Volume 29 Issue 3 | December 2023 & January 2024
Bunch of "Back to Fronts" in this issue: Darkness in the light, rather than the usual other way round; the sober front of the calendar year comes to the fore once the holiday season spins its course; new contenders for "old favourite" status in the holiday musics category; Lara St. John brings she/her/hers into the 21C musical discussion; and more.
Bunch of "Back to Fronts" in this issue: Darkness in the light, rather than the usual other way round; the sober front of the calendar year comes to the fore once the holiday season spins its course; new contenders for "old favourite" status in the holiday musics category; Lara St. John brings she/her/hers into the 21C musical discussion; and more.
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Live in Toronto<br />
Spindle Ensemble; Evergreen Club<br />
Gamelan Ensemble<br />
Hidden Notes (spindleensemble.bandcamp.<br />
com/album/live-in-toronto)<br />
! Live in Toronto,<br />
the 2022 collaboration<br />
between<br />
the seven-musician<br />
Toronto group<br />
Evergreen Club<br />
Contemporary<br />
Gamelan and<br />
the UK Spindle<br />
Ensemble (violin, cello, piano, marimba), is<br />
nothing short of captivating.<br />
Spindle pianist Daniel Inzani’s composition<br />
Lucid Living firmly establishes ECCG’s<br />
degung gamelan voice, amplified by Spindle’s<br />
tight harmonies. Evoking monochrome hues<br />
of early morning light, the musical palette<br />
is enhanced with the addition of Spindle’s<br />
marimba and piano before opening into<br />
full daylight. Inzani’s music took me on an<br />
impressionistic Joycean journey.<br />
Orpheus by Spindle’s Harriet Riley begins<br />
as an homage to Stravinsky’s ballet of the<br />
same name. Its Western roots however soon<br />
give way to ECCG’s Southeast Asian tones,<br />
reminding me of American composer Lou<br />
Harrison’s gamelan-centric approach in some<br />
of his works. Riley found exquisite ways to<br />
blend the 11 instruments at her disposal: the<br />
strings (violin and cello) overlap ECCG’s wind<br />
(suling, a ring flute) making for an enchanting<br />
sonic exchange.<br />
ECCG suling soloist Andrew Timar’s<br />
composition Open Fifths: Gardens takes us to<br />
the EP’s summit, a work featuring complexity<br />
of a kind I associate with the best modal<br />
jazz improvisation. The performers play off<br />
one another with a sensitivity that finds<br />
the fruitful common ground between the<br />
musical worlds the two ensembles inhabit.<br />
When Timar’s low-sounding suling gambuh<br />
invites the cello into the conversation we<br />
witness an unanticipated aural blending and<br />
the unfolding sound palette celebrates all the<br />
voices present.<br />
My only question lies in Open Fifths’<br />
ending. The suspended silence before the last<br />
note – reminiscent of a certain Chopin piano<br />
Prelude in E Minor – caught me off guard.<br />
Open Fifths, like the rest of this EP, is filled<br />
with happy surprises.<br />
Edwin Gailits<br />
Composing Israel – The First Three<br />
Generations<br />
Various Artists<br />
Neuma 177 (neumarecords.org)<br />
! Ten compositions<br />
spanning six<br />
decades present an<br />
overview of “the<br />
first three generations”<br />
of Israeli<br />
composers, variously<br />
performed<br />
by 24 musicians<br />
including members of the Israel Philharmonic<br />
Orchestra and five different pianists.<br />
Toccata, Op.34, No.5 for piano (1943) is a<br />
wild, whirlwind dance by Paul Ben-Haim (né<br />
Paul Frankenburger, 1897-1984), a German<br />
refugee who helped found the “Eastern-<br />
Mediterranean School” of Israeli composition.<br />
German refugee Tzvi Avni (né Hermann<br />
Steinke, b.1927) studied with Ben-Haim and<br />
dedicated his Capriccio for piano (1955,<br />
rev.1975) to his mentor. Like Toccata, it<br />
embraces the volatile rhythms of Middle-<br />
Eastern music.<br />
Arabesque No.2 for flute and harp (1973)<br />
by Ben-Haim student Ami Maayani (1936-<br />
2019) mixes Arabic rhythms with glissandi<br />
suggesting quarter-tones in its exultation of<br />
exoticism. Bashrav for chamber orchestra<br />
(2004) by Betty Olivero (b.1954), based on<br />
classic Persian music, while clearly Middle-<br />
Eastern in mood and materials, is less<br />
“folkish,” filled with explosive bursts and<br />
sudden silences.<br />
I enjoyed all these much more than the<br />
non-Middle-Eastern-sounding piano pieces<br />
by Abel Ehrlich (1915-2003), Arie Shapira<br />
(1943-2015) and Ari Ben-Shabetai (b.1954)<br />
or the electronic collage of Bedouin children<br />
speaking by Tsippi Fleischer (b.1946), all<br />
dating from the 1980s.<br />
In the 19-minute Wire for soprano and<br />
chamber ensemble (1986) by Oded Zehavi<br />
(b.1961), Denise Lundine keens a Hebrew<br />
poem, her “voice crying in the wilderness”<br />
over bursting percussion, the French horn<br />
emulating liturgical shofar (ram’s horn)<br />
elephantine trumpetings making this, by far<br />
the CD’s longest work, also its most “Jewish.”<br />
Michael Schulman<br />
Éventail<br />
Heinz Holliger; Anton Kernjak<br />
ECM New Series ECM 2694<br />
(ecmrecords.com)<br />
! From one of<br />
the most recorded<br />
oboists of all time,<br />
Heinz Holliger’s<br />
newly released<br />
album, Éventail, is<br />
a colourful exploration<br />
of both the<br />
vocal and expressive<br />
qualities of the oboe and oboe d’amore<br />
in early 20-th-century French music.<br />
Opening the “richly coloured fan” of littleknown<br />
French Vocalise-Études by some<br />
of the most important French composers<br />
including Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Jolivet,<br />
Casadesus, Messiaen, Koechlin and Milhaud,<br />
Holliger is joined by pianist Anton Kernjak<br />
and harpist Alice Belugou.<br />
Characteristic of his specialty in 20th- and<br />
21st-century-works, Holliger’s wide range<br />
of extended techniques and tonal texturing<br />
shine in Éventail, with gleaming performance<br />
and elements ranging from the traditional<br />
to the virtuosic. Having had personal<br />
relationships with many of these composers,<br />
Holliger’s performance provides a distinct<br />
approach and understanding of these works<br />
while showcasing his artistic personality<br />
and flare.<br />
Beginning with Ravel’s Pièce en forme<br />
de Habañera and Saint-Saëns’ Sonate pour<br />
hautbois et piano, Holliger and Kernjak set<br />
the stage with two standard pieces in the<br />
oboe repertoire. Holliger chose some surprisingly<br />
slow tempos in the Saint-Saëns yet still<br />
showed command over the instrument.<br />
Jolivet’s Controversia and Messiaen’s<br />
Vocalise-Étude and Morceau de lecture is<br />
where Holliger really shines. Although able to<br />
play the standard repertoire well, Holliger’s<br />
transcending nature seems to seek out every<br />
opportunity to explore and test the technical<br />
possibilities of the oboe.<br />
Éventail also beautifully showcases Charles<br />
Koechlin, one of the first composers to use<br />
the oboe d’amore after the Baroque era, and<br />
explores his unique use of muted timbre in Le<br />
repos de Tityre, recalling Debussy’s masterpiece<br />
for solo flute, Syrinx. Holliger then<br />
enhances this mood by transcribing and<br />
performing Syrinx on the oboe d’amore.<br />
The album concludes with Robert<br />
Casadesus’ Sonate. Originally written for his<br />
teacher, Émile Cassagnaud in 1954, Holliger<br />
decided to do what his teacher had intended<br />
and record this important work, bringing it to<br />
life as a standard in oboe repertoire.<br />
Melissa Scott<br />
Messiaen – Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant<br />
Jesus<br />
Kristoffer Hyldig<br />
Our Recordings 6.220677-78<br />
(ourrecordings.com)<br />
! Another pianist<br />
passionate about<br />
Olivier Messiaen,<br />
has released his<br />
recent take on<br />
Vingt regards sur<br />
l’Enfant-Jésus,<br />
a 20-piece solo<br />
piano cycle which – to some enthusiasts –<br />
represents a mighty pillar of mid-century<br />
modernism. The striking Danish pianist,<br />
Kristoffer Hyldig, recorded this disc at Vor<br />
Frekser’s Church in Copenhagen during a<br />
severe pandemic lockdown in March of 2021,<br />
60 | <strong>December</strong> <strong>2023</strong> & <strong>January</strong> <strong>2024</strong> thewholenote.com