Volume 29 Issue 1 | September 2023

song Snowflakes (poem by Longfellow)
and Leslie Uyeda’s Plato’s Angel, four songs
set to what Uyeda calls “some of the most
introspective” poems by Lorna Crozier but,
writes Uyeda, “I do not mean them to be
depressing!” (They’re not.) For real depression,
listen to Jeffrey Ryan’s Everything
Already Lost, commissioned by Duncan and
Switzer. Ryan’s sombre music matches the
gloomy moods of four poems by Jan Zwicky,
with repeated references to “night” and
“darkness.”
Stephen Chatman’s very pretty Something
like that, one of a set of Eight Love Songs
written for Duncan, injects some welcome,
warm sunshine into this CD’s ever-looming
storm clouds. Is B.C. weather always like this?
Michael Schulman
CLASSICAL AND BEYOND
Basta parlane!
Les Barocudas
ATMA ACD2 2824 (atmaclassique.com/en)
! The names and
compositions of
17th-century Italian
composers Dario
Castello, Giovanni
Legrenzi, Giovanni
Battista Grillo,
Tarquinio Merula,
Biagio Marini and
Francesco Rognini
Taeggio may be unfamiliar, yet their music,
spiritedly performed by the Montreal-based
Les Barocudas, provides the most purely
entertaining CD of Baroque works I’ve
heard in years.
These composers didn’t always specify the
exact instrumentation to be employed in their
pieces, and all may not have had the recorder
in mind, but the indisputable star of this CD
is recorder virtuoso Vincent Lauzer, whose
brightly coloured, near-non-stop cheerful
chirpings invigorate most of the action. He’s
joined by Marie Nadeau-Tremblay (Baroque
violin), Tristan Best (viola da gamba), Antoine
Malette-Chénier (Baroque harp), Hank Knox
(harpsichord), Nathan Mondry (organ) and
Matthias Soly-Letarte (percussion).
The CD begins and ends with Sonatas by
Castello (a third is included in the disc), each
about seven minutes long, featuring alternating
brief passages of rapid sprightliness
and measured solemnity. At just over ten
minutes, the CD’s longest selection is Marini’s
plaintive Sonata Quarta, in which Nadeau-
Tremblay is accompanied by Malette-Chénier
and Mordry. (It’s the only piece where
Lauzer’s recorder is absent.)
Among the other seven pieces, each lasting
three or four minutes, three especially stand
out: Marini’s Trio Sonata (variations on the
French folk tune La Monica) and Merula’s
Canzon No.19 “La Pasterla,” both stately
dances; Rognini-Taeggio’s Diminutions after
Palestrina’s “Vestiva i colli” is a churchly
processional, rendered somewhat irreverent
by Lauzer’s flamboyantly festive recorder!
Michael Schulman
James Oswald – Airs for the Seasons
Rezonance Baroque Ensemble
Leaf Music LM266 (leaf-music.ca)
! As with many
18th-century
Scottish composers,
much of James
Oswald’s music
can be heard as art
music or as traditional.
On this
recording of selections
from his Airs for the Seasons, a set of 48
chamber suites named for seasonal flowers,
Rezonance Baroque Ensemble plays within
the stylistic expectations of Baroque music
but brings a sparkling playfulness suggesting
Oswald’s connection to the traditional music
and dance of his day.
The dynamic Oswald was composer to
King George III, but previously a cellist and
dancing master and then publisher of the
12-volume Caledonian Pocket Companion.
It’s from this collection of “Scotch” airs that
many traditional musicians know him.
Oswald is mistakenly given credit for some
of the tunes in his Caledonian, but when you
hear his own music you can understand why.
Having played and sung with violinist and
fiddler David Greenberg in his 1990s project
Puirt a Baroque, which pushed the genre
boundaries of this repertoire, I recognize the
movements in his Seasons which might be
based on or inspired by traditional tunes. For
example, Cowslip: III would make a fine reel
if you added a bit more swing and stress on
the backbeats; and with some swagger, Daisy:
II could be a square dance jig.
This repertoire is rich with possibilities for
colour and mood changes, and Rezonance
explores these deftly with a lovely sense of
ensemble and some beautiful expressiveness.
The recording has a lot of reverb but it
complements the timbres of their historical
instruments.
Stephanie Conn
Calcutta 1789 – À la croisée de l’Europe et
de l’Inde
Notturna; Christopher Palameta
ATMA ACD2 2831 (atmaclassique.com/en)
! If colonialism
is the conquest
and control of
other people’s land
and goods, music
articulates the
disparities it creates
between races,
classes and individuals.
As current
scholars, curators and musicians are working
to decolonize Western art music’s academies
and organizations, this revisiting of
18th-century works inspired by music from
India, or performed there, is most timely
and welcome.
“Hindustani airs” were popular with
What we're listening to this month:
thewholenote.com/listening
Za Klavir: For the Piano
Nina Platiša
The Za Klavir: For the Piano digital
album, silk-screened posters and
e-book are available for purchase
through Nina Platiša's website.
Recesses
Lee Weisert
Composer Lee Weisert’s second
album on New Focus follows his
2014 release, Wild Arc. Weisert is
heard on piano, guitar, percussion,
and electronics.
The Toronto Project
The Composers Collective Big
Band
What is the sound of a city?
Come explore the streets and
neighbourhoods of Toronto
through the eyes of its top jazz
composers!
Nowhere Girl
Nicky Schrire
Blurring the lines between jazz,
folk and singer-songwriter genres,
Nicky Schrire’s “Nowhere Girl”
is a celebration of Canadian
collaboration
thewholenote.com September 2023 | 41