent of
Piazzolla, and faster modern Chuchubi – À la
rumba Op.4 No.5.
Bessette must be commended for taking
on such a complex illustrious solo project.
Her world-class virtuosic playing and understanding
of classical and folk styles, clear
production values and order of tracks bring
uplifting sonorities and lasting vitality to
Muller’s wide-ranging piano works.
Tiina Kiik
Vintage Americana
Christina Petrowska Quilico
Navona Records nv6384
(navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6384)
! The towering
Canadian piano
virtuoso Christina
Petrowska Quilico
performs six
works on her latest
release, Vintage
Americana. This
absorbing display
of musicianship
leaves no doubt that she can interpret works
from any compositional aesthetic with
world-class execution. Lowell Liebermann’s
Apparitions is an anguished work with abundant
opportunity for expressive interpretation
and Quilico brings a very personal touch
to phrasing the work. The four Fantasy Pieces
by David Del Tredici highlight her range on
the instrument. The Turtle and the Crane
composed by Frederic Rzewski is a whirling
flurry of repeated notes and rising harmonic
pillars that are continuously interrupted by
tip-toeing islands of contrasting moods that
seem to be menacingly at odds with the more
mechanical material.
In a work by the only Canadian on the
disc, American ex-pat David Jaeger delivers a
substantial tone poem of considerable expression
and artistic depth. Utilizing electronics
in the work, Jaeger produces highly compelling
and dramatic atmospheres, drawing the
listener into a dark sonic landscape. Titled
Quivi Sospiri (taken from the third canto of
Dante’s Inferno), Jaeger depicts a shadowy
journey through a series of remarkably cogent
moments of piano wizardry above deep and
enigmatic electronic ambiences.
46 | February 2022 thewholenote.com